Exploration
 
Exploration:  Using first person, the persona narrator tells a story of 
personal loss and societal marginalization by focusing the story on a third 
person character who is representative of the subculture, but outside of the 
personal loss.

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Lissa was my sister Gwen’s BFF.  She was so pretty – a tiny girl with long, 
dark hair, bright, shiny eyes and skirts that swept the floor.  They had been 
friends since we came to this tiny, white-trash town three years earlier.  
They were friends even though Gwen was pagan and Lissa’s family was Lighthouse 
Apostolic, and they were together all the time.   Then, Lissa’s mom threw her 
out of the house cause she was dating Sammie, and cause Sammie’s a girl, 
that’s a sin.  Lissa moved in with us.  And for awhile, she still dated 
Sammie.  But then she and Gwen got together.

Don’t think that it made any difference to me that she liked girls.  I was in 
love with her anyway.  Lissa was the only one of Gwen’s friends who would just 
hang out with me - the stupid, little brother.  It pissed Gwen off.  I didn’t 
like that cause I loved her, too.  Mom always said that I thought the sun and 
the moon of Gwen, and I guess I did, but I still hung out with Lissa every 
chance I got.

Lissa changed while she lived with us.  She started wearing Gwen’s clothes – 
black skin tight jeans and tummy shirts.  They pierced each other’s ears, lips,
noses and eyebrows and cut their hair short-short - Lissa’s purple and Gwen’s 
green.
  
They were always holding hands – and smiling and laughing and kissing.  I 
couldn’t watch.

Then there was the day that Lissa came home early.  She came in and mumbled 
“hi” and kept walking.  But I could see the bruises.  I asked her, but she 
shook her head, went in their bedroom and shut the door.  Gwen came home and 
went in there and neither came out.

At school the next day, some of the locals caught me outside.  It was no worse 
a whomp than I’d had before, being a pale-skinned, long-hair in the land of 
rednecks, but this time it was about Lissa and Gwen.  When I got home, Lissa 
was there, her bruises yellowing and starting to spread.  When she saw me, she 
started to cry.  She helped me clean up and we sat and talked about everything,
but the gorilla in the living room.

The afternoon went by and Mom got home, but Gwen didn’t.  Mom looked at the two
of us, and without saying a word called the school.  They didn’t know anything.
Funny, they never did.  So, we got in the car and went looking.  She was at the
hospital.  When we got to her room, Lissa took in Gwen’s broken arm, the 
bandages on her head and face, and the tubes going into her arms and neck and 
sat down next to her, holding her hand.  She talked to her, apologizing.  I 
didn’t know what for, though.  Tears streamed down her face.
  
A month later, after a day with Gwen, I came home and Lissa was standing at the
door with her suitcases.  She was wearing her long skirt and her short hair was
brown.  She wouldn’t look at me, but said she had to go.  I asked her to stay 
cause Gwen was coming home, but she wouldn’t.  Her Dad drove up in his old 
woody station wagon and she got in.

Sometimes, I’d see her walking with a boyfriend.  Sometimes, at the crackhouse,
when I went looking for Gwen.  And, later, after there was no more need to 
look, there was Lissa walking down the street with a husband and kids, her 
skirts flying around her ankles and her long brown hair lifting in the wind.  

Kathleen Speck
02/07/09