smc1743
The needle pierced my skin, and I can't remember it hurting at all. It probably did. They usually do, don't they? Hard to remember, almost impossible to. But in the end it doesn't matter. Hurt, doesn't hurt. Fuck it. All the same.
Yep, that's pretty appropriate.
She thinks it's a joke, that I'm just someone who enjoys teasing lightly. Making jokes. Persistently.
If only she knew what the persistence was rooted in. Not in being irritating, that, sweetie, I just can't help. Nope, that's not what I'm persistent. Sorry if you missed that.
There's so much I could do with "compass." But right now, I am completely lacking direction. Any type of direction. Words are coming out like sludge, goopy, incoherent sludge, and I am totally lacking direction. Unfortunately, unless I were to make it this whole symbolic thing, which I can't right now, no compass is gonna help me tonight.
Her favorite book was an atlas because she thought it held all the answers. Every single one, can you imagine that? "A little bit of everything! And maps, so many maps!" she used to exclaim to her family and friends. The family nodded in false encouragement. The friends weren't friends at all. It was only a matter of time before she learned that the atlas did not, in fact, hold all the answers. And that was when she put down the atlas and picked up a flag.
The lease was signed on April 1st, and ooh boy do I wish it had been a joke.
It wasn't though. It was never a joke, and the reality of that slammed me as the realtor stared into me head on, like a truck driver willing me to move out of her way. Her smile was fake, didn't reach her eyes, so fake, but the lease wasn't.
"Spoiled."
How do you define spoiled exactly?
Materially spoiled? Those are the easiest ones to complain about.
Emotionally spoiled? Yeah, those are the ones you really can't help hating.
It went off like an airbag.
Shit.
One minute, I'm sitting, absolutely fine. It's a normal day. Always a normal day.
Then the next minute, it isn't. It went off. like a firecracker breaking the sky into two. like a siren screaming to be understood, to be validated. Like an airbag telling me that there's been a terrible fucking accident.
The street is lit only by the moon.
How cliche, really, but what can I do? I can't make a streetlight appear. And how much better is that really? A lone person standing under a streetlight? Even worse.
So I walk down a street lit only by the moon.
My thoughts my lone companion.
Cliche.
They say mermaids swim in the depth and consume the bodies, sometimes even the souls, of the sailors they encounter. They say that a mermaid's nails will pierce your heart like you're butter, and her teeth with break skin faster than a wave can.
I'd rather encounter a thousand mermaids than encounter you.
"Sweetheart."
The word fell off her lips, effortlessly, like a prayer.
How strange it is to hear an atheist pray.
Everyone, I remind myself, she calls everyone "sweetheart."
But even in my hesitation, I knew it was different. This was different. So very different.