See

Laughing over dinner and I just can't help but smile- a basket full of pita chips and all of a sudden I am seventeen again and starry-eyed with the world.  In my head I dance through sprinklers and jump in midnight waves and only slowly does reality sink in.
Split it, please.
They just don't understand, they really just don't understand what it was like to grow up here, do they.  Silly girl to mix a new york team with an island shirt, silly boy to not see the merit of walks over virtual reality; the silly silly people we settled for.  But for one of us there is a white fairy tale, and for the other only golden-brown eyed dreams.
You really should come stay.
Frowning you shake your head in disbelief, why will I not simply submit, publish, share with the world?  But ahh, I was never the public writer.  You are the open philosopher, I hide away in my own little corner of anonymity and use my words to lick my wounds. 
It's really been nice seeing you.
Do you remember?  There were ten CD's, stacked in my car with a note that made me leak happy tears.  Later you called and asked about the surprise, yes I had found it, yes Dylan makes my heart sing too.  Months and months and long letters growing shorter and fewer between, and still the soundtrack of heartbreak set to a cracked voice.  You've gained weight now, and I have too.  Your beard hides your chin-a shame for all of womankind really.  My dreams haven't turned to you in years, and yet behind all of my broken shame and despair you seem to know how to say it all without words.  Not for us, perhaps, but for me.  So I slide out of a bear-hug and skip my way back up icy steps-just like a living memory. 
Until next time.

Thirty seconds to hell

The worst thing in the world is when you treat me like shit just so other people can see.
For their benefit, I know, you snap and push me down again and again and again.
I am worth more.
I am better off on my own, this I know, and yet even on my own you still have the power to punch the wind out of my stomach and make me run crying for the hills.
I am better than that. 
I am know you care(d) about me, and I know you don't always show it, but I am so much better than that. 
I am pretty and intelligent and I am worthy of being loved (keep repeating and it will come true.)
Maybe someday I'll really be swept away by someone who is kind and thinks I'm "a goddess" and won't sour towards me in the time that it takes my heart to grow.
Maybe someday.
Not today.

That moment when...

I have shivers running down my spine because I can't even handle it anymore.  Ugh.  Someone save me...so thoroughly grossed out.

Revenge

The bar-stool is half an inch too high, balancing myself precariously my fingers search blindly through my clutch for what my ex-pastor referred to as my "tar deathsticks." The idea of my pastor seeing me here lifts the corners of my scarlet lips a little, the Eternal Struggle for my Soul is lost amid men with dirty beards and my too-tight faded jeans.
Across the bar, a man with dirty blond hair consults with his friend dressed in a tar splattered orange jumpsuit.  They send surreptitious glances my way; I begin a mental countdown.  Five...he snuffs his half-smoked cigarette out, four...he picks through his wallet for a crumpled bill, three...he downs the rest of his beer, two...he slides off the stool. 
One.
"Hey there, buy you a drink?"  Wait, count to ten Mississippis, then glance slowly up through smoky eyes.
"I'm good, thanks."
"Well shoot, what's a guy gotta do around here to show a lady a good time?"  Forcing a laugh I slide off the stool, knowing full well that when I do I'll be standing an inch too close and be forced to tilt my head back to look into his eyes. Cue the smolder.
"What's a girl gotta do to enjoy a beer in peace."  I've got him, his look of longing betrays him and all the swagger in the world won't save him now.  He moves a hair's breath closer and I let my chest heave a little, knowing that it won't escape his notice.
"Well I know a place with plenty of beer and no strange men to bother you."
"Oh?"  My fingers are closing around my clutch before the words are out of his mouth.
"Come back to my place."

The kitchen is shabby, filled with cheap plastic plates staked neatly in cupboards with no doors.  He sets a beer in front of me and swings the door closed with his hip, I survey my surroundings as I bring the bottle to my lips.
"You been in town long?"  He is eying me; hasn't taken his eyes off me since we walked through the front door.
"No, not really.  Just passing through."  He smiles, nods in what he must think is a comforting manner.
"Girls like you should watch yourself down at Jimmy's, it's a rough crowd."
"Girls like me?"  He is around the counter now, hands reaching to caress my body.
"Pretty little things with no one to watch out for them."  I step back, gripping my clutch in one hand and my beer in the other.
"I can watch out for myself."
He lunges, and pins me against the counter, Struggling my beer crashes to the floor and explodes in a rage of foam and green glass.
"Oh, come on don't fight it, you want this.  You can't walk into a bar dressed like that and not want this-"  His fingers scrabble at my chest, my hair- I lean back and dig my nails in.  I don't see his left arm until it's too late and my face is screaming in pain.
"ENOUGH."  I'm angry now- in three seconds the gun is out of my clutch and with a quiet pop the struggle is over. 

Red mixes with my beer's foam, through his back pocket I can see the led of a cell phone screen light up.
Buzz, buzz, buzz- the phone shows a picture of him and a beautiful brunette standing on a sandy beach embracing.
Buzz, buzz, buzz- I flip it open.

"Hi, it's me.  I'm sorry to tell you that you're right, he did take me home.  He won't be laying a hand on you again."

Snapping the phone shut, I am careful to tread on him on my way out the door.

Sleep in heavenly peace

In the backyard we play.  It's all pirates and fairy princesses, stick-swords and mud pits.  Hours and hours of jumping through nettles and finding bird's nests and singing the songs of nature.  I am one of the lucky ones. 

Somewhere, today, there are Christmas trees with stacks of presents still virgin to prying fingers and critical eyes.  It's too much, once twice, thrice- how many more before we find a solution for our human nature?

Somewhere today, a girl I love is grieving.  Last week, yesterday, last night we complained about men and school and unemployment-today that horrible word cuts our mouths again.  Suicide, what a selfish action.  Nothing we can say, nothing we can do to find an answer for this.

And now, they tell us, find your loved ones and hold them tight.  What a cruel proclamation, it must be purposeful spite that this is the only solution put forward.  No loved ones, not here.  I am utterly alone, and what timing too.  I could perhaps try to find solace in a warm bed with a laughing companion, but the thought right now makes me sick.  Easy for him to say-perhaps, so happy to be on his own- but I cannot as easily ask another to fill that space.  I would give years off my life for a hug, a gentle kiss on my forehead, a silent embrace.  Impossible.

