HOME | DD

Description
     I slide my CD into it's slot, push play. Drive down the road and watch the sky darken and the air cool. Grab my stuffed hippo from the passenger seat and sit him on my lap. Like a little kid. Like I used to sit on my mothers lap and guide her car down the drive-way. I smile, stop, don't dare remember.
     I look over at the CD case sitting on the empty-water-bottle-littered floor. "Yourself or Someone Like You" it says. 'That's right', I think, 'myself or someone like me'. And in my mind I chop off the first two words. Fast and hard. A little liquor to dull the pain would be nice.
     Funny how a song can take you back. Make you feel the way you felt when this song, this whole fucking album, was your baby blanket. The way you consoled yourself when you wanted to cry. The way you made yourself feel when your insides were empty. Just spin a red-halved disk that told you about the Real World and a kid named Kody and everything would be okay. Eventually. But now it's just nostalgia. Minus the consolation.
     Drive further. Think more. Squeeze Mr. Hippo into my stomach. Mentally count the stitches sewn into his faded, velvet-soft skin. Wonder how I managed to spill chocolate milk and spaghetti on him and then remember that I was three. Three, I lived with my great grandma on my mother's side. Her dad's mom. "Tootsie". I used to sleep in her bed with her and her yellow-flowered comforter. I wonder where that is.
     Remember dancing to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "I Get knocked Down" in the living room of the house that my mother and step-dad bought together. The house that doesn't belong to me anymore. Or to my parents. Remember laughing and fighting with my little sister. The right kind of fighting. The fighting that could be and was meant to be gotten through.
     Remember listening to "The Eagles", sitting in the passenger seat of my step-dad's mini van with my feet on the dashboard and the highway under us. No words. No tension. Roll down the window and feel summer gather in my hair.
     Squeeze Mr. Hippo tighter. Mentally count the slashes on my thighs. Seventeen. On my arms. Eight. Contemplate scar remover, but remember how nothing happened last time I tried.
     Think of how easily an arm can be broken. Replay the night my mother went to the hospital and my parents didn't seem like my parents anymore.
     There is water in my eyes. I wish I could turn the car around. Think about the ups and the downs. Random. Unpredictable and unnecessary. The times when I'm empty. Hollow. When I cry like a fucking faucet. When I can't escape anger. Unreasonable anger. The breakdowns that end in a sweaty mess on my boyfriend's couch with his hands holding mine. Him letting me hide my splotchy face in his chest. Telling me he loves me. He'll never leave me. Think of my mother. Think that I'm like her. Think that I'll make him leave me because he will realize that I'm crazy, insane. Think how much I love him. Hope I can stop this and hold onto him. Squeeze Mr. Hippo tighter. Mentally count the times I've cried on that green, static-collecting couch.
     I pull into the drive-way of a house that I don't know. Should know. Unfamiliar. Wonder how all this turned out the way it did. Turn the key in the ignition and grab the CD case off the floor. Stuff Mr. Hippo under my left arm and sling my used, Ebay backpack over my right. Stop in front of the door, search for the spare house key they made me, fumble, drop my key-ring. Frustrated, tired, I turn the knob. Realize they left the door unlocked for me.

Description
     I slide my CD into it's slot, push play. Drive down the road and watch the sky darken and the air cool. Grab my stuffed hippo from the passenger seat and sit him on my lap. Like a little kid. Like I used to sit on my mothers lap and guide her car down the drive-way. I smile, stop, don't dare remember.
     I look over at the CD case sitting on the empty-water-bottle-littered floor. "Yourself or Someone Like You" it says. 'That's right', I think, 'myself or someone like me'. And in my mind I chop off the first two words. Fast and hard. A little liquor to dull the pain would be nice.
     Funny how a song can take you back. Make you feel the way you felt when this song, this whole fucking album, was your baby blanket. The way you consoled yourself when you wanted to cry. The way you made yourself feel when your insides were empty. Just spin a red-halved disk that told you about the Real World and a kid named Kody and everything would be okay. Eventually. But now it's just nostalgia. Minus the consolation.
     Drive further. Think more. Squeeze Mr. Hippo into my stomach. Mentally count the stitches sewn into his faded, velvet-soft skin. Wonder how I managed to spill chocolate milk and spaghetti on him and then remember that I was three. Three, I lived with my great grandma on my mother's side. Her dad's mom. "Tootsie". I used to sleep in her bed with her and her yellow-flowered comforter. I wonder where that is.
     Remember dancing to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "I Get knocked Down" in the living room of the house that my mother and step-dad bought together. The house that doesn't belong to me anymore. Or to my parents. Remember laughing and fighting with my little sister. The right kind of fighting. The fighting that could be and was meant to be gotten through.
     Remember listening to "The Eagles", sitting in the passenger seat of my step-dad's mini van with my feet on the dashboard and the highway under us. No words. No tension. Roll down the window and feel summer gather in my hair.
     Squeeze Mr. Hippo tighter. Mentally count the slashes on my thighs. Seventeen. On my arms. Eight. Contemplate scar remover, but remember how nothing happened last time I tried.
     Think of how easily an arm can be broken. Replay the night my mother went to the hospital and my parents didn't seem like my parents anymore.
     There is water in my eyes. I wish I could turn the car around. Think about the ups and the downs. Random. Unpredictable and unnecessary. The times when I'm empty. Hollow. When I cry like a fucking faucet. When I can't escape anger. Unreasonable anger. The breakdowns that end in a sweaty mess on my boyfriend's couch with his hands holding mine. Him letting me hide my splotchy face in his chest. Telling me he loves me. He'll never leave me. Think of my mother. Think that I'm like her. Think that I'll make him leave me because he will realize that I'm crazy, insane. Think how much I love him. Hope I can stop this and hold onto him. Squeeze Mr. Hippo tighter. Mentally count the times I've cried on that green, static-collecting couch.
     I pull into the drive-way of a house that I don't know. Should know. Unfamiliar. Wonder how all this turned out the way it did. Turn the key in the ignition and grab the CD case off the floor. Stuff Mr. Hippo under my left arm and sling my used, Ebay backpack over my right. Stop in front of the door, search for the spare house key they made me, fumble, drop my key-ring. Frustrated, tired, I turn the knob. Realize they left the door unlocked for me.