pietro babineaux | d4

If you put a raindrop on your tongue and smile the ghosts will come for you. And it's ok to fall in love, I promise, I do it all of the time but then I fall right back out again because you can't get attached so easy, I know. I've died trying but you can die more than once in a lifetime.

I draw a big ol' heart around my left eye and drop a little pill in my mouth. I'm so fucking beautiful like this, with my hair out to nowhere and my lips all red. I wish that... well someone could see me like this. I get up on the counter and press my forehead against the glass of the mirror.

What if I died on stage, like just kicked it, right there in front of everyone. I run a finger over a lipstick stain on my teeth and then pinch my bottom lip and pull it out away from my mouth. It'd be kind of cool I guess, though I'd rather go out like a shitty magician, just lock me in a safe and toss me in the ocean.

My cheeks feel hot so I pick up my red and draw big circles, highlighting the fact of them. My freckles hide beneath, spots where the sun kissed me. So I slowly fill the circles in and I regress by six years at least.

This isn't my bathroom but I treat it like mine. Flick and CJ said yes to their couch and a week at a time is about how long they can stand me for. It's day five, so I've already scouted out a bench at the beach. Warm weather like this, I'd rather be outside anyway. Curt will pity me after a day or two anyway and his couch will be mine. Then he'll kick me out after a few days because I won't stop smoking weed and he's got kids.

That's the part in the cycle where I kick down Kyle's door and claim his couch.

It's kind of vicious, kind of feral but whatever.

I pick up my blue and draw a big raindrop below my other eye. It isn't a tear, I'm not crying, I'm not sad. I'm a clown, clowns don't cry, not really. We just pretend. We're so good at playing pretend and me, well, I don't want to toot my own horn but I'm the best.

I can put on a show, whatever you'd like really. I contort my body in monstrous ways, shoot flame, balance on a tightrope and when the kids are all happy, I have a little something for the parents too. Whatever you're looking for, I carry it, sourced directly from Six. The weed? I grow that myself, I won't say where.

I must be fun at parties.

Truly, I do believe I am. Before I showed up in the neighbourhood I don't know what they did without me. Any sort of laugh you want, I got. I brought the party with me when I come, half of them love me for it and the other half hate me but all of them owe me a little bit of something every now and then.

But no one actually wants to smoke with their dealer, you know?

My head tips back and I scrape white paint down my neck, right to the neck frills. The whole world moves with me, a soft chuckle escapes my lips. This existence could be so lonely, but I don't let it be. I'm always warm, always taken care of and if sometimes I'm not on a couch, maybe I'm just in someone else's bed.

Anybody, I'll truly love anybody if they let me, I'm so good at it. I fall in and out of love all the time but the further out I go, the further in I'll bounce back until I'm breaking my heart all over again. I love that agony, that longing of the heart for someone I won't ever have. I put on a show just for me, let tears streak through my face paint, tell myself I'm aching so that I can ignore reality.

I don't feel anything at all.

My story is nothing new, I won't bore you with it. There's nothing special about a runaway in Four. Is a runaway truly a runaway though if no one actually cares enough to look for you? I've often wondered that. In Four it's acceptable to cut lose a child who doesn't perform well at training. Maybe a better term is throwaway.

I fall in love all the time, with kittens in the gutters, desperate housewives searching for adventure, broken spiderwebs and shattered glass. The way the word 'leave' simmers on the lips of my friends when they want to kick me out but don't know how to. I love the way that it looks, love being the mess that they all want to take in but then realize they can't handle.

They can't make sense of me because I don't even make sense to myself.

But it's the human condition to fall in love with broken things so maybe if I keep chipping away at it, I'll be lovable.

"Hey, the kids are waiting," comes a gruff voice at the door followed by a knock.

Sorry, I've got to go.