A Murder, and a truth

I woke up knowing that today would be good.  I got my breakfast then left so that I could walk around.  It was early in the morning so I went back to the junkyard, and looked around for a little while.  I didn't find anything.  When I got back the people were a little worried, but it didn't matter I was fine.  What are they so worried about.  I stayed at the orphanage for a while, and played tag with the other kids.  It got to be later in the day so I went around walking.  I was near the "psych building, and I saw a woman walk out of it she looked shaken.  A moment later I saw a man who looked angry walk out.  It wasn't my business. I walk back to the orphanage where my mother and father are waiting for me.  Their eyes are clear, and they're telling the man to give me back, but he tells them I'm in "protective custody".  My mom sees me and says "Please, come back with us."  I look at them letting them think I'm thinking about it.  "No I don't want to I like it here."  They beg me to come back as if I could.  I don't want to be with them anymore.  I like it here, and they can have their fun together now.

13

I'm at the orphanage, and I'm playing a game with the other kids.  It's a game called tag.  It's fun, but the other kids are annoyed because I'm catching all of them because I can run a lot faster than they can.  None of the twelve others playing can outrun me for long.  They kept telling me that it wasn't fair that I could run so fast.  But I don't think so.  I've been running so long that I'm good at it.  And now it's made me better than the other kids.  After we're done we sit down, and they all talk about what it would be like to have parents.  As I sit there I can't help but think that among the 13 of us only I have parents.  I think its worse though, that they're alive and I'm here.  I see them walking around a lot, and it's like they've forgotten me.  Well maybe it's better that way.  One of the volunteers comes out with thirteen cookies for all of us.  

My Vacation From Here

I'm in the orphanage and it's early in the morning.  I like it here now.  But I want a little break from it.  There's a bus line that runs right through the street where my parents live.  I go and wait for the bus.  I get on the bus, and put in my change to ride.  The bus driver just smiles at me and nods as I pay.  I go to my seat and sit down.  All the people in the early morning are weird.  They're all on their way to work, none of them look very happy.  I feel bad, I'm on my vacation.  I take the bus down very far until I get to the junkyard.  I like the junkyard it's where I'll spend my vacation.  I get off the bus, and hop the fence into the junkyard.  The smell is wonderful.  I can smell everything thrown away, and people throw great stuff away.  It's time for me to go shopping.  In the junkyard I find everything.  I find a comb for my hair, I find shoes which are clean somehow, and I find an old picture, which I decide to leave in the junkyard.  The past is best left behind.  I walk to the bus stop, and ride a bus back.  I sneak back inside of the orphanage, and no one sees me.  My vacation was fun.

Ghosts In My Songs

In the orphanage there is a man who plays the piano.  He sings songs I've never heard.  I walked up to him and asked him what he sings about.  He sings about ghosts he tells me.  His song is sad, and it stays in my mind all day.  I think of my own ghosts.  Of my mother and my father.  Their are haunting me even though their still alive.  I see them walking through the streets, and to me they might as well be ghosts.  They don't talk to me.  They're in their own world.  And I think that now that I'm here in this place, that I'm okay with that.

When I was a baby

     I was asleep in my bed when it came back to me.  Old things that I forget during the day stare at me in dreams.  I remember when we left the old place.  There was an old woman, she was yelling at my mother and father.  My mother was crying, but my father was yelling.  I could here the ducks quacking in the early morning.  I hear a loud sound and a short crash from my crib.  I sit there for a while ignored as a here quick movements in the next room.  Eventually, my mother walks in.  "I'm sorry" "I'm sorry".  She says it over an over as if she's speaking to the house, the sky, and the moon.  In the other room I look down and see the old woman lying in a pool of her own blood.  "She wanted to take you Tacito.  She wanted to take you away."  I awoke from my dream sweating.  I couldn't tell if it was true or false.  Like the questions they gave me on the tests.  I could always get those.  But I couldn't know if I myself was true or false.

I see them through the fence...they're hitting

I'm lying in my bed in the orphanage, and I see my father arguing with a man near Isabella's cafe.  They tell me that my mother works there now.  I don't care.  I don't want them anymore.  I stand up and peek out through the covers, and there is blinding light for a moment that blocks me from being able to see what's happening.  One of the volunteers walks in.  "Hey are you feeling better?" She asks.  Her eyes have a spark that I never saw once not even in the eyes of my own mother.  "I think so," I say.  "Okay well you take it easy.  That fever came back through, and hit everyone real hard."  After she leaves I look back at the   cafe and I see a man running it's not my father.  His face is dark and hooded so I can make no guesses about him.  I close my eyes and sleep.

Caroling

We sing the songs going from door to door.  They all look at us so nicely saying we're so cute.  I'm a little tired of it.  Nothing is cute about what has happened to me.  I've left my home, and haven't seen my mommy or daddy in weeks.  I don't know if I want to.  Everyone at the orphanage is so nice, but I'm missing something.  I can't say what it is but it's there.  Everyday I wake up and go downstairs and read.  No one knows I do it it's my secret.  I feel guilty like I'm stealing something.  This morning I didn't read.  We all decided to go caroling.  We've been going all morning I like the songs, but I know they'll be forgotten.  I know cause I don't remember anyone singing to me.  I round a corner, and look back.  I'm all alone.  I must have somehow taken a different turn than the others.  And I'm so new that they missed me.  I'm not scared though.  I've been alone before, but now I can go somewhere.  And even if something's missing I'll be fine.  I walk back around the bend and see a man looking at me he walks toward me so I stumble back.  He rubs his hands through my hair and calls me such a "sweet" boy.  Then he gives me a piece of chocolate.  I look at.  "I don't want it.  I have to get back to my friends."  His face is angry, but working to hide it.  I know that look.  It's the look the men who my mother goes off with have.  "It's okay I'll take you back." he says.  His eyes are hungry.  "Okay I will." I say.  He moves toward me to pick me up, but before he can I kick him between his legs he falls over in the alley, and I run away.  I'm not so dumb anymore.