The Grief Family.

They remember like it was yesterday, The family Grief. The tired moments waking up in the dim twilight wishing it was morning, getting the coffee ready so no one collapses in a waste leaving skid marks on the pavement of the kitchen floor. The grandmother keeps time with a cane across the swept tiles and pretends that these people were what she had hoped of her loins. The mother awakens with a gasp and stares into the depth of the ceiling without remorse. The father gives a sideways glance to his faithful wife and knows that today will bring nothing. The young boy rolls restless in the sheets keeping time with his ever present heart. The toddler writhes in his onesie feeling an absence unknown like the coming of an entire life without premonition. Something like the inescapable has descended upon this family; a net across a dog frothing and tongue lolling with eyes all keen with understanding of what won't happen anymore. And the matriarch that is this grandmother sits, statuesque and stony, in the sparkle of the immaculate sideyard with a psyche prone to control and tight grasps. They all get up in sync, a sort of marionette show with strings and cogs and tears that never come out but lay within the bearer to stay where they are. I can't seem to figure out what is making me feel so frightened, thinks the young boy as he lifts his hand to his face. I've felt something like a phantom across my mind for years, thinks the mother as her Clinton suit coat wraps her shoulders like a shroud. I know that this is the one track I'll be on for decades, thinks the father as his cup dangles from his finger shaking. These pajamas make me what I am, thinks the toddler as his toes wriggle and dance in their impersonation of a cantor. This. Is. For. You. Grandmother we've gotten you something to make amends. You don't know what I've felt this last century, you've no way to atone for what I feel is missing, thinks the grandmother as a collection gift passes into being from the only people that will ever love her tired heart. They've been trudging ever so presently into being what they are: something that is buried up in personal tragedy and pawns that moved without their masters. A game like a pinball machine and the family Grief looks into the silver balls coming towards them like glistening eyes in the tunnel. This life just bounces them about and they rattle. They drip their insides out when the other isn't looking. Just tip the bottle to the dregs and you'll see a bit of their sentiments roll out like daggers. There is a well of feeling underneath the foundation of this house that roils and trashes. These tired souls just walk unsteady and unlikely upon the trembling skin of their past and wish for the best with entrusting eyes. It keeps them upset and waking up and lost and feeling unkempt. The barn burning of the past is gone and they're left with clinical ambience to miscalculate their passive aggressive gambits. The poker game just goes on and on. The grandmother knows she'll never go all in while the rest just keep their faces sewn up tight.