ROTGUT (ROTGUTVERSE)

by H.S. Wolfe

She invited me to her home once, and only once. Her parents were over, and the three of them cooked a huge homemade dinner together, laughing in the kitchen. I barely made it through eating and had to hide in the bathroom immediately afterwards. I’m jealous of their happiness, that they loved her unrestricted, no price to pay for their kindness.

“Do you want me to stay?” As soon as it leaves my mouth, I know I’ve said the wrong thing. “Don’t care, can if you want to.” He turns back to what he was doing, the conversation over. I am not wanted. I’m a warm body with laughably low self esteem. If I stay, I will briefly get what I want, the dopamine rush bubbling over, making me fall over myself the next time and the time after that. It’s better if I just go, let things fizzle out, but there is a desperate creature inside of me.

felt that a lil too hard

I pull out my phone and switch through a few apps out of habit, even though I have no new notifications. I’ve stopped reaching out first to anyone who isn’t in Cluster Headache. It took almost no time for people I thought I was close with to fade out of my life all together.

If he would let me, I’d crack open his chest, part his ribs so I could climb in, chew his arteries up and rearrange them into a nest for myself. I would crawl under his skin, a warm blanket for me while I burrow into his muscles. I’d hide behind his molars, or the crevice of his eye. Every gentle touch he affords me tonight reminds me that I’m hungry. Starving for so much I will never have. I settle for scraps thrown to the floor, picking bones clean.

It's not romantic, just transactional, I remind myself. Hawthorne gets off on getting me off. I could be anyone.

I just stare at it, my brain trying to make sense of what the fuck I’m looking at, trying to process this face in the dark. I want to whisper ‘not real’ to myself, but if I open my mouth, I fear I may barf all over myself and the floor. We gawk at each other, this critter and I, for what feels like an eternity.

Talking only works if someone will listen, and I’ve been yelling longer than I can remember.

I don’t know how other people maintain functional relationships. I can’t stop myself from questioning motives.

I know better than to keep seeing Hawthorne, but he can’t be unaware of his own actions. He’s hurting me on purpose because he’s selfish.

More of those creepy-crawlers are scuttling around underfoot. One runs under the sink, two more climb the toilet and sit themselves on the tank. So, there’s not just one tormenting me, they have an entire family of menaces. Good for them.

Hobbies feel so listless, it’s just endless days of losing time in my apartment between practice and shows, running back to Hawthorne because it’s all I have. I have no choice but to grip him tightly, dig my heels in when he tries to drag himself away from me. Mine, mine, mine.

All of our songs are fast, heavy, raw, and I know immediately that me and my rotten guts aren’t going to make it through the whole set. Maybe if they have to pick up my entrails off the floor, they’ll feel bad for me, I’ll get a couple weeks of sympathy from my band before their anger inevitably returns.

The pain is unimaginable as he buries his arm up to the elbow inside of me, hand snaking its way up through my rib cage, pushing tissue and viscera out of his way, until he can grip the beating muscle of my heart. “You have it,” I sob, choking on the mucus in my throat. “You already have it, please just let me go.” I’m begging. He beams, squeezing it harder.

This has to be my fault too, right? I brought all this darkness to our show, decimated the audience with it. Then Hawthorne couldn’t bear to see me raw, stole my heart and hated what he saw so thoroughly that he’s fucking dead.