Looking For Me

By Jo Curtain

I’m looking for me. I’m twenty. Instead I find my first dead body. I try to revive him, but he’s long dead. I leave everything behind: all that confuses me, all that is funny delusions and all. I leave behind the guilt, the shame, the violence. I leave behind all that makes me shudder. I leave there. I’m looking for me. I find trouble.

I wish – I wish I was more like you. Like you. But I’m me. You’re so assertive. Smart. Worldly. Me. I mispronounce words. I make them up. I’m–I am so–I can never quite say. I’m so in-articulate. It’s not so simple. I have a history. Call it a thing. A thing I’ve learnt. A thing of saying yes, yes, yes of thinking go away, go away, go away.

I’m twenty. I live with two brothers. I listen to Nirvana and sing out of tune. My boyfriend is a vegan. He tells me how pigs are slaughtered. I eat bloody meat when he’s not around. I read Woolf, Greer and Foucault. I stick postcards to the wall; I stick photos to the wall. Feminist slogans. Rows of friends. Postcards, photos, postcards, photos. Yes, to these. Out with those. Yes. No. I flounder. I am. I’m looking for me.

I have mice in the house. Better than roaches. Still, I don’t like mice. A thing I’ve learnt. A thing from the past which I don’t really like I don’t really like I have mice, and I caught one in a trap. I heard the snap. I sit listening to the skittle-scuttle and where there were words now there is just … nothing. I wait for the brothers to come home and dispose of it.

Things fall to pieces. Things end at the brothers’ house. I lay awake at night and go over the things. The things I’ve done. The things I can’t remember saying yes to. I search for the words but they don’t come. Stuck at the back of my throat. I choke. I choke on the anger, pain and betrayal. I’m still looking for me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jo Curtain is currently studying Creative Writing at Deakin University. She is an emerging writer of short stories and poetry. She has a background in family violence advocacy and case management. She lives with her family in Torquay, Victoria.