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pt. I We exist in a romantic tragedy kind of way. We exist in a happy place and in a silent rage. Dry hair shampoo can light a flame and lock your pretty curls into place. We look put together, but we’re not. A two woman show, on our private stage. Our story, a simple coming of age. The spotlights glow brighter than sun rays Because we’re the main event of today, and it will stay that way. pt. II We live life like it’s a movie that we would see in the theatres. Ex-high school haters, Ex-people pleasers. We light the candles in the living room, London city stuck in it’s afternoon gloom. Rain falls, people running on the sidewalk. I’m happy to sit by the window with you. What’s a good story, without some hard things darling? pt. III You make the dinner, i’ll wash the dishes. We’ll sit on the couch and watch a movie, that we’ll never finish. It’s midnight, and still i’m not tired of you. Casablanca posters up on the walls, the dust that grows in the hall, twenty cracks in floorboards, I counted them all. What’s a good story, without some hard things darling? pt. IV We laugh about how broke we are. How will we afford to get through the last week of may? The cost of city taxes and prices of winter jackets, at our part - time jobs, we slave away. Two minute ramen. My thoughts on self-harming. I open up despite myself and talk to you, in deepness and depression, over our food. What’s a good story, without some hard things darling? pt. V We’re single and stupid, love seems like something we’re losing. Craving physical touch, No one said being young would hurt so much. But we’re still living the dream. Our sad songs, the soundtrack for our debut on the screen. If our life was a movie, we’d sell out in a day. Soon every ticket office will know our names.
the thrash begins -- When we kissed, his biker jacket became rain or crickets close in the pulsing night everything my father feared happened, nothing I feared happened yet I heard rain and crickets when I wore that biker jacket to hardcore shows in CT, NY, Boston, and DC up and down the coast loud shows with boys in flannels who threw their bodies against me a ritual called moshing that looked like group sacrifice or sex but felt delicious that hard contact, delicious after shows, talking to almost straight edge boys smaller outside of the pit and somehow bigger, too many of them had drunk dads not a coincidence because coincidences don’t exist I broke the pattern to save myself they broke the pattern, too and she did, too suicide can be the ultimate act of rebellion fuck this survival at all costs fuck this addictive story she taught me how good it could feel moshing in a dank pit in a dark club at the end of the world a corruption of memory the source of memory is not as important as the act of memory memory, a hollow column has taught me detachment as a thing that can’t be sold we touch the edges of detachment and none of us knows where our bodies end and the thrash begins The Ocean is Waiting -- I went on long walks with my camera. I spent time with the river and cemetery. I felt lost, labyrinth trapped. The ocean is waiting. I worked at Forbes and had an affair with a security guard named Pat from Astoria. We went to Wit together twice because he had free tickets. Then I worked on Wall Street and had an affair with my boss. He left me Thierry Mugler’s Angel in the top drawer of the olive-green metal desk. When fucking in the supply closet, I smelled like a tart lollipop. It was as good as it got. People will carry my psychological imprint with them. Some will remember how I smelled. Then they will die, and I will be finished. The ocean is waiting. The death of anybody is simply unacceptable. Stacy said this to me over whiskey and figs in her apartment on the Upper West Side. Black leather boots she was trying on that season littered the living room. I wanted to live inside her armpit. I still miss her. The ocean is waiting. The queen’s advice was to do to your neck what you do to your face. She was a hypochondriac about her vagina, a socially acceptable form of derangement. The ocean is waiting. I heard a podcast about a man breastfed by a Sasquatch in Arkansas. Then about a trash bag that morphed into a black cat, then morphed into a man being breastfed by a Sasquatch in Arkansas. I can’t remember who told these Ovidian stories. Maybe it doesn’t matter. The back exit opens onto a brick wall with a painted sunflower. Wild irises are my alibi. The ocean is waiting. not emptying but opening -- apertures find the wounds at the center of a tavern song which is an ancient susurrus, water’s memory mixing baby teeth and other flotsam, lost keys, old addresses, magical sunsets with the first songs humans flung at the skies and the small bones of primordial animals, ancestors with dusk’s gradual undoing of each gradient into a mellow darkness where there’s the echo of a tavern song behind the wall where a brother-in-law bangs his cup on the wooden table and outside barn swallows swoop and dive, black darts against a sky not emptying but opening Belinda Blows Up (Love) -- While you visited your cousin or fingered your neighbor or sat in cars with tender strippers, I fell in love with Belinda. Not like that, not greasy- blow-jobs-in-the-backseat- love. Even better. The kind of love two women feel when they press their vulvas one to the other and swallow minty air and exhale all fear. It came as a mighty surprise. I was floundering around, fishing for a lighter or hidden letters or a reason to keep living, keep trying keep breathing keep trying keep breathing and there she stood, in the back of the closet between your Dodgers jacket and a defunkt vacuum radiant, ravishing she took all my words and I stood there, awed and not alone Hello, I finally said as she stared through me for eternity, or maybe longer I was, perhaps for the first time, seen instead of a ghost banging doors I became a real woman Remember that Wilco song? Love is Everywhere (Beware) I’d listen to that song both sides of the country pressing against my wounds but not anymore with Belinda, right now right now I’m not afraid of pop songs or any other apparatus of doom
a golden daze -- golden shadows shape-shifting on the surface of my coffee… radiate and reflect morning crusty corners of eyes wiped clean messy hair, maple leaves how is it - that you make me feel discovered seen crinkled sheets glide across skin as you stretch muscles tense soften melting like butter as sheets mold back into the pool of you next, stretch your smile corners crashing against plushy pillows lips part that grin etched on every memory since the start… shifting-shapes creamer breaking shadows, but billowing up like atomic white clouds erasing the golden surface of your memory silently sipping lukewarm flashbacks patina -- you used to visit each day my secret garden in bloom boisterous blossoms you’d unknowingly prune sneaking away to give to someone else resting in vases in another’s home but you’d come back to my flower’s delight and i’d be joyous leaning into your sun each time you pushed in through my golden gate leaving with more boldened empty promises i thought would fertilize have begun to poison my beds deaden my roots and i watch you walk by with new lovers, older lovers no longer caring as climbing hydrangeas cling to my walls inside, i am dying outside, i try to be new but i don’t catch your eyes you just pluck petals without turning back the limbs of my fence bound tight by the vine my once bronze and copper speared gate like a throne now creaks, has faded rusted oxidized to a deep shade of evergreen a grandiose tombstone confabulation -- thoughts of him skim the tops of surface memories that i can describe in impeccable detail: recall his chest against mine legs intertwined fingers and hands tracing out my limbs onto these bedsheet canvases or the time under Christmas lights snuggled into tight bundles coats and gloves covering skin but i know his warmth as sunset rays in pine air oh and his hair glides along my fingertips with my skin pressed against moist lips and the time in dim late-night cafes cocktails and espressos warping my memory in such a lover’s haze his voice that paints my mouth with such a sweet glaze convincing me that his hazel gaze is all i’ll ever need or so i thought because my memory plays devilish tricks on me - to conjure up such vivid images and persuade me of this false reality body & blood -- keep me in your reliquary if i am such a delicate piece holy in the heart sinful in the dark be careful not to let me escape they’ll damn this love because it is one they pray they had i’d warn you to lock me here but i cannot be hidden in some dolled up trophy case my “wicked” desires i have tried to tame pray away pray away pray away third time is no charm only causing harm so i beg of you do not keep me break my halo to pick the lock release myself - my holiness shattering scripture i am not etched in their verses so i evolve into: a sinner, a target, the Antichrist of the end an evil all-consuming they protest that my love, my kindness is conniving no sibling in Christ for i take my blessings from the Devil, apparently. my prayers have made me prey - not to trap, to kill. mount my head on a stake or a decorative plate above their fireplace persecute me just like they did to the One who freed them of their sins paint my body in bulls-eyes and bullet holes noose around my neck a dazzling mirrorball of a martyr letting all their hate reflect back at them holy happenstance -- Michaelangelos and Monets, you’re sculpted carefully brush-stroked onto a fuzzy memory. you brought your chisel accidentally cutting off your nose to spite your face – holy happenstance. you want to glimmer like Monet’s lilies on blue-green waters, water striders skimming the surface, mixing and muddling all your color until it is stale and stains. your words pale and plain.
