burdock coy // D4, resub

burdock coy

You know, I don't think that I have ever trusted the water.

Too many chemicals, that's probably why so many people from three are so out of their mind. That's why my parents divorced way back when, y'know? Too much juice ink in their brainwaves and so they ran off from each other and I went one way and my sibling went the other. Nick's out in the desert and I read it in the files. All listed out in alphabetical, I kept Lucy and Sam tied by tweed to my backpacks because they like how the fresh air feels. The adoption papers read it loud and clear: Burdock de Rolo-Coy. 

That's some shit if I ever read it. 

I had to kill a bitch for it too, drip some poison in her coffee and leave it out for her by morning. Starlit Witch Academy, they raise girls to kill other girls and praise them when they do so without getting caught. But then you have to come out and say "yeah, I'm the one who hide eighty six knives under her blanket!" and suddenly, you're an asshole. Everybody know's it's you and you didn't even get creative with it, you're just a dick, dude. They sit you down in the main office and give you a slap on the wrist, and then they give you some extra credit on your divination's studies for taking fate into your own hands. 

Really, I think I need to learn how to start saying no to things. One day, I'm seventeen, and I'm on top of the world - the world being my girlfriend, Fern - and the next I've got the antichrist in my large intestine. Let's start from the beginning here: me, cool witch bitch, sold out for a cheap chaching to some crazy satan worshiping white women. You: probably trespassing reading this, but that's besides the point. 

Now, we've got some catching up to do, but we should get coffee sometime? Meet me at Sylvana's, she's been dead for weeks but the store's under some new management. 

So, originally I was the starlet of my class, every twenty seven years they choose the next heir from the top seven, and as you can imagine we get just a little catty over it. Catty being completely mental, and we're already told to go out and do some crimes, imagine what we do under the guise of friendly competition. One girl set my hair on fire, I drowned a girl for killing one of my tarantulas, it is what it is. There were a few survivors, but I skipped town the second things started to get really dicey, one of the girl's brought a gun and there's just not much you can do after that. 

That's when I stopped believing so much in the witch shit -- I mean, it's cool and all don't get me wrong, but what good is your guiding words if this douche bag has a pistol and a 'not so magic bullet.' Or really magic bullet, considering how you see it, it gets the  job done supernaturally well. There's not too many belongings you make through living at a murder boarding school, but somehow it's still enough tube tops to not fit completely in a knack sack. Picture me on my grand escape, I've got a green dufflebag thrown across my waist and my two tarantulas dangled off a tweed fixture, they mean life or death to me solely because I named them some pretty snazzy names. Sam and Lucy are teetering and so am I as I hold myself out my window, and before I leave I toss the molotov cocktail through the second story open balcony. 

The whole point is to be gay, and to do crimes, right? So I did some crimes! 

Maybe I've got too many squiggly lines fishing around, swimming in the old brain soup up stairs, but I can't even see straight half the time. I mean it -- that was originally a gay joke but I have terrible vision. The last time I could afford to get them checked out, the eye man asked me to read the little letter pyramid off the wall and I started talking braille. Fern was sitting next to me in the room and she was brandishing her gun- let me say that again, her gun! 

Haha, just kidding, but in my mind she was. I always pictured her as my bodyguard most of the time, she was dope. Anyways, so I'm sitting there, both hands in my lap and I'm just a saying things, I thought I saw a horse in the bottom corner but it was just the way the letter L looks above the letter M F, but she was pretty! I stole a pair on my way out, five finger discount and I got ten of those bitches. Fern and I used to love taking shit and seeing how fast we could run to the trolley or the train around the district, I'd be exhausted in my fur coat and she would have two on. Mine were always the hot faux shit, the ones that make you sweat but in an animal loving way, like a statement piece. 

I, Burdock de Rolo-Coy, stand by the Lynx! Y'know? 

