soph

always an angel, never a god.

[sab3rto0thed]

Halfway through my second semester of college, I realize that I have started avoiding mirrors.

It is not an intentional decision. Rather, it is just something that happened to me over time, the unassuming conclusion to an incredibly brutal year. I do not know what month it was, or when exactly it is that I realize this. All I know is that I cannot look at my own face.

All year, in the months leading up to this and the months that tangle together afterwards, I fight with my own reflection. I suppose there is an argument there, something to be said about how college will make you grow up and out. Certainly I am not the same girl that I was two years ago, but there is something about her face that scares me, and I do not want to look at her.

Here it is. There are dappled visions of memory. Here I am, in the car, my fingers curled around the doorhandle because I am worried the girl sitting next to me is going to throw herself out of the vehicle and off of a cliff. Here I am, hallucinating underneath the fairy lights in a friend's dorm, too drunk to see straight. Here I am, crumpled facedown in a bathroom stall, while a blonde girl that looks like my best friend from high school is rubbing my back and trying to force me to drink water.

Look at all of it. This is not me.

When go home for the summer, I feel calmer. I avoid alcohol at all costs and whenever I wash my hands in the bathroom at work, I make sure my eyes slide to look at the soap dispenser or the sink. My coworkers tell me that I am still the same girl, that my face has not changed. I appreciate this reassurance but I do not recognize the person I was and I am not sure that I ever will again.

The first time I truly look in a mirror that year is when I take mushrooms. For a long moment, I look at her and she looks at me. It is the most vivid recollection I have of myself from those long months: me, my hair sticking up wildly, my pupils as big as quarters, my brown pants low on my hips and my shirt stripey and red. I still did not recognize her but there was some kind of childlike joy in seeing myself like that, from an outsider's view.

I have no desire to go back to college, but I do it anyway because I don't want to let myself down. I am more careful this time. I try to adjust to mirrors. It got bad last year, I convince myself, because I could not face myself. This time will be different. I will not get so drunk that I crumble and I will not trust anyone so hard that I am willing to throw myself in front of a train for them.

Maybe things are going better and maybe it is true that I am alive. A year later and I still struggle with mirrors. I don't recognize the girl in them; her face is too angular, her mouth too set, her eyes too sharp. Gone is the childlike innocence that carried me through high school. I am not sure what to make of this new me, strong and sturdy as she may be.

A year after I swear away from mirrors, I find a quote I wrote from that time. Buried as I was in writing, I did not know who to go to or what else to be. I wrote, in an effort to avoid my own shadow: All I am is a writer. All I do is project my own pain.

[sab3rto0thed]

We linger on the statement true love is dead.

Well, maybe it's true that true love is dead. Look at the slogans! Look at the Hallmark Cards in the back of the CVS!

True love bears all! In sickness and health! True love comes to those who wait!

True love will have you melted and meshed and tangled-up in the middle of the night with a god damn fever.

True love will not come to you if you want to string up fifteen-year-old girls by their ankles and get underneath their skin with your fingernails.

True loves does not come to those who are armed.

[sab3rto0thed]

I watch, repeatedly, as though in a slow-motion video loop, as she falls and smacks her head on the back of the shower.

There it is. The short little sound that comes from the back of her throat. Nobody else in the room flinches. Nobody but me.

And I, who lacks the mind and the heart, do not and will never have the strength to pull her back onto her feet. No, I do not have it. I do not tell her to quit smoking or drinking; I do not want her to die without these things. Not while she is too drunk to breathe, half-covered in a blanket; not while I sit, hiding the cigarette on my breath, while she glares at me across the bathroom.

It is a very warm March and my friend who I went to high school with calls me. I am so drunk that all I can do is laugh on the other line.

"Listen," I tell my friend. I hold the pack of cigarettes that I stole, pinched between my forefinger and my thumb, like a gun that might go off. "I have to tell you something that I shouldn't."

