from The Bottom

by Elizabeth Mikesch

A purple mountain is daunting a little far off. I climbed it in silence, got drugged by its air. No one hit my in the face or gassed me. My god.

Get to it and say what happened.

Really, I don’t know.

First this and then I saw myself and I could program my eyes prettier. I could avoid my torso. I could give myself away, could give coordinates.

Meanwhile, I worked at the same same place for years sitting in my chair coming in a bit late lying traffic lying forgot lying rire. I like to think of night as a layer that gets eaten by dreaming thing. The animals are off. The people are gross and eat different types of burritos and take photos of the burrito on a plate and send me photos of burritos. To alienate anyone for saying that. We’ve all done it. Why?

It’s hard to come out and say it.

I couldn’t tell you the first time but I’m not making it up. Anyone who got the sense it happened used it against me. I will say at a bitty age I had stuff in my labial folds. The stars on my ceiling were nice. It itched me and felt like jalapeno when I peed I was a little kid, like little. I remember being up and crying.

My pelvis has always hurt inside. I tried to take it out on someone. Because someone tried to take it out on me. But actually, I never did anything. The day made me hot and tired. I made out in my mind with really old guys. If I meet you and you acknowledge me, you’re a pedophile. I have erased myself otherwise putting tea bags in the bottom of the plain sink nothing in it no crumbs then watching the very light brown tea streak tannin water dilute out. My gardens die. People go after them. I buy used items, all within homes of similar acts.

In my dreams, they tell me what to do and I watch myself feel trapped. I wake up and don’t want to talk to anybody. Sometimes to wake up I have to hit myself in the face as hard as possible to make me cry, like what they do to babies, or is that in the movies only?

So many friends parents rolling around in bed with lubed up dildos. So disgusting. We’d sow each other and laugh at hangout and sleepovers. It was the saddest laugh. But the guest with their cop-baton or cowboy lanyards and short shorts their schlongs. Pretty ridiculous. Does poker make people horny for real?

Fly to say I wish I was one of those. The perception: I had control. So much I disassociated unless solo. Someone’s girlfriend I meet in passing shows up in another town and the phone call I waited on the sweaty leather couch for said the guy hit back when she hit him. So now he wants to feel bad, make it about him, so he’s broadcasting live from a squat and getting advice from whoever picks up.

When I looked at the girl, it hurt. She had a three-legged dog and every time we ran into them, it seemed like she slept soaked in pee. I can’t tell why. I have to think about why I did. I didn’t know if it was okay to say something in a room full of other people.

My neighbors are old in lederhosen. They bring peppers over in shopping bags—the husband, I think. Never without a hat. Honcho at 70. The peppers too hot—hotter than I think. I wipe in the bathroom and singe off my whole clit region. I’m not supposed to say words like that. I used them too much. Someone people talk about goodness and if you’re worth something like a milkshake, how many times something has gone in there. It’s so confusing because magazines say I have to be an experienced slut who taunts my boyfriend so he doesn’t get bored and stray on me but wear all white to bed. To be real, I can't keep underwear white. What no-eat person even could- little bowel burps.

It’s never worked to be natural. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I feel pissed. The first test was how many tattoos you can manage. The radio brainwashes me. The nuts guy bounces up off his seat and makes the floor of the shop shake can’t stop tapping his leg. I really wonder what it was like before too much time to think happened.

It’s your fault. Bad judgment. You did it and you’re gross so it’s your fault. No one wants to know someone so disgusting or has any stake in someone as nothing and without personality besides how they can serve. Be everything be nothing.

It was made to be closed until someone opened it. The mother of the only child bore siblings with husky eyes. Her body made it on the Christmas card but not her name. The new family unit bought a plastic picnic: little cornbread blobs to gnaw on crayon or checker or in the dining room light a Cheetos color. An individual on the internet suggested to check how in teact she was with something. She read about a battery operated toothbrush for people with paid for teeth, one of those fat pens with the rainbow of clicky colors, beads (which didn’t make sense. The hot dog could go missing. Chewing on plastic pizza is the jam. The crust has give for teething. She saw the color of a thingy in the woods. The hot dog skin glinted close to the color. People pass urban myths around about “some girl” who shoved frozen hot dogs up herself, got it stuck and had to go to the ER.

