Pulling Out Knives

by Tess McInnis

  “psst” I say through the cracked door. I see Lil' Mex, and I want to to talk to him. “psst...hey you”

  He looks around as if he was a patient himself here. I giggle at his fucked up expressions. “Lil Mex...I say in loud voice. He hears me and whips around with a big Mexican smile.

  “Yo, what up mama” and gives me the proverbial gangsta nod.

  “Come here....” I beckon him closer with my hand...which is speaking louder than me. He dances on over like an American Idol contestant with the ticket to Hollywood. I open the door wider and pull him in.

  “I need to talk to you” I say in panic, but not panicked at all. I think I am playing out a script in a movie moment. He wanders about the room, searching food I assume. Instead, he plops on the bed waiting for me to come out from behind the door. I am gauging his face for any sign of hate towards me for the using of him to escape...and I see none. Yet, I am obliged with conscience to bring it up anyways.

  “I really...” dramatic pause and thoughts about this being a moment in which I am not sincere in, more so acting like I care. Which is even more sad to think about.

  “I really....(drama queen engaged) just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what happened. I know you must have gotten written up or something” I said stumbling between the airs of actualization. I liked Lil' Mex, but my mind was a phony nonsense tumbler.

  “Yeaaaaaaaa, well, I did get my ass in a vice pretty lady...they suspended me for a week. It's all good now though...and I have been worried about you. I knew they would bring you back eventually.” He kept talking and I was staring at his precious skin on his face wondering how he got the pock marks. “I was gonna come and talk to you, but I was waiting until your ass was not so crazy...and you were healed a little more.” I knew what he meant. I nodded. He was looking at the ground and thinking deeply about something. Maybe he had his own gnaw. Yes, he had a gnawing and it was for me. I sat back on the bed and scooted up against the wall. I brought my knees to my chest like normal, hands gripped tight to lock them in. I waited. I stared at him. I couldn't wait anymore. “dude..what's up?” I said in normal mind. For this minute, I gathered wits unseen recently. Lil' Mex was full preparing for a bomb. It would go off in his next sentence. I thought to myself, keep it together...don't show weakness, don't go down...I was begging my mind to stay with me now. Normal mind. “The police have been askin' all of us about the attack” he said hesitantly. And he called my murder an attack, how sweet I thought. Just a little attack, almost like a punch on the arm from a child or a playful dog grabbing at your pant leg. An 'attack'...mind stay with me now. Not now. Forget the word. Forget. So I shot out more words at him...

  “OK so, they have been questioning everybody....it is not like someone is going to step up and say 'hey it was me...arrest me'. The police are stupid bastards anyway, they couldn't find their dicks if they were in their own hands...so, what ?” I leaned in to close in on his face because he was contorting skin like a freak, and it was bugging the hell out of me. Stay normal, don't lose it on him. Stay in the moment.“I am just gonna say it okay? And don't fall apart on me cuz I can't handle no crazy shit if I tell you”

  “Tell me WHAT?” black hole appearing.

  “FUCKING TELL ME WHAT?”

  “I think I might know who did this to you...” and just like that his eyes like fast lightening met mine. I swallowed my air, gasped for normal and froze. Staring at him. I couldn't remove my gaze. I couldn't move my body, and my mind was like a computer that had froze. I felt sick. I was sure I was going to puke on his lap... my mouth watered and I held it.

  “Okay. So...are you like going to lose it, cuz if you are I am bouncing now...” I shook my head in a lie.

  “No, I am fine really, I am fine really.” But my mind was flipping pancakes, slicing skin and rage was on a train nearby. I swallowed the puke in my throat, and clamped my teeth together and sucked in the deepest breathe I could ever find.

  “you must tell me” I said quietly, and in robot monotone. Oh, you must, I thought. Over and over. I felt my face stiffen, my nostrils rising in deep inhales and my heart pumping anger, anger, anger.

