We are all dead

I can't for the moment stop crying for the loss of a man that was not so always nice to me but was human nonetheless. He was flawed but with good intentions, like me in my skin. And today will mark the 4th day in a row that he is no longer with us. I am lost for his children, lost for the words that will comfort their souls. I am lost for the hugs that will hold in their tears. I am lost for the forgiveness that they will regret holding onto the rest of their adult lives. No one should be in this moment without a backup plan. Yet, we are here. They stand on that side of the room and I stand in the middle and the man, the man that they are no longer related to stands nowhere. He is dead. I know that outsiders will think that we are lucky to be alive, to be healthy with our bodies functioning and our issues tangled up in dysfunction. We should be thankful that we are among the living, confused as you and hungry as the curious. Thankful is the word of the moment, regret is the motion of the hour and scorned is the taste of the air. Who are you to say that about us, the children without and me, a woman lost. A man is dead. We don't need to be thankful of our lives here on earth, not then not now. Gratitude comes in all colors and smells, we are not obligated to justify for you what appears sierra tan but smells like death. Although we walk among the full of life we too are lifeless inside. It's inevitable that we may just fall apart not for the moment but for eternity. I am unable to separate myself from his children, I am unable to detach their loss from my vision. I am unable to release their moment from me. I think we should all mourn and cry and yell and beg for him to come back to us...father or not, real or fake, alive or barely living, hopeful or diminished, angry or comatose. It doesn't matter at this point, we have made our choice and it's not pretty. Some of us will move slowly through this shitty world, some of us will stop and drop right where they stand, and I will remember that I can't for one goddamn moment quit the crying. Whose to say we are lucky for being the live ones.

7/18/08

the fat girl lives inside...
she's awaken dead with hunger
and her sights are set on me
i'm consumed by her flesh that eats
me whole
eagerly she seeks out comfortable to conceal
the laughter, staring and pointing of strangers
their silent yet public judgement
has killed her thinness
and has made me a prisoner of her punishment of glutton
kill the thing that allows her to recognize
the difference between her and me...
we await for the day when the flesh will
dangle from the bones, this is our goal...the
fat girl lives inside

The Way I see it

We're both invading the same space at different times of our lives and I have to say, "You're giving me a headache." If it weren't for the fact that you smell like vanilla and taste like cherry chap stick I would have told you off earlier. I'm a fool for you and on my best days your number one fan. But as of the moment, I need for you to stand in that corner in that church building in that third world country so I can appreciate you for what you truly are...the opposite of me!
The phone has rung all day, every day like every 15 minutes. I have no clue how to set it to vibrate so that we can both image me at the same time with that phone in my skin tight jeans pocket. You know the look, you fell for it a hundred years ago and then had the audacity to follow me into this life and fall for it again. When will you learn...fool? Someone told me that you would do anything for me if I asked nicely. I only know how to lower my voice to a whisper while the phrase, "Fucking give it to me cause straight is boring and baby, you are on that road. PRONTO!" Tell me, does that work for you?
Yesterday hung over me like a fat raindrop that only exists in those really off dreams with black and white as the backdrop. I squinted my eyes several times before the vision of you and I holding hands in a thunderstorm and jumping off of bridges began to slowly fade. I hate when the lucidity manipulates the crazy in me to behave itself. That bridge is you connecting me to that disease. Your face is a reminder that we will never get well. We will never step foot into the world of Martha Stewart and Mrs. Clever. My blood boils when I say this bit to your face and the only comment you respond with is, "Who the fuck are those people? And where's the tumbler?" I'm set for life to accept the nutty atmosphere that surrounds me and you in that title. Were we bad girls in our last life?
I'm for sure not ready to settle with you or for you. I know this sounds insulting but look at it from my point of view: you never shave your facial hair for that moment between my legs and I will never call you mine because I wasn't raised in believing that 'happy ever after' was real. So...what do you want from me? My heart on a platter is not for sale or negotiation. Get over yourself...are have you? I'm a little disappointed that you don't share the same philosophy. I mean, I found you slumped over some girl's toilet with your boxer shorts inside out. You smelled of desperation and loneliness. What was a girl to do? She made empty promises of forever, she baked you cookies filled with guilt, she kicked you in that spot between your legs when you said, "I'm not in the mood, fuck you later." She soiled your mind with the thought of pink roses and white wedding gowns. That wasn't me mister. I made you...
into the person who doesn't settle. I need to call you for the 100th time today and tell you that this is over, you need to leave me alone. We are different, we are diseased with no cure, we are nasty in the sack and innocent in the world. Answer your phone so I can hang up and tell my friends that it was me, not you. I'm the victim here, and you...you are standing in a corner with your nose to the wall playing the part of a guest passing through my life. Sign the book on your way out, will ya?

