That New Year's Eve

(But written a few days later! Obviously...)

Stolen kisses and screwdrivers were what colored the night. He held my waist in the kitchen and I laced double and triple shots of vodka with cranberry juice. Brandi was there, and couldn’t understand why he didn’t respond to her sliding hands and pathetic whimpers.

"What should I do?" She whispered to me, in confidence.

I told her to forget about him and that he didn’t care about her. His anxious eyes darted rapidly, as he tried to read our lips from across the room. I smiled with a slur, and her smile was the same.

And then we were in his bedroom and he was kissing me again. Murmurs of laughter and the violent clacking of quarters against the coffee table muffled through the walls. I don"t remember what we fought about, only that I was miserable and confused. Did I love him? Could I love him? Did he love her? And if not, why was she there? And what about my sister... how much did she see? How much did she know? The panic began to ride the waves of alcohol, vehemently denying any relaxation that it might have brought and rising in my heart until it pumped so hard that I was sure I would die. The blood poured too fast through my veins and there was much too much of it. I could feel it sloshing against the walls of my body, and sure I would drown, I needed to release it. I reached for the razor blade that I had left there, months before, carefully hidden in my rusting Russian cigarette case inside his upper desk drawer. I needed that release in a way that I know most people will never even begin to understand. But he was fighting me, trying to pull it from my fist, and fearful that he would win before I would bleed, I began to squeeze it tighter in my palm, pressing my soft plump finger tips against the gleaming blade, not aware, in my drunkenness that it was too old, too dull and had sliced through my numbness too many times before to do any real damage.

He twisted my wrists back and forth, and I laughed beneath the rush of pain, until it became too much and my palm sprawled open. Ever the quick thinker, I dashed around him and into the bathroom, locking the door in relief, frantically grabbing at the blue Gilette on the sink’s edge. It wasn't as ideal as the blades that I usually buy, but I could figure out a way to make it work. And so I scraped it up and down my fingers, bits of flesh spraying against the wall, mixed with dripping blood and dripping tears. I spit him out onto the tiled walls and I spit out my heart in the dripping and sweet red waters that spilled from my palm and onto the crusted bathroom floor. Relieved and determined, I elbowed the door open with a drunken slam, wobbling into the kitchen, leaving a delicate trail of crimson droplets behind me.

And my mind slashed through the air that was suddenly so thick. The tangy rusted tap water blurred my eyes and then my sister was there, and her boyfriend. And I laughed, imagining my blood to be mixing with vodka and not water. And in a flash, they were gone. And between black holes, my sister's contorted face, twisted in pain hangs before my own. And then he was back and we were kissing in the elevator. I slid to the floor, purple with tears and insisted that I was not a tramp. But my chronology is wrong, still. And smiling Indian faces that I did not know, and the long and narrow smelling hallway. And my sister cried and I struck her with my words and my bloody fleshless fingers, and then we were back inside, where all was quiet. And who would be in his bed that night? The blue carpet stretched on endlessly, and I only knew that it couldn't be her. And the jagged patterns of the wooden bookshelf fell into the mirror, where I caught the reflection of my blackened mascara-streaked cheeks and burning pink eyes, as I spun around in endless circles in some imagined gypsy dance. And their anxiety was everywhere... they surrounded me like vultures... all of them against me! And I felt myself falling from hundreds of miles above. I knew it was coming, and anticipated it somewhat orgasmically.

"I am going to pass out now," I said.

I wondered what year it was. My face was scarcely two inches from a book. The book was blue and it matched the carpet. I counted that it was the third one on the shelf, and my head swayed dangerously closer and closer. But wait! It was the carpet, and my cheeks scraped against it in blackness. My mind had abandoned me when I needed it most; or rather, I had killed my own mind to numb my heart.

The next morning, I awoke to the hell of consequence.

Happy 1999.