Read me

WHITE ROOM / BACARDI / PETER BUNGALOW

(A memory-monologue for Leviathan Dean Star Finger)

I’m in a room.
It’s white.
So white I don’t know what time it is.
I’m in a bed, unsure of where I am.

Tubes in me.
Water or air or something—
something making me feel good.

A nurse walks in.
I murmur something.
“Fuck.”
“Shit.”
“Cunt.”

She doesn’t flinch.

⸻

Then my mother and father come in, crying.
I don’t cry.
I say—literally and utterly and regrettably—
“What the fuck are you doing here?”

But the real question was:
What the fuck was I doing here?

⸻

The night before:
I was with my grandfather.
It was a Sunday.

I can’t remember why we were hanging out,
but we were.

He bought me a bottle of Bacardi Silver Rum.
We drank it with Sprite.
He dropped me off around seven or eight.

It was nothing unusual.
I felt… grateful.

Everyone always pulled him sideways—
leftways—
but that night, he was mine.

⸻

I went back to my apartment.
I lived with Abigail.
My cousin.
She was a year younger than me.

I was nineteen.
She was eighteen.

I kept losing my jobs.
Felony probation. Heroin.
Receiving stolen property.

Abby…
She didn’t have anything going on
except sex.

She’d get fucked so hard in the next room,
I’d be like—gross.
Not aroused.
Appalled.

But sometimes…
Arousal and expulsion—
they live in the same place.

Was he hurting her?
I’m not sure.
He did get her pregnant.

Namaste.

⸻

My suicide attempt was pathetic.
But also—
not.

I was off heroin.
Prescribed Seroquel. Trazodone.
No more Xanax.
No more anything I actually liked.

And I was in love.
With a man named Peter Bungalow.

⸻

Peter.

Tall.
Curly-haired.
A Scorpio.
Big dick—I could tell from his eyes.
And his eyes were big.
That means the most to me.

His smile was…
relieving.
Revealing.
He had no secrets with me.

⸻

First time we hung out:
He talked about Led Zeppelin.
Told me Pink Floyd was the best band ever.

I said,
“No. I like The Doors.”
He chuckled.

Tried to teach me piano.
Guitar.
I kept inching closer.
Flirting.
My hands on the strings.
Bend and snap.

I had him.
Just like the others.

⸻

Seems like…
the more drugs you have,
the more dick gets sucked.

Or… wait.
No—
the more drugs you have…

Scratch that.

He used me.
And even now—
he still asks my mom for money.

⸻

That’s the kind of ghost I am.
A vampire of cranberry and vodka with lime.
Unkilled.
But not alive.

Just laying here. In the white room.
Wondering where the fuck I went.
Chapter 9: The Letter Never Sent

To: Peter Bungalow
From: I don’t know anymore.
Never Mailed. Never Stamped.