Salvage

I can feel you falling away-
A broken empty slate,
Halfway erased -
Dimly showing the outlines
Of who you thought you were.
What's left?
What's usable?

Come home with me this time.
Forgive yourself this once
For the future you never had and cannot forfeit.
Come home.
Be at ease.
Recognize your face in the mirror,
Gaunt sunken cheeks
But eyes with fire left to burn.
Come home this time.

Answers aren't prescribed.
They aren't buried in a name.
They can't be written out in pencil,
Proof in the bottom line -
Only algebra's so simple.
Please don't blame yourself,
Lock the solution inside your head,
And tell me it cannot exist.

Come home this time.
Forgive yourself this once
For the future you never had -
You cannot forfeit.
Come home.
Be at ease.
Recognize your face in the mirror,
Gaunt sunken cheeks
But eyes with fire left to burn.

You're on the ledge and leaning forward -
The wind won't push you back,
Even as thin as you have gotten -
Gravity may win.
I'm far away and cannot reach you!
Please hear me now.

The battle's hard and it's far from over;
I know how tired you've been.
The answer's hiding somewhere,
But the solution can be found.

Come home with me this time.
Forgive yourself for once,
For the future you never had and cannot forfeit.
Come home.
Be at ease.
Recognize your face in the mirror,
Gaunt sunken cheeks
But eyes with fire left to burn.

Ask now:
What's left?
What's usable?

In Honor of My Three Year Anniversary with my Migraine

I've lived in this house forever, but there's a hole in the middle of the staircase.

It wasn't always there, of course, but now it is. It's been there for three years now. Exactly. To the day.

At first it was hard. I stood on the landing, on the stair just before where the steps had rotten away and fallen through. I was stumped. I could see the shadows of wooden teeth at the bottom, waiting for me to jump and fall and be chewed up and swallowed. So, I sat down. And I waited.

Eventually I worked up my nerve. There were things upstairs I desperately needed. I took a running leap, and managed to make it across, barely. My feet slipped out from under me, and for a moment, I slid, my feet dangling into the crevasse. But I caught hold of the railing, and pulled myself upright. My knees were weak and covered in carpet burn, but I'd made it. I was across.

After a while, I got comfortable. I leaped across the gap like it was nothing, like it was a lifelong fact, like that hole in the middle of the staircase had always been there.

There were even days when I could forget about it, even as I leaped over it.

But it's been three years. It is very, very hard to live for three years with a hole in the middle of the staircase, and to jump across a dangerous broken gap as easily and thoughtlessly as kids straddle the state lines at Carowinds.

Days started to come when I became tired. I would miss my footing as I jumped the break, and slide and nearly fall in, to be broken and ground to bits by the teeth below. They looked no less sharp for the passing of time. My knees were carpet burned, more and more frequently.

One day, I looked at the gap, backed up to make the running leap - and then stopped. I couldn't bring myself to try to cross.

The next day I managed the feat, but I was shaken. I was shaking.

More and more days came when I stared at the gap and shook and shivered, and eyed those foreboding teeth at the bottom. Were they coming closer? Were they becoming darker, more eager, impatiently gnashing at me with hunger?

Then came a week when I just couldn't jump. I couldn't do it. I sat on the landing below the break and I sobbed and I cried. I hated myself, cursed myself for being too weak or to afraid to try. I must've made it to the other side hundreds - thousands! - of times before. Why couldn't I do it now?

I've lived in this house forever, but there's a hole in the middle of the staircase.

I don't know if I will ever make it upstairs again.

Worse, I don't know if I will ever try to make it upstairs again.

~*~

"When my mom has migraines, it's like she disappears," he said wonderingly. "You don't do that."

You are silent.

How do you explain that you've already disappeared?

You are a shadow of what you could be. You're muted. You're like Metallica S&M played through crappy earbuds, tinny and cracking at the highs, with only the barest outlines of the melodies audible, with the harmonies completely indistinguishable. The music in all its grand subtlety is there, though, somewhere, but the vast majority is lost in translation.

Your migraine keeps the world from hearing your music in all its symphonic nuances.

How do you explain that you've already disappeared?

How do you tell him that it's only through sheer will - will that seems to be flagging - that you are not just like his mother when she has migraines, tucked up in bed, blankets thrown over the drawn curtains for good measure, staring at the wall and thinking in white noise?

You smile at him, lips tight.

"No," you say. "I'm used to it."

~*~

On a day she actually makes it to class, they are discussing the philosophies of St. Augustine.

She can't stand his writing. She summarizes it simply, through the lens of a post-feminist Witch: "Blah blah misogyny blah blah."

He hated women, he hated sex, and in a lot of ways, St. Augustine hated himself.

During the discussion, she observes that one section of The City of God seems to be about the trials of erectile dysfunction.