So today, I suppose, I am not ok. 

Monologue

For the play I (we) devised about broken hearts.  What I will say:

I remember the first night I ever stayed in a boys room.  I left at like five in the morning, I remember wondering if I was supposed to wake him or not-so awkward. I crept out of the room and I can remember the smell of the hallway.  It smelled like-like old rancid pizza boxes, he lived right by those horrible trash rooms.  But also, there were the showers right there and someone must have just gotten out because the door was swinging and wafting this really good cologne into the hallway.  So it was this mix of really really bad and really good freshly washed man.  And as I was leaving, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I just stood there looking at myself and thinking,
Who are you?
  
What I wish I had the guts to say:

I remember the night that I got my heart broken.  I was sitting on the bed and all the air in me was gone, just gone, and I was gasping.  And he tried to walk away and I wanted to scream, maybe I did scream- don't you dare leave me.  There was nothing. No smells.  No self realization.  Just empty.  And I'm sitting there, on the bed, and all I want is for someone to come in and say, "Haha, just kidding," but no one comes and no one comes and then later when he leaves I'm alone.  And I've been alone ever since. 

Tomorrow, in front of fifty people I may not know or even see again.  Maybe I'll do it, maybe I'll have the courage and go for broke-won't my actors be surprised when they hear the unrehearsed raw words in my mouth.  No-I won't.  I'll go back to old hurts, long since faded and mostly healed.  I'll pull at old scabs, hoping to get some inch of pain to lend an aura of authenticity to the performance.  Because the real thing, that's just too much.  

This has been stuck in my head all day...

Damn it.  Two days ago I was so happy.  It's easier to be happy thinking you hate me, than to realize you still care even a little.

Wishy-washy

Goddamn it, don't you understand?  It's YOU.  It's always been YOU.  I wish the next time, you would look into my eyes and see beyond my simple desire to the fact that you truly fulfill me in a way that I don't think anyone else can.  You're my fantasy and no one else can live up to that. 
You said, years ago, that we're made for each other.  Well, I still think that's true.  But I can't believe that anymore, I'm not allowed to.  That was lost between the passive aggressive fights and the lies and the months upon months of both of us hurting. 
But right now, this feels right.
This feels good (so good)
And you need to stop fucking thinking about things and just let them happen.

Point of no return

I have a final in four hours and I don't think I'm going to pass.  Should have started studying at three pm, should have--but then a message and a smile and a tear and after that it was all pillows and stuffed animals and sleep. 
Sleep, for hours upon hours and in my dreams I was nineteen again and I was a goddess.  Dream me thinks she's beautiful, she's never been told otherwise.  She puts on makeup and then wipes it off slightly, precisely tousling her hair and replying to her someone special "I was just about to go to bed, but if you want to come over...." Dream me was both a slut and an innocent. 
All of a sudden I'm awake and there is a name on my lips, the same one I've been calling out in my sleep for months now (so my roommates tell me) only now it's forbidden fruit.
Damn it, this is the first time in days.  I am happy, was happy, will be happy?  I know I get the twinges, the pain in my chest; outwardly I feign graciousness but inwardly I have to hate you, at least for a while, for self-preservation's sake. 
I know what happened, all that happened, I've known since the beginning.  I know that my friends have told me one by one that they wouldn't attend a wedding, if it happened-and still I dreamed in white organza. 
"Thank God," they say, and I parrot-
"Thank God, Thank God I'm only mostly broken, thank God I have a semester left to act like and idiot.  I didn't want love really, not now-right?  Thank God I finally admitted what I have always know the truth to be."  So, with all my thanks, why do I suddenly regret my acceptance of the truth?
I am worth more, I know.  I'm worth more than the fear, more that the pain, the mysterious bruises and the soreness that lasts for days. 
He tells me he's wanted this forever, he tells me that I'm beautiful, I'm sexy.  It seems a cruel game to me, the compliments of all the things that were once pointed out as flaws.  I can't have a nice derriere, my waist is too big and my eyes not blue enough.  He is sweet though, and yes it makes me happy.  Not loved, but happy enough to giggle at the sound of my phone's vibration. 
I said, the next time I gave myself it would be to the man I married.  I won't marry him, and it's hard-so hard, not to revoke my oath.  But I won't-I can't.  I know I'm purer than that, I know that I am still saving myself, in a way.  One day I will have my white dress with it's cap sleeves and Victorian corset and bustle; and when that man goes down on his knee I will tell him a thousand times yes-but only if I can take his last name and truly belong to him as he belongs to me.  On that day, maybe, I'll think about brown eyes and hair that sticks up too much in the back.  Maybe not. 
God knows that now the dreams started again, they won't stop.  I'll push away sleep for as long as I can in the hope that when I do fall into it, it will be dreamless. 
I am happy, so much happier than before- I am not scared anymore and I have rediscovered spontaneity and enthusiasm for life. 
Now though, it's 5:26 am and I am so scared of my immanent failure, I would give anything to hear one sound of comfort from a familiar voice.  The voice would tell me to stop stressing and get my shit done, and that would make me oh-so angry but even in my anger there would be comfort. 
Instead, I close my eyes and try to return to my dream world and the girl in it who is still loved.

The hard truth

You know that thing you thought I loved?  He does it better.

Independence

He doesn't remember when he hits me.  The next morning I'm up, black and blue, and he's complaining that all the covers are in a heap on the floor.  He doesn't remember pulling them off me and forcing himself into me my scream. 
These bruises, on my thighs, my wrists- I joke about being abused and he laughs along enjoying the fun.  Such a game, such a fun sport of words and emotional perry and thrust-him never truly knowing what the stakes are. 
Last night, I sank into beautiful blue-green eyes.  They were soft and nervous and I was shaking and it was strange, so strange not to cower at the fingertips, to have them brush my back softly without my begging.  Oh, it was wonderful, being loved for such a short amount of time.
I have a permanent smile on my face and a skip in my step.
I'm free.
Free.
Free.

