We Will Call Her Midnight

In a land of skyscrapers and violence, a young girl had a ten minute phone call with a strange man she didn’t know, who prescribed her pills for a sickness he couldn’t even be sure she had.

A helpless bottle beside her bed, too full, too easy.

Two, easy.

Three, easy.

Do not drink.

We will call this girl, Midnight.

Midnight loved alcohol. Midnight loved the way it inspired her, loved the burn it gave on an empty stomach. She read carefully, online, what the side effects could be, and dipped her toes in gently.

Before the pills, Midnight lived foggy days; she was used to constant aching spins, a pasty mouth, feet on a wire until it was time to sleep, and she couldn’t.

Midnight doesn’t talk about the pills.

She’s afraid if she says the word out loud, people will hear the word hungry instead of help.

Midnight always shows up early.

Him and I, we never go to sleep.

I’ve been wilting like an unkempt flower, because I forget, because I want to punish myself.

I am a sink that won’t drain.

I don’t work hard enough.

This mindset is

thick, gripping, muddy,

but it’s such an easy substance to make.

I've mastered the recipe, and sometimes it feels better to drown in the warmth of the anger, like a bath, than to get out of bed and do my laundry, or write something purposeful.

I will see my grandpa in twelve days.

What will it be like to meet him again? As for who I am?

Do I bring up the red wagon?

Do I bring up her?

Grandma Gil,

the carpeted walls of their basement, his car in the garage,

the scent.

Do I talk about the house?

I’m afraid, and I miss her.

I sleep with Henry every night, I think her ashes have leaked sometimes.

I will bring Henry when I go to see my Grampa. It’s been a few years I think, now.

Henry, with Gramma’s ashes on his neck.

We will call her Midnight.

She sits on a school chair with wheels, in an empty classroom on a Saturday.

The sky is gray, and evening is arriving like a secret, here.

Her crackers and cheese are wrapped in tinfoil on the writer’s desk.

Today happens for Midnight, like a Saturday is meant to.

Slowly.

Loopy.

Tired.

A cool breeze through the open classroom window.

Emptiness.

Openness.

Allowing.