Play Nice

by Rachel Harrison

Is there anything good for me to believe in? Or are the demons all that’s left?

Our mother’s presence is everywhere, her influence. Her ghost is us.

can’t make a joke of myself. My entire life is built around my image. I wonder if the demon knows that. I wonder if I’m giving it too much credit.

But I wield my tears like a weapon. They don’t get to be sincere.

“It is about me. The whole family revolves around me. I’m the sun. That’s why you need me. You need me to apologize and make peace so you can all go back to pretending we’re normal and happy and that everything’s fine and has always been fine.

No one in fashion cares about anything but fashion; they just pretend to to save face.

think I miss him. Which makes me hate him.

resent him for not being able to keep this casual.

Never fall in love. It’ll ruin your life. More motherly wisdom. Funny, what memories stick.

don’t know how to not be in control.

Fear is new and exhilarating. Addicting.

It occurs to me now that so much of my life and my persona has been constructed to war against this. I didn’t want to be the sad woman on the deck with a bottle of wine and pack of cigarettes. I didn’t want to be my mother. I also didn’t want to be Cici, the child caught up in a horror story. Now I’m in danger of becoming both.

thing of pure nightmare. The face of hell. Of every hideous thing in the world, not just in aesthetics, but in spirit. Roadkill. Swarming bugs. Prey being caught in the jaws of a predator. Open wounds. Charred bones. Parts no longer connected to the body they once belonged to. War. Wreckage. Death. Every image you’ve ever seen that lingers behind your eyelids, that discomfort you cannot shake. The things that get inside and reassemble you. Make you uglier at your core.

Ugly truths. Ugly fiction. Ugly words. Ugly house. Ugly feelings.

There’s no room in my beautiful life for all this ugliness. And yet, here it is.

It takes so much to build an image. It takes next to nothing to destroy one.

What does he want me to say? Does he expect me to apologize? Everyone in my life wants me to behave in a very specific way that’s beneficial to them, and as soon as I deviate from their expectations, it’s an issue. As soon as I act out of whatever role they cast me in in their lives, it’s somehow my fault.

Crazy is quicksand.

could be that everything he’s done has been motivated purely and genuinely by his love for us. It could be that he’s a possessive, self-serving asshole who was a shitty husband to Mom, who held no compassion for her, who erased her from our lives, painted her as this unreliable violent monster to protect his own image. It could be all the above.

Part of me is flattered, because I love attention. We have that in common, the demon and me. I like being the favorite. This part of me feels an allegiance to it. A kinship.

Watching the damage unfold feels startlingly familiar. It feels like home.

This is the truth of him. Of us. It’s been here this whole time. Dormant. Hiding. Waiting.

It’s doing it because it wants to. Because it’s bored. Because it enjoys watching us suffer. Our suffering is entertainment. I’m only its favorite because I’m game, down to play. Because I’m a good pawn. The easiest. The most fun.

Too bad for it, I know that game and play it better. I know that the real way to win is to not play at all.

That brief public exposure of my vulnerability—of my pain, my confusion, my fear, my grief—will forever overshadow everything I do.

Or maybe he didn’t want to hurt her, but he was just fine watching her hurt herself.

But I have no regrets, because I know now that she wasn’t crazy. I’m not sure anyone is. I think it’s just easier to call someone crazy than it is to admit that they could be right. Easier to call someone crazy than to confront the nuance of their circumstance, than to accept the callous cruelty that exists

in the world we live in, the evil out there that revels in our suffering. They say ignorance is bliss, and, yeah, maybe, but it’s still fucking ignorance.