And somewhere, beautiful blue eyes (they were always blue) are waiting.

Wanted

I remember, wondering when it all changed.  Maybe the day the sink broke. For years it worked just fine and then suddenly, one day; drip, drip, drip.  He tried to fix it, dove into the pipes in the cupboards and came out sweaty and full of curse words. 
"You cunt, you broke the god damned sink."  Not a yell, just quiet even toned rage and a wrench whizzing past my head.  That time, I got away.  The wall behind me was not so lucky, it bled plaster and drywall. That night when he took me to bed, I tried to say no. 
"Shush," he said, "It's ok, ok, ok'" each punctuated with my sharp intake of breath as he held my hands tight against the pillow.  The scratches were easy to hide, but the bruises stayed on my wrists for two weeks. 
After that, I learned not to say no.  Long after he fell asleep I would stare at the wall, thinking of all the things I could have done, must have done, to make him despise me so.  No more kisses for me, no more joking proposals or wondering breathless words, "You are so beautiful."
I learned to buy my love and save it up over time, one sleepy caress was enough to last me for months. 
Other women get out, get even, get away.  I'm not one of those women.  This is my world now, and though I have fantasized about ending it for you or me with a pipe or a gun or knife; I know that I don't have the courage.  Instead, I turn fear into worship, and find a million things that I must be punished for; a million reasons for you to hit me and scratch me and scare me.  This must be what I deserve, for this does not happen to undeserving women.  I am lucky, for at least, he needs me for something.  Whether for hatred or love, I am wanted. 

Backhand my dreams

Tonight the stories came true.  Lying there, on the cold brick, I suddenly realized there was nothing hopeless or romantic or perfectly sad about the situation.  My cheek hurt, my heart hurt, and I was too scared to move, too scared to breath.  No room for air in my lungs so I collapsed, and looking up at the sky though dazed eyes I saw millions of brilliant ever constant stars.  The same stars, three and a half years ago, that we kissed under for the very first time. 
Love is so much worse than the movies or the books say, Scarlett O'Hara never had to chose between her self identity and any of her husbands, she told them all to go to hell and so she did. Maybe that's why she ended up alone at the end of the movie.  No woman can be both loved and love herself, I'm learning this now.
So let me throw it all away, the friends, the things I love doing, everything I know about myself.  I would give it all up and go back to the cowering shell- I would!  If only then, you would love me again.  If only I would be your "goddess" again, if I would be that person who made you say "wowwww."  But I'm not, anymore.  I'm old and dried up and used, I understand.  That hurts enough.  No need to add physical pain.
I love you and that will never stop.  So why do our perfect months have to end like this?

BHCS

My feet sink through the crust of the snow and I can feel the ice through the hole in the bottom of my shoe.  Slowly, my jeans absorb the winter as I take deliberate steps towards the swing.  Around me, classmates are applying lipgloss and playing foursquare and talking about kissing in the woods beyond the playground.  I'm thinking about my step, and not falling over, and if I'm going to eat tonight.  I threw my sandwich away in the lunchroom again, I can't remember the last time I ate during the day.  The bread was a week old and hard as a rock, even if I had wanted to eat it to begin with.  I had gazed longingly at the bright pre-packaged food around me at the table, and without thinking had crumpled the whole brown bag up and stuffed it into the can. 

Tonight, maybe, I will eat the green spinach goo that always seemed to be appearing in the toaster oven.  I will make jokes with my little brother about alien food, and maybe he would eat some of his reheated pizza with the fake cheese on top.  If my mother doesn't have another concert.  Or another boyfriend.  Or both.  Last night she didn't come home until two am.  When she did she yelled at me and called me a selfish bitch.  I could smell the wine on her breath, and after she went to bed I had snuck back into brothers room and we had held each other and told stories. 

Today I'm dressed in a over-sized purple sweatshirt.  I'm not allowed to shop for myself, and I am painfully aweare that I am the only one on this playground over the age of ten still wearing clothing from a kids store. I look like an oompa-loompa, I know, but the first day I wore my winter jacket to class they all started calling me marshmallow, and asking me where I parked my spaceship.  So now I brave the snow in my sweatshirt and jeans.

I don't know what they thought, on that first day of school.  They expected someone rich, that I know.  They told me all the NEH kids were rich, and when I didn't have the clothes or the makeup they decided I shouldn't fit in at all.  It took them a day to dislike me, and a week for them to come up with my first nickname.

I remember my old school sometimes.  I remember my best friend Sarah and I lying in a field and picking wild strawberries and telling each other that everything was going to be ok.  Sometimes, I remember- but mostly it's easier to block it out.  That's not me now.  I am quiet.  They said I wanted to have sex with my teacher, but I've never even kissed a boy.  I try to do well in school, but the teachers here only want to talk to the girls with the makeup and the clothes.  They wrote me off the first time they saw my overly long skirts and bushy brown hair. 

Today, I am walking one step at a time.  I make it to the swing and feel the numb as I wrap my hands around the cold metal links.  Pushing off, I close my eyes and begin to dream.  If I close my ears too I can be anyone in the whole world.  Sometimes I am a princess, others I am fighting in the revolution.  Most of the time I am safe and sound on my island, with my little brother.  We eat delicious fattening Italian food and we watch PG13 movies that played in actual theaters.  I am allowed to listen to dance music, and my dad teaches me about blues and rock and roll. 

By the time the bell rings, I almost have a smile on my face. 

Grass

Out in the hot summer sun I can still taste his lips.  They are sour with early morning sleep and perfectly pressed into mine; with my eyes closed I brush my fingers across my mouth begging it to remember the sweet sensation.  Sighing, I roll my body and stretch luxuriously.  Even here in the Summer Gardens where the world should be perfect I ache for the gentle brush of a kiss.

