When I was six, my grandmother enrolled me in ballet class.

     This choice was the first of many attempts to negate my tomboyish nature. Perhaps, she’d hoped that instead of collecting insects and cutting apart Barbie dolls, the pirouettes and glitzy attire might spin me. I was spun, eventually, but that had nothing to do with dance.

     Blame it on my peers; blame it on the tutus. Truth be told, my time was generally spent out of sight; but I got my kicks sneaking a reptiles home, playing with dinosaurs - never dolls, or - of course - taming earwigs. Alone.

     I don’t remember the classes, or the other little girls. In fact, the sole (no pun intended) impression left behind by those dance classes was why they'd end.
It was to be my first recital. The whole class had been coaxed into flashy leotards and uncomfortable tights. We’d been instructed to skip in a single file line onto the stage, which catalyzed my predicament, as I hadn’t a clue about the routine.

     As the girl preceding me danced into view, I floundered in terror – my turn had arrived. I fumbled along in her wake, passing the curtain and reaching the stage.

     The stage!

     An arena of ruthless lights, unveiling my anonymity. I faltered in terror, registering the audience registering me. How vast the auditorium looked against my tiny body! Betrayed by those blinding stage lights, I cowered at the mercy of the whole world.

     The instructor, a faceless female, was showing whose boss as girls began skipping around me.

    And yet, there I stood. Petrified that moving forward negated any hope of escape. My proximity to the curtain merited two options... the bright side of the curtains, which would soon claim everyone else in the vicinity, or the dark. I engaged in a mental game of Tug-a-war that lasted all of about half a second.

     The dark curtains won.

     So, dodging around the obnoxious ballerinas, I descended back into safety. It mattered not where I went, as long as I put distance between myself and the audience. Distance between myself, and detection.

     At some point, I discovered a backstage crevice, in which darkness sheathed me. For, even at five, I understood dark and safety to be synonyms.

     So, I crawled inside, and I hid.

     I don’t remember who went seeking. Nor, do I know who found me. Nobody is a possibility; it was an “Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free” forfeit, perhaps. A rule that defeats the point of its own game. For at six, I was young enough to obey that “come out, come out, wherever you are” nonsense. But, such rules were dropkicked long ago.

     For, your existence – dear hide-and-seek – all but defines me. This game, that darkness, possesses my psyche.

     Some days, I ponder the uncertainty of memories. Vexed, for where memory dies, illusions are born. Illusions romanticizing reality – a reality in which I never came out, lost and unfound, a reality in which I’ll never come out, out, wherever I am. Hidden beneath the darkness.

     For, in truth, I have been hiding ever since.

G'day from prison!*
(before I knew he lives on):

I see you there, My Maple.

Your little skirts; your peroxide hair.  Sweet, quiet Maple... I see your fishnet, maroon, little sweater. How I loved that thrift-store garment; it gave purpose to us both. For you, an excuse to see, without being seen. A voyeuristic excuse, for myself, to see without being seen.

If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t know this.

I picture your starkness. Dark, ten year old Maple. Listening with wide eyes - as I validated you.

As no one else had before.

I nurtured that Goth infatuation that no one wanted, fed you music: your Evanescence covet. Your black fingernails... Even then, I understood what no one else could.

Yummy, tasty, Maple.

How good you smelled; how fresh you smelled. Clean, and sad. Searching for reassurance. Searching eye's, searching for me.

Searching for someone. Anyone. A real person; content to SEE you, and love you anyways. Not like the rest; all of them - who'd only ever cast you aside - pick you last - call you names, spit in your face, lock you out and alienate you; who’d kick and shove you.
The *someones behind why you, at age ten, began to wish you were dead.
I was there, and I was your best friend.

Me.

I was the best friend you'll  ever have. Someone who loved an anomaly, and understood, and loved you best; over your mother - your sister - I told you I had a crush; a crush for only you.

10 years have lived and died between us.

10 years without me.

And the weight of time has yet to alleviate.

You still wish you were dead.

I still feel your warmth; the little bundle of you.

You.

You in your cozy, blue bed, with your
curious eyes and porcelain face. I would slip five dollar bills under your pillow; tell you, “I’ve hidden something secret.”  

I adorned you with money, pampered you with special trinkets, allowed rare privileges disproved by your mother... A mother who hadn’t a clue you’d worshipped angry rap since the age of eight. She didn’t know. You idolized Eminem. She’d yet to learn his name. You wanted to see 8 Mile; your mother said no – Rated R – so it was our little secret.

But you betrayed our secrets, didn't you?

We have no secrets anymore.



I see you there.

The soft, supple skin of your back . . . of your stomach . . . and of what lay below.

“What’s down there?” I’d inquired.

So enamored, exploring the secrets of your little body.

My demure, sad Maple.

I was your one and only true companion.

I was your one, and only friend.

