Winter Gothic

The pond was frozen over and the wind had blown renegade snowflakes under the feeble plastic covering the car's cracked windshield. There used to be two cars parked in front of the house on the corner-- two matching Subarus, Mschef and Mschef2. Now Mschef2 was all that was left, deserted, snowdrifts piled along its running boards all winter long, for at least the third running winter in years. Overall, it was the sort of sad winter scene a depressed landscape artist would paint while contemplating if he really needed his left ear; if the world really needs to be heard in surround sound. Even the Canadian geese who hadn't quite made the winter cut-off flying south who were now squatting by the pond looked like they were considering just ending it before having to go through another Vermont winter, and we all know how little comparable intelligence a goose possesses. There's not a gently teasing idiot remark about it for nothing.

I used to drive by about 6 times a week during high school on the way to and from the barn, when it was occupied, in better times, and I remember thinking it looked like the sort of place I would want to know the kind of people who would get matching "Mschef" vanity plates and live in an old clapboard house on a wide corner of a country road and go swimming in their pond in the backyard. They were probably artists, I thought, the two Mschefs-- projects got started, and never seemed to get finished, like the sliding doors on the north side of the house that, while installed, still looked raw around the seams and beams, like someone had found another project to worry at before they could finish fixing the trim. Ms. Mschef was probably a chef or caterer, the sort of a woman who always has a "To Do" list and is methodical yet nonchalant about getting it all done; Mr. Mschef seemed liked he'd be a house painter by day, and an abstract painter by night. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed handy around a house, yet scattered.

The house and car had been left vacant in the middle of those scattered renovations, the impedance unknown-- a divorce; an affair; a death; an unplanned-for birth, perhaps. There are, after all, some things that just can't be explained to a spouse. Why your newborn son looks more like the cashier behind the local general store and why you've been running more "last-minute late night errands" to get supplies for the next day's "intimate rehearsal lunch for 12" is one of them. Now, left all exposed wood and pink insulation tufting out to be mauled at by small mammals and birds to feather their own nests, it resembles so much nothing better than a big stuffed Valentine's Day heart, ripped apart, trailing entrails and the stuff two people thought would be enough to keep them warm. The only sign of life left on the property were those two Canadian geese out by the pond, and even they looked like they wouldn't be sticking around for much longer, if they could help it. After tragedy, sometimes, the stench just remains.

XOXO

(The Only Thing To) Fear Is (Fear Itself)

Fear is

A thief in the night,

A phone ringing at 2 AM,

A hushed voice from the other room.

Fear is

Seeing your on-again, off-again boyfriend's car

Parked in front of his on-again, off-again other woman's house

And having to think of them, twisted together, for over a year now.

Fear is

Watching your aging father

Do the old-man shuffle of caution,

Prematurely.

Fear is

Hearing the blue-collar voices of men

Below your window in the chill of an October morning,

And wondering if they're turning off your heat.

Fear is

Lying awake at night

Thinking about the heat, your father, and the other woman

And finding you can still sleep.

XOXO

Plate Tectonic Theory

I look up, because I've now known you for long enough that I can feel when you're expecting something from me and know when I should look up.

During the moment I catch your original glance, I watch it change into a wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights thing, and, feeling bad about this nearly voyeuristic glimpse into your psyche, I let my eyes keep going, skittering past yours after the initial catch and blink of surprise, now drifting by each other like two continental plates enacting plate tectonic theory in motion-- somewhere, because of this, a volcano will erupt, or an earthquake will go off.

An unfamiliar prickle begins at the base of my spine; a feeling I've almost forgotten, like the names of relatives you never see anymore. I realize, belatedly, a day later, after the fact, and after the fact that the alcohol I'd been swimming through has now dissolved into my bloodstream like so many other things, to be forgiven and forgotten and generally not thought much of ever again-- it's because you haven't looked at me that way in a Long Time. Nearly, I might even say, nearly a year.

I'd almost forgotten it, but there it was-- I looked to you like something shiny and new.

XOXO

The Last Time

The last time,
Our eyes caught

In the early morning haze,
And locked,
A gray-blue and a bright green,
As you touched me,
Deliberate.
For an instant,
One drawing in of both our breaths,
One moment of stillness,
One last time you saw me,

For real.

The spell broken,
As I looked down
And closed mine,
Out of shame.

