We All Fall Down.

Yesterday I discovered through the webbed trap of social media that she had died.
My heart leapt, surged with relief and a strange sense of guilt when I read that her heart exploded. I imagine her eyes going wide when the pain slammed into her chest. Maybe she felt her fingers tingle. Maybe for a millisecond she thought of me.
Of the stolen kiss. Of the shunning after that sticky kiss that made my knees shake, her mouth tasting like petroleum and strawberries, slick with lip gloss.

I remember her mouth, always full and plump. I remember the cleft in her chin, deeper than mine. Her bistre colored eyes under a sheaf of bleached blond hair. She was perfect. Always stylish, never shabby.
How I hated her. Looking in her eyes, being surrounded by a pack of teenage girls circling like country blue eyeliner tarted up wolves. The shock when the spittle hit my face, my heart bending again. Hatred creeping in, curling and black into my heart, into the chamber where I cradle and nurse hate. It feeds off  the thudding corruption of pumping blood, unlike hers.
She intimidated me. Genuinely. At the school dances when I would sneakily request inappropriate songs from approved artist compact discs, she would be the center of attention, her body rolling and snaking on the dance floor.
Her inexpert but focused sexuality was undefinable, and she wore it with impunity. Even one of the male teachers eyes stared at her hungrily, running up and down her tan body.

I imagine the cold wormy ground. Had they embalmed her? Prolonged the rotting of the corporeal flesh with disgusting fluids that never should have been made for the human body? Did they sew her eyelids shut?
As she is in oblivion, her body has most likely exploded by now, methane and sadness filling her coffin. Her once pretty face sunken and hollow, cracked lips and split cheeks.

I wanted a final showdown. I longed to slink bank to the inevitable reunion, sucking my teeth and winning because I got out of that shitty town. I wanted to drink her with my eyes and spit out the cherry stem of her spine.
But in a way, she won.

She took my victory from me, and left me with a hollow feeling nothing like grief. I am the have the strangest conflict in my mind, still with the pain I feel. The unexpected pain of loss. Even though I don't grieve, or even despair of a young life ended by an explosion of muscular valves.

But loss, that I do feel. And I have no moral compass for things such as these. 

The Caveat.

Washing down another pill with a cold pull off the bottle of cheap beer I bought myself. I've been drinking for three days, trying to write but being pulled like a siren song to my instruments.
Responsibilities and loyalties fall by the wayside as I fuzzily pluck at strings.

Drinking isn't a habit, but more of a bandaid on an arterial wound when I am like this, wound tight like an expensive watch. My brain ripples and quivers, hyperaware and intrusive. I pick up on the snippets, keep ee contact.
I wrought discomfort, and I wanted to. This thin tan blonde with watery blue eyes, and a smaller amount of self-confidence than will be needed to wrangle me. Her eagerness to please was obvious; her divination of my past sure. She smiled kindly, so kindly, as if she had coaxed these things from me.

But I know the clinical scanning of a file that she did. Her opinion is not yet formed, but she fears. I make her nervous. And I like it. 

A New Shackle, Shiny and Laughing.

I don't fear age.
I fear infirmity. The shaking of limbs, the creaking of joints, the pain in knobby hands papery and rheumy. Heaviness and torpor, unbidden.
It terrifies me. Scares me cold to my bones, chilling my marrow. The shaking hands...the apologetic crinkles around the eyes. With a young mind, stilled at ageing by 35.

I cannot abide it. 

Preferably With Sharper Teeth...

How calculating I must seem. Through moans, all silken and breathy. My arching spine, supine from a lucky coincidence. I have dimples in my hips, like Bettie Page. I see the admiration, the quick intake of air.

But none of it is affectation. I am leveled, laid flat and stripped of guises. My chest heaves and my legs tremble but my face stays cool and level as a placid lake.

I cannot say it back, for I do not yet know how I mean it. 

A Handprint

I'd forgotten how your head snaps back. The sharp crack, the white explosion under the eye.
It makes me feel like a child again. Angry and murderous, wound tighter than fishing line. And actually sad. Pathetically in my bones sad. How stupid of me to waste my sadness on this. 

Let them down easy now, girl.

Does my name sound like it would make a pretty name for a slave? That's what all of this feels like. I went out, counted the days, was careful with my heart.
Chemistry is everything. Without it the person lying next to you could be as inconsequential as an old fish or a snowglobe, much less a quiet gentle man with hopeful eyes and eagerness that inexplicably turned my stomach. Lack of chemistry renders us powerless to love, no matter how worthy the subject.

Lying in my bed after he sadly penetrated me, him looking pleased; and I felt crestfallen and slightly disgusted. When he left in the morning I scrubbed his scent off of myself and my sheets, suppressing shudders.

My constant and trusted lover assures me I am worthy. And I am. But now that I am, I start to care less for love. And this other hapless male was impaled on the sharpened pole of my own self discovery. What a heartless cunt I can be.

