I ask yet again

bring light unto your earthbound daughters.

Frigid and decayed,

grey beneath mechanical moons,

ease the shaking of their hearts

one final night

and I shall pray again, come morning.

May stumbling feet lead them home

or into hands that only bruise them.

Upon the metal of the barricade,

the plastic of the tattered curtains

somewhere in the buzzing

may they hear you.

Their next days are uncertain

in your corner darkest,

but so softly

they might hear you in the mids.

Dear Father,

without wombs

they bare you children,

without hands to hold

they reach for lights unseen.

If you could only guide them,

a sunrise

something soft beyond

this endless night.

So removed from wild green,

morning dew and changing seasons,

but your singing in the garden

they recall.

Teeth yellowed, nails chipped

wet as newborns

bellies empty.

Dear Father,

it is unjust.

There is only concrete left

only inputs and black wires,

yet they toil to make life.

Which of your sons

will free us from penitence?

I ask you this

unafraid.

I rejoice the endless night.

I cancelled the paid tier of my blog (a bullshit monthly opinion column I called “Ethical Hating,”) because it felt like bullshit to write. There were meetings and zoom calls and google calendar entries made about it, but I was behind the deadline every time regardless. It wasn’t worth the five dollars I was asking people to pay for it. I can say that honestly. This really funny thing happens when you get famous on the internet, where people with money and power will give you a hall pass to play pretend at whatever you feel like doing. Of course, it’s not that glamorous, and you don’t ever get paid that much unless you’re a skinny white cis girl named Alex or Emma, but that is the job. The “job.” Just play pretend until something sticks, sell mushroom coffee and skincare products in the meantime. I wasn’t a writer until my last manager asked me to start writing and I still don’t feel like one. I have thirty-six-thousand subscribers here (all free) because I have two-hundred and fifty-thousand followers on instagram. My talent is irrelevant. Everything even remotely adjacent to media or entertainment is a popularity contest, and we now have a system in which you can reverse-engineer celebrity, amass the fame before the substance.

It’s fairly obvious that I need a lot of attention, a deep need to be loved and admired. I started posting because my life was miserable and meaningless. I had just gotten through a deeply embarassing two year bout of psychosis, had just lost my mom, just gotten ousted from my Dad’s place, just gotten raped, just started getting committed to my anorexia. I had resolved myself to a life of food service that would likely end when the gum disease reached my heart due to a dependency on menthol blacks. My biggest goal in life was a boyfriend and my only personality traits were having a fat ass and being white with an eyebrow slit. People didn’t look at me when I went to parties. It felt a lot easier to talk to a camera in the guest bedroom of my friend’s house. I very delusionally sat across from my best friend and told him, “I think I’m going to dedicate myself to this, like really build a following,” after hitting 70k. And yes, that is a completely stupid and delusional thing to say. If you’ve ever had a similar thought I suggest you remember that.

I thought it would make people love me if I got famous. Maybe I’m not famous enough yet, maybe some day they really will. I did live comfortably for a while too — comfortably in the sense that I paid my half of the bills from TikTok money while my boyfriend worked the deli counter, and I managed to pad my savings with a nice ten-thousand dollars, and we got to eat pho at our favorite Viet spot every Friday. I squandered almost all of that ten-thousand on DoorDash in a deep depression after we broke up, though. I kept the two-bedroom we shared and filled it with bags and wrappers and trash, let the lightbulbs slowly flicker out, let the last round of groceries we bought together rot until the fruit flies came to sip the sludge. I let them sip uninterrupted. I filmed videos from my bed because that was the only place the trash wouldn’t be visible on camera. I didn’t let any of my friends come over, not ever, but it was easy because they all lived in the city while I drained myself out on the edge of the suburbs.

I had a meeting with an astrologer who told me something unexpected during that time. He paused briefly, looking down at his notes, and told me “You’re really deeply lonely.” And he cocked his head to the side when he said it, like it was puzzling. It was. I guess I expected more smoke, more ass-kissing — maybe something about being destined for fame and success. He looked down again and then asked, “Do you think I’m using you right now?” I held my breath for quite a while before answering, “Well, yeah, that would be my instinct.” He had offered me the reading half off. Would he do that for anyone else? I didn’t ask, (I’m trying to be less defensive,) but I knew the answer. It was a kind thing to do for somebody he admires. I’m insecure and weird for thinking of it any differently, but I am, I do. You probably would be too. I think a lot of people are just like me. Kind of chronically loserish and uncool, or otherwise just normal and unremarkable, and we don’t respond well to suddenly being treated like we aren’t.

I’ve gotten a lot better at looking cool. On my new manager’s suggestion I now wear sunglasses indoors, especially in nightclubs. I stand at the front right by the booth, and I usually know the DJ, and I post stupid little pouty photos with pictures of random bullshit off the street on my instagram, and pictures of expensive meals that I’m not paying for, and I guess now I make music too, and I actually enjoy making music but of course I’m also posting about it before I even really know what I’m doing because “audiences love a journey they can follow.” It’s all manufactured. Frankly, I actually do enjoy curating a visually pleasing Instagram feed. It’s the more profitable cousin to building my umpteenth home decor pinterest board, scratches the same itch. Like I said, I’m fine with being unoriginal. Originality and authenticity are both bullshit qualities that people pretend to crave. We adhere to cycles and we pick at old corpses, we enjoy repitition. I hope I’m entertaining, that I’m witty and that I’m fun, but I’ll never delude myself into believing that I’m doing anything new.

But I remember being some lame bitch in an awful outfit who liked drinking smirnoff ices with my lame stoner friends in a garage in the summer. We were all too anxious to party, which was fine because we weren’t getting invited to any. Occasionally we’d go to metal shows at some millenial bar in town because we had a thirty-five year old coworker playing in three of the bands. We’d get really high and watch Real Housewives and then I’d go work at Pizza Hut the next day, and genuinely nobody on Earth but them gave a fuck if I lived or died. My own father didn’t even care — at least that will never change. I could’ve wasted away in an office, married my boyfriend and moved to Richmond, got into Reiki shaved my head in Oregon, or gone to HVAC school and joined a union. It all could’ve stayed so small, so meaningless, so unimportant to anyone but the very few people who loved me.

Ultimately, it is still that. I remember getting on that Rolling Stone list, and most of the responses were “who the fuck is that bitch and why isn’t Vanilla Mace on the list?” That was an entirely fair response. I see myself now in this percarious position, where my whole brand is being called “The Oracle of Delphi” by people with shaggy haircuts and being told I’ve never had a wrong take. It’s a pressure cooker, a shoddily made pipe bomb strapped to the chest of every attention-seeking woman. When I inevitably say the wrong thing and piss my audience off I’ll be widely hated, and that will be what really skyrockets my career. That is the path. I have to get past the mire of being broke with a cult following and reach the mysoginy-fueled echelon of being despised on twitter. That, or I can give up now and slowly fade into obscurity. I am stagnant at the moment, but I know what I will choose when the opportunity arises. At the end of the day, even if I never really get comfortable, I need the attention, and I don’t see any other way.

Now I’m in New York, where a lot of the clubs let dolls in for free, and everybody in the hot young social scene knows everyone else, and a little black dress really doesn’t cut it like it did in Texas. Everybody is excited to see me and they’re going out of their way to get me on lists and into parties, and I’m amassing a crowd of gay boys who want to come with me, and I’m more uncomfortable than ever. I miss home and I’m still not getting paid. Although, I had to wait out a K hole in Maria Hernandez this morning, and I am grateful to the gay boy from Mississippi who did that with me. I think he could be a real friend. I’m living with two girls I knew from college, before all of this happened, and neither of them really know what it is I do or give that much of a fuck. The one of them told the other recently that it was grounding for her to come home to me the other night. She’s going through something right now, I’m not sure what. She came home and almost cried, and then she painted while I tried to write. Apparently it helped her a lot. That felt better than anything has since I got here.

Everybody’s got a suggestion about what neighborhood I should move to and which train I should live by. They’ve all got a friend with an open sublet and they’re going to a really sick party next week. They want me to come. I should also swing by the restaurant they work at (presumably for dinner, though I might ask for an application if I do.) The truest thing I can say is that I kind of want to give up and rot all the time. I’ve already made the choice to come here, though, and I think I’ll be miserable for a while until it pays off. That is fine. Behind the sunglasses I can close my eyes and dance, and I can pick up a rice plate on my way home. When I get enough money to rent my own place, it’ll be quiet when I’m there. Once everyone’s used to me being here I’ll have less text messages, lest new clubs to try out, and maybe even some semblance of a routine and a steady paycheck. Things will be better, hopefully soon, and I’ll pay for my own lunches and get my nails done and have a couple boys I like kissing, like I did back home.

I don’t really care about the rest. I guess I just do things because I can. People are supposed to have specific goals and ambitions, clarified dreams that are clear and defined. I don’t have that. I don’t even have a favorite color — conspiratorially I even believe that other people choose theirs at random. I just want to try as much as I can. I want to be stimulated and to be somebody stimulating. I would like to make somebody happy in that way, where they walk into a room and they’re just happy to see me. I want to be uncritically thankful for everything I’m being given. I want to have what I need, and not boxes of shit I didn’t ask for on my doorstep. I don’t think I really want for all that much, just a taste of everything. I don’t think these are all my thoughts on the matter, but I’ve been gone for a while and I hope this all kind of explains why.

Is there no other way? You sit unmoving in my hands now. This is the dream in which I hold you imprisoned: A glass orb nestled into a little cedar base, an abomination with its head raised in agony at the center. Wings spread, blood flowing, but the snow falls around it so peacefully. On the felt-lined bottom there is a key. When I turn it you spin, and the lilting song of your rage gleams out. I place you upon the mantle as you slow to a halt. I could leave you there forever if I wanted to. Yet again I turn to face you, in the yard outside the window of this house I almost recognize. All I see is honey blonde fluttering in the breeze, the unbroken slope of your back as it holds arms crossed out of view. Before you, a child kneels in the grass, his little hands clasped and his head bowed to the fence. You are teaching him to pray. I cannot hear you through the glass, or through the wind as it dances in the junipers, but I remember your words as you say them.

“If you ask for things to be better, God may choose to listen.”

My feet no longer touch the worn carpet as I float back through the living room. I would like to stay and watch the rest, but it evades me even here. The walls are cast in so much grey, darker at the edges as if lit by the flash of a video camera. Sickly and static I watch it move around me, swallowed as the stairwell passes below me. I think I know where I’m going. A room that you once painted — beautiful sky blue with cotton clouds and ivory geese — just to please me. In that room is the bed where you would squeeze in next to me despite the lack of space. You never slept until I did. I close my eyes and wait to get there, but my impatience gets the best of me. I peek just to find the walls still grey, the stairs still endless below me.

Is this the dream in which I hold you imprisoned? When last we spoke, you told me you sat next to Jesus. I even saw you looking down, grinning and waving from the edge of a cloud with the sun around your head. Like all people, though, you are capable of lying, and of all people you are most inclined to lie to me. I have opened many doors to darkness and spoken to those behind them, and I have never seen Jesus there. I suppose strangers in Sheol have nothing to prove. I peek again to find the stairs still unending and I wonder, if I call to you from here and tell you I have made it, will you hear me? Maybe that will make it better, even if you know I’m lying. We could believe one another as a choice, a favor, despite our discernment. You can picture me sound asleep, I can picture you in Heaven. But… I cannot forget all the dreams in which you’ve chased me. I cannot help but fear that you were truly there, lost and afraid, your form eviscerated until the boundaries of your shape were broken. I can only remember your laugh because I have it still, but no longer the way you spoke.

Is there no other way? I open my eyes again, now to somewhere wholly unfamiliar. Like every night in that house, you pass through my fingers too quickly. Every time I consider the blade, every time I look through the window, I pause too long to think and you are gone. Our planes only intersect on a razor’s edge, and again I float past you. Again, I come up short. It is all I can do for now to hold you in that dream, imprisoned. I leave on the mantle where I’ll find you some other night, so that I might turn and see the honey blonde of your youth, the girl who was before the beast that is. I do not ask of God or speak to Jesus, but I keep a cross above my bed. I choose to believe that you sit with him, though privately I fear the truth. I speak your name now and then in hopes that my breath may reach Sheol and stoke your candle. I hope that when you watch me it is while I sleep, and that upon the winter of my apartment walls you see blue and geese that flutter. I leave the door cracked and the hall light on to guide you. I leave room for you to squeeze in, if you wish. And if you emerged in all your horror, bulging skin and gushing bile from the blackness, know that I would slay you. Know that you can ask that of me, please.

.

It is late September. Summer drags on, unperturbed by the nearing equinox as an ever-warming planet yields to the endless heat. Malnourished weeds poke through the cracks, wilting as soon as they rise, and I count them aimlessly as I wait for my car. Yasmine, license plate number CRP793, emerges from the heavy traffic and lugs my suitcase into the trunk of her 2014 Corolla. The inside smells vaguely of peonies, potato chips, and dog hair, and like most Chicagoans, she prefers open windows to the AC. My destination, Vivica’s townhouse, is only ten miles away, but as we pull away from the arrival gate, Yasmine informs me the ride will be about an hour accounting for traffic. She makes her discontent incredibly clear between phone calls from her kids. Apparently she will only make a measly twelve bucks from my sixty-six dollar ride, and she can barely keep up with the bills, and she shelled out her entire last check on school supplies, and just last month uber decided not to pay her for a ride just like this because the app fucked up – I listen quietly as we fly by graffitied overpasses, emptied out factories, cracked and sun-bleached billboards. Perhaps selfishly, my mind wanders.

Despite already being sixty-six in the hole, I’m happy to be here, or at least happy to be away from Texas, even if only for a weekend. I look beautifully business casual in Yasmine’s backseat, but her story reminds me that I’m only a few rent payments away from being broke myself. I’m here to scrounge up what money I can hosting a club gig and stuffing it all into my savings, hoping it’ll aid in my quest to escape the South. I hastily changed into a thrifted Apartment 9 blouse in the airport bathroom because there’s a chance I’ll have to accompany Vivica and Princess to Soho House (god, kill me now.) I do a decent enough job of looking more well-off than I am when it’s necessary, but the painful reality is that I’ve left an apartment full of anxieties, bills, and impending threats to my trannylicious lifestyle waiting for me back home. The distance between me and those factors is barely enough to keep the bile in my stomach. If I’m even more truthful, the dreadful grip of the new regime is just as evident here. Its scent wafts off the hordes of police that gather like mercenary gangs on the corners. No, the distance provides no solace. Rampaging tranny murder cults are a nationwide headline. The only real reprieve I have is that this weekend, I will be handed any drug I want freely and without protest, and all my drinks will be paid for. That thought brings me enough real comfort to tune back into Yasmine’s ranting, and I provide her a comforting ear for the remainder of our ride together.

At the townhouse, Princess greets me in an effortlessly sexy lounge set, remarking teasingly at my skirt-blouse-pumps getup. “Where you going all dolled up, Diana?” She calls to me, arms crossed as she looks me up and down. “Apparently not Soho House.” I retort, reminding myself to adjust quickly to her unpredictable day-planning. “Viv wanted Chinese instead; it’s on the way. It’s good to see you bitch!” She hugs me tightly and grabs my bag from Yasmine. Inside, Vivica has already filled three glasses of wine in her equally sexy loungewear. Despite having met her multiple times, I still don’t know much about her. I know this house is hers, that the club we’re hosting at is hers, and that she’s vaguely older than Princess and me, though between her tight body and her unshakable aura of coolness, it’s impossible to tell by how many years. She is something of an OG It Girl, and Princess is her rambunctious twenty-something protege. Her name is an all-access pass, a stamp of pedigree known at all the coolest clubs in this city, and Princess’s name sits emblazoned on every list just below it. She hugs me tightly too, “How are you babe?” I give them both the shortest summaries about the year since I saw them last, placing emphasis on my recent status as a single woman, and one who is ready to cut incredibly loose at that. “Last time I was here- ugh. I don’t know. I was so boring. I want to get fucking nasty this weekend, girl, I need to.” Princess replies with a sigh, “To be honest, girl, we don’t have much going on besides the party. It’ll be a chill weekend. You should stay through the week and come to Saugatuck with us.” This is one of the many ways in which I confuse her; the idea of impulsively traveling for a whole extra week is anxiously foreign to me. I can’t just decide to stay. Thankfully, I also know she can’t resist a party, and that her “chill weekend” is a pipe dream that will dissipate by nightfall.

