breezin'.

chronologically speaking.

2009-12-22T23:44:00.000-08:00

I've come to realize that people lie--it's not so much a conscious choice they make, but a defense mechanism to protect themselves from the truth or whatever is masquerading as such at the time. It's nothing personal, but I'll trust anyone about as far as I could throw him.

I've come to realize, upon talking to some newly-venerated elders, that art and science were once a single entity and unless I choose to complicate them and separate them myself, they can remain as such.

I've come to realize that mosquito-killing in the Mississippi Delta is less of a casual action, but more of a competitive sport to see who can kill the most and lose the least amount of blood. Other variations include the fewest/most number of hand claps before actually killing the mosquito and the most successful kill rate by throwing blunt objects (any damage to the sheet rock sets points back to zero).

I've come to realize that I'm more calm if my mind is busy. Letting my thoughts sit and stagnate is a recipe for disaster. Self-loathing, you can kiss my sweet ass. I've got shit to do.

I've come to realize that I have stronger feelings for this new boy I've found than I expected. He sneaks up on me with after-midnight poetry and backhanded compliments. I never wanted love easy or sweet. It's a cheap thrill. I hope it sticks around for a while.

Nothing makes me feel more home than paint on my jeans and skin, working long hours, and knowing that hours and hours of sweat and tears will soon turn into a finished product--mixed media, mixed emotions--that will never grow old.

I think I may start writing again.

taking twenty-nine lives in twenty-nine minutes.

2009-11-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

After it's all said in done, there's a decision to be made about what you want to do with your life. Life, you know--the part before you die, which is rest. Sleep. Calm. Organize the chaos while you're breathing.
There's no place here for Anna Chron and her ism's anymore. There's nothing comforting anymore, nothing "home" about reeking of other people's cigarettes and my own perfume when I wake at 1p.m. the day after a party. There's no beauty in mediocrity or lost time or failed attempts. People will tell you that trying is the important part, but all that really matters always ends up being the final project, the grade at the end.
They say it's the "process" that makes the person real, but more and more I'm finding that people, as a whole are full of bullshit as far as what they say and do.
I need to shower. My head is exploding with unspoken words. I don't know how to write anymore. I've taken to acrylic cuneiform--takes the guesswork out. You can call it "art" and no one questions it because it's beyond the realm of "figuring it out." These words, you see...people don't know what to make of them.

safe and routine.

2009-08-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

we lived inside each other, such careless lazy lovers. it would have been nice to say i knew you then.

somewhere, someone else.

2009-08-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

nervous laughter...something witty
you have it, constantly--
that cunning edge; my rapt attention.
ice falls from the sky
my hands shake and I
almost...
paintings throw themselves from the walls
to encourage, to move us along
vibrantly, & at that point
I barely know you
from the hours spent
combing frozen rain from my hair
washing acrylics from my hands
afternoons spent fighting the cold
legs crossed, hands folded
leaning in
over coffee
over you, the archetype.
frigid air seeps in
around the glass doors
and you tell me that I am your
"what if..."
and I can't help but wonder, too
if our banter could be chilled
after good evenings and better nights came
and...well, you went and I stayed
but the distance isn't worth the miles.

topic shift.

2009-08-05T23:14:00.000-07:00

First comes the phoenix, then the historian--I don't see much difference in the two of us, as we both transcend the actual occurence. We just appear at different times: while you're burning out, I'm stalling. I pick through the ashes once you're dead.
This time, they're waiting in the car for me as I pick through the debris of some forgotten church off the Interstate. This is my game, now, and I belong to any broken building across the state. I've been digging for two years now, been lying for the same.
This chapel has its name spray painted out, leaving only the simple announcement of "baptist church" against its white wooden sides; poison oak chokes away at the pillars and stone stairways out front. It's not as though there'd be any doubt, though--it screams Baptist, from the gaudy red-carpet guts to the two front pews that appear never to have been utilized. That's all over now, though. Nobody meets here, not on purpose. The roof has ruptured, leaving the ceiling tiles coughing out the remnants of hymns, scriptures, dead saints, and insulation--the remnants of the worship of an awesome God. The pulpit is just a podium now, commonplace with common names carved into its rotting wood. Lucky churches end up like this one, all honest and broken; all the others just let the cancers eat away at them silently until all the members have turned to dust. I shudder at my own sacrelige.
The piano is in decent shape, though its keys have been well-played and are missing the occasional ivory. I sit down to inspect it closer, resting my fingers upon the cool white tiles. They're sticky with spilled beer now and the guilty can on the bass notes is still overturned. Ants teem in and out, in and out. I strike the keys again and again, a simple hymn to anyone who may be listening.
The first real poet of the twentieth century died not long ago, but the newspapers didn't notice her... Every day I visited her sickbed, every day for a year. I watched the eloquent, beautiful belle wither away into a pallid child incapable of speech. I watched her dig her fingers into her curls, repeating the same word over and over as she rocked herself to sleep.
I know it hurts. I'm sorry.
But none of my sorrow could fix it. Nothing I did could kill the pain or bring back the late nights of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune on her television as we ate frozen blueberries from the previous season. There'd be no more sweet tea, no more sweet dreams after she tucked me into the spare bedroom's too-hot darkness.
I always waited until I couldn't hear her stirring in the kitchen outside that door before I kicked the blankets off and flung my young arms and legs across the sheets in a desperate attempt for coolness in the face of that Mississippi heat pounding on my window. I wanted to learn her trade, her grace and splendor; I never wanted to give in.
I never did. I was there when the morphine wore off, when they told me to say goodbye, when she died. There wasn't anything beautiful or spectacular about it--I lost someone important to me, but the pain stopped for her. They told me I was too hard, too honest, because I didn't pretend that the body that I saw before she died was the same one that held me when I cried as a child. She'd died a few months back, but everyone was too busy watching her chest rise and fall to notice. Everyone's sorry, but nobody's sorrow can fix it. It's human life, the circle. It's brutal. It hurts.
Still.
As I sit in this church, playing the piano for the ghosts and the saints and anyone else who will listen.
My feet itch from the stupid plants outside the door and my eyes sting with stupid tears.
I want to burn this place down, destroy everything beautiful I've found within it. I want someone to notice how bad things have become and how rotten to the core this place is. My heels creak against the floorboards and I stomp them out. I carve obscenities into the paint with my keys. I throw hymnals through the stained glass windows, out into the underbrush. I hope they rot like bodies and the ants find their way to them
down between the ivory slats
to eat them alive, leaving nothing but a memory of a song we used to sing on the front porch as the sun set behind the hills.