XOXO

Firenze Sempre

Those were
(Quelli erano)
The golden days.
(I giorni d'oro.)
The mornings where sunlight
(Il mattino dove la luce solare)
Looked like dust filtering through stagnant air
(Considerata come la polvere che filtra attraverso l'aria stagnante)
And
(E)
The heavy weight of jewels.
(Il peso pesante di gioielli.)
The evenings on the coast when warm breezes
(Le serate sulla costa quando brezze termiche)
Carried
(Eseguita)
The clean smell of
(L'odore di pulito)
Cacti
(Cacti)
And
(E)
Sea salt
(Sale marino)
On them.
(Su di essi.)
Monuments
(Monumenti)
Rose like memories in the piazzas,
(Crescere come ricordi nelle piazze,)
And
(E)
Buildings
(Edifici)
Loomed as tangible as the passing of time around them.
(Profilò tangibili come il passare del tempo intorno a loro.)
A back alley in Firenze
(Un vicolo in Firenze)
--Only the Italian names for places—
(-- Solo i nomi italiani per i posti--)
Via dello Studio.
(Via dello Studio.)
I am late on my way to a friend’s apartment,
(Sono in ritardo sul mio modo di appartamento di una amica,)
But walk
(Ma a piedi)
Slowly,
(Lentamente,)
Rewarded for my patience when,
(Premiato per la mia pazienza quando,)
Above me,
(Sopra di me,)
Piano
(Pianoforte)
And
(E)
A woman singing opera
(Una donna di canto lirico)
Erupt from open windows.
(Scoppiare dalle finestre aperte.)
I stop
(Mi fermo)
On the cobblestones
(Sul selciato)
And listen,
(E ascolta,)
Knowing this is a moment I will remember fondly
(Sapere questo è un momento mi ricorderò con affetto)
For the rest of my life.
(Per il resto della mia vita.)
Nothing has changed here
(Nulla è cambiato qui)
Since 1482.
(Dal 1482.)
I hope nothing changes
(Spero che non cambia nulla)
Upon my return—
(Al mio ritorno--)
A 20 year old shadow of me,
(A venti anni ombra vecchio di me,)
Left wandering the streets here,
(Sinistra per le strade qui,)

Forever,

(Sempre,)

With
(Con)
Part of my heart
(Parte del mio cuore.)

XOXO

Hiatus

You said "hiatus" like there was something to tie me to the same place, the same space, the same point in time. Like you can tell a dog "stay." Like there was something worth staying for or coming back to.

I wanted to look around and see the same strange universe you live in so I would know what exactly you were thinking. I wanted to tell you, "I may love you, but I don't love you enough to atrophy." I wanted to believe that you were bipolar, as it seemed to be the only explanation for the abrupt Harvey Dent two-face turn.

Instead, as time passes, so do the reasons, the possibility of explanations, and even the desire to linger. In some places, a "hiatus" is nice-- Maui, the Virgin Islands, Fiji. For others, a break only means that things have now been broken. No traction, no ICU and no splints and bones.

XOXO

Perfect Strangers

I don't know what made me look up just then, so suddenly, like emotional whiplash. Maybe it's just because I'm used to having you around-- you still show up on my radar, a bright blip.

But instead of where you would have come over before, instead, you looked away.

Just like we were perfect strangers.

You're just another handsome guy in a Red Sox cap. I'm just another girl pretentiously reading in the corner. If we were perfect strangers, I may try to catch your eye. I may smile. I may run a hand through my hair so you could better see my face. But after our combined history, I know better.

Just like how, as an imperfect non-stranger, I know your Cassiopeia constellation of moles, and how you smell, the way you take your coffee, and the unmistakable sound of your first signs of smoker's cough. And you know too much about me.

I can't pretend we're perfect strangers, so I pretend to ignore you as you walk slowly by, instead.

XOXO

Things That People Never Tell You

If feels likes sharks slipping past in the night. The music marks you as guilty, but never has Jaws looked this appealing before.

Cat people thrive on rejection. Maybe, it's the whole feeling given off of "I'm-not-quite-attainable-and-some-of-it-is-partially-at-times-when-you-have-no-fucking-clue-where-I-am-and-find-yourself-fervently-hoping-that-I'm-not-throwing-up-in-your-shoes-to-spite-you-because-you're-not-quite-sure-if-I-really-like-you-or-if-I'm-just-using-you-because-without-your-bed-I'd-be-homeless" way that some women seem to have, too.

