E-radhika

Posted on the 09 November 2016 by Rarasaur @rarasaur

I don't know what I'm supposed to write tonight.

I'm just sitting in grey sweatpants. They were sent to me in my first quarterly prison box, which I received on my anniversary. I suppose they're my anniversary sweatpants, my prison sweatpants, a tiny thread to the life that was.

I could tell you about quarterly boxes, and how we wait for them. I could tell you about the watch that Dave sent in one, and the little earrings. It's such a superficial use of money but they were so dear to me. I could tell you about the bunky I had at the time. The one who went through my letters and told everyone else that I made Dave up, and I could tell you about all the silly petty stuff that happened while I was there.

I could talk to you about walking through the halls in these sweatpants, feeling at home, and how the girls always commented on my walk. It's a free walk when I am at home. (I could tell you how rarely I walk like this now.) My hips move, my arms swing, my chin stays parallel to the floor, I walk like I am going somewhere.

I usually am.

I don't know what I'm supposed to write tonight, but I know how I write, and so do you.

There's a pattern to it. It will end soon.
... and this is where I say,

But what if it never ends?

I like to balance my words as often as I like to topple them over. Sometimes you say, nice poem, but really it was prose. Sometimes you say, great essay, but really it was poetry.

I am a creature in the habit of words, a reader of words in the habit of creation.
I know how I write but, right now, I don't know what to write.

I'm not wearing a bra, and the gray tank matches the sweats. I asked for prompts at the beginning of this month and a friend said I should write something erotic.

Breasts are erotic.
So I titled a post "my breasts". (It hardly seemed reasonable to write about someone elses.)

I began:

I couldn't steal packets of peanut butter from the prison kitchens because my breasts were too small and the square plastic edges would protrude obviously through my shirt. It was a blessing. I didn't want to be responsible for stealing. I didn't want to be responsible for feeding girls who were hungry.

But that wasn't erotic, so I erased it, and googled erotic writing. I like prompts. They tell me what to write when I don't know what to write, which happens far more often than not.

And you know how I write.
There's a pattern to it.

It is tumbleweed, circular, lost.
Sometimes it seems like it'll never end.

Sometimes, it circles back to a point.
My breasts have a point, which is different than a purpose. I'm supposed to tell you how they feel, but I imagine they feel like most breasts. Like ziplock bags full of pudding and meat fat. I'm supposed to tell you how they feel, but I don't imagine they feel anything.

They're heartless, soulless.

If they had eyeballs, they'd be beady-eyed and blank. Carnivorous cannibals, probably, what would they care about life?
Is this erotic yet?

When I say my full name fast, it sounds like 'rotica. It is worse when I hesitate. (My names are so cumbersome that I always hesitate.)

What's your name?
.... Ah, Radhika.
Erotica?

Sure, let's go with that.
I've had stranger things written on my coffee cup.

Last week there was a series of digits.

I asked him what it meant, and he said, it's a phone number. Mine. Call me.
I asked him what I would say, and he laughed,

but really...
what would I say?

I don't even know what to write most days, but at least I know how I write. I am tumbleweed, going as much forward as I go backward. I am purposeless points, and squishy bags of inedible combinations. I am prompted, but I never answer the prompt, I just let it blow me down the empty desert streets of my mind. I stride like I'm going somewhere.

I usually am.

But not tonight.
Tonight, I just don't know what I'm supposed to write.