Gold Doubloons

           My curtains were shoved aside but the stars couldn't seep through the clouds. There was no window screen so I hung practically all of my torso out the window watching the final streaks of pink diluted into night. Collingwood finally fell asleep snoozing off with the remaining snores of cars gunning up and down the alleys. In the other room my mother crashed in the heaps of her old bottles spelling out new patterns of desperation. But it wasn't her according to the sprayed message on my window. She's gone, and you are on your way. Gone can mean different things right? Maybe they just meant her sanity was gone. Or her dignity, or her love, or her soul, or her will to live. There could be a lot of answers I told myself because I was to chicken to check and maybe confirm my worst fear. I might be truly alone, She's gone, and you are on your way. 
           The blanket on my bed wiggled and I whipped around. Rosy had shoved under my pillow without my warmth next to him. I refused to be alone and the puppy is my proof. We've got a Mary and her lambs type thing going and practically no one in Collingwood questioned someone bringing their dog everywhere. They wouldn't even question me if it was a pony or a peacock at the end of the leash instead.
           My computer was plugged in again in a last attempt to keep it out of hell, but even intense CPR wasn't doing much. Next the useless hunk of metal sat my comp book open and smeared with ink matching my hands. I slowly turned to face it in the halo that my missing lampshade cast. But suddenly didn't matter. A heavy paperclipped set off papers flew out. A bright orange sticky note lay on top.

For your superb poem

          Behind it 10 crisp bills were clipped together hidden in the gap with the frayed bits of a missing poem. It had been an old one rejected by several companies but someone had paid for it. Another crash came this time against my door. I faced it waiting hopeful for a knob turning and proof it was my mother moving but instead silence. I threw the fancy check on the ground and almost ripped the cover off my notebook while trying to find a blank page. 

Gold doubloons fill the room

the door to you still looms

There were promises if you ever earned 

but I grew up and quickly learned

no person is no promise 

so coins clink in calmness

on me you cannot spend

to me your promise is dead

         The release was nice but the check mocked me from the floor so I shoved it between the pages of my comp book and into my shoulder bag so I could easily slip through the window, being careful to close the glass behind me so if Rosy woke up he wouldn't freak and try to follow. The metal shook under my weight and rust flecks spotted my jeans. In case of emergency I had better luck in the elevator, but for now the fire escape was a good way to avoid the living room. I shoved myself down all 10 other stories and finally hit the ground by the pool. It was more of a pond with green brackish water that looked more appropriate for nuclear fuel than letting touch your skin even a bit. I followed the end of the building to slip behind and into the alley between the Heights and Hot Legs.
            Light flashed through the windows and glass clinked so I hurried through and across Collingwood Ave. onto the sidewalk in front of the clinic. The park loomed on the other side of the pavement promising solace in dark branches but I heard a slam and scraping behind me. A woman paced with the ferocity of a bulldozer. When she passed the bench she kicked it hard. She wore a bright uniform exclaiming Grizzly bowls with a happy cartoon bear, although looking at the girls face it should have had more of a snarl with lots of teeth. Between passes in her pacing she looked up at the clinic and I knew she needed a hug of some sort.
            “Hey” I walked to her grabbed her hand. She tried to pull back but I put the cash wad in her fist and ran back towards home. Anyone depressed in a bowling uniform in front of an all night clinic needed cash and I needed a guilt escape. I felt lighter pulling myself up hand over hand on the fire escape and into bed next to the best dog anyone could ever ask for.