The bedroom they put her in got built in the basement. The rest went unfinished. She asked to paint the walls red. A lot came out of her, so much she got sent home or passes for bleeding through the denim of her jeans onto her seat through her fingertip length skirt too big in the hips she shook up if any kid seemed to be looking. Because of her body, it felt like she should look like a mom; corporate somewhat, mostly blend or non-wrinkle fabrics, outfits and individual with a fetish might get off on. A gangly actress played a sadomasochist in a movie on one night while she babysat. The parents came home early in the morning. The men beating her in the movie didn’t have a quality, muted maybe and small mostly looking like a guy in line who doesn’t say anything back beyond thank you if he speaks to a cashier instead of the checkout robot. What if she peed in a pan and boiled it? What if she went into the bathroom where she saw condoms in the trash bin beside the toilet and put a little of the mess in her? Would she get pregnant? Sometimes he period skipped and then visited for too long. It didn’t make sense yet how sex worked exactly. The individual came on late, sure to bottom her out before math class.

After she pulled the frozen pizza out, she went back downstairs. The steps were still carpet before they saved and ripped it up or the men who came did still skittish about pitzing at pulling it out onto cardboard. Apple juice and white grape browned the steps, probably a splish of pee. On the computer desk, scissors she used for a wall collage stood up straight with military necks. They became pizza scissors, the sauce tasted good and the same. A couple of leftover ranch packets got smuggled into her monkey pants pockets, the stain spreading a bit.

She tried again with a square chunk in her mouth nice and soft, then a crunchy side triangle a little burnt up. When she learned to cook pizza, her aunt was drunk and told hr about her abortions. It was Christmas and it made her feel grown up. The women of the family put a disco light her friend bought from tv into the wall and played mixed CDs dancing around. The step grandpa sat in a worn pea colored recliner and held onto the armrests pretending what was going on wasn’t. He wouldn’t eat rice because he said he was served it too much when he served abroad. They tiptoed around Chinese takeout when he visited and it felt real fucked up.

The screen did the black thing with the error sign in that stuff font type with that neutral tone of writing and it asked to manually restart whatever that is. She clicked it, eyes like she pressed her head down for heads up seven, up and opened them after the recess had gone on too long.

The screen rebooted, pale and pixelated, made it one singular complaint. A spider spun down and her bottom lip moved. Killing spiders was so primal, left a curly, eyelashy body behind that felt like a curse. Often, she got into trouble for not taking a broom to the corner, moving a chair to climb and spronge that part of the wall.

Dial up was the first one two dots then orange then the light that throbbed. She hoped he was on, she could see his name in bold asking

where’d u go

After she pulled the frozen pizza out, she went back downstairs. The steps were still carpet before they saved and ripped it up or the men who came did still skittish about pitzing at pulling it out onto cardboard. Apple juice and white grape browned the steps, probably a splish of pee. On the computer desk, scissors she used for a wall collage stood up straight with military necks. They became pizza scissors, the sauce tasted good and the same. A couple of leftover ranch packets got smuggled into her monkey pants pockets, the stain spreading a bit.

She tried again with a square chunk in her mouth nice and soft, then a crunchy side triangle a little burnt up. When she learned to cook pizza, her aunt was drunk and told HR about her abortions. It was Christmas and it made her feel grown up. The women of the family put a disco light her friend bought from tv into the wall and played mixed CDs dancing around. The step grandpa sat in a worn pea colored recliner and held onto the armrests pretending what was going on wasn’t. He wouldn’t eat rice because he said he was served it too much when he served abroad. They tiptoed around Chinese takeout when he visited and it felt real fucked up.

The screen did the black thing with the error sign in that stuff font type with that neutral tone of writing and it asked to manually restart whatever that is. She clicked it, eyes like she pressed her head down for heads up seven, up and opened them after the recess had gone on too long.

The screen rebooted, pale and pixelated, made it one singular complaint. A spider spun down and her bottom lip moved. Killing spiders was so primal, left a curly, eyelashy body behind that felt like a curse. Often, she got into trouble for not taking a broom to the corner, moving a chair to climb and spronge that part of the wall.

Dial up was the first one two dots then orange then the light that throbbed. She hoped he was on, she could see his name in bold asking

where’d u go