the vicarious pain-seeker

in high school there was this kid who had some kind of

heart problem,

he had a horrible scar where work had been done at an earlier age &

he had a story to tell if you wanted to hear it---

like so many kids who had more on their plate than they wanted to handle,

what with going through puberty & being stomped on daily by

parents, school & the surrounding authority figures that make it a place to

make themselves known,

well, most didn’t have the time---

but she, whose plate wasn’t as full as others,

because she was drop dead gorgeous,

rich, smart & destined for greatness

(as far as society was concerned),

was looking for some pain to feel,

because quite frankly, she felt little

during her teenage years.

 

those years when the body itself seems to be rebelling against you,

she was in perfect shape &

with perfect grades & popularity,

she needed to know what it was like to

hurt---

she felt left out by all of her classmates

whose lives were just plain

fucked up already & so,

she listened to the boy’s story.

 

she never had lunch with the kid

never called him on the phone

never went out with him outside of school

never gave him a blow job &

never acknowledged his presence when she was walking with her

clique,

but the day that he dropped dead on the gymnasium floor,

as a result of whatever was wrong with his heart,

she cried & cried & cried.

 

days & weeks later,

like some bad b-drama that you find on Lifetime,

she acted as if they had been the best of pals &

when people mentioned his death in passing

she corrected them if he didn’t say his name right or

when they made fun of him, even despite his death,

she got angry at them &

after a month had passed,

and she was right back in bed with the hottest guy the school could muster,

she still felt bad,

but she tried to block it out with her multiple orgasms &

the pot they smoked afterward.

 

she always said that she’d try anything once &

that pain brought on by the dead kid was something that she definitely did not want to

form a habit with.