What Are You Supposed To Do?

When you don't know where to go?
When you've got a million questions?
When you don't want to go with the flow?
How does your life continue?

What are you supposed to say?
When your tongue is tied and your mind is blank.
Do you smile and nod the days away?
How can you continue this kind of life?

Where are the clues? Where is the answer?
Nobody has helped me much.
Everybody just makes a bunch of banter.
I want to solve this puzzle!

Life gets really tough, I know.
I'm sure all of you know that too.
How do you rid yourself of sorrow and woe?
When it comes from half of your life?

Do people think of the good?
Or do they think of the bad?
Do most speak kind words, like they should?
Or do they just do their own thing?

Most think of good, when a person passes.
That is the custom, that is what I've seen.
Nobody fills the air with nasty gases.
Instead, it's filled with serene air..

When you're falling, what do you reach out for?
Do you hold onto rocks or brittle twigs?
A swan neck or a tusk of a boar?
If too late, what do you land on?

Who do you cry to when you feel hurt?
Who do search for when looking for answers?
How do you avoid tones that are curt?
Where do you stay to heal yourself?

What are you supposed to do..
The beginning of many questions.
The start of a long winding road,
a road that is speckled with answers.

Would You

Help me back up when I fall?
Make me happy when I'm sad?
Stand up for me?
Calm me down when I'm mad?

Be a true friend,
by doing those things?
Follow through your promises,
that you've made to me?

Still be my friend,
if I make a mistake?
Forgive me for any chances
that I shouldn't have take?

Be there for me,
when the sky goes gray.
Help me find a single light,
be what it may.

Let other people know.
About this simple poem.
Let them know...
That you'll be there for them..

Tesla (Part One)

Lying in the corner of a room, Tesla was on her stomach, playing with the ants that were going after the single morsel of rotted cheese. She wiped away her chin-length, dirty, matted, brown hair from her face and muttered softly to the ants, "I wonder how you can work so well together. I wish my family can do that too..." For the first time in thirty minutes, Tesla sat up and stretched her arms out. Peeling wallpaper with little bluebells dotted on a faded purple background covered the walls. There was a metal bunk bed in each far corner with grey sheets covering the infested mattresses. Tesla had the lower bed closest to the door. In between the two beds was a small window that was too high for her to reach, as she was only nine years old. There was a closet on the outer sides of both bunk beds with wooden doors that slide open with the same color as the wallpaper.

Tesla still didn't understand how she got here. How did she get pulled out of her warm home with plenty of friends in the neighborhood and into this dank place where all they do is neglect her even more. At least at home she was able to run to her best friend, Lilia, and her family when things started to go bad at her home. Why couldn't those people in the suits just let her live at Lilia's house? Nobody ever listened to her. She should have ran away when she had the chance... As she thought about this, the small bump in her right leg started to hurt again... No, she would have ran away at the very first sight of them but her leg was hurt... All she could do was just let them pick her up and carry her into that blue car...

Tesla let out a gasp of pain as she tried to get up by using her roommates’ bunk bed’s post. She figured the bump will go away just like the other lumps, scratches and bruises. But this one refused to go away. She didn't want to tell the adults about her injury, then they will start asking about where she’s gotten the other bruises. She loved her parents. And she’s pretty sure they loved her too. They got angry sometimes and she just happened to get in the way. She closed her eyes and opened them a few times, trying to get rid of the images from the last conversation that was replaying behind her eyelids. She gave up trying to stand and just crawled awkwardly to her bed. She leaned her head back against her mattress, she no longer cared about the warnings from the older girls about the bugs that could crawl into her ears.

She wished Margie and Penny would come in from lunch soon. At first she thought that the reason why they helped her back in here and left her alone was to let her get used to this place. But now she started to wonder if they did it so she can realize that she does need to tell an adult about her bump…

“Margie? Penny? I need help..” Her voice sounded so small. She sat up straighter and called out, “Penny! Margie! I want to get out now!” Still no answer. She let out a small whimper and awkwardly crawled out of the room, she tried to put as little weight as possible on her leg and avoided the bruises on her left leg.