"He can't stand that there's a part of his body that he can't control." Her tone implies that he is silly for this, bearing the full weight of condescension that only hypocrisy can maneuver. The backlash of her tone startles her.

The discussion moves on, but she is thinking.

Minutes pass.

A pause. The other students seem to have run out of things to say about silly, dead, misogynist St. Augustine.

"You know," she muses, not really looking at anyone. "I kind of get it - why he would have thought that human bodies were the sources of all evil in the world. I mean, we live in a time of modern medicine. Largely, our bodies can keep up with our minds. But back then, they got sick - deadly sick or injured or crippled. To him, bodies must have seemed like prisons, like the only things keeping human beings from achieving their potential."

She glances up at her professor.

He gives her a long, sad look from behind his glasses, fidgets uncomfortably in his seat, and looks away.

She can't stand St. Augustine's writing, but maybe she understands a little bit of where he was coming from.

~*~

Visiting doctors seems to be an exercise in futility. I go, I sit in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs, I fill out the endless paperwork, I put in the phone calls to have records transferred. I go through the motions.

My mother seems to think that maybe they'll find something this time, that maybe since the last time we went to this type of doctor (allergist, neurologist, acupuncturist, etc.) they'll have discovered some new treatment. Or maybe, just maybe, they'll try something they've tried before, only this time it will work, because my body has changed.

My mother hopes.

I go through the motions. I go, sit in the waiting room chairs, fill out the endless paperwork, put in the phone calls to have records transferred, and I watch the new doctor as he talks at me, telling me about this migraine I've been living with for three years. I watch the doctor as he talks at me, and I pray simply:

"Please don't give me any more pills that do nothing and force me to become nothing. Please don't prescribe me out of living what little scraps of life I have left."

~*~

You don't get much sleep at night. It doesn't seem to matter how many pills you take.

You are so very, very tired. The world spins around you, and you are acutely aware of every pulse of pain in your head. You stare at your ceiling and make a game of ranking each individual pain spike.

"That one was a 4. That one was a 6. That - an 8. This - a 7. A 9. A 5. A 4. 4. 7. 8...."

You hope that you will wake up on time tomorrow. You hope that you will be able to get out of bed, get dressed, and go to class. You dare to hope that you will even feel good, and will be able to pay attention to class.

The clock marches on steadily. As the numbers begin to approach three AM, your hopes for the next day steadily diminish. You hope that you will be able to drag your sorry carcass out of bed at all.

You turn over onto your side. You shut your eyes. You try imagining that your boyfriend is curled up next to you, warm and reassuring.

Your fingers are cold. You press them to your temples. The relief is small, but it is, as you might have said during the stats class you took last semester (took, but never went to, and had the highest grade in the class before absences were factored in) statistically significant. The relief is statistically significant.

You turn onto your other side. You wonder, as you almost always do in the dark of the night when you can't sleep, alone with your migraine, how the hell you're going to be able to continue like this. This thought is familiar, like a childhood enemy who now works with you, whom you have to see everyday. 

How the hell are you going to live your life? What in the world are you going to be able to accomplish?

You remember what your AP Calculus teacher said. You'd been absent, out with the migraine, and had just returned to school.

"Your wits will get you by for now," she said, tone disdainful. "But what are you going to do after high school? College students who can't attend class are not successful. And if you have a job and can't show up for work, then you're going to be fired."

You know, staring at your wall in your college dorm room, exactly how right she was. 

It is not your boyfriend who curls up next to you, but your migraine.

When you finally fall asleep, it is only because you are too exhausted to do anything else.

When you wake up, you are still so very, very tired.

Moving On

Tonight slammed home all the ways that I have yet to drag myself beyond the corpse of our relationship. As the fiddle danced atop the box drum, I missed the sight of you whirling through the sawdust, feet bare and face shining red with exuberance. I even made the ultimate gaffe - I mentioned you in passing. And when they slowed the music, I felt your absence like a two-by-four to my midsection. I blinked away tears and left the conversation, because I knew I would not be able to succeed in the ruse of being "fine," and I had no desire to explain the situation to my company - I'm still trying to explain it to myself.

Silence, however, is not an option. I cannot be as a young girl and slam my hands over my lips, saying no evil even as it claws at my palms, drawing blood that tastes of burning copper on my tongue. I cannot hold my peace on this when I can no longer hold back my tears. (Although bravo to me for managing this long.)

I hate the way we ended, and I hate the way that it was necessary for us to end. You were by far the best I ever had, and are now the measuring stick that no one can match, stand on tiptoe though they may.

I have to move on, in a real way this time. Because I'd like to be able to see you whirling through the sawdust, feet bare and enabling you to fly. More, I'd like to be able to smile at the sight, knowing that we are both fine - no absence, no ruse, and no conspicuous corpse taking up room.

