Secret Places: The Long Way Out

okay, i really need you to hear this/

i understand the fury, i get it/ i am here because i can see the most extraordinary line, it’s like a yellow squiggle that goes from your very eyes to some other version of your second selves, and one, just one, is holding a lantern out/

okay, i really need you to hear this/

i understand the fury, i get it/ but you need to know that they are not just talking about sending you away/ maybe you think that sending you away might be the answer/ perhaps it’s what you want/

to be away/ from this/

the subway toilets are killing you/ you are incorrect to call it sex work/ honey, you don’t get paid/

okay, i really need you to hear this/

i understand the fury, i get it/ but the kind of places they want to send you to can be defined with two quick words/

chemical restraint/

once you go this furious place/ you will not come out/ alive/

and that is where you have taken this/ you can defy them and defy them and defy them and defy them/ and what they will do is finally shut you the fuck up/

it’s not that you escape into the subway toilets to suck a couple of white cocks on your knees, although the symbolism might be lost on you, it’s not lost on me/

it’s that you put it in their face/ they feel they cannot control you but they can control you/ i don’t care what you think/ they can and they will control you/

you will not so much as know what hit you/ they will tie you up, and tie you down, and they will saturate you with so much hateful junk, not the fun kind, but the decidedly unfun kind/ the stumble around in the dark breaking everything kind/ and in the morning you will wet the bed/

okay, i really need you to hear this/

i understand the fury, i get it/ but what you don’t understand is power, and you don’t have any bling to buy it/

you have one slim chance, and its current is electric if abiding/ and like the basic fabric of the fears that fear women more than wars, shut the fuck up/ stop fighting them/

leave that part of it to me because you are burying yourself into a grave you have already dug/ allow me to set a compromise into cement and call the thing a deal/

i can take you out of here and we can turn this around/ together/ i don’t care if you are sick we are all sicknesses ourselves/ it doesn’t mean shit to me, but it means a lot to them/

it’s a morality to them, and there is nothing more intransigent than morality/ i know you don’t understand my words, but you will need to learn how to change that, too/

by listening/ no one in the other room is afraid of you/ it doesn’t matter how loud you get/ it just plays into everything they want to believe is real/

but i have to know that you are worth it, that i am not wasting my time/ and i have to know it now, not tomorrow, not after the weekend, but right here right now/ i have to know that you can try/ i already know you want out of here/

but to what/

but to what/

a bed of belts and pills and bars on all the windows/ i have to know/ i have to know how far you’re going to take this/

okay, i really need you to hear this/

i understand the fury, i get it/ but there’s a lifeline that leaves your eyes and finds its way/ out of this very darkness you have created/ and in this last few minutes, i know it’s not fair, okay, i know that, but all you have is about a minute before someone picks up the phone and makes the call/

it’s up to you/ i need to have your answer now before we walk into the next room that is so filled with agony and with grief/

you are holding a lantern against the dark, but the dark is getting stronger and stronger by the minute/ i don’t know what the lantern means, i don’t know if it’s bullshit, i don’t know what the lantern is about/ all i know is that it speaks to you because it is you/

Okay, i really need you to hear this/

i understand the fury, i get it/ but it’s not up to me/ we passed that train in the night about an hour ago/ you have to decide/

now/

you’re either going to come with me and work with me/ or you’re not/ you scream for the freedom to make your own decisions, and they’re your grandparents, not even your mom or dad, that is not the point/ i can’t make any of that better/ what i can do is give you the ability to make decision after decision, the ones that are right for you/ but i cannot do that without your help/

you took your grandfather’s gun/ you took it into the toilets/ don’t tell me you didn’t, you did/ don’t tell me that you didn’t know what you were going to do with it because i already know that/

the line between suicide and homicide is the width of an eyelash/ it’s a miracle that you are even here/ but they’ve had enough of it, and the cops have had enough of it, and the school has had enough of it, and the whole big bad city is about to wash its hands of you, and flush you down the subway toilet because that is what it does/

or we can try things my way for a while because if you decide to do this, you will find that lantern, and you will burn the sky to smithereens because i am as crazy as you are, and the universe can sing bling for the both of us/