Deadra Acosta

July 21 20XX

McWorld

MY FIRST KNIFE

It must’ve been the whole scenario, the music, the atmosphere, the mind out of mint condition, spinning. I asked to borrow that record when he dropped me off that night. Magnified by Failure, the title itself speaks for me, my base vulnerabilities made banal for all spectators. At least in my head it’s so, staring at Father’s Day cards, but also through them, like how we looked at each other in the darkness, knowing it was nothing but the collision of our hollow shapes that proved us, thus my petrified form is an illusion for all fucking spectators.

I went to Walmart today looking for a pocket knife. In my experience, I’d only ever used kitchen knives, boxcutters and X-ACTOs—and scissors, of course. I figured it would make my clothes more comfortable carrying around something like this, something to fiddle with, to flick on out of any emotion ever. I look at the cased shelving, feeling something pry at my head.

I am nineteen-years-old. I can buy my own knife, a real knife, with consequence, legitimacy, weight. This isn’t a game anymore though, don’t you know? This is what you get for growing up, a canvas to grow gangrene all over, an erect, masculine decline. Stiff as a brick, my thorax throbs in your forearms, picking my bones for something to pawn. Next time check the fish tank and the terrarium first, before my bra.

The end result is boredom. I remind myself of what a suicidal teenage girl is supposed to be, wearing suicide as an armband when really I never wanted to die. If I bought my first knife, the first I’ll ever own, I could get into bleeding out in the bathroom, the backseat of my car, and/or right in your face, as in anywhere you go, you.

I could do it anywhere, I’ve shoplifted more than once, mainly for makeup, shampoo, and so on. If not for this case, I’d do it here too.

I called a clerk up. I can remember the conversation being obscene, blurry. That’s not at all important, other than that it was instantaneous, and pushed me right into the parking lot. I stood out there for a moment not really knowing where I was, what I came here for. Or maybe the better answer is that I couldn’t believe it was body, skin, and my premeditation.

My will bought an ugly Kershaw, three inches long, flaccid when folded. I think up this lyric to try meanings for this grotesque experience. I look in the plastic bag in my lap, dwelling in the horror of my own authority. Just sitting in a hot car in the parking lot at midday, I think my whole life has been a miracle too good.

Scenario spawned the thought of every new apartment complex. They’re conceived, bred like dying in heat; so the gun becomes an organism of hard flesh. The mettle of the malleable body is its orgasm; together they transact. They are soldered, cooling into mutual execution. And from the hatcheries—Elkhart, downtown—no one would see me until the ground saw my first, all to do with the fact that no one lives: there, wires connected and fused to the right surfaces, the two-bodied extinction.

Everyone I’ve seen has carried their corpse up and down the stairs, breathing through their mouths, tugging on their shirts, and being in a way of perpetuation. It is only perpetuation. You could spend all everyday eating ice cream and jacking off in front of your monitor. You would still be a slave. You would still be in the apartment where nobody really lives, not telling anyone you will return anywhere, not letting them know how much you pay to sleep every night in your own bed of shit, licking your towels and the vomit on the carpet in your house-fucking-hole.

Could I too, on top of the Mishawaka water tower, I think to myself, knowing I could. There are places tall enough to die out here. There are places out her, I drive myself with this in mind. I drive myself to approximate delusion, knowing I’m still sane. I could drive into a semi.

I’ve thought of these scenarios all before, and besides, there’s no point having bought the knife, hadn’t I any intent to use it. And I already said I didn’t wanna go anyways. But now I’m reaching, dodging the world itself.