“Tesla? Tesla! What are you doing on the floor; you know how filthy this place is. Get up! I said, get up!” Tesla let out a small yelp as the older girl kicked her in the shoulder. She looked up and discovered the fifteen-year-old face of her sister that was taken out of the house with her, Katie.  “Come on, baby, get up! Or do you want to tell the child protective services some more lies about our family? Huh, do you? Do you?” Tesla’s only reply was a louder yelp as Katie kicked her in the head. Tesla fell down and curled up in her usual fetal position as she took another beating. She started to cry, she wished that none of this was happening.. Finally Katie gave one last good kick in the back, it probably damaged her spine and walked away. Tesla closed her eyes, thought about the good things.. And finally fell asleep right in the middle of the hallway.

Margie and Penny found her and carried her to a rat-bitten couch and sat in a couple of rickety, old wooden chairs and stared at her. “Why did they bring Katie in too? Sounded like she was having the time of her life there from what I’ve heard from her,” asked Penny. “I have no idea.. Except.. Do you think that this is some sort of test? Or maybe they are observing who is the real bully?” Said Margie.

“Nah, that don’t make sense. They should have planted cameras or something in that house..”

            “I know.. Sometimes I think this place is just a little too messed up in the head, you know?”

            “Yeah.. I wonder what she’s dreaming about that’s making her smile so much..”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was written during the summer of '09. It's inspired by a dream I once had. Whew, I don't think I'm gonna keep posting things every day. From now on I'll probably post something once or twice a week.

Anything thoughts/comments/questions/critique?

Tesla (Part Two)

   Tesla was sitting in Lilia’s kitchen. They were having waffles with fresh strawberries from the backyard. She looked around the kitchen as she ate. There was a shelf that contained a lot of different cookbooks. A container filled with sugar was acting as a book holder. The kitchen was small and cozy, with the polished wooden table right next to the marbled counter that acted as an island. There was a door on each end of the kitchen. One door led into the den while the other door led to the front door. The doors were the wooden swinging type. There was a baby proof gate on both ends of the island so that Timothy and Gabby wouldn’t hurt themselves.

   Everything was polished, cleaned and put away neatly. Even after the whole fiasco of making the waffles. That was the thing about Lilia’s mom. She was the kind of mom that cared for their children and kept everything clean as much as possible. Sometimes Tesla wished that she lived here instead of being with her family. Lilia even offered to let her stay in the guest room. But there was that one person that kept her from packing her Lucy along with some clothes.

   “Thanks for the breakfast, Marcella.,” said Tesla as she got up and placed the empty dish by the sink. “Oh, it’s no problem. You know you’re always family to us. Now, you and Lily go check on the twins for me, will you?” Both of the girls nodded and went into the room across the hall from Lilia’s. As they opened the door, they could hear the twins cooing. They were both standing up in their cribs with their arms reaching out over the sides. Gabby, like Lilia, inherited the blonde hair from their father while Timothy got the black hair from their mother. “Num!” Gabby shouted. “Num! Num!” Timothy giggled and shouted too.

   “Lilia, when do you think they will start talking like everybody else?” Tesla asked.

   “Mom said that I started to talk regularly when I was about five so I guess we have to wait a couple more years.”

   “Mhm…”

   “Tesla, what’s wrong?”

   “Nothing..”

   “Is it your family? Is Nolan ok?”

   “Yeah, he’s fine..”

   “Lilia, can I tell you a secret? But you got to promise not to say anything to anybody. Pinky promise?”

  “Pinky promise.” The girls performed the ritual and sat down against Gabby’s crib as they began to change their diapers. Tesla couldn’t wait until the twins were in pull-ups just like her brother. “I don’t know where to begin..”

   “Come on, you can tell me. I’m your best friend.” Tesla smiled to that and just picked up the clean clothes for the day and started to wrestle Timothy in them.

