Peroxide (Peterick)

marrying a papaya is definitely punk rock

My fingers fondle the length of the oak wall, shrouded in the black fabric that Pete did, in fact, store in his bag, and it isn't as worthwhile as I had envisioned.

I predicted vibrations of suppressed memories curdling in my fingers, and though they're ghastly, they're necessary, and like Pete, I just want to feel — feel the jagged texture of the walls, feel the erosion filing my skin, feel the reality of knowing why Dallon chose to wear those gloves, even when drinking a beverage with condensation adhering to the sides.

No one does that, not even me, and I consider myself the worthiest of employing archaic and abnormal methods to soothe my restless mind, but now the gloves are protecting my flesh with the utmost security, and I almost hope to wear them more often, but that would remind me of Dallon, and I've had enough of him.

This is only an experiment. I'm not...I'm not trying to die again.

But even so, milliliters of water swish in my lungs and subtract oxygen from the equation, and even though it is slight, it's phenomenally imperative that I attend to it before I drown, yet I've drowned many times before, and this is the rainbow after rain because of its gentility.

And despite the connotation of these gloves, I tear them from my body with disdain, banishing them to the floor so I won't have to look at them.

I am nothing like Dallon Weekes.

~~~~~

We're relaxing in the living room when the echoing screeching of the door reduces the beams of sunlight to nothing more than an unimportant detail.

The aperture eases open, a shrill voice punishing the person to whom it's directed, but judging by its wavering tone, the volume isn't often exercised.

"Gerard Arthur Way!" a woman shrieks, marching into the room with her fingers pinching her companion's ear. "Can you believe what he did?"

Pete and I trade befuddled expressions, soon projecting them onto the two people entering the place.

"Let go of me, Lindsey," Gerard complains, feet inching away while the rest of him stays stapled to the woman next to his crouched figure.

Her lips, padded by a bright red similar to autumn leaves, part to justify her case. "I saw this man cutting flowers from the garden I planted when I came here last." She turns to him, brows stressed. "You know how much I love those tulips."

Gerard continues to squirm in his friend's grasp, speaking through the cruelty being engraved into his body. "Relax — I just wanted to give them to Frank."

In Lindsey's excitement, her hands release Gerard's ear and primp for some gossip. "Who's this Frank?"

"Some kid he met at the club." Pete's hair folds over his extremities, eyes meandering around the room. "A lot like Stockholm syndrome, if you ask me."

Lindsey pivots towards the man next to her, trimming her hands to her hips accusingly. "You went to another gay bar?"

"Does he have a reputation for this?" I chime in from the end of the couch.

Lindsey addresses me with a withered sigh. "That's where he took me for my fourteenth birthday."

Gerard smirks, but after a prompt smack to the head, he protests, "Hey, we had a good time!"

"No, we did not. That guy who smelled like urine kept trying to talk to us, and we only got in because you pretended to be too drunk to function, so the bouncer just pitied you."

Gerard simply shrugs, defeated, and I use that as an opportunity to inquire, "So who are you?"

Lindsey exiles the wrinkles on her ebony skirt to the void, responding, "Gerard's cousin, though most of the time I'm just his overprotective mother, because he can't seem to do anything correctly."