SSDGM

I still have insomnia.  It's that magical time of year in Austin where everything is covered with a thick green blanket of oak pollen, so I lie awake and cough and sniffle and think about what could have been and what shouldn't have and what will be.

The world is a goddamn mess right now.  Everything is terrible.  I try to not let myself spend too much time on Twitter because the world is depressing.  It's very clear to me how exhausted everyone is of fighting for every single inch of progress.  We're so tired that we're handing the fight over to children.

So I've been trying my darnedest to enjoy the little things.  Watching a lot of Jeopardy, because it reminds me of the intelligence still left in humanity.  I've been watching a lot of makeup tutorials on YouTube to remind myself of the beauty.  Listening to a lot of murder podcasts, well, because I like murder podcasts.  Not everything has to have a deeper meaning.  Sometimes you just play Skyrim because smithing a hundred iron daggers is satisfying.

This next piece is about a boy.  Yes, there is a boy.  It's complicated, but so is life.  I told him I was a broken person, and he said he wanted to fill up all of the cracks with gold.  I've never written anything nice about a boy before, so I'm not sure this is any good.  The only critique I got was that it was degrading to call myself a hot piece of ass, but I left it in because I think I wanted that part to be a little crude.  Also: because I'm a goddamn hot piece of ass.

Burning Houses

I love him.
I love the serpentine way he slithers when he's moving closer to me.
I love the shock and terror and awe and pain and moonstruck look in his eyes.
I love the way his body fits next to mine, inside of mine, on top of mine.
I love the wit. The way he makes me laugh until my ribs burst open spilling my crimson juices onto the carpet. The way he anticipates my overthinking nature and slides a cooling balm onto all my fears. The knife point intellect, the razor’s edge that cuts into my skin.
I love the gentle. His soft fingertips lingering at my hairline, the patient kisses in the dark. He wraps me up and protects me from the world and introduces me to the world and embraces the world and shows me off to the world like the hot piece of ass I am.
I love the calm. Long slow days of open windows and stolen stares because glances aren't enough.
I love the storm before the calm. Hot and wet and fast and hard and complicated and twisted and perfect.
I love him because he is perfect.
I love him because he is not perfect.
I love him because he makes me perfect.

Perchance

Hello loves.

I've had some crazy fucking insomnia lately. And before you start, well-meaning internet, yes I've tried all of the things. Whatever things you want to suggest, I've tried them. Melatonin puts me to sleep, but messes with my hormones. Also, when I take melatonin I don't wake up normally; I wake up gasping for air. Which is pretty fucking scary.  Also I wake up on my back with my arms crossed over my chest like a god damn vampire.

Have I ever told you guys my theory on dreams?  I think we as humans exist on the precipice of two dimensions, one we're in when awake, and one we're in when asleep.  Both worlds equally real.  That world just has different laws of physics than this one.  People can die and come back, flowers can bloom into tiny dragons, I can fly.  It took me years to learn to fly over there.  First it was just one foot up.  Then all you have to do is pick up the other one.  Then you can soar.

I can't sleep because the winds are changing.  Not like, literally, but in the Mary Poppins sense.  My life is moving in weird ways that I can't predict.  And that's always terrifying.  Losing control over things is the worst feeling for me, and things are CHANGING.  I need to get back into school now that my health is in a good swing.  I need to have structure.

I wrote today's piece a few weeks ago, and like a real dumbass, I forgot why I started this blog, and posted it on my social media.  It's about ...like when you've been mulling over a problem for years and it finally breaks free, and then a million little things break free and suddenly you can see light again.  And it's gonna be REAL easy for you assholes to think I'm just subtweeting a boy on this one.  I don't blame you, most of these have been about boys.  But this one's on me, trying to climb out of my hermit hole and see the sun again. Remembering how to smile and feel joy.  Remembering I'm alive.

It's also untitled, because I'm fucking tired and I can't think of one.  Eat me.

I feel the electric pins and needles of a limb waking up inside my chest
Like hibernation
No, sleep is not the right word
There isn’t a right word.
There definitely isn’t a right word for the part of me that is firing again.
Not my heart, or my emotions, or my sex drive, or my soul.
The part of me that is alive.
There definitely isn't a right word for the light behind my eyes, the spring in my step, the pain that's been so cleverly concealed
For so long
There isn't a right word for what I've done to that part of me.
Kidnapped and blindfolded.
Held hostage in a dark basement full of leaves.
Self sabotaged the very self.
Why am I punishing myself?
What did I do that was so abhorrent that I needed ten years of solitude?
Ten years of cold
Ten years of lashes on my back paying penance for a crime I can’t recall.
There isn’t a word for the damage I’ve done, for the time I’ve wasted, for the walls I’ve made out of reinforced steel.
There isn’t a word for this reawakening, because I haven’t been asleep.
I’ve been trapped.
There isn’t a word for how I feel now.  Anxious, lonely, heart percussing on my ribcage.
Ready?

No, that somehow isn’t right.

Lady-like

In the past few years, I've started being more into makeup.  Buying it, playing around with it, watching tutorials, you know.  I've been told that I've become a different person.  I've been told that I've become a shallow person.  I've been told I'm addicted.  I've been told that I look great without makeup, so I should really just stop.  While all of this is true, it's not the whole story.

The excuse I give (jokingly) is that my mom told me a few years ago that I had to stop buying makeup if I didn't start wearing it.  The excuse I give is that I was sick for a long time, and I had too much free time.  The excuse I give is that I don't need a fucking excuse, that judging a girl for wearing makeup is a gross kind of misogyny, that people have created little boxes for women and girls to fit into and when they don't they're wrong.  While all of this is true, it's not the whole story.

The whole story is this.

Between my sexual assaults, my abuse, my constant pain due to endometriosis, my abortion, I adopted this idea that all of it was due to my being a woman.  And while partially true, this notion caused me to hate the things about myself that made me a woman.  For most of my adult life I wore jeans no matter what the weather, never a skirt, a dress, shorts.  I didn't shave my legs.  I used sex as a weapon, against others, and against my own body that had betrayed me.  I refused to carry a purse, or wear makeup.

Now I would never say that these things are empirically wrong, lots of people act this way for other reasons, but I was waging war on my own femininity.

So along with other things I've seen myself change and grow into as I've gotten older, I've seen myself start to wear makeup.  I bought a pair of shorts last week, and worn them in public.  I bought a purse because I thought it was cute, not just because it was black and discrete.  I see all of these things as a fucking joy.  JOY.  Because they mean something more than what anyone really thinks.  They mean that I'm coming to accept myself, accept my looks and my personality and my womanhood.  And that is nothing short of a miracle.

Today's piece has fuck-all to do with what I just talked about.  I thought of this whole post last night, and didn't really have the time to write a companion piece to go with it.  Although, I'm sure if I had, it just would have been about how much I love this new mascara I just got, so consider yourself lucky.

Basically, I heard the third song in a row on the radio that said something about owning the night, and I thought about how completely self-centered that sounded, and how the creatures that actually owned the night would laugh and laugh and laugh.  So I wrote this, which is the first thing in a long time I've written, and is a first draft, insert more self-effacing stuff here.

Own the Night

Young people love to say they own the night.
But we.  WE own the night.
The liquid blackness comes as we beckon, like it did for our great ones before us.
Don’t let your young supple flesh go astray.
For we will whisper into your chest
We will draw our thumb down your sternum from collarbone to navel.
And you will be broken again
Baptized by fire

Dark Night

Have I mentioned how I dream about Batman all the time?  It would be nice to say I've had a dream here or there, but Batman shows up pretty regularly in my dreams.  Usually I'm Catwoman (FUCK, I forgot to put her in my list of hot badass ladies [which by the way now has more views than any other post, holla]), although occasionally I'm Harley.  The Joker is always my husband, and we're usually plotting how to finally get rid of that darn bat.

