3: bleeding acid

I took my acid alone that night. But before I did, I'd been laying on my bed for hours after I'd arrived back at the dorm. I could feel the godforsaken parasite sitting in my mouth with its legs curled around my tongue, breathing steadily as though it was asleep. I couldn't quite discern its shape inside of me, but I could feel what must be its tail running down the back of my throat, unendingly. It liked to do this at the worst of times. The worst would be when I'm in the middle of talking to someone or singing, and it would crawl up my throat always I choked on it. And while it's sitting on my tongue, it would keep me from talking. Anything I tried to say would come out as a muffled, garbled mess, like a child trying to talk with their mouth full. But I seemed to worry more about if someone had managed to see the creature sitting there. No one ever did, but it was always one of the things I thought about the most.

Slowly, I parted my lips and allowed my jaw to hang open slightly. The weight of the thing shifted as I moved, readjusting itself like a dog settling in a bed. I lifted my hand up to my chin, resting my fingers just below my lips. If I moved too fast, it would notice me too soon and I wouldn't be able to grab it. My fingers began to shake as I moved my hand ever closer to the opening of my mouth, pulling back my lips and lightly touching the enamel of my teeth. I sighed slightly, then went for it.

My fingers barely made it past my teeth before the damned thing began squirming down my throat. I gagged and coughed out loud, struggling to take an easy breath for what felt like an eternity before it finally managed to find its place in my chest. I'd rolled over onto my side, thinking I was going to throw up. When I didn't, I took a few cautious deep breaths and allowed myself to relax on my stomach, though not without frustration. Every single time I tried this, this was how it ended.

I set a tab of LSD on my tongue and sat on the floor against the wall while head splitting deathcore played in the background. Taking it with Alaya was preferable, but I'd been taking it alone for so long that I thought to myself that I ought to just suck it up. There was no way that I could have the same luxury two nights in a row.

It was the same formula every time I took it. The walls seemed to melt with the colors and shadows blending together as though it were running paint. The music became rough spikes jutting out of my skin, puncturing the bubbles that floated through the dry air. They ran across my skin with the rhythm of waves, rising and falling, and especially becoming more disrupted whenever I moved my hand. I glanced up at the CD player sitting on the tabletop above me, and focused on the drums. I rested my hands on the floor and lightly tapped the polished wood along with the time signature. The longer I did this, the more the floor seemed to bend under my hands, becoming softer and dented as though I'd been turning it to literal mush with the pattering.

Ryan was a good drummer. He seemed to manage well with tempo changes inspired by the more popular death metal bands he grew up listening to. The things he managed to do with the drum set that he'd compiled together over the years always impressed me. The band I was listening to in particular I'd always used as a reference for coming up with riffs to accompany my lyrics. It was more modern deathcore and was a better example for what Ryan's style had evolved into since high school.

I could hear the notes now. They repeated in my mind over and over along with the drums. I imagined myself playing them along the fret board of Cillian's guitar alongside Ryan's drumming, and found myself more than satisfied with the riff. The lyrics came soon after, and I grabbed my notebook and immediately wrote them down, the pen feeling as though it was bending between my fingertips, a loose, wobbly stick. Each word spilled out of the pen as though it knew what I was thinking, scrawling the words across each page.

I stopped when I ran out of words. I leaned back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, as the melting colors all blended together and dripped over me like a sweet and savory candy liquid. There was no better place to be than in this magical dream. I could taste a sweet high filling my body, my heart pounding faster and faster until it felt like it was trying to get out of the prison that was my chest. My hands trembled with the overwhelming elation coursing through me, an unbelievable feeling that could be unmatched, but the one I sought every time I took the flavorless tabs. Here, I felt more alive than I ever could've without it.

The limbo lasted longer than it usually did, stretching throughout the next day. The world blurred around me and I could barely remember how I'd gotten to Ryan's garage in the afternoon, after class. I was standing in front of him, watching as he tuned Cillian's guitar on the old beat up couch, a smoldering cigarette sitting between his lips. I settled into the moment, glancing around at the others in the room, and sat down beside him.

I took the moment to look down at myself, remembering exactly who I was. It was funny sometimes, the way I seemed to forget the body I was in. It happened most during the limbo, but it's not like I was any better with it even when I was completely lucid. I even resented looking just at my hands sometimes. That feeling of unreality never seemed to quite go away: the idea that I was in a skin that wasn't quite my own.

"Did you have any ideas?" Ryan asked. "For a new song, I mean."

