im writing a choose your own adventure fairy tale where unfortunately elements of the set may begin to come to life

**********

I am  walking behind three hooded women in some sort of cave. they are carrying torches so all I can see are the outlines of their bodies. I am not looking ahead of them. I am staring at the back of the woman on the left’s cloak when she turns around. they are all in black. they all look the same from behind. she says, you’re lucky, you know. but I couldn’t say anything. physically, I couldn’t move my mouth. the cavern opened to a well. the three women parted and walked around it but I couldn’t see them anymore. I walked closer to it. 

I wake up. I don’t know what time. I turn to the nightstand for my phone when I see her at the foot of my bed. cloaked, she is sitting on the floor, kind of leaning to the side. comfortable like she’s been there for a while and her eyes are green though I know it’s her. when she smiles, I know it’s her. she says

does she kill for you? does she kill for you? kind of hisses it. I can see the corner of her lifted aristocratic brow and her lips are painted a flame red. then she begins to stand.  pressing her arms into the mattress, I feel the weight of the bed move downward. I am not terrified but paralyzed. I can’t say anything. I remember feeling like I couldn’t say anything or move and in her full stance, she was much taller than I remembered. 

“Artemis”

“you’re a trouble maker,
are you?’” she says in a
thick Irish accent.

“looks, we both got red bracelets,”
I respond, as Australian as I
can be. “so we are the chosen
ones with the 24 hour armed
guards. how safe we are.”

I turn to face him.

“locked here, in the middle of
a civil war.”

doors #10

I have two constant insatiable needs:
clarity and validation and I
usually get neither.

my only true constant is my suffering;
that is how I relate to others.
my suffering is a secret comfort
because it allows connection.
we only know feelings by comparison;
yours, mine, ours.
this defines humanity–
our perpetual hunger,
our perpetual processing
about the matter,
our reaching hands,
and the inevitable suffering
that follows.

“doors #11”

“I think you’ve created some delusions to survive.” 

it’s his smugness
that pinches.
I’m trying not to scrape
a letter opener across my
eye and all I think to say
is
well shit, good doctor
I’m cured, all I have to
do is live in REALiTY
I emphasize the last word
and I can finally THRIVE
and LIVE PEACEFULLY
as I casually continue
these six mile walks a day
until my knees collapse
underneath me and I am
rendered useless to all.
you are, doubtlessly,
pure genius.

but I am also suddenly talking
in an Australian accent
and I have stood up
fists balled
where he sees I have somehow
gotten hold of his letter opener
to soothe my nerves
so this
is
where
detention
begins.

“detention”

I cherished quiet. I cherished secret games. the color game I played a lot spending hours in my room alone. as long as I spent outside with friends, I spent alone.  it was soothing; the total absorption of others then deprivation. I was often immured in noise or tension so sometimes I  would place my head face first into the pillow and begin to see little colors form everywhere.  squeeze my eyes real tight to see the colors pop and change shape. I could do this for a while, often hiding under the covers to do it. I would pull my eyelids shut or I would stick my face into the bed hard and my retinas would burst like a kaleidoscope. depending on the lighting of the room, depended on the colors you’d see. if you shut your eyes and stare up at the sun, you’d see a burst of red. or if you were under water sometimes it bled: a green spot that slowly spread like a spill on a paper towel. I couldn’t explain the pleasure or the phenomenon to anyone, I just enjoyed the visions it produced without understanding why sometimes I saw orange and sometimes I only got  black static like a tv was out.   it was my secret eye game. a solo activity i did in my room or when I was swimming privately away from my friends. playing with the sun, playing with the shallow end. resting on my daybed.

however, I’m impressionable and one time I saw an episode of Unsolved Mysteries where a couple was listening to a ghost through a pillow and then the wife was possessed. or she floated up to the ceiling maybe even without being possessed. I think she was possessed but for dramatization they made her float.  the beginning music of Unsolved Mysteries scared me enough so that every time I hear it still, I wince. it was the rejection of closure that the series provided. these madmen and mad paranormals are still here.  for years after that particular episode, I had a hard time laying down flat and listening to the pillow. a hard time laying down having to sometimes sit up suddenly.  listening to the buzz that reverberated from each window from the telephone wire outside, I swore I could hear them.  I opened my eyes to look at the closet and felt the closet was responsible. a woman lived in my closet and came out at night to mate with me. I didn’t tell anyone for fear they would disown me for the pleasure I got at six from her sex. 

she was not a color. she was a force. but when I closed my eyes, I felt yellow. 

“the color game”

we wrote:
WHORES WERE HERE
in pinecones on their basketball
court so they’d waste time
kicking them away before
they got to start.

“apology”

4. sort out temper:

when I was 12,
I threw a crushed can with
a point in the corner
straight at an eight year old
boy’s face having heard him
call me a fat whore for the
very last time.

I cut his cheek right under
his eye; had I been
an inch higher, would
have blinded him.
his brother pushed me to
the ground but then

the three boys never messed with
me again.

“Formula #3: Conditional Probability”