House Arrest

“There are just so many things you have to understand

before you can really understand.

Understand?

So I can tell you about that day

that stealing day

but you’re never going to know

what was going on in my head

because I don’t know what was going on in my head

all I do know is what was going on in my life.” 

In his journal entry of the previous week, Timothy discusses the night he stole the wallet, saying “I will never know what I was thinking when I stole that wallet,/because I wasn’t thinking” (14). In this passage, he elaborates on why asking him what he was thinking will not explain his action. He was driven by the desperation of his circumstances: his brother’s illness and the drain on his family’s already precarious financial resources. 

This passage also demonstrates Holt’s controlled use of free verse. The repetition of “understand,” “that day,” and “my head” creates a rhythm and flow that stop abruptly with the final line. The abrupt halt draws attention to the thematic point that Timothy was out of his depth emotionally and practically, and he acted out of desperation to help his family.

“There are a lot of things I know

that I shouldn’t know

about why things are the way they are.

About Dad driving away and never coming back.

About his job he never went back to.

About Mom working nights for extra money.

About food coming from the church on the corner.

About Levi’s medicine costing as much

as a pet space shuttle.

I know.”

Timothy recognizes that his father’s abandonment, Levi’s illness, and his family’s financial insecurity have forced him to grow up too soon. He knows things that a child should not have to know. The repetition of “know” and “about” hammers home his point, using the poetic form to illustrate this point at the language level.