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| That was one of the drawbacks of living in a state so large-- the cohesiveness of it. All the people had was some pervasive feeling of reverence that had endured from the days when settlers lived and died at the mercy of the land. Even though it may have seemed that the city had conquered, one only had to drive an hour in any direction to witness that this country could still be brutal and unforgiving. The lingering and uneasy respect for the land was all that united us. There were many times when I spoke directly with another statesman and felt alienated from their descriptions. The place I was born and raised was all that I had known and yet there were others who spoke of forests and coastlines, drug cartels and deserts. How was this possible?
That was the problem, she thought. How could you have state pride if there was no shared experience? How could you even really call it a state at all? She crossed her arms and pulled the collar of her coat closer to her face as the wind whipped her hair into ropes around her face. Her eyes watered as she leaned closer into a cigarette. Perhaps the others could find common ground and map out some sort of collective identity but they would never know what it was like up on the plateau. This land was the harshest of it all-- the most isolated, the loneliest. Plateaus aren't like mountains, they don't form. They were already here when the glaciers and floods came and mapped out a new terrain, moving like a melting ice cube across a kitchen counter. The plateaus are what's left. Nothing grows here and the dirt has nothing to hold it down so when the wind comes, the air is gritty with soil. The winters are much colder and the summers too hot to bear. It it a land continually exposed to the forces and its people persevere. Perhaps that was what united the peoples of this sprawling state: they had always persevered. | | |
| Katelyn.  that sounds awful. I know exactly what it's like to feel used/ be used by someone you're in love with. And I know what it's like to let it keep happening even when you know exactly what's going on, just because you can't help it. It's like you can use all the logic in the world to tell yourself not to do it, but in the end your feelings win over because they're so much stronger than rationality. And you can't help but hope that the other person is going to change, because you're sure about how good it could be once they do. But I'm still really sorry- some of the worst moments of my life happened when I was coming to that realization over and over and over again with Rachel in the beginning. I felt unbelievably unattractive, unbelievably stupid, really confused. The lowest of self-esteem levels. Just feeling lonely and shitty and like nothing could help, except music of course. Music always helps me anyways.
There are a few things that I can say to try to help with this, though. Remember that the emotions that you feel for him are not something that you can control , despite how awful it is that they lead you into that kinda situation. Also remember that it's entirely his loss, since you're definitely the absolute best. I know that other people telling you how great you are doesn't always help in these situations. But you really are the smartest person I know, even if this makes you feel stupid and emotionally masochistic. And you really could have your pick of the dudes at Southwestern if you wanted it. This has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with him. His issues, his selfishness, his pride. But it's entirely his loss. Entirely. Unfortunately, I know hearing that doesn't help too much, since feeling used is about the most degrading feeling in the world. I used to beat myself up over this shit all the time. I cried myself to sleep for weeks sometimes over Rachel. But try not to lose your sense of self-respect in all of this. Humility is already in your nature- try not to let it turn into self-deprication over this.
I know what it's like to have zero self-esteem though, love. I just want to reiterate that you have no reason to doubt yourself. You're far too wonderful and loving for that. - I have the most beautiful and supportive friends in the world, and for now, that is enough. | | |
| I love that you love the sometimes sapphic calla lily between my thighs
and that you allow your spine to be the railroad down which my lips can travel freely | | |
| Dizzy crawl like two
hobo prophets,
the low-slink street sound
running like a pack of wild dogs.
Uptight policeman gives you
the shakedown for your shakes
like some Burroughs-style fuck up.
A dance in the key of death;
you move jerkily
broken up wash machine
king of the streets.
Like some gasoline rainbow,
online degree in street-walking lingo,
Asian enough to feed the fetish-
bukkake women
looking like baby birds.
Chauntelle's fine leathers closed against the cold;
boarded up windows mean
the cows get to keep their coats.
All the city people
slide by with dark eyes
while the suburbanites hide in their churches.
We get high and
lean into our cigarettes
pulling the orbs of contained smolder
closer to our fingertips.
Down on St. Lucian,
the trannies huddle around their trashcan fire-
tribal amputees from the cult of Lou Reed.
You peer out the window
and turn to me,
"You know why they have parties with beautiful women and booze at night?
Because it would be foolish to waste the moon."
Keep bringing that orb closer to me;
fill me up with your heat.
Invocation of a faithless nation
doing the dog-day song and dance.
A sensual dance with an eight-ball-
we feel like we can touch the quick
of some proverbial fingernail.
