The Foster Home

My hand is covered in a thick wet soggy washcloth and it’s red and raw beneath. I knew the cherry red burner was hot, but I touched it anyway. I jumped back at the white hot f lash of pain that came next and can’t remember if I cried or not .

I shouldn’t test the burner where bacon sizzles, swells and pops. Mother puts brown sugar on the bacon’s edges as it curls up in salty smelling grease. I love the rich caramelized scent as the brown sugar bubbles and fizzes. I also like to test the tall soft cushioned bar stools I can spin on in endless circles. I like to lean back on the seat as far as possible, while keeping my hands on the counter.

There is a warm, pink-orange light from the evening sun, above the light brown tweed sofa I don’t like to sit in because it’s itchy, rough and scratchy. The doorway to my bedroom is a dark shadow. My room has two small windows in it and in my dreams velvet stuffed animals, like on Sesame Street, pop up and stare at me through the window’s eye-like slits. The creatures have vacant black eyes and gaping mouths with bright red tongues.

Sometimes in my dreams I’m up high on a black webbed cargo net on a murky gray day. It’s one of those days where the thick musty smell of dark clouds full of rain makes me so nauseous I puke. I can see a lady far, far, off leaving a store with a shopping cart. Then a scary thumping sound comes that vibrates the air and I look back to where she was and she’s gone.

My best friend Chris left yesterday. He tips his head of curly black hair to the side when he talks out of the corner of his mouth, like Popeye. He does that because the corner of his mouth was singed together when he bit down on a fish tank’s long black electrical cord. I lean my head to the side when I talk, so I can be like him.

Today I played with the kids down the street. Our shoes squeaked and skidded on someone’s driveway as we punched, kicked, and fought over a tiny orange plastic ball. I walked home triumphant, shoes in hand, barefoot, skipping each crack with dry summer weeds. I hit a crack hard with my toe and it caused a bright stinging pain. The skin moved aside and a sore red smile showed up and then I put on a sock with a dirty brown toe to cover it up.

After that I took cold rusty scissors and used them to snip a green stem that cried thick sappy tears after it was cut. I smelled the busy looking curl of a Red Silk Rose and it smelled like baby powder and the vanilla powdered sugar mother uses to frost cakes. The rose is for the lady with dark blonde hair with curls at the end that wisp up making her face look soft and pretty. The man who is always with her has a beard of dark brown needles and large serious dark golden-green hazel eyes that I would not want to make angry.

They have been taking me to a fun place called McDonald’s to get small mushy burgers and steaming hot fries loaded with crystal flecks of salt. My social worker Joyce says it’s okay I go with them when they come to get me.