down to the tropical sun
Sunday, December 22nd, 2002 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erikaI fantasize about going down to a warm sunny beach. Somewhere beautiful where I could lie down on the sand and nap while my skin turns a lovely brown. I never burn, and I'm never out in the sun so this tiny vacation wouldn't mean I'd have to worry about skin cancer. And I could be alone. No expectations, no one wondering what I was doing, no one.
I would bring all of my books, just in case I wanted to re-read any of them. Suitcases and suitcases full.
I used to love the snow, looked forward every year to Christmas, but it's a little too cold out there this year, and there isn't snow. There is just endless wind, grass dry and flaky underneath my feet, leaves that were never raked. There is only that.
I am disassociated. Cut off. I don't care; how refreshing it is. I just want to be left alone -- that means everyone.
Saturday. That is all I can think about. We should start at the beginning, and the beginning is that I was supposed to be at the counselor's at 12. I overslept, didn't go.
Went to work, five minutes late. Found a missing child -- he was just playing hide & seek. His father was so worried. I smiled, bittersweet, at the idea of his parents caring so much for him that they were that angry when he was lost and couldn't be found.
(Pay attention, class, this becomes important later.)
Asked someone who smoked for a ride home, when we were finally over. She babbled on about going out to get drunk and I stupidly asked her if she was over 21. No, of course not, but there are people and there are places where it doesn't matter. Oh, of course not. I pretend to be cheerful and happy while I'm working; it's draining. My last day is next Saturday, thank God.
And all of that, inconsequental yet crystal clear.
It's only when I get home, it's just a blur after that. No, not exactly true. I remember every detail in exquisite etched agony. It's just some are missing. (Oh, hello, she's over-reacting again.)
Here I am, putting my coat away, and saying hello to my little sister, and going downstairs, and asking my older brother, Derek, to log off my computer.
Some sort of lag problem?, he says idly, discourteously, and I have to form the rest of the sentence in my head. I can't use the other computers; they have some sort of lag problem.
My little brother wanders in.
I ask them to describe it to me, so I can try to figure out whether it's the connections or the LAN or what, graphics lag maybe, and it's late and I'm tired. So when my little brother rambles, I cut him off. Would you please shut up.
Broken glass and slit wrists is all I can think of to describe that moment. My older brother slapped me as hard as he could, I think -- I don't remember him hitting me, all I remember is thinking he just hit my shoulder and then he shoved me off the seat I was sitting in, I think, I don't know. Lost a few seconds, now I am walking towards the computers in the other room. Where the fuck do I think I'm going, he glares, and I'm on the floor again. I remember roller-blading when I was younger, when I would trip and fall to my hands and skin them -- it's the same feeling I get when I catch myself on the concrete of the basement floor.
My little brother stands at the top of the stairs, pleading with Derek to stop. He tells Javier to go to bed.
(Did he leave or not? How much did he see? I know he was crying, I could hear his sobs.)
Filth spews out of his mouth, I am defiant. He threatens to beat me if I don't apologize, I am defiant. He calls me garbage and leans close to my face, so close that the spit from his speech invests my glass lenses.
(I hate that, I find myself thinking, flashing back to this summer when I'd demand that the movie be stopped so that I could go clean my glasses before the film on the lens impaired my enjoyment of the film on the screen.)
I slap him, I remember that. I slapped him for calling me garbage -- I am not garbage, I want to tell him, want to hurt him but he's already hitting me. Once, twice, I can't remember after that, he slaps the side of my head and punches my skull -- where it doesn't show. He knows better than that, I'm not even going to bruise, he knows better than to make me bruise, no evidence, just his rational reasonable word against my screams and terror.
I can't breathe. I let out these rasping breaths that sound like I'm dying, maybe I am dying, I'm not sure. Where am I going? I curl up into a ball, and he spits on me, I think, I'm not sure, I can't remember. Does it matter? I scrabble up the stairs, losing my grip, falling down, panicked. He doesn't follow.
