I · am · yr · opus.

Driving fast down a highway at night, junk is running through my veins. Thorn is in the passenger seat talking about I don’t know what. Conor Oberst is screaming through my speakers, “I want a lover I don’t have to love, I want a girl who’s too drunk to give a fuck.” I realize that this is it; this is the beginning of the end of my life. This is going to get me good someday soon.
Five feet, ten inches, I think I’m down to 108 now. One, zero, eight. It seems like too much; too much flesh on these birdcage ribs. Thorn’s hand moves to my jagged hipbone. He wants it and he’ll get it and in the morning I’ll wake up naked and bruised in his bed. I haven’t slept alone in I don’t know how long. I haven’t bled in I don’t know how long either. I don’t have to worry about a baby in my stomach.
There’s nowhere to park at the club, everyone’s here tonight. I finally found a place and I haven’t even put the car in park before Thorn is all over me. Is eight years too different? Has he lived so much more than me or have I already done more than him?
We’re in the club and Thorn has his hand on my back like he owns me. I already see his eyes going up and down other girls’ bodies like mine isn’t good enough for him. “Aris,” he says. “Just let me love you.” But I can’t. I can’t just accept that he loves a 20-year-old anorexic junkie. Anyway, who would? So I just smile and nod my head, give him a quick kiss and say, “Okay, love me.” And just by looking at him, I can see he’s almost happy. But maybe that’s just the dim lights and drugs in his eyes.

***
On any given day, I can think about my mother and go cold. I can think about her ringed fist making contact with my face and then the warm blood mixing with my tears or I can think about her screaming at me, telling me how worthless I am, how ugly I’ll always be. That has stuck with me since the first day she said it. That’s the first day I didn’t eat, the first day I had sex, the first day I snorted the powder.
Every girl takes every word her mother says seriously, so why should I be any different? Thorn says I should just forget it, that I’m beautiful and every word she said, she said because she was jealous. The thing he doesn’t know is that it’s true, she really was jealous. He didn’t know about the kitchen knife under my pillow, waiting for my stepfather’s nightly attempt to get to know me inside and out. But my mother did and blamed it all on me. I was a slut, a whore, a bitch. I was everything no mother ever wants her daughter to be.
Before he came along with his burly arms and too big stomach, my mother was kind. We’d go to the movies or lunch. She’d brush my hair and massage my scalp while I’d lie in her lap listening to music. She always did kind things. Then he was there. Living in our house, eating our food, beating us both. She loved him, more than she loved me. Fifteen years old, growing up much more quickly than other girls. Starting with the coke, moving to the heroin, all along drinking.
My mother has to carry a heavy weight on her shoulders, knowing she caused this. She would have cared before. Not now. A domesticated slave, on her hands and knees scrubbing while he kicks the shit out of her ribs. I know she doesn’t worry about me; she has to worry about her.
My stepfather is one reason it hurts so much to have Thorn inside of me. Not physically, but somehow. It makes me think of a baby I could have had a long time ago. And what my life might have been like. Would Thorn have even taken a second glance at me if I had a baby on my hip?
When my stepfather found out about the baby, red hand prints on my face showed how much he cared. How much he cared it was his and how much he cared I had not only my life, but his baby’s life to worry about as well. He didn’t need to worry though. The drugs and the frequent spaces between the drugs where I didn’t know what I was doing took care of the curling fingers and too-big head inside of me.

