water soluble

when she watered everything down it could almost make sense. the false starts, the second guesses, they were normal, expected. but in concentrate she couldn't understand any of it, wouldn't even try too.

i don't think i'm smart, she told him.

what? of course you're smart, he said.

not like you.

no. not like me. you're not me, you're not suppose to be like me.

then what am i supposed to be like? she thought.

and when they went out she thought, now, now i am supposed to have fun. i will have fun tonight. but in the end she was always left thinking, is this what fun is supposed to be like. dinners, movies, talking...you're too serious, he'd tell her. too morbid.

her clearest memory of childhood was when she realized she was going to die. she was eight, watching stand by me. in the end they found the dead body. she had never seen a dead thing before. and she asked her mom, mom, will i die?

her mom paused and sat her down on her bed in her room with the pink walls and the red shag carpet.

yes, sweetie, we all will.

you?

yes.

and dad?

uh huh.

what can we do to stop it?

we can't stop it. we just have to live the best life that we can.

it seemed easy, when she was eight, sitting on her four-poster bed with her mom to live the best life that she could. and she tried hard. but she was still scared she wasn't doing it and she would lie awake some nights, blood racing, heart pounding, worried that this wasn't the best life that she could. she tried to forget about it, or maybe accept it.

and then things dissolved, quickly and easily. what she thought she knew, she didn't know. anything that had been important, wasn't. and she felt fooled and she wondered, is this the best life i could? and when she was honest the answer was resoundingly, no. but she didn't know how to change anything though, how to stop anything.