Whew.

T-minus 2 days before I send the rough draft of the portfolio out to former advisors.

Almost finished with my third person POV story...I'm not really sure how to wrap it up so I started making minor edits to the rest of the piece. All in all, I have one page that is completely ready to be sent out ("We Sing".) I hope tomorrow to make more edits to the piece I read for the Art of Service Show at the Brannigan. Its been so long since I've dealt with it that I hope I will have a new perspective on what needs to be done with it.

And I have absolutely no idea on where I am going with "Barfly." At all.

However, as it stands, even if I don't include "Barfly," I'll have about 27 pages done. Most schools want anywhere from 20-30 (unless you are University of Michigan. They just 'want enough to judge your work.')*

So, you all know this song and dance, Readers. EDITS! I WANT THEM! ANY FEEDBACK YOU CAN GIVE ME AND I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND A DAY. Leave a comment or get in touch with me by any other means (just don't stop by my house...its a wreck and I've been pretty much living in dirty pjs for the past few days).

*I'm not sure if I really plan on applying to UofM. Sure, it's a great school and very ideally located, but I'm not sure if I could get in. It's one of the most competitive in the country.

Update

Hey All,

This month has certainly been a challenge. Between trying to stay focused on writing the portfolio, studying for the GRE, and watching Criterion Collection Films, I have been busy with liesure. :)

So far, my portfolio includes:
-An expansion on "Barfly" (combined with a piece I wrote during undergrad about sleep)
-"We Sing"
-"Brother"
-And a complete overhaul of part of a piece I also did when I was an undergrad.

This last one is proving to be one of the most challenging/enjoyable. During my undergrad fiction class, I wrote a piece that was completely overwrought. *But* it did include a parallel story that wasn't all that bad. So I took one of the parallel story sections and started expanding and editing it. But it was going nowhere: the further I got length-wise, the further I felt I was going from my Main Character. I kept on forcing it and was getting frustrated.

But the other day, at random, I picked up "Snow Falling on the Cedars" by David Guterson. Within the first two pages of his technically sound prose, it hit me. I needed to write the story in third person. Reader, it has been such a freeing experience to write in Omniscient Third POV. Granted, I'll probably tighten it up later so it falls in closer to my MC, but for now, its one of those experiences where I actually enjoy the free and easy writing.

I still have a lot of work to do, and in the next few days I will be mailing my first draft of my portfolio off to former teachers, advisors, and friends for edits and critiques. I hate to say it, but a deadline is a great motivator.

Be well,

dizzyfemme

Barfly

I hate places like this. Always full of wooden men with glass eyed stares. Always with their looks wondering about creamy thighs and hands with fate lines that end at tonight. They tower above me, these giants. I debate about crawling up under a shoe, like a scorpion. Flick my ankles out, a twitch. I call it dancing. Liz says I have no beat, no rhythm, no metro-known. She puts her hands on my hips, side to side, up and down. She calls this dancing. I call her my puppeteer. Pull my strings taut, fish for my joints, hooked under my armpits.

I say I need to get a drink. I leave Liz dancing with flies. I don’t like being touched there anyhow.

This bar is boring. Full of people, smoking, drinking, dancing. And not one of them doing a thing. Even the philosophers in the corner with spit drenched napkins are really just trying to get laid. Only the bar tenders with the tight hard bodies and tight black polo shirts to hide the sweat see how dull the night is. They pour drinks, like a factory, one shot one beer one drink split the orange split the lemon split the soda water. I want to go home. But Liz is laughing, trying to puppeteer someone else. I can see she got her second wind. I try to breath on my wrists, try to tell them to wake up. But I just get a lungful of germs.


Notes:

Whoo-wee. It feels good to get a post up. Taking August off of work to do more portfolio work. Obvs, this piece is super unfinished, but it's a start.

Zombie

Eeek... Sorry for the lack of updates (again.)

Tomorrow, I will try to post a vlog of the piece I did for my reading. Thanks to all of you who made it out.

In other news, I'm taking the month of August off to finish up my rough draft of my portfolio. Double eeek.

Edits for Friday

Hey All,

Anyone want to help me with edits for the Friday reading? Comment or email me.

hearts&flowers,

dizzyfemme

Blood Moon (except not really)

Hey All.

Writing is going well. I am working on a short story for my portfolio and I'm experimenting with a new voice. It's more straight forward, with an emphasis on plot and character development. Usually I just let the language dictate what will happen, but I'm struggling with the idea that writing should just be shimmery prose. Certainly, I want to keep my fidelity to the primacy of language, but I think for first drafts I should focus on the plot. Integrating a strong plot and characters, written in a more traditional, straight-forward way but at the same time include poetic elements could prove to be a tricky balance to strike. I think I want to strive for interesting twists of words.

Anyway....