It's been two weeks since he left me; two weeks and as many nights of lonely aching on my pillow.  I vowed I would not forget any part of him, so when sleep eludes me I whisper his features to the night.
Brown eyes, with gold flecks.
Untameable hair that spikes up in the back.
Freckles across his cheeks in the shape of a long forgotten constellation.
He was the first to tell me about the stars.  He began in the way of the old story tellers, which made me giggle.
 "Once upon a time," he said.  "Once upon a time, long ago the land was still covered with green grass like the summer gardens."  I laughed at the absurdity of the statement, but at his stern look I held my tongue. 
"There were stars, then.  Stars beyond belief.  Not the kinds that they put up in the dome to signify night, but great huge balls of fire, a million miles away.  All you had to do to see them was to walk outside.  There were stars that were named, ones that made pretty pictures in the sky- constellations."
He hugged me then, and I pressed my face into his chest, trying to imagine a world without the dome, a world with grass and stars and people that told stories that started "Once upon a time." 

The day he got the message I cried.  We had walked to the borough center, with everyone else for the conscription notices.  Names flashed up on the screen, five out of the twenty thousand of us, being called to serve the "higher purpose."  Most picked for their skills; electricians and butchers- some though were chosen as a form of punishment.  A year without your family and friends, a year of hard labor to remind you not to steal or cheat your neighbors.  Sometimes the Republic sends for someone who is a known deviant.  The rare murderer, traitors to the state- any for whom there is no hope of rehabilitation.  They get sent up to the dome, to make repairs or replace the Watchers who's lifework it is to guard our protection.  Few return, non have within my lifetime. 

When they called his name I stood in shocked silence.  It was unexpected; true he is good at the tannery where he works, but there are many older and more qualified men who should have been called in his place.  He was given a week to say his goodbye's and pack up his small life here.
"It's only a year, I'll be back before you even have a chance to miss me."  I smiled up at him, but we both knew the words we weren't saying.  The ones who returned from their year in Service to The Republic were changed.  The spring was gone from their step; there were sworn to secrecy about their Service, but they exchanged sad glances with others who had been taken from the borough square.

"I do love you."  That was all I could manage, the last day.  My affirmation, my prayer. 
"And I love you too."  He was matter of fact, it was an unchanging truth in his life.  It wasn't until he was about to walk across the threshold that I lost myself.  Tears falling down my face faster than I could wipe them away, I wrapped my arms around his neck and breathed in his wonderful smell.

"Why wasn't it me?  Why can't I go instead?  I don't want you to go without me.  Please."  He held me in long silance, before pulling me away and looking deep into my eyes.
"We both know why they won't take you, why you're always safe here."  I nodded, though the prospect of my own safety brings me little joy.
"Blue eyes, Ana.  You have blue eyes.  One in a million.  One of five in the world.  They never take blue eyes. You're worth holding on to."
"So are you."  In that moment, I held him as my own for the last time. 

The city car that drove him away looked like something out of one of his fairy tales.  Once it was sleek and shiny, but now the paint had turned the same grey-brown as the rest of the world.  I stood, blinking away my tears, trying to remember all of the songs and stories he had ever told me about the Republic Center.  That's when I made my vow not to forget, never to forget.

In the Summer Gardens there is a patch of green to one side.  "Agrostis stolonifera" it reads.  "Creeping Bentgrass." Each day I visit the gardens, and every day before I leave I bend to stroke the long green stems.  Bringing my fingers to my lips, I kiss them.  "Bring him home safe and unchanged.  Bring him home, please."  I'm not sure if I pray to the grass or the summer or the God of old.  Perhaps I pray to the stars themselves, somewhere out beyond the dome.  Stopping, I heave on the door and wait for the familiar pop as the suction breaks free.  Outside is grey and brown, but in my hand today I have a small piece of green.  Hiding it deep within my pocket, I walk towards home.

Thurston Classic

I am so happy, I can't even express it in words. 
Yes, at night it starts to hurt and I roll over and tuck a stuffed blue dog closer under my chin.  But right now I'm sore exhausted and happy. 
Some part of me has re-awakened, I want to giggle and dance in the rain and write sappy wonderful love stories. 
Today I'm not going to think or worry about tomorrow, today I am happy and still in love and remembering my once forgotten passion for life. 
As one of my favorite literary characters once said, "Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it-yet."

Mid-day Catharsis

Now, I run.
Each step I take retches from somewhere deep in my breast, and I try to remember. 
One, two, three- in.  One, two, three- out. 
As I run I peel back layers of myself.  I remember the desperate middle school days, all those years ago.  The bullies, making names for me and telling me that I am clumsy and slow and undesirable.  I remember crumpling the brown bag still containing my lunch and throwing it away, day after day after day.  I remember flying high into the air on the swing, closing my eyes at the top of each arc.  I remember my mantra: Ignore them and they will go away, ignore them and you will fly away.  I run and I pace my breathing and I let it go, let it all fly away into the distance.  I am swift and graceful and desired.
Half a mile. 
In my mind, I am twelve and it's past midnight.  My mother, due home at nine, is not answering her cell.  She's on a date, somewhere- or maybe at a musician.  She hasn't been home for a weekend yet this month.  I am scared but so is my little brother, and now I realize that I am his rock and he is mine and for the rest of forever we will be each other's family.  We clutch each other and cry, desperate for someone to come and parent us.  And now, I have a family that loves me, believes in me, lets me cry if i need to.  And I breath.
One mile.
My heart break, as boy after boy falls into traps set by my oh so clever friends.  The feeling of despair when I learn that I am being replaced, I am not going to be my papa's only (and favorite) daughter after fifteen years enjoying that title.  The years in the chorus, fighting tooth and nail for single lines and momentary solos.  And now, I don't need it anymore.  I am beloved, and I am strong, and I am worth waiting for.  I am living in my own spotlight.
Two miles
I am here, and now, and present.  I keep going when my body begs me to stop, and I will beat it- all of it.  I am everything in the past and everything that is the future.  And I run,
I run.

Top of the world

There is something I would very much like to post here, but-
I do believe it's not for the public's eyes. 
Maybe, someday, if you're lucky you'll get to read it.
It's 50 Shades hotter than any top NYT bestseller (and well written, too.)
Good writing is like good sex-after you're exhausted but in the most delicious way in the world. 
Goodnight.

