fool. // jade.

[✨ zozo.]

mom slams a pack of cigarettes on the table.
plastic-wrapped and contraband, passed to me in a pencil case when i asked to borrow a red pen.

it's code.
everything is these days.

i don't say anything but i bite down a smile - it escapes, my bottom lip bursts open.
pull a tiny bottle of whiskey (unopened, sealed) out of the jar of macaroni pasta.

i stare at my reflection and she stares back, blue eyes like mine. blinking.
shaking, a little, i think -- my eyes,
her eyes,
they sting.

then i pull a lighter out of my pocket, rip open the plastic, light a cigarette and lean back.
look at the sealed cap top, look back at her.

she doesn't move, save to scrunch her nose up at the cigarette smoke i blow to the side.
the smoke spells out letters: you can't say shit.

because i'm a cheerleader, my grades are good.
teen yearling, undamaged liver, lungs still clean enough.
just enough.

she leaves me alone, bottle and all.
says: i know. doesn't speak a word.



she might tell dad then dad will tell jasper then jasper will tell me to knock it off
because we're 16 and our parents still can't communicate with me. have stopped trying.

i'm not the addict in this house though. take a drag of a cigarette, open the damn bottle and down it anyway, gag from the rancid backlash of ash and brewed barley. whatever. i didn't relapse when my kids were 2 or had them figure out how to clean vomit stains out of a white rug when they were 7 years old.

jasper would say i'm winding her up on purpose and he's not wrong.

jasper would tell me that she's not actually drinking anymore and he's not wrong.

jasper would say i hold a grudge like a motherfucker and he's not wrong.

jasper would say i'm better than this and he's... always right. if he's the better half of me then what does that make my share?

whatever.

i've memorised how everyone sounds in this house and right now she sounds like she's getting ready to go run until she can barely stand up. classic addict avoidant reroute behaviour, some shrink told me about it when we were kids. funny how the pull of a certain drawer sounds so slightly different to the one above it, under it.

you learn to listen for the signs.
see them. smell them. before they're corporeal.



to anyone else they'd say: but it sounds exactly the same? that uptick at the end i'm supposed to pull back down to earth with a sense of reason, a stubbornness i cannot shake. demand them to point out the differences. beg them to see what i'm seeing.

i'm her she's me.
you look just like your mom.
don't say that please-


'i love you, jade.'
do you?



do i?
bottle empty, i stare at its glass corpse at the bottom of the bin.




you're just like-

i close the bin, stamp out the cigarette on the kitchen floor.
leave them both there for dad to find, to choose not to ask questions.
just the way i like it, daddy's girl.


close the door mom left open.
she's always doing that.