Only sleeping, sweetly sleeping,
While the angels vigil keep;
Jesus gives to His beloved
Rest at last in peaceful sleep.

christmas stories.

2009-07-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

this is what they call sophomore slump:
writers don't write when they're happy
and singers don't sing after their lyrics come true.
we've worked so hard to get where we are
and when we're here, when we're there
there's nothing more to call home about.
once you've figured me out, that's when
this stops being fun
you're just another boy
and i'm just another girl
so we talk circles
concentrically
all night long and i don't ever want to sleep...
not if there's a chance that you'll forget me
while i can't talk to defend myself.
friday. that's all i can say, repeatedly.
friday, friday, friday.
one stone building and a walk in the park.
friday, friday, won't you be mine?

from a bond-carpenter stairwell.

2009-07-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

fly north
northeast and away
away from here, away from we
because no matter what you say
you'll always be God to me
oblivious to nails and hammers
and corruption and my furtive attempts
to pull you in
to be alluring
words pulse in your brain
paint flows through your veins
and i stitch you up with dull needles
and tangled threats
and still your whispers, sweet, echo
in my ears, through the whole of me
fly north east
and escape the cage i've made
but call to me when you get there
lay forth the path
occlude my foreshadowed eyes farther
detangle your plans
entangle your fingers within my curls
and tell me that love always finds a way
away
away
from peace
from me
northeast.

2009-07-04T21:08:00.000-07:00

Despite how long my parents have owned their home, I've never been in my room with my door closed. My room in upstairs and down a short, winding hallway, so there's never really been a need for it. Tonight there is, and I'll just leave that one there to ferment.
I'm having secondary thoughts...tertiary thoughts, and whatever is beyond. The attachments I've developed to these people in the Delta are totally overwhelming me. I don't know, truly, how to deal when things are going smoothly. Do I party it up every night until I graduate in May, or do I distance myself gradually so they begin to not miss me? Do I proceed with business as usual? Does anyone else in the world actually consciously contemplate these things?
My room feels small, stuffed with the fog of the runoff of my thoughts (holy prepositional phrases!). This is strange. I gave up a private laboratory for a small studio, but my crafts are evading me. I am tragically uninspired. My writings, paintings, drawings have been bullshit--hollow Trojan horses of meaningless art. I want to create worthwhile, beautiful things again.
What do you do when you're uninspired for long periods? How do you cope?
Also, what's your favorite topic to write about?
Also, again-- any topic you'd like to see me try my hand at? God knows I need the work right now.

phantasmic.