It looks like I'll be doing a 10 minute reading at the Brannigan for the "AmeriCorps: The Art of Service" show during the ramble. July 1st. When I know the time, I'll post it on here. So, if you're in the Las Cruces area, please do come check it out.

EDIT:

Here is the link for the Facebook event.

Be well.

dizzyfemme

Quick Update

Hey all.

Sorry for the lack of updates as of late. I'm working on The All Important Graduate School Portfolio, which I may or may not post sections on the blog. I do want to keep doing writing exercises, so perhaps I'll post those.

Be well.
dizzyfemme

"Yard work"

The sun struck sweat thick on my neck. Desert noonday and I’m out here burning leaves. But I got a hair up my ass to do it. So I did. A few months till moving and brush needed to be cleared. Took me a few times to strike the fire machine and work, but it came. Wind moves softly, delicately, like hands outstretched twirling in long skirts. Kicks up ash like snowflakes, sends smoke in my eyes, in my throat.

I turn to the porch to sit. I suddenly have the urge to smoke a cigarette, even though it’s been years. I turn the lighter over in my hand. I imagine the nicotine calm. But I’ve got none. I dig my hands deep into my pockets, letting them rest. I have to keep checking for blisters. Got to go easy on my hands. Dirt is ok though. Earth. But not mud. The rain doesn’t come here.


To be continued...

blurb

"Gossamer Girl in Garden"


I try to thread the pieces together. Make the string stick. But mud keeps getting stuck in my teeth, in my jaws. I spend my days eating dirt, oranges—pick the ants off the pits of my knees. Passersby’s tell me to start making mandalas, tell me it will be better if I just echo the stars. I am in no mood to listen to the dead. I listen to white ladies debate other white ladies about the effectiveness of sun block. I listen to panting dogs, to cigarettes hitting the sidewalk, of fucking and sucking. I wish I could grow spinnerets out of my ass and weave these pieces together. I try but shit just comes out instead.




Comments: Just kind of rolled this out in a few minutes. Not really sure how to end it--I don't really like that last line. I started to get more graphic with scatological references, but it just seemed too trite. I suppose this is my teen girl emo post? "Dear Journal, Mood: Pathetic"

Nonfic about why I haven't updated in a while

After lunch, I went out to the garden across the street from the school. I’ve been trying to find the root of this unsettled feeling creeping in for the past few weeks, but I can’t locate it. Perhaps the coming Rapture, or dreams I just can seem to remember but have the flavor of being perverse, or maybe its just New Mexico slowly warming up for the scorching summer has thrown me off balance. I try to make sense of it all: the job applications, boys kissing my neck, buying cars and paying bills. I can tell my mother is worried: I remind her its part of being an adult. I try to focus, try to write something, anything, really, but even my eyes seem deep and hazy. Next to me is a mess of leaves in a tree, nested and tangled.

Rules for writing

Check it out!

Prompt Ideas?

I'm trying to throw around some prompt ideas for my next piece. I tried writing one based off of "You find a roll of film surreptitiously" and it just didn't work. "Atonement" is based off "write about a person who's reputation is based on an inanimate object." Clearly, I use the wiggle room of interpretation. I'm off to scour my prompt books, but in the meantime, to the two people who look at this site, do you have any suggestions?

Flash Fiction Results III

“Trainyard”

She was always nervous around attractive people. Skin stretched smooth over strong jaw lines and collarbones framed by modern cuts made with old fabric. She watches distinguished brows furrow at bright tattoos, tight rolled joints, and sweet plum sake. She secretly massages her throat trying to find the right words to say. Most of the time words come out fawning and muddled: she tries to wipe the drool off her chin but can’t seem to keep it clean. A sandy boy eyes her snake-toothed with knotted pulse. She doesn’t want to see this, hides in the bathroom from these kinds of stares--would rather see the mountains burn: Flaming and bright.


Notes and Reflections: Oh sweet shit. I *hate* this ending (after "knotted pulse").* I know I seem to bitch a lot about my writing but this is one of the challenges I discovered about Flash Fiction: endings are hard. Usually, my method for writing is that I allow the language to take the story where it needs to go. With flash fiction, I don't have as much time to meander. None of my Flash Fiction stories were 100 words, most are around 130. I think that if I were to continue writing in this form I would have to exercise more discipline: writing, re-writing, and cutting out my "darlings"**. It's not that other writing doesn't require this kind of discipline, there is just a shorter time in Flash Fiction to get your point across lyrically. I have seen it done before, good flash fiction. These pieces just aren't up to par. Perhaps I'll revisit Flash Fiction in a few weeks/months.

