Down In Me

Sometimes, it seems like the whole world is out to get me.

Leaving the office I pass a small, quiet car. As I turn my back to it, the engine switches on. It could follow me. Does it want to? That van, the one with the emergency lights flashing? It’s coming towards me. No, no. It is parked off to the side, I’m the one walking towards it. Those lights. Flashing. What could they be trying to tell me? I pass two men. One chortles in the direction of the other. I check myself because I know. These three, they’re laughing, too. They’re all laughing. My mere existence is a cruelly embarrassing joke.

Stand, just stand towards the back, out of everyone’s way. Don’t think I’m not catching you catching sight of me in the periphery. You’re staring. What are you thinking about, though? I can’t bring myself to look at you directly but I know you’re staring at me.

The bus. Finally. You know the score, stick your hand out self-consciously. Stop. Stop, motherfucker, STOP. I’ll take it very personally, if for one of those big city reasons, you leave me standing in the cold. I couldn’t take another ten minutes. I couldn’t take another second.

I reach for my notebook to jot down these meanderings. Feign productivity to take my mind off. But my notebook isn’t there, where it should be. Everything has its place. Okay, fuck it, find something else. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is out to get me. This will do, though: an old envelope and a lucky pen that normally swims at the bottom of my security blanket/canvas bag. The bag that will die for me. It’s true. The inside flap says, THIS BAG WILL DIE FOR YOU. It hasn’t let me down yet.

The fucker behind me is looking over my shoulder. I don’t know who he is, but I know he is. Self-referential hand over the envelope. Protecting my thoughts like that kid in math class protecting his exam answers from prying eyes. This isn’t for you, motherfucker. This isn’t for you. This is for anyone who can’t see me and the one or few who can.In a dull, woolen haze, everything is delayed. Better slip the envelope away before backseat fucker gets a taste for so many implications.

Hop off undetected and walk purposefully up that way, the way you know. Your way. Keep your head up, your chin up. Don’t let them see you sweat, never let them see you bleed. You’ve got a right to this life. Butch. Up. Some of the mantras I sing to soothe.

At that little road now. My little road. Remember the script? Up the pavement on the right, until about halfway, just before the first working street lamp. Then, cross to the other side, nonchalantly through the cars, up a few paces and presto. We’re home.

People. Fucking strangers on my road. Fuck. Fuck fuck. Improvise. Straight ahead. Quickened pace through the burning yellow spotlight. Everyone walks, remember? Everyone walks. Almost home free, just turn the key quietly. Don’t let them hear you coming, don’t even let them feel you breathe.

Stealthy up the landing. Retaining the element to surprise the burglars. But all’s quiet. Once inside, first things first. Is the ringer off? Not today, real world, not today. Maybe not tomorrow either, but you never know. Keep hope alive, these things turn cyclical. In cycles. I haven’t figured out the average length to each revolution, but they tell me all things come to an end, even circles.

Sometimes, it seems like the whole of myself is out to get me.

I had a thought.

It moved through quickly but I held it for an instant in a cavernous corner. It breathed. I shook life into it and then let it find its way back. I wasn’t sure where it was headed and I wanted to know. I tried to follow its wispy yellow tail as it vanished through the air. I wasn’t quick enough.

It was a bastard fleeting thought.

It might have been an original thought, too. It had all the makings of a thought that’s never been thought before, ever. Transient. Aloof. Ephemeral. In colour. It was a good thought, I think. At least it might have been, if I could have held onto it long enough to validate its sorry life.

I am sad now. Fucking thoughts.

I wait and wait and wait.

And there’s all this beauty and love and excitement and desire and rushes and flourishes and oven heat and cold sweat and fluffy soufflés and silky chocolate and creamy whips and succulent citrus. But it all perishes like so much sour grapes and curdled milk the moment you realise she can live without you and you can live without her. Because there’s plenty of hotspots in town and at each one, a faceless beauty clad in black waits to serve you.

I wait and wait and wait.

