“How do you cope?” the judge asks you.

Looking into the judge’s eyes you speak, “Do you have any regrets?”

“No” he replies.

“Yeah me either,” you say with a bitter laugh.

The Judge looks at you with distaste. With his gavel raised his voice rings out in the silent courtroom. “I hereby sentence you to death by hanging, for the murder of 64 innocent people.” His cold eyes never leaving yours.

“Thank you.” You tell the judge with a hint of a smile.

“For what?” He grits out. He seemed frustrated by your reaction.

“For giving me something of my own. I’ve never had anything, so I took and took. But you have given me something, even if it’s death.” You chuckle a bit. “When that rope is around my neck, I’ll be jumping on my own, not pulling at the rope. And no one will stop me, you want to know why?”

You could practically see steam pouring from the judge’s ears as he spoke, “Why?”

“Because I’m rotten to the bone,” you say, your smile growing just a bit bigger.

“Death is too good for you.” The judge spits out.

A bittersweet taste fills your mouth as you look down, a full-blown smile on your face, “Death is my friend.”

On our land you see, we live close to a swampy pond of sorts. And every day I can hear the sound of snorts and rib-bits echoing throughout the holler, well at least ever since Granny Rosemary tried to place a spell on Eddie Gerald Kruger, the man that broke her grand baby Annie’s heart. She completely snapped one day and had plain lost it when she saw Annie crying for the 112th day that year. She was so tired of hearing about her heart break that she was literally sick to death of it. It didn’t take her long to save up her wages from baking her award winning millionaire pies in order to pay the local traveling Gypsie, the lady witch only came once in a blue moon and she didn’t want to lose a grand opportunity to place the curse of all curses on Eddie Kruger. She was especially lucky to have found her off the beaten path, in a wicked shack by the ole mill road. She wasn’t one to partake in hocus pocus but this Eddie needed to be taught a good lesson. Grandma paid her with a whopping 50 cents, a weeks wages of selling her famous millionaire pies, all of this in order to pick up a spell or two so as to curse the muddy ground Eddy Kruger walked on.

I guess the spell didn’t work as Granny Rosemary-had planned. Eddy turned into an Opossum and all the frogs and pigs in the farm started breeding like mad bunnies and mated with one another. I was told by the groundskeeper that worked at the local pet cemetery that he had seen at least 100 little baby frigs all jumping from one tombstone to another. I could have sworn I heard one speaking to another the other day. Farmer Johnson and I both agreed while waiting on our meds at David’s Pharmacy, that they were indeed speaking in our tongue. And that was quite worrisome to say the least. I just wanted the annoying little things to take a flying leap out of our town. They were obnoxious little mutants with big ole pink ears, flat nose, funky frog lips and long green legs to match. They were the ugliest little creatures anyone had ever seen. Nobody even knew frogs could mate with pigs but all the frigs in Plattersville proved it could be done. Now there little country town in the middle of nowhere had become populated with a heavy dose of frigs. It wouldn’t be long before the news found out about their over abundance of frigs and they would be all over the papers as a major headline.

My mind is a tidal wave of thoughts, roaring over the heavy roads until at last the engine dies. They trigger me like a gun without the bullet, observing my reaction, its damage insignificant to those around me. I am not wounded by sight, yet I feel crimson stains beneath my skin.

I am sad, I think. And yet I smile.

I am happy, I know. Yet saltwater slides over my cheeks.

Will the mind’s perplexities ever be understood as they intertwine and dig deeper into the pit of my subconscious? Thoughts hold blind control over me. I am merely the fallen apple in Newton’s theory, reacting to the forces around me. The cause of my actions reaches to my conscious, begs me to understand my own reactions.

Yet I falter in the maze of my mind. Forever I am a mystery to myself.

Tipsy brought him home over Thanksgiving. A “friend from school”, she called him. Her brother Dood came and told me about him, but I had to see for myself.

The car parked at the end of her sidewalk was red, but was unlike any car that I knew, and I knew cars pretty well. It looked fast in a sleek, sexy kind of way. Not the heavy, muscular fast of American steel, but the lightning-quick, unreliable fast of an Italian, or French racer.

I didn’t knock. I never had. Tipsy was my girl, but she was also my friend. My family and I lived three doors down and across the street. My Mother and Father were long and fast friends with Tipsy and Dood's parents. Our folks shared a garden, took us vacationing to the lake together, and were a bridge-night foursome. We were practically one, big family. I had probably stepped through her front door almost as many times as Tipsy herself had over these past seventeen years.

