a work of fiction
Fifteen, it is dark and cold; it is a cave. My only comfort is curling into a ball on my bed and wasting my years in sleep. My heart is a stone that I can’t swallow and my body is numb. Sleep engulfs me and becomes consciousness. My dreams are bubbles that won’t pop or leave me. I remember the worst of them, my friends all in one bubble and I was in another. I called out to them, I screamed, I tore at the silky fabric of innocence. I took it away from myself, because they couldn’t hear me, and they would never understand.
When I am awake, truly awake, I test the pipes. Would they hold? They will hold. My mother won’t. I meet a boy; he has the marks of an extension chord buried deep in his neck. I meet a girl, red welts that bleed on her arms. Self-inflicted, a way to stop it, the pain. He’ll strangle me, but he can’t because my heart is still there in my throat, choking, always. Can you die if you’re heart doesn’t beat? Can you die if you’re becoming stone?
Little white pills, they take away the soul rending ache and deep, deep in my heart there’s some pulpy flesh that sends out a shudder. Can I make it through this? Can my flesh live through the tearing? I cry, it hurts, since when did crying hurt so much? When did this chasm start inside me and what do I fill it up with?
I discover that it’s easier to have a choking heart of stone. Even the tiniest bit of pulp in there makes everything cut so much deeper. My cuts are infected with pain, and loss. I lie there, in my cold, blue world. I feel I know that nobody will ever love me. I’ve hurt the ones that thought they did and nobody else will step up to fill the vacancies. The pulp isn’t pulp anymore and the stone isn’t stone. It’s something worse.
Seventeen, confused and running. Two now, there have been two. They said they loved me, they would fill the void but I didn’t want them there. Why not? They weren’t enough. They weren’t strong enough, weak enough, beautiful enough, and ugly enough. They were not enough, not for me.
I threw them away like used tissue. They disgusted me, and I hated them. They disgusted me because they said they loved me, but they don’t even know me. They don’t see how ugly and beautiful, vicious and kind, weak and strong I am. I am everything and nothing and they didn’t see it. They just saw what they wanted. I am a projection screen.
I should go on a quest. Discover who I am, all the greatness and all the grotesqueness that is my stone and my rift. I never filled it and I doubt I will. I don’t want that. I don’t want the boy and I don’t want the child. I’ll never be ready to be anything other than alone. I won’t give up what little silky innocence is left in me. They’ll have to tear it out and rip me to shreds.
They did, they tore me open and turned me inside out. The dolphins and my friends; how can they do that? Another stone joins my heart, it’s in orbit and it makes me quiet. Makes me not say that I am hurt, that there are more terrors inside me now than when I had that tiny bit of pulp in the middle of the stone. Still the stone, not a stone, but the pulp that is not pulp is gone now. Forever. It died, with the silk. It got ripped out, the silk and the pulp were connected and I didn’t know. I feel empty and I feel like I’m falling into a bottomless pit. There’s nothing down here, there is no one.
Nineteen, I had told myself, that I will never be ready to be anything but alone but now I’m scared, I can’t be alone. I met a boy, no a man. And in the pit, at the bottom (it has a bottom!) is a curling feeling. I want, for more than passing. I want forever, for mine, and for keeps. The thought, the idea of weddings and babies is warming the cold out of my bones. They’ve been cold for so long.
A baby, the notion curls up next to my heart. It grows as if it was a child, and I want it. It’s so tangible, I feel like I could press my fingers into myself and feel it. Something else says no. He’s not mine, and I’m too young for a child. I have to many bubbles to tear open and too many outcomes. There’s too much life to live before I can press my fingers, gently, so very gently into that growth, into the child, the one next to my heart.
I feel scared that I will lose the child and the man before I ever have them. How can that be? The fear eats away at the stones, it’s like acid and the aching comes back. I can’t lose them, but something tells me that I already know I will. I reach out, digging my fingers into the flesh of him. He doesn’t know it because he can’t feel it. He doesn’t feel me ripping at his skin, trying to bring to life what I want.
It will never be. Next year I’ll be gone and he’ll be here. He’ll probably be with someone else. Some other girl that has a bubble, full of weddings and babies floating around her head. She’ll have a baby growing next to her heart and pressing, wanting her fingers to press into it, so that she’ll know it’s there. She’ll already know of course, how could you not know a baby is growing next to your heart, and of course her heart won’t be one of stone, full of scars and cracks and pain. She won’t have a chasm inside of her the size of the heavens. She’ll be whole and she’ll know that she’s too young but she’ll want it anyway. When it happens, this heart, this choking stone will break and I won’t have to worry about being built to be alone.
