Frankie didn't feel right. His body wasn't his own; every time he looked in the mirror it didn't look right. His mind refused to register it as him, even when he stared at the reflection in the mirror for hours.
      His voice didn't come out  like it was supposed to sound; it slithered out of his mouth, like c***roaches in the kitchen when the lights were off. He would say things he didn’t  mean. He couldn't stop the words from coming out, like dirty tap water dripping from a faucet.
“ When will my hands ever be clean”, Frankie read. “ When will I ever be clean”, Frankie said. He would wake up somewhere he had never been before, limbs crumpled, head pounding.
      It felt like someone else was living inside of him. It would whisper in his ear, in its low soothing voice, terrible things. Words made of knives and pills and blood, a sad person’s sex, drugs, and rock n roll.
       Everything would go dark. He would be paralyzed, unable to move, as he looked at the ceiling. The ceiling seemed to stare back. His father's footsteps pounded above.  He retreated back into the cool cave of his mind.
     The pastor told his family he could help Frankie; that there was something wrong buried inside of him, something they could cure with the power of god and the right treatment. They took him to a man. A man whose voice echoed like a bottle of cheap vodka shattering in an empty messy bedroom. Or like a televangelist. His words felt like when you rush to pick up the pieces, desperate to hide the glass. Your hands covered in tiny cuts, covered in blood.
        Frankie was no stranger to blood. Like clockwork, he would bleed for up to weeks. Weeks where his organs would move over for an intruder.For this other thing. He covered his bed in other stains to hide the blood splatters. After a while, all bad fades together. 
     “ When will I ever be clean”. It hurts, but he’s used to it.
       The man says hurting is good. That it’ll get the bad out of him. That if it’s hurting it’s working. The camp hurt the most. Slightly more than the look in his mother’s eyes.
      Frankie moves out, eventually. He can’t be around the eyes and the steps and the crosses, it hurts. He knows if he dies the bad will leave his body. They’ll call his death an accident, and call him a good Christian, and bury him in a dress. They’ll have an open casket and say tearful goodbyes to somebody else. They will leave flowers for Francesca, and hell fire for Frankie. They won't know they are murderers, as they hammer nails into his coffin. It won't remind them of nails on a crucifix. Frankie wasn’t a boy. Jesus wasn’t a jew.
         But Frankie isn’t ready to die. Frankie doesn’t want to become a statistic. He won’t rest in peace or in power, he’ll rest in pieces.
           Years later, Frankie will still be haunted.  He will think of himself as a dark alley because you never know what’s around the corner. But he will turn the corner.  Frankie is not clean or a good Christian or the perfect daughter. But Frankie is tough. He will leave kind words to Francesca, but he will leave the future to Frankie.