A pearl cascades. The doctor makes one of his visits. The drugs numb the feeling, but an awareness remains - a flesh-on-flesh bounce off the mattressed walls. A roar, and he fills me with himself. The straitjacket keeps me in check. He fastens his belt, winks, and leaves.
Since I was thirteen, life has been this. I'm twenty-six now. The system doesn't know I exist. This facility uses my lips. They abort the fetus, wipe off the lipstick.
My name is Beatrix. Inmate ninety-eight. I have dreams of escape.
A story of who I used to be. Mom was missing and Dad hung around, swinging by his neck. I'd talk to him; the creaking rope talked back. My trigger? A few kids curb-stomped a puppy. They were my first kills. Their parents were next. The drunks poured out, shrieking. I shut them the fuck up. Bashed their brains in. Then all the neighbors.
The hardware store kept growing taller. The town kept growing smaller. I smelled bacon. Blueberries and cherries. A parfait of gunshots. I clipped all the motherfuckers. Except one rodent who hid. The bitch popped me in the head. A coroner, for a few Benjamins, pronounced me dead and delivered me to this asylum.
I'm a necromantic potion. A plaything. A guard's fucktoy. A breathing fleshlight.
That night, I entered the dreamscape. A hotel lobby. A woman with cat eyes. "Want to make a deal?" she asked. Mephistophelean. Faustian.
When I woke, the place was in a blackout. All power shut down. Bulbs exploded. The backup generator threw a rod. I walked out with a plan and a crew who were down to clown.
Lipstick on quicksilver. It feels like you're here. A rope sewing machine. We became one entity, nerve endings fusing. By the light of a passing moon, blades opened sharp and clean. We dismantled with poetry. Gordian knot boundaries. Gut-twisting entrails' promises. An axial enigma of tenderness. A curious vulnerability.
The twining helixes of my blade. Forged in what furnace? Tracing your radiance, the epicenter of your existence. A graffiti artist spray-painting your lips into venous auroras. Kissing a beautiful poison. Strategically chromatic. Stiff and forevermore... lifeless.
I wish I could hear you talk one more time. Please. Say something. Anything.
But you were gone. I was too far gone. The world hid us so well. We are not well, Baba Yaga. Sin-funny.
When he found out about us, he wanted to kill me. And I... I almost let him.
I try to be a monster, because deep down, being a monster is better than feeling this.
I often wonder, if she hadn't shrieked in the backseat right when she did... the world gave me that one shot of adrenaline to fight back. I hit that man with everything I had. Knocked him out. He was driving. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
I killed my baby. When I hit his face, I killed her.
The car flipped so many times.
When I came to, I had a piece of shrapnel in my brain, above my left eye. Half my face was paralyzed. My entire right side was asleep. I crawled, they said, forty-seven feet. They said I should be dead. A goddamn handshake, sealing the devil's claim.
I had a normal life for a moment. And I fucked it up.
I held her. I told her she was going to make it. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed. All I could say was... fuck.
Then she said it. "Mommy, I'm so cold."
Lachrymose.
"Mommy, mommy, momm-" and she just froze. The light faded from her beautiful eyes. I released a savage, ursine roar that shook the leaves from the trees.
She died. Forty-three minutes and twenty-two seconds in my arms. She fought for maybe an hour. A seven-year-old girl. The ambulance arrived twenty minutes later. I don't know what happened then. They hit me with a fucking sedative; I was going to kill them. They had me handcuffed from there on.
I remember what I said to the two men before I fell out. "I will always be looking for your faces."
They kept me in jail during her funeral. They took that from me. And you... you didn't go. You shunned with the rest of this godforsaken county. Then I came home, sat down, and that pathetic excuse for a man blew his brains out.
They showed up, said I did it because my fingerprints were on the gun. My prints were on the gun, but not the trigger. That's what saved me. Yeah, I picked it up. I stuck it in my mouth. And... I couldn't pull the trigger. A coward... stuck here... because I am weak. Fuck you, Sarah. You said you loved me. All of this is because you fucking lied. These fucking thoughts are horrible. I HAVE TO GET AWAY FROM HERE.
