Belonging Narrative inspiration
Nerves and freshly straightened hair, I walk into the first house party I have ever been too. House music blaring, the haze of cigarette smoke and the scent of cheap wine and bear entice me into an epitome of teenage angst. Hormones are raging at the same pace as the fierce bass notes dropping. God help me.
It’s a pale autumn morning and my mum and I awoke to the prize of empty bottles scattered across the kitchen. A small pool of stale leftovers of my father’s evening gathers at the bottom of the garbage bag. In the heat of the moment my mum dumps the disappointment on my father’s side of their bed.
It’s the middle of a day, in the middle of winter and I walked straight into the aftermath of the shattered remains of a brutal argument; $100 in a card on the bench and a smashed bottle of bourbon. Red rimmed eyes and a lump in her voice, on her hands and knees. “It’s okay not to be okay mum”. Happy 22nd Anniversary.
“Are your mum and dad coming?” I was asked endless times. Its spring and I had the lead role in the school play. My heart pounded with nerves, hope and expectations; my best friend slaps her hand on my shoulder, “They can sit with my parents.” Mum came. Mum always comes.
“Would you like a drink?”, I feel the eyes of my peers burning into me, like pariahs waiting with ferocious impatience for my response, to the twenty-something year old winking and waggling his eyebrows. I swallow my nerves as my head says no, but my heart simpers. “Sure”. God help me NOW.
“That’s your grandfather Haylee.” I gazed at the photograph of a yellow eyed man with a bottle of beer in his hand. My mother’s eyes frowned in disgust of the man she resented so greatly as she allotted the photographs into the scrapbook she received for Christmas. We heard the shatter and bang of my father collapsing in the kitchen. “Merry Christmas”, the nurse smiled with pity, as my father was admitted with alcohol poisoning.
It’s a pale autumn afternoon and my mum got home from work just
It’s a pale autumn morning and my mum and I awoke to the prize of empty bottles scattered across the kitchen. A small pool of stale leftovers of my father’s evening gathers at the bottom of the garbage bag. In the heat of the moment my mum dumps the disappointment on my father’s side of their bed.
It’s the middle of a day, in the middle of winter and I walked straight into the aftermath of the shattered remains of a brutal argument; $100 in a card on the bench and a smashed bottle of bourbon. Red rimmed eyes and a lump in her voice, on her hands and knees. “It’s okay not to be okay mum”. Happy 22nd Anniversary.
“Are your mum and dad coming?” I was asked endless times. Its spring and I had the lead role in the school play. My heart pounded with nerves, hope and expectations; my best friend slaps her hand on my shoulder, “They can sit with my parents.” Mum came. Mum always comes.
“Would you like a drink?”, I feel the eyes of my peers burning into me, like pariahs waiting with ferocious impatience for my response, to the twenty-something year old winking and waggling his eyebrows. I swallow my nerves as my head says no, but my heart simpers. “Sure”. God help me NOW.
“That’s your grandfather Haylee.” I gazed at the photograph of a yellow eyed man with a bottle of beer in his hand. My mother’s eyes frowned in disgust of the man she resented so greatly as she allotted the photographs into the scrapbook she received for Christmas. We heard the shatter and bang of my father collapsing in the kitchen. “Merry Christmas”, the nurse smiled with pity, as my father was admitted with alcohol poisoning.
It’s a pale autumn afternoon and my mum got home from work just