Pulling Out Knives

by Tess McInnis

  “What is today?” I genuinely did not know, but needed to in this moment of my plotting.

  “Geez girl, it's freakin' Tuesday...I am off for the next two days. Got me a hottie for those days off...gonna show her how papi rolls” he stands up and does his walk, like a true little gangster wannabe. Heading towards the door, he stops and asks, “you want me to swing by Friday and grace you with my presence mamacita?”

  “I expect you would anyways...and hey, bring me something to eat not from here”

  He laughed. And I was alone. My people inside me were chanting with each other.. My own narrator beginning it's voice... “In one corner of the ring, we have the weak-will-to- live-giddy girl ready to take on her opponent, seasoned fighter. Seasoned fighter has the advantage due to manipulation and ability to execute the plan called 'run'.”

  WINTER by Tori Amos

  Roads. Many roads. I stand barefoot on graveled dirt. I am thirteen. I hear my mother's alcoholic fits of moaning while she is sleeping from a distance. I have crawled through the window and down across the field, and across the creek to find this road. But there are so many. I look towards the paved one and it is tunnel dark with a freaky awe of ghosts beckoning me to come that way.

  I am too scared to move, but I can't go back...not home. Not my home. My heart is pounding physical rhythms all throughout my body, especially my head. I cannot think straight. I am looking for something...something green. Perhaps a green path which will lead to a place I can live in. I see a car coming and I quickly hide behind a tall pine. The car is moving slow, as if it were looking for something too. As the car floats by in intended motion, I recognize the face behind the wheel. It is my father. I see all of his pain drawn out to his face, as I realize the something they are looking for is me. And it makes me sad. I am taking on all his pain in this frozen glance into him. Yet, I will not budge to reveal myself. I will watch as he searches. And how many times have I watched before?

  On the streets, in the alleys, by the church and now here. On this road, where my feet won't move. I can run from, I just can't run to. I look at my feet for clarity they are mine. Feet which own the word 'run'. Feet to flee from ugly world matters, but never to find the beauty where they should stop and rest. Maybe eventually even be able to stay awhile. Six times they ran this year, my thirteen. And each time, he came looking for me, the only man who truly loved me. The first man I ever saw cry. With his head in his hands, he wept. He let it go, when they took me away for good from his life. It was only then, my feet stood planted with my arms around him for dear life's clinging, and a child begging “oh daddy, I don't wanna go...” and my mother sat drunk in a chair sputtering “you made your decision, now get on and go.” Roads...there is no green in my world. Brown dead grass under these feet. Dead because I as a child had no way to nurture the color green. And the curse would follow me throughout my life. Feet would run when brown appeared. Worn, tired and with remorse sewn in, my feet have found roads upon roads. Searching for something in a new path, searching for someone searching me. Such expecting it is never to happen. Eventually, it will cease and there will be no more roads.

  PROBABLY WILL by Concrete Blonde

  I was able to shower. I actually was able to shower at anytime. I just decided today I cared. These days are rare. Besides, I wanted to feel the water on my face. I wanted to get lost in it completely. Let it rule my body, instead of me. The water gave me a youthful moment and one of hope. If only lasting for the minutes I took in there. For odd reason, I was free. Maybe it was a reminder of the comfort I received from it during my worse times. Every time I wore the world's disfigurement on me, I would soothe myself underneath the shower's offerings. I would become like the water, like a stream or river. As if it had the ability to wash away all bad things. Erase the burdens I was holding onto tightly with just the submersion into it. I always saw water as freedom. I would cling to places like rivers, lakes, oceans just to see me across the way. A small happy child learning to swim for the first time. One memory I could own in peace. If I could only dive deep into the water whispering to me, beckoning me in a child voice 'come...drown here and be happy eternally'. That wasn't going to happen here, in a place where the trickle of water out of a shower is manipulated like everything else here.

  I was reminded of prison...