Batman has always been a favorite of mine.  I mean, him personally, but also the entire franchise.  He's a superhero without all of the annoying shit that usually comes with being a good guy.  He's the epitomal (this is apparently not a real word, and I am apparently in love with some parentheticals today) anti-hero, and it is wonderful.  He's not bogged down by all the rules of conduct that most heroes are, he's dark, and instead of being obsessed with what is "right", he's obsessed with justice.  Also he has the BEST villains.  I hate to keep comparing to Superman, but really, I can't understand why anyone likes that guy.  Superman has EVERY power, so he's stupidly invincible, except for his major downfall, a rock.  A rock.  Lois Lane is an idiot, and Lex Luther is just some rich corporate tool.  Whereas the Joker is the ultimate badass villain of all time.  He's brilliant, unpredictable, resourceful, psychotic, determined.  Not to mention the hoards of other amazing villains Batman has working against him, Ivy, Zsasz, Harley, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Grundy.  And amongst all this, Batman has to face his toughest enemy, his own fucking crippling torment.  I love it.

This next piece has absolutely nothing to do with Batman or dreams, and more to do with my own need to sack up and start being the ultimate amazing ruler of worlds I need to be.  I wrote it in my car on the way to a doctors appointment while I was stuck in that fabulous traffic that Austin is so known for.  So if it seems odd and jumbled, just remember that so am I.  In the words of the inimitable Kanye West, "I'm the only thing I'm afraid of".

Pinch Me

I will be a vicious bitch, all teeth and claws and flying fur.  I will stop shaking at their lecherous leering and hold my gaze steady until they look away in fear.  I will not shy away from the night, I will be a brutal queen whose slippered feet crush my enemies.  I am an Amazon, and I will protect my own self in this sweltering jungle of concrete and asphalt.  I will dance and sweat and sing to the heavens without thought of my physical form.  I must crawl out from this fucking cave and rejoin my light to the universe with all its novas and quasars and swirling nebulae.  I must wake up.

List Time

My shit has been god-awful depressing lately, and for this I am sorry.  I promised I'd make it up to you, my wide readership in... Russia now?  Blogger stats are weird.  Anyway, I'm sorry about being a fucking dark depressing mess, so here is my penance.  I present you with...

Embobly's List of Super-Hot Badass Women of Sci-fi/Fantasy!

Highs and Lows

Ok, so I lied.  I said this next post would be lighter.  Well, I guess it'll be lighter than a whole post about rape, but it won't exactly be a bunch of pictures of grumpy cat.  I'm working on a list of my favorite hot Sci-Fi/Fantasy ladies, so stay tuned for that coming up soon, it'll be light and nerdy and more than a little gay.

I've been having problems sleeping.  And I don't mean insomnia per se, I've been having nightmares.  Every night, all the time, where I wake up shaking and can't get back to sleep until I've searched the house with a baseball bat and checked all the doors.  Apparently this is a very common occurrence after a trauma, but I'm sure it also has to do with the fact that I was raped while I was asleep.

Anywho, I've tried everything.  I've tried benadryl and Advil PM and chamomile tea and herbal supplements and aromatherapy and opiates.  And nothing has been working.  But recently I remembered that back when I used to smoke weed all the time, I didn't dream.  Or at least, I didn't remember doing it.  I remember when I first quit smoking, I was so startled that I could dream again.  It was like a whole part of my life that I didn't even realize was missing, along with reading and being able to have quasi-normal social interactions, and not being terrified of cops.  So I acquired a little bit of bud and bought myself a tiny little one-hitter (Side Note: When I told the guy at the head shop that I only really needed something big enough for one hit he said, "Where have you been all my life?") and a little air-tight box so my whole house wouldn't smell.  Shit's skunky.

Last night I decided to give it a go.  I got my pipe and put maybe a cubic centimeter worth of weed in it, which I thought was a super tiny bowl, if I remembered right.  I grabbed a cigarette I could have afterwards and a glass of water and a lighter and went outside.  I was so proud of myself for not coughing on that first hit, "I'm still a fucking pro" I thought to myself.  I got cocky, I misjudged my tolerance, and I misjudged the amount I put in there.  The first hit felt so wonderful, like I was instantly transported back to my youth of smoking and not giving a damn about the real world.  Then I took another 5 or 6 hits to clear the bowl, and didn't feel so wonderful.

The room was spinning, the world was fragmented and going whomp whomp, I couldn't remember more than 3 seconds at a time, walking was HARD.  I went into the bathroom, sat down, and forgot why I was there.  I wondered if I was dying.  I had brilliant epiphanies about the world and promptly forgot them.  I could tell that my dog knew I was high, and was judging me for it.  In short, I got WAY WAY WAY too high.  But I didn't dream.  So I'm gonna try it again, and maybe not get so mother fucking blazed.  And maybe eat some cupcakes I made.

I wrote this piece the other night directly after waking up from a horrid nightmare.  I ended up driving to the gas station at 6 am to buy cigarettes because I knew I would calm down if I could get some nicotine and I had run out.  I took this piece with me to my support group this week, and read it to the ladies there.  They were all really nice about it, and had really flattering things to say.  One of them told me that it would be an excellent way to show someone who had never been through this how it felt.  Which was a huge compliment.  I don't have a creative title for it, so sue me.  I'm fucking tired.

Nightmares

Fight or flight or freeze and I am a motherfucking ice cube.  I can feel myself pressing full frontal against the cellophane membrane between sleep and the real world, stretching to grasp something real and break through, away from the dark and shadowy creatures that never stop coming.  Mentally scrambling and yet physically so inert, trapped in amber for all of eternity.  I finally crowbar my eyes open to look around my inky room, still drenched in sweat from my epic battle for life, raspy breathing and a heart that pounds the beat of a savage drum.  My head feels drugged; I can feel the spinning of the world beneath me and it is SO. FAST.  I can't even remember my otherworldly enemy, but he lurks in every dark corner, waiting patiently for the clock or himself to strike.

Rape Culture

I am so fucking sick to death of rape culture and horrible people.  So, just for my own benefit, if not for anyone else's, I've decided to compile a list of links to articles that I have found to be useful/horrifying/heartwrenching.  Peruse at your own discretion, trigger warnings like WHOA.

Cranky

So due to a series of fuckups, some of which are mine, I'll readily admit to that, I haven't gotten my hormone suppression shot that I need for all my ladypart problems.  I've been taking this shot for maybe 5 years now, and because I don't have it, my body is being flooded with all these hormones I haven't had in my system for a long long time.  Which has basically turned me into a 14 year old girl.  I cry all the time, I'm a total rageaholic, I get my feelings hurt at everything.  It's like puberty plus PMS plus an unstable person to begin with.  I am a dangerous scary woman with hormones.  I've been trying to think of an all-natural way to supress my hormones, but there isn't really an anti-edamame.  Anti-soy milk.  Whatever.  Basically I'm playing a lot of violent videogames and crying and trying to avoid unnecessary social interactions.  So not a whole lot different I guess.

In an attempt to alleviate some of this rage, I asked for advice, and got a whole lot of people telling me to exercise.  But I'm a lazy fuck, so I tried to write about it instead.  What came out was disjointed and nonsensical and somewhat serial killer manifesto-y.  I sent it to my darling darling Kiki, and asked him to fix me because I apparently have no clue how to write anymore.  He said it was coarse, which it is.  Honestly there's not a lot of art to it, it's just kind of raw emotions vomited onto a page.  Being the asshole that he is, he told me to rewrite it, and then did it himself.  Because he's a jerk and a thief, and made it way better.  I'm going to post both of them here, in the spirit of disclosure, so you all can see the horrible things I put on paper, and then what they would sound like if I had talent.  He took my raw bare stupid girl emotions, and made them sound nice.  Love him, enjoy these.

Red (original)

Let’s all play the rage game.
So fucking delicate, like porcelain on a swingset, nails on a chalkboard, trapped in a box, cliché cliché cliché.
I want to bash my head through a wall.  I gnaw on my own hands just to let some anger seep through my protective barrier and out into the world and back into me.  Out my mouth and through my fingers.
Ripping pieces of paper up into tiny strips is no longer satisfying me; I crave blood like an animal.  My inhalations come in hot and stifling.  My head thumps like a speaker, whub whub whub.
My ribs are locked closed with a chastity belt, I’m stuck and trapped, and oh my god help me let me out.

Red (Redo)

Let’s all play a game.
like hangman on the blackboard with a cocaine nail
drifting sweetly side to side
from a porcelain chain
trapped
in a box
my game.
my rage.