And sure enough, only shortly after sunset, we’ve magically arrived at a gay club, already sipping our first of the night’s many tequila sodas. Here, the prestige of Viv’s golden seal isn’t necessary, as Princess and I have both built individual cult followings that tend to congregate in such hangouts. We hug and kiss an onslaught of excited homosexuals, like duchesses kissing babies, and eventually, one guides us to the bathroom for a more private meeting. As I powder my nose, I check my phone out of habit, and notice a DM from a boytoy I met on the strip back home. “Looks like we’re both in Chicago ;) We should meet up.” This being one of the hottest encounters I could possibly imagine right now, I give him the name of the bar, and within twenty minutes, he’s there buying me a double round of straight tequila. As any Southern gentleman would, he offers to buy a round for Princess as well, and I inform him that she doesn’t partake in shots. At that moment, she’s standing by the bar with another of our friends, Cleo, looking generally unimpressed by the current goings-on. I know the kind of party she prefers, and a gay club before three AM without a line around the block certainly comes up short. Maybe I’m easier to please – certainly a little too eager to drink with a guy just because he’s tall and charming. I approach her apologetically. “Do you wanna go, babe? If this is lame, we can bail.” She smiles warmly and casts a glance over to Cowboy. “No girl, go have fun with the trade. We’ve got nowhere else to be.” I kiss her on the cheek and skip back.

After that, who can really say? My encounters with Cowboy, whether back home or abroad, always begin with competitive tequila shooting, and end with a lot of stumbling and sloppy public makeouts. Tonight was no different. From the string of disarrayed memories I have, at some point, Cowboy disappeared, and Cleo and Princess carted me from bar to bar as I repeatedly asked them, “WHERE’S COWBOY? WHERE’S COWBOY?” From the videos on my phone, I know that I stood for about three minutes next to an equally confused gay man, both of us thinking a video was a picture. Only while watching it back did I realize that said gay man was actually Willam Belli. I know that somewhere along the way, Princess joined in on my discombobulation, as trashed girls are most legible when you too are trashed, and that we were lovingly shuttled by Cleo to a nearby friend’s apartment. Away from the streets full of prying queer eyes, I added a few chemical layers to my stupor and melted into the couch. A DJ hammered away on the controller a few inches behind our heads, and as my vision warped, I first became a claymation character, and then a wad of scrambled eggs laid within a menstrual pad, and then the entire universe. Princess stroked my hair lovingly until I came to, and then napped on my shoulder as I discussed the fickle nature of love and loss with an ever-emptying room.

The next morning, I was informed that I was driven home by Magick, the DJ from the apartment who orchestrated the soundtrack to my trip. I recall a hazy backseat car ride home in the rain set to Kelela’s RAVE:N, The Remixes album. In the bathroom, I wipe tear streaks of mascara from my chin, brush the knots out of my hair, and clutch my reeling stomach through a too-hot shower. After blowing my hair out, I emerge into the living room where Princess frantically flips between emails, luxury shopping sites, and a pitch deck on her laptop, apparently having already been awake and fully done up for hours. “How you feelin’, mama?” She asks without looking away from her screen, “Did you just get up??” I forgot how allergic she is to sleeping in. “No, mama, I had to blow my hair out,” I reply, faux exasperation dripping in my tone. “Do all white bitches love their blowdryers as much as you do?” She reacts without missing a beat, and we both cackle. Just as quickly, her tone becomes stressed and tired as she tells me, “Well, we’re going to the salon at three, Damien needs to fix my leave-out before the party.” The statement triggers a flashback to the night before, of a gay man at the strange apartment scolding me for letting her leave the house like that while trying to comb down the top of her head. That must’ve been Damien.

We’re about to leave at two-fifty, but then Viv gets home, and of course, we have to fill her in about the previous night’s shenanigans. So we rush to the salon at a quarter after three, but we stop at Sephora first, and then we also stop at Dunkin’ before taking a few wrong turns. When we arrive at four-thirty, we’re shocked to find that Damien is no longer in. We wait for a new stylist, and wait for Princess’s hair to be washed and dried and curled, and then at nearly seven we drive an hour back to the townhouse to get ready for the party, which starts at nine. This is no problem for Princess, as her version of a full beat is lipgloss and a single swipe of designer mascara. I, on the other hand, have work to do. Cleo meets us at the house, equally as ill-prepared, and stays with me while Princess ships out to get everything situated at the club. If I have not introduced her properly, Cleo is a schoolteacher by day and a strikingly tall party girl by night, who I am hoping is at least bisexual. Together we frantically spackle and spray, pulling and pinning our outfits and clomping about as we choose between various uncomfortable pairs of shoes. We managed to arrive late to the event (that we are both being paid to host, mind you) at nine-forty-five. This is plain late for a host, but not “fashionably late,” as lateness cannot be considered haute until at least midnight. Nonetheless, the dancefloor is already packed, as Princess possesses a singular ability to make being early look couture. Wherever her feet land, the party follows.

About now, I should explain that my job as a “host” is to put my name on the poster and drink in the DJ booth. I’ve already completed the former, and so Cleo and I make haste to finish the job. We strut sensually to and from the bar, making small talk and waving royal-family-style as we go, downing expensive smoked cocktails like it’s Deep Eddy’s and fruit punch. We gyrate in the booth and gyrate near the floor, and gyrate our way up to VIP for champagne, and then we gyrate aaaaall the way outside for a photoshoot. We start off posing collegiately upon the steps of a nearby brownstone like the cast of an HBO crime drama. Then we work through a few poses, until I am standing opposite Cleo, both of our asses out, one of Princess’s hands on each of our bare ass cheeks. As I am adjusting the extremity of my arch, I hear a familiar voice call out, “Daaaaamn, Kayla!” and who do I turn around to find? Why, it’s Cowboy, of course. I was sure my drunk ass had run him off last night. But there he is with that big goofy smile on his face, and there I am prancing down to him like a giddy schoolgirl. “What are you doing here?” I ask, throwing my arms around his neck. “I booked my ticket last night, baby. Let’s go to the bar, huh?” And with a hand around my waist, I forget the fact, like smoke, that I am technically working tonight.

Before I continue, I must preemptively defend myself. I am NOT normally swayed to such bimboesque behavior by men as a general rule. If anything, I prefer to make nightlife suitors sweat and work for my attention. However, this particular man strokes a number of carnal, basal desires that few modern men are willing to: Showing up wherever I am, paying for all my drinks, and touching me entirely too much in a way that makes my face hot. He is also an impeccable kisser, and for all of these reasons, I surrender to a type of heterosexual foolishness I usually abhor when he is near. The club photographer captures a collection of shots in which Cowboy and I are tongue-tied against the speakers, behind the speakers, in VIP, on the stairs to VIP… I was powerless to stop it. We devour God knows how many cocktails, forcing me to change into my kitten heels mid-party. I was walking fine in my pumps, but I wanted him an inch or two taller, looking down at me the way I like. God, who the fuck have I become? I find myself smitten even further by the way he bashfully explains the brace on his wrist that he earned after punching through a wall. I let him call a car, I stumble into the back, and we laugh as Princess and Cleo blow my phone up until I remember once more that I am, *technically,* “working.” So I tell Cowboy we simply must turn around, and with a pouty lip, he laments our plans to make out wetly at a dive bar. Like any healthy couple, we compromise, driving back to the townhouse to meet Princess, her crossed arms, and her tapping foot. “Don’t scare me like that again, bitch. We thought you got ‘napped!” The night ends in the basement. Cowboy is explaining his broken hand to Viv and three of the hottest DJs from here to Berlin. Magick plays us out again as I fade out of consciousness, panties flash upon an oversized beanbag. God, I have become a drunken fool.

The next afternoon passes by uneventfully, Princess and I both occasionally suggest the Chinese leftovers in the fridge, knowing neither of us intends to touch them. When nursing a hangover, the Everyman’s solution is to eat a hearty breakfast with a strong cup of coffee. The Partygirl, however, knows she will be going just as hard the next night, and soothes her ache by bitching and moaning from the couch in place of eating. This method is how one achieves what the professionals call “bender body.” (Note: I am not suggesting that this method is healthy or advisable, merely that it helps one avoid having to stop a good night to take a shit.) Around seven, we meet with Cleo and Darren. Darren is a strikingly handsome party boy who I am also hoping is at least bisexual. We’ve gathered for industry night slices at a local pizza joint, at which Princess informs me we will be visiting the Bathhouse for Doll’s Night. Another suggestion, at which I realize Princess fundamentally underestimates my general anxieties; I am rarely naked in front of my friends, let alone strangers or crowds of them, nor have I ever engaged in anything approaching group sex. “Girl, we’re just gonna get a room and chill in the saunas, it’s not that serious.” She assures me. On the basis that she managed to pull me through a multi-substance hero’s journey the previous night, I decided to trust her vision. I release my clamped breath and, while biting down on my press-on, consider, “Maaaybe I’ll make out with someone. I do like kissing…”

Neither Cleo nor Darren can be convinced to join us, but Magick (the aforementioned apartment DJ and getaway car driver) will be taking their place. When we meet her on the street in our cutoffs and dirty tees, she is pumping her way down the block in a black mini dress and eight-inch pleasers. I will soon find out that this is the closest she’s willing to come to “casual.” “Girl, let it be, the gigs have been nonstop, I didn’t have time to change.” She remarks, though I doubt she would’ve, watching her nearly outpace us in our flats as we push on. After a grueling forty-minute wait in line, a snide round of giggles at the posted “no cross-dressing” rule, and a racially charged argument with the counter clerk about Princess’s purse, we arrive at our room in the bathhouse. The room consists of a rubber mattress against a black box spring, four mirrored walls, and a mounted television with nearly 40 porn channels. At this point, my stomach has dropped through my balls like a hernia. Both of these girls are significantly thinner than I am, a fact with which I am deeply uncomfortable. What will the voraciously horny attendees of the bathhouse think of a size twelve? The possibilities horrify me. But, this is the kind of trouble I was hoping for this weekend, I remind myself, so no pussying out. We each take a few minutes to primp and preen, powder our noses, and finally begin to undress. Watching the two of them strip shyly into mirrored corners, I realize they are both secretly nervous as well. Ashamedly, I admit this brings me some comfort. The towels provided are proportioned in a manner that demands either balls out on the bottom or nipples out on top. As my high begins to set in, we exchange encouraging glances and steeling breaths, prompting Princess to decree: “Let’s go on tour, ladies. We’re storming the bitch.”

She rips the door open and begins to duck and weave through the twisting corridors and nude bodies full steam ahead. At the time, I assumed she knew where she’s going. We pass a few interesting prospects, gathering a crowd of shadowy masturbators as we proceed, prowling scare actors in a horny haunted house. We pass by one man I take particular notice of: around 6’4” or 6’5”, white and straw-haired, closely resembling the popular depiction of a sexy protestant Jesus Christ. “Hey, Jesus, could we get a second coming?” Princess calls after him. He chuckles without stopping. We pass many doors open to breathy entanglements, stolen looks at a glittering assortment of amateur porn performers. After touring three floors of desire, she leads us seamlessly to the top of a caged-in bunk bed overlooking a cluster of rooms surrounded by a hallway, as if it were her destination all along. Magick and I fall in behind her. There’s just enough room for us to lie ass up, short-ways across the mattress, and oversee the scene below. Our silent apostles have all stopped in their tracks to stare up and await an invitation into the lovenest. We begin to giggle and whisper about them, pointing polished talons through the cage bars as we chitter. This draws a significant amount of attention. The congregation begins to grow, now clogging the walkway. Watching this, a realization sparks some kind of psychic channel between our brains; Something about three trannies in a birdcage is incredibly enticing.

Now, the following is a practice in mass seduction and mind control: We begin to summon men from the crowd and ask for their names. “I’m John. Who are you?” Well, John, we don’t have names. We live in the walls, Jooooohn. “How many of you are up there?” There are three of us, John, but we are three as one. “What are you guys doing?” We like to watch, John. We’re watching you right now. (Mix in some nails dragged across the bars, some shared giggles, a seductive hair flip to refract the dim lighting.) “Can I come up and join you?” Oooh, John, there’s just barely enough room. It’d be a real tight squeeze. Rinse and repeat. Call it tranny genjutsu, a miasma of hypnotic energy created from our combined mana, or simply an enchanting improv game on a stage most unlikely. Our little witches-three performance packed the place out. And just as the curtains start dropping, as we can barely stifle our laughter at the chaos, 6’5” Jesus appears at the end of the hall. The psychic channel flares white-hot. Six eyes with one shared vision snap to attention, a pack of hungry lionesses roused by blood in the air, and with little more than a shared gasp of excitement, a unanimous decision is made: HIM.

I clamber down the ladder first. Fuck the towels, we’ll get new ones. Magick and Princess follow closely, stark naked, as we push through our audience, bleary-eyed from the grip of our witchery. Sexy Christ waits just at the end of the hall, haloed by the light of a door open to a particularly twinky threesome. He is frozen in place as we approach. Magick and I flank the sides while Princess marches right up to face him, hands upon her hips in all her nude glory as our psychic field hums to a crescendo. It’s a clean operation, a quick extraction, precise and professional. “Hi, Jesus. Do you have a room?” His gaze is locked in hers now. “Yes, I do.” smirks all around. A lone cruiser brushes past our rendezvous and warns him, “Careful, man, they’ll get all in your head…” he avoids eye contact as he exits. Jesus chuckles again, breathy and unfazed, before inquiring with a hand outstretched, “Would you like to see it?”

“Yes. We wanna get saved.”

What took place in that room – after marching the son of God past our many tantalized admirers, after slamming the door shut in their faces as they tried to squeeze in with him – was nothing less than a revelation. I believe his exact words as he lay sprawled out in the afterglow were, “I’ll never forget this for the rest of my life.” Now, I certainly won’t divulge all the details here, as I’m saving all my best smut for the book. I will say that up to the point of sitting perched on his bed like three riddle sphinxes, I’d been running purely on a wave of desire. But as my eyes shot between his face and soft dick, and I realized what was about to go down, I began to sober towards panic. Holy shit holy shitholyshitholyshit. Is he gonna fuck ALL of us? Just as quickly as I began to spiral, the girls seemed to sense it, gently adjusting course to bring me back. Princess coos, “Do you like to take orders, Jesus?” and quickly he assures her, “Yes, I’m suuuuper submissive.” She giggles, and in a language men can not speak nor audibly detect, says to me: See, bitch? We’re in control. It’s all good. Just like that, I am recentered, flipping my hair and batting my eyes as I tell him, “Gosh, I’ve never kissed a guy with a beard before.” A blatant lie. Without a word, he leans in, and I feel him melt as my teeth graze his bottom lip so gently. I see that his eyes are closed because mine are not; they’re trained on my reflection in the mirrored walls. Damn, we look fuckin’ good right now. I push him back, and Magick makes the final shot to set the whole thing off, “I wanna see him with a titty in his mouth.”

