Tickety-Boo

Aug 31

When The Fiddlehead informed me that my recent piece of non-fiction, “Tickety-Boo,” would be featured in their Fall 2026 issue, it was a bit of a gut-punch—I was overcome with nerves and insecurity. Once that passed, I was able to celebrate this small victory, knowing that some personal work has been seen through to the other side, and with any luck, might reach others in a powerful way. “Tickety-Boo” is vulnerable, icky, and comes with a content warning. Read if you dare!

Tickety-Boo

Her first kiss was forced on her by a boy who chased her behind a couch and grabbed her face with greasy hands. He smelled like macaroni and margarine. She didn’t want it. She didn’t like it.

She was squishy once, cute, in a homely home haircut way. And she cried a lot (still does, but for different reasons) because she was soft (not anymore) and loved with her whole heart, boys who were cruel, boys who were kind, boys who dumped water over her head in the schoolyard, telling her to go take a shower, boys who whipped her with their shirts in gym class, hard enough to leave a red, ruined, rotten welt. Boys who forgot her name.

I totally hate my life right now. But that has nothing to do with the frozen buffalo chicken pizza I ate for dinner, because I loved that. See, I’m not lonely, because I have pets, but others feel for me because my body is being wasted; they want me to have a special someone even though I’ve got a decade of education and four jobs. But that’s not love, so it’s not enough, and they hate that. I hate that.

Can it function, your tongue? How heavy is it, can it speak, can it work, can it talk? Can it do what you want it to, can it be convincing? Or, will it betray you and expose everything you’ve been trying to hide, all those secrets you want them not to know, the ones they’re starting to suspect, now on the verge of asking about?

He wants to come by. He has something for me, he says. The obvious answer to his request is yes. It’s always yes. But nothing is free, and with each gesture, I feel more indebted to please him, and I don’t want to do that, I just want to cease to exist, disappear. But instead, I say “yes,” and accept my fate (because I am a coward): to entertain a night I never had planned to begin with, but feel obligated and just lonely enough to explore.

My tolerance for unsolicited attention depends on the day; like, if their texts come on a day after I haven’t slept well, and they don't need anything, but are just making conversation, then yeah, I like the playfulness, kind of. But on those same days, say, if they want something from me, I just can’t. And then I know they hate me for being unavailable, forget me, move on; when I am not eager and attentive, “I’ve changed.” In due process, I become a titch uglier to them, less appealing, less pleasing. Less cute, pretty, easy, fun. It’s only a matter of time until I stop existing.

She was sad, once, heartbroken of course, because isn’t that how the story goes? Isn’t it always a shattered heart that brings us to tears? How depressing, yes, how pitiful, pathetic; she knows—no, she’s certain—that it was with a simple hairline fracture, at only twelve, that her divided heart began to migrate apart, unmendable, and oh, how sad that she’ll never love herself again, all because of a boy.

Poke your finger inside your belly button (sick feeling, isn’t it?) and feel around a bit for the zipper, then latch on and turn yourself inside out. Recognize her? Maybe not, it’s a pretty ugly sight, veins and fat and muscle, but that’s you, empty aside from flesh, constructed of old love and scar tissue, dried saliva and hard knocks.

Am I the only one who can’t ignore the physical tug of want? Is that what makes me so desperate? Desperate: that’s what I become, as do most, in many cases; the want overcomes, the need prevails, the memory of a hand on my hip, chin held tightly in a dim, sweat-filled atmosphere, breath on my ear, lips on my neck. In truth, I lie to, beg for, and borrow from men. I steal men.

His eyes were all it took, but only because I was paying attention, and we were both searching for the same outcome. I used to say that kissing was enough, and most of the time it was—-it is. But that doesn’t make for a worthy story; no one cares if I kissed a stranger from the street, no matter how lush his touch tasted, dripping down the bare skin of my lower back. So, now, when I speak to the encounter, I start with, “he was a gentleman and a fuck boi,” because he was; kissing wasn’t enough for him, either.