  The haunting of electric cell doors clanking in rhythm at scheduled interludes of day. My one island of comfort, the shower, would be time controlled water and as cold as the guard passing by to stare in. The same guard who would dismiss my write-ups in exchange for those “naked” perks of his job. Each day like clockwork, he would appear before me expecting his eye candy (which I obliged) resigned to use again for my own future use. I was not well from that walk. I wasn't even suppose to end up in prison. What I got was an apology letter from head of probation and parole stating a 'clerical error' and to 'enjoy my programming while I was there'. Over and over, they kept me there. Denying my freedom in smug self righteousness while I sat before them wondering how many dirty secrets they had which could be punishable by law...

  PIGGIE PIE by ICP

  Me in the chair facing a series of humans who are no better than me. And less accountable to anything...including me. While they sat on their judgment thrones casting stones, I was busy in my head killing them all. Starting with the bitch at the end of the sunburned table. I gripped a knife to her throat, making her apologize to me for saying “I disgust her”, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. I was behind her, hair in hand, pulling it so tight I could hear the gray hair scream. Looking into her eyes for her to fall into where I fell. To know what it feels like in my world...at the mercy of

  everyone else. Then the knife bending final salutations to her pitiful existence and pouring her life on the table, on my file. Who were these people anyways? To judge me, but not know me? I listened to the next one's rationality of why I should be locked up. “I was arrogant.” In other words, they had not broken me yet. The crime was my own bad checks. How many other thousands should be sitting next to me? As he spoke those words, I laughed. Just a quick exhaled laugh mixed with of course, arrogance. Then in my mind visual, his voice flew far away and somehow my hand had reached over in enormous pressure to crack his skull on the table, on my file. The next opinion gurgled out of a fat man, my prison counselor, who had lied many times over to me, minimizing my truth with a fat plate full of his programmed responses. In his office stuck a button on the pegboard which read “I didn't say it was your fault...I said we were going to blame you”. Many nights I lay awake in my cell staring at the wall washing those buttons words over and over again in my brain. And now before me, he will spit his voice of judgment similar to the others simply because he has no balls of his own to do the right thing, at any time. I pitied him. Still, in my mind..I must kill him too. Too obese to go down easily, I would have to poison him which would not provide much pleasure unless he started to lose bodily functions and froth at the mouth. Him as floppy flesh, spitting the last liquid breathes of his life with a surprised look down. The last thing he would see would be on the table, my file. After recommendations were imposed, my brain was swelling with red anger and fucking hate beyond anything in those walls. I could have been the collective hate of all the women in there. As if I had stole theirs in those moments for my own vault of bloody knives. I could be what they said I was. Just as my mother had told me time and time again. I exited that meeting to sucker punch the guard who had added perversion to the prison repertoire. I clocked him hard in the jaw for the pain I felt for telling my youngest I was coming home, from the obese counselor who had lied. And now I had to tell her mommy wasn't gonna be around for another year or so. Doctor gentle swooped early into my world today, bringing with him a very large orderly who set me with such unease. I was creeped out by his misfitting uniform or maybe it was just dirty. My eyes stayed pierced on his. Eyes not to be trusted. As he moved closer, I could feel his energy and it was not good. Evil, if I must say. His twitching
mannerisms combined with his fair matching skin tone and hair, I thought of a roach. A very big, intrusive roach. But there he was with Doctor gentle. I slid back into the corner of my bed, knees to my chest and stared. Now at both. It was like good and evil both had came for a visit. Doctor gentle smiled and walked around the room. Roach stood there peeling my clothes with his roach eyes.

  “Say, what's going on today...how are you feeling” Doctor gentle bounces out the words like he's throwing flowers one at a time to me. I don't answer. I am busy thinking about roach motels, extermination of roaches and so on. The Roach moves closer and I smell him. He wears cheap cologne to cover his ashtray smell and chews spearmint gum. Snapping it. Popping it through yellow teeth in a grin. I think of Gary Busey. But I like Gary Busey. I don't like this Roach.

  “Oh...this is our newest orderly...he's shadowing me today ” Doctor gentle explaining the presence in my white room which is now shadowed in black. “Anyways, I came by to see if you are game to perhaps walking later. Maybe around in the group room, or even the courtyard...it is such a nice day out.”

