Lying on my stomach, I look through the dust and cobwebs I have ignored too long. I hear the voices that I always hear and they stir my stomach like wild boar pat". I feel unstable and dizzy.

My neck is straight and tense and someone presses a gun to my head. My eyes focus on the atmosphere, I try to grip the covers to stop my hands. I roll my neck slowly. I do all these things to look away. I'm trying to look away from something that is too big to look away from. The past is too big and too full of dust and cobwebs. My fear is that I can never be clean. I know I can't.

I cannot stop feeling unstable. I feel physically sick and I'm going to cry. I don't do anything though, I stay lying stiff on my bed like I'm really there. I wish I weren't there, so I pretend I'm not. I notice that the light hurts my eyes even though it is behind me. This scares me. I want it off, but don't want to get up and creak the wooden floor boards. I am still. I know that I can't stay lying in my bed forever. I look down at my hand and see that I wear my mother's high school ring, not even knowing what it means. I wear it like it is my job, I am a carrier. She just says, "Don't lose it, you lose everything."

My eyes roll up into my head and down again. I know I could not lose her ring. I look at it and see her past of corner soda fountains and Campbell's soup lunches. But I look through the dust and cobwebs and can't steer my way out of them. How did she win this high school ring, so golden and holy? n