The wrinkles are alright but it’s the rogue whisker you pulled out of your forehead that worries you. That, and the increasing risk of brain holes that haunt your every move, and with every drink you consume, every joint you smoke, you combat how much you fuss with how little you care; this is not new. Your future and present selves have been at odds since you were a child.

He wanted to play a game in the cold unfinished basement, thin, brick-patterned carpet covering the cement below our butts on the floor. He explained his rules, and they all involved different kinds of making out. There was bright, tubed fluorescent lighting, the feeling of my teeth scraping against the rind of another person’s tongue, a gooey trail of spit that wasn’t mine being left in my mouth. Bony rib cages, gripped fists. Losing my virginity left less of an imprint than this which had passed: my first French kiss.

She was mean once, as an experiment, part of the addiction to desire, and the gravitational migration towards the wrong men. And after he became overwhelmed with love for her, drunk in a bar, pleading on his knees with her to come home with him, she looked at her friends and pretended that she’d never kissed him in a basement only the week before, just to see what happened. No, now she was sidelined by his feelings; his emotions were predators closing in from all sides.

Try to understand: it’s not just ego. The emotion that destroys all my logic is one of hope. No, it doesn’t matter that he’s a narcissist, or type A, or repressed; he has all of these qualities that I want to understand, to help with, to tease out, to expose and mend, to extricate before us all and see what is really happening. Only, it never happens like that.

Every so often, out of the blue, one of them will show up behind a screen (and I let them because they need me and love me and I love the attention). Yes, they are, and how convenient, and what a drag I would be if I didn’t text back, flirt shamelessly, and bully them with big words? After all, that’s what they want. They’re sick, but not sicker than me.

Kissing became less special the more you did it. Soon, the force of a gluey organ was not enough. Kissing became a bridge to cut conversation. You used it as a way to connect less, not more. See, if you’re smashing your face against another person’s, knocking teeth, wiggling your tastebuds around in a distracting dance, you won’t have to look the other person directly in the face, make conversation. You won’t have to think about who you’re kissing—only how it feels. And how did it feel, if you’re being honest? Did it feel good?

What I think about: clammy fingers latched around my neck, playful yet directive, moving me towards a wall where I can feel two hands run the course of my head, chest, and hair; lips coarse and forceful against mine; just a tease of tongue, enough to lead my brain through tonight and tomorrow; skin on skin; sweatiness and wetness gliding everything true South, feeling pure, fair, and even. As it should be.

She was scared, once, but told no one, because they’d just tell her to get out, that they’d told her so, that she was a silly stupid girl, so she acted as though everything was tickety-boo, stayed, despite the fact that he’d kicked her out of the car on a dark dirt road and then, with full speed and drunken intention, pulled a U-turn and came at her, driving her into a ditch where she’d then lay for the next ten years.

You know you have a heart but aren’t sure what its motives are anymore. Every night, as you try to drop into a much anticipated sleep, thoughts arrive and dismiss, but below the emotional tide, you can’t let go of the feeling that something is wrong, so you don’t sleep at all, do you? The weight is immeasurable, the taste is metallic. He needs to go.

I imagine even a pure kiss and cringe, release, get wet with want. Know that I am overcome with affection and attraction combined with deep-rooted intention when caught within a kiss. I become useless, silly, malleable, embarrassing. Do I not know myself? Do I forget my worth? Yes. The answer is yes, I suddenly know nothing about anything, I am a fool for being simply present, and surrendering.

Love is thirsty, love is mean. Lust is a rush of dopamine, and in most cases, an addiction we don’t know we are struggling with. The need for attention is frowned upon, pathetic even, but we’re all guilty of it, because it's learned behaviour, driven by the ever-present ego. We pick it up when we’re young, through experience, or exposure, or both. And inside all of the stories, there might be some precious moments, but mostly, we knew it felt icky, we knew it felt wrong. My therapist says it all goes back to my childhood; I know they mean my parents, the way I was raised. But I know it’s all rooted in the sickness of love; I started young.

And when I think about it all, my mouth makes a little pucker and says “ahhh,” in the end.