Additionally, although I like the wording of this piece (especially "snake-toothed with knotted pulse"), it completely lacks a story. Girl goes to Place X, feels awkward, runs away from a boy staring at her, wishes she were somewhere else. Fuckballs. Why don't I just open up my high school journals and copy that shit onto here? It seems so masturbatory, writing this Amelie-like kind of character. It's cute, but it's trite. /end rant&sweary critique.

*Actually, on second thought, I do like the way "stares" sounds. I'm a sucker for long "a's" and one syllable words.
**"Darlings," for those of you who don't know, are words/sentences/paragraphs that you absolutely adore and don't want to part with but you need to anyway.

Flash Fiction Results II

“Spitfire”

The girl wasn’t bad. She just liked to spit sideways and light matches. The girl liked the scent of sulfur. Would lock herself in cupboards; rub ash on her skin. Black flowers and tic-tac-toe. Teachers and counselors say she is a bad one without saying the word “bad.” Instead, they just hop-scotched with phrases like “disruptive” and “aggressive.” One day she tried to lock David Fitz in the cupboard to play ash games. But she got too excited and burnt his skin. Told him she’d cut his pecker off if he told. Red and harsh, his mother was mad. Rubbed soap to wash the ash and the burn. Told him he was bad.

Flash Fiction Results I

“Atonement”

Shame holds fast in small towns. Seeps into sidewalk cracks and paint-peeled porches. Gossiped about after grocery store run-ins and spottings of familiar bumper stickers. I should leave, quit as the town’s official “Cautionary Tale.” But I stay, and year after year the newspaper references get shorter and shorter. This year only the words “tragic joyride,” “local girl,” and “sledding” made it into page B3. Omitted were “Blood Alcohol Content,” “juvenile,” and “civil suit.” They renamed her “local girl, age 16,” forgot her real name. But I keep it. Weekly, I wander through leaves, brush, snow. Weekly I polish her plaque. Weekly I keep her name.



Notes: I'm not crazy about this piece. But I've been sitting on it for the past few days and I've hit my wall on how to edit it. The ending seems weak and I'm not sure I like anything after "spottings of familiar bumper stickers." Again, this is my call to critiques. Please?

Guest Post Vlog

Many thanks to my dear friend, roommate, and co-Slam Poetry Coach Amy for doing a guest vlog. Enjoy!

P.S. Flash Fiction is on it's way. I almost have 3 pieces done.

Flash Fiction Challenge

Happy Easter, everyone!

I have an itch to do something different, so I'm going to challenge myself to write some flash fiction. I'm going to set my limit at 100 words. Results will follow once I feel like it.

Anyone else want to get in on this challenge? Post results in the comments. Or email me (I'm pretty sure that if you are reading this blog you already have a form of contacting me).

Edit:

Thanks to Andro_Boi for reminding me of Dr. Wicked's Write or Die. There, you can input a word and a time limit, and once you start to stall (or thinking too much instead of just writing what comes to mind) the page will do a variety of things including: flashing color, deleting words, or playing awful music.

Disclaimer

This blog could be retitled "The Art of Letting Go."

It feels so freeing to just put my shitty and/or writing I'm not completely in love with out there for public viewing. Of course, this is writing that I will not be including in my Hopefully Brilliant and Scholarship-Worthy Grad School Portfolio. Before, every time I'd start writing I'd get all choked up, analyzing every word and second guessing myself, not allowing even a paltry first draft to emerge. Now, I'm just writing for shits and giggles, knowing that after enough shitty writing I'll find a few sentences/ideas that I can use.

A big thank you to those who have stopped by and read a few posts here. As always, I love critiques and constructive criticism.

Vlog!

I know what you're thinking:

1. Yes, I know I'm awkward. I find it's best to just put the word "endearingly" before it.
2. The poem is *really bad* and doesn't have a real ending. Just enjoy it. :)


Edit: I realize that I kind of sound like an asshole for saying I don't really like writing slam poetry and then I go ahead and post some anyway. I guess I'lll just say that assholery was not intended.

transparent dream

Water colored dreams of conversation taking
place between you and I.

I ask, why are you sleeping so far away?
You look at me; whisper. Can’t talk.
Who can’t talk? Me or you?
Name that isn’t either.
Either
You
Or I. Any name. No name. Never name.

Insatiable
Desire as an Möbius strip:
incandescent
and like skin.
Almost satiated scent.
and dusk.
tip of the tongue, back of
the throat.

Inventory-Shift.

I take inventory of the indentations
in his body
(skin stretched concave):
collarbone
chest
hips
wrist

Brother Alex

I switch it up and pull it back; pull and use my weight to swing it around. You used to call it take backs. I call it changing my mind. But what am I supposed to do, with you sitting there all eyebrows and lip cuts? Blood is thicker than tears, and you found me somehow. I’ll try to rack my brain later on who you could have called, scratching mom and dad off the list first.