I put my head through the wall just to see the other side
and i bite my flesh to watch the blood flow.
something needs to permeate
because this hatred deeply seeps
my head throbs slowly with my heart
and these shallow breaths are short and incomplete.
I’m trapped alone
inside myself
and to shed this skin
from off my chest
no longer
calms the beast.
it’s life I crave,
Oh, God,
will nothing else suffice?

X-Ray Vision

Too much of the super serial.  I need to get back to the goofy, the evil, the world-conquering madness.  Like I talked about in one of my first posts, many moons ago, I have always had a penchant for evil motherfuckers.  Why are the bad guys so much more deliciously entertaining, and why do I ALWAYS inevitably root for them?  Probably because they are so much more human.  I hate to use Superman as an example, because he isn't human, but he's so flipping perfect that it's annoying.  He's nice and smart, and blah blah blah.  He has superpowers, and he uses them to save the world, and do good deeds, and get kittens out of trees.  No real person would do that.  They would just check out ladies in the locker room for awhile, and then go rob a bank.  Which is I'm pretty sure what villains do.  They have sweet lairs and death rays and check out chicks' boobs.  They have flaws, like anger and vengeance and greed and just plain homicidal crazytown.  I want to hug them all, and clink my gin martini against theirs, and cackle wildly.  They get to tell it like it is, and make the hero cry because he can't handle it.  Also lackeys!  I want lackeys!  I promise you, random internet readership, when my accounting prowess allows me to rise the ranks of political power and I become the lady that gets to sit on the Iron Throne, I will remember you.  And I'll have need of tons of lackeys.

(Speaking of evil geniuses, like myself, I'm gonna be an asshole and plug my friend's comic here.  It is absolutely brilliant.  The art is evolving at an exponential rate, the dialogue feels incredibly real, the characters are intricate, the story is about a fucking mad scientist.  What more could you want?  It's called String Theory, and it is dark and magical.  Go read it.)

This next piece is actually new.  I wrote it at the behest of a friend of mine who yelled at me for the last post I made, and told me to write something new, and gave me the topic of a recent encounter.  And while I thought it was wretched (thus the name), he told me it was "hot", and had "flair".  Anyway, I was sick and tired of being so dark and moody and godawful depressing in this blog, so I decided to post it.  Fuck it.  I can't be pretentious ALL the time.

hackhackhack

Like a kid on a tire swing, I am giddy and awkward.  The first touch is blue electricity, you make me into a slack-jawed moron.  My brain puts out the Away For Lunch sign, and all my movements become animal.  Sharpened shoulder blades and snarling lips.
Fourth of fucking July
Tiny explosions
Claws and teeth
An order, a command
Pulling hair, pushing the wall
A bright white flash!
Sticky spots on the carpet and the corners of my lips.  Grasping for air, searching for clothes.  Awkward again, but a satisfied sense of a cat licking his lips after a bowl of milk.  I stretch, and give him a high-five for his dick.

Mosquitoes

Aeee, over a month with no entries.  I am a terrible blogger.  I think once I realized that I had no more old shit to put up, and I had to start writing actual things again, I got terrified and hid my head in the sand.  Little girl.  Also for the last two weeks I've had what the doctors think is West Nile, but can't confirm without stupid expensive tests.  So mostly I've been sleeping and trying to get rid of crushing headaches.  My body is awesome.

I was thinking about it the other day (No, really?) and I don't think I've been capable of love for a very very long time.  I think the last few serious relationships I've had were more me trying to pretend that I could still feel.  And I don't say this in a dark gothy "my heart is black like my lipliner" kind of way.  It's just sort of a startling observation.  I think I've been a very broken woman.  Strike that, AM a very broken woman.  And I think that my inability to really let go and fall and feel and love has given me a very twisted and jaded sense of what sex should be.  Not that I think I'm alone in this, we as a nation are a very bitter people.  I guess I'm not real sure what the "right" way to think about sex is either.  I've tried all of the wrong ways.  I spent years using it as a weapon, and years avoiding it like a shack with a chainsaw killer inside.  For a while I was completely bored by it, and only put up with it as a person does their laundry.  I've been obsessed with it, and terrified of it.  I spent years only having "Oops, probably shouldn't have done that" sex. There have only been a few times ever that I have felt what I imagine normal people feel after sex.  Satisfied.  Ick-free.  Satiated?

So now what?  I mean this both in a metaphorical sense and a literal one.  How do I continue living with a broken sense of love and sex, and how do I end this post?  My brain has been a little too fuzzy since I've gotten sick to really write anything new, and since brain swelling is a symptom that things are getting worse, let's not push the pretentious.  I could just end this post without having a bit of... whatever at the end.  From the feedback I get, no one really likes that part anyway.  I have a piece from way back when that I wrote about my ambivalent feelings towards sex.  But it is some seriously dark shit.  And I'm feeling a tad judgy at myself right now for even having written it. Although, looking back a few posts ago, I had another bit of embarrassing nonsense, and I puffed my chest out and posted it anyway.

So yeah.  Because I hate being self-censoring and judgy, which are things I never wanted this blog to be, and things I always seem to find myself being, let's just do it anyway.  I'd apologize for how absurdly dark this piece is, but really, it's coming of age poetry, of COURSE it's dark.  I'll make it up to you guys (my vast readership in Russia and Malaysia) at some later date when I'm not quite so exhausted by everything.  I promise, I won't stop writing wordy pretentious pieces of metaphor anytime soon.  <3

Vacant

I'm just a rag doll
touch me, use me, abuse me
throw me out with yesterday's coffee grinds
twist my little legs into
your favorite position
I don't mind
just tell me what you like
And I'll try my damnedest to comply
Give me a time, a location
and E Inc. is on the job
and when you fill me up
and I'm motionless on your bed
pick me up and get me on my way
I have the world to please
Don't fret about my feelings
I have none anymore
I am a hollow shell
with soft warm places
for you to exploit
just tell me what you like
bend me, break me, bruise me
If I get sore, don't stop
my cries will only get louder
and I'll hold back my tears
so you don't lose your precious excitement
Impale me again
I can't say I'll like it
but I'll make sure you do
At your service
my legs are open

A Punch, A Scream

To quote my dearest darling Kiki, hateloathecuntfuck.  I am a ragey lady.  I am full of rage.  I envy the ladies in my group therapy that say they have problems connecting with their rage, because I feel constantly about to burst.  I am terrified of myself, and I'm worried for the people around me that I might be terrifying.  Or possibly I'm just an annoying little cunt, who knows.

I had to step out of group for a minute tonight and just pace and rage and boil.  We were talking about how most rape victims and abuse victims have problems with people touching them, and are incapable of sex.  And I started thinking about how I went in the opposite direction, and became a slutty McSlutslut, and how that made me weird and different, even in a room full of people that are weird and different.  And I got angry at the situation that did this to me, and I got angry at myself for not EVER being a normal person, and I got angry at myself for choosing that kind of destructive behavior in response to a shitty situation, and I got angry at myself for being so fucking angry all the time.  The co-facilitator tried to calm me down, by asking me if my anger was an animal, what it would be.  I said a panther, because it was the first thing that came to my head, and she said that was good.  I wonder what an incorrect response would be.  Is there someone out there who has a penguin as their rage animal?  An angry little cottontail rabbit?  A mean and vengeful pigeon that shits on people?  Whatever.  She told me to think of that panther the next time I get angry, but I have no idea how that will be helpful in any way at all.  When I'm angry, I don't have any coherent thoughts, and I can't imagine how thinking of a large black jungle cat will make that better, but I said I'd try it anyhow.  Sometimes I feel like the field of psychology is a bunch of hippy mumbo jumbo, but like I said back in my drug days, I'll try anything once.  Except heroin, but that's mostly because I hate needles.

Off-topic again.  Sorry.  My therapist seems to have more realistic methods to cope with the rage, other than connecting with my spirit animal.  She suggested Krav Maga, which I'm going to look into.  She also said it seemed like most of my anger is stored in my hands and arms, which, while being kind of mumbo-y, is probably true.  She also suggested I do some exercises at the gym which involve my arms, because I only really work on my lower half.  However I do it, I need to get some of this aggression out.  I have to stop walking into a room and immediately planning my escape, I have to stop being constantly psyched up for a fight, I have to stop dressing in such a manner where I know I can fight.  Little unhealthy me.  My core is rotten.

