Chapter 6 – Changeling

The first photo I ever fucking took—at least the first one that felt like it mattered—was a goddamn mirror shot of me, in Randy Lombardo’s bathroom. Seth and Sierra’s house. 2012. The air smelled like dog piss and cheap shampoo, and I looked like I’d just crawled out of someone else’s skin. I didn’t know shit about lighting or composition, but I knew that moment. I knew my own fucking eyes.

And they were different.

I’ve stared at that photo more times than I want to admit. Not because it’s good. Not because it’s art. Because it was the last fucking time I saw myself before something broke off and rotted. I was a kid, yeah, but not really. Something in my face already knew. Like I’d seen a ghost and realized it was me. That’s the day I changed. That’s the day I became something else.

That’s the day I became a fucking changeling.

But before that—there was the darkroom.

Mrs. Keck. Pottery teacher. Photography teacher. Whatever. She smelled like clay and grape gum and she never took her goddamn sunglasses off indoors. I was always in the darkroom. Not because I gave a shit about grades or focus or f-stops, but because it was dark and quiet and nobody could see what the fuck I was doing.

I smoked cigarettes out the side door. Snorted Percs in the corner. Smoked pot out of a goddamn aluminum can right behind the bleach bottles. I told her I needed extra time to “catch up” or “print a contact sheet,” whatever the fuck sounded good. I just wanted the dark. I wanted to disappear. I wanted silence and chemicals and a place where nobody asked questions.

I remember shooting that husky behind the chain-link fence. His eyes were shining like headlights in a blizzard. I thought I’d caught something divine. Thought it was the best roll I’d ever shot. I was hyped as fuck. Told Mrs. Keck about it, smiling like a jackass, and then—boom—opened the roll in full light.

Fucked it.

All of it. Blown out like piss in the wind.

She thought I did it on purpose. Thought I was some smug little burnout playing games. I wasn’t. Not that time. I was just fucking excited. I fucked up. Still lost ten points and had to pretend I gave a shit.

That’s when I learned: the darkroom gives and it takes. You can build a whole new world in there—and piss it away in a second.

We used to fuck around back there. Not literally—well, sometimes—but mostly just smoked and talked and acted like the world outside didn’t matter. Because it didn’t. Not in that red light. That light made everything feel like it was glowing from the inside out. Like sin had a soft filter.

But the photo in the mirror—that wasn’t sin. That was me. And not in a self-love Instagram bullshit way. I mean it was the real me, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do with him.

I think that’s why I took the picture.

I think that’s why I’ve never taken another photo that scared me like that one did.

I looked myself in the face and thought: You don’t know what’s coming. You don’t know the piss-stained path you’re about to walk. The fuckups. The lies. The drugs. The silence. The black clothes. The blacker thoughts. You don’t know shit. But you’re still here.

That kid in the mirror didn’t flinch. But I do. Now. Every time I see him. Because he believed he was real.

And me? I know better.

That’s what a changeling is. Something else pretending to be you. Or maybe it is you. Just a new, fucked-up version that crawled out while you weren’t looking. Something swapped in when no one was watching. Like a trick pulled in the darkroom while the chemicals bubbled and you pissed in the sink.

That’s what I am now. A photo that developed wrong. But still hung on the wall.

Still fucking here.

Greenhouse Gases

The boy didn’t flinch,
but we didn’t tell him to.

There’s this poem I keep repeating—
something about the gases.
The greenhouse gases.
They rose up, thick and warm,
smelling like melted rubber and cum.

And I got down on my knees
in the greenhouse
and I said,
how pretty—how was that?
Is it hibiscus, or is it yellow?

He said nothing.
But I could feel him staring
at the back of my head.
Like the judgment of a god
who never learned to blink.

Lavar and the others were inside,
shooting up,
eating each other’s asses,
or maybe just talking.
Hell if I knew.
I was the crazy one anyway.

I was the one who couldn’t handle it.
Couldn’t wrap my mouth
around the idea
of sucking an old man’s dick
in a greenhouse.
And apparently,
that meant I was insane.

So be it.

I’ll be the crazy one.
I’ll be the cracked pot.
I’ll be the mirror that won’t reflect.
Because at least I said,
How pretty, how was that?
and meant it.

Peace.