Unraveling

June 21, shortly after midnight

There. I’ve said it. I’ve watched it again, relived it, therapeutic rehash, the night my parents died. The night my parents died to save my life.

Push myself from the laptop, stumble to the bedroom, exhausted, tired, I fall into bed but I know it won’t be for long, and I know it won’t be restful, but my brain is cloudy and fuzzy and my eyelids are drooping and that’s the only place to go.

3:07 am

The Monster.

The time burns red into a room pitch black. Should the moon be masked, yet slumbering, already fallen? Equally as unlikely that the streetlamp should have sputtered out.

Here.

The bed sheets are sticky with sweat, my room humid, as if my body heat has radiated into the air around me, memory and nightmare leaked through skin, pollution.

My sleep was not for me. It wasn’t some escape from my reality, as it hasn’t been in the last few months, and why I work so hard to rebel against it.

A black mass on the doorstep, pressing the doorbell over and over again.

A dream state, fade

let him in.

Come to the bedroom door and clutch at the handle again, a curtain falling, a fear grabs tight and clenches, a fear we know, familial in a way, but only by association and time past.

He’s in the living room. Sharing the company of the Stranger, the only way he knows, two ex-lovers of a woman stand in a room and make a wordless conversation.

Tremble, quiver.

Build up a courage unknown, draw deep, still your hand and know. You died once, you witnessed and you sank.

Turn the key and tear the world open

starburst, lightning. The stuff of dreams.

Dispose of the physical, an emotional bridge. Reflect the sky at twilight and drift, fade

My hand doesn’t tremble, but I’m still afraid. It’s the fear, that keeps my blood cold and my jaw tight, a pulse twitches with a steady resolve, a sob in my throat.

Is there another way to open the door? Denial? Lies?

Everything, they sing, will be alright everything

Expecting a happy solution is resurrection, an unearthly necromancy.

So grab tight of the fear, push open the door.

.

The living room is as pitch black as the rest of the apartment. I can’t see my hand in front of me. Two glowing frames, dull green and semi-transparent hover somewhere before me. They cast no light. They have no depth or perspective. They are as flat as the image of the hand against my face, reach out, touch them, just out of reach, a distance near.

Bring the world in, come close, take a look. This is simple. A girl in a cage, hold back, not too close, squeeze tight and watch her run in circles or sit.

He’s here. Of course he’s here. He’s in the middle of the room and he’s cast about in our world for pieces he knew, shadows tight

I’m not sure if it’s the darkness or the fear that makes it hard to breathe.

I sit on the floor and I wait, my limbs running numb, hollow, useless, floating in black space,

fade

Lose track of time, an hour, five minutes, two years go by.

Begin count in your head

one

two

three

Stop. Lose pacing. There’s no rhythm here, there’s no passing sound of cars along the main road, no cycle of traffic lights as bars expel, cough, breathing in and out, ebb and flow, hold your breath and float.

Start over again

one

two

three

Stop. Lose count. Start over again from one, no seconds have passed.

How many times have you lost count? How many times have you started again

A do over. A game resumed.

A life, a rebirth. A perpetual motion.

one

two

three

The air around me turns crisp.

Feel black strands in my lungs, push them out, not another breath, they shred.

Force your eyes closed, then open, no change but to feel movement, a skin against skin, reach into the air and shred.

Shrivel and become light, float, fade,

drift.

An ember is vomited from the fire, a shard of wood, once hard, outer shell, bark, flaming, turn gray and drift

away between the trees, beyond the glow.

Don’t breathe. Close shut your eyes, squeeze tight,

a frustration builds, the byproduct of the fear, growing at your center, somewhere around where your chest would be if you hadn’t lost it, implode, a black space, scream,

but not be heard,

that comes later, write, speak, share, open a door

closed now,

Before you and me, me.

.

My name is Katie.

My parents died in February on Valentine’s Day trying to save my life.

There was beauty in her teardrop.

I came to Colorado to find myself and escape the grief

Reach out, a front window watching, frosted glass, a new world,

My only reality, established,

these are our facts. Hold them close

and unravel.

.

A voice should speak now, but doesn’t.

I’m not writing this.

.

Words lost when you travel above,

so see this,

supernova, a world bright again, shattered edges, a thousand stars, each eyes, watching, without seeing, reaching out to touch as if fingers,

a lover, first, a gentle touch against skin, lips part before meeting, lost in years,

Sensation replace anticipation find true love and emote.

A man stands in the back of the crowd

A pig screams in the distance but it’s not heard.

The whisper of birds wings, the only voices, murmurs, just recycled world below, digest, regret, repeat, history’s mistakes, tomorrow’s car crash

Look yourself in the eye, you’re here too, see the photograph before it’ taken, that’s all.

Unfurl wings wide and burn. Flaming scraps of the edges spiral into the air and explosions rip through the night.

I am not here. He cannot see me, only the eyes like all the others. He understands these eyes as he understands the edges of the veil, the key, the door,

Do not refold the pieces, do not replace the puzzle. Each piece slides in a box is still a whole.

Burn and scream, the white light behind him silhouettes him and hides a body in his shadow. How well do you see.

Do not look with your eyes, do not see with your head

He is not six inches away, but feel his breath on your face.

Lost the cloak of night, pull tight the edges of the earth, drop sun at twilight, draw the color from trees, the mountain horizons pulled tight, past brown, black, it happens every day.

Pull the pieces together, mop up the tears.

Scream and see above, rise up.

.

A street lamp shines orange through the window. My couch is against the wall, my small television on a stand in the corner. Dust across the surface. It hasn’t been watched in some weeks.

There’s the blue light of the moon shining across the front window sill. Kyle is sleeping next door, half out of his covers, too hot, a leg dangling over his bed. A couple curls against couch cushions talking. Most are sleeping. A man drives past, drinking from a coffee flavored energy drink called Monster, he mutters along with the song on the radio. It’s called Baby.

A fox trots across the road, first turning his head to see the oncoming car, then turning back, throwing his shoulders, where he disappears into the bushes on the other side.

A man walks along a creek smoking a small cigar.

An alarm clock goes off and a woman slaps it snoozed and rolls over.

A girl stays up typing an essay, each word coming slowly, a book before her.

Three friends sit around a table drinking beer and playing cards, laughing, a movie forgotten against the corner.

A small group speaks into the night and waits for an answer.

A young man types at his laptop, eyes glazed, a steady but rotting focus.

A man drives his car down the highway with his wife asleep next to him, his children sleeping on a mattress in the bed. A sign suggests that the next services won’t be for forty-two miles. He presses the accelerator and moves on, eyes scanning the horizon for a hint of the dawning sun, but the stars are still thick and the sky still black.

.

Lose the facts and the plot, your name is Katie.

.

Split the sky in two and scream. The sun is still too far to rise.

.

Clench, Katie, squeeze deep and fly, fade

.

Turn up the lights and scream. Reflect inside back upon inside, the space between two planes, flat, a surface smooth,

a window inside a home.

Each left, eyes, pinpricks of light, blue and green, a darkened swirl, shadow comes, turns around and glimmers, if just for a moment, a reflected spark.

.

Run, chase your parents, two souls spiral and fly, firefly lights into the twilight, bridging the silhouette and ticking sky

.

Pull up the mirror, look deep, chase the spark.

You’ve looked back, sprint forward, grip tight, outrun the beast,

Hold fast,

fade.

.

When I land, my face is pressed against the glass of my front window and I’m screaming. When I stop, there’s only his voice; silence.

“So sing.”