I wanted to put something else at the end of this, but it turns out this is the last piece I had on Facebook, and as I said in my first post, that was really the whole point of this blog.  Which means that I had nothing more relevant to put here, and also means that from here on out, everything will be brand-spanking new.  Or really really old, but I'm going to shy away from those, because they all kind of suck.  I guess I can make the stretch that I talk about being angry and crazy in this piece, but really I'm just talking about a boy.  Which is number one on my list of reasons why my writing sucks, immediately followed by lack of content, too much metaphor, overt sexuality, over-dramatization, and dumb in-jokes.  If I make fun of me first, it takes all your power away!  I win!

Braveheart
 
My body is a little space heater, with no one to warm. Can I put my body next to yours? You elusive haunting motherfucker.

My minds flits past you, (not even the curve of your mouth, the poetry of your jolted movement, the strange sadness hidden in your eyes, your velvet rimmed song; just your name) and my chest caves in, instantly killing the invalid yellow canary that lay inside. Tingling fingertips stretch towards you, only to find you maddeningly out of reach, and the anger rises. I avoid all mention of you, while at the same time I steer my thoughts, my car, my legs towards you. The fuse to my sanity, one beam of light glinting off your curls and it sets off the train until my mental stability explodes. All sense of reality and sanity are lost, I've become a villain in my own world.

I must have you, or you must be destroyed.

Fractured

I'm feeling very strange and disjointed.  Which is a nice way of saying I feel like a lunatic.  I burst into tears at odd moments, I laugh at depressing ones.  I scream at friends for nothing, I cry for an hour because I fucked up an order on Amazon.  I do not feel in control of my emotions, thoughts, or reactions.

I am concerned for my future children (Wolf and Anyanka) that between me and my future baby daddy Kiki, they will be raving fucking lunatics.  I was talking to a councilor the other day, a lady I just began seeing to try to cope with the whole rape thing, and I described it like a pot of water that is just about to boil.  That's how I feel at all times.  Like any little thing is just going to make me start acting crazy.  Er.  Crazier.  We talked about different ways to calm myself down when I get to the boiling point.  But there's no thoughts once I reach that place.  Just panic and terror and aggression and rage and blinding white.  I know I'll get better.  People always say that it has to get worse before it gets better, and I guess that makes sense.  Even talking about this at all is taking me from a numb kind of denial that I find so comforting into a realm of confusion and loss.  It's bringing up thoughts and feelings from my abuse and rape at age 16, that I never really dealt with due to my entrance into drugs, and my mind's ability to suppress and splinter.  I don't want to go crazy again, I didn't like it the first time.  My first reaction is to flee, so I can just get it over with in private, have a fucking birthday party for my swimming pool, lose all sense of reality, and then reemerge once I can conform to some sense of normality again.

I dislike this whole thing.  I like control, and logic, and neat little piles.  Easily explainable feelings, and rational thought.  Ledgers with perfect little columns of numbers.  Accounting makes sense, and very little of it is really subject to interpretation.  It calms me.

Anywhoodle, now that I've terrified every last one of my readers, let's delve into the silly little thing I wrote all this as an intro for.  Or, for which I wrote an intro, if you have a problem with dangling participles.  It is a collection of sorts.  Some of them are things I wrote in my car in the rain (thus the title), some of them were sheared from works that I started and then realized were never going to come together coherently.  Some of them were just little remnants of dreams that stayed on the tip of my tongue and needed a place to go.  All of them are not great, and none of them are ever going to go much further.  But I suppose that's a given.  Now before I start to get randomly depressed and have to flee, here's this thing.

Bits and Kibbles (Also titled: Thoughts while driving in the rain)
 
Nostalgia, you bitch.  She is a cruel and wicked mistress.

Our bodies slam together, and the resounding crash of thunder fills my backseat.

You are so beautiful when you cry.  So angelic, such color in your cheeks.  At least if you stay with him you'll always be pretty.

Let's make sweat angels in the sheets.

Are you ruined forever for everyone from our torrid entanglings, or I am the only one doomed?

"Guilt is a useless emotion," she tells me.  So I won't waste either of our time apologizing.

It was strange, after all these years of living here, she had never really looked at the ceiling of her front hallway in such depth.  The first time they had sex with each other it was like an explosion of flesh and sweat and noise and soft whispers afterwards that only ended when they had fallen blissfully into sleep.

I know you feel like you can never get any taller, do any better.  But if I let you stand on my shoulders, will you leave her?

Put that itchy finger on my trigger, and we'll shoot the sky.

The bright red eyes of the car before me stare at me through droplets on my glass.

We complete our backroom handshake, and the indiscretions can continue unopposed.

I can't tell you to stop, because that's the only way I know for certain that you never will.

My tender lovely mirage.  Will you be as wet as you look when I finally reach you?

Dirty thoughts squander behind the dark red velvet curtains in the whorehouse in my head.

Inhalation

Does love ever really go away?  The older and (debatably) wiser I get, the more I want to tell myself that it does.  That we grow up and that old soft tugging on the chestular innards will just dissipate until we no longer sit around mopey on occasion at the thought of those wretched ancient flames.  But I don't think it does.

There was a drug I used to do, and it's been years and years since I've even seen the stuff, but I still find myself craving it from time to time.  Which is a nice way of saying I crave it at least once a day.  Sometimes I'll get a taste in the back of my throat or my hair will stand up on end and I'll think about it, and I'll WANT it.  I spoke a while back to a friend of mine who has also been clean for many years, and I asked him if the cravings ever went away.  He said he had once asked an old man this, a man that hadn't gotten high in 30 or 40 years.  Apparently the old man said that he still had cravings, every single day.  I know I'll never do it again, but I still have the cravings, and when I'm in a period of high stress, I sometimes cling to the thought of it.  That if my life ever gets so bad I can't cope anymore, I can always just go find some.

I know this is a strange way to say it, but I think love is the same way.  Sometimes I'll go for months without thinking of it, and then some nights I can't get it out of my head.  And in times of dire anxiety and high-pitched wailings of anger and stress, I find my thoughts turning back to it once again, like a safety net.  I can't stand the thought of clinging to a tumultuous past, but it IS like a drug, and those ancient fires still burn bright.  No, I don't spend my nights dreaming about those old lovers anymore, and I don't make elaborate plans in my head for ways of making it work again.  But it is always there, like a rat in a bucket clawing its way into my chest. (Too much Game of Thrones)

I've been avoiding posting this next piece, for many reasons.  I don't want to look/feel frail, and this makes me appear so.  It's exceedingly personal, and not in a cute or flattering way.  In a... glimpse into the mind of a madwoman kind of way.  But I'm nothing if not an honest person, and I try my damnedest to be an open book.  So in that spirit, here is a thingy I wrote long ago about a particular love that I fucked up, ran my car over, and backed up and did it again.

Scientific Findings of the Heart
 
Curled up in a ball at the bottom of the shower, the tears on my cheeks feel hotter than the water.

I was only a baby. I was such a child when I destroyed everything. But would you punish a child who broke a dish for the rest of her life? Forever ever?

No, I'm wrong. I was heart-broken before I even started dating. I was broken, I am not a whole woman. And the more I fuck up, the more pieces get chipped away.

My writings sound like 14 year old diary entries.

Stop it. Stop haunting me. It's been so long, go away. Stay away from my friends, stay away from my dreams, stay out of life. Or dear god, get in it. Burrow your little head into my life until all you see is the inside of me and all I see is that I am full of you.

Just say you forgive me. Just SAY it. I don't care if you mean it. (Yes I do. I care very much.) I want to be forgiven. I want to know that my reckless stupid dish-breaking child self didn't ruin your life. Like I ruined so much (all) of mine.

I feel pathetic for having feelings. Other people don't. They don't smile or frown, they talk about the traffic on the way home, what they had for dinner, their kid's first tooth. Their dish-breaking children. I want to be strong/robotic. I want to be cold and calculating. (STOP! Cold and calculating is what got you into this mess!) No. I was only a baby. I didn't know.

I wish I could still smoke away all my feelings. Puff puff pass those emotions to the next person, in a stream of beautiful clouds exhaling from my lips.

Instead I get to write 14 year old diary entries. A 14 year old with an advanced degree in English (You never went to college).