My friends outside ask me for another cigarette. I tell them to hold on. We have already had six.

In a different universe, I am swallowing down the nicotine spit and praying that she doesn't kiss me. Half-lidded in her bathroom, she is too angry with me to even fathom that she has told me she loves me.

"I have to tell you something." My friend on the phone is waiting patiently. Nine-hundred miles away; if she is the person that I confess to then I knew it will stay safely on the phone line. "She was my first love. I thought she was going to be it."

Outside, in another timeline, my friend Zach takes my pack of cigarettes from me. He tells me, "Someone else will appreciate these more." I tell him, "I know." We both know that I am lying about quitting. We both know I cannot fathom the fear without the cigarettes.

He knows that I am trying to be better. No one here has looked out for me the way he has. No one.

"I know, honey," my friend on the phone tells me.

The people call for another cigarette. In her bathroom, she tells me that I am looking right through her. I do not know how to explain that the fear keeps me awake at night.

Hold on a minute, I tell my friends at the same time that I tell her.

No, I cannot sleep in her bed without waking up in a cold sweat. No, I cannot let her touch me in the shower without avoiding her for days after. These things are not her fault but they are unspeakable. She will never understand that when I am looking through her, I am just trying to look out for the both of us.

I do not want him to come back for me. I do not want him to soldier through her like a freight train. I have nightmares of him every night. I could not protect myself, but I can protect her. I can.

"I'm proud of you," my friend Zach says. Our lips are blistering in the cold. I smell like cigarettes. I smell like cigarettes all the damn time these days.

"She was your first love, honey," my friend on the phone says. She is the first person to tell me this. She is also the first person to ever tell me that what happened wasn't my fault.

In a different universe, I do not hallucinate him underneath the lights. In a different universe, I am strong enough to pull her up by her arms and get her to a hospital. In another universe, I do not cave in on myself completely on the floor of a bathroom stall.

In another universe, I scream instead of freezing.

"I don't want to die," I tell my friend Zach.

He rubs his thumb over the emblem on the pack of cigarettes. "Then quit smoking."

I remember, vividly, being ten years old and begging my mom to quit.

I watch, repeatedly, in a slow-motion video loop, as I crumble to my knees on the floor of a bathroom stall. There is nobody to call, and there is nowhere to go.

In another timeline, nobody calls me. In another timeline, I don't even try to give the cigarettes away.

My friend Zach tells me to quit smoking. My friend on the phone tells me to quit smoking. The girl glaring at me, half-drunk in the bathroom, tells me to quit smoking.

None of them ever tell me they love me again. They just tell me to stop. I do not know if that is a form of love in itself.

On a snowy winter night, while I find myself pulled beyond belief in opposite directions, I wonder if there is a way that love is supposed to look.

On a gray morning in March, after the worst has happened--after I will never get drunk enough to confess these things on the phone; after I will never be small enough to not know how to scream; after I will have twice the mind and the heart to save not her but myself; after I never have to hand another pack of cigarettes away because I will not buy another--I look in the mirror and I discover that despite it all, I have smile lines now. And I would not like to fade away.

[sab3rto0thed]

Miracle

So, yes You think and you pray, for months on end And you remember every boy Who took you into the bushes behind his house And told you that he'd kill your mom If you didn't kiss him

You remember every boy Who tied you down on the carpet And gave you rugburn

You remember every boy Who waited for you in the dark Hoping to follow you home after your shift Or really, simply, groped you in passing

So, yes Of course this time feels like a miracle You have collected years worth of nightmares And you wake up every night With your breath caught all the way on the ceiling Thinking there will be a man in your room Who thinks he is bigger and stronger

You wonder what takes more courage Forcing yourself down on top of a girl who is half your size Or living with the fact that you didn't fight back

Of course this time feels like a miracle You do not have to ask him to come when you are sick And you do not have to worry about having a safe place to land when you are too drunk All you have to worry about is the fact of his smile Of course it is a miracle You do not have to measure out your breaths when he is in your bed

So, yes Yes, it is a miracle And you tell him this, And he says he doesn't understand But all you say is trust me

Because when he asks and you say no, you only have to say it once.