Dear Clinique: I am writing to you to report a fallacy in your marketing of your Lash Power Mascara Long Wearing Ultra Waterproof Formula. When my now ex-boyfriend of 2 years broke up with me for another woman with a perm, that shit ran like the Nile.

"I don't tell fairy tales much."

"Please? Just this once? Mommy always tells me fairy tales before I go to bed."

"I didn't birth you, so I don't think those rules apply to me."

"C'mon, just this once. Please?"

"Did you hear the one about the princess and the frog?"

"Yeah."

"Nothing is original these days. Fine. There was this--"

"NO! You have to start with, 'once upon a time'..."

"FINE. ONCE UPON A TIME there was this princess who had really shitty taste in men. I mean, like, forget shining armor, these dudes were lucky if they had a frickin' pair of clean boxers. There were no white horses, no roses, no jewelry, no surprise spontaneous serenading and choreographed dancing, no boom boxes under windows...nothing that every single movie or story themed at girls that you will watch or hear for the next 25 years of your life have. Because that is not real life. That is a fairy tale. And in fairy tales, Prince Charming does not give you herpes. Because as our princess found out, it's really hard to sleep with a lot of douches and not contract something that makes you itch where you just shouldn't. And while he lives happily ever after, spreading his gen-hep-2 to the rest of the female population stunned enough to have sex with him, she did not."

"...you don't ever need to tell me a fairy tale again."

"I warned you. And so you know, Valtrex can only do so much, and stay away from artists. They're like, the power-hungry magicians of the not-fairy-tale world. You'll never be able to find that pair of underwear again. Under their bed is a black hole, and a genie. And your three orgasms were his three wishes, tricking you into feeding, clothing, and blowing that sad little excuse for a Jackson Pollock."

"Goodnight! GOODNIGHT!"

"Goodnight, sweetie. Sleep tight."

XOXO

Short Words, Big Feelings.

For the first time today, I did not go directly out and have a cigarette after seeing the evidence of your indiscretion uncover itself, strewn so completely out in front of me like a particularly gruesome triple-homicide.

I waited three hours. Then I sucked two down in a row.

Shaking in the numbing night air, I opened up my mouth and felt the wind rip it straight from my lungs. And for the first time, I could actually feel it killing me.

XOXO

The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 7:

"Monsters"

Never speak ill of the dead.

Raised by a recovering Roman Catholic father, I have spent my life conditioned to forget the past downfalls of the deceased as he does—the caustic-tempered friend who committed suicide, his domineering mother—they become figurative angels in death.

My own forgiveness haunts me like a particularly hard-to-ignore ghost. Once upon a time, in boredom, in fascination, in extreme attraction, I got involved with a guy who introduced me to some of the more esoteric aspects of life. It was fun, for a time; we had a good run. But gradually, the longer I stayed, the more I got to see that the things I loved about him—his extreme honesty, his constant search for fun, his reliability to be there when needed—also were the things that showcased his downfalls. His alert blue eyes sunk into hollows surrounded by flesh so purple and tired-looking it appeared as if he’s been punched by someone with particularly large fists in both eyes. The leg next to mine jumped and twitched, just like his fingers. Calls would go missed, be returned later, after it wasn’t important anymore.

I started out very naive, and turned jaded quick. One day, I looked at him and realized I had no idea who he was anymore. I came back from a vacation to find him gaunt and tired and morose. I started turning away as soon as I saw the straight-edge and straw come out, not even waiting anymore for the moment when he bent over the table. I wanted to close my ears from the sound of that strange, wet snuffling.

Not one who should be pointing fingers or condemning anyone, but I hated it. I hated the subversive behavior that always kept my heart pounding a mile a minute; once the thing I loved most. I hated the red rawness that appeared around his nostrils; the gray sheen of his skin; the sweat. I hated not being able to get in touch with him, either physically or mentally. I signed myself on board thinking one man was captain, only to find out it was a completely different other. One, I loved. The other, I despised. The problem was, any given day, I didn’t know who would show up for active duty. If today was a day I could depend on someone else, or if I would be running to catch up with the show, picking up the broken pieces and trying to stick them back on before it was noticed.

To this day, say the word “coke” to me and watch closely what happens in my eyes. It’s a purely visceral reaction, one unlike most others I haven’t yet been able to master. Maybe it’s one of my truest reactions. Watch them snap wide with one blink, distrust and hatred appearing right before the lids meet, gone when they open again. Say “coke,” and I am as sure I will lose you as I lost the him I adored.