2009-06-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

     Being drunk from too much wine is very different from any other sort of intoxication. There's a familiar nostalgia that permeates my mind as the blush moves from the glass to my cheeks, leaving me feeling far more romantic than I've ever been while sober. I make it a point to only drink wine while I'm alone. I can't handle anyone knowing that I get even remotely involved in anything emotional, because I am cold and meticulous and calculating and sure. Tonight, I am drinking wine alone in my kitchen, sitting on the counter with crossed legs as I watch water boil for tomorrow morning's tea.
     I'll always remember, in the most unsentimental method of memory, the night that you walked in on me with my bottle. A hard day at work, a fight with my parents, and a few too many cigarettes had me on edge and all I wanted to do was cook a four-course meal for someone. I got back to my shoebox apartment and proceeded to rip every pot and pan from the clapboard cabinets and sling them onto the faux-marble countertops, denting the painted plastic. I stood over a simmering skillet, alternately dousing my throat and the searing red meat, until I'd prepared a feast fit for anyone else but me. The boilers continued to roll, collecting white foam that bubbled around their glass lids and slid down onto the cooktop as I melted to the ceramic tiles. The stove hissed and whistled as simmering became overcooking and good intentions became less and less prominent in my mind. The warmth of the wine flooded my face and mind until I couldn't move or hold my eyes above half-mast. I was still in my skirt, pantyhose, tailored coat, and diamond earrings when I looked past your feet when they invaded my kitchen. Startled, you turned off the stove and wiped its watery eyes before turning to me, placing your hands on my shoulders. I don't remember logic or inhibition, but I pulled you to the floor with me and you didn't resist. I offered you the bottle and you accepted, taking a quick nip from its depths and placing it just out of my reach. As you turned around, I placed my face near enough to yours to serve as bait for something you'd been fishing for, and you fell in step--hook, line, cliche. I stopped your words with my lips, letting your excuses pour down my throat and warm me all over again. We must have been there for hours, kissing and kissing and kissing and warming the cold floor with our desperate endeavors.
    The kettle whistles on cue, as if protesting my lack of regard for it, but in this moment, I am lost again. You've been six feet under for almost a year now, sleeping in the finest cabinet your parents could afford and I've knocked on your grave every day since you left. My best friend, boys like you don't exist anymore--boys who'll stay sober and let me kiss them for hours and patient boys who wait for an invitation to let their fingertips wander. I felt joy with your hands around my waist; beauty, with your lips pressed hard against my neck; comfort, with my shoulders squared at a quarter-angle to yours; and peace, as you rain down on me.

revolving doors.

2009-06-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

I feel like my life revolves around the moments where I am sitting in the floor of my room, surrounded by all of my things, waiting to pack up and move across the state. I loathe packing--I always have--but there's something therapeutic about it, especially with Michael sitting here beside me, "helping" as he talks.
"Cleveland, Mississippi, is where people go to die," I conclude. "Nobody likes it here and they don't like each other, but it's the Bermuda triangle--or, well, the Mississippi Delta. You come here and no one hears from or sees the person that came here again."
Michael agrees vehemently, sipping his beer as I fold thirty tee-shirts that I never wear but carry around out of necessity to do so. I've always seen him as so beautiful and better than I am. He throws lavish parties with exclusive guest lists, drove a nice car and there was talk that he'd dated other boys in the past, but he'd never confirm or deny. That was okay with me--I enjoyed imagining all the things he'd do in his spare time, from drinking chai and reading graphic novels, to watching French silent films with any boy and/or girl who'd wanted to see him that night.
"People are wrong about me, though," he confided, "Any time I spend with any one is of my own doing. People don't seek me out, and they come to my house just to get shipwrecked."
I think of his glass coffee table and the paintings on the walls in his living room. I've never been to his house, but I have my visions. I am never one of the people he sought, but I never seek him either. I am no better than the bitches we were ranting about, but I let him continue as I took the books from the credenza.
"I made up my mind to be happy here, but I spend my spare time sleeping. I'm scared of this and that, but I'm making it."
Michael, I said last week that I have no use for you unless we're dancing together in perfect time. I'm looking at you right now and you're blinking back diamonds but I understand and it makes everything so much more painful than it has to be. All this time I spent thinking that it was my fault and your fault and their faults for letting ourselves be changed and letting the love we once had fade into a corn field on the outskirts of Renova. All this time, I thought we controlled our own destinies...but not so much. My life, integrity, and self-esteem are packed into these revolving boxes and moves from place to place. Michael's faith in God and humanity lives in another town, not in this black hole of a rural collection of hypocrites that delight in cars, clothes and spending money they don't have. The trees don't make oxygen for us, but they stand and sympathise--they used to be grand, green and producers of the best things money can't buy, but now they hunker over the bright lights and whisper truths amongst themselves.
Michael and I, well, we're getting out. We're getting out for weeks at a time, and this time we're regrowing bits of ourselves in Petri dishes and letting happiness mold over all of the resetment we've bred here. When we come back, we'll have a reserve to make it through a semester, if that, before they crush us again. It's a beautiful cycle. I fucking hate it.

a rare occasion.

2009-06-24T19:46:00.001-07:00

I had a dream, as I slept from 6:30 p.m. to 9:16, that I was meeting a boy that I really admired at the end of the night, but until then I was held into obligations for work. I went to a party in a New York loft and met a gorgeous Mexican man who'd have bought me on the spot and I almost let him, then I remembered. I left the party and met with my boss, who wanted me to meet a friend of his. I changed from my skirt into pants while standing in a freeway in Boston. I took out my earrings and painted my lips on an old dirt road in Rena Lara. He picked me up and smiled about it, his eyes bright and his hair in tight, rich brown curls. We kissed but I remembered, and I had him take me home.
I got home and waited for the boy I'd promised the night to, but he'd left a note on my door while I was gone, saying how sorry he was for letting me down but he'd be in Rome for the evening. I crumpled the paper and lit it with my cigarette lighter, dropped it onto the porch, and let it burn the house down while I sat, rocking in time with the crackling of the antique wood, and let the flames wrap themselves around me. It was then that I forgot.

happy father's day.