[sab3rto0thed]

My friend Allie catches a swordfish and as the fish strains and snarls on the line I can only wonder why she gets to kill it but it does not get to kill her

My friend Allie catches a swordfish and as she pulls like hell I remember every day she fought to stay alive in high school

My friend Allie catches a swordfish and as she pulls it into her arms, dead I wonder if staying alive is a matter of strength or if it's just a matter of persistence

[sab3rto0thed]

struck, in the middle of the night, by the thought of him floating half-conscious into your mind and you wonder if he understands, or even thinks of every night you dreamed of him silhouetted in your bed the predawn light flooding his hair

what a significant loss you dream of those nights at bars or dancing out in the snow or settled gently together in silence or looking up at the stars

and you think of the way he looked that first morning like you both could harness the world if you stuck together long enough

to love anything is to suffer it and there is no universe in which either one of you stays but damn you would give anything for that universe to be true

[sab3rto0thed]

Yes, of course I dream. When I sit, half-conscious, barreled over and unentertained, I imagine what my life would have been like had I not ended up here. Over and over again I think of the circumstances that ended me up in shaky stairwells and out on pavement; I remember the day I would not leave my friend's car because I could not bear to be alone with my own body. Jesus, of course I dream of what things could have been. Over and over I ask myself who I would've been. For years I have been shaky, crawling on my knees to repent for a crime that I did not commit. My face is always uncertain before I look in a mirror; when I imagine myself I only see a flash of blue eyes and a smeared-out image, like a Polaroid that had water spilled all over it. I am old enough now to have smile lines. Jesus, of course I wonder what could have been different. There have been too many fires in my body and there have been hands underneath my skin that I am afraid will never get out. Of course I have been angry. Anyone who has to hold the things I have held would be angry. And of course I dream. Damn, of course I dream. And yes, I can heal. Absolutely, I can heal. I can look back at every damn woman in my genetic lineage who went through the same thing and I can try to do what they could not. I can try to right it. But I will still have the same nightmare, for the rest of my life, where I wake up and he is standing over me. That is something that I cannot get rid of. I will always be swallowed whole by the weight of the damn thing.

[sab3rto0thed]

the question is asked thirty-three relentless times to the beat of a drum and saying yes is the only way to get the sound to stop

you swim for years in an ocean of your own shame stampeded underfoot sleeping with his breath on your neck

a mirror is an island your cheeks are too red and your mouth is too set your eyes are too glazed

the raft will spill over eventually you have never been a strong swimmer someone must carry you to shore

the question is asked once it is a striking deal you do not have to say no thirty-two times to get someone to hear you

[sab3rto0thed]

In dreams it all shapes up to be the same thing. You are in the garden and he is grabbing your wrist or touching your thigh. He does not ask. You do not ask him to ask. He does not ask you if you want him to. These things are involuntary and they must happen. In the garden you plant plastic roses and water them with a plastic watering can with plastic water. You are in the garden and there is a river running through it. You push him into the river and he drowns and dies. He has a can of beer in his hand always. He is always laughing at you. In the garden he is still touching your thigh. He does not ask. You do not ask him to ask. You know he does not want to ask. The doctor tells you that you need to get him out of you. You cannot get anything out of you. This is how you keep people. Your friend tells you that God made you both this way. You think you should both go straight to hell.

[sab3rto0thed]

The thing about healing is that you have to probe the wound. Scars sometimes still register pain, particularly when newer pain is layered over them. You go out at night and you study the trees or the grass or the stars. You lay down in the snow and you imagine someone coming for you, but you cannot conjure up any names or faces. You sit and you circle your bedroom like a cat gone a little rogue. You think and you think and you think. You probe the wound. Sometimes the way the air smells in the morning will make you feel like you are twelve. Looking at old pictures of yourself is like wading through a minefield and expecting not to blow up. Sometimes music is too much. You have to touch the wound. Sure, maybe that's not advisable for the healing process, but healing never really completes itself. Everything ends eventually.