The Culture of Rape

There was a moment - a solid, shining, crystalline moment - when I could have delivered him a square kick in the balls. Everything was moving so quickly - it's really all just a blur - but that moment was slow and painfully logical. I remember being on the floor, him bent over me, hands on my wrists above my head, and I remember looking straight at his groin, wide open and exposed, and my foot just a few inches away, a clear shot. I remember understanding that he did not understand what he was in the process of doing, and that he was ignorant, a boy more than a man, and that I cared about him and did not want to hurt him, even as I could feel pain blossoming in my wrist beneath his fingers. Most of all, I remember that I could have knocked him back, sent him stumbling, articulated to him an even clearer message about my stance on his current activities - and in that solid, shining, crystalline moment, I decided not to.

I don't remember how it all started. I don't remember why he finally ended up stopping. I don't remember how I got back to my car. I don't remember how I got home. But I remember that moment, because at that point, someone could have told me that it was my fault, even more than it already seemed to be, and I might have actually believed that person for a minute or two.

I remember lying naked in bed, being awoken by a man looming over me, and feeling groggy and fuzzy as he nuzzled my neck. "Just go with it," he whispered. I remember I was tired, and I'd slept with him earlier, and I thought it would somehow be unfair if I said "no," at that point, that it would somehow be unreasonable to deny him. I remember that I did not want to send mixed signals, because that would be cruel, evil, bitchy, the worst of the worst.

I know I apologize when I don't want to go all the way, am quick to take the blame for getting a guy "all riled up," and then not being willing to release the energy with him. It is as though, just by being there, and being even partially agreeable, I have consented that anything that happens is somehow my fault, and that stopping the interaction at any point beyond that is somehow taboo. To kiss too deeply has become a promise, a contract that I will be made to feel that I have breached.

I remember that moment, and I tell men I get involved with that if I feel threatened, that if they are not listening, I will fight back. I tell them that I will not pull my punches, telling myself as much as I am telling them, thinking that since I provided a disclaimer, that since I warned them, that I will not hesitate when the time comes, that I will not feel guilty for defending myself. I warn them that no means no, and I quietly rage that I feel it is necessary to give them such a basic language lesson.

I feel the need to escape when men are too persistent in getting close to me on the dance floor. When they wrap their arms around me, and bump and grind against me, making me glad that I am wearing tights underneath my skirt, I have to resist the urge to violently throw myself from their hold, dashing myself against the freedom the music offers. Instead, I artfully twirl away, breath still hung up against the pulse jackrabbiting in my throat, and I prepare to slip out of the club if the same man corners me again. And I berate myself for my fear, because that's just how men dance at clubs - most don't know any other way. But their ignorance is dangerous - if we were in a bed, they'd never think of it as rape.

I tried to explain it to him, but to this day he does not understand. He refuses. He likes to think that he's grown from the experience, that because I left him and refused to see him or talk to him again, he's become a better person. But he cannot see it. He cannot comprehend why I was upset that night, why it seems that I cannot forgive him. He still thinks that I am holding a "pointless grudge" because he "accidentally sprained" my wrist. No does not mean no to him, is not simple, was invalid because I had just kissed him. No did not mean no to him because I was sending mixed signals, because I had that solid, shining, crystalline moment where I could have kicked him but didn't want to hurt him and so let the moment pass.

Never mind that I was squirming and screaming and doing whatever else I could to get away from him. Never mind that I was crying, that I don't remember how I managed to get home, only that my hands were trembling and every bump jostled my wrist and sent fresh pains down my arm. Never mind that there was so much that reminded me of him for weeks, that I just couldn't stand, see, do. Never mind that I was skittish around males for a good year following that night, couldn't let them touch my wrist, panicked if they kissed me too deeply. Never mind that I am still afraid, still having to deal with the aftermath, still feeling that it is somehow my fault, even though it's not. Never mind that he has permanently altered the way I relate to men, that he has done his best to transform me into a victim.

I am angry that I am afraid. I am pissed that I am apologetic. I am enraged that I feel obligated. I am furious that I feel even the tiniest shred of guilt for something that was never my fault, no matter what stupid things I did or didn't do leading up to it, because I shouldn't have had to go through that - he shouldn't have put me through that!

But this is our culture. We make villains out of victims and victims out of villains. We turn kisses into contracts, and condemn mixed signals as malicious. We encourage ignorance and take silence for consent. And worst of all, we normalize terrifying behavior, teach no other ways, so that if we were in a bed, they'd never think of it as rape.

Mourning

I'm finally alone here. The air conditioning hums in a monotone manner that invokes silence. I only know it's on because I can feel the cool air brushing across the side of my calf and tickling the back of my thigh, just above the crook of my knee. I feel it, a cold caress that reminds me of all the warmth I'm lacking.

Right now, it feels like everyone wants something from me - no one's affection is unconditional. Most want simple things, like sex, but a few want something more, something violent, something terrifying that I'm fairly certain that I am not willing to give, no matter the circumstances. But I'm finally alone here, away from their demands, reasonable and unreasonable alike, and I'm not entirely sure that I'm any better off.

