Straightjacket, Poetry in Motion

- leave me out -

My name is Dylan Locke, and I tell you this only because my eyes are too swollen to see, and my chest feels so heavy I can't breathe.

His heart was weak, the walls suffocating around it, and crumbling into nothingness only to come back ten times stronger.

But still beating.

Just barely … just barely …

She was empty, his mind blank, the words were leaving him now. She was a shell, nothing left, wasting away.

But she was there.

Just barely … just barely …

Collision.

This was how they met.

Her on the floor, with the sprinting blood and basketball courts, and him, watching the lovely patterns between red liquid and wet cement. Pretty, he thinks, prettier than her.

He fishes around in his bag and pulls out a cigarette, lights it, and smokes it absentmindedly.

The rain is falling so thickly that outside has become a gray world of sheets of water and the saddest sun Washington's ever seen.

Staring off into the distance.

Now, this is not like you picture it. The boy rescuing the girl, finding her injured and nursing her back to health. No. He really wasn't that nice. Instead, he squats down and crushes the end of his cigarette against the moist pavement, extinguishing the burning tip and stuffs it in his pocket. Water drips in steady steams through his hair, through the discarded hair around her.

Let me tell you a secret. You ready? Cause it's going to disappoint you, or – if you're really sick – make you excited. Ready yet? Here it comes.

This ain't going to end happily.

But you already guessed that, didn't you?

He stares at the bleeding girl for a long while, and then walks away.

Mama is preening herself. Make-up, powder to cover the bruises. Idiot. She should be proud of them, Papa's love.

Love.

He's read about it, heard of it in school. Not seen television programs or films. Papa hates TV's, so Mama gets mad if he watches them. There's too much of that vile paint sticking to her nice, nice skin. He tells her, and Mama is screaming at him now, and he welcomes the words like precious gifts. And then he returns. Ten folds.

Knuckles. Cheek. Pain. Exhilaration.

What's worse: A wife beater, or a Mama beater?

My name is Dylan Locke and you'll find that the more I talk the less you have the urge to hate me. That's because while I am technically the antagonist in this story, I am worming my way into your squishy heart. I enter your skin if you don't wash your hands properly, if you read this section of text ...

Now I am in your bloodstream and it's so warm in here. I am smiling, can you feel me?

I don't hate that girl. In fact, I don't even dislike her.

I kind of nothing her.

But she is pretty. And she is smart. And she smiles. And the way light plays in her eyes makes my hands itch.

And she deserves it. She deserves everything.

I want to gut her. It's like drowning, almost. As thought I can't get enough air into my lungs. I envy her, Papa. You hear me? It's all your fault that I envy her.

Papa still loves Mama.

I'm fucking normal.

I'm fucking normal.

It's warm in here, can you feel me?

They didn't meet again until it was almost too late. Another year, maybe another month. One of them would have snapped.

She was surrounded by people, and yet he had never seen someone look so alone.

He was by himself, and yet she could feel how claustrophobic he was.

At a grey school, with brick walls and cement playgrounds. Come on, it seems to say, let's butcher more young minds. It's lucky, really, that there is more than one type of falling, because she is pretty, and she is so ugly. She has big, big chocolate eyes and pale skin
and she's so ... ordinary.

He watches her, mesmerized by the resemblance and memory. His fingers twitch.

Everyone talks to her, but you can tell she despises them all. New school, new girl. Her father moved her here after the incident in the basketball court. He wonders if she recognizes him.

He watches her.

And then they were drowning, falling, and floating away in the middle of the playground.

My name is Dylan Locke, and, congratulations, you think you've figure me out.

Hah.

Try again.

Papa hits Mama. Sing it with me.

I hit Mama. Sing it to the heavens.

- with the wind -