I’m just shallow.
That’s probably it.
A disenchanted girl stuck on the outfield. Ripping up fistfuls of grass while my mother preached to me. “There is god in those blades of grass” she would say. “Shards of a soul”.
“Fuck souls” I thought. Guess I’ve always had an itch to kill god. Or any god, Jesus maybe. I’ve always looked down. Felt misunderstood.
Yet, here we go again. I’ll admit I’m not even sure I care anymore. This job. My only escape from the joyless questions at home. A boyfriend I feel obligated to. “Why won’t we talk?” “How’s that guy from work?”.
Ugh It’s not his fault. Trying to pry so much. Hell, it’s not even like I can blame myself either, what, with HIPPA and everything.
Good news is though, HIPPA doesn’t apply to storytelling. So Mindzie, if you’re here, buckle up motherfucker.
Ray, we’ll call him. He has have been my umpteenth client.
You’ve seen it in my eyes during the pillow talk. How bored I’ve gotten. I used to light up, almost get a sick pleasure. Describing them to you. The language of the profoundly psychotic. They reach without hands and speak without words. Sometimes, I am subject to silently notate in my chair as they muralize their own bodily fluids into the concrete around me. Occasionally cocking their head around bearing a toothy grin.
A twinge of disgust shoots out of my eyebrow or the edges of my lips every now and then. If I loose my composure they run up to me excitedly. Once even, a client ran up to me and proclaimed “you are forgiven” kneeling before me, hands clasped together, caked in fecal residue. Buddy, I wanna forgive you too, you just smell like shit. — Mindzie, please don’t take this next part too personally. I just can’t handle another one of your jet fueled identity crisis’. As if swapping an L for an M and stuffing money in a jar car heal you. I’m not mad, just thinking perhaps a little therapy can reach further inside than a shiny new dick.
Sé la vie, anyways. Ray was nothing like you. Our sessions at first bored me to tears. He would just sit in silence until I handed him something to write with. God forbid the little asshole got any ideas. I gave him a piece of chalk one day. Seems the second I put it in his hands lightning struck him.
“I’m boring!”, he said, manically smiling. Yeah, no shit, what gave it away?
He continued on and on. At first it was simply one word. “Boring. Boreeeee, I bore, to bore or not to bore”. He fell on the ground and rolled around clutching the chalk in his hands. Only 24, too young, I’ve wondered why we keep him here. It’s as if he has the strange notion of intelligence but cannot express it.
Todays session would have been no different too. I sat on my usual lifeless wooden stool and kept notes while Ray lay against the wall tracing his body with chalk. Roughly every 45 seconds he flipped around, drawing outlines around outlines. I started to think of you. You and your infuriating talent for avoiding adult conversations. Just as I started to get lost in the thought, something took over me.
…I have no idea what the fuck it was. My body hairs all shot up on my skin. I consider myself to be, well, a bit of a heartless bitch. To convince me otherwise? Good luck. But this feeling had legs and boy could it run. It crawled, no, spiraled through me. My fingers vibrated until I lost control of my hands. Fists balled. I felt ugly.
It happened so fast, a fearful pair of hands reaching into my chest, squeezing me. Like a force that’s existed before humanity squirmed through my mind until it found the tender cluster of rat tails in my mind, forcing the rat king to harmoniously scream “agony, shame, fear.”
In a desperate attempt to regain control I froze. I focused on the moment I was in instead. Ray stood before me trembling. Instead of human outlines he froze in place, staring. His hand moved on its own. Freakishly drawing a spiral, a cluster of spirals into the wall. He screamed to me, “stop, STOP STOP STOP STOP”. He drew other shapes, his whole being frozen in tandem with me, twitching, one arm extended, violently drawing. Shapes I’ve now reached the limit of my vocabulary to describe. It had to have been at least an hour, until he was pulled out.
I don’t know, Mindzie, I’m just fucking scared. I can’t get it out of my head and you keep dodging my intimacy.
If you’re out there, could you please just say something?
I can’t sleep without you.