An encyclopedia of a burnout
It was October when you dug your own grave, sealed shut with the locked bedroom window you climbed out of. Pronounced dead for 10 seconds, you announced with pride of all things, as your mother cursed my name for letting it happen. I wasnāt there. But I held your hand when you were released, I picked you up, shivering, when she threw you out into the harsh December winds. I watched when you went crawling back home to mother dearest, comforting you through every fight. Where were you when I was hurting? Screwing the guy I had liked? But I was still there when he left and you felt the earth split back open, attempting to swallow you whole. I was still there when you spit in your motherās face-begging me to open my door to you. I did. Over and over again I bailed you out of whatever travesty had graced itself by your presence. And for a second, I believed youād dig me out of my own hell too. -thank you Madison
A toast to the one who pulled me out, for I too have been buried alive, thank you.
It was that summer, We found refuge in that beat up white car. Her trunk was our dinner table, dripping ice cream as we sat under the stars. I saw love in the coffee stained front seat; beauty in her ornate gold trim-he saw freedom in her cracked mirror. And so we go.
A sunflower maze looming overtop: Armed with, bustling, black bees standing guard. Damp palms warped the thin, paper map,as we navigated a blur of yellow and green.Sweaty hand in sweaty hand. And so we go.
Lexy welcomes us with scolding leather and no ac, yet we are grateful. I hang out of the open window video rolling. With a deathgrip on my phone, I take video of everything in motion--
The East Saint Louis Bridge,
A rare event at the art museum:gaurded by heavy glass doors, laid antique cameras and anxious photos. It was eerie. It had felt almost sinister: to keep someone here--their memory marked with one damned word. It was as if time had paused, and we had moved on;and so we go.
Back in our white and gold chariot: we sit still, comforted by her warmth-- still smelling of this morningās iced latte. We hum, as Billie Joe Armstrongās Jesus of Suburbia fills the car once again.
The highwayās winds ripple through the car: a warning sign. A red sedan mindlessly swerves through three lanes of traffic.We are going eighty miles per hour. His right hand searches for mine. Horns sound as the car straightens itself out,
M is for Meth Head-Skinny:
You meant it as a compliment of course. Congratulating me for becoming such a beautifulāthin girl. Laughter rang throughout the halls of my little house. But you couldnāt have known your brother was only laughing at the irony in all of this āhe always thought Iād be O.J.
N is not for O.J. Simpson:
Being compared to the black sheep of the family is hard when youāre nine, O.J , my father would say to a hysterical little girl. Heād say how much they hated her,it was a matter of time until I was her carbon copy. The same woman who bares her teeth in fear--shrieking something about burning the house down, her child inside. The same monster who abandoned her fucking son for a handful of pills and the glimmer of a crackpipe.
Dominick turned five this year; this was the day we took him to the pumpkin patch because neither of his parents ensured he would get to carve a pumpkin before Halloween.
When the bell first sounded four years ago I heard sirens. I felt as if the world would split in two,Engulfing me, if suma kum lade was not in my future. I dug my grave for a good grade, at fourteen years old. When I had tears streaming down my face for the first time in an english class, and I needed someone to swaddle me in a blanket, to softly ask when was the last time I slept--which was 36 hours prior. When I needed someone to kneel down, and reiterate my grade point average is not a way to quantify your love, dad. Or my goddamned potential. That there is so much an exam cannot measure:innovation, motivation, compassion, and my self worth. That college isnāt for everybody, regardless of how many schools want me. That my tax bracket was not necessarily tied to quality of life--a starving artist. I simply needed an anchored palm wrapped around mine, paired with a calm voice to remind me: the future is in my hands, and my hands were meant to create.
āBrain Foodā oil paint on canvas paper, 2018,
A copy of something probably written by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Currently The Beautiful and the Damned) lies open with a yellow highlighter jammed in the middle, balancing on a tower of unfolded laundry.
-i guess you knew most of this huh?