“You got a light?”
“They banned indoor smoking last month.”
You look like you’re about to say something, opening your mouth in the beginning of a tirade but you change your mind instead.
“Whatever.” You rub your eyes. “I’m going out side.”

Chris, my usual server comes by, greasy coffee in tow. He’s nice enough, studying jazz or something at the university, always writing a paper of some kind or talking about “color” and “tone”. Tells me he used to sell drugs on occasion but got sick of dealing with trust fund hipsters. I don’t blame him. Putting up with the Arbor Vitae music crowd is only worth it sometimes, but less and less as of late. Everyone plays the Ukulele or the singing saw. Everyone tries to do the same old thing, trying to shock or educate or whatever but it always comes out kind of sad and tired. Kevin was ok though. He used to come in, all flannel and blues and folk and pass around cheap whiskey through the crowd. Communion, he called it. At least he didn’t pretend to be deep or original or know anything we didn’t. He was just a guy.

“Sorry man, but you got to go. It’s a health code violation. Pathogens and some shit,” Chris says, eyeing your mouth and the blood.

I can’t tell if you’re about to argue, about to tell him he’s a piss-ant or something like that.

“Sure man, I understand.”
“Thanks, it’s my manager…You can go two blocks down and there’s a free clinic that will stitch you up. Might be a bit of a wait, but at least you wont have to pay.”

Chris. He’s nice enough. I tip him more than what the greasy coffee is worth and we head out the door.

It’s not kick-you-in-the-stomach-cold, not the kind that makes you aware of your teeth floating ice cubed in your mouth. But it’s cold enough that I have to wipe my nose on the back of my hand in just a few moments of being out. Six o’clock in Michigan and its already starting to get dark. Yellow headlights push pathways through the road in salt stained snow cars. The sidewalks aren’t shoveled, only narrow foot wide canyons with slippery walls. The walking is slow. It’d be faster to walk in the street, but it’s rush hour so there isn’t much sense in doing that.

“Looks like Joey’s car up there,” you say.
A half-mile up, a gray Taurus with a red roof is spun around in the shoulder. No other car there, so probably not a fender bender. Most likely he hit a patch of black ice or tried to brake too fast.

“Want to go check on him?” I ask.
“Forget it. Joey’s a bastard; he’s always trying to get something from someone. Idiot doesn’t even know how to drive in the snow. He’ll figure it out eventually.”

I don’t argue. Joey is a bit of a bastard, anyway. Not the trust-fund hipster bastard, but more of a come over to your place without calling and start touching all your stuff bastard. Like he doesn’t have to ask for anything. He just assumes that you’ll be cool with it.

We finally get to a shoveled parking lot and at the end of it is the clinic. It looks more like a new dentist office than a free clinic. While the rest of the state’s economy is going down the tubes, with its auto parts rusting in backyards of dead factories and Bridge Card users filling the local Meijers on the first of each month at midnight, Washtenaw County is still pulling in a sizable income tax. Regents, Big Ten Football and liberal guilt pay for the green hybrid busses, recycling, pavilions for the homeless, and of course, the free clinic.

The glass doors are fogged over and a child’s palm prints jigsaw their way across the entrance. The grey mat is even greyer with mud and waterlogged snow. But it’s bright and warm. The waiting room is mostly full. I find some seats while you go talk to the receptionist. Oprah is playing loudly on a TV in the corner, but I don’t think anyone is watching.

“She said it will be about a half hour.”
“Ok,” I say.
Families with small children are coughing, some of them come from busses, others come from cars. I guess the other people can tell that we walked because we smell like snow with our red cheeks. Dr. Phil is on Oprah, talking to a well-groomed woman.

“How’d you find me anyway?” I ask.
“Mira told me.”
I can feel my ears go red. I am alert with a mixture of guilt and fear and arousal.
“How do you know Mira?”
“She works at the Youth Safe House. She let it slip that she knew my sister”
My mouth goes dry. I try to find words to make this work.

“How long have you been staying there?”
“Not long.”

***

Thoughts: I'm not sure where exactly I want to go with this piece. I really like the opening. You might be able to tell, but I wrote this right after I reread J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." I think I'm going to change the last bit of dialogue--I'm not crazy about it. I'm also debating about changing the word "tirade" in the second paragraph. Stikes me as icky. To the two people who read this blog, if you have any suggestions or constructive criticism, leave it in the comments. Hearts and flowers, dizzyfemme

Jane the Modernist: Part IV

[I wrote this a year before I graduated modeled after Robert Gluck's "Jack the Modernist." The language is a bit overwrought, but that was intended. I also used this piece to explore postmodern desire. Elizabeth Grosz's "Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies" also heavily influenced me. This is part of a series.]