Science. Go back to the science. You titled this damn piece for a good reason. Science sez! I just had a dream about you. I haven't been a broken woman all these years, I just had a dream. And I'm hungry, which makes me a little emotional. And I watch/play/read/listen to beautiful things, and think that means that my life should be full of beautiful things and people that love me and romantic gestures and happiness, because I can't conceive of the difference between beautiful fiction and my life. Back up. Back to the facts. Tears are hotter than water. You were a child. You are hungry, and have bad (beautiful) dreams. Eat. Avoid sleep, where he haunts and smiles and pretends you never killed him.

Everything will be fine. Or it won't, and you'll die.

Guest Post #2

(Words are hard to come by these days.  Either they come out too gravitationally heavy, or light as a feather comments on the new DLC for Skyrim.  So while I work on healing, I'm passing the torch for this post over to Racy, a master chef, a dear friend, and a brilliant diamond of a person.  If I were ever going to become a serial killer, I would want her by my side.  -E)

All of us are lost until we are found, but most of us never find ourselves. Life is a, well, lifelong journey of expression and discovery, pain and despair, love, loss, anger, confusion. We all seem to be falling endlessly down (or up) this iconic rabbit hole and sometimes it feels like no matter which direction we reach in, we can’t seem to find a surface to grab on to. I’ve been finding lately that when you make a conscious decision to start digging- really digging- inside of yourself, sometimes you can be astonished, terrified, and liberated by what you might find. And sometimes you find a hidden person; maybe it is your child self, the self you wish to be, or even the self you have always been too scared of to let into the light.

Recently I’ve been coming to terms with the notion that if I ever want to really understand myself and why I am the way I am, I have to do the hard work to uncover my darkest memories, my deepest desires, and stare directly into the side of me I have always been too ashamed of to acknowledge. When you suddenly find yourself standing face to face with your greatest fears, part of you wants to run as far away and as fast as possible, but the other is paralyzed in fear and curiosity, and I’m beginning to believe that just because what you see might be broken, damaged, or torn, it is the withered part, the warped side of yourself, that can show you the most beautiful secrets in life. This little piece of writing kind of fell from my soul and onto the paper through my fingertips, and without intending to, gave me yet another little peek at the person hiding behind my eyes. Thanks to Emmy for letting me bogart her blog for an afternoon, I hope you enjoy!

The Looking Glass
 
I wonder, do you know who I really am? Can you see the darkness in my eyes like I can see in yours? Can you see how deep it goes? Because I see you; glorious, with wings black like the beetle. Under the peach of your skin I see the hot blood pumping, I can hear your heart beat too fast. I see you, Monster. Do you see me? Am I a mirror into the depths of your own well? I see each crease in your flesh like the rings in the trunk of a fallen tree, do you see my markings- the scars from touching too many flames? Are we equals or have we concocted this lie out of dried petals from the Autumns Crocus, spools of silver, the whispers of Cetus from beneath the waves...Again I ask- do you know how far this goes? Have you thrown the pebble and heard it's echo? I have danced with heavy feet naked against the cracked earth and watched my blood turn to mud as we became one with sacrifice. I find solace in the silence that fills the wake where breath should be, and in the dwindling of the spark in an eye. Are you afraid, Monster? Would you hide from my lips, teeth barred? Will you shrivel up in a grey cloud of smoke or will you turn to stone when I unleash? Are you afraid yet, Monster, he who is I? Do you see me now?

Support

We are about to get real up in this hizzy.  And by "real" I mean I'm gonna talk about a bunch of super serious stuff, and then pepper it with stupid words like hizzy to try to not be so fucking cliche and SUPER SERIAL all the time.

So, as I said in this post, something happened recently that has been a bit hard to talk about/deal with.  Last time I went back to my home town, I got raped.  And I spent the last two months trying to cope with it on my own, because I'm a strong lady and I've tackled shit this bad before on my own and been fine.  But after a few key instances of pushing people away that cared about me, and one fabulous man yelling at me that I was not coping as well as I was pretending, I decided to get some help.

I've been going to a support group for a few weeks now, and tonight was the first night I really let myself talk instead of sitting on the couch listening to everyone else and trying not to black out.  We didn't really delve into much, but we did scratch the surface of why I've been so hesitant to talk.  I told them that I was asleep during the assault, and because it wasn't a big violent incident I felt like an asshole complaining to these women who had had to be hospitalized, or could never have kids again.  I also mentioned that because it was so recent, I felt like MY problems could wait while we talked to someone who had been trying to cope for 20 years.  Everyone was super supportive (as you would expect in a support group), and the facilitator mentioned that this was very indicative of a deeper lying issue wherein I never thought my problems were big enough or bad enough, and that I tended to put other people's issues first.  She surmised that I often had trouble asking for help or things that I needed in my life.  It was then made abundantly clear to me that despite all my notions of healing and coping, I am still very much in shock over the entire event.

The facilitator was actually pretty wonderful and perceptive, like when she perceived that I had spoken enough and was completely frozen and vacant, she moved on to someone else.  I really feel like this group is helping me a lot, but every week I get these little panic attacks and don't think I can go.  And OH MAN, when I get out of group, normal everyday people start talking about problems, and I just want to scream "Your problems are stupid!".  Because really, the weather being shitty or your shoe being untied really strikes me as minor when these lovely ladies are trying to cope with sexual assault.  But like I kept telling myself tonight, this isn't a competition.  Everyone has problems.

Anywho, I might have lied about the peppering of funny things, because I guess I had a lot of super serial things to say.  And I'm sure I might talk about this more in the future, but I'm going to try to stick to dumb things like boys and world domination plans.  This is a dumb blog about dumb writing, and I'm going to try to stick to that.  So in that vein, here's this thing I wrote roughly two years ago, when I was feeling a bit introspective and mean, which is never a good combination.

I am
 
I am so tired, and can't sleep.
I am a loud angry obnoxious redneck with weird girl emotions and a penchant for cruelty.
I am not stable.
I am an exceptionally nerdy ex-drug using slut.
I am a literary genius, and a fucking slob.
I cuss too much, I smoke too much, I drink too much.
I cry too much.
I am loyal to a fault, but I flee from people who actually give a shit.
I am a fast driving woman with claws.

I am letting insomnia rot my brain.

Boil and Bubble

Lately I have been a woman filled with rage.  I had a big screaming fight the other day where I actually got all up in the other person's face and and yelled and cussed and threatened and made hitting motions with my hands.  That kind of thing makes me nauseous to even think about.  I've never really been a violent person.  I've only ever punched like... 3 dudes, ever.  One called me fat, one was rude to an ex of mine, and one threw a knife at me.  I know the feeling when the rage builds up inside of you and you feel like your skin is 100 degrees and the siren in your head starts to wail, and usually I force myself to step away from the situation before anything severe can happen.  I'm not really in control of myself in those situations, and I'm terrified to find out how far I'll go.

Back in high school (oh so long ago!) I got sent to an anger management class after a nasty little incident in which I might have mentioned a gun.  More on this story later.  I ended up getting kicked out of the class because the other people and the councilor were afraid for themselves.  It also ended up getting me kicked out of high school, but again, that is a long story for a later date.

My mom is the kind of person that will blow up easily, but just as easily forgive and forget.  Unfortunately, I inherited my father's rage, which is always right under the surface, ready to explode.  And the grudge-keeping, I got that too.  Which is something I've been trying to get over in the past few years.  When I moved away from the dark dank little chloroformed town of my upbringing, I really struggled to let it all go.  All of the pent-up hatred, all of the WAY too long kept infatuations, I really did strive to let it melt away.  And for the most part it did.  I'm now friends with a lot of the people I wanted dead because of decade old incidents.

And then something happened recently (again, I'll probably delve into it in a later post when I can talk about it) that made that old familiar rage come swimming back and made my eyes see red.  And I think I've forgotten how to cope with it.  I've been compulsively cleaning and organizing, making lists, scrubbing things clean that I've never even used.  I really just need to go to the gym and work off some of this frustration, but I'm terrified that I'll hit that exercise endorphin releasing moment and wail like a fucking banshee.

I wrote this next thing a few years ago when I was coming to terms with the stores of hate like blubber in my body.  It's pretty typical of every dumb thing I write, too much imagery, no content, sexual undertones, overuse of metaphor, and absurd references.  But it seemed to fit with my current mood, and this blog is nothing if not an excuse to log all of my failed writing attempts for the world to see, like public self-flagellation.  So here's my version of tying myself to a post and getting punched.

