Liar.

The hospital is cold and pasty. Infested with rank air and overly sanitized sheets. My eyes are heavy and twisted, drilling towards the back of my head. The hurricane of my body is paralyzed by the cold bags dripping into my ripped vein. 

I’m saying stupid things. Talking about Jesus and LSD and caves… things I’m unfamiliar with… strangers to my own experience… but they rise vulgarly to the surface. A sweaty hand is patting my pale fist and I am an island… isolated from all but waves of sound that stream in and out of my carousel head. 

“I love you,” I say–to the sweaty hand. 

“I know.” He says.

I’m such a liar.

Define yourself… quickly.

I love the “about me” sections on social networking sites. The concept manages to be terribly obvious and terribly idiotic and terribly transformative all at the same time. I sink my teeth into these chances to show lurkers and best friends a bit about myself. Mostly in the guise of ridiculous facts… One of my favorites…

I make apple pie from scratch and enjoy receiving hand written letters. My family is from Kentucky and my dog is inbred. I love pictures of strangers and reading aloud. Travel is my unsatiable addiction. I live for cheap taco stands, tiny coffee shops and long airplane rides. I think skinny dipping is therapeutic, especially at night. I collect antique photos of strangers and used sketch books. I think October is an ugly month. I drive around in my dirty-hippy car with the windows down and the music blasting. I don’t trust people who don’t believe in singing along. I put chili pepper in my hot chocolate and basil in my ice cream.

There’s nothing more attractive than a well-stocked book shelf.

Cigarrettes are trashy. Good sex is classy. Period. The end. No questions. No quarrels.

Quickwrite

Sometimes I feel nauseous. I feel like something is hooking me by the collar bone and lurching me out of sight. Sometimes I feel ugly. A lot of times I feel ugly. Ugly like a piece of meat that’s been hammered down to make a more compact steak. And then I start to get confused because life wasn’t supposed to go this way. This way without maps where we stuff our mouths full or pearls and get dragged around by hooks. My mouth is full of pearls, big moon-like ones wrapped in light. It wasn’t in my plans, you know? To have a mouth of pearls and bones like hooks and organs like medicinal machines. Sometimes I feel like my insides are held up by pills and ashes, like it’s the only thing keeping my skin from pancaking in–flat like road kill. My life is a collage of red lipstick and photos of strangers and coffee-stained apology notes and splashes of color interrupting reels of black and white.

But mostly I just feel nauseous.

Scraping at stars…

They reached their hands into the dark black sky

Striving towards the heavens

As if they could scrape down the stars

with their fingernails

And in the forgotten corner

of some forgotten world

Shattered glass fell down like rain.

As strangers huddled around fuzzy radios

and listened to the sounds of the world twisting,

of the winds changing,

of the tide stirring,

of the arc bending.

We erected bridges out of open arms and buildings out of resurrected dreams.

And while looking up into the circling sky, only three words echoed back:

Yes

we

can.

the bar…

She stood behind the bar, popping out from a background of cut-out comic strips and bottle cap collages. Her makeup was packed pressed, matted. Her eyes racooned and shot out from the thick black liner that encircled her freckled green eyes. She wore a Lexington Football shirt that she must have cut, leaving a fraying, plunging neckline. A long necklace dangled into her cleavage.

She mixed a rum and coke slowly but skillfully, watching intently as the glassy alcohol dissolved into the color of the dark soda. When our eyes met, her glance jumped away. She couldn’t look at me or she wouldn’t look at me and I couldn’t bring myself to blame her. Her shame shamed me and I had to wonder if that was her intention… It would have been mine.

Of the overly-romantic-nonsense persuasion…

I think I dreamt you up.

Found your face in a postcard,

And gave you birth in my eyes,

gave you a soul with my breath.

Like the Aramaic God

who built bodies out of earthen clay

and delivered life through a heavy exhalation.

A series of (failed) epigrams.

