Benign Butterfly #2

In the summer, it’s easier to forget the winter. I will never be able to erase the scars that linger on my skin as a forever-reminder of their bastard father. The sweltering days make it easier though to forget cramming my babies into the icy car with the broken heater and lying to them, mommy’s taking you on a trip, and doing my best to hide my pink swelling skin that their daddy made.

In the summer, it doesn’t matter if you’re a poor single mom hiding in a shit-town in Iowa because you’re just happy to not be there. I watch my children climbing trees and dangling like monkeys with their browned skinny arms and dirt-stained hands. I'm so thankful that their alive somedays I can't help but cry. I give them cups of frozen kool-aid and tell them they are Popsicles. They eat them under the shade of the giant oak tree and let the sugar water drip down their tiny chins and puddle on their feet. And I pray, they'll always stay so innocent.

In the summer, I dot lemon juice in their hair, hold your eyes tight, so it gets blonder than the corn. They kids drink from the tea jar I leave sitting in the sun until the tea bag turns the water a deep dirt brown. I watch as my babies splash in the plastic kiddie pool because we can’t afford air conditioner and it’s too damn hot in the house.

It’s hotter than hell in the summertime but I’d live in hell to escape that winter.