We're having just one drink.

So here we are again, face to face with the awkward silence. I divert my imaginary green eyes that in reality are shit brown to my hands that are asleep in my lap. You just sigh quietly while your dirty blond hair gently stays in place. It's your turn to comment, I made the last remark that has brought us here to this awkward silence...I'm good for that. I don't think you know this bit about me and I'd share it with you but after, after this conversation. You'll confirm and then we'll laugh like two eight year olds who discover that the slide at the neighborhood park can also send clumps of muddy sand down it plummeting the kid in front of it. Trust me, you'll get it. I bring those shitty brown eyes to your face and I give you the look, that look that reads, "You can say it. I start it and you can finish it." You don't pick up on this bit instead you look at my chest thinking this is close enough to looking at me without doing the actual work. I'm tempted to flip you off placing my middle left finger across my left boob just to respond. But I'm a lady and I think I'll try that trick on the next fool who thinks it's okay to check out my rack in front of me at me.
"I never said I was single, I mean I never said I wasn't single. I wasn't confirming anything and I was hoping you were getting this...am I close to your observation?" He says to my chest.
It's my turn to look in that spot that clearly states, "I can't deal with this topic so I'm going to look away and the while pretending to be tuned into you...and your bald head." The thing is is that he's not bald, he's full of hair and shit. I need to learn the difference between them both if I want this conversation to end in my favor. "I believe the word you used to describe your ad was 'interested' and that to me translates as someone who doesn't have a wife and child at home while cruising the Internet. Am I close to your lie?" Back down killa. He will get it but don't give it to him all at once, the slow feeding for this one should be fun but in slow motion. "Yes, interested was the word I used perhaps I wasn't thinking...carefully when I posted. Does this still propose a problem." I hate men who think they're cool while staring at me with blue eyes. I'm a sucker for blue eyes and for the killing. He's leaned into me and has finally taken his eyes off of my rack, maybe he got that it was my mouth doing all the responding and not the girls. How do men seem more confident when they're cheating, he's relaxed. He is calm like his marriage is a mirage and I am clearly the glass of water he's witnessing while hanging out in this dessert. And he smells so good, I can eat him up from here. His white button up shirt makes him seem innocent and desirable. I love how his jeans have that crease where his penis lives, the outline of a man's penis is the equivalence to a woman's see through bra or erected nipple bursting through the shirt. I like what's being outlined and I know he likes my outline because his eyes have returned to silently conversing with my girls again. I can't believe the attention span on this guy.
"I'm not really comfortable with knowing that a woman has your last name out there. I answered that ad because I want a man's last name, all to myself. And with you...well, this isn't going to happen and it's not fair to me. If you were my husband I'd cut your balls off and scrape your eyes out and feed you bible scriptures for the hope of changing you into a decent man! I hope to God, your wife figures this out and leaves your sweet smelling ass." He is smiling and oddly his smile is contagious. I smile back at him but I'm definitly sure for other reasons. He is fidgeting while smiling at me, his eyes never once leave mine and I think he's forgotten about my breasts. He is now laughing while gently shaking his bourbon on the rocks around with his middle left finger. Hey, he read my mind. I start laughing because it's funny, not in a knock knock joke kind of way but in a man from Nantucket kind of way. Who are we?
He leans in face to my face and I can smell the bourbon on his breath and I can see that his eyes are blue with black lining and I can smell his $100 a bottle of cologne that his wife purchased for him for father's day and I can feel his heart beating rapidly. God, I hate a good looking man when he's invading my privacy. "So...are you in or out?" He asks me.

