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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Distances” Down in the Dirt v213 (11/23)  Order the paperback book: 
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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Instant Karma the Down in the Dirt September-December 2023 issues collection book
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get the 422 page September-December 2023 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book: 
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Save Me First Mary Paulson I know you. You’re the woman who sleeps under the statue of the fireman carrying the little girl. We met in the hospital, detox— our assigned beds, side-by-side. We are living under an angry star, you said. You were all beat up, sores between your skinny legs. You could barely pee. In rehab I learn that you haven’t had a drink in 18 years but at age forty-five, you can’t get off the pipe. Stayed in school until your blonde crush from English Lit skipped out and you followed her, following her boyfriend to Fresno and back. Broken-hearted when they told you plainly, get lost. Today you got your dentures. I saw you holding your jaw. I can’t feel my face, you complained. You’re too smart for street life but can’t get comfortable anywhere else— steal my stuff whenever my back is turned, but what you take is minor: a bookmark with a description of the benefits of lavender written on the back, a blue pen, dark plum lipstick. I can’t decide if you do it to annoy me or for me to notice you or if this is how you build a new life, with remnants from someone else’s. You who love the blues. Yelled at me when I didn’t know the greats: Nina Simone or Memphis Minnie, T-Bone Walker, Slim Harpo and Ma Rainey. I watch you in the Day Room, eyes closed, humming softly, rocking out to Billy Holiday on the radio. Weekends, I go home to my parents, sleep in my old room with the skylight and the day-glow purple wallpaper— Standing naked in front of the mirror, I like to trace the connections between my scars – this one a cigarette burn, that one the result of a set of ginsu knives I used to keep right here— under this bed. As if my body is a map of the journeys I traveled with weapons in my heart. The ceiling in my old room is low and sloping. Pasted to my window, facing out towards the backyard is the sticker they gave us during a first-grade field trip to the firehouse— a fireman carrying a little girl. That’s me, I’m the little girl. So they’ll know to come for me first. If there’s a fire, they’ll save me first. When I tell you about the sticker, you say I’m the little girl and instantly I’m irritated at your stupidity, alarmed. That’s ridiculous, I snap— just because you sleep under the statue of a fireman carrying a little girl doesn’t make you special— you’re too old to be the little girl, too big, no fireman will carry you. But I’m getting older too, bigger. Sugar cravings, insomnia, double-stuff Oreos in church basements and I’m not as cute as I used to be. I like you, but I’m on fire right now, red writhing eating me alive— you just have to wait. |
