Inexplicable

The heat

And sweet drinks

Have made us crazy.

You call me back,

And I return.

Infinite bliss,

But at what price?

I slap you more than 3 times,

And you decide you like it.

We've decided

To re-intangle,

See if

What used to be

Cosmic

Still is

Inexplicable.

XOXO

Come Full-Circle

The first night, you made the White Russians with too much vodka. I drank it anyway, and didn't tell you until later, when I was already too drunk to drive home. Thank god you asked me to stay.

The last night, you made me a White Russian, with knock-off Kahlua, and again, too much vodka. I drank it in a rush non-conducive to walking home all the way across town, and was glad when you called me back.

The first night, we slept naked. It was winter-time and cold-- you pressed up against me. I didn't mind too much, other than the Band-Aid-adhesive feeling of peeling my skin off of your thighs when I went to roll over, where your hairs clung to me with sweat.

The last night, we slept naked. One of the last nights of summer, far too hot to touch, I looked at your alien body as it glowed translucently in the dark beside me, all legs and dark patches of hair, and thought about how weird you looked; how weird it was to be looking at you naked, vulnerable, and with your mouth open, snoring.

It was his birthday. We were both drunk beyond judgement. And Lord knows the soft-spot a mile wide for each other is located between both of our legs. It seemed like The Right Thing To Do. A tip of the hat to a shared history and the fact that human beings are remarkably fallible and Have Needs. An old song and dance, revisited. A waltz nearly a year archaic.

The next morning, I woke up, oddly elated to realize that other than a headache that pounded from the bridge of my nose between my eyes (a bull's eye to point where thinking had NOT gone on), I didn't feel any different.

Strange when you've already cared so much that you can't possibly care any more, every last drop of feeling wrung out of you like a sponge in an emotional vice-grip. Not enough emotional range left in you to switch your settings. Oxytocin orgasms over. Spent.

XOXO

It's Only Smoke And Ashes, Babe.

There are some mornings when I wake up, and it's as if no time has passed at all.

Still fuzzy

Still dazed

Still noncommittal

To anything

But the next breath,

Still hesitant even on that option.

I wonder sometimes if what I'm doing now will fuck up the rest of my life for me.

The hard part if figuring out if I really want it to, or not.

I have no idea

How I got

Half these bruises.

I have no idea

And

At the same time,

All too good of an idea

How I got

Here.

XOXO

In Absentia

It's one of those mornings where it feel like marionette strings are pulling me awake and out of bed.

Girl like painted doll-- pale skin, blue eyes lined in black, pink lips. A blink and a small pick at a zit and the illusion is shattered in the mirror, a thousand fragments of life and reality falling to bounce on the tile floor.

I cough and my body clenches and unclenches, throat screaming in pain, wet globs on the sidewalk making a path to where I have been and where I am going like Gretel with tuberculosis. As I sit in class, the ghost of questing fingers creep along the inseam of my jeans, and my skin crawls, bile rising and threatening to revolt. The dust in the street whips through the air and against my cheek, and it feels and tastes and smells completely foreign to me.

Craning my head around to see his face, I realize I am looking for a dead man everywhere, but looking never brought anyone back to life.

I look at the invitation. I consider, carefully, both sides of the response. The weight of a “yes”, the finality of a “no”. Wonder about propositions. Wonder about lies. Wonder about what “having coffee” really means. I have been reading long enough to become excellent at reading in between the lines. Wonder where “coffee” ends and “something more” starts. Wonder where and when the time for explanations is. Wonder about how much sway resemblance has. Wonder if flattery will help. Wonder if I really am that sort of girl. I make my choice. Wait five minutes. Find myself back again, looking at those words. Reconsidering. I leave again. Come back. Decide on one thing at the moment—I desperately, desperately need someone to listen. I realize even as I navigate away that I will accept. Not now, but sometime soon. Sometime soon, I will be back, still needing an ear, a shoulder, some reassurance, a sounding board. Actors have stand-ins; why can’t we have stand-ins for life when the leads come down with something? Isn’t that what’s already in practice? Leading lady; leading man; understudy; stage manager like magician. I feel the tug on the invisible marionette strings again, dragging me across the stage. The audience claps. A brilliant performance. Red and white flowers sent. Red lights flash like strobes. Roxanne without Sting to validate her. No red dress, not tonight. You don't care if it's wrong or if it's right.

The first sob startles me. There's momentary wonder and glances around to see if the sound really came from me. The next thing I know, I am pounding the sides of my fists against the cold tiles of the shower's stall, the weak trickle from the showerhead flowing down my back as I plead with whoever will listen to me through the tears that fall, unnoticed, down the drain with the rest of the water. "Please, please, don't let me shut down again. I don't want to. I don't want to!" The voice is uncanny, desperate, someone speaking from inside of me whom I didn't know existed. She sounds small, scared, exhausted. She sounds like she has something to live for, but no idea how to fight for it.

I have always held that crying in the shower doesn't count. Then again, I've always held that crying is something that shouldn't be done at all.

I listen, even though I have absolutely no answers. If I could do something for you, believe me—I would. If I could afford to lay down enough for both your life and mine, I would. If I could be the kind of girl who runs hot and cold like you do, I would. And if I could somehow reassure you that actually not being afraid to pick one or the other and run a steady temperature won’t end your life or wreck your unknown future, I WOULD, if I had the slightest idea how to go about fixing you.

Broken people don't know how to fix each other any better than a shoemaker can fix a broken camera's lens. It's all about perspective, and if you aren't willing to see it from mine, then there is absolutely nothing I can do for you, no matter how badly you want someone else to do all the work and excavating of your buried skeletons for you. Scars and substances and smoke and mirrors aside, trying to play with your shards like a puzzle yields absolutely nothing but bloody fingers and a bad taste in my mouth-- Colgate and Camel Lights.