The damp New Orleans streets are aglow with the bright reflections of shop lights and distant laughter. Drunk banter barely cuts into the ringing ears of the young musician as he saunters home once more. Jasper Poignard’s eyes are hardly open, trusting the aimless movements of his tired muscles to take him back to his cold bed. The cheap plastic trombone case holds the night’s earnings, and a couple of coins jingle against the brass instrument, creating a new kind of sound in Jasper’s already pounding head. Rusted metal walls encompass the echoing asphalt and the slow drip, drip, dripping of water distorts the light rippling across where he walks. Not a soul in sight, only Jasper and his concealed shadow bound forward into the hard stone of the Quarter. Time slips away, for the young musician finds himself already at his front steps. The stone stairs are wet from the earlier rain, and he feels the cold water through his already damp socks. He lifts the large rusty key from his loose trousers and opens the groaning apartment door. He slips into frigid sheets and barely sleeps. Jasper sighs at the light seeping through the uncovered windows, signaling the redundant day ahead. Monsieur Poignard begins his morning commute as the city still sleeps, with no onlookers to glare at his dirty blazer, or unkempt hair underneath his ratty hat. No matter the place, no matter the audience, the young musician will play, and play, and play, until he can play no more. Face numb from overuse, lips red and tired, he will push through for just one more coin. Jasper takes the final turn onto Rue de la Levée and halts all movement as he arrives in front of Perlis Clothing. Tuxedos and hats of an extravagant nature, wanted by many but sold sporadically, are displayed in the window. Today, they are calling out to him more than usual. The colors look brighter, the quality stronger, and the sights more beautiful. They are begging Jasper to indulge in their lavish existence. Monsieur Poignard has wanted to simply pluck the fruit and savor the high life, but that is not the reality the young musician has been able to establish. He walks into the pub reluctantly, not feeling alive enough after the few hours of rest he was able to get in the cold apartment. His days are spent there, and his nights are spent alone in the street. The owner is nice enough to keep him fed, and he provides entertainment for those who stop through in exchange. The shifts are long, and he doesn’t make nearly enough, but he’s still alive. That’s plenty for now. When the dark comes once more, he casts his eyes to the sky to see the moon against the reddened sun and frowns deeply. The night seems to be following Jasper, although it is bright as can be. Streetlights are never fully dark here in this city. Life is sucking the darkness right out of it. He leaves the empty pub, thanking the employees for the food, and making his way across the creaky floorboards to the exit. The young musician jolts his gaze back to his framed shadow beneath him on the streetlight-filled sidewalk. He walks to his spot outside, near the street, and crouches down to the dirty ground. Grabbing the 1940 King Liberty trombone that he received during the war out of the plastic shell, he begins his endless set. The city awakes to the sounds of cars, small chatter, a babe’s cry, and the low lamenting tones of the young man in front of Perlis Clothing. No one knows the real identity of the young man, only that when you gift him compensation for his piece, he grabs the tip of his ratty hat and nods his thanks humbly. Jasper had played for 6 hours straight, with very few breaks, and a total of 3 coins in his grasp as proof of his conduct. As the sun sets and the young musician feels the siren’s song of sleep calling through the glow of twilight, the sounds of footsteps embrace the path none have walked for hours. Monsieur Poignard catches sight of a man in the most grandiose suit, tie, and hat he has ever seen in front of the tux shop. He chokes on air as the man comes closer, looking down at the ground to hide his visage behind the hat he wears. The man drops a piece of paper into the plastic case without slowing his pace as he gallantly continues down the Rue de la Levée without a word. The young musician, too stunned to even nod his thanks to the flashy stranger, looks to the night’s earnings. He grabs the piece of paper in his calloused, shaky hands and unfolds the gift. A five-dollar bill is in his possession. The young man smiles, laughing so very loudly into the empty, sleeping streets, but there is no need for worry. Not anymore. The days begin to seem brighter as the week goes on for Jasper Poignard. The walk to Rue de la Levée is no longer burdensome. There is suddenly a pep in the young musician’s step as he gets ready to play the normally tiresome set. Jasper plays smoother, louder, and with more passion than all of his performances combined, which people seem to notice. First, a young woman with a pair of striking red shoes that keep the rhythm of Jasper’s song halts in front of the young man. The woman simply watches and listens to the sustained notes. She leaves him a quarter. Later, the employees of Perlis Clothing seem to notice the young musician for the very first time in his years of playing. They offer him a warm cup of coffee and a whole dollar. More and more people enjoy Monsieur Poignard’s music as the days pass, and his pockets begin to feel heavier. He waits and waits for the grandiose man to arrive once more, but he doesn’t show his face until a week after his very first visit. Jasper waits longer than usual that day, leaving as the moon shines high above him in the sky. He hears him before he sees him; the fanciest man he’s ever witnessed arrives slower than expected. The man’s face is still hidden behind the brim of his black hat, while his arms seem to be holding tightly around his torso, as if in pain. His legs seem unsteady as he gets closer to the young musician. “Sir, are you alright?” Jasper calls.' The man does not answer. Jasper’s frown cuts deep into his skin. The man simply limps up to Jasper and tosses a piece of paper into the plastic trombone case while the young musician begins to protest. “Sir, you don’t seem to be in the best shape. Do you need help? I can walk you to the doctor down the street,” Jasper said. The man does not respond, only advances without ever slowing in his pace, and continues down the darkened street of New Orleans. Monsieur Poignard worries for the man, but what would such a lavish gentleman want with a tattered youth who plays his music on the street? Jasper looks within the case to see a fifty-dollar bill stained with red. Days pass and Jasper is now worried. The injured man has not returned to Perlis Clothing, nor his performance spot, which leads the young musician to deduce that he is either recovering somewhere safe, or dead. Although worry plagues his poor head, Monsieur Poignard excels at entertaining his audience on the streets as they pass him by. On the week mark after the fancy man’s second visit, Jasper decides to put his new earnings to use. He begins his morning commute lighter than usual, with no case in his hands, just a carefree expression as he experiences the bustling world around him. A day off never existed in the life of Jasper Poignard, not even before the war. Jasper heads in the direction of Perlis Clothing, feet moving faster and faster as he nears the entrance. He abruptly stops in front of the window, giving in to the alluring fabrics, hats, and threads that have been teasing him for years. The young musician opens the doors and savors the high-pitched ring of the bell that sounds as he enters. Two hours later, Jasper Poignard, the poor young musician, exits the store adorned with a brand-new black suit, tie, and hat. No longer will people see him play and scoff, they will revel in the young man as he expels the most beautiful brass tones in all of New Orleans, they will line up at theaters for tickets to finally hear the amazing Jasper Poignard play. Jasper sleeps quite soundly that night. The days rapidly pass by as the young musician plays, and plays, and plays. Every morning for two months, Jasper ties up his brand new tie, buttons up his brand new tux, and graces his head with his brand new hat. After a long day of work, Monsieur Poignard breathes in the warm Louisiana air, as he places his earnings for the day into his case. Night comes quickly, although it seems darker than usual with the moon hidden behind the encompassing clouds. Jasper begins to walk, listening to the distant sounds of restaurants and parties, feeling the warm breeze across the tip of his hat and nose. The night becomes silent as children sleep and parents return home from their night lives. The distant sound of the quarter leaves a deep feeling of melancholy within the young musician. Living here his whole life, losing his two brothers in the war, his younger sister and mother passing away before the little one could even cry for the first time; Their fates have not yet caught up to the last Poignard. The night encompasses the young man, echoing the sweet jingle of coins within his grasp. Jasper’s eyes lift from behind the brim of his brand-new black hat as another form steps in front of him on the street. His eyes widen once more, seeing the glint of metal before feeling the burning heat of pain and blood deep in his gut. Red seeps through the brand-new suit as the young musician’s body trembles in shock. The money-filled case is ripped from his hands as his assailant escapes without a trace. Monsieur Poignard staggers in his place. He falls to the ground in an attempt to calm his breath and gasps out for help in the silent night. Jasper cannot speak. He cannot move his tongue, use air as he has his whole life, and expel tones of sound. He raises his eyes at the distant sound of footsteps to see his own face standing above him. Perlis Clothing merchandise mirrors his very own, height and body shape echoing that of Jasper’s, so familiar yet so foreign; the one difference being the eyes mimicking his own. A deep red lives in those eyes, frightening, bright, foul. The oh-so lavish man that once was, stands in front of Jasper, yet they own the same face. The young musician stares into his very own eyes as his double lifts a bloody five-dollar bill and places it on top of the dying musician’s chest. Jasper watches himself walk away in his very own brand-new black suit, tie, and hat. The young musician looks back to the sky and stares at the moon until he can look no more. The murder of Jasper Poignard makes the front pages. His fame as a musician did not last for very long, but his name was known and seen by many, for years and years to come, until his name meant no more.