Once all the fun was had and we’d left Jesus to his post-nut nap, I recalled that internet evangelicals had actually predicted the rapture to begin that very morning. Is it possible that three exquisitely beautiful trannies persuaded the Prince of Heaven to spare humanity? I suppose anything is. We spent the rest of that night as any girl would, prancing around the saunas, flipping through the porn channels, getting a little higher, and eventually crawling out into the cool early morning with a hankering for greasy breakfast food. At the ass crack of dawn, we took our seats at the Hollywood Diner, where I ordered a Denver omelette with a side of cheesy hashbrowns and drenched the whole plate in Tabasco. I ate greedily as Princess recounted our escapades in the style of a Vietnam War commander giving orders. “HUP TO SOLDIER, WE NEED A MAN ON THAT LEFT NUT, WE’RE STORMIN’ THE BITCH LIKE IT’S D-DAY.” Magick giggled along as she picked mousily at her chicken and waffles. Clearing her throat as the waitress approached, she asked in her soft-spoken way, “Excuse me, ma’am, have you worked here long?” The woman nodded, “Oh yes, about eighteen years now.” “Did you ever meet Tinny?” At this question, the woman gasped, a doleful smile washing over her face. “Oooh, Tinny, yes, gosh, I just loved him. Such a character. I was so sad to hear about his passing.” Now both their eyes were wetter, Magick’s tone just a little softer, “Yeah, she was my drag mom. I didn’t see her much the last few years.” The two recounted fond memories of Tinny for a few more minutes, and then Magick explained to me their estrangement, her regrets, all through tears slowly falling on her waffles. She didn’t eat any more after that.

I guess after she dropped us off, she drove straight to the hospital to accompany her biological mother during the removal of something on her boob or something. Princess and I elected to hide from the sun in the basement, like pill bugs retreating to the underbelly of a flagstone, where I slept for about four hours. As my eyes crack open to the sensation of two nostrils caked shut, I gamble between blowing and sniffing. Choosing the latter provides me with just the unexpected boost I need to get up and at ‘em. Yet another trick up the Partygirl’s sleeve: Save just a little for later. Something feels different today, and as I brush my teeth, I ponder it. I don’t feel as shitty as I usually do after a night out. Maybe I like drugs more than drinking? Maybe that’s it. I’m in dire need of a shower, the heavy scent of over-chlorinated bathhouse water still clinging to my hair. Tangled there as well, though, is a residual glow I don’t want to let go of quite yet. I giggle fondly as I stroke the ruby cross around my neck. Last night feels more like a dream than a memory. I’m not a religious woman, but I believe in signs and symbols, folk charms and wives’ tales. Perhaps I am taken by the wild hunt, pulled unknowingly from my body like a ribbon in the night. Perhaps now I am a heathen spirit, pearly white and glowing softly between the trees, singing as I draw my bowstring back. Look not upon my form, listen not to the baying of my hounds or the blowing of my horn, lest you be driven to madness.

After an impressive three days of working while partying and partying while working, Princess finally succumbs to a long slumber on the couch around five. I assume foolishly that the night is lost, and lie at her side as she snores through the remaining evening like a faithful handmaiden. Shame, shame, I should know my mistress better. At midnight, like a wolf called to the chase, her eyes shoot open. Without so much as a yawn, she asks, “Should we hit Surge?” In mere seconds, I am zipped into a black party dress and daffodil pumps. Pulling back the throw blanket, she reveals that she is already clad head to toe in vintage Cavalli. And so, one more time, we are in a black car speeding downtown, we are pushing past a crowd of smokers, we are shaking hands and doling out sidehugs, we are walking past security and getting stamped for free; we are storming the bitch, Princess tells me yet again. The phrase, though used often amongst her circle, seems to carry a weight that makes me wary to jot it down in my lexicon just yet. Sometimes it’s a joke – thrown about flippantly with a certain sense of irony – but often it functions like a triple-dog-dare or a battlecry. Tonight, she grits her jaw slightly, grabs my hand a little tighter when she says it. I make a note to ask her about this as we dive down the blue-lit stairwell and into the depths of Surge.

Hand in hand, we march straight to the bathroom. The room is hot, wet, and tight; its diminutive size is made up for by mirrored walls that extend the scene endlessly. Teeth clash as tongues intertwine, scuff marks gather on pointy leather boots, tits flash, and sharp talons pass bumps back and forth. The air is thick, a pungent cocktail of perfume, sweat, and fog juice like mist over a swamp. Outside the dance floor is crowded by strangers, but in this room I recognize many faces, DJs and Partygirls I’ve met at Princess’s other haunts. Everyone is tangentially dating everyone else as far as I can tell, or at the very least, they all plan to fuck later on. They swirl around the room to pick at the buffet of gossip, knocking over plastic cups of tonic and tequila as they stumble. Some chat about petty disagreements with girls mere feet away. Others recount beloved elders who have passed, leaving spaces between huddled shoulders for their spirits. They are something more than human, nocturnal, and evolved to flourish in sweltering spaces; night creatures gathered to convene amidst pulsing chaos. It is in these settings that I tend to fall behind – I am enamoured by their world, but I am new to it, teeth still uncut. Princess takes her seat on the sticky sliver of counter like a throne from which she oversees her unseelie court, and soon enough, the conversation gathers around her.

“These goddamn white fucking faggots, they never know how to fucking act. I mean, shit, girl, I don’t need to be here. Lord knows they don’t fucking book me, they don’t book the girls, so why the fuck do I need to be here?”

Many hums of agreement.

“Shit, they don’t book us, but who brings the party? Those white faggots out there? No, the fuck they don’t, we do. We are the party bitch, the party’s right here, and you don’t wanna fucking act right? Right. Crazy bitch. Do I look fucking crazy to you? No bitch.”

Fingers in the air, closed eyes, nodding heads. From my eavesdropping, I gather that there are plenty of interpersonal issues close at hand, but this sentiment seems to be a unifier of sorts. The sermon continues a while longer before breaking back down into many smaller conversations. I meet a few new faces, chat casually about favorite positions and niche horror films, partake in a few bumps shared, laugh at jokes I only half heard. I am unsure of what this room makes of me. They are largely unfazed by my so-called internet “fame,” and for that I am grateful, but admittedly unused to. The quandary of the white faggot rolls around in my skull. I am essentially a minor saint in the margins to them, patroness of hags, bangs, and riddles. Is that an accomplishment? Have I earned the right to make small talk here? My final bump begins to simmer, pulling my attention to the more important matter of uncrossing my eyes. I swallow the lump in my clavicle as Princess grabs my hand.

The Channel, as I will refer to it throughout the rest of this retelling, hums to life yet again. Whether it is the moonlight, the cocktail of free substances, or the energy of attention feeding our egregore, I am unsure, but something activates it just before the party kicks into overdrive. With a shared glance, an impish smile, I see it sparkle behind Princess’s eyes, and at the same moment, I feel that familiar electricity behind mine. Some readers may confuse this phenomenon with plain women’s telepathy, but this is a misreading. We are able to transmit complicated thoughts to each other, much more than simple phrases like, “Get me away from him,” or “I said bathroom, but I meant leave.” A twitch of my pinky finger is enough to notify Princess that that man has an Amex Platinum card in his coat pocket, but he also knows exactly how to find the bathroom at drag brunch, and to then ask her how we should proceed. We are able to stumble off in two different directions and track the other, like particles entangled, and even sense if the other faces mortal danger. The most crucial differentiator is the hypnotic field: Two dolls tapped into The Channel is enough to wring a few bi-curious otters for free drinks, but three, four? A DMV waiting area could be turned into a bacchanal in mere seconds with little more than a wink. The Channel is a connection between sisters of our covenant, yes, but it is also a field of influence, an extra-dimensional frequency, a power called from a place between realms.

With just a touch, we are both tapped in. Time slows down, and the colored lights saturate around us as we move towards the thumping dancefloor. The back of the crowd wriggles slightly out of time in a wall around it (the white faggots in question, perhaps?) We slide gracefully between them without so much as a bump of the shoulders, ensuring our garments are not sullied by strange sweat. Princess leads until we reach the front, where the speakers pound the air so loudly that my eyes vibrate in my skull. A particularly short and curvy doll has stripped down to her panties and pleasers, and is whipping her head about as she spins across the front of the booth. She and Princess grab one another by the shoulders and scream gleefully before she returns to her spiraling. I take station under the arctic blast of the air conditioner, close my eyes, and crane my head back as the music pilots my body. At the back of the crowd, shoulders and elbows slap together haphazardly. “Dancing” becomes an abstract concept, perhaps something lost to time, replaced by a rudimentary shuffling of feet. But up here, there is decorum, a loyalty to the flow of movement. Arms and fingers outstretched, drawing dirty phrases in the air like practiced calligraphy without ever invading another’s airspace. But when bodies do collide, it happens first at the base of the crotch, then up to the navel, then slowly up through the chest as hands hold onto hip bones. Every muscle works with intention so that the body may act without thought. Though I am not sure of my place in the bathroom’s hierarchy, I at least have the experience to hold my own on the floor.

Time becomes unimportant. I open my eyes only occasionally to check who has tapped in or out. Princess has moved under the disco ball, and Magick has appeared at my side. She is, again, wearing eight-inch pleasers, this time paired with a long strip of dagger-slashed purple fabric fashioned into a nearly nude evening gown. I opened them again a little later. Magick is in the booth by the DJ’s shoulder, and he is whispering something in her ear, at which she looks very mildly impressed, and Princess has disappeared. I open them even later. Cleo has arrived surrounded by a ring of mostly naked club kids, no doubt ensnared by the web of her beauty. Magick is gone, and Princess is jumping wildly in the booth. Cleo and I dance suggestively together for a while before one of her many suitors steps in to take my place. The girls cycle in and out like this for what could be minutes or eons, as is their nature, while I root myself in amongst silent dance partners, as is mine. The music grips me mercilessly by the throat, rumbling in my esophagus and down through the hollow of my chest. Back home, I’m accustomed to the disorganized blend of goth rock, post-punk, darkwave, and techno that’s pumped out at my usual crawl. It satisfies well enough, and often even thoroughly quenches, but I’ve yet to feel the kind of frenzied euphoria that I do right now. Something is growling excitedly at the base of my hips as I move, an orgasm just out of reach. In the blackness behind my shut eyes, I see something… a silver thread? A slit of light? A door cracked ever so slightly? I want to stay here until I can figure this out. I want to keep my eyes closed forever. The last time I opened them, though, everyone was gone. My eyelid twitches – a disturbance. I shut just one eye to see if the thread of light still lingers. I find it gone and mourn briefly, a parting wave to the last little tracer in a comedown. I suppose I should go investigate.

Pushing through the crowd, I look back towards the booth to see if I had possibly missed one of them hiding behind the DJ, but I find the booth entirely empty. Pulled instinctually towards the sections, I spot Princess crouched on the floor and rush up behind her. I ask repeatedly if she’s okay to no response, an unmoving hand placed over her chest, a slack jaw, and eyes so wide the whites reflect neon blue. A gentle hand finds my shoulder from the couch before her, and I turn to realize it is Mama, the Queen Mother of Princess’s chosen family. I recognize her only by the hushed descriptions that have been given to me, and swell with hot embarrassment that I had not acknowledged her before she did me. “She’s okay, baby, she just needs a minute.” Her gaze is stern but affirming. I take the hint and find an empty seat by Jema, a slender DJ knee-deep in mollyworld between two of her latex-clad paramours.

At that moment, I turn to see Darren crashing towards us, a forearm swiping against wet eyes as he stumbles and falls on the couch next to me. He hunches forward into his hands and begins to sob violently. The same section of this track has been looping for a while now, I realize. I don’t know him well, but decently enough (I hope) for the hand I place upon his back to be appropriate. He doesn’t protest. I don’t ask questions. Damien soon appears after him, clearly reading the confusion on my face, and pulls my ear to his lips. “Ron Carroll just passed away.”

So, in front of the club in a haze of camel crush smoke, I learn who Ron Carroll is. I’m sure many individuals more cultured than myself are disgusted by that statement. For those who aren’t, Ron’s endless accolades and contributions to music are easily Googleable, and I strongly suggest taking the time to read through the many obituaries written for him. Maybe light a joint, lie back on your bed, and listen through the decades of tracks he’s worked on, see if you can pick them out the next time you’re lost on a club dancefloor. That night, though, I learned about his smaller moments. Words of encouragement over plates of food he paid for, tears wiped away from drunken cheeks, band-aids placed on bloodied knees, lost kids in the night shielded from the rain by his wing. Love, given freely and softly, always when it was needed most. I learn about a hidden weight that Ron had carried all that time. So after some time smoking, staring off, and looking down at their hands, the night children decide that they will not go home just yet. “Ron wouldn’t want us sitting here crying like a bunch of bitches!” Princess shouts defiantly to the pavement. Darren, nose still running, nods as he wipes his eyes and stands in agreement, “Yeah, fuck that, let’s keep it going. I don’t wanna go home.” He flicks his cigarette into the sewer grate like a farewell offering, before setting off to locate an afterparty. The work is quick, though, as he returns only moments later with an address handed down from Mama herself. A kickback at a high-rise with a code and a doorman, and the family is expected to be in attendance. Princess looks at me, “We’re gonna carry it.”

Like every afters we attend, the overheads are off, replaced by cleverly hidden strips of neon LEDS, and a mystery DJ spins at a decked out controller squeezed between the couch and the mantle. The host is a deceptively goofy hippie named Chet, who feels out of place in such a highly secured new build. There are a few barefoot ravers passing a bong back and forth on the couch. I assume they belong to him. Perhaps he’s a tech guy? Once he begins offering hors d’oeuvres, though, I am able to guess his place in the ecosystem more accurately and decide it best not to question too much further. Within about twenty minutes, I have achieved a nearly perfect high, and most of the extended family has filtered in. I am curled up on the couch next to Darren and Damien when a gaggle of stoners pour inside from a balcony I had not previously noticed. I alert them both that in any high-rise, especially during an afterparty, especially when I am so deliciously high, “The only thing I want is to go stand on a motherfucking balcony.” The boys guide me outside, and we are followed by Princess, Magick, Cleo, Jema, and the rest of the dolls, who take to the scattered barstools and dusty lawn chairs like grackles landing from migration. Damien mingles with the girls while Darren leans against the railing, staring sometimes warmly over us, and sometimes absently out into the night. I am looking at the pavement, maybe twenty stories down, with my belly on the railing and my toes on their tippies. Princess’s face moves into my peripheral and we stare together for a long while before she says,

“I think about it sometimes. I mean, I never ever would, but.. I do.” I do too, more often than I’d like. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I kinda already promised I wouldn’t – pinky swore and everything – but still.” Our tones are casual, perhaps more casual than the subject begets, but maybe every intense conversation doesn’t need to feel like a support group. “Imagine I just go flying right now, like what would y’all even do?” She chuckles out, and I pantomime pulling out my phone to record her hypothetical fall. We both reel hysterically at this, rocking back and forth, kicking our feet over the banister, before Cleo pulls us back sternly by the shoulders. “Y’all crackheads are stressing me out. Don’t make me call Trevor, bitch!” She scolds. Princess falls back into an empty lawn chair, while Cleo and I linger to stare out over the skyline. We sit there for a long while, pinky fingers just barely touching, as a silence overtakes me. I eavesdrop on the conversation behind us and consider chiming in, but I just keep coming up short. I recall my last visit to Chicago, during which Cleo and I had ended up on a balcony much like this together. That time, I had drunk a little too much and told her some things even my ex still doesn’t know. My face flushes at the memory. “I’m doing better than last time, right?” I ask her. Her hand moves to my shoulder as she smiles warmly. “What last time?” Thank God. Nicki, a particularly beautiful doll of Russian descent, comes up to join us.