E can't write a novel, just a few good lines

Boasting, Bragging, Bravado.
But really just a timid girl afraid of what she might be, of the anger and violence she sees under the pale translucent skin of her chest. The pills numb, but never forget. And my cheekbones keep insisting that I'm fucking fine.

Just like Rivers with his butterfly, I destroyed the only beautiful thing to ever touch my life. I want to roll naked in the dirt, to cleanse my sins with earth as water never has. I want to consume you. I want your thighs to be my canvas. I dream of snakes and lizards and think of your body, your silent stare. I bite my thumb and pray the end is bloody and near.

Bucket of shells

It's summertime in Texas!  And yeah, it's only in the low 90s, so I can actually go outside and not die, but it still makes me super happy.  I LOVE the crazy hot weather.  Summertime makes me not want to do anything, except sit beside a pool I can't really swim in, and bake blackberry cobbler, and drink margaritas.  Obviously not all at the same time.  That would be DISASTROUS for the cobbler.

I guess the "not wanting to do anything" part might be why I failed all my classes last summer.  Whoopsie.  Anyhow, I'm feeling a bit depressed and a bit stressed out and a bit lonely, and betrayed and hurt and abandoned, and that is not conducive to good super-villain behavior.  I need to feel powerful and indestructible and motherfucking shiny.  Ironically, powerful me doesn't write well.  Not that I write well no matter what, but that's beside the point.

So here's this thing I wrote a few years ago in the wintertime, that's partly about my lust for summer, and partly (shockingly enough) about a boy.  I think.  Honestly at this point I don't even remember which boy it was about, so he must have not been as important as my love affair with Texas summer.  Or money.  Or fame.  Or power.  Or caffeine.

Filmed in amazing technicolor

The sharp frigid wind whistles through trees and softly whispers, "I love you."  But the sentiment is, like always, not shared.  I'd rather have the abuse of the sun, beating down on me, pounding away at my flesh until I'm a gooey pile of sweaty muck.  The scarf choking my neck and the heater in my car are my barriers, blocking the way for that old lover in the night, the one that sneaks in my window and grazes my back with his fingernails.  My heart like a migraine expands in my chest until it's pressing so hard against the walls that I feel like I might explode, if only he would take another step to me.  But it's not possible, the night is only to be alone.  No ripping off of clothes and dancing naked in the moonlight, no passionate glances between the fog of smoke that I exhale into the ever-growing space between us, no singing with the grass.  No little spaceheater lying beside me in bed and saying beautiful things to me.  No, the cold is for the loner.  The ones that have no shoulders and hips and thighs and soft little wristbones to kiss under blankets.  If only my brilliant sun would come back, abuse and all.  If only I could feel the heat of his love, the smell of chlorine and rapidly warming beer and hot pavement and cheap plastic pool toys to save me from this freezing lover that somehow only makes me feel lukewarm.

On love

I'm currently a little hungover from watching people pretend to be Irish last night, so if this post is a little dumber than most of them, well... blame the green beer.

I've been thinking about love.  To be more precise, I've been thinking about the different kinds of love.  The love you feel for a friend, for an ex, for your (ADORABLE) 4-year old cousin.  I've been thinking about how powerful love is, and how it makes us do stupid things, and crazy things.  I've had a lot of conversations as of late about love, and how it's not all that matters, but it's like 90% of what we think about.

I'm having problems putting what I want to say into words, for two reasons.  One, I can't really get too detailed about the things I've been seeing and hearing and thinking, because this is the internet and I don't want to put people on the spot.  But mostly I'm having trouble because anything I could say about love sounds trite as shit.  I've typed out and deleted so many paragraphs, because I say something that was really heartfelt and honest and then I realize it's the lyrics to a fucking 80's song.  Love really DOES stink.

Here's my stance.  Everyone in your life, and I mean every single person, will fuck you over eventually.  It is an inevitability.  The only questions are when they will do it, and how badly they will do it.  Once you come to this realization, everything gets a lot easier.  You get less crushed when people you love hurt you, because it was bound to happen.  You remove the illusion of perfection that we as a culture have seemed to drape over every relationship due to romantic movies and Disney princesses.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should never love, or never trust.  I'm just saying that loving and trusting are a lot easier to do when you come to terms with this simple fact.  Forgiveness becomes not a long painful process, but a reasonable logical evaluation.  And once you get past the betrayal, you can move on as closer friends/lovers, knowing that that part is over.  Unless they turn out to be one of those jackasses that continue to betray your trust and love and respect, and then you stab them in their sleep.

I wrote these next few short pieces as mini-love letters.  Granted, I think the first one I wrote was about my car, but a girl has certain priorities.  These were all just little dorky things I penned out on a napkin at 3 am, or a sticky note at work.  Re-reading them, it blows my mind that I never wrote one for an actual boyfriend.  I'm going to change the names to protect the innocent, but darlin, ain't none of my friends innocent.

Elementary

She sighs, and exhales a thin stream of gray-blue smoke while she clutches her gin and tonic to her breast; it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.  Calm, cool, collected, she is my voice of sanity in an insane world.  Why she giggles, only I know, and why she hugs herself in times of need.  A warm red-purple gemstone is only a symbol, an icon of my deep intense love.  Her long legs peek out from under a short dress that flaps in the breeze of her joy of life.  I crave her company as I crave air.  My fiance, my confidant, my lady-in-waiting of a better life.  You make me breathe, in this smog of a new city.  You are my shining light.

Giles

I grip you tightly with my small hands as you drive me faster and faster until we are both flying. I run my fingers all over you, your smooth curves, your rough edges. I melt. It makes me unconsciously smile every time I see you shining under the hot summer sun. It was love at first sight, I wanted you. You are everything I've ever wanted and from the moment I first laid eyes on you, I knew you had to be mine. I know I've been in a dark place for a while and I've neglected your needs more than I should have, but you never failed to fulfill mine. When I am with you I am warm, comfortable, safe. You ARE my perfect drug.

Pickle

Your bubbly effervescence radiates out of you in clouds from your springy curls down to your perfectly painted toenails, and lifts my heart. The glow of your smile, the bounce in your step, the random songs that burst out of you, they all are precious to me. You are a warm blanket in a cold and desolate town, the cool breeze rolling across this lonely desert life. You are the Marian to my Lucivar, the Fred to my Wesley, the Jenn to my Abe. I would go to the ends of the earth for you, you make me happy to be alive. You are my sister, my mother, my daughter, my best friend, my other half.
Thank you.

5 by 5

Sitting in my lap, she giggles and leans over to whisper softly in my ear. As her chocolate brown waves fall over our faces I see through her drunken milky eyes that she loves me. My tiny hero. She finds me when I'm lost, and helps me dance until all the pain and sadness fall away like our clothing after a long night. She is four feet of power, and packs a punch that finds it's way directly to your soul. My normally adequate sense of language fails to describe the way she has her claws in my heart, the way her tinkling laughter makes me feel, the pull I feel when I'm away. I want to hold her until I die.

Evolution

More dream talk.  Skip this next paragraph is you totally hate that and don't care.

So I just woke up from this odd dream, and I felt like I had to type it out immediately or I'd forget.  I was out to dinner with an old friend, let's call him B for the sake of non-disclosure.  We were at Green Mesquite BBQ, (which in real life is amazing, and not at all full of jerks).  He and I were catching up, and talking about how much we've changed in the past few years, and really grown as people.  We laughed about what terrible assholes we used to be, and consoled each other as we talked about how every time we went back to our home town people could never see that we really had changed.  We still got the same wary glances and people still watched our every move just waiting for us to fuck up again.  Then we started talking about Uchi, an amazing sushi place, and the legal council for Green Mesquite came over and told us we needed to stop talking about other restaurants.  B got pissed off and threatened to walk out, and they told us to just keep our voices down.

Anyway, before the dream got all weird and absurd, it could have been any conversation I've had in the past few years.  I know I'm an evil asshole now, but I used to be a much more evil lady, with even less morals and no real concern for who I hurt in my climb up.  I thought of human emotion as a game, and loved to see just how far it took for me to break a person down entirely.  I smoked too much, I drank too much, I did every drug I could get my little claws into.  I was a compulsive cheater.  And because I was a brutally honest bitch, I was really bad at being a compulsive cheater, and didn't try that hard to be secretive about it.