  I think.

  “Just me and you?” I reply.

  “Sure, why not?” Doctor gentle is still bouncing words and throwing flowers. Roach crosses his arms, revealing his power stance to me. Dirty, cocky, motherfucker. That is what I am thinking. Maybe I will knife him later. He is a bottom feeder, I can tell. I know bottom feeders like the back of my hand. I remember them from my fish tank I once owned. A Plectrums, or sucker fish. My evil ex-boyfriend was a bottom feeder....living off other people's shit. Roach was like the evil boyfriend.

  “Okay” and that was all I had to say. Doctor gentle clapped his hands together and made them point at me in agreement we would meet later.

  “I shall see you in awhile...say after lunch alright?” and he proceeded to the door and through it. Behind him was the Roach who glared in smugness and gave me a cocky nod, as if he would see me later too. It's so easy to hate men. And it's too easy to love them. I found myself categorizing all men these days, grouping them like grocery items. Name brand or generic. Out of date and expired. Mentally, one day I would hold onto the glorious notion of a man fighting tooth and nail to win my love. Of braving the worst of storms to get to me. Grandiose thoughts of one out there in the world making his way to me. And then reality would squeeze her venom back into my head. Slippery silent voices reminding me of every interaction I ever had with a man. Bottom feeders... in my world just to suck all the good out of me. The Pandora file box would open and all the dark cards would play at one time. Dancing around inside me like an Alice in Wonderland moment leaving me decidedly unbalanced and wickedly quick to my whole being collapsing into it as truth.

  BROKEN LIKE AN ANGEL by Crossfade

  The fairymares began almost a year to the day. What the world had taken from me, an opposite, and delicately played out version would come to me at night. My dreams became thorns during the day continuing the dream until I no longer could separate the reality from the dream.. I was being haunted by myself. I was being hunted by myself. There was a parallel universe all of it's own and characters alike. Sometimes mysterious men who kept reappearing in the like kind scenarios. And oh, I felt electric for a second. The passions from youth belted heavily upon me to almost a true physical sensation. I craved more. I demanded more, to stay with me please. Yet, all would be lost upon dawn. As I stood with my coffee, peering out the window to watch the day begin and the real people live. I couldn't hold onto even the residue from a fairymare, worse...I couldn't hold onto my life. I was being eaten alive by my head. The voices from youth taunting me to realize love was over. No longer an option. I was over. My mission would be how to be over. Yet, I was still to make one more mistake...him.

  Doctor gentle arrived promptly after lunch. He was still of smiles and a nice little spaghetti sauce stain on his jacket. I found my relationship with him to be growing in trust. He still carried his calumnious mood with him everywhere, but especially with me. It wasn't veils of pity, but of something else living there. I couldn't forget everything he had said or done since our first day's meeting. Today, my mind had been cleared from sedatives. I had put the knives in a dark corner and I was more curious about him than usual. He had brought me some ugly, cream colored sweater with pearl buttons on it to wear to the courtyard. Once again, like the ashtray, I thought vintage sixties. Weird, but I obliged and let him wrap it around my shoulders. It smelled of old, I was having trouble with the smell of old, I didn't want to own that word. I didn't want my thinking to fall down. Not now. Voices fighting me. I focused on the window and begged for fresh air. Old is not good for someone who is over. I had to get back to some other focus, less crazy, more futile. Focus on Doctor gentle, I said loudly to myself. Screaming back at myself...you own old now too, you own old now too...I threw the sweater off and stomped on it. I was failing my first day out. Sinking was coming, then the knives.....oh God please let me have this moment of grace. Stomping the sweater over and over. I couldn't stop my feet in a hatred dance of revulsion. I was foolishly and helplessly caught between my dire need to be sane today...and the obvious reminder I was not. My feet, with their own world experiences were tearing away my day. I was losing it. And I cried desperate things inside to stop it from happening. Then

  in my most miraculous moment, Doctor gentle did a beautiful waltz. He started stomping on the sweater too.

