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
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, April 15, 2011
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?
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?
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
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.
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?
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.
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.
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