One more shot,
I thought.
It won’t make a difference,
just one more drink.
I stumbled to the table containing a small assortment of poisons.
Not much to chose from, but so many possibilities lie at the bottom of each bottle;
snakes in the grass
(which one will bite tonight?)
A little liquid courage here,
a shot of lust there,
and a floor full of regret and humiliation the next day.
The latter, I know, is guaranteed.
Although from the sound of the debate between
my lunch and my vice that
seems to be reaching a crescendo, that is, all the way up
my throat,
it seems “the next day”
had decided to come early.
Running to the bathroom,
party-goers splitting before me like the Red Sea for Moses
as they saw the look on my face;
(I almost made it this time, too.)
With shame all over my shirt
I reached for the toilet,
(arms outstretched like salvation was possible,)
stumbled,
and hit my head on the pristine porcelain plateau before me.
A killer ache ran through my head,
starting at the initial wound and seeping into the rest of my mind,
clearing my fuzzy brain if only for a second.
As I rest my head on my bitter-sweet friend,
rooted to the pipes below the ground
with no choice but to bear my burden,
I stared into the eyes of the
creature in the mirror.

(It knew that I knew that it knew that I was nothing.)

I closed my eyes,
if only to see something other than this being that demanded to be called Me,
undeserving of the title once bestowed upon a
charming,
god-fearing,
loving
little girl
with strong convictions.

A girl with
aspirations and hope,
not this abomination in the mirror,
(never meant to be this.)

I closed my eyes harder,
feeling the strain on my pupils,
wishing the nausea away and calling forth colours.
Bright blues,
radiant reds,
and opulent oranges.
Tunnels twisting and turning into each other,
hues and shades I had only dreamt before.

Sure it hurts your eyes, but it’s worth it.
I could never reach the end of the
recurring green tunnel,
though,
not since I was a little girl
at the meetings shutting my eyes real tight at prayer time.
Letting the colours wash over my vision,
my own words to god
at an age where words are few and insignificant,
visuals ruling over all.
If it’s beautiful and eye-catching it must be good, I had reasoned.
(I didn't grow out of that mind frame in time.)

Crash.

The sound should have brought me back to the present, but instead I dove head first into that frustrating, never-ending dull green.

When I opened my eyes, I was 8 again, -

-alone in the dark.
With the absence of the cheerful sound of the Flinstones
that emanated from my television 5 minutes ago,
everything seems so loud.

The silence closes around me,
a dark cloak of anxiety and childish fears,
digging icy fangs deeper into my subconscious,
turning shadows into evil spirits
and running ghostly fingers down my spine.

I get up to see what made the noise before,
the one that shattered.
Each step is torture,
with every one I am more certain
that I will feel a tight grip on my ankle,
as the ghoulish monsters bring me
under the bed
to devour me
slowly,
asking me
if I’d like to know how
I taste
in their voices that drip
with slime.

But no monsters claw at me tonight from under my bed,
for they are already waiting,
snoring,
on the couch.
I approach him cautiously,
a man stripped down to barely nothing,
splayed out on a cheap upholstery island surrounded by shards of glass.
I do not know this man,
only the body he parades around in.
He makes deep, scary noises, far beyond regular snoring.
Something has possessed my father.

I try desperately to shake it out of him,
yelling “please, please wake up!”
But he won't.
Instead he responds by throwing his teeth out at me
and wetting the only piece of clothing
that he bothers to keep on.
I was lucky he wore anything at all this time.

Crying I run to the bathroom,
run the hot water and let it run over my hands.
Blistering hot.
My tiny hands are turning a lobster red,
but the fear seems to rush out of my every pore
and into the rushing water,
and I feel some peace return to my chaotic state.
I feel clean.

“Where does my money even go?”
he yells,
right before he shows me
what the ******* represents,
“Look at you, you’re so *****.”
This is when the monster that hides
within his bottles begins to come out,
after it makes him
throw things
and before
it put him to sleep.

I sit on the floor and cry, pressing my eyes so as to distract myself from the fear that keeps clawing its way up my throat.

Footsteps.

My heart forgets its size and tries to evacuate through my mouth, and I realize there is someone coming to the door and god don’t let it be the monster, please god. I open my eyes-

And there's the monster,
staring back at me,
in the mirror where I’d left it.