melancholia

She reeks of discontent, the smell of stale alcohol, the smell of flats with too many people living in them, mattresses stained with coffee and cum. She is a burning slash against the world, flittering and brightly vivacious. I hate her, because she makes me hate her. Her nails, long and neon-pink, dragging lazily down the curve of my hip, jutting and so sharp I could cut her palms with one jerk. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, hate hate hate hate hate hatehatehatehate.

She is a poison, leaking and acidic, corroding at the soft tissues in my veins, cutting up my belly so that my stomach juices filter through and blotch the color out of my skin, so I am pale, so pale in comparison to her, so pale that I am just a ghost and she is a flesh-covered demon. She is a poison and I hate her so completely, so utterly, it makes my bones bend backwards, makes my ribs snap open so she can tear at my heart, lick her lips clean of my blood, chock me down with rough-and-tumble teeth.

I hate her, so, so much. So, so much I love her.

--

She finds me in the park, curled up on a bench with my fingers buried deep in my shirt to keep the cold from sinking in. I haven't slept in three days, haven't gone home because he will be there, smoking his pipe, watching the fizzing, static-diseased television, eyes like robotic monsters. He'll stare and stare and eventually I'll remember that once upon a time ago I loved him, he loved me, back when we were kids, but now he's an addict and I am decaying.

"Wild white horse, why're you looking so glum?" she purrs, sitting down next to me.

She is electric, bright on my eyes, burning visions into my skull. Her hair is black, streaked red and deadly, eyes coated in thick make-up, blue and red, neon, her clothes tight fitting and stylish, like she had rolled in paint and gone out clubbing. She smells soft, like flowers and stale coffee, like all the good, sensual things in the world. I see her, drugs and wildcats and bright colors, and I want to break her. So colorful. She doesn't know anything.

She grabs my arm, pulls me against her, takes me home. That's how we meet, and I look like a drizzled rat, drenched or drowning, sinking and swimming. She gives me her clothes, a tight-fitting pink t-shirt with letters spelling obscenities, spray on jeans, no socks, no bra. I keep my panties on because she's watching me undress and the heat in the room dries them quickly.

"I've seen you before, you know," she says, her voice like velvet and scotch. "In the clubs, pretending you don't care." Her lips quirk up, cat-like, vicious. She's beautiful.

"Yeah?" I mutter, pulling the t-shirt over my head. "Who're you then?"

I'm waiting for the name, something exotic, something dangerous. She's a wild-cat, desperate and throaty and I can feel the heat coming off her from across the room.

"Just call me Jet," she says airily, layered eyes following the lines of my waist and hips. "Everyone else does."

That's it. I'm shot through the heart, dark and poisoned, she takes me in, gives me clothes, takes me out like I'm her pet and I love it.

--

I become entangled in her life.

I sleep in the same double bed as her, bundled up tight in her shorts and vests. Her room is a neon nightmare, the walls white except for the one furthest away - that's pink, eye-scorching pink. There are posters, magazine cuttings and record covers everywhere, boys and girls lounging lethargically along her plaster, grinning and sneering, so many bands and musicians I've never even heard of. She collects things, weird little things you'd throw away normally. Broken records, plastic toys, Russian rolls with the paint chipped off. Things you find in garage sales or car boot throw-outs. Things you find in garbage cans.

At night, when we're lying in the dark and her breathing goes deep and wistful, I watch the moonlight glint like cold-eyes off of her weird collection, watch the paint glow like space-ships. Sometimes she kicks the sheets off her and I watch her flat-lined belly rise and fall as she dreams, her breasts flattening as she stretches out like a spoilt cat. Her ribs are like ripples under water, soft and jutting, cutting away the stilted air that hangs in her bedroom like wet fog.

I wake up alone, with the sunlight brushing its golden fingertips through my hair, in my eyes, burning me awake. Everything glows, everything is iridescent and beautiful and remarkable. I can hear music playing in the front room, something German and melodic, a man's voice crooning through the thin plaster on the walls. Jet is a musical beast, she can't work through life without a rhythm carrying her on its back. At first I thought this made her weak, that someone who boasts so much independence was dependent on something with no substance, with nothing to hold itself together with except abstract concepts and wavering, electric voices.

But then I remember how dependent I am on her, and I cringe in revulsion and forget about her being weak.

"Last night I dreamt of rabbits," she says, slim wrist balancing a cigarette whilst her other hand scoops up the last of her coffee. She winces and I remember we're out of sugar. "They were eating our records and clothes and I didn't mind. I just kept worrying that they'd get sick."

