Bouche

Jeremy Marie Boucher II "Bouche" (he/her)

Born: April 8th, 1967

It is a day very much like the rest.

You wake up in the late afternoon. Opening your eyes you see the large tapestry of the night sky of the Northern Hemisphere you have pinned to the popcorn ceiling of your basement bedroom. Mythical creatures you believed were real for too long dance across the deep blue backdrop. Your gaze slides down the sickly seafoam green walls, to where the precious, waning twilight seeps through the aging blackout blinds, and the shadows stretch their spindly fingers across piles of crumpled food wrappers and half-finished collections of vintage figurines that haven't been unboxed in fifteen years.

It takes you half an hour to will yourself to sit up, and another half hour to heave the weight of thirty years of solitude out of bed. You stagger through the refuse to the stairs, up into the dark hallway cluttered with even more abandoned toys.

In the bathroom, you avoid the mirror; still, you catch a glimpse of someone you have no alternative but to recognize as yourself.

You are alone. Where has he gone? Probably to Boston, which might as well be Mars. You've been to Boston, haven't you? You must have, when you were the other you, the one who toured the country, and sang for foreign dignitaries, and met the President, and smiled, and smiled, and smiled…

But now you are alone. Your face has the hollow placidity of a drunk. You are high on isolation.

You have people who miss you. And they would hate you if they knew what you have done. You are trapped and you will never escape. Staring up at the fabric sky in your filthy bedroom is the closest you will ever get to standing in the moonlight.

You pull yourself away from the mirror and the cruel things it makes the voice say in the space between your animal-ears.

You eat a stale croissant in the kitchen, in the dark. You aren't allowed to turn on the lights when he's not home. And you creep back into the basement, which is BOUTOPIA, and belongs to you alone.

You have wept all the tears you had to weep in this room long ago. You screamed yourself hoarse, hoping and fearing that someone would hear and find you. But nobody came, and you are still alone.

The numbing balm of isolation eases the pain of so many wounds. But people were not meant to live this way.

You were never meant to live at all.

Your animal-ears twitch as the cruel voice grows louder and fills the yawning void inside you.

When he comes home later tonight, you will greet him at the door, embrace him, and take his coat. You will tell him that yes, you did eat breakfast, that you played a game, that you read a book, and that it was a good day.

Very much like the rest.