I wish I could tell you that I had some massive epiphany after some great tragedy that changed my ways.  But honestly, when I moved away from that little town (or as a friend called it once, that "cesspool of drama and filth") none of it seemed right anymore.  I don't mean morally right, I mean... like it just didn't sit well with me, like a pair of shoes that is a little too tight around the toes.  Maybe that is what a conscience feels like.  I don't know, I'm still not perfect.  Anyway, being a totally evil fuck just didn't seem to jive right in Austin, so I quit.  And it's been... maybe 3 or 4 years now, and every time I go back into that cesspool I get the same looks of admonishment and disgust.  It hurts, but I guess I can't really blame them for not seeing that I totally won't fuck their boyfriends anymore.

Tangentially, I was challenged by a friend of mine a while back to write something NOT dark and depressing.  I initially very easily created two characters that were madly in love, and happy.  Like I said in my last post, I didn't give them names because I am HORRIBLE at that, but shaping these two people was easy.  And then I got stuck for a few months.  If I can't write anything dark and twisty, where is the conflict?  I got the advice from someone to "take those people, and rip them apart, and see what they do".  I laid around for another long period of time trying to figure out what I could possibly use to rip them apart, and then I thought, "Write what you know".  And the rest just came flowing out like a little river of words.

So here's my experiment in something NOT dark and twisty.  Or only marginally dark and twisty.

What You Know

She was no beauty.

She was not an elegant exotic gorgeous person, she was simple and pretty.  She was not an orchid of a woman, she was a daisy.  But he loved her.

He loved the way her lips hung open when she concentrated, the way her eyes shone when she thought dirty things, he loved the spot where her neck met her shoulder blade.  The way that most people ache when their loved one is thousands of miles away, he ached when he was lying underneath her, because no matter how tightly he crushed her to him, she was never close enough, and he wanted more.

It all started in late November.  The brisk cold air came down from the north and stung every inch of skin that was not covered, and kissed every strand of hair with its crystalline lips.  They were moving.  As they hauled boxes up the three flights of stairs to their new chic apartment, they would briefly kiss each other every time they passed.  First floor, kiss.  Second floor, kiss.  Third floor, kiss.  And so on.

They stood outside the old dusty moving van and looked at the last box they had left, the last box of his massive book collection, packaged neatly and labeled by her steady hand.  He grinned at her and made a mock look of exhaustion, or, to be more truthful (and what would a tale of love be without a soupcon of truth?), a half mocking look.  They had been working all day, first to get the new apartment clean, then to lay down shelf liner, plan out the furniture arrangements, and finally drive the 30 miles in from their old house in the suburbs.  They had gone through a six pack of cheap beer between the two of them, but neither was drunk, just pleasantly exhausted, and ready to start their new life together in the city.

He reached down to lift the final box, and she spotted a spider in the back of the van.  She screamed.  He tensed when he should have flexed, used his back when he should have used his legs, and fell to the pavement.  She screamed again, and her wail was only superseded by the cries of the ambulance whooping its way to the hospital.  She held his hand in the back and whispered softly in his ear all the way there.

The doctor had used a bunch of big terms that neither of them had understood, despite their education.  He had pulled a muscle in his back, torn something, ripped something else.  Why the short bald man in the ER hadn’t just said that, she couldn’t tell.  She wondered what it was that had made the doctor so bitter, that had made his bedside manner completely disappear over the years.  She was given a prescription for painkillers, and sent home.

Such a small slip of paper.  Hard to imagine that such a flimsy little thing could do so much damage.  Of course, it wasn’t that specific slip that really caused the confluence of events to follow.  To be fair to the little slip of paper, it didn’t even know what it was, much less why it had been ripped down from a tree and stamped with ink and tossed around so, and eventually this poor little piece of a prescription pad found its new home in a landfill, rotting until it was no more.  But this story isn’t about the unfair treatment of paper, so you must forgive the author a meandering tangent.

No, it was the fact the papers kept coming.  Or to be more precise, that the little pieces of unfairly treated paper were traded for bottles, and the (most likely) poorly treated bottles were holding in little white pills.  Good things come in small packages, so they say, and these tiny white pills were no different.

At first he could only feel the pain.  The hot searing pain followed by the dull ache, followed by the inextinguishable exhaustion.  But as time went by, as it’s wont to do, the pain lessened, and faded, and went away completely.  But the pills didn’t.

It became habit for him to take a pill before bedtime, so that he could make it through the night.  And of course when he could feel a shadow of the old pain come back.  Or when he had a headache.  And perhaps when he was feeling irritable, because they made him calm.  And since they made him comfortable, he’d take one when he was feeling cold.  And one before he took a shower, because that was just a lovely experience.  And eventually, he would take one when he began to feel a little strange.  Not that he knew that the strange feeling was sobriety creeping back in, he just knew that it was a queer feeling and he didn’t like it, and the pills made it go away.

And all this time, the unlovely but loving girl stayed by him.  It took her awhile to notice the pattern, to notice the problem.  He had left his job due to his severe injury, and hadn’t gone back due to the pain.  So she worked overtime, nights and weekends just to make ends meet.  She would come back from a 12 hour shift to find him sitting in the same spot on the sofa as when she left.  He wouldn’t shower for days at a time.  He didn’t want to have conversations, and when she tried to engage him, he was angry and petulant.  He had never had a temper before, but now he was quick to rage, and while he never actually hit her, he had raised his hand once and sent her crying to their bedroom for hours over a small comment on his teeth.

They were no longer making love.  Shit, she could no longer get him to fuck her, much less anything more meaningful.  He was always too tired, in too much pain, too messed up to even get it started, much less finish.  She could feel the void growing in between them, but was at a loss as to how to fix it.  How to fix him.  How to fix the relationship.

She started going out.  She had never been much of a drinker, but she found herself downtown almost every night.  At first it was just because she didn’t want to go home after work.  She didn’t want to see his pale and skinny body, so different from the body she’d fallen in love with.  She didn’t want to deal with the bickering and the forced apologies that followed.  So she went to bars, and eventually to dance clubs, because when she moved her unlovely body it made her feel alive again.  To stomp her heels to the pounding bass beats and swing her hair around her face, sweating under the lights and the closeness of a hundred other writhing bodies, she felt her heart pulse and could forget.

The first man she went home with was nothing special.  She was sweaty and drunk and lonely and this man was there.  As they rocked back and forth on his dirty futon, she screamed with every bit of breath in her body.  She screamed all the frustrations she’d felt for so long, she screamed for the life she was living, she screamed for the man she had at home, not for the one thrusting inside her.  She screamed so loud that even when a fist was placed inside her mouth to make her quiet, she could still be heard.  She screamed until all the dogs in the neighborhood were barking with her, howling for the pain they could hear in her voice, even if the man on top of her could not.  Only when they were done and she got up to clean herself off did she realize what she had done.

A cheater.  She was a cheater now, she thought.  A whore.  Someone who did… a one night stand?  Is that what she had just done?  Isn’t that what her friends in college had called it?  She quickly grabbed her clothes and went home, stopping on the way to gag out the side of her car.  She took a shower until the hot water ran out, scrubbing her skin until she was raw and red, like her eyes.  That was the last time she screamed to the stars and the heavens, but that was not the last time she went home with a stranger.

It became a habit for her.  Come home after work, make dinner, avoid eye contact with him, get dressed to go out, dance until she was sticky, fuck until she was worse, and come home at three or four in the morning.  It wasn’t that she no longer loved him.  Quite the contrary.  She loved him more than she could bear.  She loved him so much she couldn’t stand to watch him kill himself.  She loved him so much she couldn’t leave him.  But she had this burning need that he could not fill.  It was never about the sex for her.  She needed to feel wanted.  She needed someone to look at her with lust and desire, and not with either blurry confusion or rage.

One night after a mediocre evening with a tall Norwegian, she came home to find him sitting on the steps outside their apartment.  He had the cold calm look in his eyes that as of late always betrayed something horrifying beneath the surface.  He had a lazy smile and took a long drag off of his cigarette.

