My blood feels wrong, worse because I am in a moving car. I feel like I did in the pre-Celexa period, like I was prematurely decomposing on the inside. I'm back to the worst. The fear will prevent me from graduating, loving, leaving my bed. I will turn pale and thinner. I will wither and crack. Mother is driving me to a dark office to get new medicines.
You are with me and criticizing my sense of humor. I think of your messy house, the yellow plastic teapot on the floor by the piano and I get angry at your freedom to live in disorder without collapsing. I scream at you and yell at you and you want to help me, help me, hold me, talk it out, pet my arm but I just scream. I tell you that you're meaningless in a very concise and loud way. I am proud of the power that exists under my teeth and tongue. I think of Lady Macbeth, fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty. You fold and cower in your seat belt and I feel dark red and friendless. I scream some more because everyone knows I'm scared and everyone knows I'm angry so I can scream as much as I want and all they can do is pity me.
Later when I'm walking home, uphill and in the dark, I pass by the drug park and you send me a message. He's hit you, it says. He's beating you and you need my help. I only answer with a question, "who is hitting you?" I know but I want you to say it so I can feel darker red.
In your reply, all the words are sideways and sadly grateful that I responded to you. You say his name and how much you love me and I feel the weight move from my right shoulder to my left shoulder.
I am not the sick, crooked one, I decide. You are the sick, crooked one. You're the one who loves the cruel.