from: autumn's very own kc tran
to: big sis
7:33 a.m.
when you meet someone special, everything they do becomes special, you know? they breathe special. they walk into a room-special, special special. unique unique unique. perfect perfect perfect. you've got to understand that, first, to understand the rest.
7:37 a.m.
monday. monday in september so i'm feeling strange and suicidal. monday in the morning in september so i know nothing is really what i make it out to be. do you know how long the school bus makes like feel? ages. infinite. like it will never end, which is bad when you take comfort in an end. i sit in the front because if we get into a car crash i'll be the first to jolt forward and die. there is no car crash but i'm still the first one to want to die.
7:42 a.m.
i really want to leave. i hate the bus because the seats are cold, and i never bring coats because my coats are all ugly and i never know when i'm going to die, i only hope it will happen soon, and i won't die in an ugly coat — this is also why i carry a hair brush around, because it doesn't matter that i lived with ugly hair, i won't die with it, and i won't die with an ugly head, where people can see.
7:46 a.m.
i'm friends with the bus driver, catalina, who has one son, who makes a lot of money and bought her a very nice house in the suburbs, in westchester, conneticut alive in new york, using a little bit of his lot of money to send her away. you know how mothers can be. mothering, like money, can kill you.
7:55 a.m.
but catalina isn't a murder. she loves him, and he loves her, from far away, like he's using a yard stick made from half one million dollars to soothe the ache of her disgusting, honeyed, syrupy heart. catalina has a bird, pimiento, and a kind of husband, angel, who fills her house with a grown man's joy. kind of because there's no ring but they've built their lives together, and that is enough. i know this because i've been to her house, which she carries in a photo album under her seat. i've sat on the lush green upholstery. i've caressed the bird's back feathers. i know how angel's joy manifests, fills up a room until it's tangible, palpable, palatable—he cooks like it's his dying day, and ropa vieja is the key that opens the golden gates. like he can enter salvation through God's tongue, snake out of hell through satan's belly.
8:02 a.m.
he plays CDs on a 2000s CD player, hooks it up to a stereo, and catalina dances like a flame, like butterflies live in her coat pockets, which are beautiful. she says dancing reminds her of the woman she is, the woman she has to hide inside of her pockets, sometimes. she says there are only white people in her neighborhood, and they always close their windows when she turns the music on.
8:05 a.m.
her coat is yellow, duller than the sun and much brighter than everything else, and i think she thinks about how she will die, too. quietly. only when i'm not looking. from a stroke or in her sleep or from dancing too hard to donna summer.
8:07 a.m.
or not. maybe she's thinking about normal things, like bus routes and buying new shoes, since hers are one million years old and tearing. she never really turns away from me anyway. she has a glass eye screwed into the back of her head. this is true. i've never seen it but i've felt its gaze, its pierce, like the shards are laid against my skull. she hides it under her wig. she thinks i'm going to die the very second she so much as blinks on me. my lungs will dry up and my teeth will fall out. i will smile and blow the remnants at her. she'll be so scared the bus will swerve and we'll hit the school gate and then, then, i'll really be dead.
8:09 a.m.
but she will be too, and that's nothing i want, so i think about everything else when she looks away.
8:12 a.m.
monday, monday in september, monday in the morning, monday where i am the first to get on and last to be thrown off, with two bottles of the water cat pours over my head like an ancient flood. sometimes three, because i sleep like it's practice. so the reaper can blow me like clouds of air and gas towards my incoming death. or maybe soft as birds or sharp as lightning. you cannot know until you know.
8:15 a.m.
(she comes on second. second! there's nothing to say about second, but suddenly there is—nothing good ever comes from second, until she does—it's like she's trying to remake the world! my world.)
8:17 a.m.
musicians are crazy. they think they can fit into anything everywhere because there's a song stitched into the palm of their right hand. she does too! she lugs on a guitar the size of venus like it doesn't even exist; like it doesn't bother her, to bring something so big into a place so small.
8:20 a.m.
i make it small. i do it with my mind: crack the windows and keep the broken pieces under my tongue. shrink the seats, deflate the tires, until the bus can fit on a keychain. makes it easier to manage. if i'm going to die i want to die somewhere manageable, so my memory is so tiny it can be swallowed, instead of kept around forever, until the earth eats it again. like a corpse. you cannot swallow a corpse. i plan on being cremated for this exact reason. you can swallow ashes just fine.
9:36 a.m.
it doesn't have to be so small. but have you noticed the way she fills up a room? like she's trying to replace the air? i've taken to noticing it. just as soon as she walks in, my lungs start to prickle like needles have been pressed through my chest. she looks at catalina and smiles like we're not breathing in affected oxygen.
9:40 a.m.
FUCK she looked at me. i think this is the end.
-
o na na na
let me put u on
o na na na
let me put u on
say she wanna try it
ain't tryna hide it
(o baby. stop messing with those boys get u a lady!)
is it it funny how the separation of species is primarily based on potential reproductive success? as in, adhering very strictly by the already fuzzy / falsifiable definition of a specie, if a fish and a human could procreate, they'd be in the same species ????? science is wildin! also, is censorship invalidated/unnecessary if the intention is to make the viewers/readers/content consumers "uncomfortable" and thus create discussions about said controversial / sensitive / graphic topic ??? is that really a fair argument ??