The warmest interaction I’ll have today will be with the sweet Malaysian behind the counter that asks where I hail from. I stumble and hesitate and confuse because I have no clear sense of where I’ve been. I just know I’m ravenous and I’ll settle for anything to quench this thirst right now.

I wait and wait and wait.

The longest wait today will be for him, undoubtedly. I watch the door, closely scanning (as if I need to) the arriving faces making their entitled way through the glass doors, I bide my time. The vegetables steam, the meat sizzles, the drinks chill, the silver’s gleaming in the candlelight. Everything is picture-perfect cliché, including the waiting fucking female swiveling on the barstool.

I wait and wait and wait.

God, that line is getting irritating, isn’t it? But it’s true: I wait. It’s all I can do is wait. I wait because I don’t know what else to do, I don’t know how else to be. I’ll be your courteous, energetic, enticingly inappropriate waitress for the night. You know, the one that remembers what everyone ordered.

I wait and wait and wait. 

Hello and welcome, my name is Ani (yes, one ‘N’ no ‘E’ because it’s minimal) and I’m here to serve you all smiles tonight. Can I get you a drink to start with? I’ll get you anything you want. I’ll wait on you and serve everything up for you because I’m nubile, I mean servile, I’m servile like that.

I wait and wait and wait. 

I can’t say how long I’ll be able to wait on you though, my shift ends at 1 a.m. Would you care for dessert? I do hope you’ll tip me well because I’m crumbling quicker than our most decadent apple tart.

And sometimes this cool calm and acquiescent exterior gets to be too much. And I just want to scream to holy hell in a not so good way, in a way not befitting a lady like the one I pretend with varying degrees of success. How can I write about it so coolly, even now? Even as my fingers are frozen cold and aching to strangle something in their grasp?

I am irritated and that is usually a bad sign. It means there’s anger I’m trying desperately to mask. There’s always anger just below the surface that barely ripples. Keep it contained, keep it contained dear, lest you do that which we’ll all regret. They’re waiting and waiting and what have you got for them? Nothing but coming up empty-handed and full of regurgitated, overused, unoriginal banalities time and over and once again.

I’m falling apart inside and I want to let it show. Crumble into nothingness dust in the open air because the disdainful desperation of empty forgiveness is wearing on me and wearing thin. I don’t want to give up or forgive, I simply want to give in; to break it all irreparable until we breathe nothing but toxicity because even sniffing glue can’t hold us together now. But I can’t, no. I musn’t. I wouldn’t. I absolutely couldn’t. None for me, thanks. I’m fine. I had dinner, earlier. You’re much too kind.

It wasn’t enlivening, it was deadening.

I can’t stand the view of my reflection in the mirror, in a picture, behind my eyes. I am nauseous with the sight of this rotting carcass, this hollow point shell, this royal husk. It is a covering - a cover, a layer, a barrier. An annoying, withering wallowing shroud overall.

Take this outer, it is not mine. This hooded coat, this blanket, coating, film, overlay, sheet, cover-lay, sheath, crust, this faux finish. I want a new one, a fresh one, one that doesn’t smell with the stench of a thousand men, a thousand suns, a thousand deaths. One that doesn’t show the signs of use, of misuse, of abuse, of disuse. One that doesn’t give one away without protection, one that doesn’t shout to the world anything I don’t want the world to know.

It wasn’t deadening, it was horrifying.

I’m ready to fuck it all up again. I’m ready to be hated, loathed, despised. I want to breathe in putrid sickness to the depths of my core. No more of this fucking dissipating maintaining sense decorum. I’m fucking overflowing with bilious rancour and spite. I’m filled to the brim with mounting rage. More. Harder. Faster. I want to feel the stinging thud on crawling flesh. I need to be reigned in, taught restraint as I’m restrained, otherwise I’m liable to fuck it all up again because I’m ready, I’m so fucking ready. Pretty white fucking blue. Fuck you! Fuck you. There’s no beauty to be found down in me, in me you’ll find everything you’ve ever hated, everything that’s ever made you sick with questioning wonder. I see it in you, I see me in you, I want to see the dirty cheap whore reflected in your eyes. Not as disjointed this time are we? We’re not pulling the wool over anything now because this is pure, unabashed hateful hate spewing forth and hate doesn’t dwell on poetic bullshit, does it? I want to hold the pile of malodorous nonsense in my hands again, cradle it, hold it to my fucking breast like a newborn child and let it drink dry my essence. Take it in, allow it to become part of me. Its rightful place, with its rightful owner. The one chosen to birth, to bear bare the heady aroma of such stinking fucking bullshit.

