Work Text:
Load up on guns, bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend
She's over-bored and self-assured
Oh no, I know a dirty word
* * * * *
Home.
Four letters.
One word.
Yelena is one word, too. A little more than four letters but— well— it’s kind of the same, right? After all, Yelena doesn’t know the meaning of either. She doesn’t even know if there is a meaning or if it’s all just worthless— a lie. Her home was a lie— home is one word— her name is one word— so that means she must be a lie too.
Yelena.
She mulls over the word as she peers out the window in Budapest. The sun hits her face dead on, a spotlight of sorts, and it feels like she’s going to burn up. The fire moves from her face and into her veins, the flames circulating her entire body in minutes. She grits her teeth against it— against the sun, she tells herself. Not her anger— never her anger— she’s not angry. Why would she be angry?
Her home was a lie— her name is a lie— so she tells herself lies.
Still, she doesn’t move. She’s been doing this for a few weeks now. Standing in the sun, feeling more like a flame than a girl. She’s been doing this for weeks now. Telling herself that she’s not angry, she’s free. For weeks now— feeling more like a lie than a flame than a girl.
Yelena— maybe it means girl. It certainly doesn’t mean free.
She’s a girl. Two eyes. Ten fingers. Breasts and hips and the outer workings of a vagina. Half a vagina. What good is that though? Like a gun without the bullets, she’s a pretty useless weapon. A pretty useless girl.
Half a girl?
What makes a girl?
The bullets make the gun so doesn’t the uterus make the woman?
The uterus makes the home— four letters; home— the uterus makes the life— four letters; life.
Yelena doesn’t make life— she can’t, not even if she wanted to. Which, for the record, since removing her uterus, she doesn’t want to. She has no desire to do the actions to fill her missing home with some much needed life.
The uterus makes the home— the uterus makes the libido— the libido makes the life. Yelena has no libido. Yelena has no life to give her home because her home is gone and so is her libido so she has no desire to make life.
Yelena doesn’t make life— she takes it. Constantly and without fail. She knows she will continue to, even as she stands in the sun of Budapest, contemplating if her name means girl or if it means gun— dangerous, loaded, numerically coded but nameless gun.
Yelena. A girl? A gun? A girl or a gun?
Both.
A girl is just a gun— just a weapon of a home until unloaded and then she’s nothing. Neither a home nor a weapon, barely a girl, empty and used and homeless.
Huh— how ironic— so is Yelena. Homeless in the Budapest sun feeling less than a girl, not enough like a gun, too much like she’s going to explode.
Yelena steps out of the sun— steps out of the flames— doesn’t quite step out of the lie of her name— and instead sits at the kitchen table. Her eyes draw to where they usually rest. To three little marks on the wall.
The marks of life— life; four letters; one word— the marks of a man— man; three letters; one word.
A man can’t give life but he can also never be stripped of his ability to carry it. Not in the same way a woman can— a girl. A tiny, useless, used up girl. A man will never be a gun— a man will never be a dirty word. Weapon. Weapon is a dirty word. A man will never be a weapon. Will never be loaded, unloaded, numerically nameless and yet blamed as though he were the one to take his name from himself.
Yelena didn’t choose her name nor did she take it away— didn’t choose the red room— didn’t choose to kill until, of course, she did. But by then she wasn’t a girl, she was just a weapon, so manhandled it was expected of her. So used that it was the only way to take back some of what she’d lost. So dirty there was no point in trying to get clean.
Yeah, a girl is a gun, but, then again, she also isn’t.
Because people care for their guns. People clean their guns. People love their guns.
People don’t take the bullets from their guns.
People do take the bullets from their girls.
Do take the homes from their girls.
Take their names and their lives and their homes.
From their girls— not from their men. A man doesn’t need to be taken because a man isn’t dangerous— a man isn’t a gun— a man isn’t a weapon to be abused by someone and then blamed. As if a gun can shoot itself— as if a weapon can harm without being wielded by someone who was given life by a woman.
Yelena— at least her name will never breed more weapons to be abused in the wrong hands. At least no girls with her name will become guns. No girls will be lied to— will have to lie— will be a lie.
Because Yelena won’t give life no matter how many she takes.
Because Yelena doesn’t have a home to give life anymore— her home is gone.
Because Yelena is only half a girl— only half a weapon.
Too bad half a girl is still a girl— still half a weapon— still not a man. A girl is not a man.
A girl is a weapon ; is a gun ; is a lie ; is a home , until not — until nothing.
Until gone.
Yelena is gone.
One word.
Four letters.
Gone.
* * * * *
And I forget just why I taste
Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile
I found it hard, was hard to find
Oh well, whatever, never mind