When I was six years old I invited a machine that re-arranged the time line of my life so that instead of happening chronologically, the moments of my life happened in order of importance. Now my life began the first time I saw a piano and will end the 2nd time I punch Keith Bowes. When I was nine years old Parken Reidell and I chased a peacock into the woods to catch it, Parken stepped in a hornets nest and ran. I stood still, believing that if I didn’t move the hornets would not harm me. I received thousands of stings, the hornets filling my mouth, scraping across my eyes, climbing into my ears; they’ve never left.
My brain is a beekeeper.
After nine years old, I stopped sleeping, waking again and again in the night, the bees trying to cut their way out. I didn’t get a full night’s sleep until I was sixteen, when I learned to masturbate. Now I fuck like a monster because sex is the opposite of nightmares.
Ugly girl, you keep looking to me for answers, but you know my brain is just a nest of bees, so don’t be surprised that all that comes out of my mouth is stinging. You move your hands towards my body and I stood still, believing that no one would get hurt. I kept my back rigid, my fists clenched tight, but it just made it easier for the nightmares to get in through my ears. Speak up, I cant hear you over this buzzing choir of shame.
When I was seven years old the worst part of pissing myself in class was not when my first grade teacher came over and shook her head at me like I was the uglyist dog in the world but it was the minutes before she found out, trapped in that steamy puddle, the hot urine scraping between my skin and my corduroys. Ugly girl, every time I remember that you’ve seen me naked my scalp feels like that; piss rash in first grade like hornets chewing on the roots of my hair; like Parken, you got two stings and ran. I stood still, a frightened and paralyzed child. So wipe that saltwater off your bruise. It takes ugly to know ugly, so Ugly girl, I’m going to call you what we are. Every time you use the word ‘beautiful’ I wish I could invent a machine that puts you at the end of my life.
When I was six years old I invented machine that ensured that I would be born the day after the day I died. On that day, my grandmother looked at my thin strong hands and told me I should become a piano player. I should’ve listened to her. Maybe then I would of known not to use my hands because I was afraid.
-Brian Ellis
