I’ll Figure It Out, I Always Figure It Out. Why Not Now? What’s Wrong With Me?

What would she know about me? Me and the outsiders never spoken but a few words to each other.

She knows enough to ask for you by name. Your real name.

Who is this girl anyway?

She didn’t say. Just go talk to her and get her out of here. I don’t like her sniffing around the den like this.

If you don’t know her name can you at least tell me what she looks like?

She was a mousy little fuck, insisting I don’t take a message and she talk directly to you. Brown ratty hair, looked sick. Real puffy face.

Oh my god.

What?

It’s the girl from last week. The one I, almost robbed.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’ll take care of it.

Take care of it.

I just said that I would!

I mean it. I do not want to see her here again.

You won’t!

The truth is I have nothing worth writing about in me. I don’t connect with other people and that’s where good writing happens. I’m often in other people’s arms, I’m enwrapped in their laughter, but I don’t let them anywhere near me. I want so desparately to be loved as the mangled creature that I am but I’m too ashamed to show anybody my real face. So I hide it. And I make people laugh, I make them laugh so hard their sides hurt. And I feel the closest thing to love that someone like me can have. And I hope it is enough, because I don’t know how to have more than that and still feel safe. Maybe there isn’t a way. Maybe truly being loved is supposed to be scary. And I’m just a coward.

If I must abandon myself to earn their smiles, what are they worth to me anymore.

Taken by salt water taffy, bring me to the childhood I never had

Dirt bends into the maw of the mother’s wound, blood coldly trickling out of her, unhurried and luxuriant like vomiting molasses. She died by missile; its nose dove unflinching through her kitchen’s closed window and flung open the curtains and obliterated the walls like a dozen sledge hammers cracking concrete in cacophony. Dinner was not set to be served until 15 after 5 o clock; nobody waited at that table but her. Setting plates down on linen, forks and spoons down on napkins, face flat down on the broken checkered tile and a split where her ribs used to be. And so much dirt. She never would’ve allowed that, particular as she was about the dusting of the varnished oak wood and the shining of the tarnished silver, dying under such layers of soot would’ve killed her again if her eyes were ever to open. She must’ve died instantly, so instantly, that her body had time to give away its warmth as she lay bleeding slugs, for there was contentment on her face. Like she had just gotten the table setting the way she liked it, and she imagined the faces of her family sitting there none the wiser to the effort she put in to create their everyday fairy tale. But she knew. I’m glad that she knew just how wonderful she was, that particular anal persnickety woman whose home was mistaken for a terrorist’s.

I would let her put rods in my fingers and tie thin golden ropes around my wrists if it meant she’d smile at me. I’d make a good puppet, a very good puppet. And I don’t mind forgoing being her daughter, she never liked me very much that way. I make a much better puppet.

Why do they call my brother a genius, when he cannot comprehend kindness? When his tongue is tied in any conversation but his own?

Why is the emotional intellect of the women in the room discarded? So often shamed out of me any desire to share myself, my thoughts, upsetting my family feels like embers landing on every inch of skin searing me to silence. The boy gets to be a boy his entire life. The girl has to be a woman the moment he enters the room.

In another world, I am strong. And withstanding, and sure of myself. I pray she’s well, for I certainly am not.

My skin prickles with heat,

Dropping doves on laundry lines

My heart leaps hard against my ribs,

Shelving sonograms in my mind,

Oh dear. I am in love.

Shadows cast under noses, in sullen cheeks and eye sockets galore.

Highlights on the rims of sharp roses, with thorns that grow ceiling to floor.

Nothing quite so soft and unforgiving, as the woman that waits at your door.