Memories that won't go away even though I really want them to

Content warning: this contains depictions of real animal cruelty, death, suicidality, alcoholism, and spousal abuse.

Cold wintry night. I see a loggerhead turtle in the shore. Blood splatters from its neck in the direction to the waves. Eyes closed. Unmoving. I can't help standing there for a while, wondering who I should warn. I go. As I look back, a couple found it too. The two looking down, stark contrast against a white wall of light, the Mediterranean, lit up by a full moon.

Things I want to do and can do but can't do. Things I don't want to do and can do but can't do.

Twenty cormorants in a shallow marsh, wings open, taking in the sun. Stupid design.

Dirty water. So many jellyfish it's impossible to even take a dip in. No warning in sight.

Old dog follows me. Always liked her dangling ears, like a cartoon. She tries to pick up the tomato pieces that fall from my sandwich. "She loves tomato". An old man. His wife is pulling water from the well. I retreat into the shade of a giant mulberry tree. They're all dead now. The house is a minimalist airBNB.

Gloria in excelsis Deo. Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. I don't donate.

A car strikes a cat and speeds away. It writhes, choking in blood. I approach it and it scratches me. Vitreous eyes, like old candy. I can see shattered teeth along the asphalt. What help could I call? Why was I cycling at night in a country road? It stops moving.

A mountain lake so clear I could see beneath the inmobile surface. Strange, long, green arms birthing from the floor. I remember David Attemborough and think of kelp. But I'm two thousand meters high.

We try to fuck in the dark, not disturbing the other five people in the apartment. It's all we can afford. I still see her face. As if I knew what I was doing.

In a glue trap for bugs, a sparrow is stuck. I call someone. He throws it in the bin, still trying to flap. "At least kill it before". "It doesn't matter".

A cove beneath a house. The Mediterranean furiously beats inside. If I fall, I would surely die. When the murmur of the tourists above the cliff is smoothed by the waves, I feel truly alone. I could've been there all I wanted.

A belt from a coat tied to a belt from some jeans tied to a doorhandle, passed over a door, in turn tied to my neck. I pull slightly, head passing the upper limit. Foot still on the ground. Too tall.

Last week at a shitty job. They have me teach a new one. Mexican man, mid 30s, surprisingly positive attitude. Last day, I taught him all he needed to know. At 1AM, we mop the floors. Talk about stealing the food before the managers throw it, for us or the homeless. "Shame most folks don't think like us". Doesn't know me much. I pack my things and say goodbye. He stops me at the register. "Whatever it is you want, I'm sure you will get."

The fish is severely sick. It can't be saved. I wait until I'm alone, and decapitate it with a kitchen knife. Swiftly. I then cry for minutes.

A house overgrown in the middle of the forest. More moss than stucco and wood. I look inside a window, left side. A table and some chairs like someone was about to have a meal. It's about a hundred years old. Look at those beams. If I get inside I will be crushed.

Vodka bottle in my handbag, seashore before me, red under a moon just as passionate. When will I do it?

Kyrie Eleison.

I sneak into an irrigation canal and emerge outside of closed fields. An open expanse of white radish flowers. Nobody ever touches it.

The meanest snake to ever scare me, slithering between my feet.

My boss screams at me, I cry. A month later, my boss screams at me. "Fucking heard you already".

An old man crushes a gecko. I hear the bones crack and the slight curve of a bloodstain, boot marks on it. He throws it in the trash. Like it's nothing. He beat his wife right after.

I throw a stone up in the air and it lands on the surface of the frozen lake. The crackling emerges loud, one side of the valley to the other.

A woman picks up barnacles. She looks happy. She told me she's not allowed to. I look at her ass as she leans down. I feel an urge. Something about the pink shorts and the BBC-infused passion about the sea. We had plenty of time to satisfy it. Much later. Much later.

Some I don't tell. Because not even my shrink knows or will know.

A group of hikers passes me by. I wait until they're gone. The marsh is full from recent rains. Song of rustling leaves and mallard ducks overhead. A mulberry tree branch crosses the country road, surrounded by reeds. I have my belt. I could face it right here, like an omen. Somebody is there to help me fight the urge.

I step on a wasp nest. An old farmer comes screaming, warning me. Too late.

A giant husky attacks my dog. His eye bleeds until I get home. My uncle yells a thread of insults against the owner I can't help but find cathartic. Family feud. Small town nepotism; cops wouldn't get him.

A long avenue, grey covered in dark spots, solidified bubblegum. Cities are disgusting. I later decided towns are too.

A packet of metamizole, two of painkillers, one of antidepressants, 60 pills of benzodiazepine. The body was stronger than the mind. I close the drawer.

Two grandmothers I loved but I don't know anymore. It's fear now, and I know why. I don't like knowing why. Hate is less painful than love with doubts.

A fish spine gets stuck in my neck. For three days, I can't sleep, or eat without piercing pain. Can't try fish to this day.

"you're bound for great things, you're bound for great things!" I sing. I take a swig of gin. Must be eleven in the night. The lighthouse spins above me. A black cat surrounds me, as if I had anything to offer the world.

A house I've never seen what's inside.

It's a fourth floor. It's enough. I just don't want to ruin anyone's day.

I'm alone in the middle of the reeds, riding a bike. I stop by the hangar. A young man smoking outside greets me and opens the door. "you can take a look, at all of them, take pics if you want". He opens the door of one of them for me, the biggest. Vaguely looks like a Cessna 172, though it isn't. I accept his invitation. I want to fly.

A town in the mountains with black gables. Black gables, a Mediterranean's surprise. I decide to live there.

Someone kicks a bug I was looking at for too long. I infer my action was "gay".

I drop a jar of tuna and panic. I drink all the alcohol I have at hand and pass out. When I wake up, the kitchen is crawling with ants.

The same swallow nest right above my window, in the corner between the wall and the upper balconies. Summer after summer. Little ones twitching at five in the morning. Would be a fool if it annoyed me.

My favourite book is about a couple of teenagers living in Barcelona, uncovering mysteries from the city's victorian past. I want to be like the leading girl, but I never say it. I'm horrified to read it now. Quality might've just been teenager naivité.

Something in the sea, beneath the waves. A white shadow. I could never know what it was.

A bleeding seagull. I approach it. It has a fishing line attached to its wing. I try to catch it by surprise, but it's quicker. I go home. You're dead.

A woman steps on a silkworm. I am sitting next to it. Something green splatters in my direction. She finds it funny.

Two magpies feast on the innards of a red fox. When I drive over it, they step aside, not flying, but by queer little steps. As if they are being polite.

They've been hiring for the better part of two years.

I pick up a perfectly cubic piece of mineral. Has sulfur in it. The valley was carved into a martian landscape by all the digging. Somehow I find it appealing. It's somewhere south.

A row of pictures of a boy I can't bear to look at anymore. It was useless to explain to them.

One salamander in a fountain. I've never seen one. Later on, another one on the road, guts splattered across the gravel.

I put a dead cockroach in the handbag of someone I hate.

A bottle full of daphnia on top of my cupboard, distracting me from studying.

I beat up the kid, who looks up at me terrified. He was hurling insults no less than 5 seconds earlier. Nobody ever did again. Let it be known: you fight fire with fire.

Coked up doctor in front of me, "from one to ten, how much of a girl are you".

The endless fucking stress to get things done. But that's not a memory, 'cause I've been told it never ends.

Thank you kindly for reading,

THelen.