Dark Places

71 | would i ever let somebody kill you?

❝(help) you are the poison i need,
(help) less of inside my body;
(help)
you need a means to an ending,
and i need a spiritual cleansing...❞

☽

I LEAVE THE LIGHT ON. I don't dare turn it off, shucking glances at my dull reflection in a dark window, its muddied orange-blue background hazing into a cool, cloudy canvas. Minutes. Hours. I don't know if I blinked. Dawn daggering into my bedroom. Paranoia seeps in slowly, an invisible, odorless fume venting directly into my lungs.

Somebody is watching.

I glare at Frida Kahlo.

"I joyfully await the exit—and I hope to never return."

HELP.

Vivid. Flash. Dark. I think about it, visualize it (under an icy, pale blue tint) as I gaze at Casco Bay, as I jump, in a daze, crooked, contorted limbs strewn on Spring. Dying in Portland.

CURE YOURSELF

Razors. Bathtubs. Ink. Blood.

KILL YOUR DEMONS

HELP HELP HELP

It never ends.

Focus.

Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón had an obsessive subject. Herself. Narcisista. Alcohólica. Masoquista. The Visual Diary of Frida Kahlo had been a compilation of colorful illustrations and overlapping, bleeding ink, printed on glossy paper. It had been destroyed: marred, torn, penciled handwriting across handwriting across handwriting. Everything is layered, and I pause when I find a familiarity—pasted, glued cleanly, pieces from my old sketchbook of Dar and Jasmine and Jess. Notes I'd taken in Spanglish. A print-out schedule from Maine College of Art. Illustration 404. Illustration Thesis. Light & Space. Portland Walking Trails. Marks. Absences. Leaving the Library, jotted in an upper corner, with D. Sunday. 9/22.

Sharpie.

Sober? Drunk? Tipsy? in a different handwriting, scratchier; questions I don't even know answers to. I barely remember.

Coherent, it says. Below. Capable.

Flip a page.

Lower: Relapsed.

Patterns? Maps?

Data.

Somebody is getting an A in Mixed Media. Extra as fuck.

Unorganized as fuck, too.

Unclear whether L sought professional help.

They want to help you.

HELP

From the top of the Spring Street Parking Garage. Jump. Blurry. I can feel a gust of cold air, an ocean breeze, salt-spritzed, icy on my skin, and I can feel myself step off, plummet, hear an echoing crack, crunching violently, blankly. Broken.

Footsteps.

They want, and want, and want...

My breath is frosty. Needles. Everything tastes sappy, piney. My hardened heels, soaked, bloodied, slipping, catch on a frozen ridge, and I nearly trip. Barefoot, and I'm running. Trees blurring, blurring, blurring... unspooling endlessly... and...

"Luz!"

Nowhere to go.

bluelipsshallowbreathingweakpulse