but it's all alright {nolive}

Breaking through the blinds of my window, I prop my head on my hands with lines of the night sky over my chest; my shirt stitched to my skin with sweat when I woke up. A headache crossed across my membrane - shit - I scratch at the cut on my back, the swollen skin around my eye and jaw keeping me from laying on my sides. I hate bar fights.

And I guess they hate me too; last time I help Al out. Ma drug me through hell and back, cleaning the wound and near praying that next time the Lord would take me before she would, and I swear lying to her is getting harder each time I have to. But hell, what's a delinquent to do? I cross my heart that I'll get my shit together and she crosses her heart that I get sent to the detention center the next time before I get killed, and I smile a lighter smile -- "at least I would get three meals in there" -- and she hits my shoulder. 

There was a moment of silence, my sweating skin sticking to the wood of the chair and my mother wiped her hands on a rag, "Nori," and I was like yea wassup, rubbing a migraine into my eyes. 

"I don't think your father's coming back." 

I scratch my palm, my eyes heavy under the weight of cosmoses; "now I don't want not a single goddamn fight today," Al's contra voice scratchy under the citrus beat through the bar, "don't like the bets, then how about you volunteer next year and do better." 

And you see, the two of us made eye contact and everything, and I winked my name onto that contract and swore I wouldn't fight; but what's a delinquent supposed to do? Besides, faithful Al always gives the same speech every year, been this way for the past few even before I started swinging in here. And I'm a cocky cunt, always have been, and I put all my money on Celia and pull up a bar stool, the wood unpolished and rough. 

("Awe, Nori's got a crush on the Mortuus tribute,"

I stumble, "and you don't?")

I cough, the air in my room thick in the summer's new heat. 

The buzzing of fireflies outside is all I hear over the sound of somebody's fists meeting the skin of somebody else and me cracking my neck, men shouting -- I swear, this one wasn't on me. For once I wasn't the problem, I guess, the bittersweet taste of blood in my mouth and the crack of my neck on a pivot. And I punched back and I guess that was my problem, a dead girl, a broke wallet and my bleeding gums; I fell on my ass and a beer bottle. 

And Lord if I didn't fuck that up. 

When I got back on my feet, more meatheads jumped into the pile and my nose was bleeding, Al kicked me out. Told me to leave the money and don't come back, but he's done this before, he'll let me back in the next time I come, I guess, and I rub the cuts in my back -- "shit." 

I guess I messed this one up really bad, I didn't tell Ma about the money, just that I got played. And truthfully I don't know why I joined in on the fight, why the trash talk got to me or why I cared about Celia enough to make the fight personal. I scratch at my back. Ma got all the glass out, swearing my name with each piece, "what the fuck were you thinking?" And I grit the pain; "it was in my horoscope, honestly." 

There's a banging on the door, echoing through to the twisted headache and shaking blinds: "Nori!"

Shit.

Olive? 

Fucking Olive. 

He's screaming some shit and I hear it through the open window, the night sky's whispers and buzzes broken by him and shit, he's like a fucking wounded animal, and I grab the stiff shirt off the ground in my balled fist, my feet light on the tiled floors, shit. I open the door with cotton mouth, my ma still asleep in her room near mine -- "Olive? Shit." -- he's bleeding. 

("Nori.")

What the fuck did he do, blood print on the wooden door and he's shaking, shit, fucking hell, what the hell; I hold his gaze, "for a nurse, you're a fucking mess." I lean out of the doorway, the night air sticking to my clammy chest and I want to hold this fucking idiot but between us there's no space of skin that has been beaten or cut. 

Just what the fuck. 

"Try not to bleed on the furniture," I rub my eyes walking back into the kitchen - what the fuck.

What's a delinquent to do, huh. 

[ firestorm ]

hey, hey, wouldn't it be great, great,
if we could just lay down and wake up in slowtown,
today, day, i want to go away, way,
'cause things are too fast now,
i want to be in slowtown.

---

("Face it, you're over your head.")

Printed in my skin, braile for the blind and the blinding; words to live by. "You're in over your head, Nori," a street rat and an abuse victim, beaten and bloodied and bruised and in over his head, Al whispers in my skin before every fight and bet and every day I hear it when I wake up -- you can't do this. A bigger man, one of the nineteen year olds in our kiddie fighting ring he socks me in the face, I hear cheering as I fall because they've got bets on the other guy. They see a winner in the face of a man who knocks me down and I see another day, another day of this in and out, the gravel scratching my skin and my back tooth loose.

I inhale; you can't do this, Nori. 

But I have to, so I must. 

"Sorry." 

What - "Nori she's dead. I watched her die a-and... and-" shit. Oh shit my bets. 

Fuccck, Al told me not to - what the fuck. I stumble, verging on numb and insensitive, this isn't about my damn money. I press my palm into the soreness of my cheek; don't be a cunt, Nori. I hesitate on the stepway into the kitchen - I can't leave Olive alone for a second, I don't trust that kid not to get killed by a loose floorboard or something. Hell, first time I met him I could've maimed him, if he wasn't a nurse he probably wouldn't still be alive. 

("For a nurse you're a fucking mess,") he had glass in his hand, and I watched him pick the shards into one of our plants, the cunt. But I should probably do something for that right? Like, stitches or something, bhit I can't stitch skin, what am I doing. We don't have much of anything else; what does momma do? Usually when I'm fucked to hell she just calls me an idiot and hands me a towel. Fuck, this wasn't a situation I expect to be in. Olive needs something, right? I watch him grip onto his jacket harder, clumsily grabbing at glass and- 

"What do I do?" 

Fuck.

He needs me.

It's a blaring alarm, red letters screaming 5am in my eyes and another fight rings in my ears, it's tiring. Another day, another fight and I'm not sure it's just about the ring anymore but I have to convince myself that it is. I run out the house before my mom's awake and I hold ice in my jaw; you're in over your head, Nori. Why not just give up, why not fall under the weight of five thousand sticks instead of piling another one on my spine, but I know why. He knocks me onto my back, shaking and collapsing and I feel the acid in my knees of every fight pulling me lower to the ground but I need this, you're in over you head, kid.

What are you doing here? 

Every time I stand up I see it in Olive's face, in the sound of bloody glass sticking to the clay of the plants pot and I feel it in the bags of my eyes; I can't do this. 

I feel sixteen. I feel like a teenager and not a fighter, an emotional kid on the verge of breaking, I don't know why I do this to myself. I feel myself fall through the loose floor board looking at the blood in Olive's skin and I have to snap my mind and body back together, forcing myself to still be me. He needs me, he needs me just as much as I need me to be me.

I can't choke now. 

"Don't," I swallow, "do that, sit down I'll get the glass out." Rationalize, what do I do. fuuuuuuucccccckkkk, I don't know what I'm doing, grabbing lightly at his wrist sitting us down on the couch - I'm a street fighter not a nurse. This is his job, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, you're in over your head. I always end up in these situations, huh. I put my hand under his, fuck. Oh fuck, I forgot the towel. 

("What do I do?")

Stay calm? His sister just died, he's got a hand full of glass and he's sitting across the couch from a delinquent, how the fuck do I say that seriously? Shit I don't know, but for Olive's sakes I've gotta do something. 

"You ready?"

[ firestorm ]