There’s slime coming out of me. There’s blood and slime. Somehow they’ve gotten inside me and now they’re coming out. On a river of blood and slime. I can’t see them. I can feel them. They’re biting me on the way out. They don’t know what is happening to them. They are terrible. Terrible little mouths, terrible little teeth. And they can’t bite me enough to tear my hand off but they will be able to when they’re bigger. They hate me. I don’t even think they know who I am. I don’t even think that they know I’m their mother. But they hate me. Hate me with their bites. Hate me with their claws. They’re tearing into me, ripping me, shredding me. Leaving blood on top of blood. And there’s more of them. I’ve had three of them. They have come out of me. And now there’s another one. Wet slicked-back fur. In weird little patches. Like it was cut wrong at the salon. This one’s coming out backwards. It’s not breathing. It’s folded in half with its legs pushed too far apart. It should break. It should break under that shape. That shape is not right for it. But its jaws are clenched on me anyway. It must have bitten me before it died. Its teeth are clamped shut on my hand. My blood is on the kitten and his blood is on me. Try to wrench my hand free. I can’t do it without tearing my skin. I wish you would let go little kitty. I really wish you would let go. The other kittens are making sick little meows. E x t e n d e d. Like in slow motion.
I grab myself. Shaking. It’s a dream. It’s just a dream. God. Everything is dry. I run my hands across the wooden floor. The things our minds make up in dreams! Lean back. Wood of the changing closet. My foot on the door. The red of the EXIT sign coming in but other than that, darkness. I’m still stuck in here.
I don’t actually remember them putting me in here. But I can imagine them doing it. Was I knocked out? They moved me into the changing closet? I can see the four of them moving me. I see it from an overhead point of view. Like a movie. I wonder if that’s how it was, if all four of them moved me. Or maybe the other three never came back, and Jenna put me in here by herself. But that’s not likely.
I kick the door. Kick it again. It rattles and the seam widens but it’s not coming open like that. Kicking reminds me what I have tucked inside my underwear. I take out the white silk and reach over my head. Place them on the shelf above. Got to remember to get those later. Throw them away outside or something. If Miss Theobald finds them in here she’ll definitely send me back to Ms. Connor.
Dark. Motherfucking dark. Darkness. Dark so dark it actually comes out of the darkness and eats you. Deeper than flatness. Dark that’s got extra space inside it. Spaces you could go into and never come out of. Dense darkness that doesn’t just stop light. It swallows your eyes. I get used to this darkness. This darkness is my home. I live here now. I’ve slept here now. I can dress here. I can undress here. I imagine myself here because even though I am here, I can’t see myself here. Because I can’t see at all here. So to have the full experience of being here, I have to imagine that what is true is true, to get a picture of it.
I know where everything is. If someone was in here with me I would know because when I went to pick up something I had put down I would feel that it had been moved. If you could somehow magically get into this locked closet with me and you moved one of my things, I would know because I know exactly where everything is from when I last touched it. That’s how I know where I am, by my things. My boots. The roll of masking tape. That metal clip. If any one of them moved it would startle me the same way it would startle me if I was walking down the sidewalk and I went to take a step and the sidewalk wasn’t there. I know where I am by the placement of things. The floorboards. I navigate by them. The seams in the door. The crumpled strip of paper. Those two tacks. They are my stars. Except I place all my stars. I set out their constellations. I put those tacks by the door. One on the left and one on the right. As a trap. In case anyone comes in who doesn’t know my darkness. I form all the dark things into succinct iconographic characters within my mind. Draw them out. Study them. Give them stories. Give them names. Give them seasons. Give each star a color. Give each one a note. Even though that’s maybe not their real color in the light. The tacks are blue, to me. Since the only light is the slightest red cast from the EXIT sign, I give them a symbolic color in my mind. The tacks are blue. That metal clip is blood red, shiny, slick. Jenna’s silk panties on the shelf above are gray. They’re silvered gray now. That’s their new color. Gray like the color of the Tin Man. I give each thing a color. I give each thing a distance from the sun. Draw orbits through them. Charting the paths of planets, worshiping them. These are my stars, and I know my stars like three fucking Wise Men. Like the best astrologer. I can read your fortune in these stars. I can give you a two-card reading. I can do a three-card reading. I can do your whole fucking chart if you come close enough. Come into this room and I’ll read your fortune cookie with one punch. Then I’ll flip you over and read you your lucky numbers, learn Chinese. Fuckers. I will read your fortunes. And tonight fortunes are half-price for violent packs of bitches who lock me in closets. Sit down at my table. I’m Zelda da Fortune Tella. I will tell you whether or not to take that trip you’ve been planning (no). You won’t be going anywhere. It looks like the only thing in store for closet-locking bitches is getting cut up by me. You can run away now. I’ll give you a two-minute head start. Sit down bitches. I’ll read your extended five-day forecast off one of those long scrolly horoscopes from Rite Aid. Day one: you get cut up real bad. Day two: I eat your motherfucking brains. Etc. Day one: you false-step. Day two: I bury your ass. Day one: you breathe. Day two: I kill you. Day one: you move. Day two: I still you. Etc. Waiting for these motherfuckers. Waiting.
