Yolk(101)

I’m thrilled at the devastation. Destroying beautiful things so carelessly and so fast.

The mac and cheese is a paste. It’s gloriously gluey, sticking my mouth together, cementing all the sharper foods, lending a contrast. Some cushioning. I crash-land a Nilla spaceship into the tub and scoop it into my mouth. I eat a fifth donut. And then just the top of the last one. I dig into the glaze with my thumbnail and rip it off and scrape it into my mouth.

It’s almost time.

I run my tongue on the roof of my mouth. It tastes metallic. It’s pulpy and stinging, cut up from all that’s going in.

The cheese balls are a mistake. They dissolve too quickly, so they don’t provide that choking feeling as they’re going down. But they taste great after vanilla glaze. The whole ritual feels as though I’m being run over by the slowest-moving train. I can’t get off. I vaguely want to, but it’s overruled. Because truly this is the only thing I can count on. This has never left me no matter where I am.

I polish off the last macaron, and there is no enjoyment. Finishing is drudgery and it’s still all in my teeth. I’m still chewing when I crawl out on my knees. This view I hate. Looking at the toilet bowl from this angle. Directly into it. As if at an altar. I retch into my hand, another kind of sacrament. I do this so the telltale splash doesn’t give me away. Even when I’m alone. I’ve always been a little proud of this. How quietly I can hit reset. I keep going, putting my mouth where people shit and abasing myself the way I always do, trying to exorcise the hate and anger and never managing to get it all out.

The Korean word for punishment is “bee.”

When I flush again, the swirl is still a sour, hazy rose-orange.

Blood.

Body.

I sit in the tub, on top of my clothes, knees gathered to my chest. The faint whine of tinnitus tethers me to reality, alerting me to my movements. It feels like the high-pitched hiss of air escaping my head. It’s only then do I notice how cold the room is. That the heat is out.

I hoist myself up and I look in the mirror. Eyes watery, panting, cheeks purpling, bright-red lips wet. Flecked with slick clumps of undigested food.

I am ruptured.

I’m crying. And watching myself cry only amplifies my sadness. I’m filled with devastating pity for every single mirror version of me, all those times before, the youngest ones making me saddest of all. Watching myself have compassion for me in the absence of anyone else makes me cry harder.

I wash my hands with soap. Thoroughly, front and back. I dry them. I bring my fingers up to my nose. They still smell of ruin and spoil. I rub toothpaste all over them, hating myself, hating the way it feels. Hating that I have to watch myself do it. Unable to tear my eyes from this horrible shadow version of me that gets its way every time.

My phone rumbles on hard tile. It’s still in the plastic bag where I’d chucked it. I reach over and drag the bag toward me by the handle.

It’s Jeremy. He wants to know if I’m in the apartment. I listen for sounds. A jangled key, creaking floorboards in the hall, but it’s quiet.

Three dots. He’s thinking.

When the dispatch comes, a burble hints at the back of my throat. I’m confused at the list until I realize it’s a series of his records that he’d like me to look for.

He asks if I can meet with him today to deliver them. He reminds me that there’s still no hot water. As if this would inure me to his request.

In the mirror my face cracks open into a smile of genuine amusement. My eyes are blood-shot but my lips stretch wide with glee and then I’m laughing.

It feels good.

Deleting the text feels even better, and when I go to my contacts and delete him entirely, I feel a floating sensation in my arms.

I pull my rumpled sweatshirt out from the tub and throw it on.

Surveying our collective possessions, the threadbare couch, the stained mattress, stray clothes and books and the milk crate of records, I feel peaceful. Finally, nothing is missing.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop hurting myself in this way, but I don’t want to keep doing it for Jeremy’s sake or anyone like him ever again.

I fish my coat out from the tub by a sleeve as the folded-up pamphlet from Gina hits the floor. I clutch the sink, steadying myself as I pick it up, seeing stars as blood rushes into my body and out of my head.

I unfold it and read.

The air is redolent with the smell of flowers. I’ve emptied both spray bottles of Ylang Ylang shower cleaner. The mattress is suffused with it. Couch, too. I lift sofa cushions and crop dust the springs. I darken all of Jeremy’s clothes with layered mists of the fragrance that makes him gag.

I hitch the box of records on my hip with my coat slung over it and a bag of books at my shoulder.

I lock the door and slide my key under. My regards to David Buxbaum. Regards to the management company that I couldn’t find online to fix the heat or the water, no matter how many monthly TexStar bank checks I dutifully sent to a P.O. box in Canastota, New York.

I carry the box of Jeremy’s precious vinyl out to the curb. An offering to the New York City sanitation system should they have an interest.



* * *



I’m at June’s door. Again. With nowhere else to go. She’s on the couch watching TV in her pink bathrobe. My sister has a white Korean sheet mask on her face, head tilted awkwardly toward me so as not to drip. She looks like a Japanese Noh theater actor with pancake makeup. “Is it possible that I’m still drunk from last night?” she asks. Gilmore Girls plays in the background.