Here is some of my edited work.

Section of Chapter 2
Memoirs of an American Girl
S. Preston

My mother believes in keeping herself distant. She never had any stories about her childhood. I never met her parents; they had both died at an early age. She had mentioned this fact to me only once and how the two of them had met their demise at the bottom of a bottle. Therefore, I never truly understood her or what had happened in her life. To this day I still don't know who my mother is. But, it was on one night that I lashed out at her that I discovered a few of her secrets. We had vacated out of the car a couple of weeks after we lost a place to live. My dad had found work in a really bad part of Dallas, he was doing maintenance work at all hours of the night in an apartment complex. The only bonus to all of his efforts was a free apartment to live in. It was a small one bedroom, roach infested apartment and the three of us shared the tight quarters together, our pallets even lined up together in the only bedroom. Even though it was much bigger than the Delta 88, I still found myself stifled. I wanted out; I had taken enough of it. I had no bed, no radio, no television and no phone. I had no possessions for myself, I had no way to escape my reality, and the harsh truth was that I was poor, trash left over to be discarded. The children at my school had noticed this and never once failed to remind me. At one point in my life I had everything that I needed.

It was my dad's recreational life that put us here. So, why am I being punished for his mistakes? That's when I told my mother that I hated her, that she was an awful human being for letting me grow up in such a filthy and degrading way, and in my mind she was no better than my father. I wished that she would just leave, die or let me live with my grandmother. Her eyes were not wet from tears when she came at me from around the kitchen counter, I inched away from her but she came at me full speed with the intensity of Gail force winds. The pan that she had been washing at the sink fell with a loud ting on the floor at the same time my mother's hand hit me with a scorpion sting. The noise echoed in my ear and made me tighten my eyes and hold my face in my hands. Mother grabbed me by my throat and slammed me down on the bare naked floor. She sat on top of me, digging her knees into my chest and pushing all the air out of my lungs. All that I could see were her eyes, the black soul abandoned eyes, peering out at me. The smell of decaying teeth and nicotine oozing from her open mouth forced me to want to turn away from her but she had her grip on me. There was no way I could turn loose; not now. For the first time in my life I was really afraid of her I had never made her angry before, I wasn't sure what she was going to do to me, it was this moment and this moment only that mother reminded me of my older sister Katarina and all the torture I had endured from her over the years. I wanted to spit in her face, I wanted to hurt her. She spoke slowly but never loosening her shaking hands wrapped tightly like a snake around my throat. "You listen to me and you listen good. I didn't have a mama and daddy, they didn't want me, and all they cared about was booze. I couldn't even fall asleep in my bed at night afraid that some drunk man was going to rape me as soon as I fell asleep. I was on my own by the time I was your age. No one gave a fuck about me." She banged my head down on the floor and rose to stand above me, looking down at me as a predator would fixate on its prey, she had won this one and she was mocking my loss of merit. I felt my head start to swim and the lights blurring in my eyes as I tried to stand. I began moving toward the bathroom, my only sanctuary. "You should count your blessings little girl because I do care about you, I will be damned if I will let you go and live with that grandmother of yours. You be thankful for what you have." She is still yelling at me as I stumbled to the door. I fell down upon my knees and crawled in the bathtub. As I climb in I eye the rusty razor perched on top of the white Ivory soap. It was the soap that I was eyeing more than the razor. Soap can clean even the most contaminated of bodies, and how awkward it looked compared to the dirty, dingy tub. I wanted to tell mother that it didn't matter anymore, I was no longer effected by her guilt trips and that I could care less about her. This was about me. ME GODDAMMIT, NOT HER! I had thoughts of drifting down in the tub and never returning. Death had to be better than this. Then again I could pretend like I was Peter Pan, if I slash my wrists right here and right now I could leave to exist in my own fantasy world, I would never grow up, and I would be away from here forever, except my never land wouldn't be anything like Peter's it would be closer to purgatory because if mother taught me anything she taught me that killing myself was a mortal sin. Are we all doomed? How do you feel with the knowledge that we really are a product of our parents? God, would I have the same limitations, the same experiences when I reach adulthood? Is this really what being an adult is all about? I can't say I blame mother for lashing out at me. I felt bad but maybe this is what she wants me to feel, if this is the case than I refuse to feel anything anymore.

If Only

If only I could learn to move mountains with words

I would write a story to sway every ones love for me

I could seek truth and denounce lies

I may even stop death with only a sentence murmured

Wishing for more than what we are is pointless

Destiny and fate is determined to play their parts

Unchanged by lovers, foes and fiends alike

Restlessness in doubt and shame

Time consumes me, they all betray me, death takes me

No more