  He glanced with a cocked head up at me and concentrated on my face. I was hiding all. I thought and isn't this what I have been good at all my life...the stoic face of indifference? He needed to tell me and he needed to do it now before the skeletons of hell danced in this room.

  “I can't tell you” he whispered, “I am not sure myself but I am pretty sure...I need time to be one hundred percent sure”.

  “WHAT!” I flew off the bed in front of him “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T TELL ME? YOU MUST! You fucking must...if you don't I will choke you out right here and now.” Part of me meant that. Lil' Mex stood up and back away slowly, hands up in defensive position. He already knew I was psycho, or why else would I be in a place like this. He stopped, put one hand on his hip and head down again on the ground. It looked like he was chewing his lip to draw a sore.

  “Listen”, he said “ and listen good. This guy, is not something to mess with. I think you ought to let the police deal with him. Seriously, I don't even know if it was him.....it's just other shit he has been doing here..” I bolted his sentence with mad interruption.

  “HE WORKS HERE?” He works here....I chewed on my own lip in ugly deliberation. He fuckin' works here. I kept on chewing. Planes of fast thought passed like jets in my head. The first one to come to mind was Doctor gentle brother. He wanted me dead. I felt sick and sat down as remembered the rape as well.

  “Listen up pretty lady...I gotta move out of here onto business. I will make you a deal. I will check out this guy for real...I mean that girl. You just stay simmered until I know for certain he's the guy.” Then Lil' Mex switched on me. He became remorseful.

  “Man...I am sorry for all tha' shit that's happened to you in here. I understand more than anyone why you ran. To tell you the truth...I was kinda proud you did that. It was nothing to do a week off...just so you know. I always like the girls who are the wild ones. You got a wild spirit sister, don't be losing it or wasting it on no one.

  “When will you be back?” I tuned out his applaud more concerned about my own welfare. More concerned about revenge. I could be black, good color for me. I will call Rage. Good state of mind for what I was feeling in this moment. I wanted his answer to be one I could live for. A quick return.

  “I need a couple of days” he paused to open the door and peek out. “but I will be back...so don't do nothing stupid okay?” He was sliding out the door

  and I yelled “You promise?”

  With a hushed voice, he said “Yea yea.....I promise you”.

  Lil Mex' was gone. I was in fury. I was in a bad hell in my mind. I was going through the whole staff, but mostly, I was settling on Doctor gentle, my beloved long lost brother. Washing out past events convinced me I was right. He did come into my room quietly that next night after it happened...he was being clingy nice now...he did have motive. Motherfucker had big motive. And it had to do with love. Yes, I was convinced. He would have to die.

  .45 by Shinedown

  Four thirty in the morning. I am weirded out from a nightmare. The fairymares subsided long ago from the multitude of medications the ants keep injecting like silent sadists into my arms. Tonight, I had wished for a fairymare. I had wished for the feeling of man's love, even if it was a dream. Even if they left me in the dream. I wanted my fairymares back. For years and years,those delicious pangs of sexual desire and emotional intensity would bravely impose the pictures of a man wanting me. They would end badly, as I was used to, but the peak of my beautiful fairymares would leave residual stimulation to help me get by each day. My beloved fantasy world at night. Each man better than the last one. Hope always held her hand out in my fairymares. But each day upon waking, the realization I was caught in the same world, different day but the same as yesterday, would sink my chest. Immediately, sorrow would beckon taking all of me to put my feet on the floor. I would be trap
ped in the ordinary mundane tasks, like washing the dishes while I willed the visions of the night be fore’s delicacies. Or even stopped at a red light, I would find myself wrapping my mind around these soul burning fairymares. I could never wait for dark. Dark meant sleep soon. My body lived another day. My mind never really with me in unity. Now, they were gone. My only joy of being human. Five o'clock, I have spent an hour grieving my fairymares. The silence in this room, this place kills me. It leaves me alone with my thoughts. Doomed to sit here in the dark to dance this dance. Yet I prefer the death silence then the chatter of people. I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling, which I cannot really see at all. Just a glimpse of light falls in from underneath the door. I am thinking about the nightmare, but cannot remember anything. My mind is quizzing itself to pull up something. Something is laying on a shelf in there important to me now. How did I get in here? Strong is the flavor of my question, crucial bits of recollection is bubbling up. Come on mind, come on memory...be with me now I silently whisper to chilled air. How the hell did I get in this place? One breath sucked in like before going underwater and I am fast sitting up with sheets to my breasts. 'Oh my God..I remember' I speak to all the selves in me. It wasn't a dream, a fairymare, or a nightmare. It was real. He was real. I was waiting by a river for him. He never showed. Why can't I remember who he is? I close my eyes to envision all details of that day, but the show won't play. There is no face to this, to him. I am rocking my pillow in tick tisk rhythms. I have pulled out more of my hair without grand notice. The picking of my hair turns to the picking of my eyelashes. I yank at the small slivers of lash repeatedly. One eye is dealt with then the other eye. Until all lashes had been plucked perfect. Six o'clock in the morning and I am witnessing the sun, but driving a pen deep up and down my skin to will claret release.