I run for the door. I can't open it, my hands slip, my fingers won't function. I am screaming now, wordless and in agony. I must be screaming because my father wakes up, and when he touches me I think he must be angry with me for waking him up, so I try to hide, but there is nowhere to hide because I'm at the door, so all I can do is crouch and cry and try frantically to breathe, because I can't breathe.
I can't take in air. My throat feels like someone's hands are around it, killing me, he's going to kill me. My father brings me cough syrup, I think, and I want to throw it across the room, but then he'd be angry, wouldn't he. He'd be upset, and he'd yell at me, and I don't know what to do, I have to go -- and the cup of medicine trembles in his hand, or maybe it's my eyesight. I can't breathe; I feel faint.
When my breathing finally slows to something resembling normalcy, my father apologizes, makes me hold the cough syrup. I balance it on my knee. He leaves, to go to the bathroom, I think. Now that I'm not making all the noise, I can hear my older brother in the kitchen. I know it's him because there is no one else it could possibly be. Quickly, I set the cough syrup on the sideboard next to the door, scramble for my shoes. Slip them on.
(Sidenote: My tea is cold. I shall send my little sister to boil me some more water.)
The knob turns; all I can think about is how very loud it is, where is he, where is he, is he going to stop me. I do not take my coat.
It is late December, in Iowa. It is the middle of the night.
I run as hard as I can, towards the library across the street, taking a right when I see the back of the police station. A police car pulls out of their parking lot as I run past, and my breathing has kicked into high gear again, but now I'm in the park. No one is after me; no one is running to find me.
I try the recreation center first, think, maybe a phone, maybe Alena, maybe the center where the counselor I was supposed to see this morning ... maybe where she works, maybe, maybe, maybe.
But all the maybes crowd my mind and the doors are locked, anyway.
I crawl underneath a pine tree and think about nothing. The winds whistle through the boughs and for a while, I self-centeredly wish that all of the cars on the road were looking for me.
But no one is. Not then.
I see my mother's car, once. My arms are numb. She is worried, I think, but she must be tired. She hates the inconvenience that I am.
An hour later, two hours later, something like that, I walk home. I think about death, but I'm too drained to do anything but wish desperately for a warm shower and compose odes to my bed in my head.
I don't speak to my brother. My father starts when I walk in the door. I take a shower; the lukewarm water feels like knives against my numb arms.
But I'd really like to be on the beach, this time of year.
I would bring all of my books, just in case I wanted to re-read any of them. Suitcases and suitcases full.
I used to love the snow, looked forward every year to Christmas, but it's a little too cold out there this year, and there isn't snow. There is just endless wind, grass dry and flaky underneath my feet, leaves that were never raked. There is only that.
I am disassociated. Cut off. I don't care; how refreshing it is. I just want to be left alone -- that means everyone.
Saturday. That is all I can think about. We should start at the beginning, and the beginning is that I was supposed to be at the counselor's at 12. I overslept, didn't go.
Went to work, five minutes late. Found a missing child -- he was just playing hide & seek. His father was so worried. I smiled, bittersweet, at the idea of his parents caring so much for him that they were that angry when he was lost and couldn't be found.
(Pay attention, class, this becomes important later.)
Asked someone who smoked for a ride home, when we were finally over. She babbled on about going out to get drunk and I stupidly asked her if she was over 21. No, of course not, but there are people and there are places where it doesn't matter. Oh, of course not. I pretend to be cheerful and happy while I'm working; it's draining. My last day is next Saturday, thank God.
And all of that, inconsequental yet crystal clear.
It's only when I get home, it's just a blur after that. No, not exactly true. I remember every detail in exquisite etched agony. It's just some are missing. (Oh, hello, she's over-reacting again.)
Here I am, putting my coat away, and saying hello to my little sister, and going downstairs, and asking my older brother, Derek, to log off my computer.
Some sort of lag problem?, he says idly, discourteously, and I have to form the rest of the sentence in my head. I can't use the other computers; they have some sort of lag problem.
My little brother wanders in.
I ask them to describe it to me, so I can try to figure out whether it's the connections or the LAN or what, graphics lag maybe, and it's late and I'm tired. So when my little brother rambles, I cut him off. Would you please shut up.
