This isn’t my first time. The library is deteriorated and the books are spineless. The doctor moves like a lizard and his face is encrusted in his glasses. “Don’t you think that they love you?” He asks me. “My family, no, they simply don’t understand me.”
After all the complaints I lodge against them, they stand by me, even after I stole my grandmother’s car and drove it to the cities just to prove to her that I could. Now, I want to prove to them that I don’t need medication but I have been court ordered, a Chapter 51 they call it, to take the medication. I have no choice, I am a prisoner.
As I write this my cigarette is mushy from my mouth and it droops between my teeth. This is how I like to write, with a cigarette dangling, the smoke watering my eyes. This is how I cry, otherwise I can’t. Not anymore, not since the nightmares. I once saw a giant black spider crawling along the ceiling in my bedroom at my grandmother’s house. It was crawling out of my room but still it startled me as it disappeared behind the door. I lived with my grandparents for a summer before I stole their car and drove to the cities. I worked at Dairy Queen making milkshakes and blizzards, cleaning the bathrooms at the end of my shift. My grandmother would let me take her car or sometimes she would pick me up. That day that I stole her car, I was feeling anxious. I wanted to do something anything. I went to see the movie, ‘The Avatar’ before work. During the movie these visceral creatures jumped among the seats and told me I was the Avatar, told me I had to find myself, perhaps even save the world.
I was looking for any excuse, so I left the movie early, got into the car and decided to head to the cities. I got lost on the wrong exit and had to ask for directions. I turned around and headed back in the opposite direction. The car phone rang, it was my grandmother. I ignored it. Once I got to Dinkytown, in Minneapolis, I parked the car and hid the keys in the windshield. Then I walked around and hid in a bathroom and began taking No Doz. One more pill should do it, and then another. I wanted to purge all the food from my body and become lighter than air. I started drinking water to make sure I wouldn’t become dehydrated. Then I left and was walking past McDonald’s when my aunt drove by. She begged me to get in the car but I refused. I walked away from her to a little playground in the area and she had called the cops. Two squad cars rolled up and next thing I remember is running. Six police officers chased me down and threatened to shoot me. I hid behind a building scared shitless and they pulled me out and sat on my back. I screamed, “My grandfather raped me.” They didn’t care. It wasn’t the truth either, but I had had visions of being raped as a child and was hoping for sympathy, for some shred of understanding to explain why I am the way I am.
When I was little, my hymen broke. No one knew why. I began to obsess about it now that I am older. I thought I was raped. I had nightmares where men would chase me and hold me down. After all of these years it is strange that I start to think about it. It never bothered me before but now I don’t know.
“Do I love my family?” I know you’re thinking it. Of course, with all my soul, but I swear they don’t understand me. I swear no one does. This is the cross I bear like Jesus, the founder of America. Today, after my doctor’s appointment we went to McDonald’s and each had a milkshake, me and my nurse, Karri. There is nothing more American than McDonald’s; the chain upon chain franchise of love that welcomes all of God’s children to feast on Angus burgers and fries.
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