Nevermind. The boy was talking to walls.

Smiles for nothing, she sighed. At least it's not an uncommon feeling.

The bell rang, dismissing all students to head for their snack and socializing break. Lagging behind is a girl with an image worthy of deeming her bookworm, but her competence fails to agree. She is in no hurry as she doesn't choose to eat much or talk much or do much in that half hour.

Now the teacher has been long gone for ten minutes, under the impression that all the students have already eagerly run out of the classroom. The girl is bluntly sitting in her seat, a few feet from the teacher's desk no less.

"Hey, you."

It wasn't a hey, you, kid sitting there or anything of that rude sort, but...a considerate address.

A conversation remains unremembered the entire ride home, only the amount of time it lasted, and the smiles she couldn't hold back while strangers blubbered on about unfair bus rights.

My New Favorite Medication.

I thought I could fight it, but I was terribly wrong.

The hasty dose of NyQuil my mother poured me knocked me out within a measly twenty minutes.

There is no use in complaining about a remedy, really. Just before, my forehead and the space between my unruly eyebrows throbbed, probably bearably, but my wallowing and my complaints of feeling like a lifelong failure at the mere sensation of discomfort may have been the finger that knocked over the bitching dominoes.

I'm awake now, unsure of the time, but seeing as how I can't see much at all, I'll say it's been three hours. Trying to stretch lying face down in a mattress, I fail, only to discover a trail of slap-happy goo having traveled from my lips into the silent drums of my ears and into the salty seas of my eyes. Is there really any energy for me to be disgusted? Exactly. I sink further into the eyeliner-smeared sheets and comforters.

My eyes feel raw, overexhausted, and dry; my nose is slowly returning back to hollow, from the olfactory caverns up into my brain most likely, seeing as I can't process a damn thing besides these drunken bodily functions.

I've been crying, I conclude.

Usually, it would be easy to recall what I'd been crying about, which would inevitably lead to crying about what it was I'd been crying about and all that cyclical joy, but my body didn't have the will to withstand another set of uncontrollable, shaking sobs, let alone the brain function to remember the 1's times tables.

I need energy.

I need sugar.

Chocolate Krispies. The kitchen floor is probably cold, but my feet wouldn't know any better; my eyes would wonder how I got through the hallway so quickly, but they wouldn't bother raising their lids any higher; grabbing the cereal box from the cabinet and pouring it, I'm probably going to indulge in three times the recommended amount of rice (if that's what it could be considered), but my hands don't manage to give enough of a damn if I gain any more weight.

Now, milk. White. Grasp. Pull. Grab handle. Pull up. Shut. Look down. No spoon. Four fingers. Pull out. Reach. Pinch. Slam. Say sorry for loud slam. Grab bowl. Pour in white. Throw in spoon. Pick up. Left, right, left...left...left...fuck, right, left, right, more lefts and rights.

Knob.

Oh shit. Just sit down. No one will notice me.

Spoonfuls and much spittle down my mouth later, I'm a bit more concsious, if you can call it that, and my hearing gets louder. I would think I'm going insane, because all the hallway doors are closed and black, except for the bathroom's, but no one is in the bathroom, 'cause it looks dark blue and not lemony yellow, which means no one is in there, so then sounds would be coming from nowhere, so that nowhere is somewhere, and -

Shut up, my brain. Eat your damn sogging crisps.

But, my brain says, I can hear someone!

"Stuuuupiduh. brains don't hear, they think."

Listen. Gosh, my head's mean. Dumbass.

And oh yes, I can hear them, too. Well, no one's around, so maybe it's a ghost!

"You want me to drive at eleven at night to pick up your drunken ass at some pub?!"

A bitch-ghost.

The next voice comes in electronically slur. "I'm drunk senseless. A-and I'm'lone..how'djou esspec' me to drive back?"

I laugh. "Drunken roooo-bot." Wait, robots can't get drunk. Beer is water, so then, like, wouldn't it -

Shut the fuck up and listen!

Damn, sorry. Listening.

"My ass, you're alone. If I here just one woman, I swear to God..."

What's her ass got to do with it? And if the robot says he's alone, I would think he is. Believe him, stupid ghost-witch lady.