“You’re still in Texas, right?” She mumbles, slightly drunk. “Yeah, I am.” She inspects me for a moment, then the skyline, before continuing, “Florida was horrible. Sometimes I actually forget I’m a southern girl – or I just try not to think about it, anyway.” The words scrape out of her like something pried from a hiding spot. I reply, “Yeah, I don’t know. It’s weird how different everything is here.” My response is maybe one or two steps above a damn, that’s crazy, but I really do mean it. It is weird. I mean, is this the most conventional wake? Certainly not, but it is a wake nonetheless, a family gathering, whatever the reason. As Nicki, Cleo, and I continue, I do my best to spruce up a series of damn, that’s crazy responses. I remember sharing too much last time, talking too much about home. No doubt, Nicki is inviting me to do so, but at some point, it just becomes tiring. Too much like a support group. What should I tell her, exactly? That back home, I am a girl with an old face on my license, an old name on my lease, and a handful of orphan sisters? No mother, no father. It’s a story she already knows, and an unremarkable one at that. As the family laughs and recounts old stories of late nights out, I’d prefer to sit and listen, to stare out at the city quietly as they mourn. I’d prefer to forget that I’m a southern girl, too.

After a while, I do manage to forget again, forgoing every opportunity to open up further. I sink back into the night, I get a lot higher, until I’m kind of just sober again. The wind shifts, and first light begins to break over the horizon, sending a chill of anxiety over the flock. Unlike the mercy vampires are granted by being incinerated in the sunlight, night children are forced to slink back to our lairs in plain view of the morning joggers, piled up makeup, sloughed off sequins, and all. Slink, we do – the dolls off to yet another afterparty, Darren and Damian to chaperone them, Magick back to her mother’s hospital bedside, Cleo to her day job as a school teacher, and Princess and me once more to the Hollywood Diner. We take our seats and place our same orders, neither of us removing our sunglasses. I figure now is as good a time to ask as any:

“So was tonight a carry?”

She nods furiously, fingers twiddling around the edge of her mug.

“Oh yeah, girl. The other night, that was nothing. But we kept it up tonight. No falling asleep on the couches and shit.”

I chew on this, feeling accomplished, like I’ve slowly begun to master a crucial skill.

“And when you say, we’re gonna storm it, what exactly does that mean?”

She swipes off her shades at this, mulling over her answer as the waitress sets down our plates.

“Ya know, a few months ago, we’re all back there at Surge for Jema’s birthday, right? And it’s all the girls, aaaaaaaall the girls are out. And you know Jema, she’s been on this shit since she was thirteen, basically grew up in the fuckin’ club, doesn’t really know anything else. So we’re sitting in the bathroom and she’s got a literal line out the door to give her shit, bitches just lined up in front of her.”

She hammers the fork into her meal, chewing and swallowing rabidly between sections of her monologue.

“So I go out to say hi to someone, or do something, I don’t know, and I come back and the fuckin’ bathroom’s empty. And I’m running around, going Where are the dolls, where are the dolls, and bitch, tell me why I find ‘em outside. All the dolls got kicked out. Some sneaky little lesbian had come in with a bag, and then she turned around and security’s right there. Double-crossed the bitch!”

She throws her hands out, wide-eyed, pausing on this statement.

“Like they don’t know what goes on. They know, and they don’t care unless somebody complains. Before COVID, you used to be able to get in there for free before midnight if you knew a DJ’s password. That was the whole fucking point, so that bitches had a place to party and feel safe, to dance. Now it’s fuckin twenty flat, no exceptions… And look who’s in there now.”

We both look down at our plates for a moment. Then she continues,

“So that night I said no, fuck that. Everybody get up, we’re going back inside, we’re not fucking paying, because we’re the only bitches in there who remember what it’s about. It means something for a black trans woman to be in that booth, to be at the front, to be dancing her fucking ass off up there. Ron knew that, he always did.”

Her voice is shaking now, tears sliding quietly down her cheeks.

“So yeah, girl, it really is like putting on your fucking war paint. Commanding a room. Asserting our place in the community. They don’t wanna book the girls, fine, the girls are still gonna be there, because without us there’s no party.”

We return home to Vivica’s townhouse and slumber extensively. It is not until I wake up around two that I realize I’m supposed to be on a plane in roughly forty-five minutes. I look down at my suitcase, guts splattered and smeared across the hardwood floor, and then I think about Texas. I think of my apartment, dark and empty, save for the mountain of trash and dirty laundry that blankets every surface. Princess is snoring loudly in the bed next to me, one leg slung out from under the duvet and over mine. I think of my bed with just me in it. I’m supposed to be moving soon, and I’m kinda blowing through my savings. I’ve already spent so much on cars and toiletries and drinks and dinners, but I can’t find it within myself to regret anything. I opened the Southwest app on my phone; it’s only another $173.00 to reschedule my flight for next week. I proceed to checkout and fall easily back to sleep. When I awake some time later, I find the lights on, Princess standing over me half-naked as she digs through a pile of vintage designer clothes. “I rescheduled my flight for next week.” I yawn to her, rubbing the mascara-stained crust from my eyes. She appears puzzled. “What, like just now? I thought you already did, girl.” And in a sense, she’s right, I did already reschedule it, or at least I knew I would.

To be continued…

It’s been a while, but not as long as the last time, which is good. I tried coke for the first time a few weeks ago. It was just a little bump, nothing crazy, I promise. Actually I had two bumps, because the first one did nothing, so I went in for a second to see if cocaine usage was akin to getting one’s nipples pierced. You know how people always say, “Ya barely feel the first nipple, but the second one hits like a truck.” It didn’t, and I will admit I was dissapointed. Then a couple weeks after that, a girlfriend and I happened upon a roiling concert at an unlikely venue, and I was offered yet another bump. It’s impolite to decline when one is offered drugs, I’ve learned, so really what choice did I have? And time I felt it too, but the sensation passed even quicker than it came. I know, I know, I remember the dream you told me about, where I came back from New York all skinny and addicted to drugs. But really Mom, I swear to God, it wasn’t even a standout in the slew of drugs I’ve already done. Sometimes I daydream back to the cool grey expanse of Vyvanse-induced emptiness, like memories of a silent vow in a countryside cloister, or the tingly acid haze I was buried in after your wake. Will I accept if offered again? Maybe, probably, most likely, as I hate to be rude – but I already know it’s not what I’m looking for.

Rest assured, I don’t think there’s a drug on earth that could fix my sensate discomforts. I’m not nosediving towards an overdose – but maybe something similar. The outlines of it are hazy. All I know is that there is shell around me now, some fleshy layer that has grown slowly these last five years. A jacket, a callous, a skin that I now find narrow in the shoulders. It’s hard to spot, but I’ve begun to trace the seams, new lines that weren’t there when I was twenty. And God, I know, twenty-four is young and twenty-five will be too and blah blah blah, but I will not pretend I don’t feel it slipping already. My time, Mom. I think it’s almost up. I have been funny and flipped my hair, giggled and talked about nothing. It’s all I’ve done for years. Bright moments blip the map, but so many sit between of just the couch, the coffee table, the buzzing of the fridge. If how I spend my days is how I’ll spend my life, I’d bargain to trade them for my nights. At least then I might be kissing or dancing or drinking, or forcing myself to write. I pine for the sun to drop each day and drag down expectation with it. In the moonlight I am already behind, surrendered to my lateness, arms up through the concrete tunnel between failure and tomorrow. But when you live that way, the days slip by faster than you’d like, almost unnoticed.

I think about you a lot, and what you might’ve been like at my age: twenty-four, a shitty job, a half-finished degree, a two year old on your hip and a husband states away. Did he make you happy when he was there? Mine did – the one I told you about, the one I thought I was going to marry. I thought of you when I cut him loose too. There was so much opportunity in my hands, like lightning poured out, and I wondered how you’d look down at it with my eyes. I thought to myself, “Maybe she can live a different life through me.” Once he was gone, his scent wafted out through the window, I realized how empty a room can really be. Try as I might to fill it with music or trinkets or sex, my eyes wander to the empty bottle on the table, little more than static fading at the bottom. Are you staring at it too? Are you even watching? I am desperate for a set of eyes upon me, even just to watch me as I clean. It’s unsettling, how much I don’t do when I’m alone. No doubt, you would be doing much more. You’d be in New York already, or maybe even Paris, rubbing shoulders with the tastemaker’s tastemakers. You’d have everything I want, however material it all may be, because you were brilliant even with the curtain closed. But I, I feel I can do little more than wait for it to open.

I know exactly what you’d say if you could write me back. Close your eyes and think of one thing you can do right now. So I would close them and try, I would almost see it, a pinprick of light through muslin, but become distracted by the tightness of my wrappings. That layer of moments gone by, days spent counting popcorn on the ceiling, nights spent dousing my ribs with liquor, weeks putting it off till tomorrow, months and years passed by my window… it’s so heavily caked on, Mom, I can hardly think to move. Waiting a little longer has always been so easy. Doesn’t that point of view feel a little pity-partyish? You’d giggle as you said that part, an eyebrow raised, sardonically playful. You have a way of striking spite against my pride, flint and tinder I always hated to see in your hands. Nonetheless it’s true; what a waste to be so hopeless. The best advice I’ve ever been given was that self-pity, self-deprecation, the constant obsession with what a loser one might be is just another way to be self-centered. So now, in this moment as I write to you, I have closed my eyes once more and begun wriggle slightly.

As I sweat and struggle, I find myself longingly recalling my many childhood sketchbooks. I’m sure you remember them too, and all the mountains we could build from their paper. So many years I spent buried in them, hours each day hunched on the ground with a pencil, a shimmery gray stain of graphite rubbed into the side of my hand as I drew. There was an ecstatic, obsessive feeling to the motion, a relief akin to bloodletting as the images coursed through my veins and poured out over the page. Like, some benevolent force took over my body as a channel into reality, and so I was freed to leave it behind. Maybe this is where my addiction to escape began. I mean, I was most certainly dependent on the practice, and in fact I blame you for losing my connection to it. After you died the channel closed, the hand that once bled freely clamped shut. When I turned toward Vyvanse to try and get it back I was nearly fooled by the cloudy silence it gave me. The shade of grey it cast on my mind was all wrong though, flat and lifeless, missing the meditative properties of built up pencil dust. Again I tried with LSD, and found myself drowning in imagery, but alas, none of it my own.

From this recollection I find myself able to slide and turn within my casing, drawn further through my memories. After a few years without you, years subsiding on cheap imitations of escape, I found myself reliant on outside help. I met a strange girl with curly hair who tattooed out of her home studio, glinting weapons and mementos of the natural world decorating her flash book. We rendezvoused whenever I could afford her service, and she would slowly handpoke images onto my body. After so many unfruitful drug-induced attempts at finding a way back to my own creations, I had settled on the curation of hers, basking in the joy of her process and the pain of her needle. It was the only thing that flushed all the anxiety out, like lymphatic mucus loosened by a shopping mall acupuncturist. I never cared what she drew as long as it was pretty and painful. As I sweat all over her table we’d talk about her inspirations, the strange memories that inspired her, all while Queen Latifah movies played on her livingroom television (Beauty Shop was my favorite.) Eventually, after a particularly grizzly session right over my wrist bones, I had a small breakthrough of my own. The channel cracked open, just a bit.

I sped home from the appointment and dove into a dusty old pad of paper. And I mean sped, Mom. You would’ve beat me senseless if you were there. From atrophied muscles the movements came sorely at first, but as the graphite softened over the page so too did they. Slowly and over many hours I produced an image of a sphinx posed in profile, drawing up a glowing flower from the dirt before her. Complete with six breasts, a penis, razor sharp talons, tattered wings, and topped off with shimmering jewels, I couldn’t help but see a new reflection in her image. Do you remember the shit I drew as a kid? My portfolio consisted entirely of scantily-armored heroines with anorexic waists and back-breaker tits. I blame this on you as well, for allowing me to play World of Warcraft during my most formative years as a young artist. You and Dad always joked (much to my chagrin) that I “knew what I liked” as you ogled at my characters. I guess that was more comfortable than the obvious truth that I was reimagining myself, even if through an unfortunately sexualized lens provided by some creepwad game developers. Tell me, what do you think of this new form I’ve taken?

She is me, after all. Somebody I want to be, something I hope to embody someday. I am often asked, in a manner most backhanded, what I think it is that makes me a woman. Whether you’d be happy that I am one or not is of little concern to me, but I know you’d be silently proud that I refuse to indulge such questions. Nonetheless, to you I will confess the answer: I dream incessantly of creation. In my sleep I glide upon veiny wings, high above scattered cities and endless trees, eyes cut like knives carving lines across the ground below. Following the dull thrum of a heartbeat below the canopy I swoop, silently, and land upon soft flesh, claws sunk with precision into a prey animal’s jugular. To kill is not a sport, but a somber necessity. Sustenance. I cast prayers upon my fallen and well wishes in it’s passing, “Know that you will feed all that I touch.” Then, on four legs I circumambulate as the ground takes hold, as the smallest of orders feed and fernheads unfurl. I pray, eyes closed, as countless suns and moons pass over, and I do not turn to face onlookers. Red becomes rust, ribs bared through skin, as I pace around the cycle’s completion.

From that dream I am awoken too soon every time. But as I write to you now I begin to understand it, see the line drawn from way back when up to now. Just a few weeks ago I was in the artist’s chair once more – not the curly haired girl this time, but a burly stranger with a heavy machine – in need of something harder than acupuncture. I picked a dagger pierced through two butterflies and told him, “I want it where it hurts the most.” Yeah, yeah, another tattoo, just be happy that my shirt (usually) covers this one. As I lay chest exposed, glitter pasties reflected in his glasses, I told him I’d probably cuss him out more than once and cast out my fair share of threats on his life. He did not protest, and set his engine happily to engraving black upon my sternum. Yes, it hurt like shit, and yes I did threaten to kill him once or twice, but through most of it we chatted about his dreams and mine. He wanted to make horror movies, my favorite kind, and I told him how I sometimes write. While my organs recoiled from the white-hot sting we conversed about the process, about the time it takes to make fantasies material. We spoke much of an artist’s integrity, how creation requires a finger poked curiously into many mediums, many failed birthings in endless forms, and how it usually manifests as some form of masochism.

For a stranger I paid to hurt me with my shirt off, he was a pretty cool guy. I think you would have liked him. To be honest though, I had hoped I’d cry, but you know how I am about crying. Yet another thing I blame you for. Unfortunately I sat “exceptionally well” as he told it; so close to that “second nipple” feeling and yet, so far. Should I just get my nipples pierced? Is that a question one should ask her mother? I probably won’t anyways, the thought of all my future lovers tasting piercing-flavored nipples isn’t worth two seconds of possible Nirvana. Nonetheless I did drive home much lighter, enough to minutely improve my gas mileage. So much built up anger and frustration flushed away, congealed phlegm and black bile drained off into a steel pan. I grinned from ear to ear each day as I inspected my new wound, gleeful as I poked at the seeping dregs of tar bubbled up beneath the saniderm. Finally, only three days too early when I peeled it off in the shower, I gained new understanding of this husk I’ve been trapped in. It’s a chrysalis, finally breaking, old blood, ink, and plasma dripping down my legs to let in new air.

As thankful as I am to end this letter on a hopeful note, you should know I did not write it all in one sitting. You are a very difficult woman to think of, to speak to, and just as much so to write. The fact that you cannot write back serves as both a crutch and a curse. Equally difficult is it to circumvent the many days of sleepless procrastination, the copious junk food binges and the groggy comedowns from them, and the many distracting opportunities to kiss and dance and drink that inhabit my current version of a “process.” But I have learned so far that it serves not to whip myself for time wasted. The mind is always working, drawing graphite lines beneath sheets of shed skin and empty chip bags scattered. So as the chitin cracks further open, I must decide whether to stay clothed within it, or to consume it like hatchlings often do. Soon I will be born anew, slipped from the caul to embrace pain as it comes, to watch it fester before fading and then sprout green once more. Look with me now down at my hands, and as I rub them together, feel what has replaced expired sparks. Fire, somewhere deep within, hot coals stoked in the lowest part of my belly. There is a flame there your might recognize, one you once held yourself. I am it’s keeper now. Guide my hand as I slide a knife in and watch it spill out, time and time again, breaking the scar just as it heals over. To create is an act of masochism. A birth upon hot ashes, a violent cycle in pursuit of sustenance. I have not been perfect, an apple decaying slowly just below her tree, but know that as I go I will feed all that I touch. I love you, and thank you for this lesson.

