Again the rush of words clog up my throat and get entangled in my larynx.
I don’t know if I am numb or it’s just the medication taking over my limbs. And I like it. I like that I get so drowsy I can hardly stand and my fingers feel cumbersome and useless.
Because then I don’t have to feel.
Dear Digestive System,
I grow weary of your ineptitude. Why do you insist upon making such a ruckus and churning obnoxiously? I do not appreciate the sensation of having what feels like spiky double jointed gymnasts doing back flips in my tummy. The fuck is wrong with you? You high on something?
Your role is simple. You break down food. That is all! Why do have to throw tantrums and squirt acid all over the place? Especially when there is nothing to digest! Are you retarded? What, it’s not like I don’t put anything in you.
What are you trying to say, biscuits and cereal are not good enough for you? You prefer fancyass food, is that what you’re saying? Well look here, I am on a budget. I can’t keep ingesting lobster bisque and sirloin steak. I have other things to pay for, you know! You are just spoilt and selfish. Why can’t you be more like the elbows? They have never given me any trouble! (Way to go elbows!)
I feel like I can no longer stomach (harhar) your gross insubordination and incompetence. If I continue to be hindered by you tomorrow I’m afraid I shall have to be nasty. Don’t make me go down there. I suggest that you refrain from getting on my bad side. I pity the fool who gets on my bad side.
Consider yourself warned.
Your boss,
Vanessa
I’m not one to complain. I will not start now. I suspect that someday all this bottled up angst will manifest itself as a nervous tic (have I mentioned this before?) and cause me to haemorrhage. In the later stages of my condition, blood will gush from all my orifices in staccato spurts like something out of Final Destination. I will achieve posthumous notoriety. My phantom will make appearances at the site of my death every harvest moon and flash its ghostly panty hose at menstruating females. Because I can.
All will fear me. Either that or send a TV crew to provoke my spirit into lifting its skirt for a late night programme only insomniacs watch.
But then another fame hungry spectre will come along and no one will remember my name.
All I need is a paintbrush/pencil/pen in my fingers and everything will be alright.
I think. Ah, fuck it.
Walking is hard. It takes gargantuan effort to put one foot in front of the other. To drag my unwilling and sluggish body onwards. Especially when all I want to do is let my knees buckle, to allow gravity to claim me.
To close my eyes and press my cheek against the cold pavement and let slumber have its way with me.
I want to sleep, right there on that too familiar path I trudge down every morning.
I have the exact same thoughts, every single day.
Moth flies. Have you heard of them? They are tiny – just millimetres wide. They dwell in the dark and damp and crawl in and out of crevices I never knew existed.
My bathroom is infested with them.
They dive bomb my face like kamikaze pilots and get stuck in my moisturizer. When I soap myself I look down and see the little buggers clinging to the foam. They hide in my clothes. Sometimes I go in and see their miniscule bodies lying in puddles like some bizarre mass insect suicide cult…thing.
Every morning it’s war. I lather up my hands and seek them out, slapping the walls and flinging suds. I claw at them as they try to fly away. If I manage to snag them in midair, well, 50 points to me. (Who’s your daddy now?)
I leave their mutilated bodies on the wall as a warning to their comrades, but they know no fear. They still come in droves. I know what they are doing. They are hiding, biding their time, smoking their little insect cigars and plotting their next move. Prodding their maps and checking their blueprints. Adjusting their helmets, writing letters to their wives. Bastards.
For every 5 of them slain I find another 10 ready for battle. They fly out of my towel, trying to ambush me. They buzz around my ear whispering threats. You think I’m that easily intimidated you little fucks? No. I will not go down. I will fight you as long as I am able to. I will fight you to the end.
Tomorrow I’m bringing in a flamethrower. Game over bitches.
At first I felt relieved. Freed. Because the decision was taken away from me. Because I don’t have to think about this anymore. I don’t have to. In theory.
But I still do. Like a stain, it’s always there. A stain so deeply seeped in the cracks and wrinkles of my frontal lobe. I try not to think about it and sometimes I succeed. Sometimes the distractions are too feeble to keep my thoughts away for long.
I think it’s cruel how some things can be so easily forgotten.
And some things you can’t forget.
I want to forget. I want to forget anything ever happened. Maybe if I scrunch up my face and whisper this with enough ferocity, enough conviction, it might come true.
Then I will be truly freed. For good.
