As I crush the pills on the kitchen counter using a butter knife, I can’t help but think that it still won’t be enough to get the job done correctly. Without any hesitation I grab the lithium pill bottle, poor the remaining ones out on the counter and begin crushing them as well. 100,000 milligrams of lithium will hopefully be enough to kill my manic depressive and bipolar father. I continue mashing each pill one by one until they are nothing no more than specks of grain that resemble sweet and low. I reach into the cabinet in front of me and get out a good size coffee cup. I place the cup next to the counter and very gently scoop the powder into the bottom of it using my right hand. I wash my hands at the sink and go turn on the coffee pot.

As I wait for the coffee to finish brewing, I go into the bathroom to get myself ready for school. I run some warm water in the sink and wash my face with a wash cloth. I brush my teeth, and brush my black untamable curly hair into a ponytail. I look at my reflection in the mirror and whence. The huge red hand print stretched across my cheek sticks out against my pale skin. My brown eyes are swollen and puffy from crying. I try my best to cover up the redness on my cheek bone with my mother’s makeup but the mark is still somewhat noticeable just not as eye catching. I look at the bruises that trail along my body. Compared to my mother’s injuries mine are minor. My mother lies in the hospital and won’t be out for two weeks. My father kicked her in the back breaking her vertebra. She has to have eight screws and eight plates infused in her back now thanks to him. I tried to pull him off of her last night, but I couldn’t so I called 911. When the ambulance, fire truck, and police showed up to our house she refused to tell them the truth. That’s when I knew that my mother was hopeless, and that what will she had to live happily without him had been beaten out of her. The coffee pot beeps announcing that its time to do what I got to do. I walk back into the kitchen, grab the coffee cup and pour coffee over the grains of lithium. The stem from the coffee rises up to my nose and it is without a doubt the best scent of coffee I have ever smelt. I take a spoon and mix the coffee making sure that everything has dissolved correctly.

I feel no pain, sorrow or sadness within me towards what I am about to do. He deserves exactly what he is about to get. I am fed up with watching my mother getting knocked unconscious and hospitalized. The next time she might not live through another one of his beatings. I’m tired of telling my mother that things are not okay and that she is delusional by thinking they are. He’s crazy and he refuses to take his medicine so I will see to it that he swallows every dose he has ever missed.

I open the back door to walk out on to the back porch where I know I’ll find him reading the paper and waiting on me to bring him his coffee. “ Bout darn time Anne”, he says to me. No good morning or have a good day honey for me. Normally I would just walk away with no response but not today. I look at my father as he sips on his coffee and think that if he would only tell me that he loves me or that he was sorry for the things he had done, then I would knock the cup right out of his hand. But he does no such thing as this. I look at my father while he is alive and wonder how long it will take for the drugs to work their magic. His hair, the same color as mine, is balding and his dark brown eyes are as empty as his soul. His face is emotionless and nothing more than a blank stare. He continues to drink his coffee unaware that with each sip he is killing himself. “Goodbye”, I say to him knowing that soon my troubles will be gone. I go back into the house grab my back pack and head for the bus. As I’m walking to the bus stop I notice that the sun is shining and the clouds that once hung over me are long gone.