Oh wait, I think I just heard my name. And another one I kind of don't like, but know I still care about-ish.

"...the'remah e'rytheeng. You're my everything!"

Wow, a ghost and a robot like that? How does that work out in the whole phys-

Oh. God. If I had limbs, the shit I would do to you...

"Oh yeah, sorry. Uhm. Yeah." Liiiiiiiiiiiisten good.

"Like hell, we are. You haven't been home for two nights and three days. You never call, there's vomit on the carpet from the day you came and LEFT for half an hour-"

Robots vomit? Oh well, the cereal still looks somewhat unlike feces. Mmm.

"Well, why would I co'back? Have you'n'em h-hate me..."

'You and them'? Sound like a poor pair. Kind of like my socks. I knock them together with the rhythm of the ghost's anger and I think it's fear I hear shaking around my tan milk.

"Do you want to come back expecting fucking ROSES -"

I like lillies -

"- for being a poor excuse of a man, a father - "

- but he's a robot, isn't he? Men don't sound like--

"LET ME TALK, YOU BITCH -"

I gasp. So he is a man! This is so exciting, I start lapping chocolate milk from my spoon at lightning speed! What happens next?!

"I fucken luh'you, dere's no other woman, 'n no other girls o'my blood, so fucken un'erstand when I say I do care..."

Crap. She's a woman, too. Damn, my guessing skills suck.

"Come fucking talk to me when you're not drunk."

Isn't that a song?

Click.Operator tone.

Aww, show's over? Well, at least I don't feel scared, anymore.

I manage to finally prop myself up and turn my knob. It wasn't as much of a feat as I thought, having regained a bit more sense in my system.

I look at the bowl again, hoping to finally indulge myself in peace.

There's no more crisps swirling around.

The milk's not even enough for a spoonful.

I stare at the bowl.

Bowl.

Very deep. Nothing's there anymore.

Didn't see that coming.


I bawl like a baby, rocking back and forth. It's all gone. It's all fucking gone.

Feel it yet?

Charlotte's home alone, having come back from working in the yard for a good few hours. She swore she could have felt something tap her shoulder, but shakes it off, blaming it on her imagination.

"I don't see ya', stranger, an' I don' think I ever will," she chuckles.

Dirt beneath her fingernails feels like an overcrowded party, her fingers feeling stubbier than desired. Sweating in places I ne'er knew I had, that's never good a good sign, she agrees with herself. She smells something, maybe herself, which isn't a good sign, she thinks, because she never had a bad smell of her own to base it off of.

If it's not hers, it would obviously be someone else's, but...no one was around. She shrugs it off, kicks off her sandals and heads inside her home, straight for the shower, of course.Her feet pitter-patter along the white marble, and she exaggeratedly stretches to reach and turn on the showerhead.

Sliding off the straps of a bright yellow and blue dress, she stops before completely stepping out of it. I don' recall having bought anythin' but food at the market last week...The dress itself was quite a beauty, a willowy skirt pinched at the waist snugly with the flutter of yellow, blue and white summer flowers at every swing of the hip. She smiles, smoothing it against the towel beam. It'd be silly to complain. The rest of her clothes are tossed into the straw hamper and she steps into a clean stream of water.

The floor of the shower is made of tiles of an interesting texture, almost how a cavity feels for the first time when you keep running your tongue over it to familiarize yourself with it. It's familiar, but not as smooth as you'd like.

It makes for a good echo of the water falling. She gathers up the lathering foam in her hair and stands directly underneath the spray just so she can wring it out, hear the crackling water echo around what couldn't be more than five by five feet.

Now a pleasured sigh resounds in the hazy glass doors. Not hazy from heat, mind you, just built-up soap scum.

I love this, she thinks. Don't need real love to be real happy, she smiles.

Wait, what? Charlotte's never thought much about love, never given it a second listen, care, glance, blink, hiccup. I sure love showers, a-an' my gard'n. ...

Let's think about it today, she decides. What's love, then?

When people usually think love, they think colors, right? They think brown for chocolates. They think red for hearts, or lips. They think pink, for roses, or maybe even for skin, them rowdy dogs.

