How I lost my sense of self.
First, I saw me as the mother of the world, with everything that came to be, coming through me, forming in my belly, germinating in my mouth, spinning like cotton candy, gastrulating cell by cell, moment by moment, and I was in my room and I know not how I got there.
Then I saw myself from the ceiling, as likened to an angel, drapes made of beads, channeling some Big Easy fortune teller more like a witch, with bottles of baby heads stacked around the room.
I told my own fortune—which is kind of like going back in time and thwarting your own parents. And when I told my own fortune, the dark and the light swirled together and I could no longer tell the difference between them. I am convinced, even now, that there is no difference, that the conscience is a mistake of evolution, unneeded, something like hair—I mean, we have hats. Or the pinky toe—you can balance without it—eat it, cut it off. And when the cards began to shine upward through the mattress, I saw dogs and gods playing together like in Ghostbusters. Flatlining sipping my own blood, pinecones from some relative childhood in Louisiana, where alligators play. I had my moment of Shining, now able to speak with my mind, directly, lips thrown in a vat of oil, fried down to mix with rice. There is a direct correlation between how long I stare at the cards and the growth of the shine job on the inside of my eyeballs. I see inside—I can no longer see outside. There was a giant bunny who has never said a word. Filled with gnats. A teacher using a ladder to reach the top of the whiteboard. A man with a rotating head has his finger on a button. Attack dogs shy away, fearing my smell. Dreams where I touch a thing with love and everything I touch turns to dust, bones broken, annihilation. I am unable to closeness—I think they call me Rogue.
And then there come the waves. Lapping at the bottom of my bed. I am in Ireland, or somewhere that grows red flowers. Purple to the touch, biotech Hypercolor—I'll show you the chemical structure of love.
I am grown into my bed, saying "yes" to every boy that asks me, yes to every note, suggestion, path, soggy cardboard is the only treatment covered by my plan. I stop conversing, just to please, just to mimic and to mask, given up on forwarding my pawn—I just sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice and when nothing is left I call that "win."
But deep within me is an ocean. And it is strong, and it doesn't care who it kills, and it is bigger than everyone and everything combined—including me.
When people say, "I'm dead inside," I want to kill them just to see.
Brittle brittle pinecone, brittle brittle nails.
Trimming my fingernails under the bed. I have salt piles for the burial of a queen.
In dreams, I am a goddess. Upon waking, I am frail, frailty. When I clasp my fingers they feel thin and dry—the opposite of youth. Everything creaks—I may have undone my pelvis with the carriage of miniature snakes. Fathom this: a dirty bomb injected like collagen making your lips nice and fat but how do you walk with a stick of chewing gum between your legs? I shave the chute straight as the English Channel, slippery like a slide, but somewhere around five I shut down with a distinct feeling that that's as deep as it goes with most of these people. And even though I live in their house—and will be always related to them—my door never opens and I never go out. And no one ever comes in. I am a landlocked country, completely surrounded by my enemy, but I hold my position, unbenefitted by the potential economic advantages of such. (I ain't no Switzerland if you catch me.)
But there is a bones, and bones hurt in my stiffness, not even cumming brings my ship around. Wind blows through solid walls, necrophiliac wonderings if you have them the answer is yes. Rubbing fetal carcasses inside my girly pouch. Stroking out, every TED talk and brain trauma documentary now on my watch list. Living the life of the girl who used to be a fucking movie director now she got married lives a silent life getting fucked by a man who truly loves her and also loves to fuck women with brain damage.
Irrecoverable: that's what I'mm'a call the first kid that I keep, bring to term and beyond—maybe learn to choke out kids in the sleeping cradle. How far can a Gerber go toward removing the heart and spine of a three year old?—The world may never now.
You can mow down my pussy hair and underneath you'll find a turtle. We're born a naked mole rat, we die a crocodile. I press hard on my clit so I can wait to pee. Before I relieve myself I must tell you that in the pictures when I see my old skin I see the toes of an elephant, all the wrinkles in the world telling geologic time buries my stack of accomplishments, me forgetting, me dying, everyone I know forgetting, everyone I know dying pushing down on their guts sitting on the toilet having heart attacks talking like the spacey old woman at the end of the street, stopping caring how you look and dressing purely for comfort, lowering our watching standards from Kubrick to ANTM to Drew Carey, morphing panties with a single touch and I'll make your whole rainbow turn colors. That's when I couldn't pick the yellow ones from the purple ones and every color! Every color! So I went with red roses crushed velvet chenille cashmere carpenter's nails a goat head and supremely wanting to die.
Now I gotta go to the bathroom.