Search in vain for my bag. Again find only the corners of the changing closet. Pair of scissors. Short strip of a film negative. My bag isn’t in here. My bag is outside this damn closet. If it’s even there. Knowing Jenna they probably threw it in a dumpster six blocks from the school just to give me some good luck. Take the negative. Hold it up. Press the changing closet door open a crack. As far as the lock and latch will let it go. Red of the EXIT sign. Hold the negative to. Couple of dark frames. This one has something. It’s backwards. Turn it over. Hold it very still. Let my eye focus to the correct range. It’s an image of a knife. Holy shit. Fucking psychopaths. And it’s slightly out of focus. An image of a fucking Special Forces murder knife. Like a Polaroid from a dream. Looks like someone made this in the lunchroom. Background of one of those plastic chairs. This image, this idea, extracted from someone else’s subconscious and left here on the floor. Which means someone from period two is using my changing closet. That’s when I’m in AP Bio. When I get out of here I’m gonna get my own lock and lock this thing up tight. No one’s getting in here but me. The last thing I need is out-of-focus negatives lying around. That type of shit will mess with your chi.
Thinking of the test today. Circling. Filled in that last oval. Closed the blue book. Ended the series of questions. Don’t go back and check the answers. Don’t go back. Pencil down.
Now my closet. Hours in here. What time is it? Zen breathing. Clutch my sides. Breathe in contentment. Breathe out resentment. Fuck it’s cold. I should have brought my hat. Why don’t I have my hat? It should be with me at all times. Check the floor again. Shelf above. Silk. My bag’s still not here! I should keep a hat with me at all times. This is a lack of planning. I didn’t plan ahead. I didn’t think I’d be locked in my changing closet in mid-winter for an entire night until someone comes by tomorrow morning! When is the first photo class? Wednesday. It might be—I think it’s still second period. That might be it. Maybe. That might be it. Breathe in. Breathe out. Try not to start shaking. Shaking makes you colder. It makes you think about the cold. They could have at least put me in here with my jacket. Just breathe slowly. I’m not even sure I brought my jacket. Breathe slowly in. Is it on the table? Breathe slowly out. I don’t think it’s on the table. And of course you always have to pee at moments like this. It’s inevitable. If I think about it, it will start sooner. Naturally while I’m locked inside a closet. Naturally. I’m not gonna pee in here. If I do I’ll disguise it somehow. I could let it run onto the floor outside the closet and it would evaporate. Don’t think about having to pee. Don’t think about having to pee.
I’m glad Jenna’s gone. It’s better here without her. It’s even better to be locked in a closet without her than to be free and have her around. She’s a terror. She can’t be trusted. There’s just less to contend with, if you are able to suffer alone. I can wait in the pain of being cold. And also of being stuck in here like I was dead. But I can do it alone. I can do it without someone watching. I can try pushing my back into the crevice made by the closet walls. See if that makes it any warmer. I can rub my legs together like an idiot for the warmth of friction with no one here to see. This is not, on top of being shameful and pathetic to my own observation, also embarrassment with strangers. Yes, leave me here. Go home to your brother. You two are too much alike. Go somewhere warm. You’re probably having dinner right now. The whole family together. And the two of you are both thinking about me. Each from a different angle. One of you wants to fuck me. The other one wants to lock me in a closet. Leave me to plead with the temperature. And with time. By myself. If you’re being abandoned it’s much better that you do it alone. Not like on The Alaska Experiment where you’re stranded in the middle of a deadly ice shelf and to make matters worse there’s a camera crew and survival experts there. Not to help you. But to watch you suffer.
There is something wrong with us if you can’t actually go to Alaska anymore to struggle and possibly die in the wilderness. You can’t actually do this by yourself. It has to be on a TV show. Alaska doesn’t even exist anymore. Not in the sense of danger and wildness and huge expanses. Alaska is now our idea of something that could have been wild, once. We watch it on TV and pretend it still is.