I'm mourning, I suppose.

I remember waking up at two-thirty in the morning and wondering why everyone was so angry, because it was so loud and hot and burningly uncomfortable. Why couldn't everyone just be quiet? Maybe I fell asleep, but it seemed only a few minutes later that I wanted from beneath his arm draped over me, oppressive and asking far too much. I sought asylum in her cool, rich green, but even that did not quite match. I wandered off to explore. The boy on the couch was purple, simultaneously cool and hot, but he belonged to her. The man in the guest room was teal, soothing in ways that the others were not, but ultimately closed off. I did not think to question my discoveries until morning, until everyone wanted something again and I had to face it.

A few days later, a man handed me a tumbled hunk of carnelian, plucked from the sand, and smiled, knowing that it was mine. It felt warm and alive in my hand, familiar in a way that seemed utterly alien beneath his expectant gaze. What was mine - my expression, my words, my freedom, my magick - was suddenly being demanded from me - a wild tigress now expected to perform in a circus act. I am untrained, untamed, and I have no desire to jump through flaming hoops. But what else can you do when you find yourself caged?

The air conditioning has shut off. It's a little warmer now, but still chilly. My bare legs are icy to the touch. My phone buzzes against the bedspread, violating my solitude. I'm not really alone here, after all, and I realize that I don't want to deal with other people's demands. Everyone wants something, sees me as an opportunity, a resource rather than a person. No one wants to stop and recognize that I just can't be the endless well of understanding and affection right now, much less of power, too.

I am mourning.

I need to go underground.

To the Patron Saint of Lost Causes

I am the Queen
of Mixed Signals.
I have dancer's feet and swaying hips;
I am at home in unholy high heels
And darkened dance clubs call my name.

I play love like it's a game.

Like a spider,
I will draw you in by your weakness,
Disable you with pleasant poison,
Then cast your carcass,
            half-alive,
To the side -
And move on.

(They are never so sweet as I anticipate.)

I am the Queen
of Mixed Signals -
Of warm words between barbed kisses -
Of honey cut with vinegar -
Of parted lip smiles and pointed teeth -
Of romantic candlelight on an autopsy table.

I play love like it's a game.

To the (Potential) Villainess of My Life's Story

Don't you be that kind of barn owl!
Hooting at the reach of your lungs, stationary in the floodlight -
Who are you, really?

You smile as you open doors for strangers,
And glare as you saunter past friends -
Don't you be that kind of barn owl!

You unpack your heart like a whore one day,
The next, stand silent like a stone -
Who are you, really?

You let your barbs fly free, snap and twist,
Without regard for where or how they may land -
Don't you be that kind of barn owl!

How can you bubble over and curtsy in the streets
On your way home to sit still and blank in the dark?
Who are you, really?

Finding no resolution in your contradictions,
I'm not sure which version to believe.
Don't you be that kind of barn owl!
Who are you, really?

To Delilah, From Samson

I never see you anymore.
I look for you in doorways off the main drag,
Thinking I've spied the press of your hip
Against the frame,
But the shadows mock your attitude
          too well.

On Friday afternoons,
I stare out my window,
Ignoring my phone's insistent buzz
Informing me much less dangerous people
Want my attentions.
Instead of answering,
I search the muddy tides passing in the street,
Praying for eyes inked on bared shoulder blades
           to surface.

Sometimes, at one in the morning,
When the world is coming loose
From its moorings,
I'll turn too abruptly and fall.
As the bricks abrade my palms,
The distant clatter of high heels
I mistook for your savage laugh
           fades.

I remember you took me dancing.
Your fishnets were ripped,
Your lace miniskirt flashing red silk
At every turn -
You told a slavering man
It was purposeful.
We exchanged smirks over his shoulder
As you nibbled his neck.
I did not recognize the edgy emotion I pushed down
            as jealousy.

No, I never see you anymore.
It makes me nervous,
Like a crocodile in a river,
So busy eyeing horses along the banks,
He has only just realized
He has lost sight of the hippopotamus.

Salvation

This is a burning city.
Spires stretch for the sky,
gilded and ornate,
bells clanging to call in crowds,
boasting the architecture of "forever":
The people must be saved!
The steeples reach for an uncertain resurrection
as the floorboards dissipate into ash.

The city is consumed.
Evading the reek of charring flesh,
small secret spaces -
pockets of greenery hidden among
dusty carriage houses,
proudly molding mansions,
and crooked row houses -
quietly collect water:
Bloom, wither,
and bloom again.

Reflections

I feel you like I feel myself;
You are caught in me.
Touch your heart and you touch mine,
Reaching through a mirror.

Half my heart is on my sleeve;
You are missing half of yours.
Draw the line ---
Or simply break it.
Either stay or leave.

You feel me like you feel yourself;
I am caught in you.
Stop my heart and I stop yours,
Shattering a mirror.