2009-06-21T14:08:00.001-07:00

Plot twist: I'm writing about your dad instead of mine.

I remember the night you asked me to meet your father. He'd been somewhat of an enigma to me, as he was notorious for disappearing for days and days at a time for business. Of all the thousands of nights that summer that I spent curled up between your sheets listening to you play your guitar, he never once happened upon us. There was no sneaking, there was no deception--you assured me that he wouldn't have cared, had he been there, he was just always too busy to notice.
I wore your favorite dress that night, the one that was tied to your suggestible wrists by the loose threads around the bodice. I wanted you to be proud of me, a piece to show off to your father that you admired from afar. I knew his opinion mattered to you, and I wanted him to think that you'd done well. I painted my eyes and lips with shaking hands in anticipation for a call that would never come.
Hours passed--from six, when you said you'd pick me up; seven, when I called you; eight, when you still hadn't called me back; eleven, when your sister called to ask where we were; and four in the morning, when I stared into a makeshift sunrise and let myself be pulled into the horizon. What's in a lie, lover? I can handle rejection, but your promises hung around me like paper stars tied to the ceiling fan with long strands of yarn.
The next night, you phoned as usual, and I played along. It wasn't until much later that I found out that your dad never came home that night--he'd found someone on the side of the road to take home, and her house seemed far more intriguing than his own son to whom he'd sworn that particular night. I washed away my anticipation and joy in a shower of frozen water, letting it cage me in and hold me there. I ached for you and I still do, but I wonder about how often you've lied in your lifetime.
I developed resentment for your father that night, because from then on, we carried on with our casual affair. You never brought him up again, though I spent the same nights in the same bedclothes, soothed by yet another rendition of "Asthenia." After the summer faded, so did I, and I was nothing to write to him about. A friend of yours drove through Clarksdale to visit and happened upon the almost-extinct occasion of family dinner with all pawns in place. She met your father and I never heard from you again.
All of that to say this: today, I drove by your house. I watched you mow the lawn as I crept by, until I realized that your parking spot was empty and your bedroom light blown out. He has your broad shoulders, sandy blonde hair. At fifty-three, he still holds your commanding, attractive presence--two rival Roman gods left to spar in the ruins of the Bolivar railroad station. In that moment, I wanted to turn on the left blinker just one more time. I wanted to embrace your father, to tell him that I was sorry. I imagine that his chin would rest atop my head like yours used to and he'd breathe in my shampoo and perfume. He'd wonder why we never met, and I'd explain that genetics are cruel--not only does he have your eyes, your smile, your frame, he's got your way with broken promises, too. But to be honest and reasonable, I clenched white knuckles against the steering wheel and drove past. He continued mowing the lawn with no idea who was behind the wheel of the car that used to park in his driveway every night last summer. I continued driving by in that car, wondering if he'd have loved me too.
I took the long way home, the unpaved drive from the highway to my home that used to be yours. It's funny how things work out sometimes. I hope you call him today from Caohoma county. He can't help what he passed down to you and you damn well aren't in a position to blame him for it.

At sweet, long last.

2009-06-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

I have been without the Internet for a number of days now. A series of unfortunate events, but all is well for the moment. How I've missed thee...but I haven't even really written anything in a while. This is just some disgusting rambling. Purging, they call it. I'm working on something more satiating.

At Bible camp, I used to sit just inside my door, back to the cool stone wall, and listen to the banter of the other girls waft in through the ventilation slats as they ran down the halls. They were getting dressed for something, some dance: curling their hair, staining their lips, spraying themselves with discount perfumes. It was a new world for them and in their minds, boys still cared how they looked. They fawned over their arched eyebrows and too-tight pants--surely they must, because they just kept right on looking.
I seldom participated in this game because I seldom had any intention of going to the same dances. I spent my time living inside a notebook, chronicling how empty all of it made me feel and how ironic it was that God would create men that only loved us for the colors we splashed on our faces and the curls we ironed out of our hair. That's some kind of unconditional, even to a fourteen year old girl. I guess I had no point of reference, as that previous summer, my parents had divorced after one fourth of a century. I sampled that world from just outside the vestibule, letting the flashing lights echo across my face and hands. Even permanence fell apart in my young eyes, and I had nothing to add to a conversation about God or love.
Badly-drawn Bryan knew me before I knew myself and he was as close to unconditional as I've ever had. He was well aware of my developing form as I sashayed into adulthood, so I hid myself in shame from the rest of the world. I dyed my hair black and let my bangs cover my eyes, dressed in shades of grey and green. I existed as a funeral procession and mourned for a society that never knew me. The walking anachronism, the misplaced child of the twenties and thirties was less of a person and more of a little anomaly that people never use, but display on bookshelves next to the owl and angel trinkets and the Tolstoy and Ibsen that they'll never actually get around to reading. Bryan never saw me as misplaced, but as his own. I could never stop him--hot breath, strong hands, and sharp teeth. Even when he was gone, I knew I was caged and that no one would listen. I'd run away screaming, but the humidity of the night enfolded my words and sank them six feet under. His mother was a respectable leader and a smooth talker. No one listens to the country bumpkin, shelf-ornament girl when she cries wolf. Everyone's a wolf now, thinly veiled in sheep garb.
I forget about him, sometimes--Dr. Freud would have quite a bit to say about that--but never for very long. All it takes is a casual encounter, a brush of knuckles or the thickening of the air before a kiss, and I can smell his sweat again. I feel Saturday night humidity pressing on my skin as he pins me against the stone supports under the bleachers. They say that when the time is right, memories will fall away and my mind will be as clean and pure and expansive as freshly-fallen snow across the Delta. They say out with the old and in with the new, and that my life is too valuable to waste as a wallflower.
They repeat these lines while stuffing their ears with white wool to drown out the sounds of the little girl down the street, screaming out her lungs as she loses another battle.
You live with dignity, you don't die with it. There's no legacy.
They say that this too shall pass, but the war is won and the dust settles onto my hair like a cracked porcelain doll.

