I grew up,
in a house,
in a town.
Where the most dangerous thing around,
was the electricity box down the street.
Our parents told us,
stay away from it.
“It could blow up anytime.”
But we used it
as a sanctuary
in hide and seek.
Holding our breaths
imagining electrical currents,
running through the green box.
As the seeker,
stalks the street,
calling our names,
into stale suburban air.
Then
when
I was nine,
I saw my mom
smoking a cigarette
in her “art room”
in the backyard.
She held it,
without thinking about it,
like how I would hold a carrot,
my dad gave me.
And that cigarette became
the most dangerous thing.
Until
the Super Bowl.
Brady beat the Panthers.
Tom Petty played halftime.
But my mom couldn’t tell you any of that.
Because that day my mom drank a bottle of red wine.
Then another.
And another.
She chased us around,
a ball of energy,
cutting in and out of hallways and rooms.
After a while,
she got tired.
We waited for her to pass out.
Later my dad came home,
and did
what the electricity box down the street,
or the cigarettes in the “art room”,
never did.
He blew up.
Bottles thrown,
tears dropped,
a combustion
in a house silently bubbling,
with unpent energy.
My brothers and I
hid upstairs.
We hid
behind
each other.
We were,
as silent as
the San Francisco bay currents,
on a windless day.
About the Creator
Harry Kalvin
Harry Kalvin is an artist from the Bay Area who now resides in Long Beach. His main focus is to document the human condition as is. Harry believes in tapping into the underlying and unifying feelings that ultimately bring people together.
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