Legs -- I used to sit with my legs open, my heart on my sleeve, a smile on the go. I loved how hot you used to make me feel, touching my ass while we were in line for food when I wore that sun dress. I wanted you at the sole thought of your touch on my skin. I hoped that you were okay, even though I wasn’t and you didn’t care. I thought of you in such a gentle way, you were soothing to the soul, the type of love that made my heart quench, the type to never leave my mind, the type that had me waiting for the call at one AM. I gave you all of my stories and pain. When I think back on when we were together, was any of it real? Did you really love me the way you said you did? Where the flowers that you got me just because worth it? Did the hours in the bookstore staring at me read cover to cover books that I would devour with you sitting next to me make you fall in love? Did you really want to grow old together? I guess you really didn’t. Not only did you barge in with no consent, no softness or big gesture, you left just as abruptly, packed your stuff and left for good. Your hands all over me, at the moment satisfying, now rotting my memories. The sound of your voice, once familiar and warm now inexistent. Were you ever even real? Did you really have to steal a part of me so important and pure just to leave without a trail? Will I ever love the same, will my body ever feel the same? Will I ever be able to trust myself around others again? It was my fault I didn’t realise how violent you would be with my delicate self. My legs stay closed and guarded, my mind worried and restless. You now have my stories and I am left with more pain. Now I sleep with my phone off. Screen Time -- I sit there, staring at all the girls I have caught you masturbate over. They either have their breasts or their ass or everything out. You say it doesn’t matter to you. I check your socials and none of the girls you follow look like me. I stare at a picture of your exes and I can’t find where I fit? When do I get screen time on your phone? Should I pose with my ass out? Should I be a child like you want me to role play in sex? Does this act include my inner child? She’d be happy to help. Do you want me to get surgery? Should I make porn? Is that what you’re into? Should I lust over other men? Should I flirt with others because at the end of the day, it’s not that deep? He looks like a cute guy, maybe he’ll make you jealous. Should I mention being queer to make your dick hard? Should I dye my hair blonde so I can be more like them? Or should I get an equinox membership? Please, I’m asking you what should I do to be more digestible to you? As I open my stomach with a knife, I take my liver, my ovaries, my stomach and I lay them in front of me. Which one would you like? My ovaries? They’ll go well with the sourdough. “Thank you, have a good day” You say as you leave me on the floor of my bedroom bleeding from every spot. “My pleasure,”
When I was young people were always mad and yelling, sometimes even throwing pots and pans at each other. It made me cry. They apologized and everything would be ok , but not really ok, because nothing is ever really ok, is it ? We think we are ok but we are all a tiny bit damaged. I ponder my damage, the damage done to me. And I cry a little more . Am I damaged? A crushed box, a torn sweater, a broken mug. Those things are damaged. They can be put back together and used again and again. Can I? Was I? What am I if not damaged? Is the opposite intact? Healthy? Unbroken? Might I be one of those? I am damaged. Crushed. Torn. Broken. Put back together . Used. Used. Used. Again and again and again. Crying. I was little. I was mad. I was yelling. I am crying.
Funeral Body -- I have been trying to be beautiful longer than I have been trying to be anything else. I have never loved my body. At a young age, my peers taught me that there was a wrong way to look and a right way to look; I was already living in the wrong. I was overweight. My teeth were too crooked. My hair was too wavy. My skin wasn’t smooth enough. Everything about my appearance was wrong. I was only a child, and I was already so wrong. There are days when I feel like I am outside of myself. I wake up, and I know that this body is mine. I know that this is the face I’ve been trying to grow into for the last thirty-one years. I can run my hands across the skin of my right arm or down the length of my left leg and recognize it as tangible. I am tangible. And yet, I still feel like I am a stranger here. No matter how many times I look into the mirror or comb my fingers through my hair, I cannot find myself. My body is the only thing I have always had to count on. I was born into this body. I will die in this body. I have been suffering in this body. I’ve transformed myself so many times throughout my life, and we still can’t find a form that we agree on. The moment I am finally able to look into the mirror and be happy with what I see, my body reminds me of the way the mirror lies. It makes sure that I see the way my clothing clings to the parts of myself that I like the least. It points out the fine lines slowly carving themselves a home underneath my eyes. My body reminds me that I will never be at peace here. I will never be in control. I’ve shapeshifted, and I’ve shrunk myself, but I am still too much. I worry that the older I get, the more unlovable I become. I am fading out of my era of being young and beautiful, and I still haven’t figured out how to be the latter. The internet is telling me I need to be someone else now that I am in my thirties. Twenty-one-year-olds fill my social media feeds with their poreless, perfect baby faces, and I become invisible. I mourn my youth before I have even left it. A Drink to Desolation -- It’s almost midnight, and I’m thinking about how many of my days ended with you. I am counting how many hours I spent wishing you would just come back to me. But I am not longing for the you that came out of the bottles of homemade liquor you made in your apartment. I am dreaming of a person I now know never existed. I found the real you at the bottom of an empty wine glass and the unpaid postage on a package from St. Louis. You crawled out of the depths of our university’s disciplinary actions after you drunkenly punched your best friend, and you found me. You found someone else to drag down with you. You never laid a hand on me, so I never knew anything was wrong. I poured myself out, over and over again. I was empty and still, I found somewhere to bleed from. I remember the weekend we stayed at your parents’ mansion. I could barely eat, and you decided you couldn’t be with someone who couldn’t take care of themselves. I folded into myself, right there at your parents’ expensive kitchen table. Shame rose up through my body as I clutched the cold marble tabletop, coursing through me until it stopped in my cheeks, rising red hot to the surface. Red hot like the anger you always felt towards me at the slightest inconvenience. My cheeks burned like the alcohol you forced me to drink as it slithered down my throat. The tears fell, dropping into tiny pools I often wished I could drown myself in. You wrapped your arms loosely around my skeletal frame. I clung to you like you were my only hope for survival; some days, it felt like that was your goal. I prayed for you, the one to take me away from all of the pain I had been through. It’s funny how salvation felt like despair. Fragile doesn’t even begin to explain the state you left me in. Invisible. Hollow. Alone. An empty casket waiting to finally be put into the ground. Grieving for a Future That Could Never Exist -- I wonder if you ever think about what we could have been. I imagine who we almost were in an alternate life where we didn’t hate each other, and I never left you. I picture the home we could have had: cozy, inviting, maybe a cottage with a front door painted bright yellow with a cobblestone path leading right up to it. Sometimes I can see us in this home, happy, smiling over big cups of coffee. The sun is pouring in through the skylight in our kitchen above us, and I watch the rays of light illuminate the golden tones in your olive-green eyes. You aren’t drinking, and I’m not starving myself. We are both who we pretended to be when we first met. But then that image fizzles out and I see us both alone in a home, alone yet we’re still together. I drink my coffee outside on our porch in the rain. And you drink yours alone in your office, your only company the homemade liquor you don’t even bother hiding from me anymore. We only speak to each other if we have to. We live like we are strangers. And I still don’t know your favorite color.
One of the upstairs bedrooms in the house on Holly Street was filled with trees. Affectionately referred to by the Mother who lived there as “The Greenhouse,” the room was filled with sunlight each morning that poured in from the large, East facing window. The Mother cared diligently for the trees (all bonsais, all much older and easier to manage than her only child), pruned them, misted them with tepid water, tamed them toward the light, molded them into shape with guiding wires and rubber bands. She loved the trees and how they bent and moved with her will, with the firm kindness of her direction. Under her care, the trees thrived. The Daughter who lived there, tucked away in the next bedroom – the smaller one with a smaller window – hated the trees. At one point, after she had gone away to college and moved into a dorm room that had not one but three windows, the Daughter thought that perhaps what was wrong with her all had to do with the light. Her bedroom at her mother’s home had faced North, and the space was always dim and bathed in shadows. Growing up she had not been a kid who rode a bike or kicked a ball or ran through the sprinklers on a hot summer day. She did not particularly care for prickly grass under bare feet or the feeling of sweat collecting along her hairline in the heat like a bothersome halo. The Daughter was bookish and pensive and generally fresh air-avoidant. She had probably spent too much time in that sunless room, squinting at the text of worn paperback novels, scribbling in her journal, counting the glow-in-the-dark plastic stars stuck to the ceiling, and failing to thrive. Perhaps, she thought, she just hadn’t received the proper amount of light that children require to grow into normal, functioning adults. If she had, perhaps everything would have been different. If she had grown up in The Greenhouse and not just her Mother’s house, if she had been pruned and molded properly. If she had been given enough water. It would be several more years before she learned that there is a difference between not getting enough water and refusing to drink. She would write that phrase down on the back of an old fast-food receipt and tuck it into one of her books so she would remember it. But she wouldn’t. The breakthroughs never stuck. During the winter and summer breaks, when she returned from school to the house on Holly Street, her bedroom seemed so abysmal she could hardly stand it. How she had lived in the dark for the first eighteen years of her life she couldn’t imagine. The Mother would knock on the bedroom door and ask The Daughter if she would like to see the progress she’d made on a few of the bonsais. The Daughter would stare back at her with large brown eyes (the same caramel color as her Mother’s) that were suddenly brimming with something turbulent and frightening and The Mother would feel uneasy. But then she would blink and smile, and the storm in her gaze would be quelled. The Daughter would follow the Mother to The Greenhouse and peer at the tiny trees, aligned in neat rows on tables of varying heights and each with its own label. Like infants in a hospital nursery, the Daughter thought. She wondered if the little trees liked their Mother, if they felt they had anything in common with her. She wondered the same about herself. One summer, between her freshman and sophomore year, the Daughter returned to the house on Holly Street with her dark brown hair cut short and cropped close to her head. The Mother told her that her pixie cut looked beautiful, and the Daughter replied that the term “pixie cut” was only used by insecure women who weren’t confident enough to describe themselves in anything but dainty, little girl terms. The Mother had not known what to say to that, so she said nothing. The Daughter did not want to elaborate on how she had cut off her ponytail during a night of drunken despair with her roommate’s nail scissors, bit by bit. It had taken more than a half hour to cut it all away with a tool so impractical it was comical. She had laughed at the end, a startled burble of sound without humor, when she looked in the mirror at her uneven crop of hair, at the long, tangled strands coiled in the bathroom sink like a pit of snakes. The next day she had gone to a hair salon to try and salvage what was left on her head. Yes, it all came down to the light, the Daughter thought. The light she didn’t get and the water she wouldn’t drink, and the soil under that house on Holly Street that had been soured with death and divorce spanning generations. She thought this as she sat on a cold metal chair in the university’s health center, waiting. She had actually forgotten why she had gone in on that particular day. It must have been another thought so intrusive and violent and compulsive it had terrified her enough to walk here. Yes, she was waiting for someone to talk to her about this. A counselor came eventually, a kind-eyed, middle-aged woman with a mild and forgettable manner that reminded her so much of her Mother that she no longer wanted to tell the truth. Instead, she told the counselor that she was tired, and stressed about exams, and nervous about finding a summer internship. She was given a pamphlet about the importance of caring for your mental health and a bright yellow stress ball with a happy face on it and sent back out into the world. The Daughter stood in the parking lot in front of the university health center and realized she did not know where to go next. There was nowhere else to go. That’s just how things were going to be and it was probably because she didn’t get enough sun. It was probably because she hadn’t eaten her vegetables, hadn’t gotten any exercise, hadn’t ever had more than one real friend at a time, hadn’t gone to a school far enough from home to feel like a true clean start, hadn’t started her Milton essay due in a few days’ time, hadn’t told the boy who said she was beautiful and tenderly brushed her awkward, overgrown pixie cut out of her eyes anything that was true. It was probably because of one or all of those reasons. The only reason that she couldn’t bear to consider was that it was for no reason at all, and that when she was born there had simply been a screw loose in her head. She was never going to be happy and there was nothing that could be done about it. It would be several more years before the Daughter learned about the difference between surrendering to pain and healing from pain, and how there really isn’t a difference at all, it just depends on how you look at it. And things like that look different all the time. Anything can change the look of something, even silly things, like the amount of light in a room.
