Fade Into You by Nikki Darling

Author:Nikki Darling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2018-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

What if I set the house on fire? What if I turn into a bird and fly away, turquoise, purple, like the world of Sandra Cisneros and her Mango Streets? What if I stack these novels up in a corner and shoot them down like beer cans in a field? Sitting on the stumps of fir trees in the backwoods of New Mexico? What if I become a badger in Walden Pond? What if I watch Henry each morning gather water for his coffee? What if I stick my head in this speaker on a Wednesday night in the giant trashed-out banquet hall, former grand beauty of the Alexandria Hotel, downtown? Happy hardcore blasting my eardrums into outer space, kids dressed as anime characters doing bumps of K out of PEZ dispensers with Scooby-Doo heads? What if I tell you instead that I like to get fucked up? What if I tell you I like to hit my head on walls as hard as I can because the dizzy feeling is the most delicious thing I’ve found after fucking cucumbers in my room at night, staring at pictures of Marlon Brando I’ve ripped out of library books? What if I tell you I like to fall down? What if I told you that when I get stoned I spin in a circle till my legs drop out beneath me then beat my temples against my fist then stand again, to try and see how far I can walk? What if I told you about getting high? Would you believe me if I told you I get high all day? Even if you can’t see me, even if you try to talk to me, even if you ask me to stand at the chalkboard and read from my final, even if you ask me to stay after class, I have another eyelid, it’s invisible, it’s a film, and you’ll never see it, and it’s just enough to keep me shrouded and floating from this world to the next.

Let me tiptoe around you on the highway of life. Every cigarette is a firecracker. Let me explode on my own.

×

Jessie calls and asks if I want to spend the weekend at her place. “I can take you to school Monday no probs.”

“Yeah, that would be cool, actually. My mom is gone till tomorrow.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She just left,” I lie, because I don’t want to get into the Lyla thing and also I just don’t care. Jessica interprets this, however, as my needing her charity. My poor unfortunate soul.

“Well, fuck, are you okay? Hold on. Mom!” she screams.

“Jessie, Jessica, it’s cool, it’s not one of those situations.”

“Situations? Well, fuck, Nikki, I never thought that you were like, that you needed …”

“Like, what? Need what?” I ask, sitting up straight, my interest piqued. “Like, what?” I ask again, trying not to sound defensive or challenging. I must remain, even in this moment, racially ambiguous. Say it. I can hear Sparks’s “I Predict” playing in her bedroom.

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