Meanwhile...elihwnaeM

...and this is how I lit my jeans and the carpet on fire. Setting polaroids aflame is not as romantic as what is portrayed in the films. The nauseating smell of burning chemicals combined with the billows of smoke that engulf the lungs is enough to knock the distressed romanticism out of anyone.

C'est la vie.

Violent Violette

  Violent Violette keeps a jar of men's hearts safely locked behind the glass of her shelf lined with trophies. When she's sad she looks at the jar pumping with her victories but it only makes her sadder. A long time ago, her heart crawled out from her sleeve and slipped behind the glass, taking the key with it. Now she knows what it feels like-- to be someone else's conquest.
            Almost an hour after filling out paper work asking questions like “Have you ever had intercourse with a prostitute?” I was given the green light. Not to have intercourse with a prostitute, mind you, but to donate the content of my veins.
            Inside the eyes of a small but menacing bus I waited. With nothing else to do, I aimlessly gazed out the window, aware of the fact that I was no longer part of the outside world. Waves of a wordless feeling soaked through my feet and trickled into my spine. It felt familiar yet distant. Familiar yet unknown. I ignored it.
            A nurse took me into a small room to test my iron levels and heart rate. My hands were clammy and sweating but I didn’t know why.
“Your heart rate is a  little high but that is probably because you are about to have blood sucked out of your veins,” the nurse said without looking at me.
“Do your hands always shake like that?” she asked.
I nodded. Something felt familiar and dark. I tried to ignore it.
            After being thoroughly tested for any contaminations, I was led to a chair and told to relax for a bit. My head was throbbing and I began to feel the walls shrinking around me. The window was now a sliver in the wall, a pitiful prick in the skin, a closing vent.
            The nurse returned and proceeded to set-up the tubes and needles necessary for the procedure.
“You have the veins of a cocaine addict,” she stated.            
I thanked her and tried to hide my nervousness behind an uncomfortable, half-hearted laugh. There was something in her hardened and emotionless eyes that reminded me of someone I knew well. Who was it? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
            The blood began freely flowing into the mouth of the needle injected in my arm. Dark red flowed through the tubes and I began to feel dizzy and light-headed.
“Would you like to see my trophies?” the nurse inquired.
“Excuse me?”
“I asked if you would like to see my trophies.”
            Her mouth was moving but the words would not penetrate my ears. Strange memories began to fill the empty crevices of my mind. Memories I didn’t know I still had. My thoughts were racing and I couldn’t stop them. I was scared. I felt anger boiling in me. I felt white flashes of pain biting at my eyes. I felt cold drops of misery drowning my insides.
            The gazebo. It was under the white gazebo he gave me a little blue Bible and a valentine. One night we talked on the phone for 8 hours. I scarcely spoke. The dull hum of silence pierced his empty words. He destroyed my teenage years. He ruined my simplicity. Anger, hatred, rage.
            Bolivia. That's what we named the field in which we burned ourselves beyond repair. We talked all night, we fell asleep holding hands, and we awoke to a rising sun.
“I’m overwhelmingly afraid we poured our hearts into one another…”
“I never really know what to tell people when they ask about you, especially when they ask about your spiritual state.”
“You have become the reality of my dreams.”
 We watched a sunset from the moon. Broken mirror forever.
            The nurse reached for a drawer directly below the chair on which I was seated.
“Stop! Stop!” I shrieked.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to see my trophies? They’re your trophies, too, you know.”
“I don’t want to see them and I want you to leave me alone and I want to get the fuck out of here.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say. You see, I always talk about my trophies and I always brag about them. I think you should see them. Here, let me show you.”
            She yanked the drawer open and I fell deathly still. There were bags and bags of hearts, raw hearts. Rows and rows. Some pumping, some shriveled. There were labels on every bag. The blue leaked from my eyes and I began shaking.
“Don’t you remember me?” the nurse asked.
I stared.
“I’m Violent Violette. I took these trophies. Each label contains the name of everything I ever destroyed. It started out as a game but then I couldn't stop. I kept going and going and going. Day in and day out, day in and day out, day in and day out. It's all I lived for-- to seduce, to destroy, to conquer, to win. Before I knew it, I became like my trophies: Empty. Absolutely empty. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. A fucking empty shell."
“This is fucked up! You’re a monster. You’re a fucking monster. Get me the fuck out of here!”
   By this time I was sobbing. I was desperate and scared. I slammed my fists against the wall, I screamed, I reached for the drawer and ripped open every bag. I smashed every trophy. I killed everything.
Silence.
Realization.
Pain.
My shirt was soaked with tears and blood.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
Silence.
I was hurting.
I was sorry.
I am hurting.
I am sorry.
I am sorry.
I am sorry.
You weren’t mine to take, you weren’t mine to hurt, you weren’t mine.
You were never mine.
Slipping.
Fading.
            Music was coming from somewhere. The music melted into sounds that were drifting to meet my ears. The sounds became words and I understood. I understood everything.

“Red does what red can
It flows, it feels, it seals, it heals
It sinks into our broken graph
It seeps into your stolen half
I am the monster you’ve become
You are the monster I once was
You and I, the same in one
I and you, we’ve always been
Streaming through your veins obscene
Rhymes and rhythms, quiet incisions
One and we, you and me.”

I am Violent Violette.