Dark and Gone

Remember that time I called you at 1 in the morning and told you how much I hated you and how much you didn't care? And then your friend let me come over to hang out, and I wandered around the apartment complex in the cold, smoking my last cigarettes, in my PJs and slippers, until I sat down by the pool and called you? You two came and found me and saved my half smoked cigarette and my world was spinning from the drugs and the pain. I slept in your bed that night, but it was different. That's when things started changing and we were both on a path to get better. Now look at us. Imagine where we're going.

I hope that there's a heaven for the good who suffer, and a hell for the evil that prosper. As for me, I could be a speck of eternal nothingness after death and I would not mind. I deserve nothing special; my circumstances are not yet extreme enough to deserve redemption or damnation. Maybe your Bibles tell you something about me, but I will get what I deserve, even if that is dark and peaceful emptiness.

Once I wrote a suicide note. It was 50 pages long and it took 2 years to write. Eventually I burned it, along with the letters and pictures from the first boy I ever thought I loved. I burned that out in my backyard, in a big pot my dad used to use for making popcorn or soup. I took some matches and watched 2 years of important memories flash away. I used matches from Pappadeux's where I used to celebrate my birthday dinners. When all the papers and photos became black ashes, I poured water in the pot and looked at the filthy, pukish liquid. It stunk and was so vile. I poured it around my yard, buried it under a tree in my backyard. After that, I felt a little meaner. I like to think I'm a somewhat educated lady, but I have my rituals. My humanity remains intact, in all its cowardice and purity.

I've forgotten a lot of the ugly stuff from growing up. Maybe it wasn't even bad; perhaps terribly unremarkable. Sinkholes, red ears, cookie dough. I remember that. Crying at first confession because of my sins. Disrespecting my parents, never loving my brother. Nothing about me is terribly special, but Lord knows I milk my story for all it is worth. I want to make a person be better than me. Pitseleh, if I ever call you pretty, it is not because that's important. It's only important to be intelligent and good. Both, never just one. Just one is lethal. Neither is apathy. Both, please be both. You'll cry about not getting what you want, saying you'll do this or that, and someone bigger than you will have a perpetual frown and always tell you that you're wrong. It's okay if they're stern. Sometimes you listen, and sometimes you know that you're right. So you still listen. But you answer back then, and better. I saw a hideous man make my mother cry for years of pain, senseless and stupid, absolutely unnecessary tears. More tears, more evil. He made her cry for hours, no remorse. He was an ugly man. Right now he's probably in bed sleeping. Does he think about my mom? About that glass room with children and their fathers in grey playing basketball in a small patch of sunlight? About my silent dad, about that eerily still, empty 15-year-old girl whose heart was being drowned in sin right then and there? I fed off of that hate, because I was angry. Hate fueled me for many years. It still does. It is my biggest motivator, to work harder, drive faster, be smarter, but it will never make me better. I was sick inside from a suburban dose of atrocity. While that is nothing, it was still a virus. I'm getting better. I don't want my story to happen. I want the good to be happy. My darkness slips out, but I need strength right now.