Thrashing Butterflies pt1

Jake and I first met sometime at fourteen or fifteen during detention. I was on a lesser charge of missing yet another homework deadline; he was put in the isolation room for being caught with Amanda Ross in Mr McGivern's cupboard. McGivern was the surely the closest human lookalike of Ned Flanders you'd ever see but he was also the one who kicked my literary habits into touch.
He acknowledged me with a nod. "Name's Jake, bud."

Instantly he was as cool as Pulp Fiction. There was this strange magic characterised by a permanent twinkle in his eyes. A violet aura surrounded him. All the other guys I'd known thus far either bent for black or paled beneath gray. There was light from every pore of him -- in his eyes, his smile, the way he spoke, the way he moved. To this day I can't explain it the way my eyes warm to it. He was the warm breeze of a summer morning.

Just the two of us in the room, I kept finding myself stealing glances that became full blown stares, and I didn't know why exactly. (It's because his eyes are like shiny orbs.) He forgave my lack of interest in football if I forgave his lack of interest in literature (any other guy would have stopped talking to me at all, and that would have been completely fine by me).

I remember looking at his punishment exercise and seeing drawings of naked women scrawled across it. Voluptuous women with deep pencil lines, their modesty protected by sweeping hair, and striking misty grey eyes. They seemed to absorb so much from such a small tool. "You into art, then?" I asked him. He shrugged his shoulders, bat his eyes. "Just something to pass the time. I'm more into taking pictures."

The teachers deserted the isolation room when they ought to be monitoring us, usually with some excuse about marking work when they really just wanted to slip out and have a cigarette. Jake pulled out his packet of Malboro (he used to be a terrible smoker) and flicked out two cigarettes. Placed one between his small, round lips and offered me the remaining one. I declined, shaking my head and smiling. Guys made me so nervous. "You the sensible one of this duo, then?" he asked, smiling right back at me.

I was intrigued with his art, wondering if his penchant for nude women had translated into photography. "Aye well, you know," he said, brushing his hair behind his ears. "When they're sleeping, like."

"So detention today and jail tomorrow then?"

He laughed (I knew he would) so hard the cigarette shot out of his mouth. "Well, you got lucky with that Anna lassie."

A succulent smile sank into a hanging frown. "We're not a couple. Despite what anybody says." The words were harshly emphatic, the brisk edge in my voice almost ruined the mood. Silence ended after he took a draw on the fag, exhaling: "Sorry, bud. You guys look so close, though."

For the fact he apologised while putting me in my place, I softened.

"Tell you what," he tore a shred off his punishment exercise and scrawled his number on it. "I'll show you some of my stuff sometime."

It was the first time I ever got to shake someone's hand properly. Up until then I never even knew the proper conduct of socialising with another guy, so the naked smile on my face was inevitable - a summer breeze had brushed by me halfway through Winter. I've been softening ever since.

The Faint Light

My hand reaches for my forehead and comes across a swelling of sweat. I turn to my side and reach for the bottle of pills, but knock them over. They scatter and roll like marbles across the floor. I mutter and croak, crack and then break all at once.

The mirror stands before me and as I go to leave the room, I catch the glint of my pale expression in it. I've lost more weight. I smooth my abdomen, running my fingers over my razor-sharp hips. Emaciating my flesh along with my worries, I couldn’t have cared less.

The sound of him snoring from his room confirms it's safe to move around.

I slide into some clothes, grab the keys, and head for the door. The creak and unmistakable clunk of the latch will wake him indefinitely and when I return I'll be staring in the face of doom, but hey. Annie Proulx said sometimes you just have to stand.

The rain fits my melancholy mood. Sexier when it pounds off my window and my hands are roaming the body of another, I love the rain in most situations.

I arrive at a shroud of darkness with a sole light at the end of a long walkway, illuminating the sky ever so slightly. Grey mist spreads across the sky. That light is my destination and when I reach there, my questions will be answered. I walk with a winter tremble, digging my hands deep in my pocket. Though vision is blurry, a smile comes to me. Time to face fears again.

