Normal Is the Setting On the Dryer
In the books
the girl always has
this perfect life
and then it all falls apart and then she meets a boy and he puts it back together.
That’s not my story.
My life it kind of a wreck.
And I like it that way.
I party too much
and treat people like shit.
I drink
and I talk back to my parents.
I ignore my brother even though I love him.
I push people away-
even though my happiness depends on them.
Forget just my life being a mess, I’m the disaster.
And I’m okay with that. I like my life the way it is.
So,
why did everything have to change?
He died
And so did I.
Inside I mean.
The outside part will
hopefully
come later.
That’s the plan.
If he had to die,
why shouldn’t I?
I couldn’t live life without him.
Without him to stop me from drinking too much-
I don’t listen to anybody else.
Without him to stop me from chasing
after the wrong boys-
they were his friends first, he knows them better.
Without him to comment on every little thing…
I’d just miss that.
Hypothetically
Even if I lived.
If I was sad,
what kind of life am I even living?
But if I was happy,
could that mean I was forgetting him?
Oh god,
what if I forgot him?
I remember
The night he died.
Well, sort of.
I was high above the clouds
the night I got the news.
I remember the party.
The smell
of sweat and weed.
The rush of bodies.
against me.
The feeling
I was on top of the world.
And then I fell.
Hard.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Until I hit the ground with a splat.
“Your brother was murdered.”
Just like that.
My parents told it to me cold.
No,
sit down, honey
or
drink some tea, honey.
No,
“Your brother was murdered.”
It repeats.
Echoing in my mind until
it’s all I can think.
Except I can’t quite grasp it.
It’s sand slipping through my fingers.
I can see the words when I close my eyes.
But I can’t understand.
You can’t understand
something
if it isn’t real.
And at that moment it wasn’t.
Not until later.
Later
I woke up with a pounding headache.
The words from my dream
still throbbing in my mind.
“Your brother was murdered.”
I giggle at the thought.
It was all a dream.
I go into his room.
But he isn’t there.
And he isn’t in the kitchen
eating his stupid sugar cereal and still keeping his lean figure
And he isn’t watching TV
slouching and shouting nonsensical obscenities at sports.
And he isn’t in any of the places I look.
I ask my mom where he is.
And she screams at me.
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
I shut up.
And I don’t talk for the next 72 hours.
I cry, silently.
I scream, silently.
I write my suicide note, silently.
I take the pills, silently.
I wake up
Cold.
Scratchy.
Bright.
Is this hell?
Yes, but you’re not dead
It’s the kind of hell where they watch
you sleep.
It’s the kind of hell where they force feed
your friends.
It’s the kind of hell where they tell you
to get better.
And maybe you don’t want to.
Maybe this personal spiral
you’ve created for yourself
is just where you want to be.
Maybe this is where you deserve to be.
Because you ignored your brother.
Because you called him names.
And slept with his friends.
And didn’t stay with him that night.
You didn’t stay with him that night.
You didn’t stay
with him that night
because
you’d rather be at that party
you’d rather be drinking
you’d rather be smoking
you’d rather be doing anything to break free of the sadness
even if it was only for a little while.
A netted drain
that catches all the bad
like knots of hair.
But lets the good thoughts
slip through like running
Water.
That’s my mind.
My ugly, twisty place I call
Home.
“You’re not normal!”
And so it finally comes out.
Standing in our living room
facing in standoff.
She looks stricken with horror to finally have said it aloud,
she doesn’t know
that I’ve known
that she’s been thinking it
this the entire time.
She thought it when she found my limp body.
She thought it when she saw me in the hospital.
She thought it when she drove me home.
“Normal
is the
setting on the dryer,” I say,
“None of us are normal.”