Kylie hands me a sparkling, white pill and asks, Can you keep up? The fabric of reality, so sheer she can slice it with her dagger nails. We sit semi circled around the marbled table to eat our lunch. We sit quietly, taking a full five minutes to shake the shit out of our salads. So guys, Kim says. We need to talk about mom. I’m thinking that we should like, totally throw her a party because she lost five pounds. Khloe passes down the double-chin exerciser to me, the anchor of the relay. She says, Here, it’s your turn now. I’ve had one in my Amazon cart for three weeks. Kim tells me, You know, I know the most amazing doctor and he could, like, suck out the fat from your jaw line and totally inject it into your ass. I tell her, If I were going to do something like that, I would take it from boobs, Kim says, Oh my God I know, your tits are huge! We all laugh. Kris pours us white wine for breakfast. We sit outside to watch the sunrise. It’s 72 degrees and Kris says she is cold. I grab her a fur blanket. We sip our breakfast while her BlackBerry buzzes next to her iPhone. The doorbell rings. Kris asks me to get it. The security guard hands me a pre-inspected and approved package. Inside of the box, there is another box. Prettier. Velvet. Vuitton. As a gift, Kris has bought LV facemasks for everyone. Custom made, and collectively could pay off my student loan debt. After everyone complains that they wanted a different luxury brand, we prepare for a photo-op. I say, You don’t even leave the house. Khloe says, that’s not the point. We want to support wearing masks to the general public. Use our platform. Whenever Kourtney feels like crying she meditates at the far end of the yard. The thing that we have in common is we are both the oldest child. I tell them about the protests how we lay on the road for eight and a half minutes, cheek to concrete, hands behind our backs. I tell them that each time we’ve done this I cry. Kendall says, So, wait, like you actually lay in the street? Like where the cars drive? Yes, I say. Kim swipes through snapchat filters until she finds one that makes her chin even skinnier and her eyelashes longer. She says, I’m sorry but I wouldn’t do that. Like, my Yeezys are brand new. Kylie turns her glossy eyes to Kim and says, Yeah, there’s like cigarette butts in the street. I wouldn’t do that either, Kim. Kourtney’s vocal fry buzzes through the chatter, Kim, there’s people that are dying. Then she returns to her meditation corner along the thousand-something-dollar glass wall. You know what’s been so crazy, Kim says. Is I’ve been having, like, anxiety lately. She sits in her designer sweatpants reading TMZ while I coat Kourtney’s face in foundation. The hue is lighter than her skin tone and thick. Liquid prosthetic. Why? I ask Kim. I look back down, foundation turning facemask. Green. Gooey. I’ve gotten it in her hair. I’m sorry, I say. Kourt says, It’s okay. I didn’t really want to go out today anyways. I’ve corrected her grammar about the S at the end of anyway, but it never sticks. I’ve been hiding the pills between my lips and gums. When I agree to do an Ancestry DNA test with Khloe, she laughs, I literally thought you got botched lip injections. The pills scatter across the floor. She hands me a little pink pill and winks, These are better. The house feels alive when the windows are open. Kim tells me to close them because, Why would I pay to have this whole place air conditioned if you’re just going to open the windows? I say, Why would you put windows that open in your home if you never intend to open them? Kim takes this to heart. She sneaks around me for three to five years hiding blueprints and timberland boots. After the three-to-five-year period is up she brings me to her new house made mostly of marble, featuring windows that do not open. Kourt, Khloe, and Kendall go to the next protest with me. Sporting their LV masks. It took convincing because, You aren’t famous. You wouldn’t get it. Kendall refuses to lay down on the pavement. She throws a fit. Storms off. The camera crews follow her because this will make a good scene for the next season. I cry again, like I did before.
Tag: poetry
Cigarettes
I run my thumb over the wheel of the lighter, catching the nearly unnoticeable notches of my fingerprint in the silver ridges. The cigarette dangles from between my dry lips. Unlit menthol toxins flirt with my olfactory bulb, flipping the switch like a light. I can feel the tip becoming soggy. Light me, it dares.
So I do.
Cli— click, whoosh.