When he was a child, Patrick spent a lot of time with his family. He had a mother who was raised Baptist who shared a love with God stronger than life, if she did say so herself. She loved God so much, there might as well be a seat for him at the dinner table. His father was raised as a pastor’s son in Summersville, West Virginia, where the sun made the trees look like golden pillars of divinity. Additionally, he had an older sister and brother that believed in family more than they believed in just about anything, apart from God. His parents cherished the life they had and praised God for shining the light of his love upon their humble family. Patrick belongs to one family, under God. When it came to Patrick, however, he never grew to see it that way. Sometimes, he felt the love, other times, he didn’t. He never would say he felt hated by God. To say that felt slightly dramatic. He did, sometimes, feel skipped over. As if God might have forgotten him. Sometimes, he was picked last during gym class. Or someone would suggest he should play with the girls during recess. When he spoke to his Ma about these moments, she would place a gentle hand on his cheek. “Patty, you pray for those poor children. When kids can’t find kindness, it’s ‘cause they never seen it. You just be grateful God made you special.” He spent most of his childhood wondering if his Ma was right, and what it meant if she was wrong. Had he been some failed experiment in God’s Heavenly Lab Creator? The monstrous beast that the other angels whispered about. There goes Frankenstein, he imagined them saying, the Devil must’ve gotten his hands on that one. Beyond his siblings, who were much older than him, the relationships sustained between most of his family were superficial at best. He had one cousin, though, who left a lasting impression. Her name was Renee, and she was the kind of soul that God could never skip over. She had hair the color of an oak tree, and a heart just as sturdy. Her love of God ran just as deep as the any of Patrick’s family, and her love of family ran deeper than that. She babysat him on Wednesday nights, while his parents were at church. If there was ever someone to exist that could convince Patrick he wasn’t skipped by God, it was her. She knew of his differences, perhaps even before he knew of them himself. “Patrick,” she would say, “I am so glad I have you. I just know God was smiling when you came into the world.” Then she would squeeze his arms and kiss his cheek like she believed it. For just a moment, then, he believed it too. Once, they were watching the television together and an ad for Barbie dolls came on the screen. Patrick was glued to the tv in an instant. There was something about the ocean of pinks that called out to him. It was the color of bubblegum he bought at the bookfair every year. He had always loved the idea of dolls, and while his parents never treated him differently for liking them, they were never eager to buy them. Ma had pushed him toward matchbox cars and action figures. “They’re the same as a doll. It’s all plastic at the end of the day.” She was right in the end, Patrick supposed. At least in theory. It was all plastic. Still, as a child, he never moved on from them. Apparently, Renee noticed. She cleared her throat. “Patty... you have any of those?” She nodded to the television. He remembers shaking his head. She smiled like she had been hoping for that answer. She led him into her room and opened her closet. “You see all this?” She asked. Her voice was as bubbly as it always was, though something loomed in the tone of it. So, he looked. A kaleidoscope of barbies piled like rubble on the floor, congregating into a single, unsteady mountain. It looked as if the removal of a single doll would cause the entire pile to collapse. As his eyes moved up, there were clothes on hangers. Mostly dresses and skirts, but a few pairs of jeans too. There were pale pinks and floral embroidery. Purple and orange collages and feathered scarves. She had shoes hanging on the door, too, in clear plastic casing. There were sandals, wedges, heels, and tennis shoes. The tennis shoes still had tags on them. It made him think of his own closet, full of dinosaur toys and dark polos. There were no flowers, no pinks. He did not have heels or wedges. He had tennis shoes that Michael Jordan sponsored. He couldn’t lie. He loved what he was looking at. There was a part of him that was okay with that. There was another part that felt the angels were whispering over it. “Patrick,” Renee said, “you listen, sweetheart. We humans, we’re all so precious. All we got in us is love. We got to love what we love. It’s our job to love what we love. People get that all confused, you know?” She let him go into her closet and try whatever he wanted; a smile spread widely across her face as he did so. She said to him, while he ran his fingers over the baby pink prom dress. “It’s amazing how grand life can be, when you lead through love.” The two shared a wink. “If you fancy that dress, you might like the shoes that match it.” His eyes scanned the plastic casing until he saw a pair of small heels, pink in color, with a small flower along the strap of the heel. He couldn’t take his eyes off. He could not help himself but imagine the sound it would make as he walked. He had seen girls wear these kinds of shoes in movies, but never thought to try them on himself. What the shoe might feel like under his own foot. “Go on, you can try ‘em. Just me and you, kiddo.” Without another thought he took her invitation and ran with it. From that moment on, he and Renee had an unspeakable understanding of Patrick. He was the boy who wore heels, and she was going to be the girl who let him. He remembers her eyes watching him as he walked up and down the single hallway and into the kitchen of her home, a high-strutting model during New York fashion week. With every click and clack against the tile, a rush of euphoria rang from his ears to his toes. It felt…natural. Back at home, Patrick remembers digging through every closet, nook, and bedside in his home until he found the perfect substitute for those heels—an old, worn-out pair of cowboy boots. Rising halfway to his knee, they were black in color from the tongue up. The white stitching was embroidered into wings along the shaft of the boot, looping in and out of itself the whole way up. From the tongue of the boot and down, the leather was coated in a muddy brown. The vamp beneath the tongue was complimented by its own looping embroidery. But more than their flashy appearance, what mattered was the sound they made. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. It was an immediate love affair. He wore the boots no matter the occasion. On grocery trips with his Ma. To his elementary school (when it wasn’t gym day). To his grandmother’s house for Sunday dinners. His favorite occasion, however, was church on Sunday mornings. Church was a weekly thing for his family, and hearing the sound of his boots echo across the cool hardwood floors made an otherwise blasé routine feel new, exciting. With each echo bouncing off of the wall, he gained more strength. The chain wrapping itself around his lungs had been broken, and for the first time, he could breathe. The aisle between the church pews became a secret runway, but this time, he wore the only acceptable heels a boy could wear. Still, there remained one small truth clouded in the back of his mind. A confession hidden just beneath the surface. One that explained why a pair of worn, beat up cowboy boots were his most prized possession. The same reason he loved his cousin’s heels. The sound of a woman’s heel. Perhaps a stiletto, or a pump. It brought him great shame and guilt to admit such a thing, because he knew that his parents believed that heels were for women, and he was no woman. Nothing changed that, not even Wednesday nights with Renee. Things complicated further as he got older. As he moved into high school, Renee moved off for college, packing up her heels and Wednesday night runways with her. In its place, he welcomed Wednesday night youth groups. The one thing that came out of the youth group that was worthwhile to him was Richie Grier. Richie had moved into the area after his father took a position as the new priest at their church. He was from Knoxville, Tennessee and always wore a cowboy hat to prove it. When he saw Patrick’s boots in his first youth service, he laughed out loud. “Would ya look at that? Between the two of us we make a genu-ine cowboy. I reckon if that ain’t a sign for us fellas I don’t know is.” It did not take long for Patrick to realize the feelings he felt for Richie were more complicated than that of a friendship. The boys began driving to the youth group together, then they did morning pick-ups for school, and soon enough, they stayed at each other’s homes. It was fun. It was nice to have a friend in the absence of Renee. But he couldn’t help but worry about Richie. Life without friends can be hard, and he didn’t want to take the chance at friendship away from him. “Richie,” Patrick tried to warn him once as they drove to school, “you know I’m not popular or anything. This won’t getcha any friends.” Richie gave an amused smirk. “It got me one, ain’t it?” Richie had a way of finding the upside in an upside-down cake. It reminded Patrick of his cousin. “You know what they call me, Richie?” Patrick pushed. “They say-” “Yeah, I know.” Richie interrupted him, the smallest sliver of frustration slipping into his voice. “I know what say you are. Say you’re a freak for likin’ pink and stuff. Call ya a sinner, I don’t care. Horses shit all the time, Pat. It ain’t like it’s true.” His green eyes followed the road, focused yet distant. “Besides, even if it was true...” His voice trails off, leaving Patrick with an uneasiness in his stomach. Was Richie waiting for confirmation? Patrick may have not explicitly said who he was, but the knowledge had existed on some level since his