vivian la fleur | d5

I was born in a closet with a sock stuffed in my mouth to stop me crying. Mom didn't know she was pregnant, she barely showed, her father just thought she'd gotten fat, just another reason to beat her. There's always a good fucking reason, yeah? Crying, laughing, being too loud, being too quiet, there's always a fucking reason and my mother named me Vivian because I was alive but she gave me to her sister, already moved out, already married becuase she wanted a baby so goddamned bad but was as barren as a dead goose.

Dunno if that's a real metaphor, dunno if it matters.

Probably doesn't.

I poured poison down my throat last night to see if it would kill me, but alas, an easy antidote was found in a teaspoon of horseradish. I don't know what sort of smart fuck knew that but thank god I guess am I right ladies? Ladies? Where are you going, aw come on honey, darling, princess, don't leave me all alone with him.

That loud bitch in my head, the one who never stops moaning about his dead aunt, turned mother. Yeah. They never told me, not until she was dead from her fifth overdose and we were at her goddamned funeral, putting her in the goddamned ground.

"You were hers, Viv. She was your mother."

Well jesus fucking christ mom, that's a lot to drop on a guy at his mother's funeral, no less.

And I'd always felt sorry for my aunt-mom-thing because she always wanted to look at me, especially when she was high, but she grossed me out with her taut skin and eyes always too wide. When she was sober she was ok and she was always trying to quit, to be part of the family again but no one would help her; no one would help my mother and I was only nine.

Just a fucking kid, y'know?

I dunno.

Anyway, so I guess I dropped out of school when I was twelve because no one gives a shit about school in five, because fuck it, honestly. None of us are growing up to be shit, especially if you don't have money, which my family never had. My fake mom and dad were nice and all but we never even had two pennies to rub together so I had to rub mine against the floor. I had different talents anyway, like a smart mouth and a body that would bend backward on command.

I remember the first time I shoved my head under my ass, my mom started screaming like I was possessed and I'm pretty sure dad almost went and got a priest. I was like, three or four though, so after a bit of thought, they decided that Satan couldn't possibly fit inside of me, not with those huge hooves of his and that massive di-

But I guess I always had a bit of him in me.

As I grew, I didn't stop bending myself into impossible situations and when my real mom died, I somehow became a real flower, pressing my tongue too hard against my teeth and jumping off things too high to be safely jumped off of. I started to get into trouble, running with the wrong crowd at ten years old, hollering too loud, staying up too late. My dad locked me in a cupboard out of desperation and I picked the lock from the inside, enjoying the challenge too much.

I felt like magic when he looked at me, disbelief in his eyes and too many 'how'd you do that?'s on his lips.

I told him, "Some people are born just to die."

I've shut my mouth too many times to leave it like that and the first night I smoked weed I was thirteen and I came home smelling like it. My mother cried and my dad was so 'scared' he slapped me across my face, hard. "It's because of your aunt, Viv, it's what took her."

"I'm her kid, so, what'd you expect, yeah?"

And it's really fucking easy to find a place to stay when you can walk backward on your hands and feet and your lips are naturally swollen because there are some fucked up people out there. I started on the stage when I was fourteen, moving slowly to the erotic music, bending impossibly when I shouldn't in a place I shouldn't have been.

I remember thinking I was such a goddamned adult but I wasn't, not yet.

Why do kids always want to grow up so fast and why are there so many adults out there happy to take advantage of that? I get why they keep us in a cage, why they take two of us every year to kill us. I've seen things I shouldn't, done things too old for my youth and happily too, no comment.

No comment.

It's easy to shut yourself off, that's why she was always high I guess. It's easy to exist when you don't have to deal with it.

But I'm good at getting myself out of a sticky situation, like the time I got cuffed to a bed and didn't really want to be there. Just fucking climb over your arm, pop it out of the socket and get on with it. I'm good at running away, at disappearing without a trace in a way that seems impossible and there are people that call it a gift, like it means something.

Like I mean something, like my mother wasn't some sixteen year old too afraid of her father to go to a hospital when she felt the contractions, like my fake parents not knowing how to deal with me and my mother. My grandfather doesn't know about me, he dotes on me like I'm the prodigal son all while he'd beat my mom to death because she was a whore, because he was drunk, because she looked too much like my grandmother.

I started drinking when I was fourteen, started shutting my eyes when I jumped off of tall things in case I'd have the pleasure of missing my mark. I smoked too much weed and made too many choices I shouldn't have but never remembered to regret them and maybe it's because they were right; I was possessed, am.

Am in the present tense.

Like a suitcase with not enough room, seams bursting. (Sit on my face, ladies.)

But I'm gay as shit, sitting here wasting your time, a drink in my hand when I'm supposed to be other places. I'm a master at that, wasting time. I've wasted three boyfriend's time already and counting, always counting and collecting people to love me and follow me around like slaves until I grow tired of them. Until I realize that they aren't what I want so I'm always wondering if anyone ever will be.

Or maybe I'm just hollow on my insides, a bird with not enough feathers so I can't even fly.

And they found me when I was at my highest, moved on long since to harder drugs and higher heights, feet half-way off the tallest building I could find and tipping forward, closer and closer to the edge. I held my breath, hands shaking with adrenaline, my favourite drug, always searching for a higher high.

And I was going to fall, I swear, but I twisted, grabbing onto the edge of the building as tight as I could with both hands, drawing blood on my palms and honestly, just chilling. I'm always just chilling.

The crowd had a mixed reaction:

"KID, YOU FUCKING CRAZY?"

Well Christ, yeah I guess.

"Would you like to make money doing that?"

Shit, yeah.

"We can offer you a life of taboo and sordid affa-"

bitch, I said yeah.

Now here I am tonight, telling you a story you don't give a shit about because you probably just want to see me suck my own dick. Yeah, that's something I can do and in many different interesting positions, but that's for the eighteen plus show and I'm also not supposed to advertise that because it doesn't exist. Besides, it's extra, cash only and in my own pocket, but hush honey, it's a secret.

I'll show you a neat trick. My lovely assistant here is going to lock me inside theis solid wood casket, but first he's gonna blindfold me, but first he's going to bind my hands and we're going to seel that bitch up air tight so I'll have less than a minute of oxygen.

Yeah, sounds like a fucking stupid idea, like a great way to get myself killed.

I'm good at edges though, at clinging on to them and at letting go.

Just have to decide when.