down in me

Up until then he had been the nice teacher, the cool one. Now he was surreptitiously giving me the old Baker Act.

“Let me see your wrist. Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going to get you some help, OK? It’s going to be OK.” He lied.

It wasn’t OK. Who’s idea of help is this? Stripping you of everything. Dehumanizing you by taking the shoe laces from your Converse All-Stars. Forcing you into someone else’s orange jump suit. Orange being code for “danger to self and others”. No under garments of any kind. Have they not noticed that these jump suits are made of a highly abrasive material that rubs you into an orange frenzy of shamefulness?

Locking you up in the small white room with the other fucked up little orphans. Fucking system. Is this what you think I am? You think I’m seriously fucked up like these spazzes? Not me. I’m clever. You’ll see.

“Why are u here?” The note read. Its orange-clad writer was skinny and pale with light brown hair cascading over his blue eyes. He seemed half way to normal.

“I hate myself and want to die. You?”

“yeah me too I was gang raped”

“By who???”

“Some older guys. bunch of assholes. I want to kill them but im stuck here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It OK they have jello”

Shit. My plight is nothing in comparison. I really am sorry for what happened to you and I think you’re really cute otherwise. Maybe, in another time, at another school…

We ate our jello and watched TV. They took him away for “tests”. He came back zombified. The spaz across the hall in solitary had a spastic fit and was promptly subdued, too. Its how they keep things manageable. Valuable lesson that.

At night we slept on opposite sides of the brightly-lit hallway on thin plastic mats. Staring at the sickly happy Disney scene of frolicking forest animals painted on the wall. And the watchful eyes, watching. TV mostly, but watching us, too. I say slept but it was more like suspended animation for the night. Doze on and off to the repetition: maybe this isn’t really happening… isn’t really happening… isn’t really happening…

“You have five minutes.”

I tried the door. She locked me in the large empty bathroom by myself. Privacy at last. Five minutes to figure out how to commit the unthinkable with a bar of soap. A shower stall with no door. A small, rough towel. Fuck this.

“I don’t want to kill myself anymore. I miss my mom and I just want to be with her and tell her how sorry I am for scaring her like this. Really. I was just sad because my boyfriend, the captain of the football team, broke up with me and I didn’t get into the cheerleading squad this year. But I’m OK now. I just want to go to school and see my friends again.”

There was no mommy, no boyfriend, definitely no fucking cheerleading. It was absurdly easy. The key to freedom was in my head the whole time. All you have to do is lie and pretend. Another valuable lesson ingested.