Air and Anchors

I wish you were here. I miss you like a postponed inhalation. I need your warmth here beside me, reassuring me, telling me my fears are invalid, that I am not simply second best, my friend's runner up. I am in her shadow in many ways - I need my relationship with you to not be one of them.

I am terrified, like a child chained below water, fighting an anchor to have my next breath be air. I know that, in some way, you will always love her. She shaped you, like a stake guides the growth of a tree. But that part of you is now formed - it is no longer necessary for the stake to be there. You must let her go.

I'm not sure I can stay if you insist on keeping yourself tethered to her.

I don't know why you're not here tonight. Last night, you nuzzled close to me at the dinner table, ignoring our friends, and sighed about how much you missed me, that it had been too long. I exchanged a sardonic glance with her across the table. We could both read the body language of everyone around us, and could see your friend's defiance - "I slept with her, so what?" - and your guilty jealousy.

I want to believe that you missed me. I know it's more likely that you wanted to miss me, wanted to deny that you really missed her - even though you've spent the last nine months claiming to be in love with me. I hope hope hope that you really did miss me.

"I want to see you tomorrow," you said. "I don't care if it's not until late," you said. "Even if it's just for a few minutes," you said.

But now that she is gone, you are elsewhere.

If my prose hammers at your chest like a series of dangerous accusations, striking far too close to the truth for your comfort, I am not sure I am sorry.

When you and your friends parted ways from us last night, she and I made new friends to spend the evening with. I complained to them of how stifled I felt with you, bitter that I felt so consumed by you when you seemed to be feeding yourself to this expired, now out-of-circulation idea of my friend, your old flame.

I said semi-awful things aloud, but privately called to mind every reason I fell in love with you.

Your sweetness.

Your delight in puns, and the way you always call me "goofy" when I share one.

Your vaguely super-villainous laugh, the one you emit when something funny slowly soaks into your mind, gaining humor as it goes.

Your steady, calm tolerance when I'm going over the edge, losing my temper over small fish in small ponds.

Your eager willingness to discuss the brokenness of society's arbitrary sexual mores, and the way your eyebrows crunch toward your nose when you point out that same arbitrary brokenness in yourself.

Your desire to desire to have adventures, even as you sit on your couch to play the same old video games, and fall comfortably into worn routines.

I wonder if I will ever really be able to appreciate these things again. Because, my love, I need to talk to you, to ask you about my friend, your old flame. I need to see you, to have you bring it up, address it, say a eulogy for the situation and for your love for her. Then I will be able to smile, forgive you for leaving me uneasy, and continue on with you, indulging my love. The anchor will fall away from my ankle, and I will gulp in air with the appreciation of a girl who had almost accepted that she was going to drown.

But if you wait for me to bring it up, and then lie about your feelings, I will know. I will know that you did not miss me. I will know that, for you, I am second best, my friend's runner up. I will know that your stupid, impotent jealousy over her is more important to you than the past nine months, when you claimed to be in love with me. Worst of all, I will know that those semi-awful things I said to our new friends were true, and I will be forced to break my own heart as I break it off with you.

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.