The · Manic · Scripts

I remember being 18 and reckless,
but not like you.
I could never hurt my family.

I don't understand how someone so inherently good,
can turn around in a year
and become what you have.
You have always been my complete opposite
capable of emotion and compassion
in a wealth I could never muster.

I desperately want better for you,
and yet you are falling just outside of my grasp

You're my brother
and I love you
but you are pissing me off.

Bravo

If I succeed in this,
then all you will know of this world,
will be unconditional love, and limitless opportunity.

I loved to write, I wrote my first book in grade 6, it was terrible. It was about a bunch of teenagers who went camping in the woods and got lost. They slept in a cave and every hour someone went missing. A gangly toothed hermit serial killer picked them off and roasted their bones for soup. Creative kid.....maybe a little warped...but definitely had something.  I also played marbles, that might have been an earlier grade, but its mashed into my sixth grade memories. I had a pretty sweet collection and my dad told me he was jealous. I believed him.

I convinced my mother to buy me a training bra, and wore it over my tiny flat chest with pride. Now, if  \a boy ever tried to "feel me up" he would find the bra and know that he had something really special on his hands. I sat out on the fence behind  the house for hours, just looking out over the cornfield and writing in my journal. Even then, I was completely focused inward. At some point, the question of a crush came up, and I decided it ought to be the popular blonde haired jock that every other girl liked. I drew his name on my desk with a heart around it, in grade 6 pencil font. Halfway through the year the teacher changed out desk partners (we were in rows of two) and I remember absolutely wishing that i would be seated with my crush. I also remember wishing even harder NOT to be seated beside the boy that nobody liked. He was obnoxious and scrawny and had freckles (totally not my type..haha). By the end of the day it was decided, I was sitting beside Chris. I was VERY upset. I couldn't think of any person I loathed more. He bugged me every day. I told him once that I had a horse when I was little, and he asked "where is it?" and I told him he was at a bording stable. He asked me every day from then on "Hey, where's your horse?" I can't really tell you when something changed in me, but somehow, I went from loathing this guy to liking him. I had a crush on him for the next year. To be honest, I think it was my first crush, since I really only liked the blonde guy because everyone told me I should. The truth is, even my first crush was a nerd.

His eyes were bright and alive, and he was chubby in his multiple coats. He drove a camper van with stripes, routinely cruising the roadways for scrap metal. As I pulled out of the drive, I rolled down the window to tell him the device was in excellent working order &  of course he was welcome to it. He said he was picking it up for a friend, and seemed genuinely thrilled at his find. He almost sparkled as he thanked me, saying "God bless you" and hurrying to the trailer to load up his loot.

As I watched him, I felt out of body, like I was seeing the entire scenario unfold without really being there. I smiled. Good.

My face is bare, and I'm just taking the lid off some outrageous makeup product someone convinced me I needed, when she walks in and quietly sits on the ledge of the bathtub to watch me.
While I'm leaning into the mirror, painting detail and beauty into my face,
she asks "Where did you learn how to do that?"
She is wearing a glittering red dress and her hair is up in curls,
when I turn to face her, I see that her face is also bare, except for the navy coloured eyeliner she's worn since I was three.
"would you like me to do your makeup?" I ask.
"My face is too sensitive, I can't wear makeup"
She makes me laugh.
This coming from the woman who gave birth to me,
the one that has the exact same skin as I do.
Same colour, same flush, same skin.
I clean her face with a cotton pad and a light cleanser before I start to work.
Looking at her, it's as if I am looking at myself.
My brush traces the tiny crows feet and laugh lines that age has brought her,
and glides over a mouth and eyes almost identical to mine.
I look mostly like my father, but it's her eyes and smile that light his canvas.
I'm curious if these tiny marks of experience and life will also be mine.
Her eyes still sparkle, and she is tearing up with the emotion surrounding the day.
The house is chaos, but here in front of my mirror it's just the two of us,
and an odd sense of tranquility.
I wonder about her life, about the secrets she has.
I wonder if she has had an affair, or if she's been loyal to a fault
as she portrays.
I wonder about her past, which moments defined her,
and how much of what she has told me about it is true.
Sometimes the truth doesn't make a good story.
In this moment, I am hopeful that she has always been faithful,
because looking at my father, dressed in suit and tie with his fondest crooked smile,
I feel a childish love and endearment welling in my eyes. 
I hope to be the same as her, sitting on the bathtub ledge,
sporting a glittering dress and fancy makeup for a man I've loved for more then 30 years. 
It's funny how I promised myself I would never become her,
and yet in some ways I can't find a better person to aspire to be. 


 

 

I get home and pop two tylenol, stick a thermometer under my tongue and sit with my forehead against the porcelain of the bath tub. I'm running a fever of 103. I'm not particularly coherent. I wash my face with cold water, and suddenly im dizzy and nauseous and fall to the floor slamming my head off the counter in the meantime. I hate the pain of hitting my head almost more then anything, because it feels like it rattles my brain all around and I get a disgusting sheering pain that momentarily bites into my sanity. At the moment, it's comparable to the pain in my kidneys. I get up, make it to the bed and pull both the down comforter and the extra blanket over  me. I sleep for two hours. When I finally wake up I'm soaked. The bed is soaked. So much sweat poured out of me that my clothes are all damp and I'm too hot. I throw the covers off me and am pleased to discover that A) I can see and B) my fever has broken.

Scott comes home and crushes up a perkiset in some cranberry juice for me. I'm not aware he has done this until after I drink my juice. Let me tell you something about perkiset. It makes me fucking crazy. I actually can't stand my own body when I take the stuff. Almost immediately after I have it I'm tossing and turning in bed, mouth dry seeing only a blur of colour. I'm cursing him and he comes in and hold my head in his lap, stroking my hair. He apologizes. He thought it would help my kidneys feel better. And it does. An hour later, I cant feel a fucking thing. except when I stand up and the dagger in my head flares up. I joke that every time I stand up my tumour wakes up and bites my brain. I'm pretty queer when i'm all fucked up.

Scott says not to say things like that. He says I am way too young for cancer. I stop and kind of stare at him. Like he has 4 heads. "I am" I say....and walk into the kitchen to make myself some soup. I could probably just eat guilt for dinner I'm so full of it.