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V. Coming Home... again
INSIDE: Georgia to the north with the good trees naked and rain glistening on a cloudy cold December day. the glass porch room where the teevee is a 451 friend.
The girl of LII is raw as acid burns inside the skin. In order not to scream, the numb must always come.
It had been five months and twelve daze since the nuclear bomb accident in the main bathroom. (She should have known, he never read her stuff and didn't understand when she said 'not gonna mommy ever ever ever' nor 'well, I'm crazy and worried you won't be able to handle it.'). The stepfather who thought he might very much be dying and the only thing that gave him life - my mother -now drank water out of plastic one-use bottles. This was in addition to the one Keurig. The divorcee was in constant thirst, yet no sanctimony ensuing from her shame cave. This daughter had done this one before - divorced - and done it super bad - bodies might be laying in puddles bad. So, this wasn't going to be something triggering beautiful nurturing memories.
Every day there she cried. The worst was when the stepfather acted like she was the biggest slice of shit on his otherwise perfect sandwich. Yet, it wasn't too bad because it was to be expected. The harder pain from someone you love is when you're blindsided.
She was so poor it reminded her of the last time she was really poor... the last time she was divorced. Boy are those fun memories to conjure up. She's reminiscent of what her aunt said when she was going over what to write her fucking expensive lawyer "honey, don't tell him it's the lowest point in your life. Tell him, it's one of the lowest points in your life."
She's run out of bolt holes.
Who was she. Who was he. From this pantomime in July, she gave herself a new disease to maybe guide her out of the 'totally fucked with no hope' part.
In front of her stands a door with a key she has in her pocket.
She became a master degree holder in a field that makes her laugh and makes any remaining friends both laugh and go "you'd actually be amazing". Yet yet yet yet yet yeti yetski
it's fine to be completely mad and fix a car.
Is it fine to be your aa sponsor when I'm doing heroin? Is it ok to be your portal to the true god when I'm banging my kid? Is it ok to knowingly have a kid when you know damn well you're steeped in traps and you don't have the resources. I mean I guess with right motivation one could rationalize anything.
It's a mindfuck to be someone like a counselor, a minister, a teacher, a parent, a boss. She wept when she first thought of this and gave it a try. It was COVID and she finally was able to get some trauma counseling - instead of commute, therapy! and over the teleport ever the better.
So 2023 the shank of the year, she's wailing inside this old body with its vampire thirst and shame oozing from every pore. And hair pulled out to be cut short (you'll hear the Chas-town story soon enough). Speaking of battery park from southern men, many many many many many men have likely wanted to hit her. Many many many many men she would have dared with every last breath of her body while calling them a coward the entire time. god in his eternal heaven knows that her first spouse deserved to tar her in leather punched bags.
However, you'd be wrong. For some reason - oh yeah the monster fled the fam when she was four and she cried too hard to merit it aforehand - only two men have ever laid hands on her in her bad and cutting mouthy life: the Pacific Islander with the saddest story and her second husband the minister's son architect from MIT white boy who lived off disappointing mommy forever rinse repeat change spouse. Only one of them beat her repeatedly and it's like her father abuse: not rape and chains and repeats but the touch, the power, the daring of doing it. She is out of her mind with an undiagnosed infection in her body poisoning her. She calls it chicken pox but it's alive. For some reason, she keeps thinking it's a reaction from a jellyfish and she wants rescuing so badly without having to say "HELP ME". She's not sleeping for three days, and that one was her spouse - technically he still is her spouse. He's never said "I'm sorry". The last words he said to her and the words he believe are "I'm THE VICTIM! I'm the VICTIM." She was so tired that night.... I'm not sure I'll ever tell you.
You know what she's constantly told in Atlanta? how good she looks. And I'm like for the liver of Jesus it's bone structure hidden beneath fat most of the time don't gawk. She'd love to have some great story of going to gym and loving life, yet the reason is very Taylor Swift lyric from that one song that slays her "like a soldier coming home half her weight". She has been too poor to do anything organic or normal or drink. She has been in asian markets surviving and hoping not to declare bankruptcy. Have you ever had fear for eight million seconds a day that you were going to fail and fall apart and you didn't understand anything and weren't really useful for anything and sorry cat. Sorry soon to be ex husband. Sorry world.
INTERIOR NIGHT sitting in the glass porch home from the holidays and mother allows her the remote as she had noticed that she talked about never getting it before. She picks "southern charm" as it has her beloved Charleston in it, and she's heard it has a whiff of scandal. The stepfather thaws. "OH MY GOD. you're watching that show. It's my favorite."
The girl of fifty-two lights up as does the mother too and we all caroled for another year, and she didn't cry that night and it was wonderful. nor the next!
And YOU are allowed to mock her all you'd like. Lord knows I do. I do sic.
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