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Tyler's POV; October 1st 2011, How do you pack your thoughts into a moving van?
How do you make your soul smaller, easier to pack.
I wake up in my Mom’s car, tea beside me and a breakfast sandwich wrapped in my lap sitting like a paper covered insult.
"halfway there, Ty." she smiles, like is this exciting news.
I nod and grumble out a "nice." sipping my tea and avoiding the fight.
Mom says I have to be in school the day after we arrive, because 'I need to be more social'. she says I don’t have enough fun.
The hills and plains roll past, I wonder how the cows feel in the fields of empty space .
maybe they're bored, but that makes me feel bad, so I've decided they don’t mind.
Maybe it’d be nice, the monotony of doing the same thing with the same peers. .
We stop at a gas station for drinks,
I grab a Pepsi because something about moving to the Midwest seems like 'Pepsi' to me.
I go out to wait for my Mom, who’s chatting way too much with the star-spangled cashier.
he eyes me like he knows something about me and doesn't like it, but I don’t know what.
I don’t care,
ill think about something else.
The plains are moss in a forest, spotted with lichen farmland.
i want to rip it all up,
become a giant and stomp it,
its too empty, too large.
Its nothing against the plains , but I feel like a moth to a flame, and the flame is anywhere but where I currently am.
I pray for a torch to show me through the smoke.
We return to the unending highway,
I pray for the road to turn, ideally around
, but instead I fall back asleep.
I wake up at dusk. the car turns in to a row of beige townhouses,
they reek of cigarettes and campfire smoke,
My unit is in the middle with chips in the terracotta roof. The walls inside are weird and shiny, freshly cleaned and painted to cover the cracks in the drywall. the floor is lifting in the corner, but Mom seems happy with it.
"Thoughts? pizza?" Mom asks, looking at me with grey-blue eyes that make you want tea and rain and blankets.
"s' fine" I answer, being kind, " yes, pizza."
When the food arrives we sit on the floor "because we're civilised." she jokes,
we talk for a while, about cats, the Midwest, cows, and my favourite; school.
"I don’t know." I shrug. "I think ill lay low, I don’t need friends."
I say with my best neutral-indifferent voice, but it feels like bile in my throat.
"Ty."
"Mom, please."
"No-"
"stop" I snap, immediately regretting it. "..sorry." I say to my sleeves, eyes glued to the floor.
We move on, but smoke still lingers in the air from my outburst.
I go to my room late that night, dreading the unpacked boxes,
I trudge up to my room as if my socks were filled with concrete, my hips feel heavy
my eyes burn, the idea of cleaning the mess that certainly faces me was torture, but I continued under the promise of rest.
I flop onto my bed, a mattress and box-spring naked on my floor surrounded by boxes, bags, and filth,
I get an unwanted second wind when I remember I need clothes for tomorrow. Fuck.
That night, as I try to prepare for another shitty school,
I Cant help but wonder If I really am a moth surrounded by fire, and what does that even mean?
To be honest I don’t feel like there is any lamp, or flame or even moon right now.
after unpacking about half my room, and climb out onto my roof through my windows to look for the moon,
but the moon feels like hitting the concrete to me.
I take it as a definite sign to go to sleep regardless of the fact I know I cant.