xanax/agoraphobia.

2009-06-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm the sort of person who drags others down into the abyss. The friends I've had, they were fine before nineteen eighty eight. They didn't have flaws and they didn't swear. No pills nor alcohol, nothing to taint the navy blue rivers running just below the surface of their pale iceberg skin. Now I've pricked a vein, sent the lava over the top and they're spoiling the carpets of the Delta rich while their parents are away. What is this place? Where are the hills? I don't need lights, I don't need Hollywood. I just need a valley or a mountain, somewhere to be instead of flatlined on a road to nowhere.
I thought this would be more fun. I can't even think of a decent metaphor and I can't keep my eyes ajar. Palms pressed against, I'm turning the lights out on tonight.

amarillo.

2009-06-03T19:23:00.000-07:00

When I was young,
Kaylan was my oldest and greatest friend.
When I moved from the city
into our trailer in the hills,
she was the only one who understood seven-year-old me.
Every Friday evening, I'd sit
peering out of my screen door
fogging up the glass in anticipation
and dreaming of the fun we'd have.
We experienced everything...
everything this part of the country could offer.
Blacklights, eyeliner, crushes, and alcohol:
Forbidden things. We unearthed ancient secrets.
We'd lie in the pool until she turned watermelon pink
and I turned dark like the soil.
Sunday morning, we'd wake up and put on pretty, white dresses.
We'd tie ribbons into our curls and carry our Bibles
and giggle at the old women sleeping in the choir
until my father scolded us.
We loved each other.
Adolescence is a cruel thing, with its deceptions and expectations,
and as we passed through it,
we forgot our Friday evenings and Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.
She's very much the same, but I have turned myself inside out,
with my bones on display on the outside of me.
People say I'm better off now than then,
or they say we have to keep up with the real world that pulls people apart
but sometimes, I miss her and I wish I were half as honest
or pretty, or pure as she is now
but then I remember
I am brown like soil--
rich and promising--
and now she holds her husband's hand
and he doesn't let her talk.

amorphous.

2009-06-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

Small disclaimer: I have body dysmorphia. Signed, sealed, delivered, diagnosed. It's not a cry for help, it's not a cry for attention. It's something I deal with every single day of my life, and it manifests as a desire to destroy and recreate my body from scratch. I've never written about it because I'm terrified by it. I'd like to start.

"We're going to be late...again."
My roommate is yelling at me because we're going to some party at some frat boy's house. I had no interest of my own, but she'd been frightened to go alone because of the boys who'd be there that would pull her aside and blame her for the nights she left them hanging. I wouldn't expect her to understand what happens behind closed doors, because she's beautiful. Slender, classy, with blonde hair coursing well past her shoulders in gentle, well-tamed waves. She was the ringleader, the most beautiful girl in the room. All she had to worry about was not getting shards of teenage boy hearts stuck in her feet as she walked down the streets at night.
That's what I'm for--sweeping. The janitorial staff for her heart and mind, keeping things neat and tidy.
She screams through the keyhole of the locked door of our dormitory bathroom. The overhead light is buzzing and fading in and out; I'm humming an old song that I don't remember the words to. I'm sitting cross-legged on the counter, my face pressed close against the mirror as I pick my skin with my fingernails, forming little red spots on my olive skin. My make-up is intact and no one else sees what's wrong with me. She knows what I'm doing, but I lock the door anyway.
I'm seventeen and my dad asks me, "do you smoke?" and I tell him "No sir" and he shows me the cigarettes that he found in my car and the ashes on the inside of the driver's side window and the burns on the headliner. I'm caught, but I deny it still. I lock the door to my room and blow smoke out of my window. I only light up the back roads from then on.
That was then, but it's the same here. She thinks I'm silly, I'm stupid, I'm crazy, and I wouldn't disagree. The fact is...well, that's why I'm here with my feet in the sink. I'm crazy.
I'm the sidekick--the brunette, the one with the "good personality." Uneventful green eyes; sallow, pale skin; thick, dark curls; the good music collection; and the need to be directed by the strength of a beautiful girl who will make me feel worthwhile. Something like that. I look into the bathroom mirror and I see her face superimposed over mine. I chip it away with my fingernails until I'm bleeding and I can't find anything new to pick away. I smile at the skeleton below, but it doesn't recognize me.
It doesn't make sense, why I do things: going days without eating, being unwilling to get out of bed for fear of seeing the body I'm in now, picking, and smoking, and swearing. My friends assure me that it's in my head, a chronic figment that I can't chase away. She tells me that too, but she doesn't understand what it's like to constantly have a candle putting light on all the wrong angles of your face, making you gain fifteen pounds for the camera. My best friend is a blacklight, highlighting my acne and the roots showing from my last dye job. She doesn't mean to. It's not her fault.
I press my forehead against the cool mirror and turn out the bathroom light. I let my face and mind calm before I exit the room and face her. She compliments my top, and with that, we sneak over to the house on Farmer. I light up a black cigarette and watch it smoke itself as we drive.
When we walk in, the gaze shifts to us. We're beauty and the beast, the heroine and her sidekick and this is all I'll ever have. I catch a glimpse of myself in my old lover's eyes as he smokes out on the couch and I see myself as I was, but none of that exists anymore. I missed the moment, let myself go. There's really no forgiveness.
He doesn't blink and I'm not beautiful.

