MY REASONING
Because it is not enough to be seen.
Because I need to see.
Because I miss her even though I’ve never met her.
Because it had to be me
because if it wasn’t
then it would’ve been
somebody else.
THE MEDIUM
I’m tired of feedback and I’m addicted to the internet. If someone else gets involved it would just be too messy. I need flowers, I need a moonlight dance, I need a song to sway to and access to wifi. I do some research. I go down YouTube holes. I come up with my own method.
HOW I BROUGHT SELENA BACK
1. Grow out my hair, purchase chunky gold hoops, buy some bright red lipstick that will stain. This is mainly for effect but it can’t hurt.
2. I sing backward into a recording device and then play the recording device backward.
3. I can’t tell my friends anything about this because they would think I’m nuts.
4. So I get rid of my friends.
5. I take out a loan and turn my bedroom into a lab. I take a USB drive full of Selena’s images, songs, and interviews and put it into a pot of my period blood. After three weeks, roots begin to grow at its ends. I set up a table. I draw a figure on the table using lipstick.
6. I sing backward into a recording device and then play the recording device backward.
7. There’s more to do. I wake You up and ask You to quickly think of the name of the girl in elementary school with the prettiest handwriting.
8. I walk into the kitchen, tie a red string around my finger, say this girl’s name five times while spraying Fabuloso into the air. You walk in on me and are all, “What are you doing?”
9. I spray You in the face because I am a reactive person.
10. I run away because I am a reactive person.
11. I come back because I’ve thought about what I’ve done.
12. Days go by. Finally, it is midnight and storming. I take the USB out of the pot of period blood and I put it in some soil. I add fertilizer. I’ve never been good at waiting.
13. There is a cracking in the air. The walls are vibrating and I am holding the whole room together. I am on the ceiling and underneath the basement floor. There’s a rapid knocking on the sliding screen door. A scream coming from the pot. My cat hisses. The lights turn on and off. I am in the closet spying and outside of the closet feeling like I’m being watched. Now it is midnight. I open a girl-shaped door. The knob holds my hand. A cloud of pink is in front of me, rising from the table. The kind of stuff that leaks from attics. I put my hand in and scream.
13a. Now I am in a white dress running among the trees. You are behind me holding up a jukebox and it’s playing something with drums.
13b. You lose me among the trees. I hear You calling my name. I want You to keep chasing me and I don’t want you to know how far I would go to find out the truth of something, to scratch an itch that will tear the whole universe open. I’m sorry about this but I’m not sorry about this. I’m already lighting the candles. I’m drawing a circle in the dirt with salt. I’m taking off my shoes. I’m already feeling the dirt beneath my feet dance.