My mother thinks religion keeps a lot of people from killing themselves. My sister hung herself, my sister was an atheist. It’s warm for September. Our trash is overflowing with boxes and it won’t get picked up until Tuesday. The window is open as she liked it and when I breathe in deep, I get whiffs of heat and garbage that remind me I now live in the city. I’m too old to live with my mother. I took time off/loosely quit/got fired from my bartending job back in upstate New York for sleeping with the health inspector on the bar top. So I keep the window open and decide the garbage and heat is good consequence. I tell my mother I am thinking of going back to school, that this time I could figure it out. She glances up through her glasses and doesn’t have to speak. My mother calls me the smartest girl in the world when we both know I’m wrong. She suggests we go to the ballet together, instead, mostly so we do not have to think of things to say. She is smart that way. We sit in Row E, me on her left side. We take turns passing the program between us like a prayer, look who is playing Titania, she is beautiful, don’t you think? I think of what my sister would say to my mother at this ballet if she did not hang herself. I took ballet when I was little. Me and my sister. I hated the tights and she didn’t mind. I had it after school, Monday afternoons. Four o’clock, maybe, but I am guessing at time. I do not remember being good at ballet, but I was tall, and thin, as ballerinas are supposed to be1. My teacher said I had a certain grace that one could only attribute to a fast metabolism. My mother tells me before the show that when I quit, my ballet teacher called and begged my mother to force me to keep dancing. She could be something great. The curtains rise on the stage and all I do is weep. The ballerinas look like swans. I want to hold the mutilated feet behind their pink slippers. I curl my toes inside my heels until I can’t take it and hold it for a moment more to prove the pain. I picture my skin peeling off, it’s gorgeous, fresh and raw and red underneath, my toes becoming less and less intact. I grin. The ballerina onstage stumbles and my toes unravel and her face drops so quickly you’d miss it if you weren’t looking. Everyone is looking. My sister’s performance was just brilliant, she only let it drop at the rope. The ballerina onstage spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and spins and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter and I will be a good daughter. She bows. I ache to bite into her applause. I am starving. My mother asks me why I am crying and I tell her it’s all so beautiful.
“Supposed to be” reflects an unfortunate and rather disgusting societal norm that I do not hold as my own belief.
Did you pass the health inspection?
fuck