Yet, here, in this cell, you will never see your best friend again.

You will never have a best friend again.

For in this cell, I have nothing left, but to remember.

I have nothing left but to write.

All my love, my presents, my company. All to end up here.

Here, behind bars.

And the weight of time has yet to alleviate.

You still wish you were dead.

But you and I - we've become synonymous.

Together, forever.

Just as I said, ten years ago. For, no matter what, my existence will always define you; and yours - you will define mine.

Forever.

You'll never be rid of me, and you can never leave me.

For I'll never leave you.

Our bond is solidified.

Perpetually.

Together forever.

Ten years. Eleven, twelve. The calendars change, but you and I? We’re right where we left each other.

So you'll never be anything. Anything at all. Anything else but mine.

The weight of time won't ever alleviate.

And you STILL wish you were dead.

- Thomas Gregory Brown, G'day from prison

​​     I was ten years old when I wrote it.
One lone sentence. A sentence that would become my mantra; the sentence that defines my existence.

I wish I were dead.

I first wrote it in my journal. Then a couple days later, I wrote it again. Then again. And again and again and again. Until eventually, the pages had all been claimed. Each line on each page reiterated one phrase – I wish I were dead.

Although I was merely a fourth grader, this was no passing phrase (get it?). Ten years separate me from that lone sentence, yet I am ready as ever.

​I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. I WISH I WERE DEAD.

​This is how I feel six days out of seven.
I can no longer count the number of failed attempts, the static loony-bin trips, the hospital hopping routine – a process I’ve memorized verbatim.

Can’t say how many times I’ve survived these garbage disposals for the insane.

You’d think if I really wanted to die, I’d be dead already. Yet, in a bizarre manner, not even the Grim Reaper wants me. I’ve consumed rat poison and lived, rolled my mom’s car and escaped without a scratch, tumbled from heights so high, yet – here I am.

One night, last summer, I mixed molly with coke with ****** with so much liquor – because liquor is quicker – thinking for certain I’d orchestrated my demise. Some of my friends were squatting in this foreclosed house, so there was no electricity, and I spent hours playing Sims with some girl in the dark.

Eventually, my computer died – but I didn’t.

The list goes on.

On this list, there’s one night I’ll never forget; an attempt that far outweighs the others. A night I’ll forever regret. The night I came face to face with the grim reaper, for the first and only time, and somehow turned away.

This is how it went.



​     The Last Supper was comprised of 150 assorted pills, and some secondhand Jack Daniels.
​
I ate alone. I’d exchanged dining hall for bathroom; chair for bathtub. I held one lone utensil – a razor blade – nestled safely in my hand. Cradling the blade like a child who found the cookie jar – the way my boyfriend worshiped a fresh syringe of ******; I snuggled that sacred utensil.

I failed to savor this Last Supper – for dine and dash would more appropriately summarize my actions. I ravaged the meal as a stray dog would raw meat. Gagging and choking, whilst feeling nothing at all.

All those pills, that jack, I poured into a jar and chugged like a freshman in college. (Get it?) The most unconventional supper you ever did see.

My makeshift chair filled slowly with water like concrete – and soon I’d be buried alive. So I squeezed the razor tight, pretending it was a loved one’s hand instead.

​Yet – nothing happened.

I considered my lone utensil – the blade – then laughed, and threw it aside. How high school of me – a time when I confused my wrist with a cutting-board. Oh, silly me; my insides could do the work without external additions.

​However, the nausea hit before I’d relinquished consciousness. I feared I would toss my cookies – ones stolen from the cookie jar – before they could toss me.

​An important factor to note is this was not my house. It belonged to my boyfriend’s aunt. And although she was not home – he was. Earlier, I’d thrown a knife at his head and told him I was glad Morgan died, to ensure he’d leave me be, but now I was bored and nauseous and so I got up and left the Last Supper to pursue a bad cliché I just died in your arms tonight.
​ What happened next is not important – I’ll fast-forward to what is.

The first to come was a young girl.
​She wore her blonde hair in two braids. Her tiny body, adorned in a loose, blue dress. Her feet were sheathed in neat white socks beneath modest, black slippers; slippers that matched her headband. A headband to cradle her mind.

​Her existence stupefied mine – for I knew at once who she was. And I was terrified.

This girl was coasting her eighth birthday. A birthday she’d never reach.

And yet – she was as wise as I am thin; far wiser than my nineteen-year-old self. She never spoke, but there was no need. Everyone talks, but seldom is speech genuine. Only in actions can we find the truth.

I’d waited my whole life for her. My true, beloved best friend. A girl as imaginary as could be.

Alison Wonderland.

Unfortunately, she had no intention of staying. She had no interest in my world; she’d only come to take me to hers. She’d come to take me away. Far away. Away so far I could never return.

This time – finally – I’d be gone for good.