I may look like a lady
but so did Bonnie and she robbed banks like a hot goddamn.
This is AMERICA
where we all build relics to
Saint Laundry,
the patron saint of coming clean.
Gas station attendant
investing her savings in the abortion business.
Says its going to boom
sometime soon
cracks her gum with hot tongue.
First-time users try to get their fix
like buying Thin Mints,
almost heartbreaking to shatter
that Girl Scout naivety,
but if there weren't junkies
and pretty girls with daddy issues
who would give uncle Ron his lap dances?
because God knows he's easier to handle
post-ejaculation.
Invocation of one-such ejaculation
doing that back alley song and dance.
Pretty young thing does it for the touch,
needs to be scratched at,
like some hard-to-reach throat tingle.
So she gets down like Brown Bunny,
a downtown Jessica Rabbit.
A deep-down rumble in our concrete jungle.
I pledge allegiance to a place to sleep.
MY AMERICA,
a dance in the key of death.
| | |
| A Story About Nothing.
for Zac, who tells me the words will come back when I am ready.
We were too late to catch the bus.
We split the six brown bottles between us, popping the caps off with a jab of the wrist. You had come from the darkened street into the half-glow of the city lamps that lit the sidewalks and put a hand to your mouth, yelling my name and tossing smooth stones up to hit my window panes. I had left the windows open because the fan wasn't enough on these summer nights that coated me in a sheen of dew gloss. I would only learn that leaving the windows open made it worse when Kate stormed in my room one afternoon and jerked the windows shut, preaching how it threw the air conditioner all out of tune and left the whole house as unilaterally balmy inside as it was outside.
The stones you threw at my windows came into the room and landed on the floor behind me. I sat, legs crossed, painting my face with the burgundy lipstick of my mothers I had found before I left home. I knew the lipstick couldn't be described as attractive. The dark smear across my face was garish but comforting, and I felt balanced when I wore it. My face was all crowded like a sedan backseat, two owlish orbs gleaming wetly from beneath two black brows pressed together. My eyes faded into a non-existent chin and a pale mouth, too small and rarely used. The wine stain lipstick left smears of oil across glasses and cigarette butts, proof of a mouth used. Your rocks landed like coins in a wishing fountain, and I slipped on my skirt and slid to the window. I could see your half-lit face and pressed collar in the darkness. I swung the window shut and walked out the door, past the bathroom, and down the stairs.
Outside you sat on the front porch, pulling on a cigarette, leaning on a moldy old deck chair. "Beer?" and like a bird with feathers ruffled I sat, smoothing my skirt beneath me, and taking the bottle from your outstretched arm. You had gotten my favorite kind, the cheap brew with gaily colored labels. I had gone out to bars all summer under the guise of added years, and ordered only Session Lager in its stunted little bottles and Stella Artois. I would sit, sipping, and feeling entirely despondent in a very pretty way, like some daughter of Daisy Buchanan. I had given away my true self when you had spotted me leaving one of the glimmering dives I had frequented. As I stood alternately fixing the heel strap on one of my pumps and hailing a taxi, you walked over and muscled a cab from the throngs of liquid street noise. You offered a ride home on the premise that you were going the same direction. When we arrived you gave me your arm since I was still a bit bubbly from the sweet Belgian beers and pop music and we walked upstairs to my small apartment room. I opened the door, and framed by the light, said goodnight politely. You peered around me and into the living space. The empty bottles of cheap beer with their bright labels and cartooned figures huddled in packs on my nightstand and desk, many coated with gray snow of cigarette ash at the bottom. "Shock Top. Hm. Reminds me of school." You'd said, stuffing your hands in your pants pockets with a smile. "Yes, well, goodnight." I shut the door and gathered up the bottles with flushed cheeks, throwing them away in the bin.
Now you'd had the gall to appear with this secret beer on my porch, after calling me up and asking to take me out to a new dive bar on the edge of east sixth. After two drinks on the porch I felt more forgiving, letting the orange and lemon peel slide into my stomach and make my shoulders sag. After three apiece, we got to our feet and made our way from the porch onto the sidewalk and out into the city. The bus stop was only four blocks away and my small stature traipsed behind your long and lanky legs.
