Priscilla

S5 ⭑ Episode Eleven

"I said real love
is like feelin' no fear,
when you're standin' in the face of danger.
'Cause you just want it so much."
♪ Cherry • Lana Del Rey (palen anthem.)

SHH!

Halen 'Elle

When I was young, the other children in my neighborhood called me a psychopath.

I didn't like their games, I didn't like their jokes, I preferred the company of animals to the company of people, and I had a disability that they regarded as an extraterrestrial parasite. It didn't matter what I did or didn't do. I stared too much and spoke too little. For being myself, for pondering existence and waters, and creatures beyond our buzzing suburbs, they thought I was disturbed. Off. Odd. Weird. Frankenstein.

It only got worse after my on-purpose accident.

That's what my mother called it.

The most egregious oxymoron, but she wanted to cushion the blow for my father, and for herself. Giving it a child-like implication, I think it helped her to rationalize it, because her son setting himself on fire seemed... psychopathic.

Though true in my heart I knew, even then, no matter the implication, it held some truth. I didn't do it because I wanted to. I did it because I felt I had nothing else left to do. I wanted to stop hurting. And I knew what would make it stop was in the creaky shed withering away in our backyard, thirty-two paces out from my bedroom window.

I grabbed the gasoline, and I sparked the lighter.

That is the definition of purpose.

The consequences were what was accidental and lost on me.

Surgeries, hospital bills, physical therapy, years of learning how to simply wave again, even though there was never anyone to wave to.

However, I was nine.

I haven't always been as intelligent as I am now.

From that point on, I had a rough streak. I have made a lot of mistakes and have had a lot of on-purpose accidents since then. Even though I was not loud with them, I had imperfect control of my emotions for most of my life.

Still sometimes, things slip. Out of passion. Like with West.

But I was never truly jealous until last night. Until Priscilla.

The queen of my heart.

The off, the odd, the weird, the Frankenstein, the discomfort I often bring, she finds most endearing. Comforting. While others flinch away, she leans in. She wants to hold my hand and listen when I talk. She wants to help me and learn from me. She wants good things for me and she wants to be there to see me grow. Do what I love.

She has no clue what control she has over me.

She is so... different.

Soul more beautiful than all the rest. Kinder, than all the rest.

For the first time in the age of my existence, I don't want to whisk her away to a chapel and squeeze out every drop of love all at once because it's consuming and wonderful, and flirtatious, and grand.

I don't want to waste it away in a wild high that lasts six months and then one morning look at her, my beautiful, beloved wife, and struggle to know how to say, 'I'm not happy.'

Every millisecond, every breath, every blink, every kiss, every hug, every word and pause between them – with her I want to savor it all. The fall.

Priscilla is the first person I think I am truly falling for. Slowly. Sensually. Deeply.