“You’ve been busy I see,” he stated with a drawl, and blew his smoke up into the night sky.

“I went… out.”

“Shh…, I don’t need your explanations, and I don’t want your lies.  I know where you’ve been, and I know what you’ve been doing.”  His voice stayed at a calm level, and his eyes shone in the moonlight.  She said nothing.  “What, nothing to say for yourself?  Don’t you want to tell me you’re sorry?  Don’t you want to beg for my forgiveness?”  She stared at the cold little gray pebbles that made up the asphalt, and tried to count them.  She tried to see little faces in the hodgepodge of streaks of dust.  He finally broke his smirking glare and frowned.  “You don’t have anything to say, do you?  My god, this is over isn’t it?”  He put his head in his hands and sobbed.  “If you still loved me, you’d fight for this.  You’d fight with me.  You’d argue your case, and beg and scream.  But you don’t give a shit about me anymore.  You don’t care about us anymore.”  She let a tear fall down her face, and said nothing.

Months passed.  The sheets of the proverbial calendar flew off like an old black and white cartoon.  She got herself an efficiency apartment and a promotion.  She said “I will,” and “You can,” to many more men over the years, but never “I do.”  Eventually she had almost forgotten about him.  Or rather, her brain had almost forgot, but the heart and the body have their own sets of memories, and those are so much brighter and more full of color that they almost never fade completely,.  Until one day she saw him again.

It was on the Metro, of all the silly and unfortunate places to see an exboyfriend.  Tightly packed in a small metal car that stunk of whiskey and body odor, she clung her briefcase to her side like it was the holy grail, and teetered on her sensible heels.  She swept her newly sheared hair behind her ears and smoothed down her navy blue skirt.  A man bumped into her almost knocking her down, and she turned to glare at what was most likely a homeless man that was the source of the stench.  But it was HIM.

His breath caught in his throat, and suddenly his tongue felt too big for his mouth, and his lips felt raw and sticky.  His hands were shaking and there was no way he could speak.  She saw his confusion and disarray and giggled.  She clasped a hand to her mouth, ashamed that she had laughed at him at such a crucial moment.  A grin swept across his face, and he began to chuckle.  Soon they were laughing so hard they thought they would never stop.


An old woman sits in a seat on the Metro, trying to read a newspaper, and wondering who those awful people are that are laughing and kissing behind her.  She wonders if they know how obnoxious they are being, and grimaces.  She decides to get off on the yellow line a stop or two early.  “Ah well,” she thinks, “Let them enjoy it while they can.  It will never last.”

Gold Star

So, remember that dramarama project I was talking about over here?  I finished it, and turned it in.  We did a cold read of it in class, (which kind of upset me because I don't feel like some of the funniest bits can be played out that way) and then the professor held it up and announced, "Pay attention!  It doesn't get any better than this".  So step one of world domination is complete.

I fiddlefaddled around for quite a while trying to figure out what to write about, and then I was way too covered in caramel and had to just think about it instead.  Eventually I had the idea of an educated asshole ruining a nice thing, and thus came everything else.  It's been my first true voyage into the world of dialogue, and I don't think I did too bad considering.  My professor thought it was AMAZING, but, you know.  She thinks Kirk was the better captain, so we won't try to listen to her too much.  I had a hard time trying to come up with character names, which always seems like the worst part of writing anything.  I've got a pretty lengthy story that I will post here eventually wherein I just call the main characters "him" and "her".  I thought about calling these two Wayne and Wanda (obscure reference) and I thought about Jessica and Chester (even more obscure reference) and I thought about calling the girl Eugene before I realized that's a boy's name, and I couldn't call her Eugenie because then she'd have to wear a stupid hat (British wedding reference).  So I kind of compromised.

Then I sent it to Kiki for some finishing touches, some slight dialogue clean-up, and the addition of a joke that ended up being one of my favorite bits in the whole thing.  So I didn't feel right posting it here without acknowledging his input, even though I turned it in and got a grade without doing so.  Raise a glass of champers for that kid, everybody.  Also I changed the format just a smidge so it wouldn't be so annoying to read in a blog.

Enjoy.  Or don't.  And bite me.

Pedantic Love

Place: A church, any college town in America.

Time: June, 2011

Characters:

Evelyn – late 20’s, pretty, highly educated and outspoken

Chester – also late 20’s, getting married to Evelyn, nervous about wedding

Father Wayne – Catholic Priest, mid 30’s, dry sense of humor

Setting: The front of a Catholic church.  Evelyn and Chester stand in front of an altar, Father Wayne stands behind it, officiating the wedding.  We don’t see the wedding attendees, whenever E or C gesture to a family member, they point out to the audience.

FATHER WAYNE

Do you, Chester Stevens, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?

CHESTER

(nervous but smiling)

I do.

FATHER WAYNE

Do you, Evelyn Carter, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, to love, cherish and obey, until death do you part?

EVELYN

(VERY nervous, fidgety hands)

Oh god, I don’t know.  I mean…

CHESTER

(interrupting)

Oh for fuck’s sake, NOW?

EVELYN

I just don’t know about all of this “honor AND obey” business.  Did you notice how he didn’t ask if you would obey me?  It’s just another example of how the patriarchal society continues to oppress women by making them feel as if they need to “obey” the men, like we’re slaves!

CHESTER

Good lord, you’ve gone all HuffPo on me, haven’t you?

(Chester puts his head in his hands)

EVELYN

I’ve gone beyond the Huffington Post, Chess, I’ve gone full-out Jezebel.  And you know it’s extraordinarily demeaning when you act like I don’t have a right to be upset about these things.  You act like the rapes in the Congo aren’t actually happening, or that women aren’t STILL making less at their jobs.  Just because I want to fight for our rights you call me a “Femi-Nazi”.  Because apparently if I want to be able to vote, now I’m like Hitler!

FATHER WAYNE

Godwin’s Law…

EVELYN & CHESTER

(turn to Father Wayne, say in sync)

Oh shut up!

FATHER WAYNE

(looks down)

…sorry…

CHESTER

That’s all fine Evie, but why now?  Are you sure this is the time and place, I mean, my father is a big part of this right-wing white-male thing that you’re always ranting against, and he looks PISSED.  Why are you bringing all of this up NOW?

EVELYN

Baby, I’ve done all of the things your parents wanted me to do.  I got the big white dress that’s supposed to symbolize virginity even though…

(Chester shakes head emphatically)

…and I got the flowers, and we got the big cake even though you KNOW I don’t eat refined sugar, and I’ve done all of this bourgeois filiopietism…

CHESTER

I don’t even know what that means.

EVELYN

Traditional, honey.

CHESTER

Tradititonal?!  Look around you Evie!  If it was traditional we’d have a wedding party, instead of standing up here by ourselves!

EVELYN

It’s absurdly barbarian and old-fashioned and cruel to make two people have to chose amongst their friends…

CHESTER

(interrupting, angry, yelling)

You just say that because you don’t have any friends!

EVELYN

(rage-face)

WHAT?

(pause of silence)

FATHER WAYNE

So if there are no objections…

EVELYN & CHESTER

(turn to Father Wayne, say in sync)

SHUT UP!

CHESTER

Look, all of these pre-made vows don’t really say what I want to say anyway.  I will love and cherish you, and I’ll listen to your nonsensical rants against society, and I’ll do the dishes when you’re too busy writing letters to your congressman to remember that we need forks.  I want to be an old man listening to your tirades.  I’m going to adore every thing you do for the rest of my life, you stupid cow.

FATHER WAYNE

That was almost really sweet.

EVELYN

(grinning, calm)

(to Father Wayne)

Shut the hell up.                                                           

(to Chester)

That was insanely sweet.  I love you too.  I’m sorry, please, let’s continue.

FATHER WAYNE

Thank you, Jesus.

EVELYN

Although the Catholic Church HAS been making gold off of the blood, sweat and tears of the downtrodden for thousands of years, and don’t even get me started on contraception…

(Father Wayne shakes his head)

CHESTER

(interrupting)

Just say I do, honey.

EVELYN

Oh, right.  I do.

FATHER WAYNE

(sigh of relief)

I now pronounce you man and wife.  You may now kiss the bride.

(Chester and Evelyn kiss, while Father Wayne checks his watch and wipes his forehead)