Cuts (Chapter 2, Story 1)

"Are you sure about that?" the psychologist asked, leaning forward in his creaky chair. "Of course," Kella mumbled. The shrink's office was small, dark, and cold, and it smelled like tuna fish. Kella hated that smell. It reminded her too much of her father; he had loved tuna. "Alright then." The psychologist--Brian was his name--leaned back and formed a tent shape with his hands over his immense gut. "If there's nothing wrong, then why have you been cutting yourself?" Again, Kella almost laughed aloud. Is that what her mother had told this man? That the scars on her arms and legs were self-inflicted? Kella knew her mother, Karen, would never admit that she was the one who hit Kella with electrical cords and sliced her wrists with kitchen knives. She would never tell anyone that she threw dinner plates at Kella's head and screamed at Kella to leave home and never come back. Kella should have known that when the social services lady came by the other day, Karen would blame everything on Kella. Kella didn't understand why her mother hated her so much. She loved all her other siblings to death, smothering them constantly with affection and tender loving care. But the woman treated Kella like a dog, and now the truth was beginning to seep out. Kella couldn't hide the evidence of her mother's abuse forever, and it frightened her to think of what might happen if the authorities ever found out. "Do you have anything else to say?" Brian asked. "Time's just about up." Yes, Kella agreed, it probably was. But of course, she kept the thought in her head. This stranger wouldn't understand her predicament. "No. Can I go now?" "Sure, go ahead." Kella hopped up from the leather seat and strode to the door. "Don't forget to come back next week," Brian called after her. Fat chance, Kella thought. "Yes, sir. Goodbye."

10 Dollar Bill (Chapter 1, Story 1)

Kella's father once told her that the most important thing in life is honesty. "Kella," he said, "no matter what happens to you, be honest. Even if telling the truth hurts someone or makes your life more complicated, good things always come to the honest people in the end." Kella wondered, as she sat on the big, black leather couch in the psychologist's office, if her father was honest. She wondered if anything he ever told her was true. He told her he would never leave her, didn't he? And yet, here she was, avoiding the psychologist's beady eyed stare, all alone with her father nowhere to be found. He'd left her, her mother, and her other 6 siblings in an old broken down motor home with nothing to remember him by but a note that said, "I'm sorry" and 10 dollars. At this thought, Kella almost laughed. Really, Dad, 10 dollars? What's a single woman with no job and seven kids supposed to do with that? Kella had decided that the money would be of no use to her mother, so she took it. She told herself that she didn't want her mother to be hurt by her father's stinginess, but in reality, she just wanted--no, she needed--something to remember him. Tattered and ripped, the bill still resided under her bed in a small shoebox, and Kella took it out of the box, closed her eyes, and wished for her father to come home every night. Every morning, she awoke hoping he would be down at the kitchen table, joking with one of Kella's little sisters or kissing Kella's mother, but every night she was left with nothing but a steadily fading image of his face in her mind. Kella remembered the psychologist sitting in front of her and glanced up. What had he asked her? Oh yes, he wanted to know if she had ever been hurt by anyone close to her. "No," Kella said softly, "never."

Yarn

Rough, warm, and fuzzy
Goes though my hands and needles
Making something new.

Sun

The sun rises up into the clear blue sky
Smiling at all it sees.

It whispers a song of warm days to come
As it melts winter's snow from the trees.

Lazy

I know I should be showering
Or ironing my jeans
But lounging around in my PJs
Is so much more fun to me.

I know that if I studied
For the test I have tomorrow
I'd at least score a B, probably an A
Without having to worry about it at all.

I could straighten my room,
Or paint my nails,
Or read, or wash the dog.
But instead I sit glued to my computer
Typing a poem for my blog.