  MONSTERS by Band of Horses

  So, where is my mind? The vessel of will I cannot conjure up. I lay underneath my white sheet on my bed and watch as the blood streaks from my arms leave striking balance of red soaking through white. What does it matter all of this? These humans who have harmed my evidence of life meaning. Somewhere around here is a murderer slash rapist slash dead man.

  Somewhere around here is a new found brother who is also my doctor slash someone I probably should not trust ever.

  Somewhere out there is a face on a man who said he loved me, but left me to wait like a newborn fool. Somewhere in my head there are all others waiting a turn to surface again.

  I haven't the notion to feel anything, yet a storm is brewing, twisting like a tornado behind my head. As it comes to form, all will be dealt with, all will be seen. I no longer choose to eat the actions or behaviors of humans. I am over it. I sit here in my bed cross legged and I think. I think real hard about how I am going to rise. I am going to rise. In my sickness of being, one thing I know I can do...is fucking rise. I just need to sit here and think....think about my plan. And I will have a plan for all of this. For every fucking one of them. The storm is getting larger, it's about to pour blood down upon this place.

  “hey what's going on today” Doctor gentle brother walks in like we just finished a gym workout together. Happy sonofabitch. I just look at him with smug expression and turn away.

  “what you ain't got anything better to do than bug me?” I say to the wall, not him.

  “Whoa, someone is feeling a bit pissy..why the gloom...I thought you were on cloud nine not so long ago”

  “That was a fleeting moment of clarity...I found my head again no thanks to you” I looked his way taking my stringy blonde hair on a swirl of a ride as well. He sighs. He sits down on the barren metal chair in the corner and looks out window.

  “Well, when do you suppose you will be able to get it together enough to jump this joint back to your real life?” there was agitation in his voice. I didn't care.

  “Real life huh? Well, what the hell was this roller coaster....you act like nothing happened to me and I should just jump over daisy’s singing praise to the meadows. Ohhhhhh, I see, this didn't concern you, these events....you were about absolution of sins from our mother” I was sharp tongued with fire tip

  “You know what, it never ceases to amaze me how much a bitch you really are. And how selfish your heart is...how can anybody be so bitter?” he leaned forward on the gray chair as if to jump me. I squinted my eyes and bit my lip before I spoke. I then cocked my head and scooted closer to him and said “hmm, your a man, I think, so how could you possibly understand the life of a woman and her work....her sacrifices. She gives up her youth, her dreams, her body, everything for the love a man in hopes he will exchange that with love,honor and respect.”

  He threw me a cigarette as a peace offering, but I was far from finished with this arrogant man form. I did light the cigarette and began to pace circles around him. He was staring at my knife scars peeking through open air pockets of my gown.