I knew a girl who had a Lynx once too, it was insane. Said she got it shipped straight from district five to district two to district three, and it showed up on a carry on freight train. Part of me always wanted to ride it around, tugging at Fern's collar to get her to ask for me, but she never would. You see, Fern ain't always been supportive of me having fun. Not in the way two people who don't fear god do, I guess I was always a bit too distant in the grand scheme of things. Just an arms reach away, and now I'm about a district away. 

Just like the Lynx, apparently it was from the Sarasin's all along! Over in district two, ain't that crazy? I'm out of breath talking so much, but I always thought those Sarasin girls were something special. They'd show her on the recaps, that one Euley chick with the sick ass fur coats, and I never got to ask her if they were real or not, mostly because she died before I had even been reaping age. Which, y'know, kills the mood. I ain't have a crush on her or anything, she just seemed like nice company. 

Anybody with some exotic pets got a nice story in my eyes, and I may just have Lucy and Sam on this adventure but they also got me. 

So back to where I was, Fern and I had been sitting on the train. A crashed train, abandoned, boxcar in the middle of the scrap yard pits of hell that are District Three, and my legs are in her's and this was back before we had an apartment. We first got together from some blood pact cult gang, and yada yada yada, scissor sisters and all that, she cut my hair! Well, we all cut our hair. Originally we all had to shave our heads bald, and I remember sitting there like "oh no way, that's just not for me, bud!" And the guy had a gun to my forehead, and then Fern - love her - she walks over and she's like, "she doesn't have to do anything."

And he was like raaa, who do you think you are! You know? Probably about to shoot her, but Fern had been in the gang a bit longer than I had and she had some leeway over it all. Later on she would go on and tell me she liked my gusto, and at the time I thought that was slang for tits, but so I let her hang out with Lucy. Not Sam, they get all feisty with new people -- that's right, nonbinary tarantulas, read 'em and weep. My brother turned out to be trans, which I thought was cool, and it really made me reevaluate everything I knew about gender.

I mean, really, what even is gender? A proper gender was that thing for media, you say it in the capitol accent y'know, capitol propa genda. But I had gone out to meet Nick once, back before Fern and I got together, at that time I didn't have a home and I had just gotten away with my first arson attack. It's kinda crazy how fast you grow up and meet your own records when you try hard enough, now I'm practically an arson expert. Level five arsonist -- anyways, I met Nick and his name was completely different than what it was on paper. At first I was super confused! But he explained it all to me - and trust me, there's a lot. Like, a bomb made out of a toaster a lot, but it was nice to see how similar we were and all. 

Pops' been going around making guns, and they'd go and sell them to the gangs around district three, and now that I'm looking back on it, I might have met some incredulous figures back during my time around those parts. Now knowing everybody that's in those gangs, people that even Fern was scared of in a way, it really solidified my idea to skip that district. 

But it was almost nice, meeting my father for the first time in my life. And probably only time, I mean, dude was kinda nuts so I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't last much longer. He was brunette and had big ole eyes, and he was a complete Virgo, which explained a lot, believe me. I crossed him off the list and gave Sam a little broody pat on the head, feeding them some water but I only ever drank orange juice in those days. You can't contaminate fruit juice, y'know? And cocktails have two of my favorite things right there in the title, it all works out.

Large bodies of water have always freaked me out, but I guess I'm sort of a horror fanatic. I love the feeling of getting spooked out my skin, the way the other girls would stalk me around the Starlit Academy and jump me around the corners. Not like, jump scares, but physically jump me. With like, knives, and they'd stab me and see if I bled out but I would always crawl out to the infirmary asking for Miss Pots and she'd yell at me for pissing off another set of twins. I didn't have enough excuses to really cover my ass, but it's all said and done now I guess. Half of those girls are dead in a ditch and I'm dead in the ocean, so it's different. 

We're on different paths of life, hon! Stay in your lane, baby girls. Sometimes it just takes you leaving your girlfriend behind for dead and running from an angry gang of angry gang members with guns to remind you that you're not just that bitch, but that only bitch, you hear me? 