The orange cherry bursts to life. I inhale deeply, letting the familiar chemicals fill the empty spaces inside of me. A gentle burn trails down my throat. I imagine the smoke swirling within my corrupted lungs, adding to the thick charcoal wall that cases them. I release my head, shut eyes to the sky that I envision above me. Darkness. Soft glow of the city not so far away. Sirens. Car horns.
Exhale.
I remember my days as a young girl in the midwest. A night like this would be captured in a different light. No light. Just the stars that shine from a million miles away and a single street lamp . The rattle of unknown creatures scampering in the brush. Cicadas humming a tune to the heavy summer air. Crickets and frogs chirping back and forth, communicating a language that humans have assumed onto them. Fireflies dancing in the distance. Dew accumulating in the soft, lush grass. A light breeze awakening a tired soul.
I lift the cigarette to my cracked lips.
Inhale.
Something brushes up against me and catches me off guard. I snap my head to the left— it’s a young man hurrying down the fire escape. Relief floods over me. I nervously look around. The metal of the stairs digs into my tender skin and I quickly wonder why it’s even worth it to crawl out of my window for five minutes of vulnerability for a cigarette.
Exhale.
Flick.
The ash tumbles down half of a flight, falling through the holes in the stairs, barely catching the stranger I just encountered. My body shudders at the thought of him. Silent, fleeting. A tear stripes my cheek with wetness. I wipe it away with my tattered sleeve.
Inhale.
The almighty tobacco buzz creeps to my head now, numbing my brain. Don’t think so hard, the smoke echoes in my mind. The tears continue. I glance downward and see the man from the stairs hit the pavement. A girl runs up to his side, a graceful collision, and he holds her almost as if he thought that he might never get to do so again.
It must be nice to live in a relationship without fear. To not have a constant shadow of the past lurking around every corner, waiting to jump out at you with teeth bared, snarling. Look at me, it demands.
Exhale.
I watch the smoke roll over itself in the glow of the street lamps until it is just another piece of the negative space. I notice that I’m shaking, I slam my sweaty palm to my forehead.
I have always hated the term “fucking”. It sounds dirty, emotionless. Even when there is no love present there are still feelings— although I’ve only ever experienced displeasure and disconnect.
Even through the hatred and animosity I have towards the men that use me, I continue to make broken love to them. Giving myself away like a box of free kittens. One after another, I tell myself that I don’t deserve this. But it’s hard to keep that mentality. After all this time I have just become so desensitized to it all. I’m like a puppet being controlled by the terrors of my past.
Inhale.
Short exhale.
Inhale.
Any shrink would categorize me quicker than I could get the first sentence out. They would open to the “Managing Sexually Abused Patients” chapter of the diagnosis manual and spit out text book explanations as to why I have these “symptoms” of self loathing feelings, why I sleep with any man that shows interest, why I can’t find security within myself. Then they would use their ball point pen to write me off a prescription that is just as slimy as their morals. Pills. Pills are the answer.
Exhale.
Flick.
Inhale.
I bounce my legs fast. I look down at my stained hightop sneakers. A little piece of ash sits upon the rubber toe.
There is no chance of me finding someone who can put me back together, I’ve been knocked off of the wall far too many times. It’s a miracle there are still pieces of me at all. Shattered glass still sparkles, but if you get too close you’ll bleed.
Exhale.
I smash the fragile cigarette to the dull brick wall, kick the ash from my shoe, and climb back through the window of my apartment praying for the strength to make it through just one more day.
4:42 AM
I was dreaming of war, something that I didn’t do often. Now, I have never killed anyone. Not even in a dream. But, I found myself with a gun to a stranger’s chest and an increased heart rate reminding me that I needed to make a decision.
How does someone who absolutely detests violence come to be dreaming about being a soldier?
I tried to reason with myself and the others around me. “Kill her,” her own brothers even said. It seemed to be that I was the only one who was really debating sparing her. Tears began to stream down my face. I knew that I had a job to protect the woman that everyone was shooting at, amazing how she hadn’t been shot already.
I also knew that if I let this soldier live, she would just go back to doing the same thing. And it would show the other soldiers that I wasn’t, in fact, cut out for this. We would probably wind up in a similar situation down the road. Having so much power over another’s life terrified me beyond a point of reason.