childhood days with Renee. Still, saying it aloud was a different ball game. Especially to the son of his church’s priest. “Even if it was...” Patrick forced it out with a tone he hoped wasn’t shaky. Richie curled his bottom lip beneath his tongue. His eyes were strained on the road. Patrick tried getting a read on his body language, but he couldn’t find anything certain. “Well, we’re all born of sin. Ain’t that why Jesus died.” His voice was quiet, faint. He sat next to Patrick, pulling into an empty parking spot toward the back of the church parking lot. His eyes unwavering on the setting sky before them. “Big book says it.” Patrick wasn’t sure what to make of their conversation. Richie was not one who favored being serious over being entertaining, so it was strange to see this side of his friend. He wanted to say something to comfort him, because he seemed to be upset. He felt sure that the despair was something bigger than this conversation. In what way, he was not sure. “My cousin told me as a kid, once, people get all confused about why we’re here. Our job.” Patrick finally spoke, thinking of the only person who made him feel better. “She said ‘people are born of love’ Richie. Not sin.” “Love.” Richie repeated, still looking forward. “So then, Dr. Lover, tell me. Are you born of love for one side more than the other, if you catch my drift.” Patrick took a strong inhale before answering. “Yes. Yes, I catch your drift, and yes, I am born of love for one side more.” For the first time since the conversation started, Richie looked at him. His mossy green eyes were hazy with tears. His lip quivered just a little. His honey curls were just barely poking through the lining in his hat. The setting sun was casting him in a melting spotlight. In this moment, things began to make sense. Patrick was looking at Pompeii. He was seeing Richie for who he was, maybe for the first time. A boy, pressured under the stresses of priestly fatherhood, taking comfort in the one friend who just might be like he is, on the verge of an irreparable eruption. Of course, he had heard the rumors about who Patrick was. He heard the angels’ whispers. That was why he reached out. The car rides, the sleepovers, it was beginning to make sense. Maybe Richie hadn’t known it himself, even. But Patrick? He understood. He understood the complexity of Richie Grier, and he was beautiful. He and Richie skipped youth group that night. The boys drove and talked instead. Patrick told Richie about Renee and her heels. The real reason that he kept the boots on all of the time. Richie told him about the time he was caught wearing his sister’s nail polish in middle school. Sometime during the drive, Richie let his hand fall on Patrick’s. Neither of them said anything about it. They drove on, and allowed themselves to love what they love. When they pulled in front of Patrick’s house, Richie asked. “Do you think we could do this again sometime?” So, they did. Two beautiful boys who became entangled with one another. They spent nights in the bed of Richie’s truck, parked somewhere on the side of the road. Far enough out that they wouldn’t be seen. They kissed and they held each other with the urgency of a swarm of locusts. “I wish we could run.” Richie would say, grinning through his growing moustache. “we’d go north or something. Somewhere you could wear yer heels or whatever. And I could paint my nails purple or blue or whatever the hell I want.” They spent all of their nights like this, reminiscing on what they could be if things were different. Patrick never did, but he always wanted to ask God why they couldn’t have something different. Why could they not live the life Renee has? They told themselves to feel no shame, but that was hard when it was nothing but sneaking around on the sides of the road and dreams of running away. Did God himself not feel shame for making someone sneak around like this? “Wish I had myself a cousin like you.” Richie continued his wishful pining. “It’s hard barin’ it all on yer own.” Did God not feel shame for that? Normally, such a thought would not plague his mind. Shame. It wasn’t something that he could overlook and forget about, of course. It was just that ignoring the things that he wished he could change was second nature to him. When it was this, though, it was different. Maybe it was that Richie complicated things. Maybe being the priest’s son made the situation too close to the church. Who could say? But each Sunday morning, as Patrick stood alongside his Ma and Father, looking up at the back of Richie’s head, things were different. In God’s own sanctuary, hiding from God felt impossible. He was all around him. God was in the golden drapes of glory that hung over the walls and the balcony. He was among the books of hymns, disguised within the lyrics. His eyes glared along the stained-glass windows. He surrounded him. It felt as if God had taken a magnifying glass to him. Using the sun’s glare, he fried Patrick like an ant. Over and over again. There was no place to escape from the insufferable truth. And it was during prayer that the feeling persisted the most. The moment in church service when your connection with God should be the strongest, he felt that he couldn’t be farther away from him. Yet, despite the distance, he could never escape Him. He would be watching him, always. As his parents and siblings bowed their heads, Patrick’s own wondrous eyes rose up to look at the stained windows to the right. He took to studying them. It was the only thing he could think of doing. But most of the time, Patrick wondered about who Jesus was, and not just in scripture. He wondered if he was ever ashamed... of anything. He thought about how the people hated him, and eventually crucified him for spreading the word of God. He felt bad for God because they were silencing him for speaking his mind. He would arrive at the same hope every time—that God did feel shame, because maybe then, God would be a little more forgiving. Forgiving of a boy who dreamed of wearing heels while holding hands with another boy. One particularly fond of cowboy hats and painted nails. If there was anything to be forgiven. If there was anything worth forgiving, he hoped it was that.
The motel clerk must have seen some unsavory things in his time, because I barely had one foot inside and he was already suspicious. “No rooms by the hour,” he said. “I’m staying the night.” “Alone?” I glared at him, but didn’t answer. I knew what it looked like: I was eighteen years old, wearing too much makeup, and dressed like I’d just finished a shift at The Temptation Club. And he wasn’t wrong to be suspicious: I wouldn’t be alone. I slapped my credit card (shiny and new, fresh from the bank this morning) down on the desk. He grumbled a little but took it and clicked some keys on his ancient Dell. “I want room six,” I said, before he could finish. He surveyed me, even more distrustful now. The motel carpet was rough against my knees. I’d turned out all the lights, and the silence was so deafening my ears had conjured up a ringing sound to drown it. You came here for this, I told myself. I came here for this. I took a deep breath, and got started. “Emma?” I whispered into the black. There was no response. “Emma,” I tried again, more resolute this time. A uniquely thrilling kind of terror gripped me as I said it. The kind of fear that sends teenage girls at a slumber party into the bathroom to try and summon Bloody Mary. The kind that makes people want to skydive, or drive too fast on a winding mountain road, or fall in love with someone they shouldn’t. Eighteen is pretty young; I still thought fear was the next best thing to really feeling alive. The hotel room vibrated: heavy, black, and hollow. I waited. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping for – a pale face in the dark, a boney hand on my shoulder, a threatening whisper in my ear? None of that sounded particularly appealing, and yet, the nothingness was worse. Was I really so irrelevant that she didn’t even feel the need to bother with me? A distant truck horn broke the stinging silence, and I knew I was alone. Reluctantly, I stood up in the dark and fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp. The room filled with light. It happened then in an instant: as my irises contracted, as my eyes fought to adjust, I blinked and for one fraction of a second, the room was different. Not so different that I felt I was someplace else, but different enough that I knew I was some time else. The walls that had been sad beige were now covered in a geometric 90s wallpaper. The carpet was gone, replaced by laminate flooring. There was an ashtray on the nightstand, and a landline with a curly cord where my cell phone had just been sitting. And there, right there on the bed in front of me, was the battered, bloody corpse of Emma. She lay in a pool of dark red fluid on the comforter. She looked nothing like the photos I’d seen – she looked nothing like anything I’d seen. Her skull was smashed to bits, nothing more than an unrecognizable mass of flesh and bone and brain matter. The Sears lingerie she was wearing was ripped at the seams as if she’d tried desperately to pull away. The only part of her not covered in blood was her left hand, which was tied at the wrist to the bed frame above her head. The rest of her was destroyed. In that fractured second in which the room had shifted backwards in time, I stared down at her, and felt the horrible sensation that I was looking at myself. I blinked. The motel room was as it had been. My cell phone was on the nightstand. The bed was empty and neatly made. I ran into the bathroom and threw up in the tub. # Emma was my aunt, but I never knew her that way. To me she was just a ghost: a silent specter that haunted every facet of my life. I’d realized this around the age of ten, when an older cousin had tried to spook me by telling the story. For the kids in our family it was something distant and novel. Sad, of course, but