   “Ok, you see this?” She held out her fore-arm and showed the faint pink line and Lilia gasped. She was used to seeing the bumps and bruises but this was a new one. “Yeah, it’s still healing…”

   As Lilia opened her mouth, everything began to fade to black. Tesla opened her eyes and found Margie and Penny looking down at her. “Oh! You’re ok! Margie, go tell Mrs. Mclarden that she’s fine.” Margie ran out as Tesla sat up. Her head was spinning and Penny gently pushed her back down. “That’s one major goose-egg you’ve got there. Just sit back and we will help you. Sorry about not getting you earlier. The boys from the other housing came to visit and played in the front yard so we were all outside. When Katie disappeared, I thought she just had to use the bathroom but then I heard you crying…”

   Tesla looked down while mumbling, “I wasn’t crying…”

   “Tesla, tell me. Tell me why you’re not saying anything about the injuries?”

   “No, my best friend betrayed me.”

   “But I heard that her mom was listening. Doesn’t a mom always do that to make sure their kids are safe?”

   Tesla curled up on her side and faced the cushions. Her right arm moved around blindly looking for a throw cushion, found one and grabbed it close to her chest. She buried her face into it while she screamed, “I don’t want to tell you! I love my family and they love me! You can’t make me turn them in!” She got up and despite her leg screaming in pain, she stood on the couch and continued yelling at Penny. “Where’s my baby brother? I haven’t seen him in three days! Where is he? I want to see Nolan!! I want to see him!!! I want to go home! I want to be with my friends! Just get me out of here!!” She let out an even louder scream and shouted, “He needs me! My parents didn’t care for him. I cared for him! Where is he?”

   Penny took a few steps back as Tesla continued to scream and cry. She sat back down in the wooden chair She took a calming deep breath and stared at Tesla. Eventually, she slumped back into the couch and glared at Penny.

   “I still don’t know what’s going on with you,” said Penny. “I’ve heard that once the adults know what’s happening, you can go to a better place than here. This is just temporary. Just tell them. Tell them why you get hurt. I don’t know who Nolan is. The only people I saw that’s arrived in the past few days are just you and Katie. The boys that came to visit us were all ages including the toddlers. You know that we’ve got baby girls here. Don’t you th-“

   “No! Nolan is fine! He only got knocked out just like me! He’s fine!”

   “Tesla, please, just tell us!”

   “It was all a mistake! We always have mistakes! They never mean any harm. I’m telling you, my family isn’t violent!”

   “Nobody ever said they were..”

   Then Tesla realized that Penny was part of the plan. To weasel out information that would keep her separated from her family, the people in the suits sent her as a disguise. That’s when she really got mad.

   “Just get me back home. Let me pack the things I need instead of dragging me to a dump like this without giving me any time to pack even Lucy. I can find my own place to stay. I’m old enough.”

   “Tesl-“

   “Leave me alone.”

   Tesla turned around and faced the cushions again with the throw pillow clutched tightly in her arms. She doesn’t belong here… She fell asleep again… Penny just stared at her body, somehow more fragile than ever as Margie came back in. “I heard scre-“

   “Shh. She’s still messed up. I think we should let her sleep..”

   “But isn’t that bad if somebody’s got a head injury?”

   “I don’t know… I’m not a doctor…”

   Tesla was sitting on her bed, dressing Lucy up in a cute pink nightgown for bed. As she laid her in the shoebox that she’s made at school, she heard Nolan crying. She got up and checked on him. She walked down the hall and entered expecting to find Nolan huddled under his blankets because her dad forgot to turn on the nightlight again. Instead she found the lights on and a scene that made her scream so loudly that she woke herself up.

Tesla (Part Three)

“Nolan!!!”

She looked around herself and sobbed into the pillow as she found herself back in her bed.  The scene came back strongly and she wished that it would go away. She wanted to refuse that it ever happened but it did…

            “Tes, it’s your fault. You know it is.” That voice. It made her cower into her sheets. Katie was back. “Kudos to you on not squealing about his death. You’re much tougher than I thought you were.”

            “He’s not dead!” Tesla screamed. She threw her only pillow at Katie and she merely dodged it while laughing. “I’m telling you that he’s not dead!! He’s probably at the hospital!”

