i would breakdown at your feet

something ripped out a journal from quite a long time ago:Dark black swirls around in spiral s’s and y’s. The clock reads 6:53 p.m. ‘The Perfect Way’ trickles in and out of sound grasp. My head dunks in and out, as the faucet begins to run cold. How long have I been in here? How long have I been rinsing and repeating? How long has my mind been re-tracing the past four years of hell and high-water, or just High School? They say this is where the story ends. Or begins. And, here I am. Hair dangling and dripping down my neck. Shoulders. Black as midnight. As death, as Mom would say. But my cheeks are flushed. Red as cherry pie. The steam surrounding the room. Almost suffocating me. Drawing me into a dizzy, dreamlike haze. I like the look of me this way. Foggy. Almost like staring with a squinted eye. I’m there somewhere. Shadows and black outlines. Blurred. I think I like my life out of focus. Upside down. Misplaced.He was supposed to call tonight. We had outfits to discuss. A sanity plea. He said he had things to be spoken. Words and music. We both know how to blend the two. How to weave together lyrics and language. It makes sense. To us. Underwater I can’t really hear the lack of ringing. With the music on I can pretend to drown. To drift away. I can block out the rumors that I close my eyes and ignore. People like to talk about everything. Lies are so appealing. No one knows us. Not really. I want to wear his t-shirt tonight. The ones with the fins painted on them. From that night. Snuck back into the theatre building. It helps to be a teacher’s pet sometimes. All those good grades and mocking echoes. Well, they got us in that night. Sitting backstage on the dusty floor. Make me magic, Louise. Turn me into something beautiful. And we did. Paint on our hands. Glitter. Make-up. Tore up dresses into wings. We painted wings on my jacket, fins on your shirt. It was all foggy and arms and legs. Lips. We stopped being bodies, even. Beings intertwined. ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ in the background. I stopped hearing the music now. Scratches. Then air. Silence is always too heavy. Too laden with expectation and unknown. No one is back yet. Hours to go. Yet as I open the door I feel footsteps. Eyes. Hands. The shallow knot of not able to breathe. In my throat. In my chest. Cold lines of water slip under the towels edge. Down the arch of my back. Slowly. Almost tickling at me. Taunting me. And, again I feel the eyes. Almost breath. Or is that mine. My room seems miles away. Long hallway in front of me. Growing. Like in those Saturday morning cartoons. But I know when the mallet lands I won’t get back up.lucy.