only in the way you feel sad for people on the news to whom terrible things have happened. I never knew her, after all. But I knew the facts. She was my mother’s big sister. She liked Linda Ronstadt and denim miniskirts. She was murdered at age thirty, a week and one day before my mother gave birth to me. It took a while, in the way it often takes children a while to piece together the obvious, before I understood that Emma’s death had created my mother as I knew her. I wondered if things had needed to play out the way they had on a cosmic level. Maybe Emma and I were never destined to exist in a universe together, and in order for me to arrive she had needed to leave. If so, that made it my fault. And I wondered, often, what my mom would have chosen had she been given a choice: the baby she’d never met and hadn’t planned for, or the sister she’d never existed without. I felt like I knew the answer. I could hardly blame her for it. Still. It was hard not to harbor any resentment. It hardened inside me, crystallizing under the pressure of a lonely, desolate childhood, until it coalesced into a diamond. My rage turned into something precious and rare. It was the only currency I carried in the world, and I had no clue who I was without it. I spent it in the usual ways: I skipped school, wore slutty clothes. I quietly hoped that someone might scold me, but no one ever did. That morning, the morning of my eighteenth birthday, I had woken up to the sound of breaking glass. I found my mother on the kitchen floor with blood smeared on her hands and a broken bottle of vodka beside her. She didn’t notice me as I watched from the doorway while she picked at the shards of glass with shaky, bleeding fingers. When she’d gathered all the big ones, she dumped them in the trash and stumbled to the cabinet under the sink, not bothering to mop up the spilled alcohol that was seeping across the floor. I could smell it, sharp and violent in my nostrils. She opened a new bottle, took a swig, and turned to see me watching. “Happy birthday, baby,” she tried to say, but it was too slurred to comprehend. # The truck stop motel where Emma had been murdered was on the edge of my hometown, just off the interstate exit. You had to pass it to leave Topeka – so we rarely left Topeka. I’d been saving up the sixty dollars I needed for the room for the better part of a year. It was my birthday present to myself. I wanted to be near her. I wanted to see where it had all ended and begun. The bathroom came back into focus as I crouched over the tub and wiped my mouth. I blinked myself back into the present and repeated the mantra the school guidance counselor, Miss Terry, sometimes made me speak out loud: I am here. I am here. I am here. It hadn’t been my choice to start seeing her, but she’d grown on me a bit. I stood up and peered around the doorway. The motel room looked normal. The bed was empty. But now that I’d seen her, she was impossible to unsee. I could feel her there, and I knew she wasn’t leaving. I knew she never had. My phone buzzed, and the anxiety that always accompanied it flared up in my gut. Out ofs voskda. nweed more on ur wya h ome, read the text. Anger singed the inside of my throat like bile. I threw the cell phone on the bed, grabbed my keycard, and left the room. # The motel was on the north side of the truck stop. To the south, across the vast expanse of gas pumps, was a nameless diner with a neon sign that said FOOD. Emma had eaten her last meal there: a Denver omelet and a diet Coke. I read it in the police report. A bell on the diner door clanged as I walked in. I hesitated; the place was completely empty. Cracked vinyl booths, a long counter with a view into the kitchen, a silent jukebox no doubt filled with pre-Y2K country hits. And not a soul in sight. But she was here; I could feel her. “Anywhere you like, hon,” a female voice called from the kitchen, startling me. I took a seat in the booth farthest from the door. Through the window beside me, I could see the motel, the gas pumps, and the rows of parked semi-trucks waiting in the night. An older waitress with gray hair and hot pink lipstick approached the table. “Denver omelet, please,” I said, my throat dry. “And a diet Coke.” I watched her closely as if those words might trigger some reaction, but she simply scribbled it on her notepad. “Anything else?” I shook my head. She started to turn back to the kitchen, and I found I couldn’t help myself. “How long have you worked here?” I asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.” “Since before you were a twinkle in your mother’s eye, I bet. Why do you ask?” “You ever hear about a murder at the motel?” “Honey, which one?” She shook her head and gave me a sad, understanding sort of smile. “You be safe tonight. Girls in your line of work gotta be tough as nails.” I watched her walk back to the kitchen. # Over the course of my eighteen years, I’d spent a lot of time being angry. Angry with my teachers and my boss at the Spangles. Angry with the faceless man who’d murdered Emma. Angry with my mother, angry with myself. And angry with Emma. She was a victim, of course, but in becoming one she had created a lineage of victims just like her. It was hereditary; a genetic factor of suffering passed down through the maternal line. Her death was the hinge that my entire life swung on – and I’d never even known her. I left the lights off as I re-entered the motel room, my rage pulsing. I slammed the door. Instantly, the room began to spin. I felt my balance slipping and fell to my knees on the floor. A kaleidoscope of colors and images flashed before my eyes: The motel room, gutted and empty of all furniture. Crime scene tape across the doorframe. Police officers scouring the scene. Emma’s bludgeoned body on the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I had never come, feeling like I might be sick again. “I am here,” I mumbled, hugging myself like a child. “I am here. I am here.” And then as quickly as it had started, everything stopped. I opened my eyes. The walls were decked out in dated geometric patterns; the landline with the curly cord was back beside the bed. But Emma was no longer as she had been. She was whole, and alive, and beautiful. She sat on the edge of the bed in her Sears lingerie, which looked charming and sexy without the blood. She was putting something carefully back into her wallet as if she’d taken it out for one quick look: a sonogram. The closest she’d ever come to the niece she’d never meet. She loved me. We had someone in common, and she’d loved me just for that. An echoey pounding came from the other side of the motel room door. Emma stood and went to open it. Just before she did, I blinked, and she was gone. The room was back to normal. I had spent so much time with my anger, and I felt its sudden disappearance like a phantom limb. I tried to call it back to me, but it was somewhere else. I sat down on the edge of the bed. I touched a finger to the bed frame where Emma’s wrist had once been tied. “Emma,” I said gently, “I am here.” My phone buzzed from somewhere between the bed frame and the mattress. I fished it out and read through a dozen or more increasingly frantic and misspelled messages from my mother. The most recent one just said: Need u. I typed back: I’m here.
rain poem. -- flirting with the late capi- talist hellscape dry humping American Dream because you know me I’m thirsty nice to meet you I’m socially determinant apologies couldn’t hear over the late capitalist dry humping American Dream because you know me on the day I’m finally free I’ll sing “fuck” three times I’ll say excuse me, smells like rain smells like steady smells like time Life in wartime -- “I’m practicing” I pull my shoulders back crack my neck and I would have become a vampire but it bored me I would have remembered but It won’t ever matter again What day it is A list of people watching you die while you chat about the weather: your hairdresser, the bus driver, the security guard at school, the barista. It’s weird to need other people this much. Anyway, I’m not worried I can’t even hear the screams anymore And even if I knew Ninjitsu It wouldn’t matter now it's like my mom died twice -- anchored you can see a woman just trying with big, baggy thing-i-ness to smoke less and there she is again waking up all clothes- like big, baggy thing-y stay away from her it might be contagious and oh you must be so tired by now of crying
He hated his beak. His eyes, once green-specked, now rested on opposite ends of his minuscule head, separated by the pointy bone. Thick brown curls had converted to fuzzy prepubescent feathers. Legs, once trained for marathons, now bent into an unfamiliar shape. He hated being a baby bird. Twigs and stray fur replaced his memory foam mattress, which was stained of late-night nose bleeds. Slimy wet earth worms and regurgitated meals substituted grilled chicken breast and steamed vegetables. Three years prior, he purchased a curved television on sale. Hours were spent in front of the display, soaking in high-definition nature documentaries. Now, entertainment was limited to the movement of the leaves beside him. He hated his loneliness. He missed his boyfriend, the human who never made him breakfast because he knew he had no appetite in the mornings. He missed the way they sang along to the radio on Sunday mornings, tones drastically different from the artists. Surely, he was missing him, too. Most of all, he hated the fact that he hadn’t forgotten any of it. Wasn’t that what death was all about? He looked around his unsupervised home where his siblings were plucked out one by one by the neighborhood cat. He wished that he too had been a victim of that incident. Maybe then, he would not have to take matters into his own wings. The baby bird, full of hatred, stepped closer to the edge of the nest. He flapped his futile wings, pushed himself forward with shaky twig legs, and plummeted into his next life, hoping to forget the last two.