Me, who can’t remember the majority of a solid year of her life, lost to smoke, who slept amongst the empty bottles in high school, I know too well the siren call some things can have. I trace out lines between the substances—ok, understandable, uncomfortable, definitely not ok, I’m leaving right now—and wonder what sense, if any, these delineations make. My reasoning surely makes no sense—opium destroyed the entire Chinese Imperial world, and yet, because it comes from a flower grown in my own flower beds at home, I am tempted to give it an “understandable” when I should be saying “Get it the fuck away.” Chemicals I don’t trust—anything made by man therefore has our immense margin for error. I don’t panic if it’s organic, but at the same time, I’ve learned I can live without it just fine if need be. Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe right now, clean overseas for a month, I want that back in my head and my bloodstream, the little floaters of “everything’s gonna be alright.”

In the end, I try to reconcile the good times with the not-so-good, and realize just like human error, human need is not infallible. In the end, I realize we all need a little bit of escapism and mental adventure. We all have some less-than-stellar habits. It does not define who you are, as some might think, but it does color your character and how people remember you.

For me, I still cannot speak ill of the dead, but I can speak ill of the powder-white nightmare that follows it. I still remember vividly the nightmares I would have—finding the twisted captain tucked away somewhere in my house, a monster in disguise of someone I loved and trusted, cooking things up in my own oven, chasing me into corners, forcing me to fight back. I would wake up crying, moved to tears by the images in my mind of burying my balled-up fists into that familiar and beloved form, again and again and again, listening to his yells. When I jumped ship, it took awhile, but they stopped. I found myself in the calm between storms. I took time. I mourned. I thought long and hard about where and how I can judge, or if I should even judge at all. I made peace, or so, I thought.

Two months ago, the nightmare came back again. All it took was that one word, and I woke with a start in the night, from a dream in which your dual twin appeared, gaunt, all the charm and comfort gone. Twisted, nasty, snarling at me with need I couldn’t relieve—I relived the nightmares, in a new form.

That night, I couldn’t fall back asleep, even though I could look over and see that it wasn’t true, at least for now. I lay in the partial darkness of the room, waiting for the monster to slide under the door, burrow deep in your nasal passages, take hold, and destroy again. I expected to see it raise its ugly head before my eyes, right then and there, summoned by its name like a demon. I didn’t dare try drifting off again, for fear of returning to the dream and waking you, sobbing and racking my body in my sleep. I wrestled with my demons until dawn.

You slept on. I sent a plea up to that particular angel.

XOXO

The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 4:

“The Things I Left Behind”

I found you; you found me. A stumble, a class, a drink, a show, and we were “we,” like pick-up sticks or a puzzle. Autonomous, but together; some nights, some days.

Thinking hard, racking my brain for dropped clues and scattered memories, I can’t remember how I got here, speeding away at precisely 535 miles per hour, 37,000 feet above the sea. I am confused and petulant and scared. I want to still be feeling new with you, waking up in your bed, looking at Orion triumphing over the night sky through your bedroom window, breathing in the smell of you sleeping, very different than how you smell when you’re awake, more powdery with sleep-dust and dreams yet still pungent of man; a smell so specific and so arresting that once a hint of just a note of it could stop me dead in my tracks on the cobblestones of Church Street. A smell I could pick up like a bloodhound, even in a crowd, even when you’re not around. Your pheromones speak to me in an ancient tongue of attraction, and I understand it fluently.

Thank you for letting me go. I need to find a "me" before I find a "we."

XOXO

Beekeeper

In black and white newsprint, there are two photos of you. One is a photo from your graduation day, in the requisite robe and big smile, face still chubby, barely out of boyhood, without the sharp angles I have come to know. In the other, you are obscured by a beekeeper's baggy outfit, face hidden under the net mask, but it's you all the same. You are surrounded by a swarm of bees, like they are coming to your honey. I only pause to wonder about it for a moment.

Beside the photos run short quotes about the kind of person you were, from family, friends, professors; people other than me. I start to get indignant. No one ever asked me who you were. No one ever asked my opinion on how life would go on without you. I could have summed you up in under 20 words, all of them genuine, gut-wrenching, and deeply insightful. The perfect words; nothing more, and nothing less. Instead, they asked other women, other students, other confidants. One is from Germany. I don't know how I remember that.