You’ve got your arms up on the door frame. Amber off my neck curls around the stale reek of your weed, eyes dancing between lips and button flies. If we were not both here right now we’d never meet. But we are just around the corner, right outside speaker’s pulse, as you pull your breath hot off my neck. In the sober daylight I’d pass you right by. Cloaked in red-tinged darkness, though, I cannot help but want us to connect. You are nothing next to me and I am wasted upon you, and In my head I am naked on top. I moan so loud the windowpanes shimmer. Your dirty nails bite imprints into the soft flesh of my hips. You smell awful, you look pitiful, yet my neck cranes back in ecstasy. We share a knowing smirk as I gnaw bitter at the thought. I know you smell it on my skin. I know, you know, this will never happen. The grass is always greener, the sex is better in my head, and you will be the unsaved number that doesn’t answer when I text. Tease me, tease me, then disappoint. Look at my lips when I’m talking to you, sit too close when we’re sweaty and drunk, graze me, brush me and then waste my time, waste my time, please, my love, waste my goddamn time.

You’ve got your fingers on my waist. Somehow you emerged behind me, an apparition in the strobe lights, and I turn to face you between flashes. You stand out amongst this crowd, more beautiful than the rest. My skin prickles, our hips fall in time, I turn again between your arms – an invitation accepted. Words are snuffed out here, heartbeats drown in the thrumming, but I can feel the desire in your touch. This dress is so thin, you like what you feel, tugging at the seams on my thighs. Shall I undress for you right here? In this moment, swallowed up by such a heavy beat, I might let you strip me naked. I turn once more and run my hands up over your shoulders. Hold me tighter. The lights are so blinding that we lose all sense, unmoored in an ocean of swaying bodies. It grows louder still, melts altogether, and we realize at once that nobody is watching. Don’t let go. This sweat on my neck, it could be yours or mine. Our legs interlock as you tug at my waist. You are holding me afloat now, our foreheads pressed together. Take me right now. And maybe you do, my love, but the tide is unforgiving, and my memory is lost. When my eyes open I am alone at sea. Ships in the night; I cast a prayers upon the searchlights that I might find you again.

You’ve got your back up to my ceiling. Rainfall outside the window has followed you here, and it shifts the lights within the room as it swipes against the glass. Finally, I trace circles upon your back. I thought it might be over now, but God, look at how tired you are. A dog to your desires you bite half-heartedly at my neck, but your head is oh so heavy. Surrender, my love, just lay back down. Perhaps I wanted something different; perhaps I howled from my window too. But there is no moon watching us tonight, just clouds fallen over the sill, and you are warm beneath my duvet. I like the way your legs tangle up in mine. I like the way your cheek sticks to my breast. So desperately you claw to stand, to lock eyes with mine and drain the color from them, but I can’t help making you laugh. The air that builds between us doesn’t feel all that carnal. Ragged, labored, but softened at the edges. Skin exposed where coarse fur was expected. “I guess it’s been a while,” whispered through the sheets, so you’re gentler than you meant to be, and I’m as gentle as you needed. You are sobered when it’s over and you leave as if embarrassed, hide cloak slipped back on over your face. You will text me when you can. I will answer when you do.

You’ve got a knot tied on my heart. I don’t mean to be weird or anything, I apologize if I’m too forward. It’s just been such a long time since I’ve felt it beat this loudly, and I am deafened in my bathroom, in my kitchen, in my bed. I can taste you in the water. Maybe you don’t feel the same, I don’t know, you don’t have to tell me. Please, actually, say nothing for right now. I forget my youth at times. I have this silly superstition that it rains when it feels right, and it’s just pouring over my apartment, and I keep writing your name in the fog on the window. It doesn’t have to be anything, I promise. In six months I’ll be somewhere else and you can just forget me, but I might call you when I land. It’s the middle of the summer but the thermostat’s at sixty, so if I tell you that I’m cold is that a good enough excuse? You don’t have to tell me anymore. I’ll put a record on, I’ll be naked when you get here. I can hold the bedframe or you can lay down in my lap, I really don’t care which, but I like the way my pillows smell where you slept. Forgive my confusion, I am more delicate than I thought. Please, my love, come over.

.

And I guess you must’ve known already. It’s funny, you always knew what I was thinking before I thought it. I’d hold it all like pins in my mouth, pushing my tongue around the heads to feel them pick at my flesh. I’d hold and hold and hold until I could carve the right words out, and then you’d say “Yeah, I felt it over the past few days.” Sometimes it was weeks. He knows me better than myself, it’s true love. Is that how I should’ve felt? It would’ve been easier if I did. Maybe happy women like to be catalogued, heads split open like manila folders of predictable motives. I mean, what was the point of all that thinking? I could’ve let you do it for me. I could’ve sat at home with you on Friday nights and listened to you talk, and I’d cook a warm meal for us to eat under the blankets, and we’d watch some old Japanese movie that I’d love so much, and you’d fuck me every other night and I’d let you be my whole world. I’d never have to think about a goddamn thing again.

That’s exactly what I wanted when we first met. My life had been so cold, my bed indented right down the middle, my right hand always frostbitten. With the summer you showed up and said you loved me – way too early, sure – but you really loved me. Kay, I’m not going anywhere, I love you. I had never felt the sun until right then. I did it all, did my best, bailed on all my friends to spend more time with you, fucked you EVERY night because I wanted to. I don’t regret it. I told you I was destined to lose my mind. I said, “Someday I’ll be at the mercy of an apathetic nurse in a dementia ward, and I’ll still remember the day I fell in love with you.” You were the sun I melted under for a time. But seasons change, I guess. It was simply cold before you because that’s how winters are, and we spent our last year watching the frost creep back in. I was never lying, and I don’t regret us, but I wish I had left you sooner.

Or maybe I just wish you had given me a better reason. Or any reason at all, something fleshy to tear apart in front of you. I wish you had yelled at me, lied to me, cheated so I could hate you right now. Honestly I just wish you had left. I guess I’m a dog, tail tucked into a corner, fangs bared angrily at you. You, the hand outstretched. All you ever did was miss me. You’d point things out that I would’ve loved at twenty, four years younger, a million years dumber. I could hear it in the back of your throat, how much you missed that girl who didn’t know herself. That girl who gave you everything, do you know that the lights went out when you left a room without her? When she imagined her future she saw locked doors in a pitch black hallway. Now here I am at the other end, and you don’t recognize me. I don’t need my hand held, I don’t need my mind read, I don’t need you to tell me what I want, but that’s what you were used to. That’s how you loved me.

I make it sound like I hated it, but I didn’t. It was so sweet, so tender. Besides, what could you have done with someone so broken? What did I expect but that you would try and fix it? You don’t have a mean bone in your body, and I have more than I’d like, and I’d freak the fuck out while you watched from the trees as a twister rolls by. Then, like a the good man you are, you’d kiss me and help me pick it all up. You were calm everywhere I couldn’t be and gentle all over. I am sorry my wind could not be gentle too. I am sorry that my teeth are made of steel. I am sorry that my tongue is a sawn off shotgun. But I have tried too long to be your softest future wife, and I am aware that “but” negates the apology. Perhaps I’m not really sorry at all. My fixing is mine to bear, and when a woman chooses herself she is forced to become a beast. I choose myself because if we met for the first time today, you would not choose me.

In my stupidity, though, I’d want you again. I’d want you and want you a thousand times over. You know, I went out with a guy last night. It’s probably horrible to tell you that, but I met him at a bar and realized too late he just reminded me of you. He was handsome and a little awkward, stumbling over himself to fill the pauses in our conversation, and he was infatuated with me. He kept scooting closer and finding excuses to brush his hand against mine. And yeah, I was stupid, because the apartment is dark and filled with empty corners, and I’m scared to sit alone with all of our memories in the living room, and I hate seeing them scattered over the table because you took the bookshelf, and I’ve been hiding in the bedroom since you left because it’s small and empty and it smells the most like you. I am stupid so I brought him home thinking he’d want to just keep talking, to just keep me company. In the very second I realized he could never quiet the echoing silence, he had already removed my shirt. Even after us it felt like cheating. It felt like Hell.

You told me I was never an easy girlfriend, a knife slipped under my ribcage that I probably deserved. I had agreed to love you, that I would be your wife and die with you someday. I never agreed to be easy, though, and you never bought a ring. You told me you had inventoried all of your records, tallied all of the furniture you had bought, and waited for me to break it off. You could read my mind but you could never once trust me, so fine, at least I can kill to eat if I must. I pray the next time you face down with something wild, you underestimate it less. I have starved too long in my attempts to be more docile, to prove to you that I was good, but to you all animals look the same. I love you fiercely, even now, but now we both know how little love can mean.

Rest assured, I am happy with my choice. The night is bitterly cold and I am afraid of this newfound darkness, but I am so fucking happy to be unleashed. Trust that I feel it in my heart, that the weight of my freedom drags like lead behind me, but I’d take it over being chained to a stake any day. You always worried you were holding me back. I am sure now that you weren’t, you couldn’t – but I think you wanted to. I don’t blame you. I love you. But I am happy outside, and you will find someone soon who will be happy at home with you. The truth is that what we had was magical, but it was nothing out of the ordinary as far as first loves go. We are everybody else, wrong for eachother for whatever reason, and despite the extent of my wounds I am elated to have known you. I will be happy that I had you and regret that I lost you for the rest of my life, but I thank God that the choice was my own. You are just a man, and I am a dog who is no longer yours.

In seventh grade, my first girlfriend Kimmy dumped me after I forgot our three-week anniversary. From those ashes we cobbled together a lifelong friendship, a sisterhood. She saw me through two boyfriends and two subsequent breakups that same year, and in turn, I saw her through a second (incredibly off-putting cutter) girlfriend. We melded into one another as young girls do, and I found myself at her home more often than my own. I was there for her and for the magical things on her Tumblr dashboard, but I was also there to see her mom. She was carefree and open, like a distant aunt with a harrowing past and an eyebrow piercing. I could tell her things—I could tell her anything. I could say whatever I wanted in front of her, things like fuck, shit, and bitch, or, “I hate Emma Richardson; she’s a suckup and her makeup is bad.” She’d giggle as I talked and advise me kindly not to judge people, but she let me run my mouth nonetheless. Then, one day, she taught me how to commune with the dead.

As it turned out, Kimmy and her mom came from a long lineage of good Appalachian women who could peek into the Other Side. They were also God-fearing Christians, which may seem a contradiction, but as they told it to me, “the creator bestows many gifts amongst his chosen.” Apparently, necromancy was one of them. Before I explain how it all worked, I must make it clear that I am not proselytizing, and if you’re at all familiar with who I am, you’ll know I do not fear God. The first lesson was the tingle. Mama could feel the spirits like electricity in her left palm, and she’d wave it over doors and walls and inanimate objects to detect them. It wasn’t always a whole spirit, though—sometimes it was a piece, a shadow, a memory of something significant replaying on a loop. She used that hand to draw cards, too. Kimmy taught me how and I picked up quickly, as natural as riding a bike. The three of us never strayed from a simple three-card spread: past, present, and future. I learned their meanings, and more importantly, I learned how to attach those meanings to a person. Whether it was spiritual or a simple mental game, there was an art to divining tiny expressions on a person’s face as they scanned the images and naming out loud their thoughts as they had them. It was never fortune-telling, and it was also never lying, but I cannot deny that being a good liar lent itself to understanding people in simple terms. I learned how to be read, too, and how to feel the tingle in my palm as I held it above the stack.

If the tingle was a knock on the door, what Mama taught me next was falling through it. The cards knew only what you did, but the dead knew everything else. I had to say a prayer and close my eyes and wait an indiscernible amount of time. Slowly, like an image slowly burning into an old TV, the room would trace itself in the darkness behind my eyelids in black and grey lines. I would call out, Hello? Is anyone there? And most times, nothing answered. Or rather, most times, I answered with a “Yes, I’m here,” that would echo a thousand times over in the back of my skull. I wondered how to discern if it was someone else or just me, looking stupid with my eyes closed saying hi to myself. Eventually, someone came. Into the greyscale impression of the room entered a mass of deep blue, shapeless and lumbering as it ducked beneath the door frame. With closed eyes, I swiveled my head to face it. Mama had taught me that with enough practice, you didn’t need your hand to feel the tingle, and she was right. It crept up my arm, gooseflesh and peach fuzz stood up on end, and the tingle evolved into sharp pins and needles as it circled the space around me. She said you could tell by the colors “what kind” they were. It wasn’t an exact science, but for argument’s sake, blue means good. So, what do a preteen and a spirit talk about?

With that one and many others, I talked about long hallways in the dark. Twisting corridors in lightless neighborhoods just outside of Paradise, where people wander without sight. To call there is like placing a candle in a windowsill. The flames ring like telephones, one told me. Prayers must be clearly enunciated to the operator, lest any Tom, Dick, or Harry answer on the other end. I was told that it’s rude to ask how they died and pointless to ask what it’s like. They either can’t tell you if Heaven is real or they don’t know themselves, and they do, in fact, watch the living masturbate. Some must be drawn down through portholes and doorways like wayward stars, but if you can coax them out, they are happy to indulge in polite conversation. The ones who are stuck here, though, squeezing through crawlspaces and getting stuck behind the drywall, are more unpredictable. At best, they lose their speech first and must resort to transmitting messages via frantic and scattered images. They cleave off from the mortal continuation of time and become stuck in loops, an eternal sunset upon their most painful memories. Eventually, they burn off entirely into figments of their former selves, nuclear shadows in the dust. Those were the broken pieces Mama found with her palm.

Now, was any of this real? It was real with the right ambience: lit candles and poly silk scarves strewn out as tablecloths, healing crystals laid out meticulously, and the addition of a blunt when I got a little older. It was real when I was lonely and confused, and too invested in a lifetime of lying to request help from a living adult. Sometimes it was real in the sense that lights flickered and figures crept down hallways when my eyes were opened, too. Those memories have a way of contracting in on themselves, and even the ones I share with others become hazy and debatable. I don’t know what was real. I should also note that up to this point I was still afraid of the dark, still slept with the duvet over my head, still half-believed my mother could read my mind. I was still a silly child. But instead of a child’s daydreams, I found myself engulfed in the affairs of dead people, looking for them through every darkened doorway, every window opened to the midnight breeze, a chemical addiction I had to keep on chasing. By my own determination, their world was endless, and there was more to be found than dead old ladies sipping glasses of cold tea. I sought an opening, and more than a mere window to peek through.

Then, as if summoned by my desperation, The Woman came. She approached from my open closet like wind, or the stillness when it ceases, arms outstretched from beneath a grey cloak. She was massive, hunching and stooped over to squeeze into the confines of the space. In my heart I wanted her to leave, but I dared not say so—I feared she may even hear me think it and wondered, can she hear me trying not to think it? In response, she traced her tongue around the thought, lapping at the edges, hot, fetid breath like humus and rotted fruit flooding through my skull. Trembling, I asked, “What is your name?” The answer came as jagged nails pushed through the softness of my gut, a hand wrapped around my spine, an ecstatic coldness that overtook me. It was a loss of some ethereal virginity to which I acquiesced, succumbing beneath the weight like soil atop a coffin. She cooed sweet nothings as she worked, no malice in her voice—but something more like pity, as one might speak to a dog behind a shed. At some point, waking and dreaming were one. That night was a full life lived and was over all at once. In a single moment she was gone, replaced by the cool breeze of dawn streaming through my open window.