We went to get roses

to drop on their doorstep.

And the woman

(in the flower shop)

asked if I wanted them de-thorned.

But I quietly said, “No.”

Because I wanted them to prick you.

_____________________________________________________

Our kitchen was wrapped in orange and heavily perfumed with tomato sauce.

The news was scratching

from a five-inch-black-and-white-plug-it-in-antennae-adjusting TV.

A local boy was dead, it said.

And your pasta is burning.

___________________________________________________

When her father died

the world smelled like band-aids

Thick ones and heavy gauze

His casket was open

and he looked like sheets of plastic

When I saw him

I forgot

that I cared.

This is what losing your mind looks like…

Don’t start.

Don’t stop.

Just breathe.

Do good.

Do well.

Do better.

Don’t get your hair wet.

Straighten it.

Build your resume

Rebuild your dreams

Practice your grammar

Look good

Look pretty

Look hot

Look innocent

Look unassuming

Be a feminist

Don’t be extreme

Don’t scream

Do scream

Scream quietly.

Make your choice.

Meet a boy.

Have a boyfriend.

Don’t have a boyfriend.

Be happy having a boyfriend.

Be happy not having a boyfriend

Be independent

learn to depend on people

Watch the news

don’t let it depress you

Spell well

write well

do well

be well

work out

not too much

eat good food

don’t get fat

don’t get thin

don’t trust strangers

put faith in the world

don’t be lazy

don’t overwork yourself

stop looking at people that way

you’re too pessimistic

too optimistic

don’t be so social

be social

life is about this

life is about that

life isn’t about the other thing that it’s not about.

make sense?

be unassuming

an unassuming darling

but don’t forget the part about being a feminist

worship god

don’t be too extreme

accept everybody

except

balance is all you ever need

just balance

nothing else

balance.

tell people you love them

be convincing.

get a job

get an internship

get good grades

don’t obsess over working

have intelligent conversation

be silly

not too silly

know the difference

run on the treadmill

wear a sports bra

one that makes your boobs look big

don’t look like your’e trying to make your boobs look big

be a good friend

don’t take advantage of people

except

don’t worry about the future

you’re 20

just build up that resume.

stop worrying.

why are you worrying?

don’t eat that

too many carbs

be good at sex

certainly don’t talk about sex

don’t have sex

be good at it

don’t look like a prude

don’t look like a whore

pull your shirt up

your skirt down

your mouth shut

stop staring

start looking

secrets are rude

don’t be that blatant

be honest

don’t be that honest

do what makes you happy

so long as it can provide a steady income and doesn’t make anyone associated with you look any less than normal

volunteer

don’t get overly-involved

don’t be cold.

for fuck sake have some confidence

don’t be self-indulged

write well

read well

add well

speak well

divide well

multiply well

analyze well

be mysterious

don’t be a freak

11/15/01

Note: Written Junior year of HS.

I want to combust.

Feel the warmth of the human body smothered on your canvas.

Use my blood as your paint, my soul as your pallette.

Watch me explode, implode, collapse, cry.

Dull depth of color with my tears.

Sponge paint the scene with my lungs.

My limp hands can’t guide you.

There is nothing in me.

Nothing in me.

I am how you always saw me.

I am yours with no contest.

You can have me.

Take me.

I can’t feist back.

You whisper in my ear but I’m not there

I’m above you

Above you, floating.

Little boys and tombstones…

There’s a little boy in the graveyard. Distracted by twirling decorations like flags and plastic wind catchers and the sparkly cellophane coddling grocery-store bouquets. He’s barefoot. Running through the grass. Fitting in with the sunshine. Radiating life between the tombstones. It does seem strange or cryptic or depressing (or is it ironic?) that so much living seems to take place in graveyards. We’re closer to this whole nonsense of being alive, more aware of it, more in tune with it. It flows through us with a vengeance when we have to confront the reality that one day, it won’t.