Maybe

Maybe you know me -

Maybe you don't.

Maybe this could be something -

Maybe it won't.

Do I want this?

I'm not sure yet.

But let's not pretend

That patterns aren't ever-present

And play like the past

Can lose its resonance.

But for sure,

This experience is something 

I can't forget -

The past was once the present.

Infinite Recursion

Sine curves weave through calculus books,
Deriving into cosine arcs
Only to become sine curves
Once again -
"The sine curve is a circle over time."

The same swirling doodle stamps my notebooks,
Curling about the margins,
Inviting the tails of my g's and y's
To engage with it -
"Be a part of the circle."

Déjà vu imprints each day,
Whispering a litany of familiarity,
Noting down to even the barest
Trace of irony -
"Infinite recursion states life is a circle."

The same people wander through my life,
Demanding uncomfortable answers,
Sometimes receiving little more
Than passing acknowledgement -
"I want out of this circle."

Sine curves weave through calculus books,
Deriving into cosine arcs,
Only to become sine curves
Once again -
"The sine curve is the circle over time."

In the Darkness

The sun barrages the asphalt,
brightness hazing the black and greasy
stove-top parking lot.
The heat kills the breeze -
the collage of leaves in the distance
is still.

The students swarm between a line of buses,
laughing familiarly,
leaning on instrument cases
as they knock back huge jugs of water.
They sweat in the sunshine,
bared legs shiny with moisture,
salt and asphalt grime.

The girl hunches tight to herself,
heels pressed to thighs under long navy skirt,
back against a bus,
her thin slice of darkness
slowly receding.

She balances a notebook on her knee,
tongue caught between her teeth
as she slashes a pen across the gut of the page,
making it bleed with green ink,
and the hard possibility
of coming to light.

Birth of a Poem

Standing on the lip of a canyon -
The sunset spilling blood on the sand,
The bright, floating drops hot,
Like glitter fresh off a dancer's breasts -
Fortune caught my eye.

She winked,
Touched the tip of her tongue to the sharp edge of one fang,
Glided closer,
Pressed shivers into my neck
With a soft palm.

I felt her teeth graze my ear,
Her breath condensing on my skin
As she commanded in a whisper:
"Watch this."

She flitted away,
Bowed theatrically -
Laughing,
Kicked a drum set and a cymbal off a cliff.

Numbly, I pressed 'record,'
And listened to the air whistle
Before the punchline.

Poetry... HERE

I am going to start posting some of my more recent poetry here. None of the old stuff - just stuff I'm working on now or have written in the past year.

There are several reasons for this change in content policy: 1) AllPoetry, the site I've been using to host my poetry, has changed its posting policy in a way that is not conducive to how I wish to use the website. 2) Most of what I've been writing lately is poetry. 3) I've decided it doesn't really make any sense to make you go visit extra pages to see my poetry.

So, voila. Poems. There's going to be a whole glut of them posted after this point.

Enjoy. :)

Self-Destructive Musings Interrupted by a Phone Call

I wish I was lonely without you here. It'd be easier if I needed you that way. Instead, I'm sitting on my bed, hair sweat-soaked from dancing, one heel broken off, fearing my lack of attention span.

I try to convince myself that a week is just a really long day, and that if you called, we'd find plenty to say, and that not a word would be a lie, or even a half-truth. But I know that even though I didn't mean to, from the start I've been dishonest with you.

I warned you that first night we stayed up and talked that I was dangerous, but I don't think you believed me. You turned the hour glass over, and I sprawled on the couch as the sand rained down, counting the seconds before I pushed my identity underground. I became complacent, soft, a cat begging at your feet, only wanting your affection.

I stayed in when I'd normally go out, wore long skirts and boots instead of lace miniskirts and fuck-me heels. For you, I let my lingerie gather dust in a drawer, and forgot what it meant to walk into a room and glow. Uncharacteristically, I let you be the only man in my life, became a peninsula anchored to land only through you.

But that's not who I am. I've never been good at sitting still, and now that you're gone, I'm clawing my way out of the sand, gasping for breath and remembering. I play with hearts as if they're stuffed with catnip. I am a new Delilah, clad in lace with a taste for variety. I go out dancing, glow in the dark and capture gazes with my hips, and then come home with sweat-soaked hair and one heel broken off my shoes, drunk off the power and the strobe lights. This person doesn't need you, even as she wants you. As she tugs off her shoes, she muses that it would be easier to hold on if she were lonely without you.

Fairy Tale, Draft 5

"Holy screw monkeys in a stocking!"

"What happened?" Sarah called from the hotel bathroom, the clatter of makeup products being unpacked abruptly ceasing.

"My books!" I replied, fighting back the burbling edge of panic that was gathering forces for an attack on my throat. "My books are missing! Someone stole my books!" I wailed, collapsing on my knees before my suitcase, open on the far bed.

