Pink Hair, Dead Eyes
i tremble as i feel them rolling in for my sins
Iris feels like she’s only alive at night. It probably has something to do with the fact that she sleeps half of every day away and only gets situated in her daily routine at about 5 o’clock in the evening.
The first thing she does every day is jump in the shower and lets the hot water spray over her back for about fifteen minutes before she actually starts bathing.
The second thing she does is check her phone while simultaneously popping a couple of pills. She has to see just what time she’s scheduled to go on stage. Sometimes it’s eight, sometimes it’s eleven.
Tonight, it’s eleven so she has some time to herself before she’s surrounded by hands trying to grab her, trying to compliment her by throwing dollar bills at her feet.
There’s nothing on TV as she flips through the channels and Iris has to settle for a generic courtroom show. She pays no attention to it as she tidies up her small, dingy apartment. There isn’t even much to make a mess with, but somehow she manages it. It’s mostly paraphernalia that needs to be put away—that, and a couple of books that have been sitting around. She’s been telling herself that she’s going to start reading again, but it never happens. It’s not like she doesn’t have the time; she just doesn’t have the focus.
Hours pass. She texts a couple of her friends from work and then a new message lights up her phone.
Regular Tommy
Iris opens it and reads, ‘you dancin tonight?’.
She types ‘yes @ 11’ out quickly then locks her phone again. He texts back less than a minute later, but she ignores it.
Her life hasn’t always been like this. She’s only been dancing for a year, but a lot can change in that time.
When she was in school, she made great grades for a long time. She went to class on time. She never procrastinated when it came to projects. She was a gifted student. All it took was for her to fall in with the wrong crowd, wrong boy, really. All it took was a little bit of ”experimenting” for her to get hooked. Scotty got Iris to fuck, to drink, to smoke, to snort. He was her first for a lot of things. He was the first to ruin her.
Eventually, she moved in with him while they both served at different restaurants. They didn’t have a ton of money, but it was enough to pay rent and buy drugs and that was all that really mattered until Iris came home one night to find him in bed with one of the waitresses at his job and after an intense screaming match, her slapping him across the face and him punching her right in the jaw, Iris left.
Just as quickly as her world had been turned upside down by Scotty walking into it, it flipped once again by him leaving it.
Scotty doesn’t bother her anymore, though. It’s the phone calls from her mother that leave her with a lump in her throat, the long voicemails she leaves that Iris will listen to but not reply to. It’s hearing her beg, ”Please come home. I can help you. I’ll do anything to help you.”
The pastel haired girl sighs sadly as she pulls on a pair of stilettos. It’s nearing half passed ten and she’s still going to have to change her outfit at the club. One of the many perks of drug use: it makes the time go by a lot faster, easier to get through the days. She shoves her phone in her back pocket, takes her keys off the sorry excuse of a vanity, then walks out, blowing a small bubble with her spearmint gum as she locks the door to her apartment.
It’s time to say goodbye to Iris for the night and say hello to Randi Rose.
The first thing she does every day is jump in the shower and lets the hot water spray over her back for about fifteen minutes before she actually starts bathing.
The second thing she does is check her phone while simultaneously popping a couple of pills. She has to see just what time she’s scheduled to go on stage. Sometimes it’s eight, sometimes it’s eleven.
Tonight, it’s eleven so she has some time to herself before she’s surrounded by hands trying to grab her, trying to compliment her by throwing dollar bills at her feet.
There’s nothing on TV as she flips through the channels and Iris has to settle for a generic courtroom show. She pays no attention to it as she tidies up her small, dingy apartment. There isn’t even much to make a mess with, but somehow she manages it. It’s mostly paraphernalia that needs to be put away—that, and a couple of books that have been sitting around. She’s been telling herself that she’s going to start reading again, but it never happens. It’s not like she doesn’t have the time; she just doesn’t have the focus.
Hours pass. She texts a couple of her friends from work and then a new message lights up her phone.
Regular Tommy
Iris opens it and reads, ‘you dancin tonight?’.
She types ‘yes @ 11’ out quickly then locks her phone again. He texts back less than a minute later, but she ignores it.
Her life hasn’t always been like this. She’s only been dancing for a year, but a lot can change in that time.
When she was in school, she made great grades for a long time. She went to class on time. She never procrastinated when it came to projects. She was a gifted student. All it took was for her to fall in with the wrong crowd, wrong boy, really. All it took was a little bit of ”experimenting” for her to get hooked. Scotty got Iris to fuck, to drink, to smoke, to snort. He was her first for a lot of things. He was the first to ruin her.
Eventually, she moved in with him while they both served at different restaurants. They didn’t have a ton of money, but it was enough to pay rent and buy drugs and that was all that really mattered until Iris came home one night to find him in bed with one of the waitresses at his job and after an intense screaming match, her slapping him across the face and him punching her right in the jaw, Iris left.
Just as quickly as her world had been turned upside down by Scotty walking into it, it flipped once again by him leaving it.
Scotty doesn’t bother her anymore, though. It’s the phone calls from her mother that leave her with a lump in her throat, the long voicemails she leaves that Iris will listen to but not reply to. It’s hearing her beg, ”Please come home. I can help you. I’ll do anything to help you.”
The pastel haired girl sighs sadly as she pulls on a pair of stilettos. It’s nearing half passed ten and she’s still going to have to change her outfit at the club. One of the many perks of drug use: it makes the time go by a lot faster, easier to get through the days. She shoves her phone in her back pocket, takes her keys off the sorry excuse of a vanity, then walks out, blowing a small bubble with her spearmint gum as she locks the door to her apartment.
It’s time to say goodbye to Iris for the night and say hello to Randi Rose.
♠ ♠ ♠
chapter title credit to AFI's 'Weathered Tome'It's been a while since I've written in present tense. Always weird.