One Way Ticket, or Coyote Bloodlust

I checked the greyhound schedules again today. There it was, one-way ticket leaving tomorrow - $35 plus tax. The words popped into my head before I could stop them:

“I could swing that no problem”

And for a moment I saw myself leaving. Silently dragging that battered old suitcase from the garage back to my bedroom tonight. Carelessly throwing all my clothes that still fit and whichever books and movies I can’t live without inside. Buckaroo Banzai DVD wrapped in a matching t-shirt so it doesn’t get damaged, my one tragically geeky addiction. Close the top and sit on it a little as I finish zipping and hoping I didn’t forget anything I’d need one day. I wouldn’t be coming back after all, not setting foot in here again. I’d grab my laptop bag, my purse and wallet, softly drag the suitcase down the pitch dark hallway and out the front door. Ease the key into the lock and slowly close the squeaky screen door. Leave my keychain in the mailbox tightly wrapped in the note I’ve planned but never written. Hop into the taxi waiting two doors down and away I go into the night...

And then reality kicked in, the fog lifted from my eyes, the fantasy abruptly ended.
I could swing it, make it there, away from here - but then what? No job, no car, no home. Until he pays me back, no way to make 1st months rent all by myself or start utilities or live anywhere but the streets. Until he pays me back I’m pretty trapped, right where I’ve always been. And I think he knows that, inside. Wants to keep me under his thumb where he can watch me be just as miserable or more than he is here.

Of course I know that thought is insane, this can’t all be on purpose can it?

I slept last night. I don’t remember my dreams, and no that wasn’t the alcohol. I think I really slept last night for the first time in a long time. I wasn’t here. I spent the night curled up in the camouflage sheets covering the bunk bed of my friends’ son away at camp. I probably overstayed my welcome, made up for lost REM cycles when I finally let myself drift away. Woke up rested, refreshed and happy; talked, laughed, played with the cat that supposedly hates people, fist bumped the most adorable little girl I’ve ever met as I made my way out to the waiting car. And as I pulled open the van door, I sneezed.

I think I’m allergic to my family.

Or maybe just my mother’s smoke combined with cat fur from my feline friend. I can handle smoke. I can handle cats. But people smoking around cats (or cats smoking playing poker) somehow turns me into a walking Zyrtec commercial. I sneezed. We drove. I came home and was told to help clean a house I never live in except my room and bathroom, where I clean my mess on my own damn schedule.
Listening to my parents argue over why my dad vacuumed before dusting, I felt that familiar tension creeping back into my neck and shoulders. I’m sore now. Can’t get comfortable in this chair while I’m typing and listening to some crappy band with maybe 3 good songs on this cd. But I like those songs, and I’m too lazy to keep hitting skip. It’s almost midnight and I’m tired but don’t think I’ll be able to sleep here. Won’t get comfortable enough to let myself drift off, will wake up at every noise or sound or zombie scratch against my window. And now its back to insomnia for me it seems.

I checked the schedules today while we all took a break. And wish I wasn’t trapped for a while longer by my own stupidity, knowing he’d never intended to pay me when he said he would. My fault, I know. Nothing I can do about it now but steep in my own self pity (please no tea-bagging jokes), but I’m not quite that pathetic just yet. I’m a fighter, supposedly strong enough to handle heartache. I’ll work something out, eventually I’ll figure a way to leave and never look back at that locked door or that letter-wrapped key in the mailbox.

I was actually happy last night. Weird I know. Not that I’m usually sad or down or depressed or whatever. Its just there’s always that coyote urge in the back of my head, that wanting to chew my own leg off just to escape and hobble away on a bloody stump, eventually breaking apart a chair to make a peg and trying to find an ex-parrot for my shoulder. The instinct usually stays even when I’m out and having a good time, or in and enjoying my solitude. Its there, lurking in the shadows – the need to break into a run as fast as my stubby legs can take me. I lost it for a while there last night. Didn’t feel the hunger or the bloodlust, didn’t notice the veins throbbing down my calf, didn’t look for the weakest spot where the bone would snap between my teeth. I didn’t feel like running.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to belong in my own skin.

And it was nice.