A few days later I meet up with Jane at a bar, with the rest of the other metallic insects. I have work early the next morning, in about 4 hours from now, but I don’t care. Touch and proximity are the goals at hand. While I try to focus on this destination, I can’t help but feel exposed, as if all of them have seen longing glances, have read on dirty bathroom stall walls the lyrical epic of my unfolding. I try to play it off cool by just sitting next to Jane, not talking really, just joking with the rest of the chain-smoking aphids. My peripheral is working overtime, developing such a fine-tuned depth perception that would make a body builder blush.

Jane’s hand moves to my thigh and rests there. Beneath the table. She is holding me. My heart starts racing. My laughs at the jokes become louder, desperately trying to appear more casual, concealing in overdrive. Her hand moves further up my thigh and it is all warmth. I am on the brink of a soft moan but instead I just say “stop.”
Jane withdraws her hand immediately and apologizes. Like a boy who has gone too far, has made the girl feel uncomfortable and disrespected. I want to tell her this is not the case, that more than anything I don’t want her to stop, that I want her to explore every aspect of my body. But that is too many words to convey at the moment.

Jane: I have to go to the bathroom.

I get out of the booth, waiting for her to get out. She brushes up against me.

Jane: You can join if you want.

Normally I detest going to the bathroom in groups, to me it is too private, too personal. But I follow, stumbling, like a small child who has no other option. The bathroom is downstairs and near deserted in this bar. We talk and kiss, but no, she is not coming home with me.

I walk back to my cold car with a mixture of dejection and hope. I decide that hope wins tonight and instead daydream of her in my bed. My soft comforters envelop us both, and the streetlamps illuminate her body. She is sleeping, and the light is reflecting off her breasts. The light travels across her breathing body in a way that looks more like a reflection of an infinity symbol rather than skin. To this image I fall asleep, in the company of  dreams.

Edit: After revisiting this piece, I realize that the ending is pretty weak. I'm also not a fan of the opening sentences in Part I. I think I met my goal of exploring a postmodern idea of romance, but I still find this piece lacking. Heavy editing is in order.

Untitled

The universe is swelling
Pregnant and dizzy
Barking birds
Tinfoil leaves
Clanking and grey
By postage stamps floating in puddles
Tiny ships lifted by ghost hands
Carried to window panes
Writing pressed against the wall
Tattooed and
Imprinted
Beneath skin and hair lines
Curled up in fingernails
Cut and hooked
Pulled by a string
Or umbilical chord
Belly first
White gutted
And red throat

Jane the Modernist: Part III

[I wrote this a year before I graduated modeled after Robert Gluck's "Jack the Modernist." The language is a bit overwrought, but that was intended. I also used this piece to explore postmodern desire. Elizabeth Grosz's "Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies" also heavily influenced me. This is part of a series.]

It will not be until later, after my feelings for her have developed, do I realize that the repetition of me losing my lesbian virginity wasn’t just dirty talk—that she was in effect anointing me. But instead of fragrant oil and milk poured over my head, I get iron and carbon. She is churning me with her tongue, fingers, twisting me into a helix of steel and wire. I am pliable in her hands, and she smoothes me out until I am more metal than flesh, measured more in tensile strength than in heartbeats and respiration. I am a steel cable and she has attached me to her protruding left hip bone. In the awkward silence that follows (I defend myself later to Amy: “What loss of virginity isn’t awkward, doesn’t italicize the lack of skill and dexterity?”) I feel myself being pulled upward, but I can’t see by what. We are moving past telephone poles and streetlamps, past building tops and a murder of crows, past airplanes until we finally enter the stratosphere. This region is filled with a warm, glowing light that reflects our bodies to look luminous and shining. In this aura of incandescent bodies I can see that we were pulled up by the other chords connected to Jane. These chords are girls I know: Julie, Lucy, Jill, Allison, Katie, Diane, Amy, Ashley and Nancy. All of them are interconnected, floating in this space, and beyond the horizon is a blur of bodies, girls who I have never seen before but are still connected to these girls I know. Sometimes, the light catches the chords and instead of looking sturdy and unbreakable they appear gossamer and thin, as if the wind could break these bonds at any moment. Jane calls this The Web. I tell her I don’t want to see her as a spider, but I secretly wonder if there is any other way.

But perhaps I am sugarcoating this; perhaps I am making this too diaphanous and doing a disservice to my story by employing this metaphor. Let’s try something with a little more grounding:

Jane is fucking/has fucked Lucy, Jill, and Katie. Lucy was fucking Julie until her ex-girlfriend Katie found out, who also wanted to fuck Julie. But instead of fucking Julie, she started fucking Jane. Lucy stopped fucking around with Jane when Jill started fucking Jane, as Jill is, quote, “such a nice girl.” Katie used to fuck Allison, who in turn used to fuck Nancy but is now fucking Amy. Nancy used to fuck Jill but is now fucking Ashley. And Ashley used to fuck Julie, as well as Diane.

