All I Know

I can't breathe, he says, I can't breathe, and I say, let's get out of the car, because I think fresh air might help and I say it so calm - like I am an expert on these things - but my mind is racing and underneath the street lamp his eyes are so big and so scared I hope I can believe my own facade. What's happening, he wants to know, and I don't know; all I know is sometimes it just hits, like the time you were sitting in the bathtub watching your distorted brass reflection in the faucet, mouth opening to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, when the words don't come and your face scrunches up real tight, contorted, before everything breaks. . .the world drops beneath your feet and all you can do is clutch the side of the tub and pull on your hair and cry.
All this gasping and sobbing, he is getting dizzy, so we sit on the grass and I want to tell him that sometimes you just have to cry until you're too tired to cry any more; you just lay naked and cold on the shower floor listening to the ugly suction of water down the drain, wondering if your sisters heard you through the wall, like I wonder if these people even know we are out on their lawn next to the mailbox.