Anticlimactic

"THE PICTURE FRAME IS BROKEN"

WEEKENDS LEAVE A bitter taste in my mouth; they consist of the scent of burnt toast and freshly squeezed orange juice, the sound of dogs barking and steady breathing, pounding heartbeats and the sound of blood rushing into my ears. 

It's silent, eerily so, despite the fact that everyone is up and ready to face the day. There are shadows beneath my mother's eyes and there are worry lines scattered across my father's forehead. My sisters wear cautious expressions, and my smile doesn't quite reach my eyes.

We are so, so broken.

We come to our senses with the ding of the toaster, the scent of freshly baked bread, and the tapping of my father's foot that steadily increases as his impatience builds. His fingers are too big; they bump and bumble against the sleek surfaces of the dainty glasses that my mother hesitates to let us use - we are a mess of weary limbs, tangled thoughts that are too far up in the clouds for us to reach, and deep breaths that rush through our lungs and fill our bodies - it's the only time we ever feel whole.

Weekends pass by uneventfully; the days pass by too quickly and I wish there was more to them, but my mother tells me not to complain because at least I am alive - I certainly don't feel like it, especially on weekends.

The night is surreptiously quite, and I can hear my father's snores from the room downstairs. My mother lies awake on her own, the whirlwind of thoughts inside her mind too loud and too restless to allow her sleep. My sisters sleep in the room next to mine, their eyes closed and their breathing faint yet steady - they still have so much time to dream. 

Darkness shrouds our house like a blanket - if only it knew that there's enough darkness inside of it for us to live in for a thousand lifetimes over. 

Sometimes I'll wander the narrow hallways in the dead of the night, once I know that everyone's asleep. Tonight I passed by the mantle of the fireplace - it's littered with souvenirs and trinkets, elaborate plates and detailed glass cultures, picture frames of stock photos of people who could smile together for longer than we can - there is, however, one picture frame framing all five of our smiling faces. 

Our smiles are bright, amusingly so, and our eyes are crinkled at the corners; our mouths are partially open with frozen laughter falling from them, and my heart constricts from its cage in my chest. The picture frame is broken - the edges of it worn and the stain of the wood fading with age. The four sides that had been hammered together by my five-year-old hands with the help of my father are loose, and the metal of the nails are rusted and dull. 

Tears prick at my eyes and my brain scurries for an answer, but my heart reassures me that it is okay to cry. I am only human, after all. My heart has been beaten and battered but it has lived on, valiantly marching to its destination without a single shiver or turn of its head. 

Now, it stutters and hesitates in beating - because the picture frame is broken and I cannot go back to bed.