The Day Before

On the day before Thanksgiving my brain welcomes old familiar melancholy thoughts. I want to get drunk as a skunk and pass out in the gutter. Or something like it. What I am covering up with these thoughts may never be known.

Could it have something to do with my father's anger? Or my mother's complicity? Or maybe it is my great grandmother, who witnessed the atrocities of her William in bleak Wisconsin winters .

Holidays are pauses in the mindless white noise of daily life. I like to drive in the quiet, alone down deserted city streets. I sometimes walk at dusk past houses with candle-lit tables. Perhaps I stumble, or vomit before a house with tasteful, understated decorations.

The leaves, jumping laughing whooping stirring up a frenzy of joy with the strong winds, have left the trees.