Demons, revised

I carefully open my closet door. The demons don't seem to notice or care. Or they realize I'll just slam the door if they try and come out; better to wait for me, the sucker I am, to delve in and see which ones I can find to maul me.

I go inside. I shut the door behind me so no light will disturb me. So nobody will see me.

Surgery (flashback)

Surgery.
The word echoed through my head like a herd of elephants fucking in a cave.
Surgery.
I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes with as much force as I could muster. I don't want to pass out! I don't need surgery! I'm fine! I'll, I'll walk it off! Don't, just don't do this to me please!
How could you...
I forced my eyes open for what might be the last time. No! Stop this cart! Guerny. Gernie? How do you spell that? G-e-r-...
Focus! Don't let the drugs get to you... Don't pass out... Don't...

Demons

I carefully open my closet door. The demons don't seem not notice or care. Or they realize I'll just slam the door if they try and come out; better to wait for me, the sucker I am, to delve in and see which ones I can find to maul me.
So I go inside. I shut the door behind me so no light will distrub me. So nobody will see me.
I walk around in the closet, passing demons to the left and demons to the right, hanging waiting for me to try them on again like old coats.
I walk past the time I told Kate from third grade that she was a big fat stupid and I didn't want to play with her. I ignore how terrible I felt afterwards because I knew she liked me - like, like liked me - and I didn't really think girls were icky at all really.
I walk past the time I punched John in the face in seventh grade because he wouldn't shut up about my momma, even though I knew he was just kidding and I felt even worse afterward because he was my friend and I didn't even get in any real trouble. I walk past the time in eighth grade when John didn't invite me to his birthday party and I knew we wouldn't be friends anymore even though he had been my best friend since kindergarten.
I stop briefly at the time when Jen broke up with me, saying I was "creepy". We were in Love and I thought that meant being completely inseperable but as it turns out some people feel things more deeply than others and "it's not her it was me." My hand brushes the sleeve of how I cried for a week and couldn't stop thinking about her for months afterward. I reach into the pocket of what a pathetic individual I was at the time and pull out the comb of how I'm smarter now than I was then, look at it fondly for a few moments before putting it back in the pocket and walking on.
I stop and brush the dust off the time I went to the hospital to see my dad for the last time in junior year. I run my fingers through the lining of how mad I was that he wouldn't stop smoking even though the doctors said he'd have a better chance of survival if he just quit, of how mad I was that he would just give up and leave us just because he had a Habit and that wasn't something he could just break, of how mad I was that he would just leave us like that, of how mad I was that he didn't think about how we were feeling even though we told him and told him and told him, but mostly of how sad I am that I would never see his kind face again and how devastated and empty mom and I were after he had gone.
I stare at this demon a good long time.
I walk past the time I told Alice I just didn't care about Us or Where We Were Going or whatever bullshit it is that Couples talk about.
I walk past the time Rachel asked if it was Just about sex and I said Yes.
I walk past the times I woke up in someone else's bed not knowing how I got there because I was too drunk to remember the night before. I walk past when my friends tried to stage an intervention and I punched Roger in the face for telling me that I was "just like my father," because my father was a great man and I am not like my father and at least I'm not killing myself with my drinking.
I walk past the time I quit my job because I was just some corporate cog who was easily replaceable and completely ignorable.
I stop for a while at the time Susan asked if We were Going Anywhere and I said Yes, but I was lying because we were where we were and I didn't know where we were supposed to Go from wherever we were except maybe marriage and death, but I lied and said yes because I'd finally learned honesty wasn't always the best policy. I straighten the collar of her realizing I was just going through the motions and I came back to our apartment to find a note saying Goodbye Forever because she had truly Loved me and how I Broke her Heart. I gently smooth out the wrinkles of my finding her dead in the tub, having drank a bottle each of vodka and cyanide.
I stare at this demon a good long time.
Finally I come to the demon I was looking for. I stare at it. My only having two or three real Friends. My being Alone. I frown. Who needs a lot of friends? Who needs to be With somebody? I have people I trust, people who care about me. So What if it's only a handful of people? That's more than most folks meet in a lifetime.
"You are not a demon," I say. "You are nothing. Look around you, look at your friends. These, these are demons." I pick it up off the rack by the hanger. "I've dealt with so much over the years, you are the least of my worries." I walk out of the closet. I stare at it again. Ugly. "You are nothing," I shout, "and I have no reason to hold on to you!"
I throw it out the window.

Alone

What was I doing.
Of course I had to go ahead and come along on this stupid middle-school trip. Sure, no problem, just spend a week out in the woods a million miles from anyone with all your buddies from class around you. 'Course, I had about three buddies from class, and hated pretty much everyone else. Oh and look, my buddies are all at a different camping site because I had to do a stupid and have a different homeroom teacher LIKE THAT'S EVEN MY FAULT. So now they're all having a good time and I'm stuck here with these assholes.
Knew I should've faked appendicitis.
It's not all bad though. I at least get enough time alone to slip off and head down to the lake. There I can be alone, which while miserable is still leagues better than being with so many people I hate.
Of course, that's when she shows up.
'How did she find me?' I think to myself, not wanting to take the obvious answer.
"Hey, why are you over here?" she asks.
"Because I'm not over there," I nonanswer.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't really like people all that much." Please take the hint.
"Oh. Me either." Dammit. "So, what're you doing?"
"Just... sitting here. Trying to think." Please go away.
"What're you thinking about?"
"Stuff." Nonanswer. Go away.
"What kind of stuff?"
The kind of stuff that clubs you over the head and then tosses you into the lake to be eaten by fish and they'll never find your body. "Y'know... stuff."
"Why don't you want to answer?"
Because I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want me to answer. "No reason."
"... Is it about me?"
Yes. "No."
"You sure?" When did she get that close? Just a second ago she was right over by the trees and now she's a few feet away from me.
"Yes."
"I see... So what are you thinking about?"
None of your business! I do not owe you any answers! "Well, I was trying to think about how I don't really like people, but I didn't make it much past being alone." Damn it. One of these days I'll learn how to lie.
"Well, you don't have to be alone..."
Well I do if I want to get any thinking done. "I like it better than being surrounded by people."
"What about just one person?"
... Uh oh.
She's close now. Almost uncomfortably close. In fact, she is uncomfortably close. "What are you saying?" I ask, knowing full well what she's saying.
"I'm saying... I like you. You know that."
Yeah, I do. "Look... The thing is, I don't like you. YOU know that."
"I know... But-"
"But nothing! I don't like you. At all. It's not that I don't like-like you - I don't, by the way - it's that I don't even like you. You bug me, a lot. Please, please go away."
She nods and is silent for a bit. "Okay. I'll leave you alone."
"... Thank you."

Crab!

I wake at night to my pans clanging.
"Robbers" I think; grab shotgun hanging
above the bed in which I'd been just laying.
And as I creep into the kitchen
resist an urge to scratch an itch and
strain my ears to hear what they are saying.
But in my kitchen on my shelf
what should I see but fear itself
a giant crablike creature sits there playing.