He lies to the food pantry for the next two weeks.
He stacks up cans of processed hams and hearty stews
alongside a few tubs of peanut butter. A box of Ritz crackers
he begged for will pair nicely with the Jif. His backpack’s
zipper nearly busts off the track when he tries
to close it tight. And he mumbles,
“This is enough.”
He shovels clothes into a duffle bag
and tries to regulate his breathing
as the pressure builds in his kettle-pot lungs.
He finds a stash of money buried under
his old twin, cream-colored mattress
and counts the twelve singles.
His family stalks the halls:
a distant brother, a shitty sister,
both raised by a hollow parent
one so gutted of his sympathy
he uses calloused hands instead
of words for discipline.
Torn notebooks and hidden letters,
the black pen moves across the page
with fevers trembling in his arms.
The boy writes a letter to his father,
the one who ruined him for eighteen years,
and lets himself finally have the last word.
Ashleigh Earyes is an English major who practices writing and drawing. As an intermediate writer and a beginner artist, she crafts her work in ten to fifteen minutes but revises for days on end. She enjoys a lot of music and utilizes alternative and indie in order to create a more powerful piece. Ashleigh has been published in University Park’s 2023 “Folio” with her piece “1930”, as well as “Any Other Word” at PSU York in 2022 for “Oil/Stool/Palette/Paintbrush”.
@aearyes on Instagram