Lauren: I didn’t sign up for this.

My roommate Matt laughs at this and says, “That’s what lesbians do, they get into incestuous drama.”

I think he is over generalizing and when he notes my raised eyebrow he adds, “Gay men do the same thing but the difference is that we don’t really care who’s slept with whom. I’ve been with guys who’ve been with Tom, Jason or Chad. I just don’t care.”

Lauren: I don’t care who she’s been with in the past, I just want her to be with me.

He shrugs at this, a what-can-you-do? And what can I do?

Love, Sex, and the Bathhouse

Check out Robert Gluck reading from "Jack the Modernist" NSFW

The reading starts at 3:20, prior to that is just the introduction.

Three Untitled Poems/lyrical clusters

1
the herd reacts
tearing and pulsing
towards
fisted red snowbanks

2.
I stand Lumber legged
And tall hunched
Against sky backdropping
Orange and green
Wind from covered suns
Black beetle sized wagons
I spit out the pith
It goes between the mountains
And gets stuck in a goats head

3.
I slip between the secret cracks of sounds, pause a breath a muscle a synapse between finger and brain and typing fingers. I keep the
I keep the light
I keep my name
First time keeping secrets
Holding it close to chest
And scraping it with my thumb nail
Wooden and veined
Ringing

Jane the Modernist: Part II

[I wrote this a year before I graduated modeled after Robert Gluck's "Jack the Modernist." The language is a bit overwrought, but that was intended. I also used this piece to explore postmodern desire. Elizabeth Grosz's "Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies" also heavily influenced me. This is part of a series.]
Lauren: I had a dream last night.

JANE: What do straight girls dream of?

Lauren: I dreamt that my brother was watching me take a piss on a toilet atop of a building. He had to use the bathroom, and he wouldn’t leave me alone. I just wanted some fucking privacy. He is angry and predatory. When I realize that my yelling isn’t working I start punching him in the stomach and jaw. I run to my father who for some reason is already yelling at me. I explain to him this is the third time I dreamed it, that it is not my fault. Then suddenly, my father’s face gets redder and redder and he is screaming so loud the entire campus can hear—he asks me—ARE YOU QUEER?

Jane: We’re not even dating yet, are you sure you want to come out? Besides, you’re a straight
girl. (She gives me a wink and undoes the top button of my pants)

Lauren: That’s not the point, my dad would never use a the word “queer”

Jane: He’s a republican, he’s your dad. (Her hands travel lower, and I am on the verge of un-remembering. But I persist; there is a point to be made.) That's not bashing, not his vitriolic use of "queer"--my dream dad meant the theory, the umbrella term of ambiguity. May dad doesn't know that, all he knows is "dyke" (JANE's tongue is now down my throat. Despite this, I have developed an ability to keep talking.)

Look, sexuality in itself is not transgressive (I raise my fist) it can't be out of the norms because it is all within the spectrum of human sexuality. Being gay, or bi, or pan-sexual (she loves it when I give my theoretical shout-out to the trans community...as much as a butch lesbian can. She shows me this by penetrating me with her fingers) is only defined as difference just because we live in a hetro-normative phallocentric society.

JANE: I'm not into three-somes

Lauren: Did I say "phallocentric?" I suppose that works but (I finally move my had from her hip down to her stomach, my fingers are starting to warm from this heat.) maybe I should have just said "patriarchal"--similar but different. Just like us.

She says nothing to this--I want this to be because she is unimpressed with the idea that lesbianism lubricates so well because it is rooted in sameness. But if I draw my mind/tongue back from her nipples, I realize this just because I read it somewhere. Some kind of feminist philosopher I read was unimpressed with the idea so I figured I should be unimpressed with it too. I am projecting but Jane doesn't know this. She is whispering to me breathily, fogging my mind and the windows simultaneously. “You’re fucking a girl for the first time.” She repeats this over and over, I think to cement this action, but I’m not sure. Perhaps she’s insecure that I want to be doing this. I try to tell myself that romance is overrated anyway, that it’s better to just abandon myself sensation now. I do this in hopes of romance later. (This is how I will explain it to Amy the next day.)

My attention turns to Jane's body: short, and curly Irish hair, and a small, hard body. Full of muscles, acquired through a lifetime of spending her time on a soccer field, it serves the dual purpose of turning me on and highlighting the differences in our own bodies. I tell myself that I shouldn’t fetishize her body—but this is a new lust: its nature is to straddle a dusky, faint line between a cult of worship and distant eroticized object.  “Erotic” sounds terribly demeaning to me though, as if I were trying to pigeonhole her skin into some cheap paperback romance novel. But how else can I describe the terrible sexuality she exudes, but as one that not only excites but elicits a harmony of joyous, ecstatic melancholy? She is my Calamity Jane, my appropriated muse, my colonized femme fatale.

