Girl
A pin prick. I watch the fluid disappear into the thin
needle that pierces my flesh. The drug flows into the river
of my blood, making rapids out of calmer streams. My head
hurts. I feel a lightness in my being, as if I've been cut
away from my bed and set adrift on that same river.
Disappearing into the needle, flowing into myself, making my
blood race. I lick my dry lips and turn my head in slow
motion. My cast-off clothes look like a rainbow.
I feel my weighted eyes closing slowly. The world
dissolves in my sight, losing its existence. I am on
vacation elsewhere. No one will follow me here. They'd get
lost in the straightness of the needle. Or in the twisting
passages of my veins or my mind.
* * * *
Sunshine filters through stark white clouds tainted
with blotches of dark blue and purple. A steady rain falls,
like blood, onto the fields. Cows sit, rocking, sewing
leather jeans from the hides of their children, laughing
mindlessly in their self-destruction. Steady rain, dripping
tears into my wishing well, filling it to overflowing.
Tongues lap at the spill-over, making sounds as if they're
saying, "There's no more for you." My throat feels dry, my
soul empty. I lick the sand to wet my mouth, a cool taste
of mint on my lips. But it doesn't satisfy. Not like the
wetness of my wishing well. A hiding place within a hiding
place.
* * * *
My eyes open themselves slowly, creating the world
again. Daddy stands in the doorway, his fingers still
wrapped around the knob. I look at him through my eyes,
like peering through a windshield on a rainy day. His face
is a blur, but I know what's there. Shock. Surprise.
Desire. He comes to me, digs those rough hands into my
shoulders, shakes my bones, bruises my bare skin. He
doesn't know where I am. My eyes slip closed again of their
own accord, destroying my room, destroying him. If it could
be so simple...
* * * *
Hot breath on my navel. My neck. All over me. A
tongue laps at my throat. It's dark. A wet hairy beast
slithers on top of me. Groping hands cover my body,
touching me everywhere. I can't see. I feel him, feel his
warmth, his roughness. Claws on my shoulders, pinning. A
thickness, piercing. Blood flows over my feet and legs. A
cascade of brilliance in the dark. A voice whispers, "I
love you, little girl." I love you, too, daddy.
* * * *
My black, crusted lips kiss my mother's withered cheek.
But she's not there any more. Just a picture in a frame, a
face without a body, without warmth. I'm sorry, Mommy. You
had to die to bring me here. I'm so sorry. You'll never
know how sorry I am. Or will you? But daddy was here to
care. Wasn't he?
Daddy hugs me close. Too close, too tight, too much
affection. Too many bruises to count. Too much love. Too
much pain. Don't you understand I'm not Mommy, Daddy?
Don't you know that? Don't you?
* * * *
My eyes open wide, staring at him. He's still there,
holding my shoulders, shaking me, speaking words I don't
even hear. A laugh erupts from my belly, full and forceful,
guttural and strange. A laughter of love and hate and
angels dancing on the tip of a pin. He holds my shoulders
tighter, digging in with his fingernails, screaming at me
now. My laughter echoes in the room, coming back to me,
choking me with spit and dirt and anger. My eyes close
again, shielding me. All I hear is the sound of my choking,
the race of my heartbeat.
* * * *
There is a fire in my veins. Burning the fields to
ash. Roasting the laughing cows, filling the air with the
smell of burnt leather and sizzling meat. They laugh still
as their bodies are consumed. As if they expected this. As
if they wanted it.
Tears stream down my face, filling the well. But not
with wishes. Just red rain. It floods. Gushes. I can not
stop the flow. It streams over my feet, my ankles, up
around my legs. It fills my world, my vision. My eyes are
blocked from the inside, too. Close the doors on your way
out.
* * * *
There are candles by the fireplace, no longer burning.
They'll never light again. The wick's too short. Drops of
wax stain the finished wood of the table. I am the drifting
white smoke. Passing through the ceiling, leaving behind
the stain of my dead ash.
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