the luckiest girl alive

The ants crawl up the cracked, white wall. The air is cold. The light outside is blue and wintery. The trees, gray, old, dead. The dust from chips sticks to the roof of my mouth; I am nothing but a glutton. I am nothing. I am nothing. 

A girl sits on the linoleum tile. Her arms are crossed. Knees, pulled up tight. The floor is dirty and there is a chair.  I have been living for myself too long. I do not care about other people. The girl is crying. I am crying. I am apathetic. I feel everything. The floor is cold. The same way I have been called a glutton, I wish I could starve myself of desire. 

He tells me not to isolate myself. I hold a book to my chest. It is my birthday. Candles, lights, action. I want him so bad. Liminal, terrible, emptiness, I eat alone. He kisses me goodbye. I am so hungry. Later, when he is inside me, a great wave of emotion crawls down my throat. I want to be inside his skin. I want to hold his mind in my fingertips. I want to devour him whole. 

There is a girl. She is having sex with someone she does not love. He bites her earlobe and it comes out bloody. There is a girl. For a moment, she pretends he is someone else. 

I sleep the evening away so I am awake during the night hours. I want to hold my loneliness in my hands. He does not come to me anymore. We used to wait for each other. The silence was important. He is too much like me. What is the saying? Whatever is wrong with me is wrong with him also. 

I miss my mom. I have forgotten how to talk. I am afraid I am no longer beautiful. The girl is crying again. It is 3 a.m. and she is saying no and he is not listening. He is not listening and she gives up– it’s easier to just give in instead of fighting it. She pretends he is someone she loves. She pretends that he is telling her I care about you and it's her birthday and he wants to read her poetry. She pretends that he is the man that left her, coming back to reconcile. 

I am in line at a pharmacy, buying emergency contraception, a razor, and a Twix. I am crying during my International Relations lecture. I am throwing up in my dorm toilet. I am being held by my friend. Everything is temporary: I’ve never felt this much all at once. I’m not scared of you anymore. I’m not scared of anything, except the way I feel when he kisses me. Except that I would destroy myself to be with him again. Except everything is touched by him. Except I make the same mistakes over and over and over again and I feel like I am going insane and too many people have called me a mistake and was I a mistake to him too and how can you fall so hard for someone you have only known for such little time and why does this have to be so difficult and irrational and full of pain and is this just infatuation and growing up and don’t leave, please, don’t leave me. 

I’m in the arms of another man,  and I’m thinking about someone else. He asks me, do you want to be close to me or do you just want to be close to someone? I do not lie, ever. I’m thinking about someone else: I am too scared to be alone. I cannot be alone. Please, don’t leave me alone. I say, a little of both, and we both pretend that’s the whole truth. God, I miss my mom. I want to go home. I’m still so young. I can’t be here anymore. I miss my mom. I miss my mom. 

In the café, it’s finals week. I smoke weed out of a plastic bottle and pretend that doesn’t make me want to kill myself. You look terrible. Are you hungover? I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to go home. I feel paralyzed. What am I supposed to say? I need a drink. I ask myself is this affluenza? I have the whole world on a platter for me. Some perspective. Some perspective. The whole world on a platter and I am throwing it all away. The world on a platter and I’m caught up in him, drugged out on the basement couch. How easy it could be. The world on a platter and I’m here doing this. I’m the luckiest girl alive.