Walking away and waiting are pretty much the same thing. Both are about an expanse of time as tangible as miles and walls that need to be hurdled. A phone that doesn't ring is still a phone. It's not like a tree falling in the forest-- it still doesn't make any sound. Effort expended is a life-lesson in physics-- what you give is what you get, and I'm tired enough to not get out of bed anymore on my own accord. The Peroni on the nightstand and the ashtray on the balcony keep track of the fact that I am still alive. The shape under my sheets suggests I am not.

The alarm buzzes constantly. No matter how many times I paw at it, it doesn't stop keeping track of time slipping by. The numbers on the display mean nothing anymore. 7 at night and sleep. 4 AM and awake. 2 and full sunlight and waking up for the first time.

You need like a newborn child; like a ravenous baby; like Romulus and Remus searching for the she-wolf to suckle them, mortal women no good. The mirror doesn't lie well enough to me; the constant checking reaffirms it; the pain and the weakness cinch the deal. Mortal, mortal, mortal. It rings through me like a death knell. There is absolutely nothing I can do for you, if you are not willing to do anything in return.

“In absentia” is more than a role-call response.

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

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

Better Than Pleather.

"Spinning in circles, halfway down our road to Nowhere, I smoked a bowl in shiny moonlight, bright as a newly-minted nickel, while thick snowflakes fell on me, making temporary homes on my hat and hair and shoulders until they dissolved into me, like reverse tears. If you haven't had this same experience, I highly recommend it to you.

I run my headphone wires through my hands, again, and again, and again. Literally, I am weaving sound between my fingers. I get stoner's cramps doing this; those aches you feel and can't be sure if they're real or not. In exchange, I am fertile ground for words; sentences; commas; the loving ampersand.

It's intense how people nest. Nearly ridiculous when you think about it. We collect and collect and collect to decorate what is only fleeting and temporary. For what? Comfort? Purely sensory. Even in my most aesthetically-pleasing, controlled environment, without internal peace of mind, none of it matters.

We build our emotional houses shoddily, and then wonder why drafts chill us to the core during the first signs of harsh winds.

Weather. Withstand. Dig down. Find what is missing within, and then release that beast in all of its' unrighteous and fully mortal petty glory. There is no shame in admitting loss and want, other than the shame we put on those emotions ourselves. There is no more human feeling than want; when you embrace it, it no longer hinders-- it becomes a building-block of character, if answered.

A conversation on wants will always be harder then it seems when talking to just yourself. Buck up. Practice saying "I want..." to your own shocked face in the mirror.

Blessed are those who want openly, for they are the ones who stand to inherit. No silent need was ever filled, unless you have psychic friends, that is. And if you do-- don't talk to me about it. Some of us are trying to evolve, here. We're throwing things up here with reckless abandon. It's like a shout in a dark tunnel-- Hello, can you read me?

And how can something that feels good be bad? Makes utterly no sense. Control is the issue. Everything is fine until it looses itself from the leash of Control. Keep it tight to you, like a dog, straining and baying at the cat, and you're good, if not utterly satisfied, save the noise. Life has an expiration date. Might as well make it as interesting as you can before it curdles."

Full Disclosure: Though I was never a S.W.E.D, there was a period (read: solid year+) in my life where I smoked heavily. Tweaker Tuesdays and Weed Wednesdays were celebrated like Naked Tuesdays were this past summer. Anyway, long story short, I quit, cold-turkey, in May. Nearly eight months, and then, another long story short, moving, the stress of finals finally (hahaha, bad puns,) being over, and the daily, unrelenting grind of moving back home for break+month made me take a running swan-dive off of the wagon like an Olympian who could taste the gold. (I could have just said "Michael Phelps" and got the gist in there through popular culture and innuendo. Damn. Almost too easy.)

It was borderline disgusting how easily it all came back. The first time, much to my dismay, there wasn't much of an affect. Last night, however, I took it straight to the face, like a noob. Like someone who had waited eight months; eagerly, anticipating, foaming at the mouth with want. As I suppose with any alcoholic, you don't know how much you've missed and wanted it until you have it again. And then-- lord. Lord, lord, lord. I don't know if you've ever denied yourself anything for solid months. (If you have, tell me about it. I'd love to know about your experience.) But for me, it was like the culmination of all the best times before, all rolled into one bowl, with all of the philosophy and feeling, and none of the paranoia or freak-outs. It was nirvana. It was purely sensory and totally existential, all at once.

One of the things that always remains the same is that when I'm in that state is that I always am up for writing and philosophizing. During my heyday, I engaged in one of the most philosophical conversations I've ever had. It was, I shit you not, about pleather. I don't remember specifics. I just remember sitting in a friends' living room and arguing-- passionately, defending my points, making clear and concise reasoning-- about pleather. PLEATHER. Imagine what I can do with solid material.

Last night, after engaging in one of the coolest experiences of my young life (immortalized above), I put myself down to bed with a rented copy of the movie "Into The Wild." Stunning. Awe- and thought-provoking. I absolutely require the book to further my generally happy existence. Knowing myself well, I had a journal and pen handy. Sure enough, I had to move it from the nightstand to beside me in bed because I kept having to pause the movie and reach over for it, time after time, after time. Blatant laziness, made worse by the night's activities, demanded as little movement as possible to keep the creative juices flowing. And so, I give you these small and relatively insignificant tidbits, though still worthy enough to provoke enough thought in me to make me feel they're worthy of post-age. Enjoy. And may you find equally liberating release.

XOXO