emilygracevee
She stared at the lake water, waiting for something to happen. Bits of plastic and old cans floated on its slimy green surface. There were oil swirls on the top of the lake, and below that, layers of algae and muck. She blinked. Something black and finny was stirring beneath the surface. Maybe it was a massive fish, the kind that could ferry her away - far away from her little cottage on the side of the lake.
I was a hero to them. Just like I'd always wanted to be! The children clapped and cheered. Several people gave me hand grenades. I whooped like a warrior and Malotov-cocktailed the building. Shards of glass went into the crowd, but nobody cared. The library was burning. A fierce something took hold of my chest and arms and I didn't stop with the cocktails, or the gasoline, or the orgy we had on the steps later.
They fucked. In the biblical sense and the non biblical sense. This is the thing that jumps to mind when I see the word "biblical". I'm typing this in a library. Window set to 50% size so the font is miniscule. Because the girl at the printer to my left is scowling; I don't think she could take the word "fucked" right in front of her; she keeps blowing her hair to one side and now she's slamming the printer because it's dry. Out of ink.
She began her own reconstruction by taking herself apart. Her spine split along the column, fracturing like a broken ladder and taking everything along with it - cranium, pelvis, hips, thighs, arms, and finger joints, each clacking neverendingly on the floor. she picked each of her bones up, one by one, and put them together as one glues a model airplane together.
There are mice in here. I hear them twittering shrill and blue, like little knives skittering up and down my wrists, criss cross applesauce. I blink and sniff at them kindly, but they won't go away. They won't stop looking at me. That's the worst; their eyes like flecks of string, peeling and cutting out of line, out of sight. Out of mind.
The naysayers, the ravenous blackening strips of hulking flesh that line these barbarious walls. Flush against the floors, iron and satin. Grab them if you have them. Shoplifting shapeshifting tensions, pull a little harder and move a little faster.
Jesus Christ. This word sounds too much like college, and the sun is coming up, and I haven't slept all night, and I checked my gmail for new messages and the first one that hit me in the face said: Emily, would you pay to work for someone for free? I opened it and it informed me: "No, really! Lots of students are paying to export themselves to intern for other companies!" And below that was the article: "Why you will pay more for college than anyone else has ever paid, ever." I'm considering moving to Alaska and making multi-media collages made from eagle feathers and birch bark for the rest of my life.
Self conscious and stoney-faced, like mama taught me to be, I stared at the bright faces puffing away in music class. I couldn't whistle if my life depended on it. Not around them. It had been two weeks since I'd made the pact with myself and my own mouth. I first told myself I was going to cultivate what came out of my little lips. Be more careful and conscientious than these screamers and biters and smackers around me. I was going to show them, looking at them with a discerning judge's eye, at six years old. I would never be louder than anyone else - that way, everyone would listen to me when I finally spoke. In a moth's voice.
Her age was six. She had dimples that sprung into her blank face without any prior warning, and her smiles looked out of place, seeing her smile was like the sight of daisies in midwinter.
The laughter that echoed down the marble footsteps of the corridor banged around in her flowerbrain. She inhaled the smell of violets and felt them bang her head against the wall again. Or was it all in her head? There was no separation between her world and that world anymore; no protective membrane; the egg had finally cracked and she was visible to everyone else and they were visible to her. She could not hurt them, but was so afraid of hurting them.
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