Those guys got pretty pissed when we ditched the gang, I keep telling this story all out of whack so here, the timeline's something like this: 

1 - i'm a gay orphan and my crack mom sells me for some rocks
2 - i grow up in a witch murder academy 
3 - i escape said academy, but with tarantulas! 
4 - i kill sylvana anderson, find out who and where my father is
5 - i drink that bitch's coffee, and i drink it black
6 - i find my father and my surprise brother
7 - i join their gang for a found family troupe
8 - i date my found family troupe
9 - her name is fern, and she's got red hair and a sexy ass thigh tattoo
10 - fern and i live in an abandoned boxcar for a while

and that's pretty much that on that! Sorry if the audio's a little damaged through all this, can't control the waves of radical high tide. But so after that, Fern and I ended up saving up our crack money and buying an apartment together. It was mostly free, since we had helped the landlord find his lost dog and saved him from a shoot out. Oh, two completely different stories by the way- two way, way, way different stories wow, I should have specified. The dog isn't even a canine, it's his friend, Sivver, but we call him Siv! Because that's his name. 

Siv. 

Anyways, that's his dog, and Siv ended up getting caught in some crazy lunatic bear trap outside the motel room, and he lost his leg. Fern had to cut it off, saying it would get infected and die off either way and that's the exact moment I became a vegetarian. But so it was a winter night, and I had nothing but tube tops, jorts and fur coats at the time that we stole from that Lynx trader - long story, but she died. It was hypothermia, yeah. That was the Lynx's name, Hypothermia. Really sad. He shot her, like, with a gun. 

Just kidding! He ate her alive in the middle of the night because she slept a little bit too peacefully, but I reckon that just means she slept real peacefully afterwards. That eternal peaceful sleep, you know? But we had to go out the next day and clean out her things, because we were the last one's seen breaking and entering her house, but that was because she wouldn't leave us a key. The boxcar got too cold during the winter and we had to sleep some where, and so on that night we had been cuddled up in her bathtub under three layers of fur. 

I remember thinking that I would marry Fern, her hair sitting all in my face and we ended up sweating between all the body heat and being so damn grateful for it. Through everything, we had each other to sweat with and sweat on and god, I loved her back then. Beautiful red hair and the way she'd drool in her sleep, it got in my ear and I fell asleep peacefully next to her, not even worried if I would wake up deaf from it. Thankfully, I didn't, being partially deaf and partially blind would be partially the worst of both worlds. 

A more grateful person would have said the partial best of both worlds, but I don't think I've ever been too grateful. Maybe that's why I ended up leaving such a good thing so soon, but it was only a matter of time before it went south, y'know? That's what I'm learning here, how much a bitch it is when things go towards south. Fern and I got called in for questioning by some friendly peacekeepers, and that one of them gave me some daddy issues I had all but forgotten about. He had this thick, burly beard that was braided into three pieces and I just wanted to shave it and wear it for a wig. 

Use it for Lucy or Sam, maybe they'd make a nice nest out of it. When all of this was happening, I had kept the two of their cages on me at all time. I got scared for em when they were rattlin' over the winter, but we all made it through alright. I don't know how they do it, but it's inspiring to me. We ended up convincing them that we were just there to clean the bathrooms and to cat sit, as Miss Lynx hadn't been heard of for a while and would you know it the whole woman turned up inside the Lynx's body? The whole time, she was just straight in there! Nobody would have guessed it, not even Fern and I. 

But so they let us off, and they ended up putting down that Lynx and I was so goddamn upset about it, I cried for hours. Cried into its fur, and the fur rug of the woman's house, and her fur purse, and her fur coat wardrobe, and Fern ended up telling me later than this woman was wanted for the killing of these endangerment animals, and I wasn't too surprised honestly. She did have a good bit of fur looking back on it, and not a whole lot of animals. 

So there we are, shivering in the cold but Shiv's hoisted onto our shoulders the best we can carry him. Lucy and Sam are out in their cages back in the landlord's apartment, and I'm about slipping on all the blood coming out their guys nasty, stinky fucking leg. Fern's holding us together on the walk back from the junkyard to the Motel and they're about the same really, both trash at the time but one had a heater system we could take care of. 