No one thinks much of touch when they think of love. No, not that touch, but a sensation.

Think water, like right now. Mmmm.

When thinking of love, it makes most sense to think of a shower. A steaming shower likely to boil your blood and eat at your skin (even more fun with a companion, one would think) surrounds every thought with nothing but heat; it lingers in the afterglow when the breeze wishes to hide it, and it tingles you in many places obvious, and at other times, unmentionable.

When a shower is cold, and not just a hesitant, turn-the-blue-knob-just-a-tad cold, but mind-numbingly cold, it becomes too much to bear.

What to do? Completely shut it out.

Then smile because you can't bring yourself to feel a thing anymore.

She whispers, "That's love then, innit?" Isn't it scary feeling all that hot and burning all at once? Not being able to do a thing about it if you don't like it?

She turns the blue shower knob shakily and calms down went it doesn't budge anymore.

Stay cold, you'll be fine, girl. The cold's tangible now, not the most pleasant of feelings, but she wants anything to help it pass.

"All's you need's is a song, Charlotte." And it's what many people would need, really, with the talent she had kept to herself and her posies and roses only, her velvety voice engulfing the silence of the bathroom.

Nothin' to lose is a path you can choose,
An' it feels jus' right at the time -
Then one day you 'wake
Wit a fear you cayn't shake -
You's an actor fergettin' yer lines.

But can you still remember yer very firs' kiss,
Or the future you hoped fer when we was still kids-

Vibrations, that's what she had felt around the shower walls.

None too harsh, but any shake in the house was not a good one, she agreed.

The sliding door has shut.
Shoes are kicked against the wastebasket.
Then that sliding sound...like cloth...cotton, denim.

Oh dear Lord Almighty, not today. Why today? She recounts the times she'd gone to church, actually sung along with the chorus, followed the services,

Then all thoughts fluttered dead as the bathroom door sounded shut. Oh god, even the breaths resounded against the tiles.

And that damn sliding sound! Clothes. And then a shut of the hamper.

A squeak, which Charlotte was praying to the damn stars would not jump out her throat.

If I close m'eyes, hold myself tightly, id'll all go 'way...She turns away from the shower door, heart hitched up into her voicebox,

A touch.

[wanted to finish, no. It'll end up deleted, I feel it.]

A nice, big hole filled with blackness, nothingness, worthlessness.

















Never sounded so attractive.

I never said I was pretty;
The lines and creams and smears
Were to make me an artist.

I never said I was smart;
The failures and faults of figures
Were to make me a parent.

I never said I was honest;
The lies and screams and tears
Were to make me a believer.

I never said I was useful;
The words and tunes and shades
Were to make me a creator.

I never said I was lovely;
The scowls and brows and tongues
Were to make me a shield.

I never said I was healthy;
The frowns and fats and fucks
Were to make me a human.

I never said I was authentic;
The voices and eyes and hips
Were to make me a-nother.

___________

I never said I was somebody;
The characters I've wanted
Were to destroy everything I'd ever be.

[pretty disgusting, I know]

As a side note, forced parallelism makes me want to spew. It's like saying "be creative or you die (or worse, you get a C)." Cue everyone parading around like they're some artistic idiot becaust they can list the different fucking shades of gray a cloud could be and the main painful, horrific ways abortion is harming our pure and good, amazing U.S. of fucking A's morals.

The blobby blob.

The blob cannot carry a tune;
The blob is quite useless.

The blob is very squishy and fat;
The blob will die.

The blob is very colorblind and lazy;
The blob is not creative.

The blob has no way with words;
The blob is not listened to.

The blob cannot remember facts;
The blob is silly-stupid.

The blob makes stupid jokes;
The blob is not very silly, then.

The blob never understands;
The blob is very stupid, then.

The blob talks funny;
The blob scares other people.

The blob is fuzzy;
The blob is very ugly.

The blob is violent;
The blob does not have family.

The blob cannot see;
The blob will always get lost.

The blob likes attention;
The blob is selfish.

The blob does not hear;
The blob only likes the blob.

The blob is quite lonely;
The blob is alone.

The blob is not special at all;
oh, where is that blobbity blob?


Among blobbity blobs that can be so much more.
They all just look the same.