She is... Something's Wrong... Without Her

It's been a while since she's felt sad so she decides to...

The scratched rubber soles of the flip-flops scatter the oxidized red dust of main street into the air as she chases after the boy in his school uniform, bright, crisp, white at noon.

She's almost there, it's resting on her wrist, but then it rains and she decides not to slice if only because it can't end in a cliche. 

The wrench slips out of her hand before she can tighten the bolt, right when the gravity generator switches on again. The station begins flashing big red letters on each of its impassable windows. The sirens are unbearable; her ears are bleeding. She kicks off her sheets. She left the heater on through the night.

She does not know why this man thinks that talking about the "pussy he pounded last night" will make her go back with him. She thinks that he is either an idiot or she is a lesbian.

 Nobody will tell her, but eventually someone let's slip. Your son made it into medical school. Your daughter got accepted to MIT. Your sister cured five types of cancer. You've become a household name. That trip you took to some tropical country last week? You were fighting off the paparazzi and interviewers the entire time. Don't you remember? No? It just happened. Real as reality. When she opens her eyes to daylight it seems so perverse she cries without knowing why. She used to love mornings. 

This is the second time she's woken up to the lights in this same fucking ICU. The next time, if she makes it, the next time she'll fucking end it.


She's listened to this sixties pop song twenty-one times. It's in a minor chord. She thinks that she should stop. But she can't. She wants to know how she can hate herself for doing nothing. She wants to cry. But she can't. She's an adult now. She wants to sleep all the time. She doesn't want to shower. That's how she knows. It's back.

He doesn't know her middle name. She will spend the next sixty minutes thinking about him, once or twice her mind will switch to something more pertinent; whether to eat lunch or just wait for dinner. She does not realize this will kill her. It's a Sunday. There's nothing else anyway.

She can recognize her life is a loop. It is replaying patterns. She's tried almost everything except; ...like you wouldn't believe. But she hasn't ended it. That's the only thing she hasn't tried. Three more months, if she makes it, and she will do it.