We waited on the bench for the bus and watched the city go by, honking and stopping and hurrying along again. An Asian girl, young, closer to my age than yours, sat down on the bench with a guitar strapped to her back. You checked your watch and swore under your breath; "Damn. It's too late to catch the last bus downtown." The Asian girl spoke up and said she was playing a gig, and asked if we wanted to split a taxi three ways. We agreed and caught a cab at the corner. We all shuffled into the back seat and directed the driver to the east 600 block. The Asian girl unzipped her guitar and hummed softly while she gently played. Still swimming in the bright citrus of gift beer, I laid my head against your shoulder and closed my eyes. We pulled up and split the fare, peeling fives and ones from wallets and pockets. You saluted the girl with the guitar and said, "Cheers," in your young boy way and we split in opposite directions.
The bar sat underneath an old movie marquee stripped of letters, and I liked this. An unshaven man sitting at a podium took our IDs, yours real and mine borrowed, and sleepily beckoned us in. It always surprised me that the ID was so readily accepted, since the friend in it was Middle Eastern and much darker than I was. You inched between occupied stools and opened a tab, motioning to a table. I sat down and fingered the drink specials. The bar was beautiful, faux -marble with small chandeliers hung above it. Lit from underneath, the faces of the bartender and the patrons who leaned in close all shone like ghosts, floating on frozen puddles of spilled cocktail. A girl stopped briefly to take our order and came back with two drinks on a tray. I sipped my Tom Collins with a straw out of its cut glass tumbler. "My father always used to drink Tom Collins. I remember that about him." I said as I stared into my drink. "Odd the things you remember." With a half smile, I ran an ice cube over and under my tongue. You lit another cigarette and exhaled with an upward tilt of your head. We order absinthe next, filtering the cups through sugar cubes to sweeten the bitter root taste. After two more drinks you hailed the waitress in the same way you hailed the cabs we spent so much money riding around this town in. You payed in cash on the table and helped me from my chair. "Would you like to see my apartment?" you asked. I know this is an invitation to sleep with you, but I also know that I will not sleep with you, not ever. "Okay." "It isn't far from here. Should we walk?"
The night air is brisk and clear. Sidewalks bustle with people moving like atoms, bumping into one another only to move around and bump again. The late migration of minds is in season, and the sky is filled with luminescent brains, clear but softly glowing as they float on the wind like jelly-fish in flight. Some get caught in bare tree branches, their thin tissue snagging as they flapped like plastic bags. I realize that I am caught in my imagination when you lightly touch my shoulder to lead me across a street. "What are you doing up there?" you ask, pointing to my head. "Nothing," I respond, smiling. How lucky we are, you and I, to have caught two minds in these flesh sacks. Out of the billions of chances, we happen to be here, in the same place, in the same time. It would have been so easy to be thrown away in a kleenex or swallowed in a porno flick. Across from your house, a gas station stands like a safe haven in the night, promising its comforts to the sleepless. I want to go inside and finger the rows of Slim Jims and lean my cheek against the cool glass doors. We make our way to your apartment building instead and you unlock the door.
Inside, you have no furniture apart from a fridge and a single chair. "Yeah, sorry, I just moved my bedroom furniture over, so it's a bit bare." You feel the need to apologize even though I didn't say anything. You are embarrassed because you do not own furniture, like this is a meter I will measure you with. No television, no sex. You are so human in this moment, with your apologies, and I love you for it. You take two beers out of the fridge and hand me one. Our night does not consist of drinking and not drinking. We feed like fish in a tank, wrapping our lips around the tops of bottles and the rims of glasses. Like Alice, we must drink from the brown bottles to be smaller again after the green liquid has made us so large. I take out my cigarettes and we go back outside to the concrete stoop in front of your door. "I've forgotten my lighter, do you have one on you?" I ask coyly. "No, I just use matches. Here." You toss me a booklet of bar matches from El Diablos. I wonder who you were with, what you were drinking. I break a match off gently and strike it against the concrete. Matches have always made me feel more beautiful than I am, holding a fragile trinket of flame to the tip of my cigarette. We smoke in silence, sipping our beers, and I look around. You building is built in a square, with a small courtyard in the middle. It looks like a Motel 6, the same one my family would stay in on vacations as a girl. I can't imagine coming home from work each day to this concrete slab. It suddenly makes me immensely sad and I feel sick to my stomach from the weight it all. Your anthill, this three story compound with some name like Naturewood Falls or Riversound Villa. I hate it so intensely that it makes me nauseous. I ask you to take me home, and you are caught by surprise. I say I have a migraine, and apologize. The ride home is quiet, and I do not try to make conversation. It is not that I do not love you, it is that I do not exist, and I will not call you again.
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