I am covered in droplets of my own blood. Thick steam from the shower I've left running (for too long now) is encasing me in this bath-less bathroom. I can hardly see my own toes, I must've only touched the hot dial. I am in a small box and I can hardly breathe, my lungs full of warm wetness. I pray the steam doesn't escape through the doors seam, alerting the associate outside. I let myself worry what she would think only for a moment ; I am either burning myself alive in scalding water, or I am…
I take deep breaths, gulping down what oxygen I can find. I steady my arm and my melancholy “paint brush”between my fingers, directly over the first one. I've whittled myself every night this week, hoping to carve a girl.
My eyes close and I silently count to three as I rip this jagged, uncleaned glass shard across. I wince. I am a coward. In perfect irony I am squeamish.
I look down and my stomach pulsates in my throat now.
Exposed in my own flesh are purple and green strands of my livelihood, with cascading tendrils of crimson blood pooling and then wrapping themselves around my wrist, my jeans,
I mean I've done… this but i've never seen
I can't breathe, the steam is choking me, my heart races, I force myself to breathe slowly, I move quickly but also somehow in slow motion . The faster my heart beats, the faster this blood pools around me , the faster i …
I grab the shirt next to me that's been encasing the broken mason jar shards, rounded like a beautiful supple sparrows nest. Only 30 minutes earlier I'd stolen this treasure from the kitchen, wrapped this jar into my favorite yellow knit sweatshirt tie around, holding it like a football, taken it outside without staff permission, and smashed it madly. Until I heard it.
The sound of the glass breaking rings in my ears. A congratulatory standing ovation cacophony plays in my head. Nobody has seen me do this, nobody has heard. The sweater has held grasp onto all of the shards, waiting for me to explicate them, waiting for me to find my perfect shard, my paint brush. I sneak back into the home, and I yell that I'm taking my 10 minute shower. The staff tells me she sets her timer.
and now i’m here, and i’m bleeding, and its
I empty the contents of my nest onto the ground slowly, bit by bit, willing for nobody close to hear the sounds of the shards hitting the tiled floor. I make a tourniquet for my arm. The yellow knitting fills with red, as I push my arm into my torso applying pressure. My head aches and the water hitting the bottom of the shower floor sounds thunderous. I stretch up and up and up and up for what seems like 4 arm swings, and my wrist enters the shower curtain blindly. Finally my fingers grip the dial and finally, there is silence. I can hear my breath.
“THATS 15 MINUTES KALEA” the associate has a hint of jest in her voice.
I yell back “I'VE INDULGED MYSELF, I'M SORRY! I TAKE MY PLEASURES WHERE I CAN”
She chuckles faintly and i can hear a murmur of something similar to “hurry it up”
I gather my eggs back into my nest, in shock at how almost all of the yellow is some shade of orange now. I blink drowsily and I pull on with one arm a black hoodie, I can still feel myself dripping. I apply pressure to my wrist and sleeve. I look down and notice the frayed acrylic lettering on the hoodie. 4 years ago my dad got it for me at one of our weekly father daughter gun range trips. the letters spell out; OAKTREE GUN CLUB. another memory I've defiled, my specialty.
Still, I'm feeling pooling around my wrist, unnoticeable under the black of the garment.
I take a deep breath before I step out. I prepare myself to be HER, to put HER on.
“What were you doing in there? Flicking your little bean?” In a proper English accent, the girl whispers the second part as not to alert the staff of my promiscuity.
My best friend here at the facility, Monet, stands smiling , waiting for me to answer. Towel in her hand, curls clipped up, she passes me bubbly and bright, to enter the cage id crawled out of moments earlier.
I repeat cheekily “I take my pleasures where i can”, and wink. I am willing god to make it so my crime scene clean up was adequate. my smile drops as she's out of view, I pause while she walks in. She closes the door and I hear the thunder of the shower roar again.
I sneak away to my shared bedroom, wondering with each step how to position my arm out of my roommate's sight, practicing positioning to look natural and normal. I walk in and to my fortune she's already asleep, snoring like a cartoon.
I get under my covers with a bright pink reading light and I book i’m not supposed to have, probably feminist, probably angry. I feel contentment in my secrets. I try to keep my eyes open going enough to read even one page, and dog ear lazily the same page, moments later. I’ll have to reread when i’m awake.
All of 3 minutes later the associate does checks on our rooms, I groggily lift the sheet from my head to see her and smile. She sticks out her tongue, closes the door and alarms us into our sides of the bedroom and into our rooms. she whisper yells “sweet dreams” in the hallway.
I am so tired I just fade away.
I fall asleep checking my arm every few seconds until the blood pooling in my sleeve feels tacky,
until my arm is glued to the linen fuzzies inside.
I fade into my dreams and pretend I am now one with this hoodie, that we are a single organism; that without this shell I am a nude turtle, organs exposed.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
titsay
amandla