The victory I fought and won was hollow. After so many needles and pokes, so much blood spinning in a seemingly endless lukewarm cylinders, I thought I would feel more. I speak to my mother.

Her voice peaked with excitement when she told me how she wanted to have a bowling alley fundraiser for me. My chest caved in as I repeated NO NO NO NO NO.

She sounded crestfallen, like I'd jabbed her and all of her air slithered out. How I hurt her. How it hurts to turn to her for consolation and only hear JESUS JESUS JESUS. It's like a file on my ear drum, a violation of a passive cavity.

I will never be what she wants. I can never be who she wants.

Like in the fable. A snake bit the man who had found him wounded and nursed him back to health only to die in shock and dismay at the wound from the serpent. The viper whom he had cradled in against his bosom.

"You knew I was a snake, didn't you?"

Well...

I suppose now I have to find out who I am. Test my metal, smelt it down to be hammered into what I shall be. I have to stop clutching my heart so tightly, stop expecting the blow to be struck.

But experience teaches more than hope. Hope can be a curse. Maybe Pandora didn't slam the lid down fast enough, whispers of it escaping and running through her fingers like rain.

Pounding all around me...

The walls shriek and shrink. I need to get out of here tonight.

A Tightening In My Chest.

I am going to explode out of my body. I keep pacing, my nerves pinging and snapping. I need to let this go. I have to stop lying to myself.

Everything doesn't work out in the end. No storybook ending, no tidily wrapped destinies exist here. I can only see blankness in my mind's eye when I think of my future. I don't know how to make this feeling stop. This horrible storm in my stomach, so tight it feels like I swallowed a squall.

One week. Breathe. Stop looking at the calender every half an hour. Stop checking the time obsessively, frantically texting friends but not knowing what to ask for.

What do I need? I feel like there is one piece missing, that one insanely shaped puzzle piece that is always clicked into place at the end with understanding and triumph.

But I don't know what that puzzle piece is. Do I really have to wait until the end?

Rotten Rotten Little Thing

Despite the mass of my body I still feel tiny. In the scheme of things I suppose I am, in this screaming universe.

I can't wait around to be bitten into, like a worm in a dusty orchard apple. I feel strong. But less needful of human contact.

I like the snatches of intimacy I have with my lover, all tender and true but without burden of tether or label. I love the letters I get from my cousins, penned in a language that I am rapidly losing. I love the moments when my mother doesn't slur when we speak, when that perfect connection can be made.

I suppose I have realized that the only thing holding me back all this time was me...my fear. I press my hand against my chest, feeling my heart pump with longing and sped up from cheap champagne. And I am content.

I feel like now I live how I want. My terms. It feels like a guitar smashing victory motherfuckers.