How I Got Here

One. This tube breathes for me and I hate it. I chew on it at night like a street rat.
Two. My daddy was a preacher…I guess he always kept mustard seeds in his front jean pockets.
Three. Once air starts to taste sweet like burnt plastic and your broccoli soup is tainted with crushed pills you know your life turned into some unnatural shell of pumps and pharmaceuticals.
Four. While the congregation dreamed of the holy ghost I danced on stage with bananas round my pretty little waist and entertained my host.
Five. Those silent films are all like rusted silver from a shipwreck in the ocean: lifeless, gritty, fast paced and crackly looking on the screen. That’s not how it was at all. In fact, they had more color and life than the rosy cheeks of winter nipped woman.
Six. He was just the bees knees: mustache slicked down to a “V” and silver cuff links that shone like spears.
Seven. I can’t go to the bathroom without some whore in scrubs following me inside and babbling about the meds I hid under my tongue.
Eight. Yes, I’m that red haired doll with a ciggy in her hand, a pearly hem that rose to her thighs and inconspicuous whiskey bottles stuffed down her dress. I’m that chick who knew all the secret knock knock knocks of the day.
Nine. I saw the gun underneath Jack’s suit when he tried to catch me a firefly by the lake. It was sharp, slim and gave me some kind of fever.
Ten. Jack definitely wasn’t a lawyer. I didn’t really care. We played Mahjong and drank until the sun came down.
Eleven. She’s doing it again. Shoving porridge down my throat like I’m some bird. I try to claw at her.
Twelve. I can’t move. I realize that unfortunately I’m no bird.
Thirteen. Everything around me looks orange and cylindrical as if I were looking at the world through a prescription bottle.
Fourteen. I loved going down to the fields with Jimmy to watch the vegetables punch their fists from the manure in the spring.
Fifteen. More morphine please?
Sixteen. I never loved the sunspots on my hands more than I do today. Only they remember Coronado Beach: the oily faces, the martini glasses with green umbrellas in them, the baby crabs crawling in between my toes and the baby flies rummaging through the seaweed.
Seventeen. My baby brought me flowers and left.
Eighteen. There’s a thin paper on the hospital bed that crumples every time I move. It’s the kind people stuffed in birthday bags to make them look all full, big and beautiful but in reality there’s a pathetic gift resting at the bottom.
Nineteen. I want to disappear and then reappear as a daze, an acid trip, a nightmare, a prenatal dream, a drunken night. Anything at all just not this. Not ninety-six.