It was admittedly a rather melodramatic reaction.

"Oh, chill, 'Dia," my best friend responded, poking her head into the room. "No one stole your books, okay?"

"But they're gone," I insisted. I rocked back and forth, hands shaking in front of me. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. Normally, in such a state, I'd occupy them with holding a book, but that was, in this case, obviously not an option.

Sarah stared at me, unmoved by my hysterics.

"Yeah, uh-huh," she said, voice wry and flat. "Someone broke into your suitcase, which was locked underneath the bus, in order to steal your copy of Pride and Prejudice."

"Exactly!"

She shook her head slowly, her shoulder length red hair swishing with the motion.

"Kennedia, I know summing up situations in pithy little sayings is your deal, but you read too much and it has addled your brain."

"Has not-"

She continued over the beginnings of my protest.

"First off, all the other people on this trip are male. Even if they could get under the locked bus, dig your suitcase out from the bottom of the pile, open it, remove your books, then return your suitcase to its former position, unnoticed, all while the bus was constantly in motion, what are the chances they'd leave your corsets untouched? Not a single one of them wants your books. They don't even want to read them. Their principle occupation in literature is praying that they are never tested on a novel from the Victorian period, especially not a novel from the Victorian period written by a woman."

I paused, the stream of indignation and drama temporarily halted. She had a point.

Seeing that she was getting through to me, Sarah moved into the room and perched on the other bed.

"Furthermore," she went on, "this is supposed to be a social event. It's a conference, not a weekend of sitting in the corner with your nose in a book in between debates."

I grimaced, leaning back on my heels. The carpet ground beneath my toes, abrasive and cheap. I knew where she was going with this.

"So, really, it's a good thing that you don't have your books, which you merely left at home. Consider this an opportunity for learning and growth. No book means that you might actually have to talk to people."

Her lipsticked smirk seemed much too satisfied from my vantage point.

The vanguard of panic that I'd been holding off took advantage of that moment to rush into my throat, sealing off the passage. I could not breathe, let alone speak.

I rolled off my knees onto my side, using the slight force of the impact to jar my lungs into a squeaky exhalation.

Sarah's facial expression did not become any less smug.

My voice, when it came, was small and high, perhaps even a bit whiny.

"But I don't like talking to people."

People didn't like talking to me.

My best friend finally moved from her position on the bed, proffering a hand to help me off the floor.

"There, there, 'Dia," she said, hauling me to my feet. "You're good at talking when you forget to be self-conscious. You're a great debater, and I might go so far as to say that you should try your hand at drama club." Her tone took a dry twist as she patted me on the shoulder. "Besides, if you talk to them, people aren't going to eat you."

~*~

As I looked around the ballroom, my arms were crossed tightly across my stomach, the soft material of the dress I was wearing an unfamiliar sensation on my skin. Sarah had insisted that I looked great in it, and had refused to let me wear anything else.

Letter to Self

SD-

You're being ridiculous and melodramatic. Stop it.

Your life does not always run as smoothly as you'd like. You cannot always have it all.

Quit bitching and making more problems than actually exist.

You love him. It's scary, I know. This is what? The longest you've been in a relationship since you dated your best friend? It's been a long time since you've met anyone so amazing, and for someone who's used to moving on, that's hard.

But guess what, doll?

It's not falling apart this time.

It still thrills you just to get a text from him. It's still as though you never want evenings with him to end. It still makes you smile to think of him. It's still the case that he's the first person you want to talk to about all your big ideas. It's still him you want.

So, hush. This is not a problem. Focus your energy elsewhere.

Say, don't you have a research paper to write? Or a poem to compose? Or line-edits to do? Or a test to study for? Or groceries you have to buy? Or a resume to revise? Or a gym to go to? Or cookies to bake? Or dishes to wash?

Yeah, I think I've made my point.


- SD

Spare Minute or Sixty

Don't you sometimes wonder why we're doing all this?

We're both going through life like the other's a bonus, something to be squeezed in when we have a spare minute or sixty, something to be enjoyed and then forgotten about as we move on to more serious, more important affairs. And we pretend, because we've got that spare minute or sixty for each other, that this whole 'us' bit is a Priority.

But can you even imagine a future with me, five years down the line? I'll be in grad school, and you'll be who knows where, embroiled in research or in an underground bunker wearing your flat face as you consider a panel of gauges. And we're supposed to do what? Be married at that point? Have had a quiet church wedding that'll satisfy your parents but that I won't have believed a whit in? Go to church every Sunday, so I can think about the implications of Facebook for adolescent sexuality as I desperately try to ignore the sermon? Go home in the afternoons to our little apartment, where you'll immediately start on dinner and I'll retreat to my desk and ignore everything but schoolwork, including you and your food? Go to bed at night, where you'll briefly cuddle with me, and then wake up at 3:07 in the morning, wishing like a six year old about to blow out his birthday candles that you were sleeping alone?