I will never know what my dream self did, because I awoke to a sun barely rising on a foggy Thursday morning. 4:42 AM. The heat of the June night would soon evolve to a greater humidity when the sun crept up over the full tree line.
I rolled over in the gray tangle of sheets that I had created in the night. I rubbed my eyes so hard that I began to see stars in my head. I breathed in two deep breaths before hitting my feet to the carpet.
My rheumatic legs began to wake up when I walked over to the windows that dripped with perspiration. I looked out into the distance only to find fog and a dark blue sky with an amber ombre beginning. Everything looked so peaceful. Birds chirping came into my ears. I felt a small comfort in my hollow heart, knowing that my reality wasn’t how it seemed to be in my dream.
Tiny bumps arose on my bare skin, reminding me of the warm bed I had abandoned. I crept away from the window to wrap up alone in a bed for two. I found no solace when the bed had gone cold so quickly.
I hoped to dream of a time when there would be someone to keep the blankets heated when I got up for a moment in the night, or someone to hold me when I dreamt about a war I did not want to fight in.
I closed my eyes and tried to beat the rising sun with sleep. With another deep breath, I was quickly falling back to unconsciousness.
“Write hard and clear about what hurts.” – Ernest Hemingway
It’s difficult to go to bed only wrapped in emotions. I miss being tucked in with safe arms.
I wake up to cold, drowsy mornings, still intoxicated with sleep, and I remember how nice it was to be slightly too warm when I opened my eyes and saw your beating chest, tangled up in worn out sheets.
I’m so tired of hearing myself cry the things that I wish I would have said.
Daydreams of you coming over just to catch up flirt with the sliver of hope I still have, smaller than the tiniest phase of the crescent moon. It hangs lower in my heart than my diminishing sadness, surrounded by a dark velvet sky without stars. I’d fill you in on all the things you’ve missed and laugh at the unnecessary distance we’ve pushed into every inch that lies between us.
You ask me how I’m doing and I tell you, “I’m just fine.” But that’s all I am; just fine. I have seen better days and I have seen far worse. Happiness touches me and melts like rain on snow, it comes then it goes.
I guess it’s both a blessing and a curse having a mind for many words. Because I sit staring at the draining battering of my dimmed screen and gaze over the lines I wrote about you. Artists understand how beautifully tragic it is that most inspiration comes from a broken heart. Writers understand how beautifully, tragically twisted it is that most inspiration comes from a broken heart and how you can spill the aching contents of your soul into something so simple, black letters on a white page, and still not feel satisfied when you’re done. It’s a reminder but it’s art and I crave it.
Wanted
Every morning when she opened her eyes to see the day for the first time, she told herself that she was not going to be sad anymore. But each day it became incredibly more difficult, because she looks at the world in a different way. She doesn’t look at the world with her eyes, she looks at the world with her heart. She sees love everywhere– and not always romantic love, but enough love to make her crave the feeling of being wanted. She wants to be loved the way that the stars love the moon, the way the writer loves the ink that spills from her pen.
She cares so much, maybe a little too much. That’s why she felt so empty when he left, and why she didn’t just fall, she crashed.
The pain pulls the hope out of her when the sun sets, but she holds onto it… because it is the only reminder that what they had was real. She wastes an exorbitant amount of the energy that she somehow still has trying to hide. She wants to hide from him, hide from the mess that they have made— a mess yet to be cleaned. But mostly she wants to hide from herself. She didn’t want to face the emotions that she knew were on the verge of exploding. Because if she lets them explode, she will see them; if she sees them then she has to acknowledge that they are real. So real, it scares her beyond a point of her own mental sanity.
She begs God to make her feelings pass– but not really. The only reason she wants them to disappear is because it hurts too much to feel them.
She remembers hearing that usually you miss the feeling more than the person them self, and how could you not miss the feeling? But she constantly stumbles upon herself over and over again missing the boy– but that’s what he is; a boy. She understands that he needs time to become a man, but her biggest fear is that when that time comes it won’t be her that he wants.