As I put the paper down, my chest suddenly clenches in a pain that feels like an invisible hand is peeling half of my heart away. I squirm, and actually feel an arm cross my chest to protect it. I look at myself, standing next to the table, as still as your grave, and realize I'm actually looking at myself. My whole unmoving, unsquirming body, from soles of shoes to crown of head. The feeling doesn't go away. I twist once more, and find myself facing yellow bedsheets and the wooden side of my nightstand, half-naked and alone. No shoes. No church. And no obituary.

I sit bolt-upright, out of breath and shell-shocked, one hand still protecting that fragile, ripping heart, reach for my glasses and slide them onto my face, and look at the clock. It is 9:58 AM, and I am wondering if you are still alive.

XOXO

[Photo credit www.laurenshaw.com.]

I Still Can't Say "Lata, Playa."

This past October, one of my really dear friends died suddenly. I can trace the Maturation of Carissa back to almost that exact date. He was a big dude in almost every sense, and not having him there made a lot of us all grow up and fill the holes that he left in having to take care of ourselves and each other.

He had my back more than anyone else ever has. And I only say this over my best girl friends, because I am pretty sure that he would have killed someone if he thought he really had to. He certainly was right up and in the face of the drunk dude at Higher Ground until I got an apology for being doused by his beer. He was there to protect and serve when the Ex Who Won't Take No For An Answer came back to Burlington.

He was the sort of guy who would give you both his shirt AND his ill hoodie right off of his back if you asked for it. I don't think I ever heard him tell me "no." I could call him at any hour of the day or night and tell him what was up, and he'd be right on it. More than anything else I miss about him lately, I miss that feeling of knowing that there was someone who can just say, "Hey, homegirl, it's aight. You're a dime, and you're gonna get through this," and tuck me under his chin. And it made it "aight."

We went through a lot together. I'd never been more honest with anyone than I was with him. He was just one of those people who you just wanted to tell everything to. We'd sit out on the stoop and smoke and shoot the shit, and those are probably some of my favorite memories. I learned more about other people and myself when I was with him then I ever did alone. It stands to reason that sometimes, the people that you least expect it from are the ones that are going to provide you with exactly what you need, even if you never knew you needed it before.

The other day, I was feeling pretty low. I went into my little Drawer of Magic and was promptly stumped. There was lots more in there then I remembered, and I mean, I'm not just being forgetful here. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I pulled it all out, looked at it, exceedingly puzzled, and then just felt it. There he was, in with his wares, still providing for me. Basically, still saying, "Keep it easy, and this one's on me. Still." I sat there on my bedroom floor and gave in to the least-graceful mix of laughing and crying at the same time ever executed.

I miss him terribly, every day.

But it's good to know his sense of generous humor has still stuck around.

So this one's on me. One love, MJP. And I'll never say "lata, playa."
XOXO

Helen Keller

You told me I never told you how I felt.
It's true--
-----------I didn't.
I kept my feelings tight,
Under
Lock
-----------&
----------------------Key,
And when I felt like I'd lose control of them
And let them go flying
-----------Out
Into that great unknown void between
My lips
-----------And
----------------------Your ears and mind,
I wrapped myself tighter in them,
Like how I wrapped myself up in your sheet one night so tight,
I was like Burrito Girl,
And struggled in a
Silent,
-----------Full-blown
----------------------Panic
About being trapped for 5 minutes,
At 5 AM,
While you slept beside me,
Completely unaware
What was happening right beside you.
I was too used to forced independence
To even think or consider waking you up,
And asking you to help me out of
-----------All of it.
Completely unaware.
I neglected both myself
-----------&
----------------------You.
Like a dumb mute,
I kept things from you.
For fear of losing myself,
I lost you
-----------In silence.
I never laid a "thank you" next to your ear-drum,
For the things that meant
So much
-----------To me,
Like your vocabulary
And the fact we could discuss literature
Like semi-civilized human beings,
The 2 AM phone calls
When you knew I'd still be awake,
Even the
Bad puns,
Though
It was one
Constant
-----------Repeating
----------------------Refrain
In my mind.
I never told you, "I like being with you,"
Though
I never had the heart to squirm away from you
In the middle of the night,
When you were far too warm,
Even for me,
Because I would have rather been
-----------Tucked
Next to you and too warm,
Than beside anyone else and comfortable.
(Plus,
-----------You always followed me if I moved.)
I never said "I miss you,"
Though at times,
It felt like that feeling you get
When you're leaving for a trip,
And,
-----------As you walk out the front door,
You get that vague
-----------Yet specific
Feeling that you're forgetting something,
But you can't put your finger on it;
Until you've driven just far enough
That you can't justify turning back,
-----------When it hits you like a falling piano,
And all you can do is sit there,
And say,
"Well,
-----------Damn."
That is how I missed you.
And while I was missing you,
I was
Completely unaware.
I told you,
When the words finally came,
-----------Too late,
That the only person you can control
Is yourself.
Lies.
You can't even control yourself,
Some of the time,
As I proved,
By what I was too
Hesitant
-----------&
----------------------Too afraid
To say,
And as you proved to me.
I never asked for more because
-----------It was enough.
I thought I had learned,
That fear of rocking the boat,
Never got the crew anywhere.
Now I see,
Lessons remain to be learned.

