Cherry Hardwood Floors

Pretty cherry hardwood floors. Shiny and sparkling, clean in the spring sunlight. Your feet stand on top of them, all of your weight and defiance held in them. Your eyes are shining down at me as I stay on my knees. It’s simple.

Gag.

Heave.

Cry.

You stand above me, your grey eyes are sparkling with something, but I can’t decide what it is. I think it’s power – I think it’s dominance, and influence. My knees give out to the cherry hardwood floors, and I curl into a tight ball, my stomach giving off horrid pains.

Gag.

Heave.

Cry.

The stench of sick fills the air around us as it seeps through the cherry hardwood floors, staining it, permanently ruining it. You say my name, and it falls off your tongue like venom dangerously. It’s a warning, I know it’s a warning. All hell will break loose if I do it one more time.

Gag.

Your eyes glaze over with anger and hatred; disgust. I count the seconds; fifteen; my stomach still convulsing, twisting, shooting pain all through my system, up my ribcage. There’s nothing left to retch, my stomach tells me, and I don’t care.

Heave.

You’re shaking now, fingertips trembling, your voice sounding like you’re in the middle of an earthquake as you shout at me to stop it. The cherry hardwood floors are spinning, I catch a glimpse of something ruby red.

My sick.

My blood.

Tears.

You’re telling me I’m pathetic, you’re telling me that I’m worthless, you’re looking at me with disgust. How can anyone do that to themselves? What is wrong with you? Grow up, you’re being ridiculous. All with your eyes.

And I’m grinning, grinning like mad, perfection is just in the horizon, I can feel it, she’s telling me, mia is telling me that it’s there, that I’ll feel it soon, soon, soon. Spinning, spinning, spinning, the cherry hardwood floors keep going in circles as I smile, smile, smile.

Somewhere amongst the sick and the stench, I know I’m insane. You know it too, that’s why you stood back and watched instead of helping. You knew mia had invaded me – I’d never be okay again. So you stood over me, smirking and angry, as I sat on the floors and retched it all away.

It never goes away completely. There’s still some of those demonic little things that sit in my stomach, churning away, working slowly into 5, 10, 15, 20 pounds, a bit faster and heavier every time.

Counting tile losing bile and sleep. I remember when those words first echoed from your mouth. They were lyrics first – a song, a simple song you’d heard, not the definition of your lover.

And all of the sudden, numbers defined the entire world surrounding you. 2, 4, 6, 8 – no no no I need to lose more! The thing you called a heart shattered in your chest; but I continued to be selfish selfish selfish, thinking only about the numbers.

The cherry hardwood floors are all I see now, the smooth ground, cherry colour, the ridges holding all of our secrets and lies, absorbing the ugly green and red coloured sick; I take a deep breath, shuddering, and look up.

Your eyes – oh, your eyes. Once they used to be a green, so pretty and adorable, and now – now; they’re this grey, emotionless, bare, naked. They’re filled with the last year’s hurt and sorrow; you are so tired and worn down from my countless fits. You’re deafened from my cries.

The words fall off your lips; they’re simple, so simple and easy. “No more.”

The cherry hardwood floors fade to black.