10.08.02 / 07:09

I am anonymous.

I am a particle of dust resting on the shoulder of a multi-limbed, many faced mass moving down the hallways with a backwards snake movement, screaming expletives and laughter in a blended tongue.

My dad is out of morphine and is stretched across the couch. I swear at him under my breath as I pick up his shirts littered across the living room while he blames me for everything. It's the tumor, my mother and I tell ourselves, it's the chemicals and acids and lackthereofs the tumor is sucking up and chewing, a faceless monster the color of the moon and as big as a baseball.

Six-letter swear.

I can barely remember him not being sick. A glimmer of eight years old, in California, riding on my daddy's shoulders, when he didn't cough and the word biopsy didn't roll around our vocabulary with such ease.

I associate a book with a CD. My old John Bellairs I read again a year ago in a fit of nostalgia and razor blades is connected with Sarah Harmer; I can't listen to 'Basement Apartment' without seeing the warlock's lamp. All summer I listened to soundtracks and memorized Elvish words because I was along and no one could call me a nerd, and travelled down Tolkien's folklore tunnels.

Now it's The Virgin Suicides, finally bought in a secret excursion to the mall, four months after reading the first twenty pages. My mother is horrified I've even heard the name Sylvia Plath, when in reality her book is dog-eared and pencil marked.

She talked about shadows, and I understood. I thought I was going insane, I thought I was a freak for loving shadows, for hiding, for standing on balconies and teetering, for swallowing aspirin like candy.

Delayed reactions and a chemical I can't spell, like serotin. Saran wrap. Searing. Stupid words brought to mind. Maybe it's a universal thing; when you hit rock-bottom, you find the beautiful shadows.

Did all the best memories pour out, the Italian boys and a steel-brushed sky, naked birchs and your father's study? Did nebulae implode, did shadows cease or swallow up the air, like the perfect hollow between stars? Or was it the same old hard-hitting darkness?

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