The first thing I noticed once inside was the embarrassment in Mrs. Swain’s eyes. She wouldn’t even look up at me. When I turned the corner into the parlor they were sitting together on the front room sofa. In all of the years I’d known Tipsy and Dood I couldn’t recall ever having been in that front room, much less having been seated on its flowered sofa. So far as I knew there hadn’t anybody ever sat on it, least-wise not up until now.

Tipsy flashed me with challenging eyes when I walked in. Her “friend” removed his hand from hers and stood, taking away my advantage. Mr. Swain stood as well, sensing the possibility of trouble.

“Hey, Tips. I heard it, but didn’t believe it. Had to come see for myself.” My voice stayed low, and calm.

So did hers. “Well, you’ve seen, Levi Hill. Now go on home.”

“That’s plain rude, Tipsy. Are those the manners they teach you at that college? Won’t you introduce me to your new friend?”

Julie Swain was five years old when she picked up her Aunt Shelby’s “orange juice” one Saturday morning. The glass was nearly empty when “Little Jules” hit the floor. The joke is that she was “stone drunk that day, but has only been ‘Tipsy’ ever since.” They say I was there the day she acquired that new nickname. They say I ran crying to plant a kiss on her lips after she fell, trying to “wake up my Princess.” I must have been too young to remember it if I did, but I expect so. Me and Tipsy have been together forever. I just always thought we’d stay that way.

When Tipsy came home for Christmas Vacation I noticed there wasn’t any foreign car at the end of her sidewalk. I didn’t go to ask her why not. I haven’t been through her door since that last Thanksgiving Day, not even to see Dood, who I still call a friend. I don’t aim to go through it again, neither. Momma says I’m being foolish, that I should talk to Tips, but I saw her eyes that day in her parlor. I saw how they had turned, and how easy her “new friend” had turned them. Nope, my Tipsy was gone from me, same as if she’d died, or rather, same as if I had.

When she came home from her college at Spring Break “they” said she’d gained some weight, but there still wasn’t any fancy car out in front of her house. The other things “they” said about Tips burned my ears going in. I just couldn’t believe them. This time I did go over, but it felt different, so I knocked. Tipsy wouldn’t come to the door, but Mr. Swain came out and talked to me, man-to-man. Seems the rumors were true. Tipsy was in trouble and her fancy college boy had blown her off, moving on to some other young, pretty girl, no doubt. I sat on her front stoop for most of three days, but Tipsy wouldn’t come out. It was alright, though. I understood. Luckily, I already had his name from that “introduction” back at Thanksgiving.

It was a long drive and a big campus, but it wasn’t hard to find him. It ain’t never hard to find someone like that, or someone who drives a car like that one he drove. It seems a “show-off” just can’t hide. Funny, he didn’t remember who I was, at least not right away.

I’d be willing to take bets that her fancy college boy won’t forget me again. It is somewhat discouraging that despite all of my efforts he might not change his ways. Some people, no matter how convincing your argument is, just won’t ever get it. That said, however, he’ll sure enough think through his options the next time he’s in the same situation, and he’ll damned sure stay far, far away from Tipsy Swain.

Nope, that baby of Tipsy’s may never look like me, but I still see a chance that it might yet have someone to show it how to treat the good people it encounters in life... and maybe someone to show it how to treat the bad people, too.

She was sixteen months old when her father left right after her mother died, poisoned by her own blood in a tub with her newborn son.

She was four when a timely scream and a fortuitous memory lapse saved her from a pedophile who she loved and continued to love as a granddaughter will.

She was eight when her disbelieving aunt shipped her off to her godmother to save her from a predatory uncle and cousin.

She was 18 when the ability to believe in love was extinguished; when life was no longer beautiful; when trust ceased to exist; when hope became meaningless; when her future was shattered into a thousand bits of flesh left weeping in a heap of ripped and torn clothing.

She was 24 when he said I love you and she said, I do, attempting to create the facade that might make dreams come true.

She was 25 when she gave birth and thought, now I can love and be loved.

She was 27 the first time he said, I love you, but I cannot change for you, breath stale with the stench of alcohol and cigarettes, hands clenched tightly about her arms as he held her down upon their bed, her only child feet away listening through the wall.

She was 30 when she walked away with one suitcase and her child on her hip, as he screamed from a window drunkenly though no less truthfully, but I love you!

