Irony

The incredibly stupid things I do amaze even me sometimes.
It's 3 am, bedtime for normal creatures....

And I'm not sleepy. Not a bit.

Nostalgia for dark Dove chocolate and ripped magazines and wheat thins and A Fine Frenzy lyrics. Life was easier when everything was going wrong.

Snap.

"You have no right to make me laugh."
A finer trembling on cold metal. One hand steadying the other-eyes swimming in and out of focus. Tears? Perhaps.
"Baby, stop it, come on hon. Let's just talk, ok?"
A calloused hand reaching forward in an offering- palm up.
"No!" Stay where you are, stay the fuck where you are!"
Eyes squeeze shut for one moment and-
SNAP.

**
Two days ago I spilled something red on something blue. Now I'm trying to scrub it out, I know how mad you'll be when you see it. Nothing I can do about the hole but that reddish brown, that I can lift with persistence. You're in the basement, you just went down for a second, any moment now you'll holler up the stairs and I'll ignore you-as always- until you come up and speak to me like a human being. This annoys you, I know, so I'll scrub this stain away and maybe you'll forgive me.
**
Today those spots on my arms and back faded almost away. It's been nearly a week but the blue turned green and yellow and now is nearly gone. I can just barely see the ghost of your hand, just there, on the left side of my throat. A lasting caress and a reminder of your love. And to show you mine, I've been mending the hole in the blue. It's almost finished now, see?
**
Some people came to the door today. Said they saw your car and wondered why you weren't in work. Neighbors I guess; I told them you were in the basement and expected any minute. They didn't guess they ought to wait, they had a pot roast on. I told them I had a casserole in the oven, that was the delicious smell that filled the foyer. They wrinkled their noses in disagreement. Casserole can't be everyone's dish I suppose.
**
I found a rat today. In the kitchen. A great fat one, and I think I heard it's brother foraging last night through the pantry. It scampered down to the basement when I threw a dishtowel at it- a rat so rounded must be eating well- I'll have to remind you to check the dry goods down there when you come back. The casserole smell hasn't left, it gets more potently delicious every day.
**
The last time you loved me you smiled. You threw me against the wall and when my head banged off the picture of an old fishing man you smiled. I know that loving me that way must bring you joy, so I smiled back through the red dizzy haze. You wrapped a loving hand around my throat then and smiled wider. This must be a fun game for you. Today I threw myself down the stairs to see if I would smile without you. It seems the joke has gone out of the game.
**
They came again today, asking about you. You were fixing the boiler, but you would be up in two shakes of a lambs tail. They smiled, but not your smile. Theirs was full of pity and a little bit of terror. They left then, and I turned back to my pickling.
**
Men in blue came today. They saw my pickling and asked where you were. Their blue reminded me of yours; I told them you were downstairs but that I would show them your blue while they waited. They saw the blue and the gold buttons and then they saw the hole. I tried my best to patch it, but not good enough. They saw it and they were angry and said it would be best if I went with them. I told them I would, but that I wanted to write this note to you to tell you where I had gone. They seemed to pity me, but they let me. I'll leave it here on the table next to a jar of my latest pickling project. This way, no matter what, I'll get to keep you to myself for a long time. Pickled goods last for a long time.

The Summer

Summer time and the livin' ain't easy.
Mindless work and no one to keep me even the slightest bit lukewarm at night.

Late sometimes I'll read what passes for our early correspondence. Filled with anger, flirtation, and passion just like it should be-never mind that in this age of technology it's an Instantaneous Message and not a well thought out letter.

Then I'll cry cry cry myself to sleep (things happen in threes right now, don't ask me why they just do.) All of it makes me shiver still, the conversations and the early fights. The things I told you about him...the things I felt when I wrote of my despair and broken heart. Wish sometimes I never told you those things, because then I wouldn't have to read them now. And then I cry some more, thinking of wasted time and thought and emotion when you were right there, right there, right there.

Summer smells like stale tears on a pillow case and the last bit of cologne that clings to fabric.
This is supposed to be tragic and perfect, two lovers ripped apart by cruel fate and all of that. But, sometimes, I wonder if it's really you that I miss. That's when I'll begin dangerous contemplation, thinking and comparing and thinking again. Those early conversations we had seemed so fun and giddy and passionate. Now it's silence after long silence, until the whole world seems muted and I want to scream just to know that I still can. And that's when I go back and read other conversations with other people, and then the shaking starts and the tears and the pillow is my only anchor to reality. Thinking and crying and thinking again.

It's not fair. I know. I'm not fair. I'm selfish and greedy and jealous and unreasonable and you don't deserve any of it. I told you to run once, to leave while you still could. You wouldn't. You, like any honorable perfect gentleman, wouldn't let me go that easy.

You deserve better. But hey, I warned you.

Summer.

The Spring

Tangled sheets. We are forced to choose between a smothering blanket or the fan's cold breeze.
You're perfect, lying there eyes half shut. You're so young, so very very young. Years of living still haven't given you the experiences of The World.
It's a shame, really, that I have to be the one to give you this one. Now and again I'll look at you and see possibilities, a FUTURE. But then, I'm shamefully scared of anything so solid and unforgiving as a FUTURE; I fly by the seat of my pants and only pause to notice those I collide with.

