You left the stupid keys, Terry, you scream at me, nerves roasting and alive in the Midwestern sun because why wouldn’t they be? What reason could a mother possibly have to not scream at her only son, to scream until her lungs bleed themselves dry into the scorched earth? You, of all people, would not sense my sarcasm in writing this. You would simply read this and demand to know what is wrong with me in a dozen cobbled-together sentences patched up with swear words and a slap to the ear. But of course, you will never read it, just as you will never know what goes on in my head. I watch you now, as if you are the painting and I am the artist in the museum examining her work as if it is not her work, wondering if others feel the same about it as she does, hiding in the crowds. I'm hiding now. I hide in my mind because I must continue to find ways not to feel, not to breathe too loudly, not to care, not to leave the truck keys roasting on a fence post in the September heat. I must evolve and adapt. I must grow old without the help of cigarette smoke and teach my children the lessons I could not bring myself to learn, so that they may raise a generation that is free to exist, to pluck dandelions and sing forgotten hymns at the top of their lungs. I will never tell them to be quiet. And someday I will return to that old busted-up fence and leave more keys hanging there, attached to a lanyard that screams my name to the sky the way you always do. And with nothing (no one) there to rip them away and throw them at my head, I will miss you. I have always been drawn to toxicity.