First Nations | Night Parrot Press
1 min
139 Yale Rd
Kyeesha Bonney
The run-down brown house at the end of the street was ours.
The inside was just as run down as the outside, unpleasant in every aspect. Walls that looked more yellow than white made everything seem more crowded than it was. Our house was uncomfortably open, missing
curtains and furniture mainly because they were used as weapons in their arguments or a boxing bag in her fits of rage.
The door that joined our half to theirs, come nightfall, was a turquoise green—meaning it had been replaced. Still, there was a man-sized hole through the middle of it, horribly taped up to try and retain privacy. Yet their voices echoed through our half, filling up our silent nights.
The stale smell of alcohol lingered through the entire house, in constant war with the bitter tasting scent of gunja.
I remember the surround-sound that came in handy for their parties, playing songs I grew up to love, before it too became a victim of their arguments and her rage once again.
© Kyeesha Bonney. From Ourselves: 100 Micro Memoirs published by Night Parrot Press.
Kyeesha Bonney is a Wongi Noongar yorga, with family ties to Cosmo, Norseman and Pingelly. Kyeesha spent most of her life in Mandurah as the second oldest in a family of seven children. As the first granddaughter, Kyeesha aspires to break the cycles of generational trauma for the future of her family.
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