No Title

Here’s a new story for you all as promised! I haven’t got a title for it yet, but maybe you guys can suggest one for me. I hope you enjoy, it’s pretty rough, and I’m open to revising.

 

My throat burns and acid is forced up and out of my mouth. It splashes into the toilet, little, wet drops land on my face. I cough and slick, leftovers fling off my lips. Nothing makes it go away. My friends compliment me, my boyfriend loves me, my mom cries, but I can’t stop thinking that it’s easier this way.

Melanie looked like she was fading away. She looked like the wind could pass through her skin and fall on me when I stood behind her. Her thin wrists proudly showcased the bluest veins I’d ever seen. The bruises beneath her eyes gave her the appearance of gentle decay. Melanie made her choice, but she didn’t make a pretty corpse.

When I met Melanie, she could’ve already been dead. It was clear she was at the end of her road, while I was just beginning my trip. Everyone thinks there’s hope, that there’s a light lurking behind each week that passes. The secret is that there is no getting better. There’s just surviving long enough to get your family’s hopes up.

I’ve been in and out of the hospital for two years. The doctors keep trying to shove my body into remission, but the cancer keeps coming back. The chemo is a time bomb in my stomach, I can’t keep any food in for long. I refused to shave my head so I look like a doll who’s been loved too much by a child. The bruises that paint my body are crayola marker explosions.

When someone with cancer dies of cancer people say they’ve “lost their battle” and they “fought bravely.” When someone with cancer decides they want to end their life, only other cancer patients go to their funeral. We drag our oxygen tanks out of the white world that is the cancer ward and sit in silence during their services. Where’s their family then? Where are the people who admired them before? They are sitting home, disgusted that the cancer patient “didn’t even want to try” upset that they “chose to leave them rather than fight.”

No one but other patients understand why we would decide to commit suicide rather than try and beat cancer. Even the hardiest of patients who chose to keep going through the same chemo routine year after year, have thought about ending it on their own terms once or twice.

That’s because while non-patients see it as giving up and leaving, we know that it’s the ultimate fight. It’s ending our lives with dignity, it’s being ourselves till the very end. The choice to end our lives is something the cancer can’t take away. It may take our vanity, our autonomy, our job, our strength, but it can’t take our choice to die the way we want to.

I won’t be alive to see my own funeral, but I already know what it will look like. My family won’t put an obituary in the paper, too ashamed. It will be a private event, but a few of the patients in the ward will make it anyway. The patients will be jealous and love me. My family, the few members who show up anyway, will be full of hatred. Behind those opaque tears rests the disdain for me. I left them. They loved me as best they could, and I left them.

At first I tried to get my family to understand why I wanted to die. I gave up after a few months of begging and pleading for them to truly step in my shoes. They kept saying that if they were in my position, they would stay. My shoes are just too small for them to try on.

I stand up from the tile floor as a nurse rushes in and fusses over me. I never push the nurse call button. If I’m going to vomit, I’m going to do it alone rather than  with someone holding a plastic bin under my chin. The nurse helps me back into bed and asks if I need anything. I don’t answer. She knows my answer. I need to die, and I’m going to. In nine days I will be dead. I’ve already stopped living though. I haven’t spoken to anyone in days, and I’ve barely eaten. Maybe I’ll die before the physician even has a chance to do his job. Thankfully, you can’t regret anything from the grave.

 

-AcuteAnimosity

Drawing Board

Okay, I’m going to attempt to write a brand new story. I’m looking up prompts because I’m no good at just writing. I need an idea. However, after looking up many prompts, they all seem a bit silly. They seem more like something that I would want to write about if I were giving my mind a fun vacation. I think I’m going to try either a flash fiction (the post “Wow” is a flash fiction piece) or another poetry and prose piece (“Story Time” and “Something New” are poetry and prose pieces). I think those are how I best write stories. I’ve tried writing stories in verse (like an Ellen Hopkins kind of thing), but I end up just writing poetry. At this point I’m just stalling because I’m not creative enough to just write a story. So I think I want to write flash fiction (because it’s shorter). I honestly don’t know what to write about though.

When I write stories I get a picture. For my previous flash fiction “Sitting in my Chair” I saw a young girl gripping the bottom of a chair so tightly her knuckles were white, but her face was innocent and calm. For the story “Girls Like Us” I saw a girl squinting in the light of the passenger mirror thing with makeup streaming down her pale face. I keep trying to make a new picture, but mostly it’s just blank. If anything, I see white lace. I think I’m going to attempt to write about a wedding because of the lace, but we will see how that goes. If you guys have any ideas always feel free to share with me.

I’m also in the middle of writing a new poem, but it’s a very intense poem. I only have a little of it written, and I already know it’s going to be heavy on the metaphors. Wish me luck! Okay, so who knows what my next post will be. It may be an update, a poem, or even a story! I’m excited to find out. Until next time

-AcuteAnimosity

Wow

Seven people liked my last post. That may seem so small to other people, but it’s huge to me. I’m going to post another short story because the last got a pretty good reception for a blog as small as mine. I do have to warn you though, this story can be a little triggering to anyone who has experienced abuse or have someone close to them who has experienced it. I would absolutely love to hear from you guys, so leave a comment telling me what you think about my story. Here goes nothing and everything.

Sitting in my Chair

            I am the best at not flinching in my entire school. Kids on the playground clap in my face, but I don’t move. Older kids jump at me in the hallway, but nothing can make me step back, eyes closed, scared. It’s my favorite talent.

Another slaps goes across my face. I sit as still as silence. My talent is more useful than just being a cool trick.

“What did I tell you? You just have to disobey me, don’t you?” His big hand finds my face in the dark again. My face is red and wet like the spaghetti sauce on my white cotton shirt. I only made it pink and blotchy by scrubbing at it in the sink at Olive Garden. I thought I could fix it. I always think it’s that easy, but it never is.

“All I wanted was a nice, family dinner, and you embarrassed me like this? You think that’s okay? You can’t even eat without acting like a pig.” My hands grip the bottom of my chair. I’ve worn little bumps into my chair from holding it so hard.

Little bumps pop up on daddy’s face too. I connect them with the dots in my eyes and make pictures. A red horse, a red house, a red mouse. Mama keeps reminding me about daddy’s name. The one that we all carry. We have to keep his name clean. Mama always protects daddy; she really loves him.

I start humming the song we learned in school. I love school more than tv and ice cream. Mrs. Wilson looks like the teacher from Matilda. She’s pretty and sings lightly in class-

“Shut up!” Daddy doesn’t like when I make too much noise, but I keep humming. It’s a soft song, and I memorized it so easy because it rhymes. Mrs. Wilson taught us all about rhymes. Wrong and song, Stop and plop, and No and go.

“I’ll shut you up,” he says and mama looks at me. It’s the first time all night. She used to leave the room when I had to sit in my chair, but now she stands in the corner and traces the floor with her foot. She sees me for a second, just a second, before she turns and leaves the room, always protecting daddy.

He holds my shoulders. I shake back and forth and back and forth and back. My head bobs for apples in the air, and I come up with nothing. Nothing and no one is here. There’s no daddy or mama, and there’s no me.

I don’t open my eyes, but I feel my chest go up and down. I don’t even have to move. Mommy whispers for me to just rest. I see nothing again. The long beep doesn’t touch me because I am already gone. It’s almost like I was never here.

-AcuteAnimosity