in parentheses

Mia’s Mockingbird

Jacqueline Cope is a fifteen year old student, with a passion for Holden Caulfield. She loves her record player and her friends, and sometimes they love her back. The records, that is. She sleeps and reads and occasionally eats.

They gave me a prescription slip and a diagnosis, as if that would loosen my grip from the tombstone. They told me I’d be okay, and that acceptance is the first step to recovery, but I do not understand how they can save what no longer exists. I burned the flag of myself long ago. Its ashes fell like wedding bells. Forgive me my infidelity; I never wished to love you back.

The lacking should not feel beautiful. I should not hear songs where there is silence. I should not sing along with fingers down my throat. You were both the mountain peak and the avalanche. I always ran towards you. I needed you. I thought I did.

My sister’s pleas used to sink beneath the cracks of the floorboards and the creases of my face, the opening between my lips that comes from not knowing what to say. Her entity was a question I never wanted to answer. I’m so sorry. I should not find beauty in the lacking, the spaces where we used to love each other.

They gave me a prescription slip and a diagnosis, as if that would loosen my grip from the tombstone. Forgive me my infidelity; I never wished to love myself.