personal blog: simon

my alarm goes off. another night. another four or so hours of sleep.

my hands shake, something someone would get after having too many cups of coffee. but my disease is the depravity of sleep.

I bulldozer my face into my sheets suffocating for a moment until a glint of reason sparks a purpose for my life and I crawl out of bed.

I know. I need to keep it together, at least through this meeting with Gemma. my sister. oh. my sister. there is no concrete emotion to define our relationship. there is detest and there is love, and a mashup of everything in-between. but, I haven’t spoken with her for a while, so might as well make the effort to be civilized. in the comfort of my day; it’s easy to forget and dismiss my family, but lately Gemma has been insistent to meet.

“are we still on?” her message from early this morning; and, I mean early. five a.m.

“come on Simon… you wanted to do this.” Gemma whined, pulling me off the ice. my shoes soaked wet because I didn’t want to ask my father for a pair. I would slide trembling from the icy breeze until I felt my toes were about to fall off, my fingers were about to snap and shatter… until I would feel my skin… and then I would get a cup of scorching hot cocoa because I was thirteen and that was the only change I was able to find in-between the cushions.

but my father would always shout, especially when I came home all shuffled and disheveled. but then again my father always shouted annoyed, mostly because it was a consequence of something my older brothers have done or some chore they avoided to do. it was something everyone in the house was used to.

to some degree; Gemma acquired our father’s habits of demands, sternness, and prescriptions to medicate disobedience to obedience.

“yes.” I type in annoyed.

monday mornings get pretty quiet, but since I have closed up the shop, it’s deafening quiet. consumed with the thoughts of moving, I’m glad I signed the papers. almost a relief and it’s not even to run away from Kevin but it was an inkling I considered for a while. I prefer not to stay attached to anything for too long. it hurts less.

in my childhood, we have moved twice because of my father. our first dull suburbia home was ordinary as the next, with the unattended overgrowth of weeds in the front yard, the foul smell of rotten garbage stuck to the bottom of the can, and the unorganized stack of boxes from my father’s hoarding malady. like everyone else, ordinary family fronts, no one the wiser of what truly happens behind every closed doors. the secrets of any family.

… and then we downsized because it was closer to work and Nigel, the eldest, was soon moving out. the twins entered their last year of high-school. they weren’t fraternal twins, it’s just that my sister Gemma and brother Leo were born in the same year, eleven months apart. Gemma born on January third, Leo, December seventh, a preemie, and Gemma hated to share her spotlight in the class. she was the older one after all, but Leo was clever.

“see you.” I add to the text and look at my scruffy face in the mirror.

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