isaac }} district two }}

It couldn't get worse than this. Listening to them scream, listening to the death threats weave themselves in one ear and out the other. They hated each other- my mother and my father. They couldn't stand one another and they couldn't stand me because I was chemical-scented glue forcing them together. Most nights I pulled the covers over my head trying to ignore the caucus my feuding parents unleashed. The thump of bodies thrown against walls. The windows and the china were shattered anew by the morning, repaired with every heartfelt smile and promise it'll get better. 

Because it really couldn't get any worse than that. 

They took me away one night- when things inevitably got bad again and they forgot their promises to me and to each other. When my mother was drunk and my father was high, when my stomach was empty because they spent all their money on his next hit and her next glass. My neighbors had been complaining for months before that- told 'em they were gonna take that pretty boy of theirs away if they kept keeping the whole block up with their meaningless bickering.

And they did.

Her name was Ms. Candy and she was a big lady red hair that fell in matted strands around her face. She smiled when she saw me, an seven year old cowering under his bed and trying to avoid the earthquakes caused by his parent's screams. It was a normal Sunday until she squeezed my wrist and gave me a smile that reminded me of mint and snow. And I went with her when she asked because there was no way things could get worse than that.

Until she started bringing her friends over for parties to which I was the main attraction.

Needless to say I got the hell outta dodge pretty fucking fast. (It was about a year to the day- my parents hadn't even tried looking for me. I didn't expect them to.) And I took everything I owned - which was nothing it all - managing to snap my ankle on my way out the window. The peacekeepers believed my sob story (yessir- a bad man killed my parents 'n I need some help sir. Oh, yessir- he did this to my ankle oh it hurts so bad sir.) I even managed to cry for the first time after eleven months of hell. And I haven't since.

I guess I'm the only orphan whose parents are still in tact. Together in some broken sense of the word. He needs her for the drugs and she needs him for the sex. They're addicts in love and I'm collateral damage. An inconvenience from a drunken night and too many needles pushed past silver veins. 

I'm just lucky my dad was the addict and I wasn't one of those fucking drug babies. I'm just lucky my mom's constant smoking and drinking didn't do more to fuck me up. Guess the stars aligned the night I was born and the best possible worst-case-scenario was titled Isaac and assigned to years of misery and then some.

Really, this orphanage is a walk in the park compared to all that. It could be much worse and God do I know it. And it doesn't bother me. I figure they'll throw me out on my ass as soon as I turn nineteen- that's how these career-type places work right? 

Hey, it could be worse.

But I haven't told them that. Anyone who I've come to call a friend probably gives less of a shit than me abut any semblance of a sob story I could scrape together. I'm not weak, nightmares roll off my shoulders like rain down rubber and I am stronger for it all. No one gave a shit about the baby of a drunk and an addict, not even the woman who claimed to be there to save a poor lost child. Everything got a whole lot easier when I came to accept I was on my own. 

I'm a tag-a-long, another howling voice to add to the chorus. Honestly I'd be amazed if anyone could pick my face out of the crowd- if any one night stand kept my name trapped between his lips and looked upon that memory with anything more than a shrug of their shoulders. 

That's what unremarkable guys like me are for. One fun night and about a dozen awkward smiles and averted glances. 

On the bright side I'm a damn good career- perhaps physical violence comes easy to me as it was all I saw for seven summers and winters and falls and springs. Swing your fist- catch the jaw of another. Push them back into the cabinet- watch as the glass shatters around them and blood crawls down their front like strands of crimson hair. Scream, beg them to tell you why they made you do it. (Why didn't you just shut the fuck up?!)

But the past is the past and none of that matters anyway. 

At least that's what keeps a smile on my face. So what if it's a fake one?

Yeah, it could be worse.