My whole life I’d waited; now, she’d finally come. Not to join my life. She’d come to watch me die.

We both knew my lifespan would hardly outlast the hour.

Collapsed within a shower, I floundered for words. Separated from her by a mere pane of glass. She was so close. And yet, I was far from happy – I’d nearly surpassed hyperventilation. Literally stunned to death.

This beautiful angel maintained composure, however; unaltered by my frigid welcome. An unwavering smile illustrated her entire physic, whilst she offered her hand to mine – arm outstretched and waiting.

The ultimate invitation.

However, we were not alone. Not two, but three souls occupied this bathroom. The bathroom of my Last Supper.

On my side of the glass was a man. A man I knew. A man I loved. A man whose manhood was verified by little more than age – 25. Whilst numbers generally distinguish between childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, he was much more a boy than a man. His maturity – vastly negated by defining characteristics. You see, this 25-year-old boy was also a pathological liar, a sociopath, and a ****** addict. He was the stranger your mommy warned you not to talk to – and he was my boyfriend.

My boyfriend, our third addition, was christened Daniel no-middle-name Rodden. An alias more accurately spelled Rotten – which I knew, but refused to accept. So instead, he was just Danny.

Anyways.

I surrendered consciousness slowly. I was crumpled, trembling and mumbling, grappling to sit up or speak.

With all my strength I pointed, terrified and confused, at Alison.

“How is she here?” I wanted to scream. “How’d she get in? What’s happening?”

“What are you talking about?” Danny’s voice wondered. “There’s no one out there. I promise I promise.”

He must have been blind. For Alison remained, hand outstretched, waiting and waiting.

However, Danny Rotten and Alison Wonderland could not see each other. Nor could they hear or feel one another. They existed within uncorrelated dimensions. They were, in fact, entirely irrelevant to one another, compromised by one single factor. Me. Because not only was I physically dying – directly between them (monkey in the middle?) – my consciousness floundered amidst their two wonderlands.

But this was temporary, for we all knew I had less than an hour to make a choice; a life with this toxic boy, or a death with this loving girl. Death, which I’d coveted since I was ten. This decision could not be undone; I could not keep them both.

I never took this hand I was offered – Alison Wonderland’s – I clung to Danny instead. A decision I’ll forever regret. But I had yet to meet the Grimm Reaper.

Somehow, I’d been transported back into the bathtub. I sat back at the table of my Last Supper. Only, this time, I was not to dine alone.
I remember Danny’s face – if only for a split second – covering mine. His handsome, Spanish features contorted in fear; even mussed and wet, his dark hair swam across his forehead with graceful finesse.

On his face I’d never seen such emotion, nor will I ever again.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, I lost sight of that face. I knew he was speaking, perhaps even yelling, his physic – inches from my own. But then, the stampede arrived, trampling him whole.

Empty handed, Alison might have left. But this evaded me.

For into the room poured innumerable intruders. My ghostly escort, it would appear. Some spoke to me, some avoided. Some set up a poker game in the corner – waiting on my choice – whilst others conjured chairs like rabbits from a hat. Chairs they set up around this bathtub. Enveloped in bodies, my Final Supper had become a banquet of sorts. Danny tried to hand me a bucket, to throw up my poison, but I was so weak I couldn’t have held it had I wanted to.

Out of all these people – souls I presumed dead – I recognized only two faces.

Preston and Henry. Two boys I knew – and although ****** addicts, they were alive and well. Not ghosts like the rest. However, within the next two weeks those two would both overdose and nearly die.

Coincidence? I think not. Yet, I digress.  

That was when he appeared, for above the bathtub stood a window. Outside that window, I glimpsed a man. A man I’d been chasing since I was ten.

Mister Grimm. I remember not his attire, nor any defining details, only the expression on his face as his eyes singed my own. Complete and utter hatred and malice, with fatal intentions. He looked to me as his arch nemesis – and had I invited him in, he would have given me what I’d always wanted. I knew this to be true.

I knew also that, although Alison had appeared to be the defining choice, she was not. This man was. And in that pivotal moment, I began to scream.

I screamed for Danny – to make this Grimm go away, to tell him to leave.

Danny did. And when I next looked up, the man was no more. Gone, too, was everyone else. I took Danny’s bucket, hurled, and knew no more.

This is one night I’ll never forget; an attempt that far outweighs the others. The night I came face to face with the grim reaper, for the first and only time, and somehow turned away. A night I’ll forever regret. Sometimes, however, I wonder if it was not mister Grim I was looking at, but Danny’s reflection: the monster he soon became.

Or, perhaps, it was not a male I saw in that window.

Perhaps, It was myself.

Once upon a time.