A Day in the Life of a Witch in December -- morning frosty breaths in the tranquil morning the thump of boots on pavement, and the crunch of them on snow-covered grass a small woven bag in a pocket, encompassing a garnet and a sunstone fingerless gloves, and being caressed by wind’s sweet, honeyed song afternoon a gentle kiss on the face by the sun, who miraculously found his way out through the nearly opaque clouds white tea stirred clockwise, tarot cards spread on the coffee table, and the pleasant sound of soft jazz. watering and pruning the plants of the house evening cerulean nights under a pearl moon decaf coffee, braided hair, and crystals resting on the windowsill a lit flame dancing atop a green candle serendipity Found Family -- Blood is vital to live, that I will admit. Blood is the reason I am here at present, and for that I am grateful. But I don't like the way Blood stains- it lies. It first appears as a bright vermillion, yet fades to a dull brown. I am here because of Blood, but certainly do not want to see it. And I don’t like the taste of Blood, it’s bitter, and coppery, and... old. I am here because of Blood, but I certainly do not want to taste it. Maybe the things I do like Such as Dandelions, and The Moon, and the way Jewelry catches in the Sunlight Maybe they aren’t vital to live But they are certainly nicer to see And maybe Honey, and Licorice, and Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Maybe they aren’t why I’m here But they certainly taste a lot better Poem III -- look at everything look at the patterns in the bark of the trees and look at the footprints in the mud look at the children’s shoe on the side of the road and wonder what screaming kid threw it out the window look at the barista’s handwriting on the side of your morning coffee look at which books in the library are most tattered, as those are the most loved. you're never too old to look for shapes in the clouds, or for roly polies under rocks you’re never too busy to peer out of a window just to simply see what it looks like out there look at everything to look is to live
If you’re reading this, it means I’ve already been killed. That you’ve found this letter clamped tightly in my hand so that this monster couldn’t swallow it with the rest of me. The only light I have left is a lantern in the corner of my room. Its light is weak and fading. I’m in a tiny shack. It was built in the middle of nowhere; too far from the city but close enough that help could arrive in a couple of hours. Only I didn’t request emergency assistance. I’m ready to die. When I decided to “Study” in these tiny four walls, I knew that the monsters lurking amongst these parts would be more than ready to feast upon my flesh. I’ve seen its eyes. Bright blue with a tiny black pupil that reflects nothing but evil. It’s been watching me since the sun disappeared. Truthfully, I’m afraid. The fire from my lantern flickers, indicating that the creature is getting closer. I can’t see its shape. The darkness outside acts as a cloak covering it so that if I may survive, I won’t be able to identify it. Although, survival is not a part of my plan. My life has been nothing more than alcohol abuse and cradling of emotional pain. My arms are fatigued from carrying it all. This creature offers me mercy. Rain spatters onto the windowpane violently; the sound of it comforts me. Again, I must say, I am ready to die. I’m writing this letter with the blood that drips from the tip of my first finger, its scarlet coloring is symbolic of the pain I have suffered in my life. The creature’s blue eyes are watching me from the window, beckoning me to come outside so that it can finally taste my flesh and bones. I shall not make it easy for it. If it wants to eat me it must carry the burden of coming inside; the door is unlocked, all it needs to do is push it open... But for some reason, it only stares. Does it see something that human eyes cannot? The tiny table I am writing on continues to wobble from its weak legs. Any minute now the light from the lantern will die and I will be in nothing but complete and peaceful darkness. Thunder just roared. Its vibrations have sent shivers down the thin four walls that form this shack, shattering what will be my last bottle of booze. A sharp c-shaped glass sits in front of me. What will my family think when they find this letter? If you happen to find it, please tell them that I only tried to get better, but the ball of insidious and sinful desire was much too strong for me. Resistance was futile. My thoughts were too loud, and I lost control of my mind. My heart is racing. The light just died. I sit in total darkness, staring in the direction I think the door is in. It just squeaked open. I’m writing as fast as I can so that you can tell my family my final words. I...can’t focus. The creature’s footsteps are loud. Is it two legged? Four? Tears are sliding down my face, and I’m not sure if what I’m writing on these pages will be legible. I can see its blue eyes, they’re in front of me. Its breath brushed across my face; it was viscous and hot and rotten. Its pupils—now dilated—are glancing down at what I think is the table. “Pick up the shard of glass.” It ordered me. Its voice sounded far away and close at the same- time. Thunder roared once more. My hand fumbling as I picked up the c-shaped glass, sobbing, thinking, why does it want me to do this? Why not just eat me or tear me apart? “Now press it against your throat and slide it across quickly.” Its voice deep and commanding, cutting through the raging thunder. My hand trembled as I pressed the sharp point of the glass against the left-side of my neck. The pain of my skin splitting was hot and sharp and flaring. My breathing slowed. I felt warm blood cascading onto the webbings of my fingers. Tear drops fell from my chin onto the table. The creature gave a dry cackle. Lightning flickered. Its blue beam flashed into the entire room, and I finally saw the monster. It was me. The monster watching me in the darkness outside had been the evil within me, waiting for me to become weak and submitting, stalking me like a lion until I was vulnerable. I grinned at the revelation. Then I slid the glass all the way across, slipping into the complete and peaceful darkness.
the most powerful thing in this world is love and i’ll say that with my soul it reminds me so much of gravity it can transcend through space and time it can even cross dimensions it keeps everything going neither one is ever visible with the naked eye which i find so fascinating but here is where love and gravity differentiate the aftermath if we lost gravity every human and object on this planet would become weightless the atmosphere would disappear and the earth's core would expand to the heat of the sun then we would all die to love is unfortunately to lose you do not keep things forever because i’d keep anything and everything given the chance when you lose love you begin to feel cold you feel so heavy the opposite of gravity loss your eyes are blinded by your own tears your heart strings pull did you know that can kill you? to love is unfortunately to lose but i hope you have a chance to love despite the side effects — h.c.
She hides in amber silk, black hair braiding a blanket along her back. I watch her graceful steps, like a canoe slowly making its way across a lake. Her teeth are sharpened, filed down into points so she may inflict wounds with her words, – you are not enough, it is always your fault – her words too sweet and thick, choking me as they run down my throat like syrup. She breaks me. Cracks run down my body. She kisses me as she hides in darkness, her white skin glowing like the pale face of the moon, cratered silver rocks and sharp edges. She carries red poppies and orchids, a bouquet of whispers and prayers as she steps on my toes – be quiet, be meek and small, no one wants to hear you– her prayers are not for comfort, but for pain. – cry little one, cry, you useless child – She savors my pain, laughs every time I try to escape her torment, knowing I am forever hers. She walks like a bride, eyes sparkling obsidian as her dress drags behind her, fire crackling in her wake, splattering blood, my blood, on her diamonds, turning them to rubies. I watch as the jewels that decorate her reflect moonlight onto grass dead from winter and on myself. The glittering lights allow me to feel like I am a beautiful thing as well. I imagine holding her power within my broken hands, wielding pain like a sword against her. When she sleeps, she sleeps on a pillow of broken glass and rose thorns, and she awakes refreshed. I long for her beauty, to take her face and her scorn, to wear pain like a crown. I love her quiet wrath, her sobs like the mewing of a kitten. To love her means to know our pain is one, our bodies becoming indistinguishable. When she kisses me, she kisses my pain, and when her body sings in pleasure, her voice carries over, her song known by the trees and the crickets that sing with her. – oh, sweet suffering – Her lips are a ripe berry, cherry wine kisses her soft throat and she knows she is safe, wrapped in a cocoon of my pain, my guilt, my rage, a numb intoxication that fills her as I ache. Loving her is as easy as climbing Saint Helens, running through thick hot tar and volcanic glass. Her pointed nails and her cold blood ignites those around her, frostbite burning white marks high on cheeks. She burns with my righteous anger and melts with my sorrow, but her smile, her honeyed voice, the liquid crystals under her eyes invite me in like a siren’s song, and though her words cut through me, scorching my chest as she delights in my sobs, she comforts me in the prison she makes of my body. – do not fear, I am with you always, I will never leave you, I am all you have – Despite the bruises left from her cruel hands and the cuts from her vicious words, I cannot seem to ever let her go.