One two, one two, one two three four five, one two, one two, one two three, one two three, one two, one two three four, one two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one two, one two, one two, one two, want to, want to, want to want to.

Hm.

I’ve been counting. Sheep. You. Numbers. Letters. Words. Professionally and otherwise, my mind has been occupied with counting and counting. One. Then two. Then one. Then two. You would think I’d find this boring and enough times you’d be right. But not today. Today I relish counting for it stops and starts and stops and starts and stops the other numbers from creeping in. One. Two. One. Then two again. Again. Again. Two. Then one. Then wanting.

I’ve been counting. With you. On you. I’ve been counting on you to deliver that which is missing from my counts. My numbers swell, then falter. Increase. Decrease. Increase again. By halves and thirds and double seven fourths and fifths. I’m losing it. I’m losing count. I’m losing you.

Um.

Two three four. High as I get. Two three four. Lowest commonality. Two three four five. Limits set. Two three four five. Lives divide.

I can’t sit fucking still in this shitsmelling cocksucking headfucking mindless heating hocking shit. How do you, how do you, how do you stand yourself muddled in mud, sickened with fear, heavy with stench, deadly with death. Why do you and why do you continue, how do you carry on carrying the heavy fuck load of youth of penance of blood tainted history gum on the sole of your shoe. You’re sticky, your sticky surface, your stinky covering, it sticks to my flesh. Get it off, get it off me, get off me, get off on me, get off. Take me into your arms between your thighs into your dreams into your mind. Don’t forget that we don’t owe I don’t owe they don’t owe me anything and still they sit, sitting still they wait, they wander, they wait and wait and wait for me to deliver when they know they sense they taste that I can’t fucking deliver. I am quickly turned, quickly shunned, quickly hated, quickened pace heartening hardening still ever faster ever deeper ever more sullied and wretched and fucked more fucked more fucking fucked. That’s what it does what they do what I do when it gets too big too much too soon I devolve into this heady joint. The words leave me they leave me and you leave me, leave me the fuck alone and it’s all I’m left with in my impertinent hand, a glorious pile of steady growing festering rotting aching fucking wanting breathing self-flagellating bullshit. And still I go still I follow still I turn round and round dizzying sounds thumping to that alien beat of a thousand marching planets on some distant supernova-sized system of meaninglessness where I wail and wallow and wish and pray to some unknown laughing fucker in a room full of black boxed presents that were never meant to be never meant for me never addressed properly never delivered because I can’t I can’t deliver anything but aforementioned aforewishedfor aforefuckedfor I am fucked for the everlasting everhoping everdrowning in my very own vat of creamy brown brewing bullshit.

The saints adorned the walls but they couldn’t keep the horrors inside from pouring out and into the consciousness of little girls. Constantly crossing yourself will not keep us from asking you questions you can’t answer, no. We delight in that fact just as you once took delight in bearing heavenly vengeance down upon us for your mistakes and our existence.

We’re turning the crucifix on its head now and taking it all out of you the way you’ve taken it out on us for years. We’ll make you loose your faith, indeed we have done. The intercessors never held any power over us, they won’t and can’t save or assist us, as you know and are powerless to admit.

Continue piously praying for Christ in the shape of an honest man. Though he will not come to your aid because you are worthless, as you so carefully admitted to us what you thought of us in not as many words, in not as many tales and flourishes because you couldn’t complete what you were meant to and are far too illiterate.

Oh, how special we thought you were and how foolish you seem now behind the clanking trail of slippery rosary beads spouting regurgitated nonsense riddles. Yes, those meaningless meaning-flaunting words that you etched into us at every opportunity with a bloody knife through a spiteful mouth that bit and tore us apart for your selfish satisfaction.