When I regained consciousness, I was feeling cold even though small sparks from the hot fire still danced and twirled around me. My once unharmed, magnificent brick house was in ashes around me. I looked down. Not a scratch was present on my orange shirt, my dark blue yoga pants or my pale white skin. I could see several relics of the flames that had consumed the stone and wood. Blackened miniature statues we had collected over the three years we had lived here, the longest period of time we had lived anywhere, lay in ashes. Weird, I wondered, how am I alive? Standing up, I brushed the small flakes of ash, swirling around the completely burned mass of my house and all that it once held, off me. The small flakes swirled off me and around me as easily as if they had gone right through me. I shivered, cold despite the warm air and ran out to the front of my house, leaving behind the wreckage that was now just a stain of grey in the otherwise unharmed neighborhood with its small houses in neat rows. Around me lay all the other houses, standing innocently tall and unaware of the destruction next to them. As I walked along the sidewalk, a man in a black business suit with a navy blue tie and shiny leather shoes passed me.

“Excuse me sir? Hello?” I asked. The urgency in my voice sounded clear enough to me, but the older man just kept walking along as if he had heard nothing. I wondered briefly if it was because he thought I was asking for money. Living in a busy neighborhood, he probably had kids like me ask him for money all the time. No, not like me, I silently scolded myself, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I kind of was like them. I had no house, and minimal amounts of clothing, because our house and everything inside it had just burned to the ground. I tried to cheer myself up from these unpleasant thoughts with the joy of seeing my parents after a hard day as I continued walking, more urgently now out of eagerness to be somewhere safe away from my strange attempted murder, down the road. The grocery store was close to our house, so I decided to go there. My pointless wandering finally had a purpose, so I picked up the pace into a speed walk. My parents were in front of the old fashioned shop, crying. I ran up to them, ready to explain how our house had spontaneously caught fire. “Mom! Dad!” I yelled to them as I was running and as they were wiping away the tears in front of the wooden double doors of the store. I guess I was still too far away, because they didn’t seem to hear me, although I felt like I was standing right in front of them. “Um, hello?” I asked as I paced the rest of the distance to them so that I was close enough to stick my hand out to tap my mom on the shoulder. I stopped as I realized something was a little off. My hand had gone right through my mom’s shoulder, and I couldn’t see my fingers where they were stuck in her shoulder blade. I wiggled my fingers to see if I felt anything, but wiggling my hand into my mom felt basically like wiggling it in the warm, smoky air around me. I looked at myself again, wondering what sort of monster I had become. I had appeared to be solid when I awoke at the house, but now, in the direct light, I seemed almost transparent, like looking through a foggy window. The sidewalk was underlined beneath my feet, and when I stuck my hand out in front of my face, still facing my mom, I saw the floral pattern on my mom’s shirt, and it’s blue and pink colors mixed with the colors of my hand to form a bluish-tan color, almost the color of a bruise. The world spun around me as I realized something I hadn’t thought of when I left the burned wreckage to find my parents. 

What if I’m not really alive?

#DeathSquad

I’m a terrible human being

...

My biggest goal is to defile you

To the point that no matter how hard you scrub your skin, the parts I’ve laid my hands on sting the most

Smoldering fever pitch to make you shiver in your bathtub

To the point that when you go to bed at night, you’ll be rolling around at 3AM aching for my presence

Go ahead, bite your pillow in frustration— I’ll turn you into an insomniac

To the point that when something reminds you of the slightest bit of me, you won’t be able to handle it

You’ll have me on speed dial begging for me to sprint over, crawl if I have to

Don’t make me laugh

Just your hands won’t be enough

Nothing else will be

Will you be able to eat properly? Think properly? Live properly?

I’m a terrible human being

...

But you, you’re worse than me

Because you think what I’m doing isn’t disgusting

Because you keep showing up after pushing me away

Because you left your spare key on my bed

Because you’re a professional liar

Because you want to do the same

Because when I pretend to be asleep, I hear your little whispers

Because when you think I’m not looking, I see your little grin

Because you let me

Because

You want me to do these things to you

And more

...

You left the rules blank on purpose

I’m only playing along in your perverse game

You thought you had the upper hand

But it’s obvious there’s no winner

Since neither of us are going anywhere

...

After all, we’re terrible human beings

The first time we touched we opened something profound and fell into it so softly

AND

It feels like we’ve landed in a place that’s solid and sweet.