Carrion birds

It's amazing how fast they swoop in.  Five minutes and it's "So does this mean you're single now? ;)"  Want to scream
"God damn it, did you hear none of the words I just said?  I'm broken right now, broken and I don't want you or him or anyone else!"
But, that would be emotion-and if I am to understand correctly emotion is exactly what I should be fighting right now.  I was fine while I was the shell of myself, it's me that is the problem.
So instead I throw the phone across the room, only to recover it five minutes later and type a double meaninged response.
I try to giggle.  Push everything away.  I try to be lighthearted and confident, all the things I never was but somehow he believed me to be.  
It's so easy to play this game, so easy to make others believe that I am everything I'm not.  They don't want me, no one does.  They want the girl that isn't dark and twisty inside. 
That's just not me.
I want to be happy.
And passionate.
And full of life.

I am none of those things without my dark and twisty.  Somewhere there is someone out there who will love all of me, not just the bright parts.  That someone is not hiding behind an emoticon. 

Hard love

Tonight, the man with blond hair and blue eyes is unhappy.  He is staring at my folder instead of looking at me, and this is normal.  He doesn't like to look at me, not for any length of time.  Instead he finds constant reasons to shift around the contents of my file, glance at the guard behind the double pane of glass, or clean his glasses.  Surly, this can't be normal shrink behavior.  I've never been to a therapist before, though in the back of my mind something long ago learned reminds me that this is a psychiatrist, not a therapist.  Or maybe he's both?  Surely the county women's penitentiary doesn't have the budget for both.  They don't even have the budget for proper shoes. 

He clears his throat, I wonder what he is getting out of these sessions-my sparse answers.  Is he learning to read my unstated thoughts?  He must be analyzing something, because he keeps coming back for more. 
"Anna.  Your friend, Megan, spoke to me yesterday."  Megan?  My friend?  I suppose. 
"Yes?"  He clears his throat again, there must not be any phlegm left at the end of his sessions with me. 
"She said that about two weeks ago, she heard a fight.  You called her after, didn't you Anna?  Your neighbors heard a lot of shouting and banging.  They heard something hit the wall.  Do you want to talk about that Anna?"
For the first time, he has managed to surprise me.  I dig the bitten shards of my nails into my palms.  Emotion is pointless, life is now simply one breath to the next.  Breath.  In.  Out.  Reply.
"No.  No, I don't want to talk about it."  This was the wrong answer.  He seems at last to have struck on something that forces his eyes to my direct gaze.  I stare back, stubbornly denying emotion.
"Anna.  This is going to help you.  I want to help you.  Did you and John argue often?"  If I didn't know better, I would think he is genuinely concerned.  Damn shirk school must have taught him how to lie with his face. 
"No.  We didn't.  He was mad because I forgot to put dinner on.  He likes it ready when he gets home.  I was tired and I forgot and we fought." 
"Did John hit you, Anna?"  This seems to be the point he has been dancing around today, maybe even for the last two weeks.  He is staring into my eyes and seemingly without realizing it resting his body against the table. 
"No.  John would never hit me.  He loved me.  The neighbors must have heard when I threw the pasta pot at the wall.  John was a lot of things, but he was never abusive."  The shrink, what was his actual name?- deflates and leans back, eyes dancing back onto the file. 
"All right, I think that's enough for today.  We can talk about it more next week, if you're ready." 

After the guard takes me from the room, I run the inside of my right thumb along the faint scar on my left wrist.  A grease burn, has left the echo of my other life in a small depressed circle.

Just to be clear...

I still love you.
I still want to be with you.
Right now, I'm just angry. 
I want this to work. 
First, I need to be me. 
I am me.
I am happy.
And I want this to work.

Aftermath

The girl in the orange jumpsuit stares back at me.  Across the table, she seems too frail to have a file as thick as the one sitting on my lap.  Her brunette hair is pulled back into the utilitarian pony tail of all the women here, she looks no more than sixteen though the paper in front of me lists her age as twenty two.  Only a year younger than I.  I shuffle the file, collecting myself and remembering that she wouldn't be in here without a good blood chilling reason.  I smile, and I know that though it doesn't reach my eyes I'm young and handsome enough to make most of the women want to talk to me.

"So Anna, this is our first meeting.  Would you mind telling me why you're in here?"  She blinks, the orange fabric stiffly resisting the shape of her body as she leans back into the metal chair.
"I killed him."  This takes my by surprise, I have to glance back down at the file to check my facts before I speak again.
"Who did you kill, Anna?" 
"My fiance.  John.  I killed him with his car.  I stabbed him with the kitchen knife while I was making Spaghetti Carbonara." She looks at me, earnestly. 
"Anna, it says here "attempted homicide.  You didn't kill anyone; your fiance-John, he's not dead."  She lets a sigh escape, long and low.
"To me, I killed him.  I am here, and he is out there.  I will be here forever and even if I'm not, I will never see him again.  To me, I killed him." 
This job is still new to me, I'm not used to dealing with more than petulant teens and their parents.  These women are different, they are mostly my age and they are constantly full of surprises.  I find myself imagining another life, if I had met Anna under different circumstances.  In her booking photos, she has a spark in her eyes that has vanished in the subsequent six months.  In another world, I would have found her intriguing, pretty.  She is staring expectantly at me and I try to look as if I have not just slipped into my own thoughts. 

"Why did you want to hurt John?"  She gives a half shrug.  Her movements aren't defined, merely the suggestions of gestures. 
"He hurt me.  Again and again.  It was time for me to hurt him."  This is something I have been trained to deal with, back to textbook scenarios.  Except that the textbooks don't tell you that sometimes, attempted murders look like they need someone to wrap them in a blanket and give them them a can of Campbell's tomato soup.  Mmm mmm good. 
"What did he do to you?  Did he physically hurt you?"  That slight movement that suggests a shake of the head
"No.  He loved me.  He loved me and then he let me love him.  He loved me, let me loved him, and then let me go."
"He broke off your engagement?" 
"No.  He tried but that was only because he was scared.  I was scared too.  We were scared together.  And then he told me I wasn't enough, I would never be enough.  But he wouldn't let anyone else love me either.  I was alone.  No love."
This is the most she has said at once and she is moving, actually moving, to brush a stray hair from her eye. 
"He told you that you weren't enough emotionally?  Sexually?"
"Everything.  I'll never be enough, never be good enough.  He loves, loved me.  I think.  And then he tells me that I need to believe that I'm beautiful.  I need to believe that I'm enough.  And then. And then the one time I did believe he slapped me.  He called me a whore and he hit me.  And I took the knife and I tried to kill him.  And it felt really good.  But then, I loved him.  I love him.  And now.  Now I've killed him.  And I love him still."

