But then my brother broke three plates on the floor. He did it like a woman in a movie, even stamped his feet. I saw them break, all the little needle points, the blades, the shards. When a plate breaks it leaves little needles of pottery everywhere. If I walked on them in bare feet they would lacerate my soles. It would be like walking on hot coals. It happened because my dad would not give him the keys of his car. Something terrible was behind it idk maybe drugs. And my brother said my dad was a knobhead. And my mother slapped him across the face and I could see he was going to slap her back, but he didn’t. And my dad left the room and my mam said to go easy on him because the protests were getting to my dad, like every loonie lefty in the country was out trying to keep non-compliant tenants in their houses. Non-compliant tenant is my dad’s code for poor. And of course they were all commies. And my dad was trying to get a court order to stop them. And my brother Tony said it served him right. And my mam almost hit him again. It was idk seriously painful. My dad and mam epic fail the stress test every time. So much for parenting skills.

And that evening I started on my thighs.

Because you can shut things out.

You can drown noise.

You can bury anything under your skin. Drown things under the skin.

A scar becomes a scab and fades away.