Family Portrait (Revision)

We smile picture perfect smiles.

We all have matching outfits, ironed and clean,

our hair brushed tightly back

with the smell of perfume and cologne filling the air.

During the holidays we always got our family picture done.

We put on our bright smiles in every picture

with all of us standing close to each other.

We hug and pose for the camera.

Those pictures hid our family secrets.

They were the cover up to all our lies.

Those smiles were deceitful,

for under those smiles my family was full of pain.

When I think of my parents I think of constant yelling and cursing.

My mothers crying enough tears to fill a pond.

Things always flying and breaking.

All the problems always seemed to lead my father to a bottle of liquor.

I remember the sound of my mother crying

as she locked herself in her room for hours.

In the middle of the night waking us three kids to runaway.

With no where to go we always ended up driving around aimlessly

eventually just returning back home by the early morning.

I remember the put downs that my father creatively came up with,

he was always good for them.

Constantly using the bottle as his solution

he was useless and hurtful as a drunk.

After one night of yelling and shouting between the two

my father drank almost an entire bottle.

Every drink he had filled him with rage

and by the end it led him to choke my mother.

I called the cops and watched him as they took him away.

Now my father is sober and refuses to touch a drink.

Him getting arrested,

losing his family,

and being embarrassed,

was it exactly what he needed.

Now a days Mother smiles just because she can.

She is happy as ever

being remarried and loved

by a good man.

Needless to say

we no longer do family portraits.