[sab3rto0thed]

Another nightmare where your body is being jerked on marionette strings and you wake up to the predawn light and pray that nobody is in your apartment. Every morning for months after the incident you measure your breathing out in teaspoons so you do not hear yourself fighting the man. You look at old photos of yourself and you jerk back like you've been electrocuted. Another nightmare where your body is being jerked on marionette strings and you wake up to the predawn light and you pray that nobody is in your bedroom. You spin the gun around on the table and try to figure out who to blame. You blame your mother. You blame the others. You blame the man. You blame yourself. Another nightmare where your body is being jerked on marionette strings and you wake up to the predawn light and you pray that nobody is coming for you. You do not know how to defend yourself. A life taunted by men waiting for your shift to end and getting in your face when you tell them no. You do not have an option. No is not the thing to say to a man that wants to get on top of you and crush you. You put the gun on the table and you spin it around and you wait for it to blow someone's head clean off. You make a good performance of the thing. You let them fuck you in the morning and at night and in the shower. Your body is not your own. You are not the right shape. There are things inside of you that will never be washed out.

[sab3rto0thed]

so you wake up in a cold sweat every single night because you see him in your dreams and you refuse to eat because you are afraid the memories will make you sick and when someone's breath catches in the wrong way your vision will go blurry and you wake up in a cold sweat every single night for months because you cannot stop remembering him holding down your hips or forcing you down onto the floor or tying you up or choking you and you feel like a shadow pressed flat against your own mattress and when the girls at school tell you to eat something you refuse. so you wake up in a cold sweat every single night because you remember the knife he had in his pocket and at various jobs you think you will see him and you will hide in the corner and at school you will avoid all male teachers and on the street you will keep your keys securely between your fingers at all times because you cannot let that happen to you again. so you wake up in a cold sweat every single night and you hear people laughing at you and you shove it deep deep down and you never speak a word about it to a single soul. so you wake up in a cold sweat every night and you remember how your mother would give him money to take you out of the house because she didn't want to be around you. so you wake up in a cold fucking sweat for years and you have not let anyone get too close because he is permanently inside of you and you are an abysmal thing and to get too close to someone would mean making them as sick as you.

[sab3rto0thed]

the headlights from the car outside throw patterns across the wall from the space between the wooden slats in the shades / nothing is a secret / little black lines across her back / stay a little longer / this can happen in the morning / a map of her departure scrawled across my ribcage / i am not the body she wants / i do not have the mind or the heart / i am not the right shape / flames out in the hallway / we have sealed our own fates / a knife between us and the sheets / her shadow tangled in the bed / i will not sleep at night / a freight train will run clean through my body / she will kill me if i close my eyes / someone has to leave first / this is a very old story / there is no other version of this story / i learn that love is out of my control

[sab3rto0thed]

You wake up in some random boy's bed and you can feel his eyes on you. You know he is seeing the blood underneath your fingernails and the rot in your teeth. You wake up every day and make a fervent effort to avoid your friends. You avoid mirrors for fear of seeing someone young and helpless. You go to work and you go to bed and you pretend you do not feel the watching eyes of those around you. You are rotting from the inside out. You brush your teeth three times in a row until your gums bleed. You scrub your skin in the shower until the water is causing burns and still you keep scrubbing. Your bones are half made of metal. You are at war with your own being. You lose sight of your identity. You crumple over and over and over again until you are facedown on the floor of a bathroom stall. Your body is too heavy. Your skin is too raw. You feel the meteor crater that has carved a hole in your skull. There are too many people looking. Every night you wake up covered in sweat because you cannot handle the dreams. You have visions of your dead cat and wonder what is keeping you alive now that he isn't. You wake up in some random boy's bed and you tear yourself out of his sheets like you've been burned. You try not to look at him because you know how he will be looking at you. He will see the burns on your skin. He will see the blood up to your elbows. He does not know that you are rotten from the inside out. He will love you and he will keep you but that means he will have to feel the metal in your fingertips every time he grabs your hand. You do not want him to have to look after you. You cannot afford to ruin anything else. You are the only person that can look after yourself. The damage has already been done.

