And I died, but I thanked him. Can you believe that?
And I died, but I thanked him. Can you believe that? Thank you for not harming me after pulling me out of my car. Thank you for not violating or ticketing me after asserting your pathetic dominance over me on the side of the highway in this town where my body remembers too much. My handwriting looks like chicken scratch. Chicken chicken chicken who keeps barely outrunning the organ grinder or breast separator or whatever the machine is called that with no heart whatsoever takes you apart. I am that afraid and hysterical chicken. I've felt like it all my adult life – why does that message feel so loud today? (1/28/26) Right now? It's all disarticulated pieces of me strewn everywhere, hanging in my heart, stomach and mind like stars.
Sit in the chair and be good now – that's another thing men like to say. And I die. And say thank you. For not seizing on my helplessness after making it as clear as you possibly can that you're not, right now, at this moment, because you just don't want to. But that could change at any moment. As long as we both know that. And I died, but I thanked him – as if all he had said was you're pretty.
I could decorate my whole life with Tori Amos lines. That one about girl if you think you can cure that violator. I'm so angry. My story is colliding with everyone's story right now, with Renee Good's grave story. With Alex Pretti's decency song. With the coldness sweeping what feels like just everywhere. Inside my body, everything feels like a threat. A flashing danger signal. A warning to not even try. To sit in this chair and be good now. Compliant. Docile. Hopeless. Afraid. Quiet to keep safe. To thank them for not doing worse while I want to throw up.
The clock says 2:22 and by body worries that I'm not allowed to be angry. My body worries that if I leave this room as the decent person I am and just try to have a day living as my decent, authentic self that I'll be shot. My body worries that I'm the only one feeling this broken and that if I try, I'm going to find out that I can't stand up. My bones not real chalk, just echoes of chalk. More akin to dust.