I will have to sit with him soon. Looking at my nervous fingers, eyes sliding off of his after each 5 seconds. I'll let him down easy.

O LOVE! In all of thy forms thou twist and conquer. You wrap my heart in adimantuim, and then like a sparrow hitting a window, the impact of my indifference has come full circle, all broken and lifeless. 

I'm a good girl, I am.

I swallowed another little pill I was given last night, vividly picturing my doctor's concerned face. Her pretty but makeup-less face, the light brown eyes crinkled from her constant inspections of humans. I noticed her expensively woven clothing, Fair Trade produced undoubtedly.

I slept. I slept last night.
Dreams raging through my brain, things remembered that I wish could be forgotten. But I feel clear, and like things are less granular. I feel stable, like a little robotic thing. Beep beep boop I took the pill.

Will it kill what I like most about myself? Will I still sing and write and coax sounds out of my instuments? Hello Lovely, let's try this again.

-I wanted to because I feel, that nothing else would be as real. You love more than anything.... I lay down my life again.-

I shiver, trying to keep the last slithering swirls of my sanity in place. Everything recoils from me; and I turn into a room that only has funhouse mirrors in it. Distorted perceptions, deception.



I find a soft and blissful comfort in my purposeful ignorance. I can bear solitude. He cannot. 

Winter is coming...

Take me through the winter woods, walk and skip beside me.

Take me through the winter woods, the Skoggra shall abide me.

Take me through the winter woods, just hold my hand so tightly. 

The victory I fought and won was hollow. After so many needles and pokes, so much blood spinning in a seemingly endless lukewarm cylinders, I thought I would feel more. I speak to my mother.

Her voice peaked with excitement when she told me how she wanted to have a bowling alley fundraiser for me. My chest caved in as I repeated NO NO NO NO NO.

She sounded crestfallen, like I'd jabbed her and all of her air slithered out. How I hurt her. How it hurts to turn to her for consolation and only hear JESUS JESUS JESUS. It's like a file on my ear drum, a violation of a passive cavity.

I will never be what she wants. I can never be who she wants.

Like in the fable. A snake bit the man who had found him wounded and nursed him back to health only to die in shock and dismay at the wound from the serpent. The viper whom he had cradled in against his bosom.

"You knew I was a snake, didn't you?"

Well...

I suppose now I have to find out who I am. Test my metal, smelt it down to be hammered into what I shall be. I have to stop clutching my heart so tightly, stop expecting the blow to be struck.

But experience teaches more than hope. Hope can be a curse. Maybe Pandora didn't slam the lid down fast enough, whispers of it escaping and running through her fingers like rain.

Pounding all around me...

The walls shriek and shrink. I need to get out of here tonight.

A Tightening In My Chest.

I am going to explode out of my body. I keep pacing, my nerves pinging and snapping. I need to let this go. I have to stop lying to myself.

Everything doesn't work out in the end. No storybook ending, no tidily wrapped destinies exist here. I can only see blankness in my mind's eye when I think of my future. I don't know how to make this feeling stop. This horrible storm in my stomach, so tight it feels like I swallowed a squall.

One week. Breathe. Stop looking at the calender every half an hour. Stop checking the time obsessively, frantically texting friends but not knowing what to ask for.

What do I need? I feel like there is one piece missing, that one insanely shaped puzzle piece that is always clicked into place at the end with understanding and triumph.

But I don't know what that puzzle piece is. Do I really have to wait until the end?

Rotten Rotten Little Thing

Despite the mass of my body I still feel tiny. In the scheme of things I suppose I am, in this screaming universe.

I can't wait around to be bitten into, like a worm in a dusty orchard apple. I feel strong. But less needful of human contact.

I like the snatches of intimacy I have with my lover, all tender and true but without burden of tether or label. I love the letters I get from my cousins, penned in a language that I am rapidly losing. I love the moments when my mother doesn't slur when we speak, when that perfect connection can be made.

I suppose I have realized that the only thing holding me back all this time was me...my fear. I press my hand against my chest, feeling my heart pump with longing and sped up from cheap champagne. And I am content.

I feel like now I live how I want. My terms. It feels like a guitar smashing victory motherfuckers.

The Sky is Falling.

I saw gulls circling and screaming just a few moments ago as I walked to the friendly franchised service station and store a block away to buy rocket fuel and stinking cat food.

The wind rushed by me, and the sky hangs heavy and lower. It looks bloated, gravid with snow.

Snow used to make me feel so dirty. The pristine whiteness of it against the grey specter of my soul did nothing but stir discord in my breast; my stomach churning with hollow insecurity.

Now everything in me, everything I am stretches out for it.

It gets colder...arms and shoulders...like the song says. Make it hot. Take me over and over and over.

The sounds grind in

Like peeling back the skin of an old blister, the sounds have turned hard.