[sab3rto0thed]

When enough things happen, you become warped. You are a museum exhibit on display. They rearrange your bones. They warn you not to look in a mirror because the face will not be right. Something will be off in the eyes. Yes, maybe you will heal. No, maybe you will not. Yes, you will carry these things forever and ever and ever like a marionette on strings. You will wake up and go to bed and spend your whole life repenting on the floor and still you will haunt and be haunted. You are untouchable now. Certainly that must be true. Personhood is a configuration of self. In a museum you are intimately aware of your own body. These people use you to change. Look what happened to her. Look what happened to me. There is something bloody about the reflection of others when they are using you to do it. You are a catalyst. In another dimension, you are taller than all of them. In another dimension, you never let them get their hands under your skin. In another dimension, you wouldn't have to worry about when the right time to look in a mirror is. Your smile would always be yours.

[sab3rto0thed]

When the last human dies  I hope they think  about the first Neanderthal  skeleton 

Who they strung up  to be apelike  because they didn’t want him to be  human 

The first Neanderthal skeleton  who had arthritis and a bad eye  who needed to be cared for by his  tribe 

In a hundred thousand years  maybe another species will come along  and find our bones  and string us up like  monkeys 

In the face of eternity  we are so small  and we will not get a say in what they do with  us 

[sab3rto0thed]

Anyone that has experienced the things you have experienced would be aware. This is something that my friend tells me after we pursue the topic of age gaps in relationships. I do not protest or retort, but after she leaves the room I imagine telling her many things. Do you think it's easy to always be aware? I sleep with one eye open. For a year after the event I would wake up in a cold sweat every night. It didn't matter if I fought him or screamed. My mother values her sleep over everything else. Still I have nightmares and wake up sick. Of course it's not something I want. I live with it because I have to.

I dress up as a ghost and every night I return to the snow. I am afraid of snowstorms. The cold frightens me. I am like a rabbit stuck in a cage. Still outside every night I light myself on fire. Every time I close my eyes I see my inadequacies in someone else's face. I am a piece of work. There is no point in calling anyone and especially not my mother; she is a heavy sleeper. I know how to haunt. I know how to be warm enough to be temporarily held close. I am like a candle. I am losing this preconceived notion that I have to offer someone something in order for them to want me around. I am not going to be kept. I would rather be alone.

Sitting in my car, shaky and still so damn scared. Look at the snow, look at the nightmares; I am sick with my own sadness and how dark my room gets when all the lights go out. I cannot write a single thing without being crucified for it; I cannot go home to my mother because she will be asleep. My coworkers do not know what to do with me, they think I am a grenade that is going to go off. Sitting in my car, so damn scared that I can't breathe, and I count all the promises on my fingers. I will leave. I will stay. I will leave. I will stay. I am collapsing under the weight of my own words. There is no right answer. If I go it will be wrong. If I stay it will be wrong.

Outside my friend takes the rest of my cigarettes because I tell him that I don't want them. Inside I lay silently on the floor and listen to my friends speak. Over the phone my sibling says, I think you need to go. You can't sit still. When I tell my advisor that I feel as though I must leave, she asks if I really want to. I don't know what to tell her. Everything here has been so quiet. Sometimes I am afraid the stillness is going to crush me. Sometimes I am grateful for it. Sometimes I still look at the teenage scars on my arm. I have nowhere else to go. I cannot go home. There is no home to go to.