When I was sixteen, I discovered friendship. Nicole and I had been friends for two years but no one told me that my definition of friendship had been tainted. I was the kind of kid who went with the flow yet still followed her own bedtime. Nicole was the kind who, wherever she went, took me with her and called me a grandpa for even having a bedtime. I was small and scrawny. She wasn’t. High school me liked the taste of Kool-Aid and didn’t know any better. Twice a week, during our engineering class, I’d find my seat in the middle of the three rows and eat my pistachios. I’d arrange the dozens of shells scattered on my desk into a block as I took notes in my paperback notebook. Every class period, Nicole would get up to grab her own notebook in a bin on the teacher’s desk and walk through my row. As soon as she passed me, she’d raise the book and I’d brace myself for impact. Whack. The notebook slapped the top of my head. It was almost a coincidence that whenever Nicole pummeled me with her notebook, the teacher had her back to us. I thought nothing of it since most days were filled with her raising her hand, me flinching, and us laughing. When class was over, Nicole and I walked to English. I was about to put my phone away when she reached over and snatched it. “Hey!” “Now,” she said and lifted the phone to see my screen. “Let’s see what the password is.” “Stop. Give it back,” I said. “Come on, it’s not funny.” “Let’s try one, one, two, eight.” “Nicole, stop.” We entered the hallway filled with rusty lockers, smelly teenagers, and stressed teachers. I walked alongside the lockers while she took up the rest of the hallway. “Nope, darn. How about three, four, three, two?” My face started to burn. “Give it back,” I snapped. She stopped and looked at me. Then a giant smile appeared. After so many years, I should have known that was the warning. The next thing I knew, she hip-bumped me so hard I slammed against the lockers the way a child threw a rag doll at the wall when having a tantrum. A clash echoed throughout the hall and a few students turned to see the commotion. A sharp pain shot down my shoulder. The bell rang and Nicole sighed as she walked into the classroom. “Look what you did,” she called. “You made me late.” I stood there for a moment, not knowing how to break down. My cheeks were hot and tears waited their turn to fall. I wanted to sink into the depths of an imaginary couch and hide from the world; to go to a place where no hand was raised and where flinching was no longer an automatic reflex. A crevice that evicted humanity for once. When I was sixteen, I realized it was not friendship but abuse that I had discovered. Similar to how some confused lust with love, I mixed up friendship with bullying. Younger me thought that that’s what friends did—they roughed you up, called you names, and psychologically tore you down. I had no siblings to compare them to and I hated confrontation. Perhaps that was why I sought people out of loneliness or boredom. I don’t know. All I know is that a person can only take so much before they break. One night, I told my mom about what had been going on. She empathized with me on every level and told me about a girl who had bullied her in elementary. The old pain resurfaced and we bonded over the sad truth of how certain people can make someone feel like no one. She told me how some instilled fear into their prey but that the crucial part was the reaction to that fear. “Don’t let her throw you around,” she said. I nodded. She wanted me to go to the vice principal but I was hesitant. If my own voice could barely do justice to a girl my age, what was the point of speaking to an adult? But the odd thing is that it is much easier to talk to someone who is willing to listen than to someone who isn’t. Certain people have the ability to create safe spaces and from that moment onward, I knew I wanted to be one of those people. A few days later, I made a beeline to the VP. He listened to my concerns and frustrations, then immediately had me write down everything that had happened to me. “You want me to write down everything?” I asked him. “Yes, as much as you can remember.” I spent a solid thirty minutes writing down everything I could remember from the paperback concussions to the WWE locker tournaments. Paragraph after paragraph. When I was done, I handed over the novel of crimes to him. He returned to me a blue piece of paper. I had known about this paper beforehand, it was the same paper Mom had mentioned a few days ago. She was familiar with the system. “All you have to do is sign it,” he said, “If that’s what you still want.” I nodded. He slid the paper over and I signed for my divorce. I was no longer bound to the psychological bruises that managed to show on my skin. Yet the bruises that had once appeared all over my body became branded into my memory. I couldn’t decide which was worse. But, I had the option to walk away and suddenly I became a professional sprinter. By the following week, the normal ETA of ten minutes to school became twenty as I passed by my old high school and stepped into a new one. Being the new kid didn’t bother me as much since most of my childhood consisted of switching schools. I was the new kid in preschool, first, third, fifth, and eighth grade, and now junior year of high school. Whether it was a few cities over or down the block, my parents tried their best to give me a good education. I found it comical at times because, to me, education was education. Books were books. But teachers were not teachers. They were the ones who made the difference and listened. They were my school parents and I thank my parents for raising me to respect them. I never found out what happened to Nicole. She may have joined a professional WWE team or attended college. Who knew? That was the last time we ever spoke. # The first mistake I made as a nineteen-year-old at the University of Oregon was registering for a chemistry class as an environmental science major when I despised anything related to science. The computer science course I took the following semester was easier. But for some reason, I never listened to my intuition. My second mistake was sitting in the far left back, near the door. It could have been my aura or just bad luck, but I became very unlucky the day she picked me as her seatmate. On the first day of chem class, I met my new “Nicole”. Ashkah, the alcoholic chem major who had mommy issues and berated you by the minute. It was a wonderful way to spice up my first semester at college. Not to be mean, but rather realistic, she resembled a rat. She had beady eyes, a nose that looked more like a snout and was constantly scrunching her face. All she was missing were a few whiskers. At one point, I thought she pulled out a block of cheese from her backpack but it was just her scientific calculator. The third mistake I made was that I told her practically everything about my life because I had not learned my lesson from oversharing. “Are you retarded or something? It’s Lithium,” she said after I had asked her a question about Alkali metals. I slumped into my seat. “Oh right,” I said and shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on.” “Yeah no duh. No wonder you got broken up with, you can’t even read a periodic table. I wouldn’t want to date someone with an IQ of 3. ” I tried to laugh it off but it was no use, there seemed to be an infinite amount of ammunition. “How did they let you into this school? Oh, wait—their acceptance rate is like 85%,” she snorted. Then she switched it up. “Anyways, do you want to come to a party with me tonight? None of my friends want to be around me when I’m drunk and I don’t want to go alone. Come with, it’s not like you’re doing anything.” At this point, I had given up on lying and my efforts of trying to do so flew out the window altogether. “Oh uh. I have some homework,” I said. “So I can’t.” “What? Aren’t you a business major? You guys don’t have homework. Just skip it and come hang out with me.” “I don’t drink,” I said. She scoffed, “God you’re lame. No wonder you don’t have any friends. Is that why you always sit alone in class?” She threw her hands up. “And you wonder why you’re failing. Thank God I’m here to save you.” I said nothing. Around this point, any ability to use my voice just disappeared. It was almost as if I felt too tired to fight back or maybe too weak to stand up for myself. It was debilitating. But this time, I did not run to Mom or the Vice Principal. I was tired of running away from people that hurt me and even more tired of hiding behind people to protect me. So I ran to my roommate instead. “Meagan,” I said as I barged into our room. “What’s up?” “I don’t want to say I’m being bullied but—” She instantly went into Mama Bear mode. “Who is she? What dorm does she live in?” I smiled, “No no, it’s okay. I just don’t know how to confront her.” I went on to tell her the microscopic stories that had accumulated throughout the semester. “What about talking to her during the next class?” she suggested. “Well, the good thing is that the next class is the final exam so we won’t be near each other and we’re going to be seated across the room from each other. Plus, I don’t want to do in-person contact right now.” She nodded, “Got it. How about text?” “What would I say?” She coached me through the confrontation and as soon as I expressed my feelings to Ashkah, a long apology followed. “What do you think?” Meagan asked me. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can be friends with someone who disrespected me like that. It was mean, she attacked my intelligence.” “Nina. You need to understand that she was never your friend and that that is not an example of what a friend is. You and I are friends. Friends are kind and have each other’s backs, not stab them. You shouldn’t be friends with her anyway, she looks like a rat.” I smiled as reassurance filled the room. Yet doubt stood in the hallway. “What if she comes up to me and asks about it? What if—” “You don’t have to answer her. You can do whatever you want—walk away, ignore her, or just tell her straight up that you don’t want to talk to her.” Never in my life did I think that any of those options were available nor did I believe in myself enough to try those tactics. But this time, I was just ever so slightly stronger inside. So, in the next class, I showed up and saw Ashkah. I had decided to mind my business and luckily, she did too. The last words that were exchanged were from last night’s texts, which included the apology left on read. That was the last time we ever spoke. # I still don’t fully understand why I’ve attracted those kinds of people—the kind that had no issue disrespecting me as if their unfiltered mouths gave mine flavor. What did meanness taste like? Well, sometimes it was bitter but other days it tasted like high school locker paint and chemical reactions. I wondered if I had a magnetic field that attracted bullies. Or maybe they sensed I had no backbone. Perhaps I was spineless and was filled with nothing but stuffing. It frustrated me when I told myself that I was going to find my voice that year yet it remained at the same volume: mute. Sometimes I envisioned myself as if I were a rag doll—small enough to be picked up and thrown at the wall but observant nonetheless. I came to understand that it wasn’t my job to carry their bags of insecurity. Yet why did my hands hurt and why was my heart heavy? I think that’s why I distanced myself a lot of the time—for protection. But I’ve realized that no matter where I go, Northern California or Oregon, I’ll always be a rag doll until I change the definition. Rag dolls are one of the oldest children’s toys in existence and are made from spare scraps of material. In ancient times, the doll connected the living with the dead due to the spirit of the ancestors. They didn’t have names or faces so that evil spirits could not enter or disturb them. I don’t know what’s better—to have a name that means something but stay unprotected in the real world or to have no identity at all and feel safe. I may be a rag doll but I am not the kind that gets thrown at the wall. I’m the kind little kids hold onto while on their way to the grocery store or when they can’t sleep. I attend every vacation and sleepover and am never forgotten. I am a rag doll that gets buckled into her own seat in the car. Perhaps I’m not my protector but at least I’m someone else’s. When I was sixteen, I left Nicole. When I was nineteen, I confronted Ashkah. Now I am twenty-one and standing in front of my bathroom mirror. I had found the remote that had been buried in the depths of my imaginary couch and held it out in front of me. I angled it towards my reflection’s mouth and pressed the unmute button. Now the rag doll in me could speak.
Whiskey Wishes -- hushed steps to survive toes trapped with rich agony 3 months to fully break them in. I fucking hated those black dress shoes. your stare of dissatisfaction has never left my soul “A golden opportunity” Blood soaked fingernails gripped painful paychecks Lungs gutted with ugly hatred, I began to sob. I didn’t know Lucifer was 5’5. Mere inches are calculated, nothing goes unnoticed. Blue and White china shattered against the wooden floor, I’m a dead man now. “Experience of a lifetime” Whisky wishes on Halsted bus rides I don’t even like whisky, Why am I here? 40 hours turn into 40 years White hairs at 21 Precision haunts at dusk. I swear, To be sliced across my chest Is easier to bear than the utter perfection you demand.
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