Gut Spillage (Storytime).

Harry Lime runs.

"Catch me and let me die wonderful."

This is the title of an art piece by someone or other.
It is also the reason I am very bad at playing tag and hide-and-seek: I have such a nasty tendency, such a nagging inclination, to die.

I am both what I am and am not what I was before. I do not wear masks. Not very often, at least. And in any case, this isn't one of them. A part of me, the newer one (but then, I suspect it was there all along--I've just begun favoring), the reflective one, the embarrassed one, is indeed, very quiet. Very pensive. Very humble. Very earnest.

But I am like this now because I was quite the opposite as a child and, under the right circumstances, today, as well.
I have always been very loud. I used to raise my hand for every question in class. I used to play tag. I was weird. I liked to yell. Scream? I think I thought I was a bird once. I used to have little half circles all up my left arm. I was a weird, visceral kid that didn't always understand the what or the why. I played rough. I liked playing with boys, but they didn't always like playing with me. Among other things, I used to always get in trouble at home for getting cut and scraped up, either playing outside or at school, where we ran and grabbed and tumbled and there were nails in between. I lied once and said the class rat had scratched me. We were just playing rough. We all messed each other up a bit.

We chased each other wild. i jumped off the railing and landed on my hands and knees in the gravel once. My heart was beating so fast I think I thought I could fly or something. That bird thing again. A rock got stuck in my palm. I thought it was the coolest thing ever after I stopped crying.

But even then, I had moments when I should have been loud, but wasn't. All backwards like that. I remember getting my head banged into a pole twice because I didn't have the guts to tell you to fuck off. I remember crying after being accused of something I didn't do, because when you're a kid, you can't prove shit to no one older than you. Especially a teacher. I remember hiding under desks, under beds, and running away from the very loud sounds that scared me. I remember being a coward.

I had one brave moment: one moment when I was a hero, not just on my own, not just in the safety of my own mind, but before others. Before a dragon. But then I was back to crying under the piano. But you can't slap that memory out: I remember being a hero.

I haven't played tag or hide and seek or hide and go seek in a long time; I'm a legit adult now, and that's not what legit adults usually do. I'm not sure what would happen if I did. Sometimes, I'm quite certain that I would end up dying in some poor fool's arms like a stressed out rabbit. They do that, you know? Heard it from a friend.


I remember your house smelled spicy and you had a leopard gecko. I liked your gecko. I wanted to like you. But how could I? I think I've spent my whole life fighting. I had an older sibling, for goodness sakes--what else was I supposed to learn to do.
I wish I'd learned a language. I wish I'd learned how to wear a skirt, sometimes.
But I didn't. I learned where to find roly polies and how to catch a garden snake (unwind them or you'll break them) and how to catch moths and frogs and grasshoppers (anticipate the jump) and that the best way to get over someone is to shoot arrows through a milk jug and I know how to climb trees (and test branches so you don't fall down and kill yourself) and how to cut up a good walking stick and how to play salt and pepper on the parallel bars (I was bitchin' good at that game) and--stuff that just doesn't count anymore.

I am a runner. I think I have had anxiety attacks before--I'm not sure. If there's not someone there in a lab coat with a textbook, I don't know what it is. I do not regret anything; I understand that trifles are trifles. But when I recall these particular memories, my chest gets tight. I breathe differently. My memory is crap--I don't remember enough to regret. But my body does, apparently.

I think I can't play tag because my body remembers something, goes "fuck that shit" and shuts down. I can't play tag because they work against me, body and mind--what is writing here? Some silent third, trying to make sense of it. But in those pitched moments, they work in concert against me: they write stories against me. Each is continually winding up the other until I am taut with madness; until something has been written into my blood.

Your face needs only to be seen so many times for the writing to start. Words will stick to you like a clot, whether they belong there or not. You are always being written about, edited, in some corner of my brain. In one hand, the manuscript; in the other, I am winding an anxiety. When I see someone who looks like you, the feeling is instant and sharp. Sometimes, depending on how much it looks like you, on who you are, and how out of context/unexpected it is to see you (not-you), I may stutter in whatever action or gesture I am making.

I have a history of being a bit gingerbread.