Throw-Back Thursday!

Wrote this probably when I was 15 or 16 literally sitting on the bathroom floor in a fit of anxiety.

An Ode to the Upstairs Bathroom

There is nothing wrong with me.

And yet . . . .

Here I am:

Crushing the pitiless tiles with my socially acceptable short shorts, feeling the chill of the crisp, whitewashed walls squeezing me until rain is spilling into the house.

But I am not allowed to open up an umbrella while inside these four, seemingly secure walls. That would mean bad luck on me. That would mean too much cover from the woes of living. Then, suddenly, I would become a cowardly failure, a pretty little fool who “prefers to keep her manicured head dry,” an ignorant baby girl.

So Here I Am; umbrella-less and hugging onto my soaking and tarnished and indecisive knees, choking on the stench of decaying humanity while managing to dilute the fresh salt from my tongue with my purplish blood.

I had stole into the confines of my home’s upper belly in hopes of discovering a sanctuary of sanitary and lonesome thought, but instead of finding myself in the remotely-comforting company of my own breathing, I have taken a wrong turn into a labyrinth that lacks a beaming, neon-red exit sign to show me the way back to my home.

Instead of placid plaster like I had anticipated when I had shoved open the door, the shadowy walls of my numerous enemies surround me. They shimmer with laughter like reflections caught in the pullulated grip of a rip tide. Instead of lilac petals plugged-in to my nose, relieving me of overwhelming doubt, the sweaty feet of a ceramic monster leaves footprints behind on my most sensitive of senses. Goodbye to the safety that sleeps beneath my bed covers. So long to the certainty that had stitched together my scarf before the howling breath of despair blew that scarf to ribbons, with it, I fear, my sanity.

But my lack of loneliness does not stop there with the shattered and pointy pieces of myself scrutinizing my every move with eyes of shadowed judgment. On the contrary, in every crevice and unoccupied crack sits a demon. The demons crowd me, suffocating me with their talons that itch to decorate my neck and add some color to my pale form. They suffocate me with the force of their screeches that effortlessly tear from their throats as if they were the lead singers of a terrible opera performance.

I never did have a taste for opera.

And now I wish I could cover my ears more than ever. But no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I beg myself to unhinge my fingers and unlock the umbrella from my petrified grip, the demon’s cries manage to weasel their way into my boggled mind. The demons manage to break me down to the particles of dust I am so that whenever I try to sacrifice good luck for sanity I burst into a flame of starless nights.

God their tone, it is a kind of charcoaled meat, left to rot on a spider-webbed stove, choo-choo-chooing it’s way into my mouth with a bent fork so that I am not-much-later masked by the deceptively smooth ceramic bowl. And their lyrics, their lyrics sprint marathons around my thoughts with a restless sort of living. They think they do me a favor when their bare feet poke holes into my mind, allowing a damn of opinions and chaos to flow through my perspective, with every word they sing and every lap they accomplish but my scarf only unravels more. I only accomplish less.

My voice becomes a wax-paper recording compared to their siren calls. My limbs are strained into wobbly meat. My reality burns outside the large-enough-for-a-fly-to-escape window, and the demons tell my hand to pinch my chin in the direction of the once-beautiful city.

So what do I do?

What can I do but lean against the crumbling walls, on top of the sheet of ice, and helmet my head between my hands when the demons are too occupied with slurping up my energy to pester me?

I sigh.

My exclamation vibrates in my goose bumped skin, in my stuttering heart, and I try to regain a rocks worth of strength in my legs. I try. Shouldn’t I earn an ounce of muscles and a teaspoon of courage for trying? But no. I fall flat on my insecurities, into a pile of my coldest fears instead.

I know by now:

I have achieved the ultimate title in the eyeless sockets of the demons. I have earned a VIP ticket into their noble masquerade. And when they invite me again and again to their black and white party, I consistently yo-yo my word of acceptance, until their begging has disarmed my shields and I feel I have no choice but to join them in their games of pin-the-tail-on-the-human. Yes, in the end I always find myself stepping though the closed door like I am familiar with the spikes that pierce my costumed skin as I enter the misleadingly giddy scene of the crime.

So here I find myself again

And again

attending the demon's masquerade like a devoted next door neighbor

when all I really want

is my scarf back

and to hear my breath echo up and down the whitewashed walls of the upstairs bathroom.