Since the summer of ‘14, I carry with me the unresolved guilt of that late July night. The everlasting fear of disappointment that cannot be torn from even my shallowest layers.

Mother laid in bed cupping her swollen eyes in her hands, her pillow damp from disappointment. For days, she laid there bound to the bed mourning the loss of her baby. Her 15 year old baby. As pure as the day she was born. Only, now she was tainted by her parents’ clouded judgement.

The girl laid in the adjacent room bound to her bed as punishment. Her forehead creased in anger as her fingers furiously tapped away. It was fourth of July weekend and she had every intention of exercising the freedom that this holiday represented. But it was not a democracy where she laid. Each infuriating thought was being compiled within her as if she were a landfill for the mind. How close to perfect must she be? Her own father was the boy with a lost childhood. The boy who got drunk with his brother at age 13. The boy who drove without a license. The boy who scolds his child for merely being innocent. Her face tightened as she recalled the prior night’s happenings. The fury within her soon released a feverish sweat down her back. He was coming.
   

As he stood at the end of her bed, his eyes watered with fierce anguish while he spat without mercy. She sat unmoving like a baby who has not yet learned to crawl as each word broke her boiling skin like a suture. She did not want to cry, but her eyes could no longer hide the remorse. His words were suffocating as she choked back every painful sob.
   

The memories of this day continuously play a devilish game of Ring Around the Rosie. The disorientation has shaken my confidence in honest judgement. The hypocrisy of my exemplars begs them to keep spinning.