  I continued, “ you have no clue whatsoever what it feels like to walk through the same day, day in day out alone. To stand at your kitchen window doing dishes wondering, no begging for life out there. Let's see...I know a world exists, but I cannot have it...I can watch it go by... but I cannot taste the life of others living. My life has been of sacrifice for others since I was born. What does that make me? What does that reward me on earth because I have offered up my soul to all I have loved? My soul....I have given the blood of my heart to everyone it seems and now I am dry. My life has been mute. Negated. Subtracted.” He was listening, so I continued with ashes hitting the floor, laying like pieces of me. Dust to dust. “Then there is that fateful morning where you get into your car and start it...and you think for a moment, I am not going to open the garage door. Not this time. I am going to open the car windows instead and play my music loud. You breathe deep in, exhale slowly...pray for sleep. Then it is interrupted by your kid who decides once again, you are a taxi driver. So you drive, and remember how close you came to finally ending the pain. And you can't even look over at your kid for fear he will see the death scene playing out in your eyes. Do you have children?” He shook his head no. I figured as much. I sat on the bed with legs lifted on the edges of frame and clamped my hands together with my head down. I carried on with my confessions. “I know I have three, I know they love me...I am not that crazy in this moment to not remember what I have done to them. It didn't have to be the car. At one time, it was the pills. Enough of a good thing and you roll across the bathroom floor with your face cold nested to the toilet...until a child cry’s 'no mommy, no mommy' and you know you've fucked it up again. You've not only created new pain for yourself dancing with guilt...but you have generously passed on the gracious memory to someone you love. Someone you see still inside you unborn...yet you can never explain it to them in their whole lifetime why the pain won't stop. As they grow, the sad tumor inside you grows as well. Like a life unanswered. Worse than a prayer not answered. A whole life unanswered and you just stop searching the questions for why you are.” I noticed my tears hit my knees, for certain the pain of seeing myself through my children's eyes had been enough to drill the hole of sorrow wide open. I was reliving their childhood even to the moment now. Their mother had been as crazy as my own mothers. I didn't abuse their love, but I didn't keep my promise either...to give them a better memory of their childhood than I had of my own. I fucked it all up.

  “I fucked up their lives” I said my thoughts aloud. “Between men, meth, prison, and my own dark hell, I ruined everything for them.”

  “Do you believe they think this?” he said in Doctor form.

  “I see me in them, like I already know what is going to happen in their lives now because of me”

  “Yet, they have turned out as fine human beings” He was too matter of fact for me on this one.

  “WHAT...you have been spying on them too?” I spit at him. “Just HOW MUCH of my life have you been in like a CREEPY STALKER?”

  “I just wanted to know you...your kids” he was defending himself again.

 
; “And so you wait to know me until I am in here? And my kids, what about them do you need to know about anyways?” I was feeling violated. And I was tired of his coddling feminine jest. I jumped down from the bed and went to the door and opened it. I shouldn't have even said anything of what I did. He was a creep. He could even have been my rapist and killer. My mind tornado was a darkening funnel widening fast.

  “YOU need to go NOW!” I insisted while scratching at my hair and beginning the ruminations in my head. He got up reluctantly like a sissy and attempted to explain again his lame position on his place in my life.

  “Why do you keep doing this to me...one minute I can talk to a genuine person and the next it's like aunt crazy has come to visit?” he said in passing as he flared a clenched face into mine to exit stage right.

  I slammed the door, saying “my prerogative asshole'' and to myself, I whispered 'because I am crazy'.

  And in these moments of complete madness, the mind entertains wicked reasoning for getting things done properly. I had delicately set to work inside the eye of the tunnel the next series of events to happen. Hysteria is laughter which won't stop...lest you recognize yourself behind the noise.

  THE LION'S ROAR by First Aid Kit

  Lil' Mex gangsta walks in while I was busy stringing thoughts carefully not to lose one to lest I not find it later.

  “shhhhh, I can only stay a minute” he whispers and slips next to me on the bed. He has my full attention. I pray he is here to tell me of delicious things which include the word 'suspect'.