Wait List

When my mom says "It’s here! Your Letter from WASH U!" I dash from my room. Run into the kitchen, searching for the mail.

She's extending an envelope, normal, normal, sized, too small, why is this envelope so small? That isn't my envelope no no no that's not mine, no wait, maybe they've changed the formula and send the acceptances in small envelopes, I heard about that from a guy's whose name I've already forgotten as I extend my hand to take the envelope from her. And then I have to open it, knowing what it says already, have to open it in front of them when already I want to die, when already I can feel the consequences, feel the shivers sparking up my soul, just holding this thing. Feel the future waiting in that envelope. And their eyes are pressing me, my sister with a sadistic grin already on her face, my mother smiling in anticipation of my crumble, and I rip it open, and see the words Wait List, and feel like somehow I'm back out on a playground somewhere, somewhere where I'm friendless and somehow somebody bumrushed me, knocking me on my back, a single shot to the temple, that familiar, it's not a ringing, more just an explosion of sound back into your world, as if for the moment you were hit, you went deaf, your eyes stopped functioning, in this moment you don't have balance, which direction is up? which is down? am I walking on the ceiling? on the floor? and that letter is sitting there, disturbing the colors of my universe, I can see the edges of my vision warp, slowly bleeding red, bleeding big Fs into my soul, tattooing me with the symbol of FAILURE FAILURE FAILURE my mind screams, as my mom, too slow on the uptake keeps asking what does it say, as if she can't see the giant big red words WAIT LIST in my hand, as if she wants me to acknowledge the knowledge I am so quickly trying to thrust away. I drop the letter back onto the counter, face up toward her; she disregards them, instead pushing me, crying “Tell me!” I respond, too harsh, too much anger in my words already "It says Wait List" I explode, regretting instantly responding. But like every moment today, I'm stuck in here, regretting too much, reliving too many moments, feeling my world slide, slide slide......slippery slopes are a fallacy I mumble to myself, a fallacy......I slip into one of the LD rounds I lost this weekend, mumbling slipper slopes are a fallacy, you have to have impeccable causation, not just a correlation, and as I'm mumbling some black girl comes and takes my trophies, and as I stumble, I feel the fingers of the street clutching my ankles, I see cancer growing in my stomach, I see her there, leaving, I hear your footsteps growing closer as you say, one last time, "I loved you babe." already past tense, I'm fading, I feel all this as I walk back to my computer, tell myself, maintain, maintain, maintain. I turn on Nine Inch Nails. I feel something wriggle lose from a dark corner of my soul, I feel something else eat away slowly at the decadence inside me. I feel others inside my skull. I feel the laughter. I am alone, and I feel the laughter. I feel it, so real, so real, so real. I feel the yearn to know. To call the school would mean acknowledging I'm not there, that what happened today actually happened. I yearn for alcohol. Not a bottle-night I tell myself. I slowly realize the need to adapt. I need to move away from the mindset. You're done. You're not in. But its’ been too long. 4 years, you've thought of this. you lived this. You were silly oh so silly. You thought you had it made when you got into that high school. You laughed as you took shit from all your friends, who were laughing at you for leaving, for living with those snobby rich little fuckers up at that big school. You laughed along with them because you knew you'd have it made; you could afford this laugh at your expense. You saw how the system worked; how it had worked to the moment, how you had carried the grades, the extracurriculars, and how the high schools had lined up. You had full-rides and then Prep even said, “Please come.” And you said okay. And you knew you knew, this is how the system worked. Sign my name and soul on the dotted line, sign my 4 years of hard work on the line.

I'm out of here, I'm blowing this town for a good school; yeah, now that's the plan. We're going far from here, where our life will take off right? Where I don’t have to hear of parents beating children, where I don’t have to see drug deals, where I don’t have to remember this past. And those red words, I see them when I close my eyes, on the back of each eye lid, a single word in capital red. The words keep morphing. I can't tell anymore, they're so blurred. They seem to form Stuck Here, but they were wait list weren't they? You would have thought they chose a different color. But no, hey, at least it blends into the background of hell. If the system doesn’t work, what part of this plan

does?

what

part

of

the

plan

works?

I feel your eyes, your despise.

I feel my will, my world, slipping.

I feel everything go.

I hear your voices fading.

I see the colors contract.

I can smell my own vomit before it comes up.The double dose of nausea doubles me over the toilet, as I taste failure in my throat, as it pours out of me. and it doesn’t stop; the heaves leave me broken and wheezing. I take a shower to hide the tears after, and tell no one. My only thought is why, and failure, alternating like currents of electricity.