XOXO

Snapshots.

The User and the Used

"I’m glassy-eyed in the mirror; that same vacant, pretty, coping stare Legs used to have.

My mind stutters on these thoughts, catching rays of sunlight and dust particles glinting in the air. My fingers cramp and release, heavy like my eyelids as I type on the black and white, trying to get the words down, depressing ‘backspace’ more and more as I realize letters are missing…
Overhead, planes fly people to their heart’s location.

My heart thumps heavily in the cage of my chest, bone and skin. The air is thick and smells like funk. I puff, puff, drag, feet resting on my windowsill, blowing the smoke out the window with the aid of a fan. My lighter sparks and catches, sparks and catches, and I wonder if this was how Legs did it, if that’s how he found his escape, like I am doing now. I buy, and de-seed and stem, and pack, and roll, and light, and inhale, and let the smoke trickle from my open lips like smoke monsters in the dark air, and I miss him, terribly, heart-wrenchingly, despondently, all at once.

It’s late, and I know I should put the laptop down, stop allowing myself free access into the confused sore that is my heart and laying it, splat, across the page, but it’s a masochistic exercise in life-lessons: you fall in love and let that person walk out of your life, and this is what happens. So you cry about it. You rationalize it. You get angry about it. You work at it. You smoke to avoid it at first, and then you smoke to embrace it. You mold it into something you can work with. You apply it. You find something that you can live with. You get happy about this, at least, and then you smoke more to continue. It’s a circle of use, misuse, and being used.

...The words tumble from fingertips that are dry and unfeeling on the keyboard, and I don’t even try to stop them. I can’t even stop my mind. Blink, there’s another memory I haven’t remembered since it happened. Flash, and I’m sweaty and I have a dry mouth and can feel everything around me in minute detail. Click, and I’m all the way gone on the sweet side effects of a love that doesn’t know better and a habit that shouldn’t have been allowed to grow. Snap, I’m back to square one."

(In)Pulse
Roused from my sleep,
I clutch pen
& grit teeth.
I cannot help when the words come
Anymore than you can help your addictions,
Already deep-seeded,
Or the singer can control her song
Or the bird his flight.
It is an impulse,
My scratch of pen on paper,
The snort of powder up your nose,
Much
Harsher
&
Methodical
As you cut lines,


Prepare your straw, ---Close one nostril, ---And make that
---------strange ---------snuffling ---------noise


That makes me cringe,
Though my back is turned to you,
Like it always is when I see you start your ritual.
The rise and fall of notes, much sweeter than this candy.
The feeling of air under a bird’s wing, much more free.
You are not sweet,
& you are not free.
But neither am I, chasing this trail of papers,
Always hoping the next one will be better.
You and I,
We aren’t so much un-alike,
Both of us with our willingness to fall prey,
To the things that gnaw on the insides of us.
It is to say,
“Because I can,”
& to do so.
It is to say,
“Who I am,”
& not resist it.

I tell you to stop using.
You tell me to shut the light off,
& go to bed.

Cold

"I’m warmest in sunlight. Not at night when you’re lying next to me, radiating body heat and safety and comfort, but when I’m walking in the cold air and the sunlight touches my face with rays gentler than your gentlest brush of fingertips. I think I have a gold-and-cream complexion (my nice way of saying what some call “pale” in tones reminiscent of disease and social awkwardness,) because I’m a sun-baby—my hair reflects it and my skin soaks it in, becoming almost luminescent. (Again with the “pale.”) I was born in June for a reason.