If I die, I die untainted by the stains people leave. When tomorrow rises and yesterday dies, this life will still be mine.

That smile is bittersweet but everlasting and I walk with a subtle sense of elation. Here, in this darkness, tucked away from the rest of the world. What a shame there is not another to share my beauty. That light... so near yet so far away and when I look across the water, that faint light almost seems to break across to the other side. I walk in a comfortable stride, towards something. Relief, perhaps.

Sickness suddenly floors me. And I know what I've done.

Nothing to do now but fall on that grass and stare at the stars sparkling above me, the night sky normally looked so romantic to me.

When I wake up, the scene looks like the prophecy of an unpleasant dream: a dank light struggles to peek through the grey clouds, a small pool of vomit lays beside me, my stomach feels like it's been kicked for days. That faint light has gone.

Fourteen this idiot was.

I scramble to my feet and return home, wondering if I can cheat death twice.

My return wasn't welcoming, unsurprisingly. I remain watchful of his closed fists rattling by his side as he unleashes that dictatorial tone with a latent aura of violence exuding from his eyes. Smelling the sick on my breath, he accuses me of drinking. Rather than tell him the truth, I reply guilty. He executes his perverted excuse of love and bounces my head off the wall. I smirk again.

"You're a stain I'm going to wipe out one day," I tell him, earning a lame slap to the face.

He banishes me to my room. Solitude covers me and I drag my wounded carcass to bed. A smile soon warms my blood; on the floor, a poem freshly written lies scrunched into a ball. I never left it there.

His foot meets my head, and blood meets the floor.
Hands cover my throat; my life shall be no more.
Happy last look of him, the honourable Father
When he's rusting in a cell he shall gather
Nobody else believed love as an excuse either

The Angel's Raven

My body lay bruised and battered on the shore. I had staggered for miles and dropped to my defeat.

I stung Anna with a stream of confessional words.

My bloody fingers managed to call her name in a choked whisper, reluctantly asking for her help. I could feel her speeding towards me and before I could even regret reaching out, there she was, knelt down by my wounded side and tears emerging at the edge of her eyes.

I wanted to cry for her, her human compassion for someone as wretched as I, but I wanted to cry for being no less than a rotting corpse before her kohl eyes. In every aspect I was exposed, raw to the bone. Head in swollen clumps, heart in bothersome knots, I was emotionally diseased from the self-loathing.

I asked that she not even think about taking me to the hospital, for it would only cause more trouble than I needed.

"Anna... he regrets me."

She pulled me in to her breast and melted into despair. Strong, guarded, stoic Anna, releasing the first ever tears I saw - and for me. Silly girl, I thought. Save them for someone who was worth it. She called out my name in a succession of gentle mumbles, promising me that one day I would soar. I clung onto every word my senses could, for my hands were limp and stained.

"Anna, let me go. I'm bleeding; you'll ruin your clothes."

A single tear slipped through, running down my cheek and then falling off the face of the earth. "Anna, I want to stay here for awhile. I want to sleep."

She responded with a solemn nod before whispering gently to me. "You sleep all you need to, my friend." And before I lost consciousness I felt her hand and her tears touch my brow. Through every tender kiss on my forehead, her breath beat my body. For now, I was safe. And just like that, I knew I was in love.

When I wake up, it's a mid sunny morning, coherent to the state I'm in, Anna's refuting the ignorant passer-bys staring at my bloodied corpse. "Excuse me, but if you want to cast disdainful stares, I suggest you do it in the mirror - candyfloss pink and bunches only tend to work on eight year-old girls!"

"Anna...?"

She flinches her attention to me, smiling slightly. "You feeling better?"

My mouth wouldn't work along with my memory, it was an amnesiac moment that had me momentarily frightened. Anna's instincts were as sharp as mine and thankfully prevailed. "Why don't we slip you into one of my Mum's more butch t-shirts and talk over some coffee?"

And just like that, I remembered the horror of last night. I knew love.

Lunderston Bay

During the many lazy nights down at Lunderston Bay, numb from Father's drugs, I noticed her beauty from a gang of comparably shabby girls. I knew everytime they glanced over it was to examine some weirdo they thought was stalking them and that was fine. I lacked the confidence to approach her anyway.