She misses him, and she doesn’t know what to do. How could a place that once made you so satisfied and safe and content simmer to ashes in a matter of days? I liked us better when we were on fire, but didn’t burn. The thing about smoldering embers is that they can’t be relit, they can only glow a dim, beautiful light until they die away.
Believe her when she says that she has seen better days, because she walked with him among the stars and moon. Now she searches for a way out of the dark.
Haunted
And when he said goodbye, I thought that everything about him would change. I thought that the him I had found myself so wrapped up in would remain as so only in the stardust of my memories.
But I was wrong.
His eyes still pierce mine with a deadly hazel stare. His smell still entrances me every time I catch a hint of it. His voice still makes my heart jump every time it spills out of his smirking lips, giving me hope that maybe someday his words will once again be meant for my ears.
I won’t forget the things that only I knew, they will remain trapped in my mind. No matter how many times I set them free, they will always come in with the rain and flood the empty heart where flowers once bloomed. Maybe at one time I was special, I was different. But things change and people do— I guess — too. Not their mannerisms but their desires. And how painful it is to be unwanted. To know that someone who was once addicted to every single piece of me, now craves a new taste.
The things that once surrounded me with comfort are now haunting me in my sleep. I thought at least I would have some freedom when I shut my eyes, but every time I close mine, I see yours. Taunting me like emeralds behind a glass case, reminding me that I can look all that I want, but I can’t touch.
In the end, I just want him to be happy— even if I can’t be. I want him to find what will fill him with joy when the sun rises and hold him at night when it sets. Now I can’t stop thinking about how ironic it is that they tell you to find someone who makes you happy, but not to depend on others for happiness.
The Mathematician
He spoke in numbers, I spoke in words. Our thoughts were quite the same, however. We wandered the galaxy on a journey of thought. We weren’t interested in discovering any answers. We found pleasure in the idea that there wasn’t just one solution, but rather an infinite amount of possible anecdotes. We laid in a pool of our thoughts and emotions, spilling love from our bleeding hearts. And when our blood mixed we felt each other’s sorrows and joys.
His soul was genuine, honest. I want to say that the world needed more people like him, and it’s true. I think the world would be a much better place if there were as many kind hearted people like him, but I could never actually wish it. I’m too selfish. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to experience what it sounds like when he laughs at something completely ridiculous. Or feel the warm sensation of comfort and safety when he wraps his arms around you at night.
When we first started talking, I wanted to tell him that I loved him. Not because I did love him, but because I wanted to love him. He made me feel like a child, I was constantly learning from him.
When I slept beside him I dreamed of scientific and mathematical equations. But they weren’t actually dreams, it was more so just the equations running through my mind, subconsciously. Every time I woke up, I felt a little bit smarter.
This is what it’s like to have a conversation with him:
1. Logic
2. Imagination
3. The torture of never knowing what order they go in.
I would ask why I couldn’t live on a star, he would tell me that it is a scientific impossibility. Naturally, I would think of something clever to throw back.
– what if they launched my body into space, post mortem, and I landed on a star?
– what if my body could withstand the heat and gasses due to a molecular deformity I inherited as a child?
(Both implausible, but not impossible.)
But his logic didn’t dull the colors that ran through his mind.
I admired the fact that he always had a goal. Always wanted to achieve the next thing that would enhance his human experience, as well as the human experience for others. My favorite one of his goals is the exact reason why the world needs more of him: To make the world the best it can be before he’s gone.
Like I said, I’m selfish.
But I don’t think the logical solution is to extract his DNA and clone him, because who would even know if the clones would think the same way as him. If more people had the motivation and spirit that radiated through his bones, a substantial difference would be observable in the world.
And maybe there isn’t a logical solution at all, maybe people need to come down from their high horses and start doing things for the greater good.
That’s the most important thing that I have learned from him, to do things for the greater good. Because it’s okay to be selfish sometimes, you need to take care of yourself first… But it’s not okay to sit back and become upset about things when you did nothing to address them. You can be upset when you have done everything in your power to try and change a situation, and make the best of it. But it’s not okay to watch these things happen and blame everyone else for causing you to be upset when you could be doing something to improve it.