on pain.

2009-06-01T22:03:00.001-07:00

Every time my head hurts like this, I'm convinced I'm dying of brain cancer. It'd be some sort of poetic justice for me to have tumors in all the little areas that make me tick, make me who I am. I should be terrified of it all, but I don't know if I am yet. My eyes are pounding, pulsing with my heartbeat.
I miss my family sometimes late at night, when things slow down enough for me to look around. During the day, I don't breathe. I don't look around, and I don't think. Little quips pass through my head, things I always mean to write down but never do. Thank you letters, titles for things I've written...they all build up in my mind and make my brain explode. Not even sleep takes this away. I want someone to pull my hair, press on my temples, dig their fingers into my shoulders. Distract me, something something.
The human condition leaves us all wanting to be the only ones who ever hurt, even though we claim to be averse to pain. If there's nothing wrong, then there's nothing to paint...nothing to write about, nothing to create. Nobody wants to see portraits of happy families painted on biodegradable canvas. We want the plastic and the cancer and the death and the guernica because it's easier to accept that we're going to die soon than it is to live life like we're too lazy and too scared to make anything out of this trainwreck. If I don't have motivation to be the best, then I sure as hell want to be the last one standing with the biggest number of open, seeping wounds.

my father's brother.

2009-05-26T19:28:00.001-07:00

My father's brother was an alcoholic...at least that's what they called him. He lives behind our house, a bit through the woods, so it's easy for him to disappear into his addiction. After four in the afternoon, he'd be of no use to anyone anymore because he'd be reciting the Encyclopedia Brittanica into his ginger ale and vodka. He'd be speaking French, Portuguese, German, and Swahili to the telemarketers who didn't know any better than to call in the evening. He'd witness the love of Jesus to Jehova's traveling saint brigade. He knew so much about everything when he'd been drinking that of course I'd be intrigued.
I wanted to learn from him. He was not a simple man by any means, but the leap in intelligence between sobriety and toxicity was remarkable. My first sip of alcohol, my first word of Spanish, the first dish I ever cooked alone--all under his inebriated supervision. My father would be irate beyond all comprehension when I'd come home and share my newfound knowledge, telling me that I shouldn't waste my time, I should be careful, I shouldn't put stock on his words; however, at 4:30 p.m., I'd still pretend to go walking on the vast acreage behind our country home. I never stopped visiting his brother, I just stopped bringing anything home. I'd take the beaten path that steered west of his house and the powers that be would become satiated as I grew smaller on the horizon, but I'd slide and dive through thickets and briars into my own ill-trodden railroad to his home, where he'd teach me about the things my dad was afraid of.
My father's brother doubled over in pain at 5:30 p.m. in his country home on evening. His mind went stark white, as did his weather-beaten face. His limbs grew leaves as he reached for the telephone, but we avoided the call on the caller ID, as did his sisters. After all, who wants a lay pastor saving your soul from TV dinners with his sick textbook banter? We said grace over supper and never thought of it again until we saw the red lights spill across our living room floor.
Three little words and three little numbers got him where he needed to be as his liver failed and his body rebelled against southern comfort of all sorts. Now they say he's getting better, he's not an alcoholic anymore. My father's brother is growing stronger with every day. He's looking younger, they say, and his calcified bones have snapped apart and he can walk in a straight line again. He's out past sunset, driving sober and taking in sights and teaching pretty girls things they didn't know about the Mississippi Delta. They say he's doing better than he ever has, or at least better than they've ever seen him.
I don't know who to believe. They never visited his sickbed or listened to his symptoms. They never opened the books that he wrote every night--the journals of Vietnam, of the Civil War, of World Wars I & II. They saw his illness and steered clear, letting his body break down his resolve to nip from the frosted bottle in the freezer. I haven't seen him since he's recovered because I'm not sure I'd call it a recovery.
I can't help but think of him any time I throw back a shot or a glass of wine. Does he miss me messing up his kitchen with failed attempts at culinary masterpieces? Does he still watch the weather channel from 6:30 until 7:15? Did he dream up the constellations that I reconstructed with glowing plastic stars on my bedroom ceiling?
Is being sober boring after you've held planets between your palms?
Does he miss knowing everything that everyone in the world has ever known?

tuberculosis.

