Her Broken Behavior: This Birth Certificate Proves Nothing

I'm alive,
But I'm not
The only one

I tie the skimpy strings and stand in front of the mirror. Mehhhh. I walk out of my room and make my way to the pool. She is around here somewhere and I don't know where. This is an itty bitty black and white bikini and I'm headed towards a pool full of teenage boys. My mother is going to murder me for wearing this, and I've never felt more alive.

I look down at the shimmering water. I'm standing on the edge of a cliff and my heart is constant with a steady beat. I lift my hands up and let a laugh escape my lungs as the wind billows through my wet hair. I'm seventy feet up and my adrenaline still won't kick in. I shouldn't keep climbing. This water isn't deep enough for me to jump. Eh, I keep climbing. I'm leaping off this cliff into shallow water and I've never felt so alive.

He has warned me several times. No burping. None. He hates it. Loathes it. It's his phobia. He will fart on your face until you die and bury your body if you burp within a mile radius of him. But I can't help it. I have to taunt him. I will send him a burp in a jar. No, I can do worse. And hey, now my adrenaline is actually working. I am about to burp and blow it in his face and I've never felt more alive.

I press the pedal all the way to the floor. We are going to break our record. This Lexus is accelerating, and I'm not about to lift my foot up. But I will turn the music up. I'm an idiot. Ah, this is fun. I'm going four times the speed limit. I can't stop laughing recklessly and neither can you. I have no control and I've never felt more alive.

I can hear every word, but what sticks out are the pleas for life. Pure terror is seeping through the walls. I can feel it. I can everything but see it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to know if he has a gun. I don't want to know if his words are going to come true. I am listening to a man threaten our lives and I've never felt more alive.

I curl up at the bottom of your hospital bed. The blankets are warm but your hands are cold. You are dead. These machines are breathing for you. The intoxicating smell of disinfectant can't overpower the taste of salt water tears. Death is laying next to me, and I've never felt more alive.

Now I'm the one deposited on a hospital bed. The nurses are frantically working around me. I wearily watch as they pump more of this and less of that into my veins. A look of worry is etched onto the faces surrounding me. The more they move, the more I remember I can't move. I close my eyes and faintly smile. My body is betraying me, and I've never felt more alive.

I am hooked up to a machine counting my breathes per minute. I am not breathing enough, and it will not stop beeping. I don't care. Beep. Breathing is overrated. Beep. I tried breathing once, for 18 years. Beep. It hurts to breathe. Beep. No one can possibly breathe this much. Beep. Apparently whoever taught me how to breathe was a horrid teacher. Beep. The worst. Beep. Breathe. Beep. I can't remember how to breathe, and I've never felt more alive.

But I can't do this anymore
I don't want to
I shouldn't have to
Shake hands with death
Just to prove-
Prove that I'm alive