Last Fall

Demon Limbs

It's not that I wasn't used to waking up alone, because I was, and it's not that I had expected her to stay, because I hadn't, but when I opened my eyes and she wasn't there, it hurt nonetheless. For the first time in over a year I was sober and allowing myself to hurt. I would have looked at myself in the mirror like she told me too, but the shards lay scattered on the dark hardwood floor among shattered bottles that once held any type of alcohol I could get my hands on. A broken ceramic bowl, a childhood art project, had fallen from atop my dresser, the contents spilling unto the rug. Ashes and cigarettes, that's what I had used my most prized possession from the only class at school I ever liked for. Perhaps the scariest part about my room was the bloody handprints on the wall from when I attempted to punch my reflection and then stumbled backward using the wall to keep upright. I needed to fix things, starting with myself.

It took an hour to wash and comb my mane and once done I realized how shitty the drunk angry haircut I had given myself a while back was. I grabbed medical scissors, careful with my shaky hands and went to work evening out the choppy sections and trimming my overgrown bangs and layers back. Then I parted it to the left and put a rubberband around a small section to keep it out of harms way. I wasn't myself without my eyebrow so I reshaved two fine lines after I had kindof unknowingly let it fill in. I brushed my teeth until my mouth was sore and opened windows to rid my house of the stale smoke smell. That's how she found me running around without pants on and spraying axe everywhere.

She held bags of food and two cups of coffee. "Your kitchen is a barren wasteland and a bitch gotta eat." She explained as she set them down on the counter.

Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked rapidly to make them go away. "You stayed."

"Of course. I'm staying whether you want me to or not and-"

"I want you to." I blurted out before she could continue. "Stay, I mean. I want you to stay." She smiled and my heart constricted. How could I have ever made her leave? "It got hold of me." I finally acknowledged the change within me that no arrangement of words she could have said would have kept away. Back against the wall, I sank down to the floor.

She sat beside me and looped her hand around my wrist to pull me to her. Her other arm supported my waist and she set me on her lap. My front was pressed against hers and she sought eye contact. "You wanted to kill the parts of you that you hated, but you couldn't find a way to figure out how and when you did, you let it consume you. You need someone to be the voice in the back of your head until your own is stable and I intent to be that. Now. We have quite a bit of cleaning to do, but first" she poked my stomach and chuckled when I squirmed "you need to eat. I don't know when the last time you cared enough to feed yourself was and I don't think I want to know, so from now on we will be indulging three times a day until you're no longer a human bobby pin." She said sternly.

"Atleast I'm not middle aged."

"I'm only four years older than you!"

Our banter continued throughout the day as we scrubbed the walls, swept the floors and set the furniture up (ok so the only 'furniture' I had were an old couch and a bookshelf, both of which I had purposely knocked over but you get the point) and returned various books, framed pictures and artworks to their places.

She sat on the counter as I sat on a stool and reglued the pieces of my former ashtray with super glue. I let my finger tips trace where it had been broken once before.

"What happened?" She asked in reference to the earlier cracks.

"I made it in fourth grade. I had just turned 10, double digits I know big deal, and I felt like a total badass. I painted it half black and half white with a skeleton hand in the rock on position." I smiled at the memory before my mood darkened. "I was so proud that I showed my mom first thing after school. I let her hold it and she threw it on the floor, pretending she dropped it on accident." She was clearly unsurprised for it wasn't unlike my mother.

"What'd you do?"

"Hotglued it and kept it for myself. The next day I asked my teacher if I could redo my bowl and painted a second one, light pink with a white lacey detail that my mom displayed in the living room." To this day my mother and I had a rocky relationship. We'd attempted to patch it up, but patches aren't ever a permanent fix and after our last explosive argument I hadn't returned to Lowell, Boston even, in months.

I didn't need to contemplate my answer. I knew what she was going to ask before she asked it. "Would you ever consider going home?"

"I am home."

She sighed. "Lyndsey. This place was falling apart before you tore it apart. How can you call this home?" She asked gently.

"You're here." I said bluntly.

"What?" The gears in her head were turning, but I could see the doubt in her eyes.

"It doesn't matter where I am. When I'm with you, I'm home."

But I wasn't composed of broken bones or demon limbs
So please watch over me and be the light to carry me home