The shoot out happened like, a month later? 

Yeah, Shiv shot the landlord. 

Oh, that's who got shot, I knew somebody had a gun around there. Yeah, yeah, makes sense, anyways the landlord didn't die, but hell he should have. The rest of the time I spent in district three was under that bastard's name and he wasn't worth the dime or handjob I gave the motherfucker. Fern always kept two pistols with her just like I kept two tarantulas with her, but this time we had gotten them from my brother, Nick. You remember Nick, right? Trans guy, lives out in the desert and has got the crazy dad- well, I guess he's both our dads at this point. 

Anyways, he gave us three recycled pistols, and mine had Coy etched onto the sides. With a bang, bang, boom, babang bang bang, it was nuts! Fern was practically dead shot with her aim, using the upper floor railing as cover and I was just crouching behind her laughing my ass off. I always lived off how she could just do these things, the landlord was just whining down on the ground, bitching about a limp leg and I just remember Shiv going, "yeah, we all got limp leg's now, asshole!" I wish I had known Shive's zodiac before he died, I never really got to ask him that. 

Okay, okay, so you're probably wondering where the timeline is right now, so here's a little catch up: 

11 - we move out the boxcar
12 - we live with a sexy milf fur coat cougar
13 - she has no cougars, but she does have a lynx
14 - she is eaten by the lynx
15 - we take all the fur coats and find a new home
16 - we buy an apartment together! 
17 - it's a motel, and we find a guy in a bear trap
18 - the guy is the landlord's friend! 
19 - the guy shoots the landlord
20 - i don't have a 20th thing yet

But I wasn't gonna blue ball us both and leave that at nineteen, like c'mon. Who leaves things at nineteen? What are we, reaping age children?- oh, shit. I'm still eighteen, but truthfully I feel like I'm just now starting to really live, baby! 

So, next section here, Fern ends up doing her street smarts shit and she shoots like, six guys in the head, no joke, just pop pop pop brrrrrbtbtbbtbtb pop pop- "don't kill me, i have a wife!" and Fern's all, "I'll tell her you said hi," and I'm screaming in the corner, right? Not out of fear, like I said, I thrive off the shit, but out of lust. The pure hunger that comes from witnessing your gang member girlfriend kill six people in a fur coat while you're still on the top floor of the motel, sipping a pina colada out of a nipple tassel. 

Unfortunately, we weren't together much longer -- not physically. Mentally we are, you know, I can tell Fern still thinks about me every day even as I'm out in the middle of the sea fighting off Kraken and Charybdis. The two of us, we just weren't long for this world, and I will always cherish the memories we had before I left without a single word. We had a cat before I left, and sometimes, I wonder how that cat is doing too. I made three lists that day: a grocery list, an apology list, and a recap list. The recap list is pretty much what you're listening to now, ever since coming to the lighthouse, I've had a lot of time to recount my life experiences. 

The apology list was everything I had ever meant to say to Fern before I left, how I had regretted not marrying her that night in Lynx's bathtub, or how I was sorry for telling her the cactus she brought home didn't go with the feng shui of our boxcar house. We could have been happy out there together, I believe, wrapped in our fur blankets like a makeshift bed and pretending that we could make it through the winter together. In a way, it's like winter never ended. We fought so hard to make everything work after we ditched the gangs together, and I realized in a way that it was time to grow up. 

That I didn't want to be in shit hole district three my entire life. 

And she told me that too, that she wouldn't want me to leave. More so, that she didn't want me to leave without her, but I admitted those last two words because I had already written out the entire apology letter. I had packed my green dufflebag and laced up my tarantula tweeds again, and I left her the note in a way I knew she would find. 

It wasn't until I had made it to district four that I found it crumbled in the bottom of my bag, though I have no idea where my grocery list had gone. 

