Karate Mug

*Note: Sensitive themes include profanity.

Trigger Warnings include: Unstable relationship with parent, unstable narrator, explosive reactions, deep loneliness.

I raise the mug and throw it down onto the orange hardwood surface of the living room. Upon impact the ceramic mug shatters into irreparable splinters. My heart drops & my face goes cold. I raise my evil hands to my lips, my eyes are as big as deer's & the icy blue roads we drove at dusk in Oregon.

“no…” I whisper. “no, no, no, no, No, No!”

I reach down as tenderly as a mother scoops a blue child. I try to salvage the pieces, but there’s more than the stars I can count. My attempts fall through my fingers like sand & my mind swims through tumultuous currents, I can’t keep my head above water. My breath is ragged as tears spill over my eyes & snot wells in my sinuses. I can’t handle another tragedy right now.

For all the hate I have for my irresponsible, lazy, despicable & pitiable mother, I know this mug symbolizes the one thing that undoubtedly made her happy. For all the immense grief this ugly woman has caused me, I just shattered the one thing that I know she was proud of. It’s gone.

It’s gone!

It’s gone and it’s all my fault!

What the fuck have I done?! Oh my god, what have I done?! HELP! HELP! WHAT HAVE I DONE? OH MY GOD I’M SO SORRY! HELP! HELP!

My father comes rushing in from the master bedroom. My hands shake as my mouth mumbles a weak cry under hiccuping sobs.

“What?! What is it?!” He stoops down, an old knee on the orange hardwood floor.

I can’t manage any words. I can only cry and whimper & say “I’m sorry!”

“God damn it, Martin!” My blessed and stupid father yells as he stands above me.

I am weak. I cannot stand. His shouting worsens my trembling hands & the weight of his company crushes me inward, belly on my knees. I can’t handle this. I want someone to please help me. I’m sorry.

“That’s it,” he says decisively. I hear his footsteps walk away & I know exactly what it is he is going to do.

With a fevered panic, I call after him, “Wait! No! I’m sorry! I can fix this! Please, please let me fix this - I swear I can fix this!”

Begging for another chance goes unheard, he’s shut his bedroom door. I try to open it, my red flannel robe blows around me as I wail on the door. I could knock it in if I tried.

I feel like I’m locked in a cell, in a cage made of my own ribs. A desperate animal screaming for its life. There is nothing holding my limbs, so I cannot chew myself to freedom, but I still gnaw at my paws in effort to appease my captor & audience.

The gore isn’t enough for us & I pry at the bars. I am unable to get my head or torso through & I think I’m shrinking. It’s hard to breathe & my body is on fire as my hands and arms tingle with imbalanced oxygen flow.

With many shallow breaths, I fall to my knees. I must collect myself before I am sent to the gallows. The gallows would be easier…

It’s too late. My father opens the door, phone to his ear. I have no strength to plead anymore, but still I persist. I grip his pant legs, face hot, wet & red. My screams are quiet little whimpers. I tell him, “I’ll be good, I’ll be good! I’m sorry. I’m good. I’ll be good. I’m okay! See?”

A knock at the door.

“I’m good.”

I’m good!

I regret my time spent wailing. I regret my time in that house. I regret my mother. I regret that fucking mug.

It’s too late for me.

They file in. I’m strapped down. They disrespect my name, they spit on my words, they don’t offer me water. I’m carted off.

I envy Hannibal Lector. At least he got to look cool. The rest of us just look sad and pathetic, crying dogs insistent to escape the pound & the needle.

On arrival I am pushed into a large white room, heavenly fluorescents above, if Heaven existed as pure, cold Light and nothing else. No warmth, no love, a solid 68 degrees fahrenheit.

I am assessed by God’s angels in matte colored scrubs. They strip me of everything I’m worth, which isn’t much, just the robe on my back. They cover it with filth and the unwashable smell of sickness. They stuff it in a locker and hand me new clothes. Grey like a prison track suit. I’m hurried to put them on and shoved into a new room, cold, stale & white. Suffocating alcohol scented walls are my only comfort.

The common area is wide & reminds me of a dried watering hole. Only the most delusional animals have trekked here, and the rest of us were caught and dumped in the zoo.

The hands that led me forward have retreated into the walls, behind desks and plexiglass, typing nothing away on bright white screens.

I am alone.

I am hunched forward like a scared child in the wrong aisle of a grocery store at closing. I have never felt so isolated. Like I’m freefalling from the sky. Only the pale blue surrounding me in every direction as I spin out of control, my only solace is the inevitable fate of death, but god, I wish it would arrive & take me sooner.

No one calls my name, no one speaks to me, no one looks at me. I think I’m invisible. There are no mirrors to prove otherwise, and I feel the sea of my heart begin to take me under.

I shuffle my bare feet into a room I think is mine & lay down on the bed, stiff enough to be a crypt. I hold my hands to my heart & stare into the wide white ceiling, white in every direction. I study the plaster and befriend every crack and blemish.

This is where I lay for two weeks.

Two weeks later, I am released into the wild. I am not escorted with a hand. I am not sent off with a lollipop. I am pushed out of the isolated, alcohol-scented Heaven with the same boot & collar that dragged me in.

I return home by a taxi, my grey track suit smelling of the same filth & sickness as my red robe, the only difference being a memory. Every time I look at it, I feel the collar tighten against my skin. I’m a good dog.

My father isn’t there to greet me at the door. He is at work like the good man he is. I file into my bedroom. I wouldn’t be able to meet his eye. I don’t know him.

In the darkened chambers of my heart, within the cage of my ribs I hear the faint echo of whimpers and I’m sorry. I still feel the static electricity reverberating in my bones when I enter white walls, and I am still friends with my ceilings.

My robe was burned and my track suit discarded. I made a vow to never go back. I stifle my cries with a fevered revenge for my freedom. I will not be cast into another cage. I will sooner rip myself apart & eat my way inside out.

I spend the summer making clay figurines. I’m not good at it, but I make them. I like the ones with wings. I don’t work with the color white. The colors black & gold are my favorite. I sell them for $20. I don’t make mugs.

21.32

August 11, 2026

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