I extended my hand to him, gesturing for Cillian's guitar. "I'll show you."

He handed me the guitar and I got to my feet, heading over to the amps and the pedal board. Elias was watching me from across the room, practically hugging his bass, as I plugged in the guitar and turned on the amp. Cillian wasn't in the room, strangely, but momentarily I ignored this fact. I pulled the strap over my shoulders and began playing the riff I came up with the night before. The notes didn't nearly sound as electrifying as they did in my head the night before, but judging by Ryan's expression, this was enough to impress him.

When I finished what I was playing, I couldn't help but glance over at Elias again. He watched me with a nondescript expression on his face from across the room, as if he was sorely disappointed with me.

"How do you just do that?" Ryan said, cutting through my thoughts. "You come up with riffs so quickly."

I looked over at him and shrugged. "I just do. Where's Cillian?" I pulled the guitar strap off and set the instrument down beside the couch.

Elias spoke before Ryan could answer. "He went into the house. Were you not paying attention?"

"You must be stupid," I muttered. "Whatever." I turned away and walked up the steps to the door that led into Ryan's house. He still lived at home, in a nice suburban house a little ways away from the campus, and I could perfectly understand why. The house was nice, well-furnished and cared for---better than any place I'd ever lived in. I took off my shoes as I stepped through the door, setting them right beside Cillian's. The pristine white carpet was too perfect to risk ruining with my old shoes covered in dirt and grunge.

I found Cillian drinking a glass of water in the dining room, standing beside the round wooden table. I watched him as a few minutes went by, not quite sure why I even bothered coming to talk to him. But the few minutes had passed, and he was now looking at me, waiting for me to say something.

"You need something?" he said, before shaking his head. "No, no, you don't need me for something, isn't that right? You never come looking for me for any good reason."

I sighed, leaning on a side table behind me. It hit the wall with a quiet tap. "What do you think I want you for now?"

"This is about your sheets of acid, is that right, mate? Well, I took them because---"

"Wait, wait, wait, you took my acid?"

He shot an odd look at me. "Yes, you reamed me for it this morning. Are you feeling alright?"

I sighed. "What do you think?"

He shook his head. "I don't know why you won't admit you have a problem. You take so much of this stuff, you've certainly gotten tolerant of it now? How big of a dose did you take last night, hm?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came off of my tongue.

"Right, of course. You're so close to just killing yourself." He set the glass down on the table. "So, what is your problem? You don't seem to care if you accidentally kill yourself."

"You're right, I don't." I pulled my hand over my face in exasperation. "Do you really want me to explain this now?"

"Better now than never."

I looked away from him and tried to best collect my thoughts. "Things just aren't right...with me. I've spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not I should tell you what's been happening. Years, actually, and I don't think I will, but I can tell you this." I took a breath and pulled away from the table I was leaning against. I could feel my heart rate rise and my hands start to tremble as I thought about what I'd say next. "I can never look myself in the mirror. Every time, it makes my skin crawl, as though I'm looking at a stranger. Life doesn't feel real except when it's painful. The acid, it makes everything feel real, but in a good way. It makes the world colorful, euphoric, and alive. I can't stand anything without it."

Cillian was silent for a moment, and I returned my eyes to him, awaiting his response. What this could be described as is a desperate plea for me to have my acid back, and I had very little doubt he'd give in, but I had to try nonetheless. It was the only good thing I could count on at this point in my life.

"I...I don't know what to say. And what you said yesterday, about the parasitic creature thing---"

"If you're just gonna call me a schizo like Elias did, I don't want to talk about that." I shook my head. "I didn't really want to talk about any of this, but here we are."

He raised his hands in surrender. "Yeah, fine. We'll stop talking about it. But here's the thing, I'm still not going to give you your acid back. That's definitely not going to make things any better right now."

I wanted so badly to dispute what he said, but I didn't have the energy or the will to argue with him. "Alright."

After another moment of silence, "We should go and practice now."

"Yeah."

"Did you come up with anything new?"

I nodded. "Come on, I'll show you."

He set the glass on the table and the two of us walked back to the garage, where Ryan and Elias were waiting for us. I showed Cillian the progression I'd come up with, showed him how to play it, and then read out my shitty lyrics draft to everyone from my notebook. It had been a couple of months since we wrote our last song, and in that time I forgot how much I enjoyed the process. Despite how much I got pissed off at them, writing music certainly took the edge off---the only socially acceptable place to scream about my issues until I was red in the face and no one was any the wiser to what I was even going on about, just applauding me for my violent art.