            “More like the morgue. Haha!” Katie laughed as she walked out of the room.  Tesla sobbed into her sheets, regretting throwing her only pillow out the door. She had a feeling that if she gave in, then she can get out of here.. But she didn’t want to betray her family. She drifted off to sleep again…

            Mr. Macavoy came running through the ER doors. He rubbed his forehead nervously and looked down at the piece of paper clutched in his left fist. It had some sloppy handwriting on it saying, “Come to the hospital. Help.” He recognized the writing, she thought of him as the dad she should have had. Before the little girl’s parents fell to alcohol and drugs, they deemed him as Godfather.

            Tesla was sitting in the waiting room. The man walked over and sat next to her. She looked exhausted as she clutched her backpack close to her chest. “Tesla…” She looked up at him as she caught the fatherly tone in it. “He’s fine. It was a long bike ride but I made it… Thanks for the wagon attachment from my birthday..”

            “Tesla, it’s time that you go home. I’ll stay here while Cherie takes you back. You need to sleep.” As he said this, Tesla slumped in her seat, her eyes shutting. As she drifted off, she heard him ask, “Where did you get that bruise?”

            She woke up with tears in her eyes. It was nighttime. She could smell the spaghetti from here. While she laid there, she remembered having a pair of crutches tucked away in the closet. She slowly got up, slid the door open and grabbed them. She was finally mobile. At least until her sister might decide to hurt her arms too. She limped to the kitchen. It was small and dingy. There was some kind of rancid smell that never left. After that first night, she learned to just grab her share and eat in her room.  Margie quickly got up from the table and helped her carry the plate and glass of water back.

            “Tesla… You need to get your head checked,” she said.

            “I’m fine. Just leave me alone.”

            “No. Not after what Katie did to you.”

            “Fine… But don’t talk to me.”

            Tesla silently ate her meal. The noodles were rubbery and the sauce tasted funny. She stared at the glass of water, which had some little particles floating in it and didn’t drink it. When she was done, she laid down again, Margie had placed the pillow back on the bed. She stared at the bottom of the upper bed for a while thinking about how everything seemed to have turned upside down in just a few days. The lump in her right leg throbbed painfully until she finally said to Margie, “Ask Mrs. Mclarden if she can get me some Tylenol for me please.” She shut her eyes as she heard her feet move out of the room.

            After what seemed to take forever, she heard a pair of heavier feet. A pair of gentle, aged hands touched her leg and her head. She opened her eyes and found the wrinkled face of Mrs. Mclarden. “Ah, you’re finally awake. I’ve been checking up on you, you know.” She handed her a couple of children’s Tylenol and a glass of more dirty water. Tesla hesitated and decided to give in to the pain so she took the medicine and drank all the water in one gulp, tasting the strong iron in it.

            “We’ve found a nice family that will take care of you once you tell us why you’re hurt. We got a call from one of your neighbors that heard some domestic disturbances in your home. We want to know who hurt you and why. We were going to just let you tell us but it seems like we have to tell you why we have to know.”

            Tesla sat up and glared at her. “I already know why. You just want to take me away from my baby brother! I haven’t seen him for three days and I want to see him.”

            The aged woman looked down at the little girl and sighed. She didn’t know what to say to her. She was too young to know what happened to the boy. But she also looked like she was old enough to detect a lie. She sat down awkwardly on the bed, as she was too tall for it. She stared at the stubborn girl. She thought about how to say this as kindly as possible. She’s had to deal with this kind of case many times before but it was always hard on the little ones.

            “Tesla, if I tell you what happened to your brother, will you be able to tell me what happened that night? Once we know, we can press charges on whoever hurt you and your brother. I promise that you will be protected.”

            She stared up at the woman for a few minutes. Finally, she nodded.

            “Your brother… Nolan… He was found with his face beaten up and he wasn’t breathing. That’s what our files say. The reason why you haven’t seen him is because he was beaten to de-“

            “No-He’s not dead! He’s still alive!” whimpered Tesla. “H-He was still awake when I took him to the hospit-“

            “It’s ok. It’s not your fault… You tried! You really did! Most girls your age probably would have hid in their room if they saw violence. You’re a very brave young lady!” said Mclarden as she held Tesla in her arms. The girl sobbed into her sweater. She slowly rocked her back and forth as the tears streamed down her dirt-covered face, her childhood ended. She didn’t want to hear that Nolan was gone. But he was. His giggles are never going to be heard again. He was only four years old… And now he’s gone. Katie’s words kept on repeating themselves over and over in her head when she got back from the ER and her sister was holding the phone. “He’s dead, Tesla! He’s dead! Nolan is dead!”