At a later stage I swapped mind poisoning for creative angst. Spontaneous trips were now accompanied by the mighty pen. I'd leave the beach littered with a frustrated trail of crumpled paper. Coherent, I could almost describe her devastating beauty. She was formed to swan-like perfection; sharp cheekbones and a small narrow shaped nose complete with green (or grey) eyes formed her gorgeous face. She was frightfully taller than I, enviably slim with tumbling locks of maroon hair.

Her increasing stares were, like mine, decidedly not of lust. She looked like she wanted to know a passing stranger. From a distance we flirted, giving birth to the dazzling smile people kindly credit me with. We conversed silently. I’d look down to my piece of paper, then out to the sea. The pieces of paper left bore random, but thoughtful, scribbles. I hoped she would come across them and upgrade her whim.

Thinking back, I think she - nothing but a harmless stranger at the time - might have inspired me to stop polluting my head. So stunning was this unexpected discovery, I needed a clear head to appreciate it.

Then, the night I left childhood behind happened. I found myself ripped from one dimension and placed in another. So consumed by shock, anything going on in my life occurred right under my nose. I'd go to Lunderston Bay with a heavy heart and bleeding soul. Sometimes severely drunk and on the brink of serving myself to the ocean.

She was there too, that night.

I debated whether she would be able to notice the circles of red around my eyes in this darkness, deciding against looking in her direction anyway. Tonight I really was here to clear my head. Somehow, through the internal gulf tearing me from the inside, I could feel her inquisitive stare on my shoulders. And when she finally took an easy stride in my direction, all of the hurt creeped back into their hiding places.

"I'm Anna."

She said it with such poise it might have just sounded like honour.

Mine was a slurred reply.

"Hmm," she questioned through pursed lips. A look of latent disappointment struck her.
I asked if there was a problem, and she tilted her head aside to remove the hair in her face, before replying: "It's a nice name, don't get me wrong, it's just not a typical one for..."

"A weirdo?" I interjected.
She fixed a nervous smile. "I was going to say mysterious."
"I suppose if I noticed a loner occasionally staring at me every time we suspiciously wound up in the same place, weirdo would be at the top of my list."
"You weren't the only one staring."
"Well, I wasn't looking at your ugly friends."
"Brutally honest as well, I see."
"Nice to meet you."

We compromised to disregard the unique premise of first meeting and sit together through the night. Inward troubles dissipate like water foams. She was quick witted and deeply conversational, more intelligent than coquettish and strong-minded when the question of life arises. Her voice was eloquent and when she says something meaningful it was like a sincere melancholic purr stroking my ears. A couple of hours passed and I completely forgotten what pain ever was.

"So, your motivation for being down here all the time?" She asked me.
"I don't do drugs. You?"
She flicked her bothersome hair. "Fucked up sleep levels," she drawled.
"Insomnia. My favourite."
Her eyes cast a curious spell. "Your scenario?"
"This fucking town and its misery."
"That deciphers those things you've been writing."

My heart (drunkenly) sings. And the darkness hides my beam.

"I should probably be home facing them."
"Ah, I see. Asshole family," she sighed, and immediately she is my kindred spirit.
"Just one asshole," I grumbled quietly.
"When was the last time you got some sleep?" She asked me.
"I can't remember."
She bit her lower lip, studying me cautiously. "Want'a come home with me?"

She was like a siren beckoning me to her sea. She flicked her hair again. "Perhaps you can be my tonic for awhile. We can sleep all day."

And that moment when I took her hand, I honestly didn't think I'd ever look back.

For a long time, I didn't.

Amber Waves

Hands wrapped around my wrists and spun me senselessly. Someone was trying to shake my teeth out. My eyes, though blurred, make out a contorted face. I was strung out on painkillers and whatever else I snatched from the cupboard. Even I know his fury is accompanied by a sense of worry, but I'm feeling the slightest bit sardonic.

"I prefer to call this an enthusiasm."