For a moment, her eyes are shining and I see a little bit of the passion that blazes in the photo on my lap.  It's hard for me not to be enthralled in her blue eyes.  She stands then, and when she moves with purpose it's graceful and beautiful to watch. 
"Excuse me Doctor, I believe I've become too emotional to continue.  I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to get to know you, a lifetime if John has anything to do with it."
I catch what might be a wry smile, but it's gone too quickly to tell.  She moves to the door and the guard who has been waiting outside quickly escorts her down the hall, the shuffle of her paper slippers echoing off the cement corridor. 
I run my fingers through my hair, spiraling my fingers around the damn cowlick in the back that never seems to lay flat.  She is something different, never in my life have I met a woman more distressing or intriguing.  I know I should call my supervisor and ask to be taken off her case, I clearly have feelings in conflict to my position as counselor.  Instead I fold her booking photo and tuck it into my jacket pocket.  I can't wait to see her again. 

G

She had green eyes I think.  Or maybe I'm romanticizing blue, I haven't seen her in over a year and a half and I won't be seeing her again.  Never again.  Ever.  There is an eternity packed into that word; every time I try to think about it I fall into a hole in my mind and am halfway gone before I remind myself to breath.  Breath.  She can't, you still can.

The last time I saw her we were at the beach.  She had the bundle of incense and was using it to frighten away bad spirits, to the rest of us it was such a fun game but now I know-we know- to her it was real.  We stood there, eight girls, shouting our regrets to the ocean and the sand and the stiff New England air.  Other girls our age were in the woods, hiding their pot and their beer and trying to feel mature, we were holding on to youth with both hands.  I told her, told everyone, that I was going to tell the man that I loved the truth, I was going to tell him everything and pray to my lucky stars that his love would prevail.  I told them about my life and my love and I was so wrapped up in being young that I didn't even stop to wonder how she was doing, how everyone else was doing. 

I wouldn't talk to her again.

I remember too when we were young, art class; I spent a week trying to accomplish what she managed in forty minutes.  I was so jealous.  She was cool and free spirited and perhaps popular, I was those things only by association.  I didn't know, didn't understand that she had demons too.  We all have demons to fight. 

They didn't find her for two days.

My dangerous moods started when I was twelve.  Food didn't matter, I had dreams about bridges and falling but I was too scared of pain to dream in reality.  Lunchtime meant throwing out whatever dried up bread my mother had managed to throw into my bag and disappearing into my mind. I was the only one in the world who felt this, had to be the only one who understood what it meant to just want everything to stop.  I wish I had stayed with the family that loved me in the place I had known.  Maybe I would have noticed that she and I shared isolation.  Maybe, together, we both would have been ok.

By the time the school noticed, it was too late and she was gone.

In AP English we slaved together over Shakespeare.  I only had eyes for the tousled haired boy in the back of the class, daydreaming about tennis courts and movie nights and buffalo chicken pizza.  If we spoke it was surrounded by everyone else.  We spent days together in mutual silence.  I was intimidated by her- jealous that she was brave enough to shave her head and then go platinum blond, jealous that she looked so good and was so damned talented.  We were friends, sure, and she was one of three people to pay their share on my eighteenth birthday when the others left me to front the bill.  For Christmas she gave me a tiny drawing in a frame, my name.  I have lost it.  I thought at the time there would be plenty more years and drawings and time for casual conversation. 

I didn't know for two weeks.  We had known each other for fifteen years, and she was dead for two weeks before I knew. 

I could have done oh so much more.  I could have talked.  I could have listened.  I could have noticed when she took our playacting more seriously than the rest, could have wondered if for her the demons we ran from were real.  I wonder if she knew that we shared that dark part of our soul, that deep question mark of life's worth. 

They found her because she didn't call her dad for his birthday.

I love my father.  Sometimes I imagine if it was him getting that call from a far away city about his baby girl.  I imagine and I cry and I thank whatever God or Grace that I can for my fear of pain.  I love my baby sister and brother.  I hope that I am the first one of us to go because I don't think I can bear ever losing either of them, now or in fifty years.  I the man who stopped this part of me.  He told me to turn around and go home, he told me he loved me and that ocean water in mid January is far too cold.  He held me the night that my best friend called me and said, she's gone.  The night I grew up and realized that I am not immune, we are not immune.  She was so close and then she was gone.

But Gwen, I kept my promise from the beach that night.  I told him everything and what's more I haven't lied since and won't again.  If I had done that long before, maybe I would have had the time to notice that something was horribly wrong.  I miss you, I miss talking about Bjork and MOMA and how we were going to run away to Finland. I'm mad at you and mad at myself for ever thinking that there was no way out, mad and scared of losing another person that I love.  I know you don't believe in God or Heaven, and I don't really either- but some days I wish I did because the thought of being able to redeem myself to you someday is comforting.  I miss you every day, we all do- I hope wherever you are they have insane Scandinavian music and lots of colored pencils.

 

Liberal Arts Education Part III

Parts ONE and TWO can be read here.

Grace pinched her cheeks and bit her lips, studying her reflection in the stand-alone mirror in the kitchenette of the sorority suite.  The long white dress had a flounce around her neck and it perfectly offset her complexion.  She pinched her cheeks again, and then sighing turned away and drew a cigarette out of her clutch.  She settled herself into her favorite nook by the window and took a long drag, watching the smoke curl away from the fourth floor and drift away from the red brick building. 

“Gracie!” 

“Ow, shit!  C’mon Sue, you made me burn my dress.”  Grace rubbed at a new grey spot on her ruff. 