Jane the Modernist: Part I

[I wrote this a year before I graduated modeled after Robert Gluck's "Jack the Modernist." The language is a bit overwrought, but that was intended. I also used this piece to explore postmodern desire. Elizabeth Grosz's "Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies" also heavily influenced me. This is part of a series.]

 Further exploration is at hand, I sense—perhaps an exit from my current liminal state, but I guess whatever this voyage produces; most likely it will be a graduation to another plane-less arena. I am in my early 20s; could it be any other way? I’m not searching for stability, per se, but more of a fixed center around which events orbit. It’s not regression to the child—the I, I, I center of the universe—it is grounded in my desire to have my rococo be more than just ornamental stutter. To have the peaceful Zen at being at the center of the shell, (“the eye of the storm?” she offers, I say, “I never really like snow globes anyway”), while still being orbited by dips and crags and spires—all of which, when taken in a whole, produce a dazzling effect. My life is in the peripheral, unable to fully grasp the enormity (but I am in my early 20’s, I say, hubris marks my generation) Barely, just barely I climb through the labyrinth, looking for an axis, retreating, marching, a stuttering dotted line.

My latest arch to traverse will be her body. Have I intersected with her surfaces, ran my hands over the cloth boarders of some new, exotic land? Only minimally, I reply. In language I find my prejudice: “his” vs. “her.” His is “is”, the forward state of declarative existing, of puffed chest and “I’m ready” erect cock. Her is the “er”, a stuttering imposed upon me by my naivete, the unknown, the constant apologizing—can I touch? caress?  She answers me by putting her hands, arms on my hips.

This new love/lust is like seeing an old man buying flowers in a grocery store. It has the same profound joyous melancholy. (I want her to argue it's more "ecstatic" than "joyous", but this is just wishful thinking.) Same body, different vein. Whereas the new lover is like a cannon ball straight to the jugular, causing your chest cavity feel completely empty and aware, the old man is a transfusion to the arm. It passes its way around the body, simultaneously warming and cooling until it diffuses into the stomach where it then becomes black tar. We get drunk off this syrup--hurriedly wondering about your own mortality, our own momento mori. How far can we live in a day-to-day basis? I ask the old man, do you, in all your years of experience think that language can take us beyond a few blooms?
"Only when its uttered in sincerity," he says.


"Isn't everything I say sincere? I'm in my early 20s."

"Hubris," she reminds me.

My hand rolls up to her collarbone, her neck, and feels the scruff of newly cut hair. Our mouths meet in such a way that says yes, but I reply, can I? She slides her hand up my shirt and stops at my navel. She is surprised it is pierced. I tell her I am surprised it is pierced most of the time too. It is part of my history—I hope that she will discover through time. It’s the history that comes with being more than a one-night stand—but how could she not call after I bend my neck and sigh in such a way when I kiss her? How could she not see the complete longing in my eyes in this car, in this dimly lit parking lot? I hope the street lights will illuminate this a little. But, I tell myself, men have failed to see it in the soft glow of my bedside table, how could this be different?

Salt and Pepper Night

I should leave this place. Should wash myself clean; forget the debt, let someone else take care of it. “Cut ‘n Run” as Alex would say. Stop kissing the damn rat boys and stealing glass-eyed stares from nervous mothers. I breathe out dust and beer.
 
I catch The Poet drawing stars on a mailbox with a thick black marker. Seven stars. He tells me it’s God’s number. I could use some religion, could use some clarity. I ask him to read me poetry. He tells me poetry is all around me: is in the trees, the stars, in cigarettes. Is in the pen. Is in the body. I shift around uncomfortably. He sees this so he lowers my head. I taste musk. Asking why this is poetry seems like a stupid question. Stupid questions get you nowhere. So I reach my hands around his ass and steal his marker. Payment received.  
 
Another day shoves me down, says, "Leave," but I stay instead. I’ve got payment to make. My debt’s not done. I am drawing stars in the dark now, seven of them. I try to make them even, but I can’t without adding an extra point. I try to loosen up, to flow, but my fist is too tight. Alex would've told me there are only five points. Six wasn’t right. But his opinion doesn’t really count for fuck now. I’m drawing nine pointed stars, stars more circles than angles, just because.  I find The Poet’s stars, on walls, on mailboxes, so I start adding more points.  My lines are thicker, wavy, unsure. So my points don’t blend in.
 
Is this a prayer? Is this religion? I don’t know.
 
I am drawing like this for days, for nights, when I should be sleeping. But I can’t sleep like I can’t stop drawing. It’s all a blood debt and God’s number.
 
I don’t even notice that I’ve been followed until it’s too late. The Poet is angry. I shouldn’t have fucked with his work. I run. 

