it's the most important thing

This is how it goes. This is how it always goes. Where did it start? I can hardly find the want to thumb back through the prompt cards of last night just to make sense of something that dots the ‘i’ in typical. I’ll begin with where I am now.

The room is dim. Everything is very quiet except for the birds chirping their fucking brains out on the front porch. Another one fell from the nest yesterday. It’s feathers and fluids splattered all over the smooth porch slate. My housemate shoveled it off with a snow scraper. But aside from the birds everything is quiet. Quiet and dim. The clock reads 3:53 pm, though its clarity fuzzes in and out in my vision. I don’t know if it’s because I’m drunk again already, or if it’s my inability to want to be conscious. My hands are steady for the first time in 5 days. My heartbeat is a thunderous hollow tympani in my chest, but it doesn’t make any noise. It just pounds. I think about a lot of things at this point. I think about toes, about fingers. I think about how I flinched when he went to put his hand on me and he asked if someone had hit me before. I think about how I lied. I think about how sore I am, about how it’s a good thing I sobered up enough to buy more Russian Vodka. I think about how I should really take out those recyclables. I think about cocaine. I think about razors. I think of things no one will ever know about if I’m good. I know I’m good. He said so last night.

I open my eyes. The first thing I notice is the obnoxious red plaid patterning of my dress; last night’s dress. Oh…shit. In initial remembrance of the night prior, I snap my body onto it’s other side to check. For half an instant my eyes gaze across the doorway, and I’m sure he’s used it by now. But rather than pressing reassuringly into a soft empty pillow, my nose jolts abruptly into a hard elbow and pain is sent resonating into the backs of my eyes. He is still here. The fact comforts me briefly then I’m back to, oh…shit. I lay on my back, touching my wincing face and wondering what to do next. Get up? I stir to test getting up. He moans and peeks open an eye. “Go back to sleep” he says. Typical: the girl lays there quiet, trying not to be obvious that she’s volleying the age-old regret; was it a mistake/was it not a mistake. Mostly she wants to know if he thinks it was a mistake. But typically, and this is typical, the he is lying there signal-less, asleep, and momentarily unconcerned about the body next to him. And it is just a body at this point. It’s not that he is heartless or apathetic necessarily, it’s just he’s a guy and breakfast is more important to him right now. And so the miscommunication begins.

The so-called body is me. I begin to look around the room for clues about all the things I think probably didn’t really happened. The place is a mess. Towels on the floor where we each spilled full glasses of sharp mixed drinks. Scattered papers everywhere, an uncapped black marker not far from them. Ok, this explains the array of notes and tattoos scribbled across my skin. I squint at my hand; “Go to Liquor Store. Srsly.” Alright, apparently we’re out. I should really take out those recyclables. I see random pillows on the floor and drawings of owls everywhere. I see everything has fallen, or maybe been pushed from my shelves. The lighter is on the chair where he put it when he took it away from me and youtube is streaming *NSYNC’s ByeByeBye on my laptop. Oh…shit. And ouch. A lot of ouch. I wiggled my toes to feel something I had still.

The air is cold. So much colder than it is to everyone else. I haven’t needed to eat well in days. Now I sip long from a green straw, having smartly mixed my Russian juice with Passion Tea. How fitting to find the need to liquor up passion. I am minutely content with in my metaphoric misery, although stuck when it comes to having bold enough words for this chapter. The frustration is just about to eat away at the last bit of my hope, then she walks in. No, she floats. She floats in and perches in the large plush chair opposite of me. Her mother makes sure it’s all right with me and I quickly learn this being is Polish and American, because she was born here but her parents are from Poland. She is five, allergic to peanuts, but loves the frosting of a vanilla cupcake. She has a Build-a-Bear named Sparkles. Her mom’s allergic to cats, which is why she can’t have one, although Cherrie her neighbor has two.

She tells me she is writing a novel. She’s stuck too. I suggest maybe we both clear our heads and write something together. This is what we put down:

Mikey the Cat is sleepy. He is happy. He is happy because he has Vivian and Erica. Mikey only meows but Vivian can speak 4 languages. She speaks English, Polish, Chinese, and Spanish. She teaches Erica how to say hello in all 4 languages. Her favorite food is a strawberry with brown sugar. Or macaroni with butter. Or cool whip, which she eats now on the end of a wooden stir stick. She says it’s tastier that way. She tells me how to say ‘yummy’ in Chinese.

We talk for what seems like hours and she strongly suggests I make my book a happy one. She likes happy stories. Then in a gasp of air all too much like the one she rode in on, Vivi leaves, saying goodbye and good luck, it was so nice to meet me. I sit, opposite a large plush chair, now empty. I am still. My fingers move quietly to the keys and gently, the line comes to me:

The angel’s name was Vivi.

And so it goes.