The school lobby was damp. Not damp with rain, sweat, tears or even pee. The lobby was damp with people. They were fuzzy reflections swaying with the water so that their images distorted like a picasso painting.
My friends talked in a soaked corner. They laughed, they had fun. I wanted to know what they were saying. If I went to them, I’d know. But then I'd be with them. My presence would dissipate their image and their laughter would age and lose its sheen. Soon they would melt and I’d be left in darkness clutching the broken china of my friends’ personas while I cried out for the light. 
So I stood still, but the walls moved without me. They had begun to dance like rain drop puddles swelled by feet. If I touched them, I was sure that my hand would go through to the other side and I’d create folds that sunk through to the floor so that we’d all be drifting towards the rubbery boots that splashed through.
I needed to get out of the building before my friends faces began to slip to the wet ground and they asked me to join them. I ducked my head and ran for the dry air.
------------------------------
It was nighttime and the whole house slept. I sat on my bed, leaning against the cold wall with a sketchbook lying limply on my lap and a red pen digging into my hand so that scarlet veins began to swirl from its point to water the lines of my palm.
Sometimes my brain was thick and sweaty, sometimes there was a sludgy thing
that dug inside me, trudging through my blood and falling against my bones. Sometimes it was hard to leave my bed when the sludge and sweat pushed me back to the dreams. But sleep wasn’t better and darkness speared my eyes, urging me to swallow the mud that fought my blood and choked my eyes.
           The sharp tip of the pen at my palm began to burn, pressing too hard, but maybe that was okay. Maybe I should hurt. I didn’t get to be sad, I wasn't allowed to be. You had to be sad because of something, or else what was the point?
           The pen’s point snapped lightly against cracked skin and red spilled from my hand to drip down my forearm. The ink gathered at the curve of my elbow and fell like weak tears onto the white comforter. The little pen shuddered against me as its ink poured out to paint the bed. My hand stung with ink and blood, but I couldn’t tell the difference between the two. I wasn’t sure that it mattered, when the blood had become the ink, when I had stopped caring.
             Everything was numb, The feelings were watery and tickled my skin. But I didn’t want the fuzz, I wanted ice. To pierce the skin, to drip through me and make the nothing stop. There was a point that sparkled silver with the shiny bulbs. I could make it an extension of me, I could kiss the silver and let it dance. Down, down, into me, until it swam.
------------------------------
“Jane!”
Water was chasing me. It was above and below and I was trying to run to the middle.
"Jane, baby wake up. Wake up!”
It was blue, but only outside. Beneath the blue was black. Thick and slimy, if it reached me I’d drown in its sludge.
“Peter! Get in here!”
The sludge would slide through my lips, slip down my throat, and squirm in my eyes. They’d know my insides, all the squishy bits that you’re not supposed to see.
“Susan, what's going on.”
“Peter, it's Jane...she...she….”
The middle ran away. I was running to the middle, but it had already left and I didn't know what to do
“Oh my god. Oh my god.”
If I asked them too, would they hold me under the water?
“Jane, what have you done, oh my god what have you done?”
I think that the water was playing a game.
“Peter, she’s not responding, call 911.”
I wanted to play but I didn't know how. I wanted to win, but no one would let me.
“911, what’s your emergency.”
“My daughter, it's my daughter.”
The middle was gone and the blue was gone and all that was left was me and the nothing light. The nothing light pulsed like an organ, but it wasn't pink. It was black, why was it black?
“Sir, what about your daughter?”
“She won't wake up, you need to come. Please come now.”
I wanted to ask them if they’d love inside me, the part that’s supposed to hide. I wonder if I had become my insides.
"Peter there’s so much blood.”
The water was almost here, it whispered dreadful things. I think that I wanted it to stop.