            As the tears slowed to sniffles, she said in a broken voice, “Fine.. I’ll tell you… I don’t really want to but I will…”

            Tesla stared down at the floor as she began, “I heard Nolan crying. So I went in there. Mom forgot to buy another case of beer so dad went berserk.  Katie was yelling about how she needs to see some concert. Some stuff was thrown at Nolan. All I think that happened before I got in there was that everybody got sick of hearing him cry. He doesn’t like it when everybody has a big conversation. I ran out of there and wrote a note for my godfather and went over to his house. He wasn’t going to be home for awhile so I just placed the note on his front door, got out my bike, attached my new wagon to it and waited until everybody was asleep or at least distracted. I grabbed Nolan and put him in the wagon and took him to the hospital as fast as I could.”

            Mrs. Mclarden was in shock to all this as she listened. She found her voice and quietly asked, “And your leg?”

            “When I got back, Katie told me that Nolan was dead.  She didn’t mean to hurt me. She kicked me a few times and just left me bleeding.” She lifted her shirt up and showed her stomach, the scratches were starting to heal. “Then we got another phone call the next morning. My mom got it. Then she threw one of those glass mugs at me because I told my best friend what happens to me. Katie caught wind of it and knocked me off my feet and bent my leg until I heard a small pop. That’s how the lump appeared.  My dad was too drunk to do anything, he was sleeping on the couch at the time.”

            Tesla’s voice cracked at the end of the last sentence and cried into Mrs. Mclarden some more. The truth was finally out. She betrayed her family. Nolan was gone. She had a feeling that she was never going to be around that neighborhood again.

            “Thank you, Tesla. Everything will be ok. Sounds like your parents only threaten you most of the time and your sister is the one that hurts you. We can fix all that.” Tesla continued to sob loudly while the aged woman continued to quietly soothe her.

Tesla (Epilogue)

             Tesla was sitting on a swing, her crutches nearby. She could hear all the children in the park laughing joyously. She stared down at the locket she’s gotten for Christmas. As she idly swung with her left foot, moving her back and forth, she opened the locket for the hundredth time. She stared at the picture. It was a picture of her and Nolan at his second birthday party that was in Macavoy’s backyard. Nolan was in his favorite Blue’s Clue’s costume that he refused to take off for two months. She let out a little gasp of laughter as she remembered his little tantrums whenever anybody tried to take him out of it. In the end, he took his baths while still wearing it and she would use the hair dryer to dry it off so mold wouldn't grow on him. It was just the two of them in this picture. They were both smiling and laughing, unbeaten, with not a care in the world.

            “Tesla! Tesla!”

            She carefully closed the locket and let it fall against her collarbone as she looked up. Lilia ran over to her with Gabby and Timothy screaming and giggling right behind her.

            “Guess what? Guess what? Guess what?” said the twins.

            “What? What? What?” asked Tesla, playing along with their little game.

            “Our mom says dinner is ready. Did you tell Tucker?” Lilia said.

            “No, I haven’t. Here, can you get those crutches for me?”

            Lilia held out the crutches and Tesla grabbed onto them. They laughed as they watched the twins circle around them. She limped over to a man sitting on the bench, smiling and watching her.

            “Tucker, I’m going to Lilia’s for dinner!  Sorry that I forgot to tell you and Cherie that this is her family’s turn to make some food.”

            “Ah, that’s alright. Did you do your homework?”

            “Yes, da-I mean-Tucker.” She limped after Lilia and her little siblings.

            Mr. Macavoy stood and smiled as he watched her laugh carelessly, just like she should. After the past few years of pain, even though she’s lost her only favorite sibling, she is finally happy and will have a brighter future.