Woodlawn Manor

Woodlawn Manor 

It's 2:13 in the morning and I woke up from the lights of a fire truck at the nursing home across the street, anxious I won't be able to get back to sleep I think about this one time trick-or-treating when my mom made us go to Woodlawn Manor instead of going house-to-house. Trying to recall if it was raining or snowing and that's why, but I don't know and it's not important, but still I consider Googling the weather from that day. Not now, I say aloud, then chuckle a bit at the absurdity of it all. Thoughts in the middle of the night always feel more intense than any other time. For me, anyhow, I wonder why and I look for the answer but give up when I can't word the question right, and keep accidentally hitting the backspace instead of the spacebar.

I wanted to be a witch, but instead I wore my sister's ladybug costume from the year before, black tights with red polka dots on them, and these plastic blue things they made me put over my shoes, held in place with elastic at the tops near my laces that my sister said I was stupid for not yet knowing how to tie. And I was pouting because ladybugs don't have any blue on them and they covered the places where mom glued glowing sticks on as the antennas. So my mom squeezed my face hard between her fingers pulled me close to her mouth and said if you're going to act like a little bitch we'll just go home so I said I was sorry and to please let go that hurts my cheeks and as far as I knew ladybugs don't have red cheeks.

These kids stood up and moved toward a screen next to a soda machine and sang a song from Casper while a video played of Frankenstein and Shaggy from Scooby Doo doing the Monster Mash. Just before the song ended a man wearing a robe inside out, with a long slit in the back, pulled the tablecloth from under stacks of dishes and everyone jumped at once, except for the people who didn't even notice, then the grownups laughed, but weird like, not because it was funny. They just didn't know what else to do.

When I asked mom if that means we can get candy she nodded and nudged me forward. I felt a little nervous she didn't follow, but I was used to it and pushed my way through to find the line. A lady sat shaky in her chair covered up with a black blanket that had bright red and yellow flowers painted on it. I didn't want to wait for her anymore, because I'd been standing awkwardly there for probably 6 minutes or so with her staring right above my head but at nothing, she was struggling to find the opening of the bag, and I'm not sure if she's trying or if she even knows where her hands are, but I've been warned not to help out. Patience is learned, and I wasn't quite there yet, and the saliva collecting in the corners of her mouth was losing its place like bubble gum stretched out but gross instead and not by effort but by lack of to keep it inside or swallow it. An audible sigh escapes me as I follow her hand with my gaze to the bottom and slowly pull from it what I've stood waiting for.

When I see the box of raisins my body twitches and loud on the inside I'm screaming, and hold back the tears, and I smile, but no one will ever know what it took or ever be proud of me. She is fidgeting with the box, and it hits me that this shell of a woman isn't aware I'm even there standing, or even a ladybug, or that it's Halloween, and she's supposed to be handing out candy. Her frail self doesn't understand she's alive or where she's been, or knows or what she's seen. She's the oldest lady I've ever met, but she's also a baby.

No one takes notice, and I know this feeling, and she shoves the whole box still sealed into her mouth, and right there across from me she choked to death on my Halloween raisins I would have never eaten. And to this day I question if for a split second she saw me and felt fit and well enough in that moment to just fucking end it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/9oj0f1/meatbag/e7wwqow/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/9oukqj/listening/e7x7vr0/?context=3