Your heat doesn’t stay long, just like your body—come the next morning, we part to go our separate ways and I’m cold until the next time you nuzzle your body beside mine, nook into nook, limb over limb, some strange sort of human pick-up-stick pile of us. The sun only leaves me at night, leaving me in your care, your heat, your warmth, knowing that you can never really replace it, even though you will try, and you will like to think that you’re the true center of my personal universe. But I say everything still revolves around one sun, and you, with your thin wrists and your love for sarcasm, are far too human. You are human, and you are cold.

Winter wind still blows even though the sun is in full shine mode. I tilt my face up at it through the smudged windows of the bus and close my eyes, seeing a disco ball pattern on the insides of my eyelids that dance like the free-love generation did on LSD. I’ve forgotten my coat at home, lulled by the sunshine into thinking that it’s warmer than it actually is, and you offer me yours.

The ancient Greeks’ sun-god was named Helios. The Romans called him Apollo. I call him warmth-bringer, light-maker, shadow-chaser. You call me sun-worshipper, heat-seeker, desert-baby. I call you mine, but I lie through my teeth when I say it. You are not mine, and I am not yours, not any more than I can claim to own the sun.

In the age of solar panels, people harness sunlight and bend it to suit their needs—heat, energy, power. I am just as much to blame, yoking you to my proverbial harness to suit my basic needs—companionship, entertainment, and because it’s convenient. You, I suspect, have done the same to me. We do it because it’s easy; because it’s what people expect of us. When you need, you need. It’s human to need, too human, and I have never been good at denying myself, the byproduct of a spoiled childhood. Although I have a hard time telling people out-loud what it is we’re playing at, I find it equally hard to be utterly blasé about it and say, “I keep him around for the sex.” What I don’t have a hard time telling them is what it isn’t. It isn’t forever. It isn’t immortal. It isn’t stationary, or reliable, or even planned. Just like the sun rises from the East every morning, it is predictable and we take it for granted. Once, you called me a frigid bitch. I didn’t deny it. I, just like you, am cold. That’s why I believe more in sunlight than I do in love."

Christmas, Tough-Love Style

"What do you think? Does it look good?"

"It could do without some of the more tacky ones."

"Like which?"

"Like that one, to the left of the middle. The lumpy red and green one that looks like a wreath."

"That is a wreath. I made it for you in Advent Workshop years ago."

"Oh. What about that white Styrofoam one?"

"That one, too. It's supposed to be a snowflake."

"The clothespin reindeer."

"Basically, anything you consider tacky, I made for you and Mom as a child."

Wounding people is so easy, we stride right on afterwards without even a second thought. We all do it.

There will always be that awkward tension between parent and child in the constant search for parental approval. Tides change-- though I will never feel quite up-to-snuff for my father, my mother now looks to me for my approval. I am off-guard and awkward, and don't know when and how to give it. This softens the dynamic of my father a bit, however.

But, then again, who am I to judge?

Choosing Sides

"Wall or nightstand side?" he always asks, even though the answer always remains the same. It's just the kind of guy he is.

He's already tucked in next to the nightstand. Half of me wonders what would happen if I asked for that side. Half of me chastises the other half for trying to make trouble when everything is exactly how I want it to be in the first place. Half of me sighs. All of me crawls up the bed instead.

"Wall," I answer. "Of course. That's where I always end up, anyway." Always between cool wall and warm body. I modulate temperature like a flesh thermostat. Always on his right-hand side. Just like how he always pushes me back down in his sleep to his arm and shoulder in the place of a pillow.

Whoever needed cotton and filling when you have a hot-blooded male, anyway?

After the third night, I wised up. If Manhammoud won't let you go to the pillow-mountain, you bring the pillow to you.

Drip-Drop

Part One:

Writers: Black depressions, over-active imaginations, mental illnesses, and substance abuse. We are an under-whelmingly cheery lot.

Bathtub and beer. Bathtub and half-bottle of wine. Bathtub and a vodka concoction. It's all the same to me.

I think writers have an affinity for bathtubs because there's always the possibility of drowning oneself if the mood so strikes you. I'm sure some author must have tried holding their breath a minute too long after an unfavorable review. (Note to Self: Research this.)