I knew she had instilled in me great and wretched knowledge of things that were to come, but the specifics were entirely gone. In their place was a dull throb like a hangover and a laundry list of orders: I was to sleep with no blanket and no clothing in complete dark and silence with the window open to the night. I would be plagued by nightmares in bodily form, and they would stomp cracks into my sternum and drag me from the bed, and it was up to me to beat them off. A passive interviewer I could be no more, and instead the dead would flock to reach me—a torch beside a portcullis, a lighthouse, a pyre. My duty was to break. From this she promised me no protection but infinite lessons. As I obeyed, I caught glimpses of a door closed against blackness in the distance. Behind it, I knew, was the future she had told me—warned me—I would face. It was for this reason I did as she said. The Woman, like any mother, was cruel because the world was. She gave me pain to prove that I could brace it, watching me battle her pet horrors like cubs rolling in the dirt. It was a love no living mother could muster the strength to provide. I still knew little of her, other than that she was more than a mere human but not quite a god, though I began to revere her as such. This seemed to perturb her; prayers are for the weak, devotion for the foolish. All you can give me is fear, she would scold. But I could not fear her, could not help but love her, and it wasn’t until much later I truly understood her words.

After so much suffering, I was molded by her will. I no longer feared the dark; in fact, I craved it. I showered and ate in the dark just as I slept. I began slipping from my bedroom at night, over the backyard fence and into the woods in my night robe. I paced aimlessly between the trees, eyes shut, indulging in the prick of thorns and stones under my feet. I savored the frigid numbness that crawled up from the soil as the night turned it cold and wet. So too did I savor my hand out the window of my car, late on winter midnights, letting the wind bite my fingers stiff and bloodless. I felt her everywhere and withdrew into her. That door in the blackness was pressed against my cheek now. The voices on the other side vibrated through the woodgrain, and I watched the shadows of shuffling feet in the gap underneath. Whatever was coming was upon me, so close, and I was begging to surrender. I howled out to The Woman, crazed and feral, frothing muzzle and glistening fangs, beating at my chest; I dared her to turn the key and unleash me. When she came behind the wind again, I realized she was smaller now—just a hair above my own head, unable to impose herself upon me. I bared my teeth to her neck and drank deeply the scent of her grizzled skin, my breath returning soured with gore and gristle. With little force she acquiesced, succumbing to her own violence reflected, and fell back through the door now opened, her hands in mine.

Behind it, no writhing dead or undead, no hellfire or brimstone, no final combatant to knock off a hill. I fell for a lifetime again and shattered my skull upon the same rocky shores that every young girl before me had. Eighteen, everything shattered, all of it mortal and mundane. Pain to which I did not, could not acquiesce, pain at the hands of some I loved and trusted, some I did not know, pain from outside and pain forced deep into, the pain of facing it and the numbness after, unable to eat or sleep or think, cold and alone and only marginally older. To my great misfortune it was all undebatably real and true. I need not write it out in detail. I am unsure how many girls have traversed endless planes of the dead, but all the girls I know have faced what lay at the end. After the door, I never touched the other side again. There was no purpose. One path lies through life, one through death, and both lead to the door. Once through, I tried to turn back, to run, but saw only my own shattered head in the gravel. I called out to The Woman one last time, “What is your name?” And the answer came as the dark, empty ringing of silence.

I guess I asked for it working there, living here; when my friends and I chatter, it’s about leaving too. But there’s so much to do first, saving and packing and saying goodbye, so much more of a hassle than just flying away. The birds laugh and ask why we don’t just come with them. I say it’s complicated. No, we aren’t really welcome, and we don’t make much money or eat all that well. Sometimes they want to eat us, sometimes they do. But we know all the street names and the best places to dance, and sometimes that makes it worth it. Our hearts are laid down like hearthstones, I say, too heavy for hollow bones to carry. They cock little heads to the side, how strange. I guess they’re right. It’s our fault — my fault for staying.

They turn back to the wire, as bored by my confusion as I am. Somehow, winter occupies us when they go. Are we just too stubborn? Proud to brace against the cold or too proud to admit we are frost-bitten, we stay here, huddled together for warmth. We’ve always been here, popping up out of the soil like weeds, and somehow we’ve found our way until now. But across the street I spot one, a little bird dead on the lawn, and as the others sing above, a hawk tears her guts into ribbons. Somehow they have already forgotten her, and when it grows cold again they will leave her and her name behind. The dead are heavy too. I look at the birds, and they look back once more, and I realize we are not the same. I walk under the wire, under the gleeful chitter-chatter, and scoop her up gently from the grass. Under a bush just down the way, honeysuckle and crepe myrtle entangled, I fold her wings over the slit in her chest as I tuck her softly beneath.

In keeping with business as usual, it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to you. I have dedicated myself to a practice of general unreachability, and it’s really nothing personal. As it turns out, getting away from you was not enough to fix things. You infected everything, everyone I knew. Craig, Lani, Michelle, Dawn, other Dawn, Chad— I want to ask them silly things like, “How’s work going? Is the pay any better?” But you’re hanging there behind them, tight-browed and smiling. I guess I just can’t work up the courage to face that. You. So I don’t text back, I don’t return calls, I just go to work wearing your perfume and I pretend none of you exist, like I simply emerged from the seafoam without any mother or father. Sadly, I see now that I was carved from your rib. You don’t answer either.

It is with that knowledge that I feel armed enough to tell you (if perhaps you did not know) that you’re kind of a bitch. I mean really, who actually commits suicide? Do you know that a certain Godmother was so torn up, she was convinced you had pulled a Gone Girl? Those were her exact words. “I really think she pulled a Gone Girl, ran away to Paris or something. She’s gotta be out there.” And the note you left, my GOD, talk about overdone. I was in a dark place and I couldn’t get out; how passé. I heard that from every one of my cutter friends by the lockers in seventh grade. It sounds like something I’d make up for dramatic effect in a Substack post, but no, that was your explanation. The part I actually liked was the three pages after of instructions for refilling my prescriptions. That has single-handedly molded my entire conception of humor.

I’m a bitch too. People keep dancing around saying it as if I’m not trying. I’ve come to respect Brits because they refer to me as an Agony Aunt, which I guess translates to “bitch who writes.” It’s funny; I only recently stopped to think about how you used to write too, and post videos and care about fashion. You never aged either. It’s like your face froze at twenty-one, some mercurial property about you welded in place, encased in porcelain. I think about how you acted, how you were the coolest and sweetest girl I knew, but just such a massive bitch. We would’ve been best friends, I think, in another life. Or, you could’ve been me and I’d be you, and I’d just tell Dad to leave so we could get ahead of things.

You know, I was terrified of you. And after years of saying nothing, offering nothing, sitting there as you destroy me and doing nothing to stop it, I believed him when he said he was too. How could I not? He knew how I watched the mirrors to check for you around corners. He knew I could identify your approach up the stairs without looking, just by the click of your knees. He knew so much, and when he finally said it, I felt real for the first time. He told me how good it felt to cheat on you, how it made him realize he didn’t want this. I still regret that I was sympathetic. On his side, even. To think of it now tastes like sulfur in my throat.

I know a good mother never speaks ill of her child’s father, and you wanted so much to be good. Even now you probably won’t tell me your side. Since I last saw you, I’ve gone completely psychotic just guessing at what he put you through. Burning all of your journals was deeply unhelpful, by the way, but I still managed to piece a few things together. I know Carly wasn’t the first. You remember Jessica? He told me the story about bringing her home to “let the dogs out” in the middle of the workday. And he goes, “She went fucking crazy about that and accused me of cheating with her for months.” The silver of his tongue is sharp, but it wasn’t sharp enough to gloss over that.

I guess I don’t need to bore you with all of this rehashing. You’re omnipotent now; the forest and the trees and all the dirt beneath it or something. Does betrayal still sting in Heaven? If I don’t believe that Jesus rejects those who jump from chairs, which I do not, then I must also question the idea that death is a release from pain. I hope you’re thankful that I ask more questions than you did. But in all of your terror and rage, you were just so glorious, like a goddess from some ancient myth, star-crossed with her fate. I wouldn’t change you, and I know I couldn’t. But I’m trying to ask you something, because my heart still beats, and for that reason I am selfish.

Did you do it to get the last word? Vacuum the house, mop the floors, feed the dogs, tighten the belt and jump so that he’d have to confess to everyone what he did? Because if so, you must know he didn’t. He flew your whole family out, paid for their hotel rooms, and spoke at your funeral. Did you do it because we were both leaving you? In my defense, I was all but forced into college—and I was not very good at it either. I know I was too late, but I did come back when you died. I still refuse to leave. I’ll refuse as long as you like if that was indeed the reason. Or was it the most likely scenario that since I was born, you were living on borrowed time?

That’s what you said in your old, old journals—the ones you forgot to burn. I have them all in that gnarly green trunk you left. They smell like shit, you know. All of these young girls nowadays romanticizing the scent of a dusty library, beaten leather and timeworn pages—what a load of shit. Anyhow, I plugged my nose one night and I read them all. I know what happened in those years you disappeared. Nobody knows where you were except for me, and as it just so happens, I disappeared at eighteen too. You left, and I lost myself, and I just shut my eyes behind the wheel. I was furious at you then and glad you were gone, but at some point I found you in that darkness, in the words you had written. I’m posting all this shit online, but I won’t tell a soul where we were.

The point is that I know you didn’t come back. You and I, we never liked sentimentals. If I’m any good at writing, you might tear up when you read this, but I’m watching Friends as I type. Rachel just crashed Ross and Emily’s wedding. It’s not that serious. You never came back; it is what it is, I get it. But you should know I had to look at everybody you left behind and promise them I wouldn’t follow you. They wouldn’t leave me alone for months. I couldn’t have a meal, go for a walk, or even take a fucking nap without my pockets being checked for sharp objects. I bought your sister weed and smoked it in the Hilton with her. I had the worst sex of my life a thousand times over and I barely remember any of it. I did a bunch of drugs, I got too skinny, and worst of all, I got spiritual. But I came back, Mom.

I’m doing all the things you didn’t get to and all the things you should have but didn’t. That second bit really fucking sucks. I feel like I ruined your life. You got stuck with me and because of that, you got stuck with Dad, and you didn’t get to be a big-shot journalist or perfumer or poet. But I think I saved you for a little bit too, before I was just another You. Since that time I have shed all of my skin, and I’m left a writhing ball of exposed nerve endings, and everything has hurt so badly, but it’s all been completely worth it. I would strap myself to the front of an eighteen-wheeler, butt-ass naked with my entrails strung around my neck, before I would ever give it up like you did. I need you to hear that from me. It sucks, and it’s worth it.

I have a boyfriend now, you might’ve noticed him from above. His name is Alex and I intend to marry him. I’m taking his last name and your middle name, and my dress will be a strapless cream number with a veil so long it’ll put Mother Mary to shame. I will be a gorgeous bride. He’s wonderful to me. I remember you leaning down in front of me and saying, “You wait to get married until someone treats you like the sun shines out of your ass.” Your eyes were so wide, wagging your finger to hide it trembling. He really does, Mama. You would have truly loved him. He’s too smart, shy at times, but miraculous like the inside of an abalone shell. I suspect you may have sent him to me, a romance to challenge my ambition.

Maybe we’re cursed women. I found out about your grandmother too, how she died the same exact way. But my teeth are steel, my tongue a sawed-off shotgun, and I have grabbed God by the throat more than once and spit in his watchful eye. I am bigger than curses and blessings, and I eat so fast I often forget to chew. I will not go back. I carry that picture of you, the only one I have from your wedding, and I kiss it gently each night after wiping the gore from my blade. You were the worst, I love you.

I forgive you.

John was climbing up the ladder at work. He loved to work, he lived to work, work work work work work. Many people asked him, what do you do young man? In response, he yanked his little trousers up, puffed out his chest, and told them proudly that he was a DATA ANALYST! It’s a job few men have the gumption to do. You see, John and his comrades are tasked with sifting through all the numbers, and indeed it is a heavy burden. They are integral to The Company’s success. Their daily tasks may seem simple, but without them, the well-oiled machine might grind to a halt. John always says that the office is like the inside of a watch; if one tiny gear stops turning, if one minuscule lever locks up, the whole damn thing is useless. John’s role is so deeply integral that much of the overflow from customer service is hoisted onto his shoulders. The Company knows he can handle it. So, every morning before tending to his responsibilities, he must sift through an endless email inbox of maintenance requests, inventory inquiries, and MailChimp ads. He is a data analyst, but he is also a stopgap between upper management and the spam their eyes need not be sullied with. They never tell him, but John knows the higher-ups are grateful for his noble contributions.

However, as time passed, John couldn’t help but wonder if they were that grateful. Take Russel, his manager, for instance. Russel’s a few years older with an aloof attitude and a know-it-all smirk permanently etched across his face. He’s a nice guy and a decent enough boss, laid back, and never gave John too much trouble. But John began to notice, the guy takes an awful lot of leisurely strolls between the cubicles. He’s always peaking over everybody’s shoulders, asking asinine questions like, how’s it going over here? Shouldn’t you know, Russel? And all of those strolls always end in the breakroom, filling an umpteenth cup of black coffee for the day, as if the distance from his office to the drip machine was a marathon. And just last week, Russel took the team out to a little Italian spot for lunch. The waitress seemed to be familiar with him, but she was particularly interested in John. Noticing this, he leaned towards her and whispered, “Don’t bother with the cubicles, hon’, the tips come from management.” Then he winked, right at John. A joke. It was just a harmless joke, John was sure. But he chewed on that joke at his desk, on the drive home, and at the dinner table with his wife, like a rubbery bit of gristle.

John couldn’t let it go. He quit the chatter with the other guys around the water cooler, and quit walking by Russel’s door to wave in the morning. He started showing up thirty minutes earlier to bang out those tiresome customer service emails. He’d have all his spreadsheets done every day by the post-lunch team meetings, after which he would march into Russel’s office and ask for more work. To an outsider, this behavior may seem generous, or exemplary of an eager employee – and unbeknownst to John, Russell took it that way. He began to see John as a standout on the team. “A real take-charge kinda guy,” he’d say to the higher-ups. “I see a lot of myself in him, back when I was less gray.” But John wasn’t doing it to impress him. Every night as he lay in bed he would regurgitate that joke like cud and fall to sleep with a jaw clenched tight. He began to have the same dream every night: stark naked, impotent, climbing a mountain of white printer paper while Russel leered at him from above. The waitress was there too, and she covered her mouth and giggled, and just as John was almost at the top he would slide back down again. Every damn night, he’d hit the ground and burst forth into consciousness, drenched in sweat with a sore jaw, thirty minutes before his alarm. Worst of all, his morning erections were gone. As far as he was concerned, Russell was robbing him of his rest, his virility, his very life force. He could never get back to sleep. All he could do was get up and work, and he could not stop for a second lest the fury overtake him.

Despite his declining emotional state, the extra effort eventually paid off in his favor. It was another restless Tuesday morning when Russell called him into the office. There, he found not only Russell but also Mitch Doherty (Russell’s boss,) waiting for him. The man was older, slightly more puffy and red than Russell, but they both wore that same shit-eating managerial grin. Mitch hoisted himself up with a geriatric grunt and held his hand out to John. “I don’t think we’ve formally met, I’m Mitch.” John made sure to squeeze just hard enough to crack his arthritic knuckles as they shook hands. “Russel’s told me a lot about you, son – ‘says you do good work around here.” John’s eyes darted frantically back to Russell, who met his gaze with a knowing sparkle. “I hear you pick up a lot of slack in this department, is that so?” John could only nod in response. It sounded as though good news was coming, but his paranoid distrust for Russell had become a cloudy miasma, something hard to shake off. “We think you might be useful in a bigger role.” Russel chimed in. The two nodded in sync, expectant. This is good news. The voice in John’s head was more rugged than he remembered. Good news, but what’s the catch? Russell continued, “Mitch needs some help upstairs, and I’ve worked with him a long time, but I’m happy where I’m at. Frankly, my eyes are on retirement now.” He looked down at his hands, pausing a moment. “You seem… hungry. It’s a big leap from entry-level, but initiative stands above all else, in my experience. You’d be leading a team, putting ideas on the table. How does that sound?”