Broken glass and slit wrists is all I can think of to describe that moment. My older brother slapped me as hard as he could, I think -- I don't remember him hitting me, all I remember is thinking he just hit my shoulder and then he shoved me off the seat I was sitting in, I think, I don't know. Lost a few seconds, now I am walking towards the computers in the other room. Where the fuck do I think I'm going, he glares, and I'm on the floor again. I remember roller-blading when I was younger, when I would trip and fall to my hands and skin them -- it's the same feeling I get when I catch myself on the concrete of the basement floor.
My little brother stands at the top of the stairs, pleading with Derek to stop. He tells Javier to go to bed.
(Did he leave or not? How much did he see? I know he was crying, I could hear his sobs.)
Filth spews out of his mouth, I am defiant. He threatens to beat me if I don't apologize, I am defiant. He calls me garbage and leans close to my face, so close that the spit from his speech invests my glass lenses.
(I hate that, I find myself thinking, flashing back to this summer when I'd demand that the movie be stopped so that I could go clean my glasses before the film on the lens impaired my enjoyment of the film on the screen.)
I slap him, I remember that. I slapped him for calling me garbage -- I am not garbage, I want to tell him, want to hurt him but he's already hitting me. Once, twice, I can't remember after that, he slaps the side of my head and punches my skull -- where it doesn't show. He knows better than that, I'm not even going to bruise, he knows better than to make me bruise, no evidence, just his rational reasonable word against my screams and terror.
I can't breathe. I let out these rasping breaths that sound like I'm dying, maybe I am dying, I'm not sure. Where am I going? I curl up into a ball, and he spits on me, I think, I'm not sure, I can't remember. Does it matter? I scrabble up the stairs, losing my grip, falling down, panicked. He doesn't follow.
I run for the door. I can't open it, my hands slip, my fingers won't function. I am screaming now, wordless and in agony. I must be screaming because my father wakes up, and when he touches me I think he must be angry with me for waking him up, so I try to hide, but there is nowhere to hide because I'm at the door, so all I can do is crouch and cry and try frantically to breathe, because I can't breathe.
I can't take in air. My throat feels like someone's hands are around it, killing me, he's going to kill me. My father brings me cough syrup, I think, and I want to throw it across the room, but then he'd be angry, wouldn't he. He'd be upset, and he'd yell at me, and I don't know what to do, I have to go -- and the cup of medicine trembles in his hand, or maybe it's my eyesight. I can't breathe; I feel faint.
When my breathing finally slows to something resembling normalcy, my father apologizes, makes me hold the cough syrup. I balance it on my knee. He leaves, to go to the bathroom, I think. Now that I'm not making all the noise, I can hear my older brother in the kitchen. I know it's him because there is no one else it could possibly be. Quickly, I set the cough syrup on the sideboard next to the door, scramble for my shoes. Slip them on.
(Sidenote: My tea is cold. I shall send my little sister to boil me some more water.)
The knob turns; all I can think about is how very loud it is, where is he, where is he, is he going to stop me. I do not take my coat.
It is late December, in Iowa. It is the middle of the night.
I run as hard as I can, towards the library across the street, taking a right when I see the back of the police station. A police car pulls out of their parking lot as I run past, and my breathing has kicked into high gear again, but now I'm in the park. No one is after me; no one is running to find me.
I try the recreation center first, think, maybe a phone, maybe Alena, maybe the center where the counselor I was supposed to see this morning ... maybe where she works, maybe, maybe, maybe.
But all the maybes crowd my mind and the doors are locked, anyway.
I crawl underneath a pine tree and think about nothing. The winds whistle through the boughs and for a while, I self-centeredly wish that all of the cars on the road were looking for me.
But no one is. Not then.
I see my mother's car, once. My arms are numb. She is worried, I think, but she must be tired. She hates the inconvenience that I am.
An hour later, two hours later, something like that, I walk home. I think about death, but I'm too drained to do anything but wish desperately for a warm shower and compose odes to my bed in my head.
I don't speak to my brother. My father starts when I walk in the door. I take a shower; the lukewarm water feels like knives against my numb arms.
But I'd really like to be on the beach, this time of year.
