After dark

Sometimes at night he grabs me and kisses me full on the lips with forgotten passion.  We heave against each other for quiet seconds, searching each other for some answer to all the wrongs. 

He never remembers in the morning.

Last night he caught me up and I was limp, and still he pushed himself against me and caressed me with surprising tenderness.

I wish I knew who she was, that dream girl who inspires him so.  She is lucky to have all of his passion and none of his spite.

Tribute

I used to write for you.  When you said it "just didn't make sense," and that you "didn't bother to read the first part," well that stung baby.  But maybe now I'm free. 
Now I can write all the dark things I've been thinking, it will probably be months before you read them.  By then I will be ready for the fight, ready for you to mope and misinterpret and get angry.  All the reasons I stopped writing in the first place. 
Now if I start killing off brown eyed boys you won't notice.  Go back to your game darling,
I'm writing again.

Born again

I have a new lover, and a new lease on life.  The stage is a fickle mistress (Mister?) but damn it I've missed you theater. 
I think this summer will be an endeavor in auditions.

First play

Last play

Also: Having discovered the new photo formatting tools it will be hard not to over-post photos just because I can.  Damn you blogger, damn you.

Liberal Art's Education, Part II

Part two of Liberal Art's Education

"Hi, my name is Anna and I'm a sophomore English major here! It's wonderful to meet you all. We're going to start our tour today with a look at one of our sample housing accommodations-"
Anna cringed inside. The father was wispy and looked like one good cold would finish him off; his son was round and could have been the poster boy for the "before" acne treatment photos. His mother was short and sensibly put together, it was this that made Anna want to run screaming back to the Tour Guide break room. Everything about the woman, from her sturdy walking shoes to her short practical hair cut and her matching separates pegged her as an Interrogator. Sure enough, as soon as Anna stepped into the dorm hallway the woman started with "How are the bathrooms here, REALLY?" followed by a quick analysis of the RA's "quaint floor decorations" and moving without pause onto a diatribe on how her son's intelligence was far superior to any of his classmates. Anna turned autotron and fired back answers and witty comments, a familiar song and dance that was perfectly timed and executed.

Exactly 52 minutes later Anna collapsed into a swiveling office chair and unstuck her magnetic name tag.
"Bad tour?" A girl with cropped blond hair and square rimmed glasses paused her work at the computer.
"Crazy mother."
"She ask anything fun?"
"Yeah, what we're doing to bring organic foods to the school." A snort of disbelief.
"Better to start with cutting the cases of food poising to under 50 a month."
The girl went back to her CEEB codes and Anna pulled an old yearbook out of her bag. She knew she should really get stared on her paper on the Canterbury Tales, but this personal research was much MUCH more interesting. Back in 1936 the yearbooks had been run not by an administration that was concerned with equal representation, but by the students themselves. There were racy songs and student written cheers, anecdotes about poor freshman girls losing their reputations and boys having unfortunate collisions with drunken sidewalks.
School was, once upon a time, a place for mistakes and learning the hard way how the world worked. Now it seemed things had been sterilized.
She flipped languidly though the pages, mentally rating the girl's hair and the boy's half grins. Turning back towards the beginning she paused. The dedications always interested her, who had done things of enough merit to be mentioned FIRST and FOREMOST. This one, however, was different.
"This book is in memory of Grace Turner, who's bright smile always lit the room and who kept the jazz in her step always. You will be missed."
Beneath a simple black and white photo. Grace was standing by the school gates clutching a stack of books, her head thrown back in laughter. It was a perfectly posed candid, she was full of beauty and life and it was suddenly obvious why the campus had adored her.  Anna turned to the middle of the book where the student pictures were organized by greek membership, followed by the "independents."  Sure enough, there Grace was wearing the familiar little black pin.  She was in the center of the composite, her chin turned up and a pretty poised smile on her lips.
Remembering the note penned on the back of the article, Anna flipped back to the photos of the men.  Tony something, something that begun with a P, Tony...tony...tony... The very last fraternity was Delta Tau Gamma, one that still had a house on campus today.  Tony Parson starred up from the bottom row of men.  He had hair parted to the side and eyes that stared into the camera with intensity.  No doubt about it, Tony Parson was a catch.
Paging forward Anna tried to pick Tony out of other groups, other pictures.  He was on the football team, but this no great accomplishment in a school with a permanently losing record.  Still he looked good in his jacket.  He was also pictured in a candid at the fall dance, which must have taken place in what was today one of the dinning halls.  He had a girl on his arm, a pretty dark young thing who was staring up at him in utter adoration.  She looked familiar, and a quick scan of the Theta composite confirmed Anna's suspicions; they would have been in the same pledge class.  Her name was Rebecca Mallory, she had been Vice President of communications.  It seemed that Tony wasn't a "going steady" kinda guy. 