It's only when I'm singing or having sex that it stops. When I hit that perfect note, everything turns white and sparkling, like being on the inside of a snow globe.

I need to move from this place, this palace of co-dependency. Make my own walls, shape my own pattern so that when I hear/see everything won't be tinged with this brownish red old blood color, this offensive lathe to my mind.

Melting intention..

Her smile drips down her face, meaningless and melting. I see the subterfuge behind it, her mouth stretched so tight, her hands tightening.

Her very being is repulsed by me.

And I can only find it interesting. Is is my mind? My eye/brain constantly distracting me? What a cold bland space the rest must live in. Even as I type the clicking of my ridiculously zebra striped acrylic nails makes tiny bluish dust motes float out, all soft and dis-solvable.

Maybe it is the eschewment of tradition that plagues her, turns her stomach and narrows her eyes. I can only wonder. And not really bring myself to care anymore.

Soon I can be alone. In my own space. It will be crystalline and acoustic, things arranged to make pleasing sounds. Portraits and silly keepsakes. Tiny boxes, hidden and cherished and filled with secret strange things.

This is what I hold onto in my heart, this promised land of solitude and silence.

But there is never truly silence.

I'll find a crown and somewhere to lay my head...

Clicking, sorting, narrowing down things. What I *don't* want.

How I would have laughed at myself 15 years ago. I realized how free I am...when I got the news. The news of marrow and blood. The tidings of a hope of a real life.

It was like someone lifted an anvil off of my shoulders that I hadn't realized I'd been carrying.

But where to build? Do I find a new city to explore, tapping cracks into sidewalks and creeping through neighborhoods? No.

But I will fly away. Make myself a new place all my own. Nooks and crannies, filled with items just for me.

Leaking into my thoughts...

I still remember the brown white creases in your hands. How I would turn them over in mine, marveling at the difference in our skin tones but reveling in how well we fit into each other. Hands, lips, your brilliant teeth with that fucking gold front flashing out from your dark face. Your eyes were like amber, melting and kind.

All hard and street outside, your exoskeleton. How soft you were, your giant hands resting gently on my shoulders as you whispered how much you loved me on that night when the thunder was cracking and we had mattresses over the windows. Your chin was gently on my head.

How I loved you. Sometimes when I'm so terribly lonely I think I'll break I whisper your name. The levies broke. They washed you away. Away from me, into the warm sea. I hope you weren't afraid.

I hope you know I felt it, like a bone breaking in my side when you went. When I called your mother's house, your phone, your sister's cousin's cell phone and just got an all circuits are busy message. I felt you slip away.

I'll go back someday my love. Place my hand on the stone that I know you don't rest under. I miss your strength, your piss. You always stood so tall. Me and my tattoos and studs and hair; you and your gold chains and cornrows. How odd we must have looked. Your jaw was locked so tight as you said my name aloud in the room, me gripping your arm so hard it had to hurt. My heart was pounding from the look of dismay on your Mother's face.

But I had to go back. That city was slowly killing me, sucking me dry with liquor and powders and the soft luxuries you covered me with.

How hard I cried when you couldn't come with me. And one month later, the levies broke.

A Dreamscape of Real Happenings.

Am I just to accept that it is my mind, pumping chemicals and hormones into my defenseless body?

Is it just that, this tearing longing?

I have never experienced love without pain. Never.

I know I must pull back. But I've already stepped out, it's too late. My love will come to it's eventual conclusion. There is harmony, yes. But not in reality. Harmony for one, discord for the other. My choice is already tattooed into my flesh.

How I should have thought, when I was young. Pricking and branding these meanings into myself. At least I shall always know truth.

Now I bear witness.

ENTROPY is our god. I shall patiently wait. All soft comfort and denial. I shall soothe, all in nurturing and softness. I shall assist in chrysalis, and pupation.

And then I shall be cast off, as training wheels on an old bike were. The kind with streamers and all of the childish good intentions therein. I know it. I fight it, shaking my head and grinding my fingers into the divets of my thighs.

Remember my girl, the curse you bear. Borne upon me through centuries of blood, and sadness, and toil. No hearthsong, no poppet could shield me.

I give it up.

Like you would put a baby bird in cotton balls, hoping it's mother would smell and save it.

The snow fell. Not clean, but grey and numbing.

I remember the bite. My foot crushing bone. My will defying tradition.

Traitorous, I was called. Shunned and shamed. Until I came to a new land. A place where my hands could find nothing old imprinted, not a scream or curse or even joy.

A newness surrounded me. And my Mother rejoiced.

I wasn't supposed to, but I did. I fought. And bear the scars as my burden.

What right does a sacrifice have to live? Born of this purpose, only to defy it. The one bite.

And then nothing. I am not to speak of it.

Warned. Threatened. Cajoled.

The calling...the lokk. It clangs in my head, beats through my breast. RUN. HOWL. But most of all, RUN.

But my fingers do not speak, they only click. With....finality.