           Once upon a time there lived a young girl. A girl who believed that words could be mastered. This girl was young enough to confuse love with addiction – for in her mind, she knew no difference. She created symbols and motifs wherever she went. Speech failed her, but words did not. And more often than not, she listened, but did not hear a thing. When she listened, however, she maintained an untarnished faith in the words she heard.

           She was coasting fourteen when she encountered the master of words. He was disguised, however, as an unremarkable seventeen-year-old. His presence solidified a stereotype; he was older, darker, and lurid in his quest for love. Spun from his lust of literature, the boy could read with college leveled comprehension by the time he’d reached sixth grade.

           Once upon a time, a young girl met a boy whose charisma was nothing short of magic.

           Within the time they exchanged, she was too young, and he was needy, broken, and wildly manipulative. Their connection was catalytic and in some instances, he fell in love with her innocence, whilst she grew addicted to his words.

           Words; so trivial, so redundant, and so simple. Yet, so inexplicably controlling. In the same instance that sticks and stones could break her bones, his words would eternally mark her. His words, which enabled her addiction. Words that made it okay to leave her for another, to appear again, only to leave all over again. Words that – months later – talked him into her psyche, away from her companions, away from her family, her academics, her normalcy. Into a space where his redundant sweet-nothings ensnared and enveloped her whole. Into a space where she remained, waiting for the fix she could only find in his mind. Once upon a time, the master of words cajoled this young girl into a space which grew so vast, he eventually couldn’t fill it, so he left.

           On the brink of demise, she examined her feeble body. Within, she found the extra spaces. These spaces weren’t obvious; there were no gaping holes or severed chunks visible. Rather, her body was ravaged by innumerable chasms and hollows, small enough to overlook and large enough to define her; cracks in the foundation. Perhaps a gaping hole was preferable – the equivalent to a broken heart – consuming, but easier to pinpoint and remedy. One large hole in a wall can be filled in. But these cracks she felt, this empty space, it unsteadied her entire foundation.
Nine months into her word addiction, the girl could be found festering within hollows. Miles away from her former self, she dwelled within expired voicemails, his notes, his letters. She knew she had no one to blame but herself, but she blamed him anyways.

           Once upon a time, there lived an extra space in which a girl resided; a girl who was not only surrounded by extra space, but filled with it as well. There lived a recovering word addict. Subsequently, this was all her fault, which she realized in the saddest of circumstances. Yet, she slowly learned to fill the extra spaces with distractions. She encountered drugs, new friends, an environment where she sometimes belonged. She remedied her schoolwork, resurrected her family’s trust, and quenched her addiction with masochism instead. Yet, this new foundation stood a mere ghost of the old one. Within her psyche, there remained cracks and holes and the decaying animal of innocence. As some cracks were filled in, new ones spread forth. Her disrepair did not increase nor decrease in the years to come. Rather, it spread to different locations, as she patched and filled along the way. She strived to fill the void; and yet, nothing she tried, no pain she inflicted and no other drug she tried could fill the extra space inside of her. The foundation of her psyche remained perpetually flawed.

           Months later, the master of words returned. This time, he faced a girl who had been thwarted and mastered by his words, and had grown bitter and stronger. Greeted by this unfamiliarity, he left. Only to come back, and then leave, and return, and then leave again. Frequenting her enough to make sure the extra space remained. As the girl lived on, his magnitude faltered. Somehow, the boy lost his words, and mastered silence. This was mind boggling. How someone who was once defined by charm and charisma could lose his voice. How the master of words could become a pantomime of the past, lost enough to cease speech entirely. Lost enough to master silence.
          
           Once upon a winter night in the midst of February, the boy finally grappled to re-master words, and seek the extra space, so long reserved for him. He picked up a phone, wrote some long forgotten words, and she came to rediscover him – wondering if his words could rekindle her space. They sat on a bed of formalities and spoke of nothing. Later, when he kissed her, she realized something; this boy was human. He was not an addiction, or a master, and he had no talent of filling up her emptiness indefinitely. Whether she had put him on a pedestal or he had schemed it, she never knew. Her crucial realization was that no one can master words. Words are merely filtered thoughts, twisted and abused by manipulators, such as the boy who became human. Most words are not genuine. They cannot be mastered because they are infinite.
          
           Extra and speechless, she realized that she was not a victim to any of his actions. She had invited him in, fell every time for his words, created a void, and welcomed him back whenever he saw convenience. He was nothing special, nothing to crave, just a boy. A boy whose words disagreed with his thoughts.

           The next day, she lost her complete and utter faith in words. And years later, she would write books and letters; ones he could not fill.

She was like a rain;
Pouring real hard while you drink your hot moist coffee.
You never really liked the rain,
nor love it even.
She made a thunder
while you try to keep her from breaking.
Driving back and forth
to realize that you just keep on coming and going.
She’s drizzling
while you try to make her yours to keep.
But one thing you phantom,
you can never stop a hurricane from breaking things;
from breaking your own.