When I am awake, truly awake, I test the pipes. Would they hold? They will hold. My mother won’t. I meet a boy; he has the marks of an extension chord buried deep in his neck. I meet a girl, red welts that bleed on her arms. Self-inflicted, a way to stop it, the pain. He’ll strangle me, but he can’t because my heart is still there in my throat, choking, always. Can you die if you’re heart doesn’t beat? Can you die if you’re becoming stone?
Little white pills, they take away the soul rending ache and deep, deep in my heart there’s some pulpy flesh that sends out a shudder. Can I make it through this? Can my flesh live through the tearing? I cry, it hurts, since when did crying hurt so much? When did this chasm start inside me and what do I fill it up with?
I discover that it’s easier to have a choking heart of stone. Even the tiniest bit of pulp in there makes everything cut so much deeper. My cuts are infected with pain, and loss. I lie there, in my cold, blue world. I feel I know that nobody will ever love me. I’ve hurt the ones that thought they did and nobody else will step up to fill the vacancies. The pulp isn’t pulp anymore and the stone isn’t stone. It’s something worse.
Seventeen, confused and running. Two now, there have been two. They said they loved me, they would fill the void but I didn’t want them there. Why not? They weren’t enough. They weren’t strong enough, weak enough, beautiful enough, and ugly enough. They were not enough, not for me.
I threw them away like used tissue. They disgusted me, and I hated them. They disgusted me because they said they loved me, but they don’t even know me. They don’t see how ugly and beautiful, vicious and kind, weak and strong I am. I am everything and nothing and they didn’t see it. They just saw what they wanted. I am a projection screen.
I should go on a quest. Discover who I am, all the greatness and all the grotesqueness that is my stone and my rift. I never filled it and I doubt I will. I don’t want that. I don’t want the boy and I don’t want the child. I’ll never be ready to be anything other than alone. I won’t give up what little silky innocence is left in me. They’ll have to tear it out and rip me to shreds.
They did, they tore me open and turned me inside out. The dolphins and my friends; how can they do that? Another stone joins my heart, it’s in orbit and it makes me quiet. Makes me not say that I am hurt, that there are more terrors inside me now than when I had that tiny bit of pulp in the middle of the stone. Still the stone, not a stone, but the pulp that is not pulp is gone now. Forever. It died, with the silk. It got ripped out, the silk and the pulp were connected and I didn’t know. I feel empty and I feel like I’m falling into a bottomless pit. There’s nothing down here, there is no one.
Nineteen, I had told myself, that I will never be ready to be anything but alone but now I’m scared, I can’t be alone. I met a boy, no a man. And in the pit, at the bottom (it has a bottom!) is a curling feeling. I want, for more than passing. I want forever, for mine, and for keeps. The thought, the idea of weddings and babies is warming the cold out of my bones. They’ve been cold for so long.
A baby, the notion curls up next to my heart. It grows as if it was a child, and I want it. It’s so tangible, I feel like I could press my fingers into myself and feel it. Something else says no. He’s not mine, and I’m too young for a child. I have to many bubbles to tear open and too many outcomes. There’s too much life to live before I can press my fingers, gently, so very gently into that growth, into the child, the one next to my heart.
I feel scared that I will lose the child and the man before I ever have them. How can that be? The fear eats away at the stones, it’s like acid and the aching comes back. I can’t lose them, but something tells me that I already know I will. I reach out, digging my fingers into the flesh of him. He doesn’t know it because he can’t feel it. He doesn’t feel me ripping at his skin, trying to bring to life what I want.
It will never be. Next year I’ll be gone and he’ll be here. He’ll probably be with someone else. Some other girl that has a bubble, full of weddings and babies floating around her head. She’ll have a baby growing next to her heart and pressing, wanting her fingers to press into it, so that she’ll know it’s there. She’ll already know of course, how could you not know a baby is growing next to your heart, and of course her heart won’t be one of stone, full of scars and cracks and pain. She won’t have a chasm inside of her the size of the heavens. She’ll be whole and she’ll know that she’s too young but she’ll want it anyway. When it happens, this heart, this choking stone will break and I won’t have to worry about being built to be alone.