And run to the kitchen to snag Klondike bars during the commercials.
I wish this darkness was Alaska so there would be something here to eat me.
I’m gonna stop messing with people. I think I’m gonna have to. The only thing that scares me is that I may have to stop talking with them in the process. I don’t see how people talk to people. The ones that do talk to people successfully are never ones that I like. I don’t understand people. The best ones must be hiding somewhere.
If I didn’t mess with people I would just cut them. I would like to cut Jenna. I would like to cut parts of Molly. I would only cut girls, I think. I can’t think of any boys I would like to cut. Or: I cannot imagine liking cutting a boy. Jenna I would cut across her face. I would cut her with an X-Acto knife. Mark her up with lines first, guides. A little Sharpie to the cheek and then a little X-Acto over that. Molly I would cut on her abdomen. I would only cut Molly once, to make a point. But Jenna I would cut until she looked like Pinhead from Hellraiser, just cut the fuck out of that face. ‘Cept my version wouldn’t be in straight lines. It would be all over the place. Who else would I cut? That would be it, for starters. Those are the main ones.
This dark in front of me is connected to a whole bunch of other dark. It’s the dark of the changing closet inside the dark of the film developing room inside the dark of the printing workshop (inside the dark of the downstairs of the school inside the dark of the whole school inside the darkness of night in general).
I’m thinking about Lincoln. When we first got him. I picked him out. The shelter guy gave us the sob story about how all his brothers and sisters had already found homes. And this was the only one left. Lonely kitty. Etc. I did feel sorry for him. Not because of the guy’s story. The guy’s story was probably bullshit. He probably didn’t even have brothers and sisters. I felt sorry for Lincoln just because he was a sorry-looking cat. He was. He was from the beginning. I loved him from the beginning but right from the first time I saw him he looked sad. He kind of doesn’t know how to move right. It’s embarrassing to have him around because he’s so pathetic in the way he moves. And he nustles right up to you with no regard for your boundaries and no idea that he’s embarrassing himself by getting so close to you. He gets closer and closer and closer to you like you aren’t even there. We call him a whore.
And even though he was always greasy he at least used to be soft. He used to have fat under his skin. Between the fur and the bones there used to be softness. Fatness. Something nice to pet. I love him when he isn’t annoying me. But he annoys me pretty much all of the time.
So supposedly he was the last one left of a litter. He wasn’t a runt. He’s kinda like one of those women with large shoulders and a big jawbone. Kinda awkward. Kind of a slut. He just doesn’t know when to stop. He’s a slut for attention. Like he needs to be close to you at all times. Which is weird for a cat. It puts you off. It’s not even like he wants to be pet. It’s just like he wants to be close to you. The way he does it is annoying though. He creeps close to you. Then he sits at a good distance. Like he’s on your chest. Then after a second he moves closer. Like instead of your chest he now wants to sit on your mouth or something. No matter how close he gets to you it’s not close enough for him. He tries to get closer. It’s annoying. Between Lincoln and Zelda, if I could have a cat in here with me right now, it wouldn’t be Lincoln. There’s just something wrong with him. And he’s so annoying, you don’t feel bad about hating him. Not hating. But when you make fun of him it doesn’t feel wrong. Kind of like some people I know around this place.
Zelda is the only cat I’ve buried. We found her behind the couch. Stiff neck cat. Eyes glazed over cat. Pits in the eyes. Something had already taken bites out of her. Claws extended, tail stiff, neck stiff. Legs rigid. I wrapped her in a blue towel. Carried her into the back yard.
Some things are so dark that they cannot be said in words. They can only be said without eyes. Even if you have eyes they are like things said to the blind. Said in blackness. Without respect for the light. They can be said in bumps and ridges. They can be said in caverns. They can be said with spit. Some things are said with hair. Some things are said when blood dries. Some things are said when crust flakes off. Some things are said when skin is cut. Some things are said by severing. Some things are said by brushing. Some things are said by pressing. Some things are said with tongues. Some things are said with toes, or teeth, or tears. They don’t need light. They don’t need words. They don’t need sound. They get said anyway. They get said stronger, and they get said more terrible. They get said in ways that don’t go back. They get said in ways that maim. They put me together and take me apart. They put myself together. They take myself apart. These are the things you should say to me. These are things if you say them I will listen with my skin, I will listen with my skull, I will listen with my fingers, I will listen in Braille.