We don't even have to go that far. How's this summer going to play out, do you think? At the very least, you're going to be two hours away, probably more. You'll text me every once in a while, tell me about some minor aspect of your day, and you won't call more than twice the entire summer. Mostly, I'll text you, silly sweet stuff like "I'm thinking of you," and when you don't answer, I'll eventually give up, and we'll go days without exchanging so much as an emoticon. And the entire time, I'll be here, meeting people and flirting the way I always flirt, but you'll seem farther and farther away, until I can't even remember the way that you smell, much less the mingled taste of scotch and dark chocolate as we kiss. I'll compare every single last male to you and find that they come up short, and I'll still wonder why all I'm doing is flirting, because I won't really have you, except as a single line on Facebook regarding my relationship status.

But in the meantime, in that spare minute or sixty, we wrap our arms around each other, taste the salt on the other's neck, and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist, and it is fabulous. I remember that night on the roof when we were dancing with the lightning, off a few miles, flashing all around us, and you leaned down and kissed me and I went up on relevée to meet you and closed my eyes - the entire world disappeared, and it was just you and me. It was just us. It was just your lips on mine. It was just my arms pressing into the fleece of your jacket. It was just the warmth of your hand on the back of my neck. It was just us. And then I opened my eyes and we broke the kiss and we both panted hard as we fought to catch our breath and leash it, and it was physically painful to look around and see that the clouds had moved in and there was an entire other world outside of us, and we had to go back to it. Immediately.

After every spare minute or sixty we manage for each other, we go our separate ways. You go back to your desk, to your computer, adding just a few more shades of depth to the purple beneath your eyes, and I go back to my empty bed, where I toss and turn and try to imagine that you're holding me so I can fall asleep, but since I can't quite picture it, I never really get there.

Maybe I'm ungrateful, or maybe I'm naive, or maybe I don't really have a heart - just an overactive imagination to make up for the lack. But I can't help but sometimes wonder why we're doing all this - is this what love's really like?

Sleepless Nights

They tell me that the days are getting longer, the weather's getting warmer, and those sleepless nights are not so cold.

I'm spending the late afternoon standing out in the rain, feeling water stream down my face. It's almost impossible to see the puddles among the bricks. The world is bright - shades of gray reflecting shades of white. As I ineffectually wipe the moisture from beneath my eyes, I wonder how it is that the storm beats the sunshine for light.

Haltingly, I proceed home, leaping from dry spot to dry spot, but still constantly getting wet. But even once I've gotten inside, the windows are still open, still waiting for the night.

The rain taps an arhythmic melody, keeping scattered time as the evening progresses, and I tug down the blinds. I snap on my desk lamp, invoking coziness, warmth - everything that cannot be found outside. I do not change my clothes, but shiver as I dry.

When the rain petters out, the last few drops pressing on like a runner's final gasping strides, it's midnight. Sighing, I change clothes, crawl into bed, cut off the light. They tell me that the days are getting longer, the weather's getting warmer, and those sleepless nights are not so cold. They tell me, but I snuggle up to empty air and wonder how you're wasting your warmth tonight.

Back Up on Blog Auditions

For those of you who have sent me blog auditions in the past three weeks, I'd like to apologize for the lack of response. I've been seriously busy lately. I suppose 21+ credit hours can do that to a person.

Anyhoo, you have not been forgotten, you are not being ignored, and I am (slowly but definitely) getting to critiquing blog auditions, giving every audition the time and attention to detail that it is due.

Some notes to remember, however:

* Please, please use proper spelling and capitalization as much as possible, at least to the point where if you break any rules, it's obviously very intentional.

* The pieces for blog auditions should be complete, not excerpts of larger works. When judging blog auditions, I need to know that you have a certain attention to structure and can tie stories or vignettes into a whole. It does me no good to see that you can start a piece.

* For maximum impact, if one of your pieces is an expository work (ie, primarily telling the reader something), make the other piece a narrative work (ie, primarily showing the reader something). While submitting two expository works will not necessarily knock you out of the running, it does make it a tad more difficult for me to judge whether or not your style is compatible with this blog. When uncertain, I am far more likely to say no than I am to say yes.

* Please remember to include an email address at the bottom of your blog audition, beneath your moniker. This serves two purposes: it tells me you can follow directions and let's me keep a running list of those who have auditioned. If you fail to include an email address at the bottom of your blog audition, no matter how redundant it may seem to you to do so, then your audition will be discarded without any further ado. I've already had to do this for several auditions. If you think your auditions may have been one of these, please rectify the issue and send it again.



All this information will be updated on the "Want to Write With Me?" page in short order, and you can look to see your critiques back in the next couple weeks.

Throwing the Canon Overboard

I am not a literature person.

Theoretically, I should be. I love books, I love to read, I love to write, and I love to appreciate good writing. But damn, I'm an English major, if that tells you anything.