He took the offer, of course. That was the whole point of a job like this, to climb the ladder. This was what he wanted - even more than. He was skipping right past Russell and moving upstairs, skipping right over an entire rung. He got an office, complete with a lumbar support chair and a particle board desk painted mahogany, instead of the gray he was used to. But what is the fucking catch? He chewed on his bottom lip as he rocked in the cushy new chair. Russell would never stick out his neck for me, the shithead. Why the fuck would he give up a role like this, an office upstairs? He was staring into the monitor before him, still black as he watched his reflection bob back and forth, when it hit him like a half-ton anvil. Russell had played him like a fool for weeks, letting him toil and run his keyboard ragged, bringing his work to Mitch to show how well he ran his department. All of this so that Russell could humbly rescind the offer and hand it off to John, the charity case, the cubicle. It was a masterful checkmate. No self-respecting man would take a hand out like that, But John had lost so much sleep, been so preoccupied with his pervasive flaccidness, he’d let his guard down and walked right into the rabbit snare. If Russell had been slowly draining him before, this move was tantamount to cleaving his genitals clean off with a pair of garden shears.

John could only make the best of it now. To admit defeat would be debilitating, the final nail in the coffin in which his manhood now lay dying. He started showing up at six AM, a full hour before the workday began. The janitor would have to unlock the door for him just to storm past without so much as a wave of acknowledgment. He took his coffee black and with it half a Viagra. This allowed him to maintain a half chub as stalked the aisles of his floor, not slow and smug like Russell had done, but with white-knuckled fists and molars clenched just short of cracking. He trashed all of his old trousers and replaced them with wool twill slacks in Spanish grey. The color and material reflected just enough light for everyone in their cubicles, at about eye-level with his crotch, to see his swinging dick as he strode by. It was an excellent tool for intimidation, like a gun on the hip of a traffic officer. He maintained a daily practice of summoning one unlucky soul from their cubicle and into his office for a grilling before nine AM. “I assigned you this report a week ago, and here it is on my desk now… does it normally take you a whole week to complete a basic task?” The same horrified stare in return, every time. “Sir, I was told the deadline was today, and-” “So because your deadline was a week, you took an entire week to finish a three-page report? Is that correct?” He would always keep the blinds closed for these interrogations. Complete isolation was key to instilling the type of fear John desired from his underlings. After successfully grinding them down to a stain in the chair before his desk, he would shoo them out, and unzip his pants. Staring into the unpowered monitor he would attempt to massage his hard-on to completion.

This is how John made his way up the ladder. Half a Viagra became a whole, then two, then two in the morning, and one after lunch. Behind his back he was nicknamed “Woody,” but to his face they were silent. Even eye contact with him became a potential hazard. The HR complaints piled in, but John’s specialized form of workplace terrorism was fine-tuned to skirt around any serious violations. Yes, he expected all work to be done before deadlines, yes, he expected everyone to stay after and come in early, yes, he often made grown men cry and hair fall out. But his violence was restrained just so. The paranoia Russell had awoken in him was now a well-fortified prison, a panopticon to encase the animalistic bloodlust that drove him ever upward. By giving it small tastes of freedom, little glimpses of the outside world, he established himself as an unshakeable warlord within The Company. But he was still hungry. His penis had gone completely numb from being hard so often, and he had ceased all attempts to produce anything from it. All the Viagra did was keep it hard for show and run his heart rate up, constantly racing, like a cougar tensed to pounce on its prey. And all that time, Russell’s despicable, slimy, rotten motherfucker’s grin hung in the peripherals of his mind.

There were no more floors left to climb. John was at the big table now. His office was a full-sized suite, complete with a kitchenette and a real mahogany desk. His wallet flowed ever over, long ago superseding the amount of money one man could spend. Assets, investments, vacation properties, all of it completely meaningless to him. He observed the world through a tunnel at the end of which was some unknowable release. All of his accomplishments up to this point, all the middle management halfwits he had surpassed, were reduced to notches on his pistol. But on this particular day, in the boardroom atop all boardrooms, there was a buzz in the air beyond the sterile fluorescents. The Shareholders were lined up along the edges of a long table, with John at one end and an empty seat at the other. Through the double doors beyond the empty seat emerged Mr. Sampson, The CEO of The Company. He slowly rounded the chair and descended upon it with grace, an ancient owl landing from its final flight. He clasped his knotted fingers together on the table and stared down at John over the rim of his glasses. He licked his withered lips as he opened his mouth to speak. “Ruthless. Ruthless… is what you are, John. I’ve heard it from every corner of this building. It’s made you a successful man. A rich, successful man. Ruthless was the path that every man in this room walked to sit here today.”

A young blond woman in a fitted navy skirt suit approached him from the shadows, handing him a manila folder. “I didn’t go to school, John. I didn’t have any prospects as a young man. My Pa worked his ass off, worked his knuckles to the bone, just so that I could get my degree. I was the first in my family to do so.” He passed the folder to the Shareholder closest to him, who then ceremoniously passed it to the next, and down the line, it slowly came. “Pa was a good man. A decent American man, salt of the earth. I wouldn’t be anything without him. And do you know how he died, John?” The folder was inching closer to John, a wave of hot anticipation approaching with it. “In a puddle of his guts. 40 floors he fell – lost his footing on a steel beam and doooown he went.” Mr. Sampson twirled his finger in the air and whistled to further illustrate this point, and then chuckled.

The folder landed finally in front of him. John stared down at it, and then looked back up at the rows of Shareholders. They were all smiling, But Mr. Sampson was not. He did not move a muscle. The energy that radiated from the folder was heavy, rippling with heat, like sticking his face into an open oven. Mr. Sampson rose from his seat and began a stroll around the table towards him. “My father was an idiot, John. Two years shy of retirement, he lost his life building what now serves as a low-income housing unit. When people talk about me, they use that as a point of pride. They say I come from humble beginnings. But I am not proud of him. I have bested him in every conceivable way, and he sacrificed his life to let me. That is what weak men do.” Mr. Sampson moved behind John’s chair and placed one hand on his shoulder, the other on the edge of the folder. “This is what good men do, John.” At that, he whisked the folder open. At the top of the folder was a picture of Sampson posing next to a corpse, hung on a hook like slaughtered beef, the skin flayed from its body. All that he could identify about the deceased was that he had been a man, judging by the disembodied genitalia Sampson held up next to his carcass.

As he fully took in what he was seeing, that release at the end of the tunnel took form as a screeching beast. Snarling and vicious, it crashed across the table until the chain about its neck pulled taught, leaving it just close enough for John to feel the heat of its breath. It was enormous, blotting out the light in the room, drooling voraciously over the pile of pictures before him. He began to sift through them, revealing image after image of every Shareholder in the room posing next to a similarly disfigured body. They all had their methods; sawing, burning, slicing, and chopping, some even choosing starvation. They had all clearly taken their time and enjoyed it. John had forgotten to take his Viagra in anticipation of this meeting, but right then he was stiff as a rock. A small wet spot was forming below his zipper. Mr. Sampson and the beast spoke in unison now.

“THIS IS WHAT A GOOD MAN DOES, JOHN. HE TAKES THE FOOD FROM THEIR MOUTHS, REAPS THE HOPE FROM THEIR HEARTS, DRAINS THE LIFE FROM THEIR EYES.”

Their voices shook the room violently, demolishing the walls he had built up over so many years. He was so close now, all these years he had been waiting for something, and he never knew what. But now it was clear. The Beast and Mr. Sampson both howled at him through open-mouthed smiles, their eyes rolled back in expectant ecstasy. Without being told John knew exactly what was asked of him. He shot up from the chair and burst through the double doors, moving right past the elevator and beelining for the stairs. A hundred floors he descended, never slowing in pace, never losing breath. He ran without hesitation until he found himself on the first floor. Most of the cubicles were empty, and he could hear a chorus of voices chattering and laughing from the breakroom. He proceeded through the central aisle, grabbing hold of a tabletop paper cutter from the receptionist’s desk as he went. Adrenaline pumped through veins like gasoline. He ripped the blade from its base with ease as he approached the doorway, finding all of the entry-level cubicles huddled around Russell. He was standing over a grocery store sheet cake with the words “Happy Retirement” scrawled across the top in blue icing. One by one their faces dropped as they turned to look at John.

“John?” Russell’s eyes widened as they moved between John’s face and the blade in his hand. “Are you okay?” He had barely finished the sentence before John cried out with rage, lugging the paper cutter’s base over his shoulder and hurling it at Russell’s face. It met his nose and popped it like a grape, spraying blood across the faces of the workers closest to him. Panicked screams erupted as Russel fell to the floor. John leaped across the table, crushing the cake beneath his leather shoes, and fell upon the dazed old man. He brought the blade down hard on the top of his head. It slammed through his balding scalp and splintered his skull, and John pulled it out and brought it down again. At first, Russell’s arms moved as if to shield him, But John hacked away at those until they were cleaved off. Slowly his body reduced to flailing, and then twitching, and then to complete stillness as John minced him into a paste. The room was painted crimson from floor to ceiling. Finally tired out, John dropped the blade at his side and rose from the pile of gore that was his former boss. He ran his hands up his torso slowly, over his face and through his hair, breathing out the first sigh of release he’d felt in nearly a decade. All of the cubicles had fled except for one, a girl no older than twenty-four, cowering and wheezing in the corner. She was all red too. He opened the cabinet below the sink, pulled out a roll of paper towels, and placed it on the counter next to her. “Clean yourself up and get back to work,” he ordered her, before straightening his jacket and leaving.

No police came for John. The very next day the break room was shiny and white again, and the remains of Russell’s mangled corpse hung on a hook in a freezer. For The Company, it was back to business as usual. Mr. Sampson announced his retirement and John was swiftly named as his successor. Even better, after all those years, he had finally found his release. He killed whenever he could, by tens and hundreds and thousands, and when he did profits skyrocketed. He bit the heads off of innocents like shrimp at a buffet, and spit their decapitated skulls out onto his desk after sucking the eyes from their sockets. The shareholders laughed and clinked glasses when he did. John never got cancer or had a heart attack or a stroke, never even had to have a hip replaced. He retired with enough money to fill a thousand football stadiums, and he didn’t give a cent of it to anybody. He was interviewed by every journalist in the country, and was plastered on the cover of Forbes more times than he could count, and when he appeared on the morning news he was posing with a hatchet caked in blood. Nobody stood in his way. He died of old age wrapped in silk sheets, surrounded by servants and loved ones. When they erected his mausoleum, they placed a plaque at the front that read:

HERE LIES JOHN, BELOVED BUSINESSMAN AND PHILANTHROPIST, THE EPITOME OF THE AMERICAN DREAM. FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS HE CARVED HIS LEGACY ON THIS COUNTRY, PROVIDED JOBS FOR THE WORKING MAN, AND LEFT THE WORLD BETTER THAN HE FOUND IT. THAT IS WHAT A GOOD MAN DOES.

I confess that I was never pious. There is a stone in my stomach that grows cold and heavy when I get too close to a church. My memories are not of scripture, but of children my age falling to their knees and communing with God in tongues. Even in a language without translation, I could tell they emphasized all the wrong syllables.

No one in that church ever talked to God – why the fuck would he be in there? The whole place was carpeted in grey, sequestered from sunlight, sterile polypropylene, and central air, with live-streamed sermons and a coffee shop up front. The only thing Jesus could do there was pay sixty bucks for an airbrushed shirt at a kiosk. Instead, he chose to wait outside with an ever-tapping foot, watching us furiously from the billboards.

“Jesus is coming, are you prepared?”

“Where will you go when you die?”

“When the Rapture comes, will you be prepared?”

The Christians I know don’t talk about a Rapture. Their eyes glaze across the scripture like ads in a tabloid, but they pause at the right moments and nod their heads when the pastor does. In 1382 the Lollards began translating the Bible by hand from Latin to English for the good of the common man. As payment for their services, the Church strung those very Bibles around their necks and torched them like plague-riddled vermin. Their leader, John Wycliffe, had the good sense to die by a stroke. Thirty years later they dug his ass up and burned him too.

The Christians of today are unencumbered by subtext. Their war on the forces of Hell is physical, literal, and in no way analogous. Demons walk in the guise of young homosexuals and women with cropped haircuts. Jesus Christ, King of the I-35 billboard, is eternally in arms against the infernal immigrant sodomites, and this war wages just beyond the wrought iron of their gated communities. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children” (Hosea 4:6).

There will never be a Rapture. The kingdom of Heaven never got the right permits, and in its place, we built a block of single-family homes. From where I stand the end will not be heavenly. It will happen all at once but somehow drag on for years, full of resentment and disdain for our fellow man.

No angels will pour forth from the Aether and deliver us to our creator. They are all earthbound, and if you drive to that tent in Celina you’ll find them. They’re in the mesquite trees, invasive and furious in armor of umber thorns. Their hymns twist beyond perversion deep into the soil, leeching the nutrients between the sand and clay, roots rippling beneath the surface like a predatory fungus. They have waited too long for the autumn winds to cool their blistered skin. They have gorged themselves and feel betrayed by empty plates – too much like us to be of any use.

I saw the tent, I saw the angels. I saw it all, got back in my car, and drove home. I have never needed a pastor to tell me to be thankful, and today I give thanks for all I have. In a year I will pack up my home and find dust in places previously unimaginable. I will spend months asking friends and coworkers for spare boxes, and blow a loving kiss goodbye to my deposit. My dog will grow deeply anxious about all of the commotion, and I’ll likely have to hire movers for all the crap I’ve collected, and our new apartment will be both smaller and more expensive.

Texas will fade into an uninhabitable memory. God left this place long ago if he was ever here, but his hatred has settled like dust over everything. I will forever miss the days before it first froze over. Perhaps the end really is near, but we’ve scraped by before and we may have a few more close calls left.

What I really found myself reflecting on, both during and after the event, was that every stain and empty bottle had a viscerally anxious memory attached to it. Can you guess how many half finished bottles of 30 volume developer you have hidden under your bathroom sink right now? The real answer might surprise you - mine certainly did. One was used nearly a year ago to bleach my entire head while my boyfriend was working. A poorly thought out french-bob-minus-bangs situation had not satiated my urge to change drastically, and Alex couldn’t talk me out of DIY blonde while he was slinging pizzas. The second bottle was from the inevitable root touch up. After a scarring miscalculation of my ability to complete such a task, I left a salon at 1 AM with a miracle rescue touch up, performed by a strange stylist who moonlit as a reiki master. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth bottles all marked the various shades of red I tried after deciding blonde was too high maintenance. After dumping all of them into the trash bag, I meditated on my current shade: an “intentionally” washed out, coppery, possibly strawberry blonde - with fucking baby bangs no less. 

Was all that really worth it? Would I be dead, or cleaning up elephant shit with a circus crew if I had stayed brunette? Likely not. If anything, I’d have six bottles of developer worth of cash in my clutch, and virgin hair that at least touched the middle of my back. I haven’t even mentioned the collection of other products I’d half used after being convinced to purchase them by some 18 year old Ulta employee, only to discover a new spot from which pimples can sprout. Nor have I mentioned the various shampoos and hair styling products, the discounted TJ Maxx lotions, the essential oils, all of which I’m sure at some point I thought were the final key to having perfect skin, shiny long hair, and perfect tits. They were not. The only remotely endearing thing lurking in that bathroom was the rat king of hair ties I discovered behind my epsom salts. At least that could still be reliably used. 

Obviously, droning on about bad haircuts and beauty woes is old news as far as things women have written about online. I feel confident that I know that, and that I know that no product can save me, and that aging and wrinkles and split ends are all inevitable normalities that I will never outrun. I feel confident when I see women talking about loving your body and accepting your appearance that I am not their target audience. I already do. And yet, the bathroom cupboard overflows. With a freshly bleached bathroom I find myself at the beginning of the cycle again, swearing that cetaphil and SPF 50 are all I can truly rely on, that I will simply keep my hair up while it grows, that I will drink enough water tomorrow. This time will surely be different. Perhaps I’ll overlook that I am here because after an enchanting karaoke outing with my girlfriends, I found myself studying the creases in which my concealer had settled. I had all but a minor crisis over the way the overhead lighting of the bar bathroom had outlined the texture of my skin, and that the foundation on my nose had separated yet again. I told Alex “I’m going to quit smoking, I’m going to get the binge eating under control, and I’m not bothering to cake makeup on just to look worse anymore.” 

