Deadra Acosta

June 14 20XX

Household

AUNT BETTY

I’m staying at Aunt Betty’s with My Fat Fucking Uncle. That drawing I made of him, I ended up pouring water on it, wadding it up into a ball, and feeding it to their dog. I can’t stand that fucking thing, its yap, its ugly haircut, its shit on the living room rug. And then there’s my Aunt’s constant chatter, towards the thing, (“Oh, you stop it!”), her girlfriends on the home phone, the siren of “What?” back and forth from the kitchen and the living room, Aunt and Uncle less than ten feet away from each other.

I think I’ll kill myself before I get this foul.

“So, what’d you do today?” She asked me at dinner, face burned the color of a coffee tin under the overhead, the light’s cover bronzed with exotic insect forms, some still crawling.

“Nothing.” I didn’t wanna talk about the card and I didn’t wanna talk about the boy at CVS. I wanted to keep those facts in my head to myself and, I didn’t wanna hear her spiel about what I should or shouldn’t do. Fuck you, Betty.

“I saw you went driving,” she says. And she makes eye contact with me in a way that tells me she wants more information.

“Yeah, just had to run some errands.” I shiver at the thought of mentioning Bronson. It threw me off, the whole thing, all of it. I ultimately didn’t buy the card, like I thought I wouldn’t. I had the feeling I have right now in that moment, like a deer in headlights for minding my own damn business. And what wrong have I done, anyway? Fuck you again, Betty. Stop looking at me without your eyes, you bitch.

I put my dish in the sink and disappeared into the room I sleep in. I look at the scissors in the cup and it’s really nothing special. I cleaned the blade with rubbing alcohol when I did it the other night. That was the other reason I was there, actually. I needed more gauze.

I put my headphones on, carry the line across my calf, draw another, score them until I break skin, wrap it up for the night, go to sleep.

I just woke up at 2:23 AM dripping in sweat. I feel alive. I turn on my lamp and just lay here, thinking about nothing. It’s any day now.

“Happy Father’s Day, asshole,” I say in my throat, not to no one. I can’t fucking stand that pig and myself also, for what I thought to do for him tomorrow. That prick wouldn’t be getting shit from me, not even if I could watch him eat it.

Not even if I could watch him bend down and inhale my crap would it make me wanna see the pathetic everything that he is. Go do it for somebody else, Daddy, please. I’m not even tired anymore. I feel bloated, and I look down at the cut on my belly that I made the other day. It wasn’t really deep, but I wrapped my head in a blindfold, while I showered, and drug it into me with a boxcutter from the garage.

I felt like a fat piece of shit. I imagined all the blooming wasps and moths in my intestinal nest, fluttering and fighting for the scraps of another frozen pizza, another box of rice, another McDonalds cheeseburger. Because the food can go, but the feeling will not. I remain the colossus, hoping to give birth to pestilence on the floor of the shower, feeling and tasting my sour liquid licorice as it comes out.

I’m proud of myself for this being my future. I’m proud of my molted snake skin wrapped in my emergency blanket, here on this block of soap melting into the sinking heat. I’ll close my eyes and hopefully it’ll be done now, and I say that every night it’s like that.

I know in the morning I’ll wear my long socks again to cover the seams, and Betty’ll say “You look cute!”

And I’ll blush for at least two reasons.