Kimmydon Week 9 Entry: Wasted

Kimmydon
Wednesday





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Kimmydon's Choice: BOTH


Title: Wasted



I have spent too much time trying to be something I'm not. Trying to a writer, trying to make ideas interesting, where they are just inane. I have neglected my house, my family, my real work, the job that pays for this house, this writing desk.

Why do I keep trying? Why do I keep writing? Why do I keep this place? I'm the only one in it. I have no one to share with and no desire to share anything more than my stupid thoughts with anyone else.

I look at the netting around me and push the desk aside. I don't need this double bed, no one will ever sleep on the other side. I should be getting up, cleaning up the remnants of the lazy-man's supper I made for myself last night, but I just can't bring myself to care.

I curl up on my side and close my eyes, willing the world to go away, willing my breath to stop in my lungs. Nothing has ever listened to word I've said before, no one has given a damn about my thoughts, why should they start now?

I keep my eyes closed, no desire to move, to get up, to do anything. Not even write, least of all write. No one wants what I've put on that page anyway.

I roll over violently, rip the paper from the desk and continue rolling off the edge of the bed. I toss the pages out the window. Three weeks of wasted time.

I don't dress. I don't brush my hair. I don't brush my teeth. I stomp out in my purple nightdress and kick on sandals at the door. I don't know where I'm going; I almost hope I crash.

Without thinking, I start the engine of my little car and head for the highway. Direction is another thought I never have. I simply drive. I hear honks and yells and ignore them. I pass in non-passing lanes and push my engine further than before. If a cop rang sirens, I wonder if I'd notice.

I can't see through the tears in my eyes. Wasted salt, salt of the earth. I want to salt the earth. I wanted to waste the world the way I've wasted myself.

Here

I don't know where the word comes from, how it makes it through the fog of self-loathing I'm wrapped in, but it does. I twist the wheel sharply right and slam my brakes. I hear squealing from my car and fading honks as the people swerve past me. I jump out of my car and into the road. Of course now, when I'd want them, there are no angry drivers.

I walk blindly across the road, praying for someone to hit me. No one does. No one comes close. I sniffle, trying to breathe, and stumble into the grass. It scratches and pricks my knees, dry and spikey. Prairie grass, like the grass of home. How far did I drive? I must have had a full tank that is empty now.

I huddle in a ball and beat my fists on the ground for a while, sobs ripping through my chest. I'm a waste of skin, a waste of mind, a waste of salt.

When my tears refuse to continue, dried like the ground, no evidence remains of my water or my salt, I sit back and see a swing chained to the only tree in the barren landscape. I stumble forward and sit my ass down. I start pumping my legs.

The pendulum swings. I HAVE to write something.