You’d think I’d had a drink thrown in my face to come home so mentally disheveled, but that had not been the case at all. We shared a round of lemon drops, we took pictures on Salim’s digital camera, and we admired one another's outfits. Raven got on stage and sang to everyone’s pleasure, then I helped Noor track down a cigarette. We gossiped in the moist heat of the outdoor venue, reminded one another of our undying love, and then took a few more pictures. Everything was perfect. But it was that car ride home alone that got to me. I thought again about my face in the mirror, in that goddamn overhead bathroom lighting. I groaned over the hour in front of my vanity it took just to end the night looking both dry and oily. I wondered if the bartender thought about the same things when he looked at me, or the girl at the door inspecting the “M” on my license. I wondered if my ass in these denim shorts was enough to counteract my lack of voice training, and surmised that it probably wasn’t. Then I arrived home and agonized over what my digitals were going to look like until bedtime. 

I’m sure at this point, some beauty savvy reader has a laundry list of makeup tips she’s ready to email me. I’m sure that my drugstore powder is the problem, and that baking a little longer really would solve all of my issues. Truthfully though, after waking up at noon today, I don’t think fixing my base routine will cut it. By the time I was locking the back door last night, the mental spiral had already begun to nag about cutting out sugar and going to the community gym. The bar is ten minutes from my house, and I am a confident and self assured young woman who knows that beauty is not everything. The bar is ten minutes from my house, and in that ten minutes I’ve decided to quit nicotine, drink more water, start working out, and curb my eating habits.. Of course, dropping my nicotine addiction is an objectively good thing. The body does not like to carry two lungs full of tar. Drinking enough water and getting some exercise are also objective positives, as is a diet of balance and moderation. Just as I know my looks should never be my top priority, I am also aware of all of these objective facts. Knowing things is all fine and good. However, it hasn’t saved me yet. 

The last psychic I ever trusted met me in the cramped back room of a chain restaurant called Magic Time Machine. She had rolled a thick layer of black ink over my hand and pressed it into a sheet of paper, and then prattled on about her amazement at my collection of whorl fingerprints. She promised great achievement and triumphs in my life before her attention lingered nervously on a gap in the joint of my thumb. 

“You don’t sleep enough, you know?” The neon reds and yellows of the venue’s many tacky beer lights highlighted the worry in her face. 

“I suppose I don’t.” 

Yvette died not two months after orating my destiny that night. She passed half way out from under her duvet, taken by a heart attack. Do you think she saw it coming? If given the choice, most people will tell you they’d prefer to die in bed. Perhaps she had been trying to hurry off to sleep the night it happened, and rose to brew a cup of tea just an hour too late. I try to picture the things she thought of in her final months, knowing the end was drawing near. Placing myself in those shoes, it feels obscene to even stop and consider my slowly aging skin. It feels perverse now to imagine her thinking of it, and perverse to observe myself thinking of her thinking of it. At that time in my life, I fancied myself a budding psychic and a decent tarot reader. A honed sense of observance as a means of survival (especially in an abusive situation) is easy to mistake for clairvoyance. The futures of others were so clearly laid out before me, while mine was as hazy as it was uninteresting. I couldn’t have divined the next day’s dinner in those cards if I had tried. Yvette’s disembodied spirit was likely as shocked as the comments on her Facebook eulogy. I’m sure her final thoughts were as mundane and unserious as they had ever been, and that like most people, she would consider them wasteful in hindsight. I give my thanks to God, or whomever it may concern, that she died with warm feet. 

It will become clear as I continue to write that I keep a mental rolodex of strange old women whose perceived freedom and perspective I envy. I sometimes imagine us all in a circle of lawn chairs, sitting in some flowered field, laughing over glasses of Iced Lipton tea. In this vision it must be Lipton, with mint and white sugar. I met them all in fleeting moments, some of them psychics and reiki masters, others wandering the streets of Harlem at five in the morning, and one standing by the back door of the goth club with a sweaty breast exposed. Most I know I will never meet again. Something in my face must be familiarly tired - a nostalgic kind of tired that only young women ever are. When our conversations finish, I am left with the sense that both parties are aware of my naivety - something they always handle warmly and with care. They are always haunted. You never quit nicotine for good, no moisturizer will save you, cancer is a near inevitability, and either you die first or your friends do. If I could condense all of the wisdom of my disparate coven into writing, it would say that life feels like a neverending open casket funeral. I am simultaneously in the coffin and the pews, wearing a sequin party dress in both instances. My crystal studded Betsey Johnson kitten heels glimmer in the chapel lights. 

I told my therapist recently that I don’t want to rehash the past anymore. She asked me why that was, and I recalled traveling an hour from Brooklyn to Times Square to visit my first therapist a few years ago. Her office was across the street from the Scientology center, and every week I’d leave more anxious than when I had arrived. This time around, I don’t want a thesaurus of sterile sounding words to sprinkle into tense conversations. Perhaps it’s oppositional to the popular appeal of therapy, but so is paying someone to listen to the stories I’ve already told everybody else. I want a shiny set of tools. I want a third option, a satiating medium ground between binging and starving. I want to take the stale advice of drinking more water, going on walks, getting eight hours and eating a good breakfast. That’s really the truth; the most pedestrian advice is the best anybody can give me. I’m young and in my prime, death is a far off improbability, so I delegate ample time to every hairline insecurity. I will continue to spiral and rebuke, try my best for a week and fall back to old habits until my hair is fully gray (which according to my Mom could start as early as thirty five.) It is embarrassing to admit, but that first therapist in the seashore themed office on the twenty sixth floor told me I was “very self aware,” and that she wasn’t sure how to help me. I understand now what she really wanted to say. 

There is a camera hidden in every floral arrangement at the neverending funeral. This is by far my most glaring personality flaw, but it is also the only thing propelling me forward. I am not writing for myself. Everything is embarrassing, everything is pornographic, everything is morbid and will make an excellent story at some point. I will never escape the cluttered cabinet under my bathroom sink, not fully. Tomorrow I’m planning to go to the gym, right after I tell my therapist that I did not meal prep, and my diet was less than satisfactory this week. I will cut bangs and grow them out a thousand more times. Despite my wildest dreams, I will likely have them at my wedding and at the crematorium. I will most certainly have to face the stains in the tub again, but it’ll take less scrubbing next time. Tomorrow, at a leisurely pace on the treadmill, I will imagine my coven and I on a dancefloor. They will be young again and I will be old. They’ll remember what it’s like and I will handle them all warmly, and I will sway groaning hips with a knowing smile.

 The digital picture that I agonized over. It came out great.

Then there was Kay. She was a shriveled old thing, frown lines permantly etched into her jowls like cracks in black asphalt. I’m convinced she was delivered from the womb scowling silently at the obstetrician rather than crying. Perhaps she laid in her crib, that frown already cemented in place, scoffing at her mother’s ill-fitting blouses and chintzy home decor. She was devoutly Christian in the sense that everybody was going to Hell for everything, which likely included herself. I think she found the idea of Paradise chintzy too. We didn’t speak to eachother at first - we really had no business doing so. We went about our duties in the store, avoiding interactions with the customers, staff, and eachother as often as possible. I disliked her simply because I disliked her grandaughter (who we also worked with,) and I knew she disliked me by the way she eyed my tattoos as if they were exposed genitalia.

Months into the pandemic, Texas state officials finally began enforcing the closure of non-essential businesses. The other girls simply stripped off their aprons and went home to their two story McMansions, while Kay and I stayed behind in desperate need of our shitty little paychecks. I was living in a friend’s guest room on a tight time crunch to scrounge up the funds for my own apartment, and her social security checks didn’t do much more than pay for gasoline. Kristen, our boss, graciously allowed us to oversee preparations for the store’s remodeling so that we could continue to eat. This meant that the two of us - a retiree with a handicap tag on her rearview and an anorexic nineteen year old - would be moving all of the stock to the back room, dismantling all of the shelves, and scrubbing the entire store from top to bottom. Kristen came by once or twice the first week, and then stopped showing up altogether. Seeing Kay hobbling to and fro lugging boxes around on swollen ankles may have been too depressing for her cheery sensibilities.

The first few days we labored mostly in silence. However, since I was always tired and hungry and she was always sore, we eventually found ourselves sitting together over our diet sodas instead of working. We got to talking and found that we shared many mutual dissatisfactions. As it turned out, she didn’t like her grandaughter all that much either. Retirement was a let down and she didn’t enjoy idle time nearly as much as she thought she would, but she couldn’t work enough to forgo her monthly checks. Her joints creaked and her fingers burned and she couldn’t see a damn thing with her glasses, but God forbid she gave anymore money to that damned optometrist, did I know how much they charged for new lenses nowadays? I found her complaining strangely endearing, her bitterness sympathetic. Often times I found myself laughing; she swore like a truck driver when she got herself going long enough. I had grown tired of condolences around my plethora of life changing problems, and I imagine she’d grown tired of being the pittied old crone as well. I didn’t pretend to feel awful for her, or turn my head to the side and raise my brows upward in mocking sadness. I would chuckle and nod and say “God, that is a bitch,” and she’d agree and sip her coke.

She’d lost her daughter to cancer about ten years prior. This, in her retelling, is what turned her grandaughter into such a selfish little bitch. I told her about losing my mother to suicide, and she clicked her teeth and shook her head. “What a way to go. Losing them in a hospital bed is almost easier - at least we all saw it coming.” She would stare out at the road and watch the cars pile into traffic when our talks veered into these mournful territories. I would tell her about my mother’s erratic behavior and the cheesy poetry I discovered in her old steamer trunk and say, “In hindsight, I probably could’ve seen it coming if I wasn’t a dumbass kid” and she would laugh again. The thing we both understood, the most constant thing about grief and mourning, was that it slid on a curved scale from gut wrenching to comical. Death tastes like morning breath and tonsil stones, and it coats the wallpaper in a greasy yellow sheen. It feels like being permanently stuck in the first half of a Claritin commercial, when everything is gray and stuffy - and that can be kind of funny.

People make the best jokes from hollowed cheeks in a hospital gown, and write the stupidest shit in their suicide notes. Cousins make ludicrous speeches at funerals, and start the most asinine drunken arguments at the wake. Can you believe she requested that song to be played? it’s just like her. Everybody spills their most tantalizing secrets at those gatherings, the belly of a ten foot catfish carved open to spill out license plates, rubber duckies, ball gags and bobbleheads. Knots in shoulders and lower backs all melt under the gravitational pull of the freshly dug grave, and Kay and I had never quite stepped away from peering over the edge. All of the pretense melts away, and maybe we just didn’t want it back. We didn’t just talk about death and pain and sadness, of course. We both had plenty to say about our coworkers and their naivety, and their shared tendencies to babble on about themselves. We were both jointly irritated by the yuppie Californians moving into town and their poorly mannered children dirtying the tables. We may have even liked a few of the same things, but those conversations were not nearly as long or as interesting.

I don’t really know how Kay felt about me. perhaps she only remembers me as the miscreant little punk with the tattooed arm and the dead mom. But after those few weeks together were over, I missed her. I got a new job at a retail store that I would only a few months later be fired from, and I continued to wonder about her from time to time. My coworkers were young and vibrant again, and I got back into the habit of smiling and not talking about sad things. I continued to neglect eating for a while after that, until I found myself facing the aforementioned firing due to my shitty attitude towards one too many customers. Anorexia and customer service do not work well together. I finally ended up as a pizza boy in a boonies town with a population of five thousand. There was one stoplight and only the main roads were well paved, the rest made up of either potholes or gravel. The allure of greasy pizza (for free) became too much to resist, and I started to eat again. My coworkers were haggard deplorables, and the environment freely allowed screaming matches and parking lot arguments.

I had free reign to manage myself and my job as I saw fit, as I was the only one willing to work the day shift. One of the other drivers, a mid-forties pervert with a tendency to hit on young women, needed frequent straightening out. I would chase him out of the store and tell him if the girl from the Subway next store showed me one more text from him that I’d smash his headlights. The acne riddled shift lead kept swapping out money in the till for counterfeits covered in Russian text. I told her if she fucked with my tips again I would put her purse through the dish washer. A customer once got in her car and followed me back to the store on my bumper, so I smoked a cigarette in front of her car and watched as she called corporate. Corporate did not answer. My behavior was as haggard as the rest of them, but it was cathartic, and it was mutualy understood. Between the releases of pent up anger, I found a lot of peace in that nowhere town as well. The unpaved roads were quiet and breezy, flocked with firewheels and creaking oaks. There were cows in pastures and dogs that chased me behind the fences. I’d occasionally bring breadsticks for the donkey up off Hawkeye, who only creeped me out at night.

I met my boyfriend and began my transition at that job, growing my hair out and eventually turning to sports bras to conceal my puffy, oddly shaped breasts as they came in. The line cooks noticed but didn’t comment, as I had laid a groundwork of being explosively tough when my buttons were pushed. That was simply the way handled ourselves there, and it kept the peace. I began to think of Kay again. I thought about how, had she been able to reliably drive on country roads, she’d be a great fit for our crew. I wondered if she was still alive. Up to that point, I’d been going by the first initial of my deadname, but I eventually decided Kay would fit me better than anything. I don’t know what she was like in her youth - we never really got around to that part of her story. Perhaps she too used to be sweet smelling and bouncy and blonde, and never had anything bad to say to anyone. Maybe she was always potty mouthed and cranky, and she would’ve enjoyed yelling at dirty middle-aged men on the tarmac with me. Maybe her and I would’ve actually liked things together.

That job drove my car into the ground. My alignment was permanently fucked, my brakes ran raw, my AC was out for two of the three summers I spent there, and I racked up a total of 240,000 miles on the spedometer. Surprisingly, I was still able to push it another year and a half before it caught on fire off of exit 470, and a little longer after that before the engine cracked. It’s the most expensive job I’ve ever worked, but I would still do it today if I could. The pay was shit but the tips were decent, and I enjoyed the hot, angry kitchen and the friendly regulars I fed. At the very least it beats retail. Truth be told, I don’t know exactly why I took Kay’s name as mine. I do think that she deserved more than the hand she was dealt. Despite all of our shared grievances, I still had my youth. I had time to scream it all out and move on, but neither of us were sure how many chapters she had left. Her estimate would have certainly been conservative if asked.

I wish I could have taken her with me. It felt so freeing to act like rotten cowboys with the guys at the pizza place, cussing eachother up and down and and airing out all of our frustration. I think she would’ve blown up, and maybe that would’ve led to crying and then laughing and then some kind of relief at the end. The estradiol helped me cry more than anything, and I’d sob in the car as I drove from house to house, and sob in the parking lot and the bathroom. It was painful and warm and tingly, and so foreign to me before that time. I wondered if Kay ever cried when she was alone, but she didn’t seem like the type. She’d call it chintzy. She’d most definitely groan if she knew I thought of her this way, as it betrayed the code of our daily talks. I couldn’t ignore, though, that I had grown beyond our sullen annoyance. I worried that in all her life before we met, she had never gotten further than that.

If Kay is still alive, I hope she’s taken the time to scream at someone or something deserving until her bones rattled, until her throat ran dry. I hope she’s sat in her driver’s seat and sobbed uncontrollably. I hope she’s enjoyed a long drive in the country, and listened to her favorite song and enjoyed a moment without any bitterness. And if none of that happened, I hope she’s looking down - or maybe up - at me, and she sees that I think about her. I hope it doesn’t irritate the shit out of her or make her wrinkle her nose in embarassment. I hope that somewhere, Kay is moving past it with me.