LOOSE TOOTH// LOST YOUTH

and now he’s back in the house and he won’t get out. and the dog is freaking the fuck out because he came unannounced. and he’s making me hate myself for the third time today. he won’t stop asking how i’m doing, even though the answer is right in front of him. it’s written in scars; scars in my mouth and on my tongue and on my legs and the knuckles of both of my fidgeting hands. so i tell him that he raised a devious degenerate with no solid plans and an empty head. and he pretends to cry a little bit and tells me that he hated his father too, and i tell him that i couldn’t give less of a fuck if i tried. and i tell him if he wanted to keep me so badly, he should have put the fucking gun down and taken me to the hamptons and gotten me shitfaced and said sorry. but he didn’t. and i tell him how i wish i could wake up in the middle of the night without the phantom fingers in my mouth being shoved down my throat while the weightless spit on my face begins to dry. and then i tell him that i’m lying. that i’d miss it, if it were to stop. because he never could keep his thoughts or his hands off of me. never could love what he hated to see. and he calls me disgusting, and i agree with him. he calls me shallow. and i nod yes, because i’m only as deep as the ashtrays i use. i stick around because i like the abuse. and i know that he hates me for it almost as much as i do. so we leave it at that and sit in silence for a while. and then he tells me how i should stop smoking. and i tell him that he should have quit drinking. and he tells me that he’s been sober for two and a half years. and i tell him that he’s been dead for two and a half years, and to shut the fuck up already. so he pretend cries some more, and waits for forgiveness and it never comes. and sometimes i think that the thought of me dying emotionally scared him so badly that he had to do it physically. but don’t think for a fucking second that i pity him or that i’m going to forgive him somewhere on down the slowly fading line that is my life, because he ended it all, just a little too late. and i’m already fucked for good. and don’t tell me that time heals, or give me any of the metaphysical, emotional self help bullshit, because i already pay my therapist enough to do it herself. this is me now. and this is me for the rest of my life. this is me. because of him. and i fucking hate him for it.

photo ©Bret Lemke

at the face of the waterfall.

at the face of the ever-all.

my putrid soul

is the ultimate goal.

and you can’t seem to have it.

you’re chasing white rabbits.

how does it feel? so close to the steal?

with the ultimate fish at the end of your reel?

i’m the face of the waterfall.

i’m the face of the ever-all.

and even in sleeping,

you know you can’t keep me.

we always did love the taste of the desert, our frail paper skin numbed by the pitch black cold of night interfering with the white hot heat of day. so it only seemed natural for it to end this way. with the taste of slate grey, cold gun metal on the insides of my cheeks, gagging on the barrel of the gun. i would’ve liked to have said something along the lines of “thank you.” or “fuck you.” but i’m not sure which. i would’ve loved to have seen it from the eyes of the heavy mountains that stood in the distant west, so overbearingly close, and yet so terribly far way. would’ve given anything to have watched it all go down; me with my knees to the sand, and you, my best friend, shoving a service pistol down my throat, saying that its “for the best.” telling me that i had “done enough damage for this lifetime.” promising to “see me on the otherside. some day.” i can’t help but hope you’re telling me the truth. i can’t keep myself from wanting to promise that i’ll save you a window seat in hell. and i can’t stop thinking about how we got there.

us in your hot pink ‘57, tearing through the night, using the empty highway just off of the interstate as a perforated line. you in the driver’s seat, and me riding shotgun, my daddy in the trunk. me smiling because you had just saved me from a life sentence, and you fighting back tears for the same reason. you were force feeding me GPC cigarettes to keep the hunger at bay until we made it to the lone star diner on the other side of the state line. we never did stop to eat that night. and i know it was because the heat of the hours before was still pressing hard on the folds of your brain. you were thinking of the phone call, of me asking for your help. you were thinking about how you found me; laying atop his limp body and holding his already half-eaten skull close to my chest, staining the fabric of my new t-shirt, still holding the phone in one hand, the gun held tight in the other. you were thinking about the cleanup; us picking up pieces of skull and fragments of face, tossing them into trash bags, and hauling them into the trunk of your car, along with the rest of him. 

i focused on your porcelain-doll face, illuminated in the orange streetlight as it filled the car every now and again. and as you thought of earlier, i thought of how happy we used to be. cigarettes in our hands and diamonds on our wrists, drenched in our finest furs, and soaked in the stench of cheap booze, still warm on our tongues. wild parties and executive planes and cheap motel rooms turned into grade-A suites. i thought of all the bars we spent our nights in, the bedrooms of strangers that we woke up in. and the more i thought about it, the more i realized that this time was no different. pedal to the metal. i thought you were saving my ass, but now i know that you were saving my life. ride or die. its like i told you, right? 

and when you thought we had gotten far enough out into the barren wasteland of that frigid desert night, you stopped the car. i waited inside as you opened the door and stepped out, popping the trunk and emerging with a shovel. i admired your determination, and the ultimate glamour of it all; you still in your 8 inch heels, wasting no time, digging a shallow grave in the sand just a few yards from the edge of the highway. and i laughed because i never could clean up my own mess. not even my own bedroom. and so i took the last drag of my cigarette slowly, and then followed suit, struggling under the weight of my father as i dragged him out of the trunk and over to the fresh hole in the ground. i dropped the trash bags in first. and then rolled his body over the edge, but not before kissing him, cold and on the lips, in one last ditch, integrally futile attempt at resuscitation. and as you told me it would be okay, i understood it to the fullest. you pulled the gun out of your purse, only to find that i had already dropped to my knees. “well shit, at least you tried.” you said, and we laughed. i tried to appreciate the taste of slate grey, cold gun metal on the insides of my cheeks, gagging on the barrel of the gun. i would’ve liked to have said something along the lines of “thank you.” or “fuck you.” but i’m pretty sure it was “thank you.”

and you told me that i was “too young to be this bad.” and i smiled, my teeth chipping against the unforgiving cold of the gun. and if i remember correctly, i was still smiling when you pulled the trigger. i always did love the taste of the desert.

heading back to elementary school. giving in to something greater. forever undecided on what “greater” is. i feel the incessant urge to do something more meaningful. something more productive than standing on seamless white paper to pay the bills.  i want to step out of it all. i want to be remembered for more than a few photographs. i’d like my obituary to read a little deeper than ”gave good face.” or ”looked good when hungry.” i’d kill to eat a whole pizza by myself and not fear the consequences. but i can’t seem to shake the feeling that this is all i know. all i can do. and the more i think of it, i don’t really do much at all. and if “those who can’t do, teach.” well then, i guess i’ll work with kids.