***
I remember when Thorn and I met. I didn’t even know his name when I woke up in a strange bed fully clothed. I reached for my purse and lit a cigarette and he came in. Tall, skinny, shaggy hair that hung in his eyes like window shades. He was shirtless and walking around in boxers, like he didn’t even care about this strange girl in his bed. And he was beautiful with green eyes and dark blonde hair. He lay down beside me and stared. When he leaned over and touched my face, I knew I should be scared, but nothing inside of me could do anything but feel complete and total love, acceptance, and understanding. He moved the hair out of my face and kissed my cheek. “Tell me you’re not a dream. What’s your name?” He’s always been able to say sweet things. “I’m just a girl who bleeds blood. I’m anything but a dream. And my name is Aris.” I ducked my ashes and turned to look at him. “Who are you?” And he smiled. Like he had this speech prepared for when someone asked him that. But all he said was, “I’m an ugly part of a beautiful thing. I’m Thorn.”
We were in the same hell, a party with coke and heroin, a junkie’s paradise. Why Thorn was there I don’t know. He didn’t have track marks plaguing his skin. He didn’t have the crazy heartbeat of someone on coke. I saw him at the party and I remember thinking he was an angel coming to take me away. And he was in a way. He was an angel when he carried my dead-weight body to his car then up the stairs to his apartment and slept on the couch so I could have the bed. All because I was a junkie. I was too frail and too weak to care for myself. He could see that in me.
After I left his apartment, all I could think of was an angel kissing my cheek and sleeping beside of me, not sleeping with me, but beside of me. I quit sleeping with so many men. It felt like I quit breathing when I thought of him. When I took a taxi to his place, I walked up the stairs he carried me, I knocked on the door he had to open when I was over his shoulder, and there he was on the other side, shirtless with messy hair, another girl hanging on his arm like a beautiful decoration. I wanted to take it down, put it away in the closet, and casually forget about it. Like I always do with holiday decorations. I didn’t even have to say a word, I knew that this was not my angel like I thought, and as I turned to leave I heard his footsteps following closely behind me. “Aris, please.” I turned and looked at him, his eyes, and decided to wait. “I didn’t think you’d come back to me.” And I was screaming in my head, but I did, I did, I did. I did come back to you. Why weren’t you waiting, you knew I would? I didn’t say anything still. I didn’t say anything when I saw the girl padding barefoot down the hall, her purse on her shoulder and shoes in one hand. I didn’t say anything when his arms went around my waist and he laid his head on my chest. I didn’t say anything when I felt his hot tears burning through my flesh and touching my heart.
That was three years ago. Twenty-four years old and crying on a teenager’s chest. We were the exemplary couple. He didn’t like me coming home at six in the morning, high out of my mind and throwing up while he held my hair. He didn’t like not being at a party with me, making sure I didn’t get too out of hand, making sure I didn’t get in too many other beds. But I didn’t when he wasn’t there. Even if I didn’t know what the hell was going on, I know I never slept with anyone other than Thorn in these three years.
I can’t believe I was into all this shit when I was only seventeen. Before that even. Five years of drugs and sex and barely eating enough to live. I wonder how many girls do the hardcore stuff at fifteen, how many think they’re ready to start ending their lives. Some mornings I can wake up and say to myself I’m not going to cave in, I’m going to eat, I’m going to sleep at night, I’m going to let thorn love me and I’m going to love him back, I’m going to put down the damn needle and just walk away. A girl can get so sick of tapping her veins.
Like I said before, this is my mother’s entire fault. I left when I was fifteen. Living with whoever was nice enough to give me a blanket and a pillow to crash in the floor with. And if I couldn’t find anyone nice enough, I’d lie on a sidewalk or a bench, under a tree and stare at the stars. I always liked it better that way.

***
In all honesty, I don’t know if I love Thorn. We have sex and we make out and we get high together, but I could do that with any guy. We say the standard I love yous and hold hands in public, but I could do that with any guy too. I don’t know if Thorn loves me, either. Looking at other girls and how their hips curve and their breasts swell. Coveting them. Wishing he had that in his bed instead of a skeleton with skin stretched tautly over bones. Some days, I’m sure he loves me though. When his head is on my chest and I and see it rise and fall with my lungs. Or when his hand is splayed on my stomach, transferring his warmth to me. Even when he kisses me with his eyes open.
I remember once Thorn told me just to walk away from everything that was hurting me. And he got mad because I wouldn’t do it. He thought it was so easy. There’s a difference between heroin and marijuana. Thorn wouldn’t know. He’s never done coke or heroin, crank or meth. He’s done weed. Not laced with anything. Weed, marijuana, plain. All he knows is sweet smoke curling around the air, hanging there and hazing up the room. I wonder if he wanted me to walk away from him, or my mother and the drugs. I told him I just couldn’t drop everything and go, that I had a life, and it was good. But even a stranger knew that was a lie. So now, I’m trying to make a list of good things in my life. It isn’t a very long one, thorn is on it, my very own apartment in the center of LA is too. Knives and needles are on there as well. The last thing is my weight. It keeps dropping and that makes me happy. I think if I made a bad list, my weight would be on it too. It causes so many things. My arrhythmia, I don’t have a period anymore so I can’t have a baby, I don’t know why I starve myself. Everyone blames it on their mother. I will too. But maybe, I really just like having and excuse to be fucked up and have Thorn take care of me.

***

Thorn and I had a long discussion about my drug habit. He said he couldn’t handle not knowing if I’m going to come home from a party or if he’ll have to go look for me in emergency rooms or morgues. He told me either I stop or find someone who’s okay with it. It took a long time, but I’m done. The track marks on my arms keep letting me know about my past. I know I’ll never forget it.
I’m lying prostrate in front of the dishwasher. I’m just happy to be alive right now. I can hear the busy traffic outside of my window and I can smell the Asian cooking from two blocks down. Thorn moved in with me and now I can sleep in my own bed. I still don’t bleed, but I’m starting to eat. Just a little, but it’s better than what I was doing. I stayed at Thorn’s house for two months before I quit the shaking and screaming and vomiting. I’m clean now. I’m glad I decided to not lose him. I know he isn’t going to leave me for a woman who has a curve of a hip and a swelling breast. He doesn’t love me for how I look. He loves me because I’m his dream. I love him because he’s reality. Every rose has a thorn. No one wants to realize that. But with him, I realize everything. I can hear Thorn’s sleepy footsteps coming my way and I just smile. I know he’ll lie beside me and kiss my nose. Rub his hand up and down my knobby back and press his forehead against mine. He’ll tell me how much he loves me and how much he wants me to be with him until we grow old. I know I’ll be with him until the day I die. This boy is my life. Cool exaltation on a kitchen floor. This is being in love.