Beyond Me

I watch as the headlights from cars passing by dance gracefully from one end of room to the other. Their beams catching particles of dust as they trace about my room. Outside the hum of engines frantically transferring tones still seem so soothing as I lay here in bed staring up at my bleak ceiling. With each popcorn piece casting a new shadow with every angle of light cast upon it. In the next room I hear my mother’s sitcom playing it’s ending credits and her shuffling footsteps through the kitchen as she cleans up after a night of entertaining. Every few seconds she slowly opens a drawer in an obvious attempt to avoid the shriek of metal on metal grinding together. Each attempt turns into a failure with an extended squeak. It gets difficult to sleep on nights she has to work, I never know what she does on the nights she doesn’t have to work and she never seems bothered about leaving my sister and I alone with a babysitter at odd hours. I don’t think that much into it, she has to work to pay the bills, so she must be just out working. Ever since I was twelve I knew the value of a dollar; that is probably why it doesn’t bother me to know my mom has to work extra hard to make rent. If I had to take care of two kids on my own I would probably do the same thing. I toss over in my comforter throwing it over my head. I wish I could just shut my brain off tonight, but I can’t. We are getting a new babysitter again because the last one could not keep up her classes at the community college and watch us. I really liked her too. The poor thing would have her papers and books strewn about the living room while she was passed out in a mountain of more papers on the couch. When the alarms for my sister and I to get ready for school would sound, she would pop out from under the pile looking exhausted. She still managed to make my mom so happy with how put together she had us after we’d come home from school. In a way these few hours a night that we actually have with mother are the only times I spend time with her. We get home from school and work on homework for a few hours before she cooks us dinner, after that we wash up then sent to bed. Parts of me remembers her reading me stories before bed, that was before dad left.