Words I Haven’t Read Yet
xTx

I cannot keep looking at the internet like it’s a handsome man who is going to tell me how pretty I look today. But I keep doing it. It makes me feel like any of the good parts of me that might be left are rotting and falling off, rotting and falling off. It makes me feel like it’s true that I have nothing to give.

It’s how I waste most of my time.


I cannot keep pretending things are going to get any better. Hope is a sport made for Gilligans and paraplegics. They wash their uniforms like it means something. Like it’s going to make a difference. Like somebody is going to eventually call them from the bench.

Idiots.


I turn over a lot in my sleep. Everything turns hot. I throw out a foot. I curse my bladder. I itch my asshole with my longest fingernail. All of my movements, medication. All of them pointing to the futility I feel when I am all alone

in a bed

in the dark.


Sometimes I masturbate to take care of restlessness. To take care of the feeling of not knowing what to attach myself to. Like if only I can come at the same time these men do, the way they each come up and spill their white on her face, I will be healed. Like, if I can time it properly, I can become her and be the piece of shit I know I can be.

Am.


A crowd chanting, “USA! USA!” while a woman gets gang raped.

Their red, white, and blue fists.

Their Wal-Mart clothes.

The men, pants comfortable around their knees, grin and nod at the support. Yell, “Fuck yeah!” between turns. Rock star impervious.

Nobody helps the woman. They can’t see her face anyway. Her screams have stopped and it’s like she isn’t even there anymore and nobody remembers why they are chanting anyway.

A clown hands out balloons to the children.

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