i'm tired in my mind

that sound...they call music is comforting my loneliness
my eyes are awake to the movement in your voice
keep up the energy that covets you and i
i must be crazy to think this was the answer
the words that were used to talk to me assured
all doubt that i am more than a girl
i stare at you with admiration in my soul
you look back from that long walk out the door
i'm not dead inside
you're alive with confusion
this room is suffocating with it's white walls and open windows
baby, baby is the name you chose
like me, love me, leave me are the actions of the moment
i knew better than to keep that being they call child
deep down in my heart is where i crawl to die from that choice
your forgiveness is all i live for
i wait and wait and wait to hear those words that push me
into another thought without you
dance is another word for love
come with me to the other side and let's dance
you let go
and i'm forced to slip down the slide of pain
i'm okay, i'm alright, i'm still here
my feet are planted in this very spot so we are not far from one another
when you journey back look me up
i will always be on the lookout
for the password that will unlock the box that will release the secret
bella, bella, bella is your name for me
gone, gone, gone is my view of you
we'll meet again when oxygen is not needed
and days are not accountable
and moments are worthless
you and i are
tired in my mind
believe me when i say
i am not here, i not there i am mostly nowhere

i once knew a boy

we met 18 years ago he and i. we were friends so they tell us but he nor i have any recollection of meeting or conversing. we just met and quietly we walked through the halls holding in our opinions of each other and of the world. he was shy of his emotions, wicked smart of his brain and clean of all innocence. i was loud in my mouth, dreamy in my head and filthy in my heart. we had nothing in common or so i remember thinking or maybe we had more in common than we led on...we don't know and never will. high school ended and like good aquittances we parted ways. he chose to study the words of the books and i chose to study human nature by living life without student fees. years went by and not a word or contact from him or from me. i would wonder about him like a last minute thought that would flow in and out on a chaotic day. scramble scramble were my thoughts of, "what is he wearing today", "what color is his mood this evening?" "are we naked at the same time?" nothing substantial and nothing lost. i looked for him in the lost and found box on the internet once in awhile but never was he there. he wasn't lost in this world he was living his life, he was dating a girl, he was writing essays for graduate school, he was cursing at the tv screen when it wouldn't show his favorite pbs program, he was laughing at her jokes and sucking on her lips. he was there and i was here...i was walking through relationship after relationship looking for the answer i would eventually find in my soul. i was drowning my sorrow in the bottle of a beer somewhere in the middle of man's land. i was talking to babies that my sisters bore. i was laughing at my own jokes. i was cursing at god for the disease in my head. i was loving the fact that i had an entire life ahead of me to fuck up and redeem. we never made it that point to search the other one out. it wasn't in the cards for him or for me. and then one day as i was searching that lost and found box yet again on the internet, i found him. he was lost and needed to be claimed. i sat with my stomach in my throat...the smell of that high school hallway came flooding back to me and i returned to that girl from the other side of the tracks to his wholesome image. i couldn't let this pass me up. i didn't have the girlie guts then to say something to him but by god, i had the womanly balls to do it now. and i did. i wrote him a note asking if he remembered me and then i sat and waited for his delayed response. he managed to seperate the fact from fiction long enough to reply with one word "yes". i was in crush on a boy heaven. we filled our emails with words of lost time, with memories of what molded us into the woman and man we are today, with emotions of reuniting, with stories of that time long ago when football games were our friday night plans and completed science homework was our only obligation in life. we were polite and said things to each other like, "i want to share with you how i truly am but i'm afraid i'm going to offend you so...my apologies." we crossed our t's and dotted our i's with sensitvity. we made jokes at the expense of words. we urged each other to not hold back, bring it on we yelled. we talked and talked and once he quoted a poem that reminded him of me, beautiful as it was i will never know how he got me out of all that. i was happy, i was elated, i was smiling at the thought of him, i married him in my head and worked out the wedding details in my dreams. i was full of expectations and hopes and those things you feel when you want to know more of that person you can't stop consuming. i had given up on knowing that a man like him existed nevermind that he was into me, the girl with filth in her heart. he made a believer out of me, he made a date with me in the near future. he...he...he...changed. one day hidden in the future his demure changed. he stopped talking of emotions, he stopped talking of future dates, he stopped quoting me poems from that generation, he stopped rushing home to email me with fresh ideas, he stopped calling me by my first name and last initial, he stopped sharing with me the mistakes he made that ended that 12 year relationship with the other woman, he stopped smelling my perfume of loneliness through cyberspace, he stopped noticing that i was still wearing my wedding dress in hope of a shotgun wedding, he stopped. and now i'm standing still and more so...alone. i don't know where to go from here and the comforting words from those who claim to love me are deafening. i'm like an abused victim, i want to hear it from him. i don't know how far off into the future that day will come...i only know this. i know that i was honest and with my honesty comes confrontation. i know that i am more so me than he will be him. i know that the day isn't over and most of what is said is made up. i know that for me he was worth looking for and with that energy. i know that i once knew a boy.