  “I didn't like it either” he said, still stomping, “It reminded me of a neighbor I didn't like, a long time ago when I was a kid” he said, still stomping, “I grabbed it from the lost and found box.”

  I started to giggle.

  I was observing us from over the room, looking down. I don't know how, but I was. His hair was flopping in intention every time his foot slapped the sweater. He was getting into it, and I was brought back to myself in this moment. I truly believe he was enjoying more than me. I looked at him, he looked at me...and both of us busted into a laugh. A true belly laugh. He was crazier than me. We laughed alike and we even stomped alike. It was quite odd the connection I felt with Doctor gentle right then...and yet another voice came up to confirm it. I knew this man from somewhere before. How do I know this man? I wondered. I stopped stomping and stared at him. He looked me straight in the eyes. And then happily content with the results, in a wide grin he said “Let's go”.

  I had a moment's confidence walking with him down the corridor. Until we fast approached group room one. Dead in my tracks, I stood. Frozen in identification with the living dead people collecting around the room, I saw me in every face. The skinny, tweeker girl sitting at a small table picking her fingernails and chewing her jaw. I felt her glare speak to me. I turned to see an older chubby lady dancing in an old ball gown once sworn it was beautiful. She was singing to a young guy who was busy yelling “Whore, whore, whore” at her. Doctor gentle nudged me on, as I switched to tip toes and baby steps. I was struggling with all senses sucking the wrongs here. Every trip wire in my brain was sparking. A gross, hairy...no, scary skinny man was closing in on me, laughing and giving me some other woman's name. I couldn't possibly be one of them, yet I am... and then I closed my eyes,held my hands up to my ears trying to close it out. Until someone pulled my hair. It was the scary skinny man. I screamed. My hands still over my ears, and my eyes tightened more. At the moment I screamed, so did everyone else in the room. And they would not stop. It was our language to each other. The screaming divulged the connection I had with them. I felt weak with acceptance of our collectiveness. Doctor gentle yelled to the ants, the commotion continued to escalate and I was whisked out the door to another door which opened to a courtyard. Breathing heavy, nausea set in, and my light head seeing the sun put me flat on my ass to kiss the cement stairs. I wanted just a moment to restore my insanity to be able to handle what was to come next. Doctor gentle sat with me understanding my need for just silence. The sun burned through me like I was a demon not worthy of it's rays. Still, I managed my feet to offer me to sta
nd up and try this again. Patient Doctor gentle had brought cokes and pried them open off the porch railing, then handing me one.

  “Ready to walk?” he said so kindly.

  “You know I almost lost it in there don't you?” I asked curiously, knowing the answer already, but still needing to hear it.

  “I guess I figured you were too worn out from sweater killing to go for round two in the group room. What was going on in your mind in there? Being around people, well, not just people...I guess sick people.” he gulped down a large swig of the coke like his last drink and stared at me. We were walking. It felt like gravitating to me. I wasn't sure I could speak sensibly and walk at the same time. My thighs were still shaking weak condolences from the previous walk about. I stopped to stand at a large pine tree. I was being taken somewhere else just by the appearance of a dangling pine cone.

  “I think you already know what I was thinking” I continued, “In fact, I bet you probably think the same things I do, except your mind isn't a pendulum, swinging back and forth into bizarre extremes. Humans are odd. I can love a face on one, and still, hate the whole being on another. I feel things Doctor.

  Things I shouldn't. I see into their souls, their pain, and I chew on their pitied meaningless existence. It only becomes god awful to me when I look at them and see me”. I finished with my head down, now noticing red gravel laid neatly amongst yellow flowers.

  “True, I am of those fears to a degree, but I harness the good in people, attempt to pull out the potential and make them see that for themselves. I have to believe people can heal and overcome the pain.”

  “That sounds like a crock of shit” I mustered out in low breathe. Calling him out for his smugness.

  “Well, why else would I be a doctor then?” He was laughing when he said it.