2009-05-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I'm Esther Greenwood with a bottle of wine.

jen.

2009-05-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not impressed with this yet. I think that it's harder to write about things that have actually happened because you get into this mindset of getting things exactly right, making sure to capture every detail, every feeling. It never really happens, no, but it's worth a try.
This is probably too many words to say too little. I'm not displeased with it, but it's most likely up for another revision soon.

Jenny and I are laughing in the backseat at nothing in particular. I can't see her and she can't see me and there's a boy sitting between us, but we're laughing. We're cruising, the five of us, down some old Delta road into the blackest night I've ever been a witness to. The rain is pounding on the windshield and the only break in the monotony of darkness is the Service Engine Soon light that's flashing on the dashboard. There's no key in the ignition, but we're still coasting down the gravel far too quickly. There's no music on the radio. It's raining small domestic animals.
Just an hour before, I'd complained about Jenny's arrival. She's dramatic and overcompensatory for her lack of grace and traditional beauty, but she's good at kissing boys and they like her for that. I figured I'd hate her, but I didn't. I wasn't jealous of her like I'd expected to be. Now Jenny's alive like the night, telling us about the man she'd been seeing and how he'd broken her heart and we laugh until we cry until we laugh again. I'm enjoying her company.
We sling gravel as we pull into the parking lot of the old school. The car halts and the solitaire of orange light flickers twice and disappears. We slide across cracked leather seats and slip into the tall grass, hearts pounding in anticipation and perhaps fear. The school once believed itself white, but is now pock-marked with wounds in its paint and mangled with tendrils of multicolored graffitti. Someone is a tramp, someone's a whore. Someone sucks some boy's dick, but ain't that commonplace in these parts? Something moves in the tall grass and I yelp louder than I should. Jenny bounds through the grass and places one hand over my mouth. I smile behind it as she takes my hand in her own.
"I'm scared, too, but be quiet, girl. They'll call the cops."
She removes her hand from my mouth, but continues to embrace my left. We traipse through the dew-laden weeds that choke the school, searching for an entrance. It's there, behind stairs and doors and piles of debris, but we're in now. Tony leads us in, his eyes wide and stride secure. He's been here, he's the pack leader. Our driver falls in step behind him, and the boy from the backseat. Jenny lets go of my hand as we climb the stairs and my heart pounds in rhythm with her footsteps.
A spider crawls over my foot. A spider, or a roach. I reach for Jenny, because I know she's terrified. Not because I'm scared, and not because she can help me. Not because I need her. I found the driver instead. His nerves are rattled by the cars passing, by the spiders and roaches and spirits in this place. He puts his arm around my waist. Backseat boy holds my hand opposite the driver. I feel like a trembling little coat rack in a restaurant downtown when it rains and people flee in for coffee, when they really just want a dry place to sit until the storm passes. My body is confused by all this contact. I exist as a solitaire, like the Service Engine Soon light--throwing out energy on an unreliable schedule. Like the school, chipped and vandalised but still strong on its foundation. I'm not made for teenagers to ramble through. Call off this false support.
Tony hesitates a few steps in, then we know it's time to go. Lights are flashing outside, blue and white. We break into a run, bounding over hurdles of ceiling tile and forgotten beer cans. We crunch spiders under our vintage flats, our expensive loafers. We're screaming like little rich kids, but the sound floats above us and gets caught in the rafters. I get my feet tangled in something and my knees hit pieces of glass and gravel and concrete. My jeans rip and turn dark with my blood, my palms rip apart like poorly-stitched cloth. I'm back on my feet, my heart pounding in my ears and wrists and knees and not in my chest--then I'm safe, sliding across the leather seats again, right beside Jenny.
Back in the car, my knees keep pouring out black blood. The Service Engine Soon light casts its light onto the backseat and bits of glass half-buried in my skin twinkle a combination of blue and orange, blue and orange. I feel them throb in time with the lights as Jenny pushes me down below the backseat. The police pass, but I remain below. I am fossils, or a mummy, or a child forgotten at the supermarket. I don't know what I am anymore.
We turn on our headlights and weave back through the old path, slinging gravel again as we hit the pavement. My stomach is a centrifuge, twisting and spinning as we take every curve. I feel faint from thinking of the world buried inside my kneecaps and palms--all the shards of things that could kill me. The roaches and the spiders. The boys who don't love me. Jenny.
When we get back home, everyone falls into the same bed, the one right inside the front door. They're laughing now--everyone, and Jenny. Not me, not anymore. I limp into the bathroom and press the old-fashioned lever lock on the door. I turn on the cold water in the bathtub and let it run as I peel off my bloodstained clothes. I sit on the edge of the tub, my feet submerged in the rising waters. I see my face reflected, shades of black and red and white, tainted with blood and spare makeup. I'm picking the glass out of my knees, drowning the spiders inside me. I ease into the chilly water until I'm in up to my neck. I inhale the sweet, pungent smell of the weed they're passing in a circle, and nausea hits me again. I take a breath and hold it and as I go under, I pray that I won't ever see Jenny again.

disparity.