The only thing I remember is that I had wanted to buy her a wedding ring before I left, twenty four karats and I hadn't even known what a karat was at that time! Fern would have known, but instead I just stole one and ran. I didn't even leave it for her like I had meant to, tucked into the mailbox with a few cans saying just hitched! I wanted to nail a car plate from the junkyard into the motel door, just to remind her that I would be there mentally. We were married in that way, even if I couldn't be there physically. She wouldn't be the only resident of that raggedy Drybone Motel, because I would be there every time she looked in the mirror. 

Looked at her hands, with the ring around her finger. 

Looked at old photos of me, because I left about thirty scattered around the motel. 

Sam and Lucy weren't a huge fan of the run. I had stopped by the mall on my way to my new life, to pick up the rings you know you know, and afterwards we had ran our combined eighteen legs off to the trolley and barely jumping on. The mall peacekeeper threw her fucking taser at me and it ricocheted of my calf and rang against the floor. I remember everybody looking at me all crazy and I just had to pick myself up afterwards and stuff it into my dufflebag before taking a seat. Out of breath and out of reasons, I drank some grape juice on the ride to the train, and I would drink some more peach cocktail on the way from the train to the desert. 

It was a crummy old gas station that hadn't been used in ages, and I heard the door bell perpetually chime as I walked past it. You go there, and you run north, and you see your brother and your father, and they walk you through their landmine garden and you compliment them on their daisies. They tell you the red ones are tripped and if it rains too hard, you'll all blow up, and you take a second to be thankful they live in a desert. 

But as it turns out, Nick's rerouted a hole into the fence, and you - you being me - are looking into the woods for the first time, that stretch of unknown that you hadn't even known existed nevertheless that you were afraid of. And I mean truly afraid of, through everything that you've lived through, you're finally seeing past the veil you've been talking to for years and it whispers back to you in languages you don't even know! It's a mythic thing and you reach out in the way where the legends become the future and you feel like your hair is on fire when you walk through it. Something mystic and something foreboding, and you're the pinnacle of them both because you've survived, baby! 

Through every fucking thing, here you are, at the entrance of the maze of the rest of your life. You look back and see the family you'll leave behind and be thankful that you never even got to meet them, you put a can of worms into Sam and Lucy's respectful cages as they bounce against your back. A weight of something you never got to know tying to your feet as you make your way into the forest. 

As you head south, you find a River bank and a Rain bank, and they're a set of twins on a boat that raise a flare gun at you and you hold your hands up. There's a pistol in your dufflebag, and a taser, and four fur coats and a signed framed photo of Euley Sarasin, and there's two polaroids of your wife, and a wedding ring around a pendant, and there's tarot cards and a fur rug, and there's a canister of black salt, and there's two knives and a tooth. You don't know who's tooth it is, but they look at you crazy seeing it as you dump it on the wooden floor of the rowboat. 

They aren't wanderer's, they're navigators and just like you've been following the stars your whole life, these two twins have been following the seas. Like there's freckles in the waves and you try to keep an eye out for it, feeling tiny in your own skin. Sam and Lucy are cold on the sea front and you can't layer enough fur on top of them, but they shed their skin and come out looking iridescent and you wish you had a pirate hat at this moment of time. You tell them how you've always hated the water, ain't ever liked the way they made you feel smaller than the skin you inhabit. 

They say you're fucking nuts of course, but it sorta runs in the family. 

And so they give you a proposition, that you work for them and they won't turn you into the sea peacekeepers and take your tongue and your tarantulas and your fur coat, and you got no choice but to oblige. Of course, it's all for the better, because you - aka me - have always wanted to live in that fear. Cradle it in your hands like a crunchy molt of dead tarantula skin, and I gotta admit, I've lost full control of what I've been saying here. 

But here's the updated recap list! It goes:

1 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups water
2 lemons, juiced and zested
2 tablespoons butter
4 egg yolks, beaten
1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked
4 egg whites
6 tablespoons white sugar

And that's all you need for a bitching lemon meringue pie!