It's okay

It’s okay 15 parts that are trying to be okay

By Randi Fellows

Part 1 I am sitting next to a bully. The bully is a she, and she makes me very uncomfortable. I feel her watching me, holding her breathe. I do the same, not noticing until it’s too late, and the bully crawls inside me. We start saying things to my mother that aren’t even remotely true. “LOOK MOM THERE’S A DRAGON ON THE CHANDELIER” when we don’t even own a chandelier, when my mother doesn’t live here anymore, and I am the dragon.

This is the sort of joke the bully tells and I live vicariously through: Knock knock Who’s there Your dog hates you and he looks at you like that because he thinks you’re going to hit him That’s it, that’s the punch line.

Bully laughs, I sit on my bed, unable to move, clenching the sheets, dripping with sweat and humiliation. I wait for the next joke. I wait a long time.

I wait so long that I ask for the next joke. I want to hear her say it.

There is a visually disorienting segway and I watch her with the knife Hand flat on the table Playing five finger fillet Playing courage and faith Playing another god damn game While we are missing the point There is a pause The scene opens with a panning shot of the bully begging for her life

Cut It was a dream sequence And when I wake up My dog is dead The bully is dead The knife is gone

Part 2 The days are getting longer You name it “Winter” You cover it with “snow” There is nothing else to say about it Part 3 I AM NOT ALONE BUT EVEN IF I WAS I STILL WOULDN’T KILL MYSELF. I WOULD RUN AWAY INSTEAD. I WOULD LIVE IN MY CAR AND EAT BETTER FOOD. MAYBE FORGETTING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IS HOW YOU GET BETTER SOMETIMES.

Part 4 The post-it note on my locker reads: “Is this your knife?”

Part 5a We sat in the living room for hours.

We would chuckle, call it the “undead” room.

We are zombies. Get it?

Summoned by a great and powerful illness To walk the earth and rot

Part 5b It rained and my body fell into the soil My body as gas My body as you It’s not so bad when I stop tearing the world apart Measuring these small parts of space As “time well spent”

Part 6 I watch the bully from across the hallway. Different rooms for different reasons, I write while she slowly, casually, breaks everything she owns I caught her looking at me, so I apologized What do we have in common anymore?

Part 7 I took a hike today Away from you guys I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings I just need some time to pass by

Part 8 I called the bully today to say something to someone: I don’t read books right now If I make coffee, it’s not coffee, it’s hemlock I pretend it’s hemlock I pretend I’m Socrates with a knife and no other choice Which, by the way, you left that knife at my house I don’t know if you did it on purpose

Part 9 I thought, again, about the knife, today. Where do you put a weapon when you’re not using it? Why aren’t you using it against them? Tell me the joke, say it, loudly, so that it’s not my fault. I wait for the joke. I wait a long time, but it comes, and I think it always will.

Part 10 What have we been laughing about for the past two days, the poorly executed camera angles? The non-linear plot? The way cold weather determines what I’m allowed to love? Maybe the aliens watching from my bedroom window, praying for me, because there’s something saving me, I swear.

It’s not fucking funny anymore.

Part 11 It’s safe to be in this room Because the boy in the corner said to me “You can’t die here” Part 12: questions afterwards, when you’re so sorry I really hope I’m not triggering you You’re here, with your body, I promise Someone once told me that there’s nothing wrong with being sad Tell me Please

Part 13: a joke We couldn’t stop crying So I raised my arms up to the sky so that maybe The scars would start glowing And I would glow really hard You would laugh really hard A soft hush surrounding Part 14: I saw her in the grocery store, sad as hell. We made eye contact. She looked small. Less like a bully.

Part 15: the bully tells the joke It’s late My phone rings The next morning my answering machine says “My other gun is a knife”

It’s okay