2009-05-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

I miss simplicity.
After your first real romance, things become so much more real. There's no prince charming out there who understands when you don't want to have sex. There's no lover of your soul, nobody who is always going to be your favorite person in the world. It just doesn't work like that.
You can pretend, but you'd be pretending.
Right now, I just want a friend to drink lots of wine with. Take a few pills, feel really nice with. I don't want any contract of service, no expectation deadlock--just his arms around my shoulders on some front porch swing. Somewhere. Exchanging kisses behind the house, my back pressed into a steady pine. Counting stars on the dew-laden grass, flat on our backs, fingers intertwined. There are no streetlights here, wherever we are. He'd hug me with his chin rested atop my hair, breathe in my perfume mixed in with remnants of the night air as it melts into the morning. Watch the sun come up, and only then would we sleep.
Is that strange, too romantic?
Things so beautiful can't be real because most things in my head are not. If I was lonely for the past year, I didn't know it until now. I'm making up for lost time. I'm exploding on the inside, burning like paper and crumbling into ash.
Sweep me off my feet.

stabbing in the dark.

2009-05-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

I'm looking for something.
I can't remember what it is. My hair is wet, my eyes are sore.
I wrote about last night--pages and pages, but they're gone now.
I blinked, I woke up. I am low-end technology.
A budget bride for the faint of heart.
Maybe I'll try again, or maybe I won't.
Sleep all weekend, all three days
pour out bottles, pour out words.
I'm looking for something.
I can't remember what it is.

neopolitan.

2009-05-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

I always thought that the most glamorous addiction of them all was pills--a posh little pink-heart pillbox full of optimism. I hear they're more fun with a concurrent addiction, like, say, alcohol.
The funniest part is that I'm ignoring calls. Important calls. Someone's sick and dying, rotting away from his spine outward. I was supposed to have dinner with him. It's Mother's Day and mine has called me severally. I'm stargazing into my mattress, happy to be breathing.
Do boys like silly girls like me, ever? Girls who don't exist?

keystoned.

2009-05-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

It's a rare occasion that I go out and "party" with people because the idea seems so cheap to me--flailing around in someone's living room, dancing with some gent that won't remember me the next day; running to the bathroom to pee every three seconds and fluff my hair a bit; and eventually throwing up on my own shoes as a friend of mine holds back my once-straightened hair that's now wavy with other people's sweat...I'd like to think I'm above that, but truth be told, I'm not. No more than anyone else, anyway. Right now, I'm full of cheap beer and my belches taste like the terrible potpourri my mother used to keep in a warmer on the hearth of the double-wide trailer I grew up in. Let me not pretend to be ladylike--No girl, no matter how feminine, is immune from beer burps. Don't lie to yourself.
Metacognition is a bitch.
If I had my way, I'd count stars with a certain tryst of mine, pouring shot after shot of vodka into my hollow stomach and breathing him into my lungs to stay. I've never felt beautiful to anyone, but for that moment, I thought I was onto something. In that moment, I understood alcoholism, college dropouts, and shotgun weddings. I don't know that I'll ever be the type to fall in love, despite my longing. I'm programmed in a queer little fashion, made of ripped stitches and cliche little promises you'll forget by morning.
I remind myself that at one point, you were happy. I helped bring that about. That's how I sleep at night.
How do you, now that I'm not?

don't fear the reaper.

2009-05-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

Television teaches me all the fascinating ways I could die. Books and letters from the scholars delineate the methods by which my brain will inevitably consume itself when I turn thirty. Somehow, I can't help but think that I should be more worried than I am, but I can't move myself to care about it anymore. I've since moved my glass to the bedside table, where the remnants of three dollar wine are slowly turned into water again by one of the many leaks in my top-floor apartment's ceiling.
I'm blowing smoke out my window into the storm. Ain't no Jesus coming for the girls like me.

clocks.

2009-05-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

I met a girl yesterday who wore a necklace with a clock face on it.
The clock was functional, she told me, but she pulled out the screw every morning and set the time to 11:11. She was waiting, she said, to meet the man of her dreams. Then, she confided, she'd press the screw to start time on some sort of magic moment and the rest of her life would be a dream come true.
All of this was a secret. I'm not supposed to tell you, but secrets don't make friends.
I can't say that I blame her for trying, but all of her ramblings made me ill. I secretly hoped that her hand would brush the screw and push forward the longer of the hands and at 11:12 in her life, some man would start her timer and she'd have a little regret in her storehouses, just like the rest of us. Plus, I thought the clock's face to be garish, just like her optimism.
I didn't tell her that, though.
They may not make friends, but they do keep them.