The next morning, I am pushed down again. Paper-thin cuts on my forearms and shins. Blood saying, “run or you’re fucked.” Woodchips in my shoes.  Mud is caked in my snarling black hair. I pull it out slowly, pinched between fingernails; leaving dust and chalk grey in its place. It’s garbage hair. Night hair. Knotted and wormy.
 
The Poet ties me to dusk, mats me down to the edge where trees and buildings meet the sky, hazy and red. Untying, escaping means running to the horizon, reaching and spreading arms. It means stop drawing stars. But I’m yanked back, pulled back by the scruff of my neck to the night, to street lamps and graffiti covered overpass. 

Neat five pointed stars flare up, smack me down like the days, grind gravel into my knees. I still breathe dust and beer. But mostly I just breathe out paint.

I go to The Anarchist. He’s filthy but he offers up his bed.
 
He pulls me into tented sheets, wrinkled from having sex with strangers. He tells me he likes my name. Better than liking my eyes or bone structure so I fuck him. One, two, three times. One, two, three nights. 
 
The Anarchist is a romantic. Which is fucking stupid to me. He calls me his love letter, tells me I’m ready to be mailed. Tucked in tight. I can’t sleep in strange beds, but I stay anyway. It’s better than the alternative. He knows so he closes the blinds, stuffs newspaper in the cracks. I can't even see the spray paint on the walls. I am not here, he says to the night, she is not home. Only the pulsing red glow of cigarettes light our bodies, faces. We take care not to ash on the bed, on our stomachs, on our thighs. Salt and pepper dust piles on old magazines that tell us of the good life, of Bon Appétit, of basted chickens and creamed asparagus. I forget to notice that he doesn't lock the door. 
 
There is terror in his breath when he sleeps: breathe in, stop—long intervals and I wonder if he’ll breathe out. But he always does. I try to remind myself that heavy chested snores mean life, another inhale, another loud, trumpet exhale. Jubilation. But then I start to worry that he’s too loud, that he’s calling out, announcing, “I AM HERE.” That he’ giving me away.  I open my eyes and the room is full of light. This is not ok. The newspaper has been pulled down. Seven stars are drawn on the mirror. God’s number.

I run. Out of there before The Anarchist even realizes I’m gone. Stupid fuck can’t even lock the door.
 
I pick up a payphone. Call Alex. Tell him about The Poet. Tell him about The Anarchist. Says he knows a place I can stay. Is off of Manzana and Bale. Where the factories used to be. Thanks, little brother.  He reminds me about blood debt. Like I forgot. I hang up; I don't have time to deal with this shit. 

The house is slumped into the earth. The sidewalk is mostly gone, but whatever is left is pointless anyway, it doesn’t really go anywhere.
 
I enter. The door stops before it should. Pink paint and wallpaper curl off the walls like knotted wood. The floor is soft under my feet, like only the tallow colored carpet is holding it together. Newspaper covers half the window; a large cock drawn in dust is on the other half. Behind the door is a desk of drawers. The top is punched in. Cigarette ash, razors, and burnt spoons are scattered everywhere. A bottle of rice vinegar sits out of place. The carpet is matted down with large sticky patches that shine when light wanders in. A mattress lies in the corner, covered in plastic, like the kind they have at kid’s camps so they don’t get stained with piss. Except this one has been cut with knives. And I can’t tell if its from anger or boredom or if it should even matter.

I feel a soft crunch under my foot. A rat has been burned in a pile of cigarette butts. Its jaw is half crushed in, its eyes gone. Foaming with maggots. I get a head rush. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

But I’ve got nowhere else to go so I just close my eyes and put my palms flat against my thighs. This is not a good place. But it’s a place, and my debt’s not paid yet. I’ll stay the night.

Untitled

I forgot my body
somewhere between home and
this old apartment
wind harder here, snow deeper there
like a limb cut off
my mother said.

Postmodern Sex

They told me before moving down to the Great Southwest that it might as well be renamed “No Sexico.” This makes it easy to make excuses: forget antisocial tendencies, lack of personal hygiene, or the apocalyptic horse of self-esteem: being just plain boring. Being interesting is currency anywhere, in love, in romance. Of course, it’s the lack of humidity in the air (the scent of rain acting as lubricant), the unattractive “townies” (all the attractive ones are attached in blissful, Disney-esq monogamy).

Sometimes I feel strong and creative: standing lumber legged on the mountain, red throated and heady. Other times I feel the pervasive sensuality of roasting chilies in the air—New Mexico’s personal musk. I try to remember my old scents of desire, of skin freshly fucked and glistening, but to no avail. I create the narrative of Michigan fucking protocols: one-night stands are permitted just so we don’t have to walk home in the cold. Nights huddled on attic floors with cigarettes and whiskey, pretending to be interesting and a dreamer.