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By Emmanuel Williams

My sister wants peace back in her home. I get it, I was gone for 3 weeks and she found that peace. Now that I’m back she feels like I will threaten that. I assure you, my other sister who pays no rent in the basement is a bigger threat to that peace in the home. She and I have been given 2 weeks to basically get the fuck out and restore peace to this humble suburban death trap.

The problem is: I know what peace she’s trying to obtain. I kicked two members of my family out of an apartment I had years ago. Did I get peace? Yeah, for a while. Then one of them came back with a mutual friend and we started partying until I was eventually kicked out by management. In fact the whole building ended up on the streets as new management had taken control of the building.

Is that gonna happen to my sister? No. She owns the house and my nephew, her son, is going to wake her up eventually to the fact that he likes loud rap and ganja and so do his underage friends.

I’ve been subject to the way they party, and it is anything but fucking peaceful.

As for peace…

We think we want peace, but what happens when you need a friend to talk to and no one is around but children?

What happens when you have no romantic interest to share your bed with?

What I’m saying is, the other side of peace is isolation.

It’s what waits for you when everyone leaves you alone. It’s the shadow side of peace.

The boredom, the loneliness, the days you can’t find anything to entertain you. The days you need an adult and you’ve driven them all away. The days you can’t see when everyone is in your face, gobbling up all your resources, and bleeding you dry.

She might as well have stopped giving and started hoarding. Grown greedy. It’s a terrible fate.

A wise woman once said “but these stories don’t mean anything, when you’ve got no one to tell them to…” – “The Story” by Brandi Carlile

It isn’t what we’re asking for when we pull back from giving all we’ve got to a cause, to a team, to a person, to family. We don’t want to actually be alone, we just want to be treated fairly.

To get our fair share of the deal.

But that means that you hammer out a new agreement. You don’t have to suffer the fate of pushing me and everyone else away.

I hope when I do move out, and it will be the last time, that she still takes my calls when I check up on her. That she still is able to tell me stories. And that she doesn’t get too goddamn bored and lonely when the house falls quiet.

I know I always hated being alone in her house…