You think you know this game-flip your brown curls and laugh, throwing your head back in giddy flirtation. You don't know that I will get what I want, eventually, and that when I do I will unequivocally change you forever. Not a big run away to California and leave everything behind change, a small change; a little bit of cynicism replacing that wide-eyed hopefulness.
You rub your shoulder, roll over on your side and unconsciously hold my arm closer. You must feel safe, here in my arms. You must feel loved and wanted.
"Run little girl. Don't stay here, you're not safe at all. I'm more dangerous then you could possibly imagine. Run while you can."
My whispers fall on deaf ears, it's too late for you anyway. You lost a long time ago; the very first time I looked you directly in your blue blue eyes.

The open window is chilling the room, but I leave it in defiance of Winter's last frost. Your shiver, and I draw closer. For tonight, at least, I can protect you.
"I won't ruin you tonight," I promise your sleeping form. Wait for the spring.

The Winter

Can't sleep.
The moon will eat me.
I slither and slide in one translucent mess; more wraith like then a person and too dense for a ghost.
Somedays I beg to be saved from this awful fate.
RESCUE ME
I cry silently-
until I turn back to the pornographic display of WITTY shirts waiting to be sold and consumed.
Someday we will gather around It's A Wonderful Life and laugh at these seemingly impossible months.
For now its:
Fold
Fold
Flip
Over
Repeat.

The Fall

He asked me once when I knew I loved him.

Should answer "at first sight," but that's too much of a lie even for me. It was a gradual falling, not an abrupt drop. I was eased over the edge before I realized I was even going anywhere.

The danger was first. I wanted the adrenaline of risking my heart on someone notoriously good at breaking them. I wanted to prove to myself that I could come through cold, hard, imperious. But then he spoke. He said things, true things, things that even the ones who were supposed to be honest lied about. I asked the hardest questions I could think of, and without faltering or avoiding he answered them all.

Closer to him, I teased with the idea of a brush of the arm, a smile through falling hair. Nothing, my coquetry left me feeling the fool. And then he spun me, to the inside of the road; and there I felt the stars on my skin and tasted taste Life on the wind. It was bitter and sweet and scary as hell.

Perhaps that's when I fell, or perhaps it was later when his eyes sparkled and he grinned that open dangerous mischievous grin. And later on, after the fall when hard times pressed us into shadows of ourselves, that grin remained.

Or maybe it was later still when he kissed me. It wasn't fireworks, it was slower then that and less flamboyant. It was simple and sweet and if people could melt I wouldn't have, instead I would have evaporated slowly and been whisked away on the night breeze.

When I slipped over the ledge into love, I was in a dream. I went to sleep and had wonderful vision- of walking along deserted roads, of the imprint of a phone on my ear, a Christmas of longing. I awoke to find myself comfortably In Love. I feel as if I have cheated somehow, missed part of the game.

But now I have a pillow that is actually a red sweatshirt and comfortable obsession with my phone. And hundreds of dollars are slipping through my fingers on planes and rooms and trinkets. And this is that Life that I once tasted and it's bitter and sweet and scary as hell.

And I am in love.

A mother's love

Tonight we fight.

-Why are you taking them away from me?
You are never here!

-You never play with them. They just sit there.

-That's not fair!
No, I talk to them more then I talk to you. I love them. The way a mother is supposed to love a child. Supposed to.

-The world isn't fair.

-You're so stupid! I hate you!
You ruined me. You stole any chance I had of ever being easily content. I am introspective now and I don't trust. You took away my ability to trust.

-You ungrateful bitch! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! You are so selfish!

*SLAP*
I just want to be good. I just want to be young. I just want to be your daughter. Please? Please. I'll be good forever. Just let me be eleven. Please.

In nine years I will finally be able to be eleven. Cry my sorrows on a shoulder, listen to someone as they
Shhhhhh, everything is going to be alright.
Kissing me on the top of the head they stroke my hair as my world spins and crashes.
But I am ruined now, no stroking or whispering will save me from age old mottos repeated silently in my head.

I'm a bitch, I'm ungrateful, I'm selfish, I'm a bitch, I'm ungrateful, I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch...

A Thought

Thinking is scary. Contemplating is worse. Somedays you ask me what's wrong. "Nothing" I lie, not wanting to tell you the awful truth that I'm Thinking again.

He plagues me these days. In worn down blue jeans and a flannel shirt, he comes to me and whispers sweet hatred in my ears. Adrenaline and sweat and old zombie movies. I called them cheesy, he called them classic.

And now when SHE comes into my room, tells me that I'm failing and that I will never recover I believe her. Because I am still haunted when I shouldn't be, because I am not good or pure enough to deserve you, because I have yet to succeed. And it is now when Thinking becomes deadly; one lethal thought turned to action could provide the 'fin' of me.

You want to save me, have always wanted to save me. The only thing you can't save me from is the most dangerous of all: my own mind.