“Well you shouldn’t be smoking in here, you know the rules.  Anyway, you’ve made yourself stink like a coal miner, you know Timmy hates girls that smoke.”  Grace slid down from the window and dropped the cigarette in the sink.

“Why should I give two cents what Timmy hates?”

“Because he’s your escort tonight.  And because you’re about to be the youngest May Queen in this schools history, and it would be good for you to smell like one.” 

“Sometimes, Sue, I wonder if you’re my sorority sister or my mother.”

            Outside, the old bell in the center of campus began its slow process of chiming out the hour.  Grace glanced towards the mirror again, trying to smooth the burn away from the dress.

            “Oh dear god in heaven above let me.  And put some lipstick on, I know you hate it but biting your lips is not going to make them show in photographs today.”  Sue plunged into a cabinet and emerged moments later, victories with pin in hand.  She began deftly pressing the burned edge under, pinning a rose in place over her handiwork. 

            “Now one for your hair…Gracie!  What?  What happened to your neck?”  Gracie smoother her hair back in place, taking the lipstick from the counter and moving towards the door.  “It’s nothing, not a big thing.  Timmy just tried to get fresh with me the other night, that’s all.” 

            “That’s more than fresh Gracie.  Why didn’t you stop it?”

            “I tried, obviously.  It’s no big thing, I told you.  I just won’t see him alone again, that’s all.  It was my mistake to begin with.  Come on Sue, you know I don’t like boys like Timmy.  Let’s shake a leg darling, we’re going to be late for my coronation.” 

****

            All Anna wanted to do was sleep.  Sitting in British Literature, she suddenly begrudged all the naps that she had tried to avoid as a small child. Preschoolers and college kids she thought to herself, naptime should be required for preschoolers and college kids.  In an act of extreme cruelty on the part of the school’s administration, this classroom didn’t even contain a clock. 

Stealthily, Anna slipped her fingers inside her bag and felt for the smooth cover of her phone.  Finally encountering it between the pages of her dramatic literature textbook she waited until Professor Pless turned around before dropping it into her lap.  Nine forty five…the class would be over in five minutes and she would be free to sleep her day away until her next class at one.  Head on the desk, she watched the minutes tick by until the general restlessness of her classmates made it clear to the professor that class had ended and so had their attention spans.  Sweeping everything into her bag, she turned to leave but was met by the sharp glance of professor Sophia Pless. 

“Anna, do you have a class at ten?”

“No, but professor, I have something I really have to go do…” Anna thought about the few short minutes of brisk walking that stood between her and bed.

“If it can wait for a couple of moments would you stay and have a word with me?”  Inwardly heaving a huge sigh, Anna let her book bag swing to the floor again.   

“Sure, what’s up professor?”  But it wasn’t going to be that easy.  Pless insisted on moving next door to her office, and it was only after they were both settled into chairs and Anna had refused the offered tea that their chat began in earnest.

“Anna, I’m not sure if you know but you’re the seventy-fifth recipient of the Grace Turner Scholarship for Achievement in Literature and Journalism.”  Of all the things that could have come out of Professor Pless’ mouth, this was what Anna had least expected.  Shocked, it took her a few moments to register the fact that she should respond.

“Yeah, I guess- I mean yes I know I got that scholarship but I didn’t know it was exactly seventy five years since she died, I mean I didn’t know it was so old.” 

“Well, since this is an especially important year for that scholarship the descendants of Grace Turner are planning a visit to campus.  We were hoping that some past and present Turner scholars would be available to attend a dinner in their honor.  Would you be interested?  One Graces great-great-grand nephews is on our Board of Trustees I believe, and thus the administration is seeing this as an excellent opportunity to, uh, campaign.” 

Anna made herself count to three, thinking about the yearbook tucked into her bag that showed Grace laughing.

“Sure, that sounds like it would be nice.”

“Wonderful.  I’ll get you the details.  Oh, and Anna?  You don’t need to watch the time in my class, if it’s boring you I suppose I can always assign another paper…”

Anna smiled ruefully, swinging her bag onto her shoulders. 

“Yes professor.”

An open letter for S.

Oh honey.  There are some days-some days.  I want to tell you what he's been saying about you.  I want to tell you what he said that made me tell him that it was inappropriate for me to continue talking to him.  I want to tell you that before he booked that room for you on valentine's day he was telling me that he wasn't happy. 
I want to tell you because I've been there before, I've been that girl.  I wish I could save you from the hurt he is going to cause you someday.  Because I don't want him- I never have.  I am happily ensconced with the love of my life and I hope it stays that way until we are both old and grey and crotchety together.  I don't want him-but some other girl will-maybe already has.  I don't think I'm that special, I never have.  I refuse to believe that there are too men in the world who are as struck with me as my wonderful boyfriend and yours seem to be.  And mine is honest.  Which means yours has probably done this to every girl that has crossed his path- and honey he lives in a fraternity house.  Not all of them will have had the integrity or self respect to say no.
Sweetie, I'm saying that he cheated on you.  Not with me, but undoubtedly with someone.
I want to tell you all of these things, because from what I've heard you're a sweet girl.  But I cannot find a scenario that does not involve my own self destruction in this process.  Girls are notoriously vengeful towards the  bearers of bad news, and I just don't have the mental or emotional time right now.  I hope you find out soon-actually no.  I hope you never find out.  I hope you break up because of distance or growing apart or a stupid fight-because finding these things out hurts so much more then just having them end.  I promise you that. 

Good luck, honey.  I hope you two work out- but in the meantime don't stop looking for prince charming. 

Miss interpratation

Tonight it is him and me and the stars.  We are stretched on the hood of his jeep, falling into ecstasy with the ebb and flow of the wind and the throbbing crickets.
He looks into my eyes and tells me, love.
Right there with my cotton skirt pushed way up past my waist I am falling into reckless abandonment and I now and forever sever my pact with logic.

