Isabella Neroni was six years old, sitting
on the floor in a project apartment. Her mother sat on the couch watching
television. Isabella's hair was dirty and nappy looking. She played with a
scruffy little used doll, the head wobbled and sometimes fell off.
The phone rang, her mother picked it up,
talked for a little bit and hung up the phone. She said without looking away
from the television, “Isabella your father is coming to see you.”
Isabella was happy.
She ran out to the porch and sat on the
steps.
Her friends would walk by and she would tell
them about her father coming over. Her friends looked at her and did not care.
Hours passed, no one came.
She looked at her shoes.
She looked at trees.
Every time she heard a car coming up Robinson
Street she would look and it would not be him.
She picked up a stick and started swinging
it to pass time.
Two hours passed and he was still not there.
So she thought of things she could do
outside, she jumped rope, threw a tennis ball against a wall, and climbed
several trees.
Still he was not there.
Three hours passed and it was dark.
Her mother sat inside the project apartment
drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
No one cared about her.
It was obvious now.
Isabella looked up at the moon, it shined down
at her.
She could see herself from the moon.
Down there on the hard earth.
She felt so alone at that moment.
She knew there were millions of humans on
the earth and not one would sit next to her, to be her friend, not a one.
The wind cuddled her face and the fall air
smelt beautiful.
She took pleasure in that.
There would always be nature.
Even if humans did not love her, at least
the wind would always shake the tree leaves and shiver her bones.
At least the moon would always be there.
There were things that did not change, the
moon and wind.
She looked back at the apartment, she knew
her mother was in there doing nothing, not thinking about her.
Isabella wanted to be nice to someone.
She wanted someone to be nice to her.
But there was no one.
Isabella could not recall ever saying how
she felt to anyone.
It seemed like she lived in silence.
Her mother seemed alone.
She would be alone.
She walked down the street there was no one,
it was cold and everyone was inside watching television.
Isabella was alone and liked it.
She walked into the woods and sat next to a
creek.
Isabella looked down at the water flowing
over the rocks, at the glistening of the moon.
She did not cry.
I want a friend, I'm so afraid, no one knows
how afraid I am, I want to tell someone, I want to tell a lot of people how
scared I am, I can't though, I have to keep this in, I can't show weakness,
this is not the place to be weak, they will take advantage me like momma says,
momma cries, I've seen momma cry, momma lied to me today, so did my daddy, I'm
daddy's little girl, I am so scared, I wish something would happen that would
make everything okay, I could wake up in a house, I would like to wake up in a
house so much, a house, daddy will never come, my own daddy does not love me,
my own mother does love me, this is my life, no one loves me, this is bad, I
don't like this, something is wrong, I want something different, no one loves
me, this is bad, I'm afraid, I want to lay down and hide forever, but I guess
this is it, suffer to the end, when I'll get old enough I'll drink like momma,
she seems to get happier the more she drinks, that's what I'll do, it'll make
it all better.
Isabella walks to a park and sits on a swing
set alone in the dark and says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall
get government cheese.”
Isabella stands up, takes off her clothes,
stands naked in the moonlight.
The moon shines whitening her vagina.
The moonlight says, “You are ruined.”
Isabella walks the forest for years.
She lives in caves and sleeps on the moist
soil, communes with the pine trees and kisses bears on the nose, eats mushrooms
and swims with trout in the streams.
Her friends are wild dogs, turkeys, bears,
and white tailed deer.
She trains in the woods, testing her Will,
she fasts for over two weeks at a time, getting her nourishment from the air.
She finds hawk talons in the woods, clamps
them to her breast and dangles herself from a tree for two weeks.
She learns to levitate but not fly.
Isabella goes to Nevada, to The Wilderness.
Isabella is sitting on a rock looking at a
lizard.
The lizard is not moving.
It is 123 degrees.
Sweat has covered Isabella's naked body.