I lounge in the convex shallows of the tub, one knee propped up under the facet, regulating water temperature by feel, my right kneecap bright red because I like it scalding hot. (Might as well live if you're going to be alive.) I'm reading Abbey's "The Fool's Progress" and feeling quite foolish myself, feeding this writer's malaise of mine so indulgently. Later, I will try sticking my toes in the jets, reverse whack-a-mole.

Part Two:

I turn the radio on, but leave the lights off. The moment I step into the shower and close the door behind me, my hair instantly and decidedly curls up in the trapped humidity. (Fact: I have naturally wavy hair. You will probably never see it.) The Presidents of the United States of America remind me in "Peaches" (Fact: Meant to give that CD back...) that the acoustics of the shower are the best I've ever found for singing (Fact,) but these glass walls won't hear my voice today. Soap in silence. Shampoo in solitude. Condition in consternation. (Fact: Alliteration is one of my many writer's vices. Along with verbosity and cliches.)

"Must stop playing hermit," I tell myself. "That's a direct order. Cheer the fuck up."

Circa Bankruptcy

Christmas night. The dog is napping in the backseat, taking up the entire bench, and it's nearly midnight; not Christmas any more. I'm driving and smoking at the same time, because that's one of the things I do know how to do in full multi-tasking glory. I've got the windows cracked because, silly to admit, I am scared of harming an innocent animal's lungs. Mine are already damned. So my nose is cold so his lungs can remain free from any more second-hand smoke. Silly. But the windows are still down.

It's nearly dead downtown. I'm tempted to make a silent joke about the graveyard shift, but it would be almost too easy. I don't know what called me here, but I needed to fill my eyes with it. The sight of a sheriff's cruiser lingering at a red light reminds me I still haven't replaced a front headlight that's out. I skulk past and hope Christmas spirit is enough to get me out of a ticket. I don't have the time, money, or desire to pay for either a new bulb or a ticket. I'd rather just take Plan A and flee the country. Har har.

The streetlights that rise up around me are festooned in white Christmas lights that wind around them and wreaths. The old, retro buildings, once freshly painted and proud, slouch into their foundations. Half of the storefronts are empty; "For Sale" and "For Rent" signs are the only things that occupy windows. The city of my childhood is gone. Instead, hardscrabble has taken hold.

At seven, I used to walk the four blocks down the hill from the public library to my dad's shop. At twenty, I lock my car doors as I come to a stop outside the building that used to be my father's. No lights. No gold glistening from overhead lighting in the display cases in the windows. Everything is quiet; not even the whisper of falling snow to make white-noise. I'm caught half-in and half-out of the past and the present, the crossroads of What Used To Be and The Cold, Hard Truth. Somewhere in the last twelve years, I missed this all changing. You come home, an almost-adult, and you suddenly see it all. It's alarming. It makes you wonder where it went wrong; if there was something you could do; what signs you missed and how. And if a city can change like this, unnoticed until it's over, what else can?

The dog lets out a snore. Suddenly tired, I take a last long draw and then stub my cigarette out on my side-view mirror, the plastic burned and crusted from doing it so many times in the same place before. I pull a U-ey and head for home as the clock ticks in a new day.

"And miles to go, before I sleep, and miles to go, before I sleep," I remember as I roll up the windows and rub the feeling back into my nose.

Implosion

"I'm done with being looked through. When you look at me, it's almost enough to make me believe I could catch fire. Spontaneously combust in being someone."

---

Excuse me for just thrusting you into that, but one of my professors, a very wise man who is pretty much the reason I came to Champlain, once said that there is a time and a place for disclaimers, and in front of your writing is neither the time, nor the place. So I guessed I was wise to heed him-- his advice hasn't done me wrong yet.

The one good thing about being home and broke is that it's giving me lots of time to write. And write. And write some more. The above are some pieces of writing I've been busy resurrecting and breathing new life and words into for awhile (the first piece was an excerpt from a longer work from Creative Non-Fiction; (In)Pulse and Cold are both pieces I read recently at a gathering that went over well, and since people asked for copies, decided to put them here so I don't have to individually email. Laziness is a vice I posses.), as well as some short snippets that have come to me recently, as always, in the most awkward of places. (Mostly, the shower. In the shower, hands sudsy, not a pen or piece of dry paper in sight, is where I get all my best ideas. I have learned to play them on repeat like a broken cassette tape between my brain and my lips to remember them until I get out and run, dripping, for a flat surface and something to write with.) Muses be damned. They always come at the worst times.

XOXO