"How nice of you," I murmur. We are sat at the kitchen table, a tiny, rickety thing painted white, covered in newspapers and teapots and ashtrays; Jet's nail polish pots litter my side and I start painting my nails electric blue out of boredom.

"They all went out of the window, then I woke up."

She looks up at me, behind her fringe, behind her cutting-glass eyes. I can taste the scent of change in the air, liquidated and rolling, so thick it could solidify on my tongue and we could bend shapes out of it. "Let's go out for the day," she says, all sweet and vulgar. My heart trips. "To the zoo. It's summer, it's nice. Let's buy ice cream and walk through the park."

This is her desperate quest for normality, this is her pushing her fingers into the rotten flesh of fruit, squeezing it of rancid juices and sucking them from her bony fingers, hoping it's still sweet, still succulent despite festering under time's withered body. I push my hands out against the wooden table, watch my nails glitter like ice-rubies hidden deep in the Artic circle, my heart humming like a dying refrigerator. I nod mutely, watch her pale-thin face split into a grin, watch her stand up and tumble excitedly into the bedroom, to get ready.

"Get up, then!" she calls, voice like a bird cry. "Wear one of my dresses, they'll look beautiful on you."

Obedient little witch I am, I scrap the chair away and fumble awkwardly with the waistband of my shorts. Obedient little girl, following her mother's outstretched arms.

I am weak.

--

The zoo is crowed, children and families and couples peering through the glass windows and gasping with awe as they catch a glimpse of a monkey hiding in the shadows of a tree. We smoke cigarettes on a bench, our spines arched like doorways to new worlds, our lips curled in derisive sneers, smoke curling from between our teeth like spirals of deceit. Parents look at us with eyes sparking disgust and desire and I watch Jet tug her dress up her thighs, inching it so that her milk-white flesh can soak up sun and stares.

"I like animals," she says, dragging her teeth along her cigarette, sucking up the smoke. "I like these animals, trapped in cages and slowly building up their frustration for the time when their keepers go in to feed them."

"They're like us," I say softly, my lungs burning, inflamed with tar and acids and summer sun. "Trapped in cages, but still wild."

"I'll never be trapped in a cage." Her voice is defiant, as if daring me to say otherwise. I take another smoke and let my eyes fall on her long legs. "Me and you, we're like wolves. We howl to our gods and we bite our lovers in bits."

I nod absently and think about the lover I left behind. Is he still sitting on his yellowing sofa, smoking cigarettes and shooting up, watching Saturday cartoons until his mind rolls blank? Does he even know I'm gone? I left all my stuff, everything, have been gone for over three weeks. Has he called the police?

I don't think I care.

"I left my things," I whisper, chucking my cigarette into the bin next to me. "I left my things... at home."

It's the first time I've talked of home, because home is where the heart is and my heart is locked firmly in my breast and I am living with Jet, want to live with Jet forever. I'm happy. As happy as I can get.

"I thought you said you had no home?" Jet hums, stretching back and lazily eyeing a man across the way. He looks at her with smolder-black eyes and I can feel a snarl ripple under my lungs. Jealousy.

"I don't. Well, I had a place to live... I-"

"You don't need to tell me about your past," she sings, turning her head to me, her oil-bright eyes knocking the breath from me. "It doesn't exist anymore. The past is just a concept, an illusion to make us think that we live in stable times."

He doesn't exist. My life doesn't exist. I can understand that.

"Did you leave anything special?"

"Just... just photos. Things I collected. Special things." I frown into my hands and wait for her to tell me that I am pathetic for holding physical objects in such high regard, weak to be so materialistic about my life - memories, feelings, secrets, they do not exist anymore.

But she doesn't. I look up and she is looking at me with some vague expression floating on her features, some long-lost feeling she has forgotten in her quest of self-realization. She reaches forwards, fingers brushing the hair from my eyes. I hold my breath.

"I'll get them for you," she says, voice like cream on my skin. "And then I'll give you a haircut."

Something flowers in my chest, something bright and eager and fragile, like small bones in strong fingers. I look at Jet, with her crystalline eyes and devil-lips, look at her and smile. She peers curiously back at me, like she has never seen me before, like it is only us in the whole zoo and the animal calls and children's laughter fades like old records scratching to a finish. "Let's get some ice cream," she murmurs, pulling her hand away and resting it on her bare thigh. "Come on."

Obedient rat, I follow.

----

This isn't girl-love (yet). It's obsession and friendship that buries itself so deep inside your bones it consumes you. I think the friendship between girls is really interesting. A lot of them turn unhealthy, in my experience. It's fun to write about, I suppose.