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The door to the shop chimed. I set down her journal, speechless. What do you say to that? I looked up and saw my Dad. He had a big smile on his face I couldn't match.
He threw a stack of cash on the counter. "Well, there's your half so far. Got ten-thousand for half of that crate." He watched as I flicked through the bills, my eyes drifting back to the wall. "What's up? Never seen that face on someone who just got handed five-thousand dollars."
I handed him the book. He exhaled like reading was a chore. I watched his face change as he read. You can tell where the narrative takes over and where the truth bleeds through.
"Ineffable," he said when he finished, his eyes either watery or just dry. "Son, you couldn't do anything for her?"
"She did try to be friends with me."
"You can't do that to yourself. You see the beginning of this? You may have gotten lucky." He stared at me for a long moment. "Maybe_don't read the rest of this person's story."
The bell rang again. A customer. I stood and headed for the register, snagging the journal on my way. "Did you just tell me to give up on someone's memory?" I scoffed and walked away.
It was a younger girl, looking at toys. No parents with her, but country folk don't give a fuck.
She came to the register with a bear. "How much for this?"
"$2."
She handed me a five-dollar bill, hyper, already playing with her new bear. The register opened, and by the time I turned back with her three dollars, she was gone. I put them in the charity jar. The phone rang. I'd forgotten all about the cut on my finger. Then I looked at the clock. Eleven. I never replaced the bulbs or the TV at the motel. I reeled, thinking about what I left in the room. The animatronic. Clothes. That's about it. Probably won't be getting it back. Can't stay there for a while.
Another customer walked in, an older male. "How's it going?"
"Living the dream. This is the vortex. Anything you're looking for in particular?"
He took a second to process that before chuckling. "No, no. Actually, I've got a camper I'm trying to sell. Was wondering if maybe I could rent a space out here to park it?"
A smile cut across my face. "Did you bring it?"
He grinned. "Well, of course."
I love ego. "Let's go look at it. You may have just sold it."
I have land, but I'm not liked by the conformist hierarchy, so they tend to block me from doing simple things. For instance, I have a mobile home. Brand new on the inside, all set up. But because it "appeared out of nowhere" and I didn't properly anchor it or file the right city paperwork, they won't allow water utilities on my property. They were on my doorstep less than eight hours after sunrise. How did this get here? There is paperwork and blah-blah-blah. My response was what got me in trouble: "Santa."
Do you have the paperwork for this?
No, but it isn't stolen.
Where did you get it?
A jolly fat man and some reindeer.
This was on official government paperwork. I guess they don't have a sense of humor. Funny, they're the biggest joke going, and they can't even manage a laugh with their straight faces.
Had to scrap the brand-new trailer. That's what I mean. They just flex their power like they matter. They don't. I'm the guy who, if you get pulled over with me, we're both getting sat on the curb in handcuffs while they illegally search us and the vehicle. Mainly because I fuck with them and I'm not a criminal, so they can't usually do anything but hold me for twenty-four hours. I make a game of it. Educate the other inmates. Like I said, I have a positive impact. Depends on your angle and where it meets mine.
I promise positive change, but for whom and in which direction? If you believe in the corrupt system, I'm probably not for you.
The lovely loophole with a camper is that you need no permits. Nothing. Just the title. You have to be able, at all times, to hook up and leave in a day or less. No one can tell you what you can or cannot do to your own vehicles. You can build a doomsday death machine and roll it around town. But don't you ever move a trailer in overnight and say you got it from Santa. Serious consequences. See? Haha.
The camper was better than I expected. He wanted five hundred. I gave him eight to get him to stop talking and get the fuck out of my sight. I would have given him three thousand; he could have talked me out of the full five.
He dropped it on my property, a one-minute drive, and I was back to work. Pretty boring life.
Often find my definition of a poet always remains the same. A catalyst for the necessary destruction and reconstruction of individuals, systems, and philosophies. The fierce, unsparing teacher who must break down the student completely before they can be rebuilt strong enough to face the final truth. That it all points to respecting their surroundings. They operate alone because the lesson is one that no one wants to learn. Poetry is the sword to craft statues.