BUT

even still, when I touch you I remember the way it opened us

AND

it tastes precious yet unrefined... like raw sugar licked from the rim of a cold glass.

OH

I would hold your hands in mine, winding our fingers like peppermint stripes and rub my lips across your every delicious surface every second of every day if I could.

AND

I would jump out of my chocolate skin into the caramel of yours and live in your saccharine warmth if you’d let me.

I

don’t

want

her

to

touch

you.

“Reizetta, sweetie, please calm down, you’re doing fine. You just need to relax a bit.” My mom held the passenger seat safety handle as she smiled blissfully at the highway entrance a mere red light away. She gave the impression of yoga master who’d surfaced to a higher state of mind. Meanwhile, I clutched the steering wheel as though it would shatter if I held it any looser.

“Relax?” I looked around the car dash as if ‘relax’ was a setting I’d forgotten to press, “Oh right, relax. Yeah. I should… It’s just a road,” I muttered.

“That’s right, it’s only a road and you’ve driven on those before. The light is green, so you’ll be going on the ramp now.”

I hesitated on the gas pedal and the car lurched twice into motion as I approached the ramp. It was a turn, so this pace was too fast, I thought, but then the car behind me started honking, so maybe I was too slow?

“That’s a little too fast sweetie.” my mom cautioned, maintaining her smile through it all, “And you need to keep your speed even.”

I nodded with stiff grace, and tried to keep my foot in place.

Switching lanes was the next challenge. The cars were all zooming by so fast. “Ah! The lane is ending!”

“That’s right, you should switch lanes now. Someone will surely let you in.”

I did as my mother had instructed and was surprised to see it work; I was allowed in the lane by a nice person who understood my predicament. Through the panic, I grinned. “You were right Mummy, they let me in. They were nice to me.”

“Mhmm, see? Some people will drive you mad with their horns and their impatience, but there will always be those nice enough to accept you.”

As she spoke, I was forced to pick up the pace. Cars and trucks of different shapes, colours, and sizes cushioned me throughout my journey, so even with a speed of a hundred kilometers per hour, I felt safe. They kindly accompanied me all the way to the airport exit where I felt confident enough to venture on my own. I pulled around weaving overpasses and through glowing tunnels until I reached the drop off center, shifting the gear into park and relieving my sweaty hands from their welded state.

“Mummy? How can you be so calm all the time?”

My mother chuckled. “Here,” she reached over for my hand and placed it on her heart.

I gasped. Her heart was beating just as fast as mine felt when I first approached the freeway.

“See, on the inside I panic just like you. We’re more similar than you think, you and I.” She leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Thank you for dropping me off, sweetie. I love you always, with all my heart and all my soul.”

I watched her back away, out of the car. She held no bags or luggage; no jacket or sunglasses; nothing for the trip. Like a magnet, I was drawn in the moment she began to depart. “Don’t go…” I told her, but no voice came out. She didn’t hear me, “Wait!”

“Goodbye.” My mother’s smile was already sinking into a fog that was too bright to be natural.

“Don’t go.” This time my voice had surfaced, but I was no longer staring at my mother, nor was I behind a steering wheel; I was under cloudy sheets, hugging a pillow, horizontal, on an empty bed, watching a lone picture frame on a desk, while coming to the brutal realization, that I didn’t know how to drive.

Suffering from low self esteem, the critical words of her parents still loud in her head, she sought the attention of others with all her might. She fervently believed that if she tried hard enough, she would be accepted and liked; she would prove her parents wrong.

So accustomed to put-downs, she soaked up any form of flattery with great relish, believing it to be genuine admiration. Most of all, she enjoyed the company of young men who were nothing like her father. A petite, pretty blonde, she found herself the centre of attention at the clubs.

Imagine her shock when her illusion was shattered; over and over again.

She didn't know what love was anymore, and replaced it with sex, drugs and alcohol. Down and down the spiral she went, until she found this was widely expected of her and she was too frightened to say no.

Her lack of respect for herself was contagious, it seemed, as the men drawn to her were now abusing her. This wasn't enough to stop her cycle, she just tried even harder to please, until she had nothing left.

One day, she was sitting in quiet reflection, gazing out at the sea, when inspiration struck her. She realised she'd been doing it all backwards! Looking outside herself for validation clearly didn't work. It dawned upon her that only when she cared about herself, could she expect someone to care about her.