the escape

She should have left alone. This was her first mistake. She realized as she saw her little sister’s face plastered on the side of a milk carton, just sitting there, smiling up at her from behind the glass in a gas station just outside of des moines. “I didn’t know that they still put missing kids’ pictures like that” she said out loud, immediately wishing she hadn’t.  it was a poor cover up to her involuntary freeze that took over her limbs upon seeing the picture. There were people trying to get through and she closed the door with a soft thud, sidestepping down the aisle toward the clerk. She hoped people didn’t still look at those things, imagined a Midwestern housewife clucking her tongue at it over breakfast, feeling sorry for everyone involved, in a judgey sort of way. It probably didn’t matter. The trip had aged her, hardened her features and it was unlikely that anyone would be able to identify the sunken eyed teenager in the passenger seat as the apple cheeked 8^th grader from the dairy section. She felt bad about it mostly, but it was too late now and besides what was she supposed to do? Turn her away when she chased down the car? Leave her there to rot away like some sort of forgotten suburban relic? Behind the counter, the clerk cleared his throat and she uncrumpled some bills from her pocket. The bell on the door clacked as she hurried back to the car. Their parents would understand some day.

the show

There’s a show in the basement. Concrete steps and a crowd stretched from entrance to bar. I have been to this club before, watched folk songs soaked into the wood grain of the pillars holding the whole place up, stood shoulder to shoulder and whispered to no one in particular “this place is a death trap” my voice flat, observational, unalarmed.

This is just the holding area. I know that. the next room over is where the action is, where we want to be. We are very important. And I lead the way down the stairs- ducking for warning to those behind me, I am no where near the ceiling – and through the crowd, our group weaving like a serpent through water and for a moment i turn around and am convinced I’ve lost them all behind me, that they’ve dissolved into the masses and I’m surprised to find myself relieved and then disappointed when their heads appear, bobbing up and down in the empty spaces.

The guy working the door knows me by name. and we’re in.

We’re overlooking the crowd, facing the stage. I have a camera that I haven’t used before. I’m tinkering with it, trying to figure out how it works while sitting at a tall round table with my best friend’s boyfriend. She is around the column getting drinks and from the painful small talk it is clear this is the first time we have ever been left alone together and forced to converse. I point my eyes down at the camera in my hands and barely respond when he asks me simple questions.

The crowd is making a lot of noise and I turn to see the singer of my favorite band crowd surfing a few feet away. “take my picture, marisa” he says and I beg the camera to work the way I want it to, all the while wondering about this place where people know my name.

the fall

scene – movie theater balcony – night

four of us, like a double date and i am sharing the seat with a man i have just met, clinging to him. it is a horror movie and i am scared in a way i haven’t felt in years. the childish sort of fear that exists before reason, a helpless sort of terror.

on the screen, there is a blonde getting out of a pool. she is topless and I think or say that she has been topless in every movie as of late, noting the combination of judgment and jealousy in my tone. then in the water, something resembling her twin, but with milky eyes, and is that a tail? and then she is consumed by this porpoise creature and it stands up in the water almost levitating and it is a porpoise body with arms and no head at all.

i climb into his lap completely, turning my head so that it is buried in the hollow part of his chest, where the ribcage meets, closing my eyes so tight i see red dots and tv static. and then i am falling, somewhere inside of him, i am falling, flailing, looking for some kind of saving, some kind of hold. and i grab onto the lowest rib, the bottom rung.

and when i feel myself slipping, i blame him for burying me so deep, blame myself for ignoring the danger i could see in his eyes.

i do not like this feeling. this blindness. and lately it feels like i am toeing the edge of a cliff, tossing stones over the edge, listening for echoes.