A breathless week later and my world is still spinning.  I lie in the half dark of his room, my accomplice having snuck away with the extra key a quarter of an hour ago.  It's my first time in lingerie and for some reason I can't get used to the feel of chiffon against my skin. 
Footsteps on the stair, awkwardly I contort myself into what I can only imagine is an alluring pose.  Voices, two of them.  Frozen the seconds take an eternity as his key fumbles in the lock and the door springs open.  She is beside him, full figured and coquettishly staring up at him; everything I'm not.  Staring, my voice catches in my throat.  Spluttering, I find vowels finally, and string them together. 
"She's beautiful."
Now, I'm a dove.

The man and his sister stand motionless, staring at the mussed bed and drapes blowing in the slight breeze. 

Film Noir (Revised)

Whispers, it’s always whispers with him.  Hand searching, breath in one ear, on a neck. 

"Just this once Al, c’mon."

The sharp, silver necklace stings when he unknowingly presses it into my chest. My admonition fades and becomes a sigh of ghastly pleasure. Hands are pushing my skirt up, up, up.

The landing of the stairs floods with momentary light from a passing car.  A crunch of wheels on gravel, and then a horn punctuating the night.  He eyes the hall below.

“The boys are back.  Took Grant’s new wheels out.  ’34 Buick, beautiful.  You can still smell the factory.”  A crash from the front hall.

“Charlie, where are you?  You can’t be serious about studying tonight…”
"You're brothers are horrible, awful people!"  Smoothing my skirt, I try to pat my blouse back into place. 
He grins, scotch rolling off his breath. There is a crash again as two oversized boys tumble onto the landing. 

“Oh so this is the extra lesson you’ve been working on!”
"Good going C-man!"
"Awooo awo!”

We erupt in guilty laughter, we are stumbling over each other; pin curls that have fallen out ages ago are now limply slipping into my eyes.  I am pressed into the contours of the hearth, the massive dinosaur that heats the third story. Finally senses return enough to utter,
"Have to go- house mother, Friday then?"
"Gee, if I could get my hands on that woman just for a second..." He follows his words with a decidedly violent gesture. Kiss and I run; run all the way down the long, long brick walk, drunken penny loafers slipping and sliding.

**
The next day he is across the dining hall.  My sisters don't notice. Neither do his brothers, except the two that wink and blow kisses before sharp nudges end their lewd display. I smile to myself, then return to comparing Betty D. and the new Vivian L.  Neither of them is good enough for Clark G., it's decided.

**
At night, our house is full of candles and songs of eternal friendship and bonds that cannot be broken. My guilty little secret is locked at my thigh, in the garter where I have slipped his pin. It’s too soon, he says, to tell anyone.  “They won't approve; it must be a slow type of thing.”  So we continue in black secrecy.
"The years are binding us girls together now, restless sorrows shall try to tear us apart, but never shall we be..."
Not me. Sorrow is not my enemy...sorrow is loneliness and never shall I be alone.

**
I am draped in chiffon, cobalt blue. Matches my eyes, he says. The scotch is gone from his breath now; he is holding me close as we waltz, foxtrot, swing the night away. We are on the landing again; the rest are downstairs enjoying the Formal Dance, including our dates. But these stolen moments are perfect.
"Won't the girls be pea green when they find out?"
"Green, sure...just dance with me now doll."

Hand on my bare shoulders…back…his fingertips leaving a trail of shivers down my spine followed by a zipper being pulled slowly apart.  The fabric slides down off my shoulder… I'm scared, do my eyes show it? Whispered reassurances…kisses on my neck…shoulder, firm hand drawing me though the door into a room. For a second I think about stopping it and running downstairs to my safely boring date, the rich son of an executive who talks nothing but sales figures and deficits. No.
This is Life, giving in is delicious.

Kicking off our shoes we waltz through the blue-black night, leaving layers of ourselves strewn across the floor.  Hands squeezing, eyes searching, slowly he caresses me onto the bed.  I can’t help the words before they’re out in the air.

“You love me?”

“I gave you my pin, didn’t I?”

**
He is sitting in the little gorge under the bridge, our place, where he told me he wanted forever. She sits next to him, simpering.  Sweet, bouncy curls swept perfectly out of her eyes. He whispers in her ear, breaths something into her neck, and they both dissolve into laughter.  His hand rests casually on her thigh, slowly inching it’s way up.  There they are, staring into each other's eyes.  Meanwhile I am here, a common peeping tom, watching my “sister” and my love.

**
His pin on my breast, I am proud now. I walk, head held high, into the house. Brothers in the hall are staring as I march past.  One of them flings a question at my back.  "Alice, hey sweet stuff where are you off to in such a hurry?"
I don't answer, just push through them and their clutching hands. Storming up the stairs, so familiar from our dark rendezvous, I open the door without knocking. He is there, in his white undershirt holding a tumbler, more scotch. How pathetic, drinking alone in his underwear. Slamming the door shut, I know they won't bother us now. The brotherhood’s philosophy on perturbed females is to let them have their fun before soothing them with lies. How many times have I seen this before?

"Al, what's wrong sugar?"
"Not sugar. Not me at least." Silence, and then with a sigh, "Your pin, Charles."
He notices my chest for the first time tonight. Ironically, that's normally the first place his eyes wander.
"You're wearing it, Baby I thought we talked-"
"Just wondering, will you give it to her now?"
"Wh-"
"No, I just want to know is all. I mean, how many others have slipped it into their garters before me."

I won't cry.  I swore that to myself at least. I offer the pin calmly and slowly he takes it. He’s standing there, confused.  His hand reaches my elbow, I shake it off. Peel my white gloves off, finger by finger. The hearth is three short steps away. Place the gloves on the mantle, carefully avoiding dust.  Glance to the left of the fireplace; iron will be my friend tonight, cold and unrelenting.  Turn and raise the poker.
"Whoa, Alice...you need to cal-"

One smash and he's on the floor, skull cracked; Again I lash out, hitting him full on the lips.  Dull red creeps across the grey stones, his once perfect face is now mangled and unrecognizable.  I step across the mess, carefully replacing the poker. My gloves are pristine, I put them on one finger at a time; lingering.

**
Outside a girl is passing by, hurrying to return before House Mother admonishes her for being out without a Permission. She passes the stone steps where a lone figure sits, turning over a piece of gold and black enamel in her hand.