There are things far beyond the comprehension of my feeble mind, and maybe one of them was why God brought me straight to my person, especially when I wasn’t even looking for him.
Well, not my person. He isn’t mine. He isn’t anyone’s. Maybe that is why something that I was sure was in the grasp of my palm now slips elusively through my fingertips.
Perhaps we aren’t meant to cling to people, because we become too attached, because we become too dependent on them for our happiness. And he makes me happy, oh so happy. I don’t ever want that to end up ruining me.
But, as I said before, we are on an adventure. And I suppose you can’t call it an adventure if you don’t take any risks.
Why Did It Have To Be You
Why did it have to be you?
Why did it have to be you know dazzled and dazed me, hypnotized me. When we met you didn’t open the door on the other side of the room but the one that pulled down from the attic revealing a nostalgic sky in which we lost our youthful minds.
Why did it have to be you who opened my heart to the most selfless love I’ve ever know and thrown it back in my face. Because we both know that it was never good enough, was it?
Why did it have to be you that laced our fingers and our thoughts through conversations in the dark, pulling out memories and emotions that I had completely forgotten existed.
Why did it have to be you who played with my mind, hooking me to a line that only you had control of… No, that was me.
Why did I not realize that you didn’t care, why did I not walk away, and why did I spend countless nights crying away the pain that I’d rather forget than feel.
They say that it’s better to feel pain than nothing at all, but this pain is so much that my heart is aching and breaking just to have one more taste of your affection.
Sometimes I wish I could have some sort of accident in which all trace of you was wiped away, because the pain of never being good enough for you hurts more than the memories can replace.
It’s a constant aching, and it numbs after a while. But when the night sets in, the flood gates open. And the only thing I can ask myself is why did it have to be you?
The Weak Ones
I read once that the more people you love, the weaker you are. In that case, I am an impeccably weak person. But I would gladly be the weakest person in the world if it meant that I could have the biggest heart.
You see, I’m an acceptionally difficult person. Not necessarily to other people, but to myself. I often find myself trying to relive the past and go back to a more perfect time. I sometimes get stuck in these things. I know that I can’t be stuck living in the memories, but some things are just too special to stay memories.
That is a universal problem that humanity forgets to understand, you can not go back. No two things ever happen the same way twice and you may kid yourself into believing that you can, but the truth is you can’t. That’s what makes memories so special. And even though love is special, having a big heart has gotten me into a tangle sometimes that not even scissors could cut through, but we can’t spend time fretting about the past, everything that is meant to be will come in good time.
Maybe I just told myself that so many times I just believed it was the truth now. But sometimes I get this undeniable feeling; warm like the sun on my skin, soft like the summer breeze. And I can feel the past and the future somehow at the same time. Everything feels at peace. And I know that time will bring better things. Better things that even my galaxy of a brain can neither predict nor comprehend. And it will bring better things to those who deserve it, to those who are weak, the ones with the big hearts.
Big Hands
I have big hands.
The first time I became aware was in middle school, when I was a victim to the jokes and teasing of the large size. I was careful to tuck them away into khaki pockets and pull them into the sleeves of my sweatshirts hoping that no one would notice my abnormality.
The second time I was stricken with awareness was when I played the piano. My span was ten ivory keys per hand, magnificent my teacher said. Happy was I, because someone had taken my embarrassment and turned it into a talent.
The third time I recognized that my hands were big was when I could feel my friends around me hurting. I tried to hold all of their sorrow and pain in the buckets at the end of my arms; catching tears, holding regrets. But with big hands comes bigger spaces between the fingers. I could feel it all slipping away, I desperately tried to balance their agony back and forth between my right and left hands until finally I was on my knees sobbing at the mess I had let fall from my grasp.
The final time that I had acknowledged my hands as large was when I went out on a mission trip. I could see the beauty burst out from my lengthy fingers, spreading goodness and joy to those around it. Serving with passion, folding in prayer, holding others all of different sizes and knowing that I was no different than the rest.
That was when I realized that I have the power to move galaxies deep within my palms. I can make something amazing. I can help others and be creative. I can send up prayers and bring down hope, and all this time I was hung up on the size of my “big hands”.
Off of the Deep End 