Weird.
How do I come up with this shit?
One
I was in that non-space. That dull, lifeless place that feels dimmer. His voice droned on behind me muted and far away. In the back of my mind I could feel but that too fell short of real and I idly wondered why I was there. My knees had sunken into the lumpy mattress, my hands had followed suit and I played at this sex-thing with him. There was no art in what we did. No arch to my back, no rythm to his thrust. We were kids imitating grownups in a lackluster fashion. Somehow I guess we felt this was needed needed to prove that we were mature. We could surpass our parent's folly. To this end, we dallied in drab, unkempt rooms, our fumbling limbs and graceless actions overshadowed by our own belief.We were grown.
And so he moved behind me, swinging to and from my body, his member hardly felt, maybe no bigger than my longest digit and me making the required noises from some tape set to auto play deep in my mind. Like chasing a ball down a long corridor, the sound of his voice began to run in the hallway of my mind, bringing with it color and feeling. I could feel his fingers digging into the flesh of my backside and another autopilot screamed that it would leave marks. His sound began to form into words that banged on the door. They jostled for purchase over the doorjamb,crammed themselves into the keyhole and flooded that slim space where the door met the floor, the mailman's ally. I could hear again and had to hurry from the place that was not, since words pierced the atmosphere in sharp shards that were jarring and unkind. I wondered out, padded back to the present, the now where it was bright and indeed, he was talking.
"You are not my girlfriend, do you understand me? You are my second friend and if you see me in the street with anyone you don't say nothing to me till I speak to you. Ok?"
I stood behind the windows as they darted right to left and back. Ah, I had stayed too long in the non-space, so long that I had ended up here. After months of courting this is what he said to me? I kicked a speaker, maybe I had heard him wrong.
"Do you understand me?"
Slap, slap went my feet along the hall as I ran from door to door looking for the right one. I hurried down the hall, sliding to a stop in front of "laughter" knowing it was not what I sought and continuing my scurry past "joy" and "imagination". Finally I came to the place, the door always ajar, leaking a dismal feeling, a sensation that rankled the nerves, into the hall. I flung the door wide and barreled in, falling over the threshold into red, hot, blinding, sweet fury.
The insides of my jacket were gummy with blood. I would have to burn it, another jacket this season. No doubt my mother would ask me if I ate my coats, threatening to let me freeze this winter. I shook it off my body and turned to the task of washing myself clean of his fluids. All of his fluids. Every one that I had taken from him when I cavorted in that last place. I wanted nothing more than to enter into the blue calm of sleep, the other-space, but I had a job due before I could allow myself rest. Now clean, I began to break the utility blade down carefully. Carefully because it became enraged when snapped, sometimes jumping to wreck the skin of the one that assaulted it. I should know. I bore the scar on my chin from a blade broken long ago, a blade who became incensed at my actions. This one went quietly. I suppose it knew where I had been and why it must now go. I dropped the pieces into the almost empty can of paint which would be disposed at my mother's leisure. After watching them sink into the viscous ooze at the can's bottom, I returned the lid to the can and pressed it down firmly.
Gaining my bed, I shifted for comfort, the covers tangling between my legs. Finally from the non-space came the answer that flew down the hall and fell almost silently from my lips.
"Yes, I understand. I am not your girl."
written circa 1994
- going through that box o papers
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