What’s in Your Pockets

For what it’s worth, the way you’re doing it is right, precisely because there’s no right way of doing it. So there’s that. Nothing for you to worry about, really. No, I’m not hiding my derision behind my smile, it’s just how I look when I smile at people, I guess. No, I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic with the “I guess.” It’s just how I talk. Yes, I’m here because I care about you. There isn’t any other reason. No, I know it’s not like what they show on TV. I know it’s a personal experience that I can’t begin to insist I, like, understand at all. I can just see how it affects you. All I have to go on are your words and your appearance. No, that wasn’t meant as a dig against the way you dress. Again with the whole no right way of doing it thing. Yes, I support you no matter what. But if you’ve fallen off the wagon there will be consequences. No, I’m not trying to threaten you. I just want you to know that your actions have consequences. Okay, that was a bit patronizing and bitchy of me to say. I see that now. I apologize. No, I’m not apologizing just to placate you. I mean it. I just think there’s a time in a person’s life where they get down into deep psychic hurt, like bottom-out hurt, like plunging into icy water with no land in sight hurt. Yes. It is. Yes, that’s where I see you right now. And it’s– Yes, it’s scaring the shit out of me. Because I look at you and I wonder which picture of you they’ll use when they talk about you on the news. No, I’m not trying to be dramatic. Yes, I know you can make it through to the Other Side because you’ve already been to the Other Side. No, this isn’t any different. The only thing that’s different is the time and the place. I know you have memory issues. The Fog. I get it. No, I’m not trying to play doctor, it’s just that you’ve had a set of recurring symptoms that come back every time you use again. No, it’s– Yes it is. It is using. That’s the word for it. That’s the nice word for it, if anything. Yes, I do believe it accurately describes your situation. I just think that you have no concept of, like, how to get out of this black hole that you’re spaghettifying towards right now, as we speak. Spaghettification is happening and I’m worried that we won’t be able to un-stretch you this time. It’s just a chance. An opportunity. You don’t have to call it by any other name. You are the sole keeper of you. All I can do is darken your door and stay by your side. It’s like when I found you in the snow that one winter, how you nearly frostbit your ass, your hands. You stayed off for six months after that. And we were proud. Are proud. I am. But listen. You have to hand me what’s in your pockets. You have to rifle through your hiding spots and give me everything. All of it. If you’re in this, you’re in this. Because. All right. Let me tell you a story. When I was 4 and 5 and 6 my dad molested me. Made me put on dresses that he had to “adjust.” Would belt me when I resisted, so the welts were like little inching worms. I called them my little gummy worms and would watch every day as they burrowed under my skin before finally disappearing. It stopped for a few years. But then I’m 13 and developing. Mom’s working late more and more. Dad’s beer breath makes my eyes water. When it happened I was in the shower, singing some Christina Aguilera song. He opened the door quietly. I didn’t know to lock it then. It happened in the shower, his clothes soggy and sticking to me as we both slipped around and took down the shower curtain, nearly smashed our heads into the wall. The bruises on my wrists didn’t go away for weeks. So I report him. Tell them everything. Dad goes away and I go to the Center. At the Center they make you do groups and art therapy and meds and the whole nine. Mom got diagnosed the first week I was in there. I stayed so long that I could chart her cancer fight through how much more hair was gone this week, when she started to wear hats and bandanas. You get it. Mom says we’re fighting this together. Whatever this is, we’re fighting it. Every day she visits I’m losing more of her, like she’s fading away into the background. I ask her how she feels and she says big and strong. Every time I ask her, even when her body is caving in on itself, this is what she tells me. “I’m feeling big and strong.” Then one day she doesn’t show up. The doctors are too-nice to me. I know before they tell me. Graduate from the Center the next week. Woohoo. And you know the rest. Foster care. Group homes. Working. Getting my own place. All of that. Anyway, I don’t know why I’m saying all of this. I don’t know the reason. But I do know you. I do know you. Yeah? You mean it? For real this time? All right. Okay. Let’s start with what’s in your pockets.