But I just don't enjoy literature.

One of my professors loves to emphasize the pleasure of the literary canon. He describes the thrill of reading a story with the knowledge that thousands, tens of thousands of others have read it before you, the low hum of satisfaction in finding meaning in it, a meaning fractionally shared with that multiplicity of other people.

I've never felt that with the literary canon myself.

I pick up a book from the literary canon and I get through it, annoyed all the way, and wanting to brutally murder the narrator with a tea kettle by the end. For what I can gather, the main feature of canonical literature is a whiny-ass main character. Hamlet, Winston, Bernard, Frankenstein, Heathcliff.... Allow me to use my mastery of the English language to paraphrase these characters: "Bitch bitch bitch."

I'll grant that I enjoyed A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and while I can't say I took pleasure in A Confederacy of Dunces, I did appreciate the masterful use of satire and footnotes (I really loved the wonderful break from Ignatius that the footnotes offered). And after spending a month researching paganism in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I finally developed a sort of begrudging respect for the work.

But, on the whole, I don't really enjoy those texts that are typically defined as literature.

Listening to my professor describe the buzz one derives from literature, I realize that I have felt it before - while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And again, while streaming Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. And yet again, when I was tearing through the series Firefly, and later the film Serenity. I've felt it while watching Amélie for the six-billionth time, and when I was first introduced to Dr. Who, and How I Met Your Mother. I experienced it when I first discovered Anne McCaffrey's sci-fi/fantasy vision of Pern way back in elementary school, and when I took the time to peruse my first Draco/Hermione fanfic. The thrill of reading raced through my system when my best friend loaned me a few short novels by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, and again when I plucked Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking off a bookstore shelf. I spent hours poring over Christopher Moore's re-interpretation of King Lear, although I believe the power of the play to be greatly lost with Fool's very altered ending. Sarah Dessen's Just Listen continues to fascinate me, six years after I first laid hands on it.

Make no mistake. I've felt the "inherent pleasure" of literature. I've found the critical processes of English to be deeply beneficial, even natural, to me - when applying those methods to just about anything other than the standard canon. Literary criticism and analysis focused on Buffy are the main component of my "for fun" reading (I can't decide if Rhonda Wilcox or Joss Whedon is my biggest hero), and I frequently find myself drafting a mini-analysis for just about any text that crosses my interest. I love being an English major.

But I am not a literature person.


Well, not unless you'll let me throw the canon overboard.

Videre

The carpet was soft, freshly vacuumed and smelling of the clean sheets on the nearby bed.

Nervous, I attempted to raise my head.

"Get down!" she hissed, tugging at my hand. "There are too many windows! The Hunters will get you!"

I rolled my eyes and settled in beside her. The afternoon sunlight washed past the crevice between her lavender walls and her bed, painting her delicate bedspread with the pale golden-white of spring.

This was not how I'd intended to spend my Saturday.

"Okay, go," my friend whispered, crawling past me, grabbing a painted stick of bamboo from beneath her mattress.

I followed her, indulging her latest fantasy. The girl was a master at playing pretend; at times I wondered if she confused her constructs for reality.

She held out a hand, demanding pause, as we neared one of her many bookshelves. The bottom rung of this one held a thesaurus, various books on espionage, and two non-fiction volumes on Lord of the Rings: one on the films, the other on weaponry.

"Shhh!" she admonished me. "I think I hear something!"

"What?" I asked, confused. I  certainly didn't hear anything.

"A tapping," she enunciated, articulating the two words with all her three years of drama camp.

"Huh?"

"They're shooting arrows at us!" Her eyes went wide with excitement and the simulation of panic. "Take cover!"

As though crouching on her floor to avoid the two walls of windows were not enough to protect us from the imaginary attack.

She leaped to her feet and pressed herself between the tall keyboard and the shelf, narrowly missing the windowpane.

I stood more slowly, feeling the pale green carpet grind against my toes. I didn't bother to avoid the window, instead leaning over the keyboard to peer into the front yard. The puff paint and the keys it decorated were a series of cool bumps under my palm, giving with clicks of protest.

The only things moving in the yard were the magnolia leaves as the wind scattered them on the lawn.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, words rolling out high and fast. "Don't be stupid!"

I ignored her, moving over to sit in the desk chair. The padding was thin, and I could feel the cardboard beneath the upholstery rub against my tailbone.

"He-ey!" came her whine of protest.

"There's nothing there, 'Lyta!" I exclaimed in exasperation, tracing my fingers through the pencil shavings that coated her desk, sending the scent of cut wood spiraling into the room.

For a moment, there was only the air-conditioner's hum to prevent silence.

The bed squeaked a little as she settled next to her pillows, pushing a stuffed animal out of the way as she set down her decorated bamboo stick.

"You're no fun," she complained.

I shrugged.

"We can't all live in fantasy."