He drew back his hand and walloped me with a force so tremendous a boom exploded down the hall. On its way back to him, a devious smile spread across my red face.

"Ouch," I mocked, though the sting was beastly.

Releasing me, I drop the floor, make a staggering attempt to stand, and ricochet down the hallway into my room. Fuck him for this farce and fuck her for acting in it. Fuck everything. Life is just one continuous betrayal.

That "enthusiasm" was my release from him. Fool didn't realise that by trying out this disgusting rebellious veneer, it prevented me (through permanently gritted teeth) from telling him he was a waste of a pair of trousers.

Why the arsehole frowned I couldn't understand anyway. My intake gave him the excuse not to take them, aiding his hopeless fantasy that life was fine. My coward of a Father couldn't tell whether I was on drugs, unsurprisingly. He had years of practice of being detached from my feelings.

Sickness spread around my insides; there was no buzz, no hallucinations. Not like everyone said there would be. One time, though, I met a charismatic stranger in the shape and scent of a homeless bum wandering the Waterfront at the same time as I.

Noticing a shivering wreck decked across a bench and staring at the swaying clouds and shifting colours in the sky, he could have strangled me to death or stolen my virginity during a frantic fuck. He sat beside this mysterious young boy and poured whiskey down his throat instead.

I vaguely remember thinking he was a fabled African refugee in the town, and had it not been for the flooring sickness, I'd have run away. His voice was raspy and sharp as a blade. The darkness masked most of his facial features - in fact, all I could make out were a distinct pair of eyes on a face shrouded in black. But there was something innately genial about him.

"What's a nice wee boy like you doing out at this time?"
"Trying to clear my head."
"And what's a nice wee boy like you doing stoned out of his nut?"
"I'm not stoned," said I, "I've actually taken the wrong ones."
"What?"
"A bucket of vitamin fucking Cs, I think."
"Naivete is a sign that nice wee boys aren't cut out for the danger."
"... Or to read the fucking label next time."

Miraculously, the whiskey seemed to dissolve the feeling of nausea in my stomach. Fifteen I was and still a hopeless fool. Perhaps my Father and I shared more in common than I thought. As with my Father's temper, the medicine didn't do much to suppress my unbounded sadness.

"Why do you look like you've got the world's troubles on your shoulders?"
"I'm driving myself crazy," I replied, broodingly realising it was the truth.
"What for?"
"I need the pain. Just to remind me I'm still here."
"Do your parents not notice this?"
"What do you think?"

He opened one side of his sweeping overcoat and invited me in; as dodgy, and frankly quite rank the proposal was, my genitals were an inch from falling off. I accepted, half-hoping he'd hug me.

"You know, something strange happened the other day," I tell him.
"What's that?"
"On the way home I saw this mentally retarded person in a wheelchair. I couldn't stop staring at her, the way her face was so blank and her mouth hung open, her body just completely still and motionless. She looked so stupid," as I spoke I recalled the image, and it was no prettier. "It made me realise; I'd rather go through all the shit and pain and torture than to feel nothing whatsoever. Than to be devoid of all senses whatsoever. To feel absolutely nothing is worse than pain. What's the point in living if devoid of feeling?"
"But there's more to life than pain."
"I've become dependant on pain like it was a reliable friend. Does that make sense?"
"I couldn't tell you, I'm afraid."

Knowing my Father was going to tear me limb from limb by the time I got back, tears were rolling down my cheek. Rather than raw emotion, I, probably unconvincingly, blamed the freezing cold. Somewhere else will be better than this, I vowed. He'll be gone and people will learn to like me, someday.

"So, how'd you end up homeless?" I ask him, finally.

He let out a ripping dirty laugh, frightening the fuck out of me.

"I'm not homeless."
"... So, what are you then?"

Taking a harsh swig from his bottle, he gasped and looked out to the silent tide.

"Just lonely, son."

I recalled the rising amber waves of the sea and magenta clouds from a sheperd's delight, birds assailing the skies and the wind whistling bitterly before turning to my perplex: nobody was there. I lay back on the bench and shut my eyes. There was a long while before morning yet.