"Um, hey Anna, you know it's quarter past five, right?"
The girl with the glasses was looking over from her swivel chair.
"Oh damn, thanks Emma.  I'm supposed to meet people at Bunker for dinner in five minutes."
"Better hurry, the lines are going to be forever long by the time you get up there."
Anna swept the yearbook and the untouched Chaucer into her bag and hurried off across campus to the same building in which Tony Parson once attended a fall social.

Catharsis

I do wish, in a way, that I could talk to you again.  Not to curse your name, ask you why; not even to coax a compliment out of you.  For months I couldn't think of you, couldn't hear your name without a wrench in my stomach.  I wanted to talk to you then, to prove that I was worth more and that you would be sorry for tossing me aside, treating me like an old worn out doll.  I thought that if I could make you angry, make you sorry, make you lustful, I would win and that chapter of my life would close.  More then anything I missed you.  For more then a year I had bared my soul to you, treated you as a friend.  I told you secrets, not my deepest and darkest perhaps, but secrets none the less.  You may have been a terrible lover, but you were a damn good friend.

I cursed you for so long,  remembered so much of the bad that it's hard to remember the good now.  I remember you telling me that I was beautiful and wasn't crazy (and yes, you did say these things months before accusing me of being so.) I remember you telling me about the family you wanted and the dog and the house.  You had such a newly minted future then.  The day you invited me hunting was the day I decided I didn't care anymore.  Later my best friend told me on the phone that I would be sorry-I would get hurt.  I knew she was right, but my heart was long gone.

I don't even need to say what followed, except to admit what I vehemently denied then.  hysterically mad.  I was stuck between the school girl antics of my friends and the emotional tilt-a-whirl that being with you sent me on.  I won't say that I loved you, if only to keep from sounding more insane then I have already admitted to.  I did care for you though, deeply, and I didn't understand how you could not care for me.  Perhaps you did after all, I suppose I will never know.

When I met him I was still infatuated with you, but I was just beginning to understand the reality of things.  He held my hand while I walked and cried, and despite what everyone said he was a perfect gentleman.  That is when I should have stopped, when I crossed the line of what is honorable to what is despicable.  Though I have forgiven you, it will probably be decades before I can fully forgive myself.

For the purpose of this testimony that you will never see, what has happened since is neither here nor there.  I'm back though, back to the girl that you met during a waltz who laughed too freely when you spun her.  I am not infatuated anymore, not hateful or hurt.  I am terribly in love with your arch rival, and I would be happy spending the rest of my days with him if he asked me.  I hear you're doing well, and you have the chance to find the same happiness.  She's wonderful.  Love her.  Open your eyes and tell her she is worth the world.  I am sorry for everything I did and said to hurt you, and someday maybe you won't be resentful towards me anymore.  I know that we can never be more then cordial to each other; that we may spend the rest of our lives pretending not to see each other even when we are crushed together in crowded bars.

If I could change it, I would.  I wouldn't erase you from my life, but I would have demurred from your invitations and stayed the naive girl that I was when I met you.  Any power you once had over me is gone now, I think I have finally taken myself back.

You're a good person, the kind of person people want to be around.  Live a good life, stay well, and for the love of god please don't let any of the horrible things I once wrote about you come true. 

Dear "anonymous."

I'm sorry I didn't notice your comment from two months ago until just now.  I wonder who you are.  Do I know you?  James, Michael?  You're not Erica or Zoe I think, or Nico even.  I wonder how in the world you found your way back into my archives; more importantly how did you stomach that much angst?  In reality I don't really want to know who you are.  It feels the same as in high school when Sarah made up a secret admirer and slipped notes into my locker.  In the end it was a wonderful birthday surprise from good friends, but the best part was letting my imagination go before I knew who it was.  Maybe you are Sarah or Elan.  We wrote enough together when we were younger, and I miss the companionship of fellow writers. 
Whoever you are, thank you for your comment, it is a delicious mystery. 

I'm going to stop

asking you if you read these anymore.  The answer is always no.