prior goodrem / capitol / (fin)

everyone thinks i have my shit altogether,
lined up in an orderly and neat fashion —

but each object in the queue is a domino and the fall is so close i can feel the phantom vertigo inside my heart rise to the throat. steadfast. merciless. 

this is what living on a verge of something offers: thick anxiety and nervous breakdowns in the abandoned condiment aisle of the convenient store at 3 a.m. the harsh fluorescence makes blurs and mirages, converting tonight's memories into a supercut on the floor, and i see myself. i see the mess i've made.

i see the mess he's passed onto my shoulders.

“calm down, prior, calm down.” deep breaths. feel the air as it courses through the pulmonary veins of tattered lungs. then, exhale the carbon dioxide and the guilt. but the headache does not fade, residing as an inferno beneath my temples;

i need medicine to dull it down.

it's hard to clamber up from the cold floor that I have, somehow, fallen onto – but i try, with ungraceful limbs and strained effort. feet rise awkwardly and hands topple some tissue boxes over as they grip on the plastic railings for support.

i am a mess, i am a mess, and messes are not for me.

prior goodrem is reputed as the one who has always offered sacrifices and handcrafted shrines to his own controlling demon: each book i own, fitted into the book shelf, stands in alphabetical order and i always come home to a pristine bed with creaseless sheets because i consider it a chore to make it every morning. a tidy surrounding means this man is at ease.

but, lord, with a thousand of cotton balls resting around me like fallen stars, it's horrendous. an employee comes rushing down the aisle and i make a lopsided grin at her as a normal person that have not just dropped some things would.

“it's fine — i am okay. sorry for the, eh, the,” there is a hard lump stuck to my throat that keeps suppressing the word. “the mess.” the room spins like a bright carousel, fickle luminescence astir in my gaze. “please excuse me.”

somehow, it takes miles for me to reach the store's grey medical counter. a lady with funny clothes greets me and i don't even laugh anymore. everything is disturbingly funny here: the eccentric fashion, the rendezvouses, and your yearly watch-children-get-slaughtered programs.

“what's good, hun'? hung over?” she tries to scrutinize my face but i lower it, hiding behind the thick mop of blonde hair out of unfiltered shame.

i shouldn't be shameful. this is not my fault.

“i just — had a little bit more than a drink.”

“i know, i know.” no, you do not.

you do not know the half of it, fake nurse, with the bright pink hair extensions and jewel-encrusted nails. you do not know how tedious marking your students' papers can get, all red crosses and green ticks and fixing mistakes. you do not know the steep descent i am making into alcoholism.

a drink for the headaches. a drink to commemorate the fallen tributes. a drink to the incoming winter. a drink to drown my loneliness. a drink to my own goddamn liver. 

she hands me a pill: yellow, sugar-coated, and with a bright smile on its front.

“it's a refresher.”

it looks the same as the ones i'd give to one of my sick, elementary students - even the ones who are faking their illness to skip class. i close my eyes, think of myself as the kid in this position, and bite down on the capsule. it bleeds a sweet juice before disintegrating entirely in the mouth.

i drop a careless “thanks.”

“you look familiar to me, hun, seen you around?”

a mental fuck resonates loudly inside my head before the teacher inside me screams language. despite the protests from my moral consciousness, i lie, or at least i think i am.the odds are fifty-fifty. we could've met before, or not.

i wouldn't be able to recall through these waves of intense psychedelia.

“um, i don't ... i don't think so.”

“oh! you teach my niece! we were in a parent-teacher conference together.” and i feel like being a drunkard all over, craving some sort of a buzz in the veins to dull the talk about her niece down. but, of course, i end up listening to the whole narrative with a toothy grin, feigning comprehension, catching only fragments of the words,

“nice teacher,”

“chemistry project,”

“naughty,” 

“hah, yeah, yeah. can – can i please be excused? i need to head somewhere.”

“another bender, huh? good luck, teach.”

no. no. not another one. not another filled with beautiful, golden-haloed men who send drinks to me through the bartender and touch my skin like a forest fire would.

even now, after the strange pill that seems to have restarted my vitals, i can feel the essence of him, deep-rooted inside me, refusing to leave. and perhaps some part of me welcomes him still. the name flashes in the head like an obnoxiously-bright neon sign.

“you can call me josie, sugar.”

he spoke like sugar: saccharine, addictive, glucose laced with each word. it brought forth a sweet rush that effortlessly advances in the same way it withdraws. and, despite the polished intellect that i have always prided myself on, i allow myself to fall prey to the sickening taste.

a fire-fly hovering above a venus fly-trap.  we are made for imminent disaster and i should've caught the signs sooner, traced the warnings better, but instead i trace the lines of his chest. we play a game of catch between our bodies.

the fall that came later is this, me collapsing in on myself in the convenience store, near tears. i suppose it seems humorous, but again, i am not laughing. yet, the world seems to be laughing at me. i can almost feel the pulse of its laughter – each bout of it wild, uncontrollable, and mocking.

the room reels for the third time.

“no, not another bender. i have papers to mark.”