How could we tell that you were robbed of your waking dreams? Were we, a million tiny virginal slips of a little girl that was entrusted to you, not a divine part of your plan? Surely, as the holy sickly virgin mother can attest, you didn’t really think we would keep him chained and bound and penitent?

Today, as your fallen angels, we dispense our final judgement. Irreverently, we spit on your faith inciting you to question your entire suffering life, repentant sinner. But it’s too late because at your graveside you’ll find no god to grant you merciful absolution.

I was seduced into writing pretty for you. I shook the cobwebs off the old pages and pulled out my best words. I dressed them in lace and swathed them in colour for you. I tumbled them softly onto pristine backgrounds and arranged them neatly for the pleasure of your eyes.

I told myself to give myself time to love myself. I told myself to wait and expect only beauty and truth. And I did. I wrote you letters and pretended that they might be of use later. I saved our correspondence in a heart-shaped box adorned with the freshest flowers.

Flowery words that withered and soured over time and began to smell putrid. Words that bled through the pages over time and began to stink raw. A box that began to fray and come apart at the edges over time, spilling its contents covered in ooze and writhing in pain, fetus-shaped on the bedroom rug.

And so it is, with most everything that’s borne of selfish drive. I repent and resent that I can manage no more prettiness. I sick my worst words now, only for you. Utterances stifled with disdain and overrun with loss are in ruinous flow now for you. My lowest most bilious words now to disown you.

And I finally see the actual beauty of it all.

This isn’t your standard neon pink box wrapped present tight whipping boy shitface heady writing screaming wanting horse’s ass we’re talking about here. You can’t begin to understand what goes on in the lonely dark mother’s kiss in the back of a black VW convertible at 6 a.m. with all the lights turned low in the holes on her face. Who knows why you continue to read to breathe to think to act with such feverish fervor and intent on drowning and sickly throwing the dime across the dimly-lit hall and the unoriginal stinking aching two-toned unthinking witting writing prose. Who knows how a mother with a sick child in the emergency ward of some shitfaced stoned two-headed suburban alien across the street from the car park with one eye open and two focused intently on her does it. She’s losing losing losing it all across the wall in the twisted light of the ocean of her dreams and her chin in the dark against the dark and the night and the sun and the smell the stench of the femme where she lost it all over. This isn’t your standard well of depth and dank and stark and good stuffing cock full of creamy dreamy steamy fripperies and knickknacks and shitsacks and trifling trifles and truffles you’re used to. This is nothing like what you think they said she saw or what you know she said you saw her say deliberately in an attempt to fuck you both in the face of the fact. This is nothing like that or the other or the one in which you act where you feel so intently that you know who you know what you are who you are where you are how you are with who you are. Because you know that time when they said you were? That was total utter bastard bullshit.

Hey. Sshh. Come here. QUIETLY! For fucksake. Are you trying to give me away? What? What do you mean to who? You fucking idiot. Look. Listen. I don’t know how to tell you this but… they’re listening. Yes. And watching. Everything. What do you mean how? Do I have to spell everything out for you? Fucksake. Listen to what I’m saying. They know. THEY KNOW. They are coming for us, my friend. I’m sorry that you are going to be one of the innocents caught in the crossfire but there’s no way around it. You know too much already, man. You’re fucking implicated. An accessory and shit. Yes laugh it off, laugh it off now motherfucker. You won’t be laughing when you’re at the bottom of the pit after hours of water torture and shit. Yes, you won’t be laughing… SSSHHH! You won’t be laughing it up then, motherfucker. Listen. Whatever happens… I’m your only friend in this. OK? Your only fucking friend. Don’t turn me in, man, don’t fucking give me away. You gotta know your loyalties, keep that shit straight, you get me? Yes, yes. Of course you do. You know what I’m talking about. Quiet, now. They’re coming. Quiet. Just remember… the eagle flies at dawn, my friend. AT DAWN. Remember that. And stay calm.