Raw

 He says it's done but it isn't. I eat the fat and the burnt pieces. In the kitchen I shudder when he walks up from behind. "This kitchen is too small," I snap. My mother's second husband always inspired revulsion in me, revulsion and fear. Dave was six-foot-five. The last time he whipped me with his belt I was fourteen. Daddy was six-foot-seven. The last time he spanked me with his belt I was six.

The husband hears me say,"Goddamn it, don't drop these puzzles pieces on the floor! The floor is filthy!" He tells our son to bring the puzzle into his bedroom where he is reading a book by some astronaut. I hide in my room with my digital pictures. This is important work, editing photographs for my flickr account. The world does not turn without these contributions. And the poems. Yes. As always. Poems to write. Such light I shine shine shine. Hide it under a bushel I will not.

Later I hear him cursing in the kitchen and crying out,"Why? Why? Why?" I have done something wrong in the kitchen. I have been doing things wrong in the kitchen since the summer of 2004 when he let me share his single bed, the springs sticking up, in the room he rented from the social butterfly who thought she was sexy but wasn't. I tried to boil big ears of corn once. He condescended he patronized but in a gentle way. I am so inept. I saw my psychiatrist yesterday. The last word I said to him was "inadequate." He asked,"Motherhood has overwhelmed you, hasn't it?" And I replied,"Yes. It has. These have been the hardest three years of my life. I am inadequate."

Earlier I checked the mail. Walked through the door with the ripped package in my hand. The "Sylvia" dvd I ordered. "Mommy is going to learn how to clean the oven," I said to my son. I was really talking to my husband. Unhappy spouses do that. They put on a show in front of the kids.