skullcrusher

the expectant undertones of a dark september

i don't fear the gruesome in the ways in which i should. 

i grew up in a town that reeked of ammonia from the factory at its gates. for such an awfully capitalism-ridden, dystopian, littered town, i should find it strange that it is also the place in which people slaughter their pigs in the same backyard or vineyard in which they raised them in, in which they gave names to them in, in which they cared for them in; but i don't, because i've seen it, and because i was raised in it. because i know how a freshly-dead pig smells, how it's drained of its lifeblood and how said lifeblood pours down the metal tables in long, unbreaking drops, and mixes with the dirt and dust on the floor. i know how a pig's brain looks, i know how it's insides look, and i know how its heart looks in the tan, hairy, wrinkled hands of my father. 

and my next-door neighbour was a cat killer. i could've ignored it if it wasn't for the fact that i couldn't, not in the horrible summer climate, not when the dry air was already thick enough with pollen and the sound of the crickets and the smell of dead grass, no, the smell of something else that is dead in that grass could not be ignored. something else that is rotting with the rotting, fallen tree i used to sit down on and draw: it had the beautiful view of my best friend's house and vegetable garden, of her little barking dog, of all the beautifully blooming flowers. but the smell was not beautiful, even if i didn't know then that it was decay that i was smelling. i had to abandon that tree. i had to abandon that whole little meadow behind my house eventually. i think i only actually saw a dead cat once, but that was enough for me to know that this is where all the stray cats that we fed kept disappearing off to. then i knew the field wasn't the same field that my friends and i played in when we were kids. 

and i puked in public one too many times there. the smell of my own vomit doesn't alarm me anymore. one time was with hannah, on her shoes which i was wearing, when she laughed, the time that i wrote about. my younger godbrother, hannah's cousin, told me i smelled like shit when we came home. i cried, and i wasn't sure why. another time was when i started smoking. i don't do tobacco, i don't do tar, but everything else that could numb my brain in the same way and calm my always-working brain and my always-stressed nerves was good to me. i had an energy drink on an empty stomach, just like with hannah, because i'm a dumb kid and i never learn. i decided to vape directly after that, for some reason, like an idiot. i puked into the toilet. the door was open, but my brother and godbrother, who were playing video games didn't notice, and if they did, they didn't say anything. it was better that way. i had already embarrassed myself enough the first time. another time i was sick. really sick. i had a terrible, awful migraine. i couldn't take it. i didn't make it to the bathroom. the stains on my room walls are still there. my mom and dad found the empty pill bottle i stupidly tried to end my life with while they were cleaning it up in my trash can, but that's another story. they agreed it wasn't mine, anyways, delusional as they always choose to be. another time, i was younger. i had leftover chicken after a long trip with my friend and her mom, who were still there when it happened. i hate chicken a little too much. anwyay, you can guess how that one ended. 

and, well, the vineyards. i know i'm supposed to find the smell of fermented grapes pleasant or whatever, but i never did. i never saw the appeal in wine; i drink bad wine to get tipsy and that's all there is to it. but, to my misfortune, vineyards were a huge thing in my family, and my friends' families, and in my extended family, and everyone's families here. so i harvested grapes with everyone else and sat outside while the wine was being made whether i liked it or not. and the rakia, i should mention. not a bad smell, necessarily, just too strong when you're a kid whose family makes it and drinks it before each lunch and makes you take a sip of it eventually, just to laugh at your disgusted face afterwards. but you get used to it, just as you get used to the dead animals. 

and the roadkill, too. my days at the seaside were spent rollerskating the same long route each day and night, but unfortunately, the snakes', jackals', tortoises', cats' and hedgehogs' days there are spent getting run over. the heat there is even worse, and therefore the smell. and the sheep are taken out and led down the road where i rollerskated at the brink of dawn as well, so you can't really avoid the smell of their small, round, feces everywhere. but you get used to that, too. 

and before i forget, i thought i saw a dead human body once, too. it turned out the guy was just wasted, but it was equally as jarring when he rose out of the tall grass and looked at me with his eyes wide however you put it. 

but those things become normal, too. they become funny stories you can share with your friends. they become things i can put into my poetry book. they become things that i prefer to the ammonia smell that i am constantly plagued with, like a breath of fresh air, even if that's not what they are and not what i should feel they are. in fact, i shouldn't feel this nostalgic for any of these things, and it's not what my childhood should've looked like at all. but i can't change that now, so i might as well live in the good moments that followed. i might as well cherish the memory of hannah's laughter, of how proud i was of my green makeup before i decided to vape, of the pork that we ate after the slaughther, of the memories i have with my best friends in that awfully capitalism-ridden, dystopian, littered town and country. 

you learn to ignore the bad memories the way you learn to ignore the smells and the heat. you learn to love the bad memories, too.

you learn that you don't like seeing a non-beating pig's heart in the shack in your town, so you don't leave your own heart in your town, and you leave it still beating in the memories. that saves you. that prepares you. 

if you saw all that and you're fine, you'll be fine no matter what you see. 

if you can live with the smells, you can live with anything at all. 

you can get used to anything at all.