avoidance2, usually a place you go

2010 ReWrite Version 2

 Fear is what comes at us during the strangest times. u should know this, soulless coward. u sold your integrity & now, not even the dark wired fences outside, nor the threatening trespassing signs- which only further encourage curious intruders btw, nor the darkly colored walls in your mansion- will ward away the phone calls from people whose life insurance policy money u so eagerly drained. wife number 3 left so u sleep alone.

A buzzing sound jolts you awake to the sound of car alarms going off. The smell is vile. You’re lying in a pool of your own vomit, in a room you don’t recognize. how could you drink amaretto sours and curacao liquer when you had an admissions appointment at harvard the next morning?  You know the feral hyena coming to swallow you whole is justly deserved when you show up late to your new job for the second time. can’t u ever be on time, you overgrown bum? The force of that fear is what causes you to break the law because you are afraid you might lose the prosecution case you spent a year building. planting evidence, r u serious? what would ur father say? what’s next?

What halts your breath for a second or two is the way you try to overcome your fear, as you try to catch your breath before you speak up in front of an entire auditorium of people who despise you for your crestfallen appearance. u cant talk in front of people without sweating like a pig. u dont know what ur doing. ur not qualified. if u try to make a sound it will come out like a clucking noise.

 Being afraid is how you lose yourself in sleep for days at a time because the prospect of waking, then having so much to clean up, is shaking you down. She’s the friend you don’t want but can’t get rid of, or the enemy you never knew you had. ur not depressed, ur weak. u cant hold down a job. our father and i always supported u. 

 You try to avoid eye-contact when the trembling makes it impossible to stand up straight. You erase the evidence that, on the nights you couldn’t sleep, you still reach for your phone to text the guy with caramel-coated lies over backstabbing promises. the only way we can dispense these drugs is if u give me money here &now. um, cant i send someone with u? Why you needed to know you weren’t alone, you won’t say, but even the last on your list don’t text back today. You swat at the tears that emerge when the married man, a man who could be a plumber, a janitor, or a tree-cutter comes over to your house. It’s apparent he is and always will be a fixer, and only his hands can soothe you from falling into sharp, jagged pieces of blood stained glass. why? 2confusing!!   u heart him, but in the way a girl loves a boy, not the way a woman loves a man.

Smudge is what’s left behind from the night you tried to take apart your soul into a painting that’s always forgotten. Your fear is the only thing keeping you from jumping off the roof of a mall, and it is the only thing keeping you from not leaping right off of that roof of the Stateside Rovers mall. started as such a clear day. ur a liar and a thief. the pity card won’t work anymore. u will hav nothing left if she leaves. she’s wild and untamed beauty, but the other half of her is rabid & nonsensical, making stabbing motions with invisible knives. she wants to cauterize us, make everyone impotent. nobody brought presents to her b-day. hell, nobody even showed up. im going, and now she can get that divorce she couldnt admit to wanting, hell, ppl will even feel sorrow for her, the widow. cant let ppl feel sorry for my bitch. 

 Try to decipher how it could cause you to pee your pants in the first grade just because the teacher created a new policy, saying too many first graders use the bathroom pass. no breaking the rules! respect authority! Bicker over how sleeping becomes a mechanism that merely greases your nightmares into terrors you can’t name over and over again, trying to send you the same message and failing. why is he stalking thru ur dreams as if it’s his land he’s stomping on? Notice the way you keep nodding off as if you have been inhaling poisonous gas this entire time, for you remember somebody saying that medications mess with how much oxygen intake your brain gets, and how your body gets tired of the switch being fucked with all the time and your body not knowing how or when to intervene. u will never be able to do anything again, ur an old bag with no new tricks. ur used up. 

 Stay away from the fear that comes over you when you learn that you are losing your memory and that you will have to wear diapers as you grow older, using up the last of your pension fund. u will have to sleep on cold cement & ppl will only see a bag lady when u walk by. a cautionary tale. Ignore the surprise on your face when the only person you relied on laughs in your face and tells you they never wanted you around, they just liked your money or your body and they don’t care for it anymore. bitch, my iphone is 10x more valuable than u. at least i can put it on silent when im in public. Press past the neglect you see as you look into the mirror and realize you are getting old. mirror mirror, dont compare. Don’t look out windows anymore, for the blur you see might just be  your daughter running across the street, barely noticing when the car stops so she can keep running across. On  the days you can’t save yourself, much less your own offspring, stall. The month you realize you are about to lose your kids and there is nothing you can do to get them back, blame nobody. On the sunny Wednesday you pick up a gun to gain control of a situation and your hands begin to shake uncontrollably, don’t forget to aim before you shoot.

There’s fifteen irritating voice mail messages left on your machine that you don’t want to listen to. There is a flood on your hands that you can’t bail out of. Mortgage is pressing down on you and there is nobody to hold your hand. who would want to hold ur hand anywayz? Usually there’s a place you to go to when you are that afraid, but what happens when that place stops letting you in? Then you have another fear. The fear of the*86‘d-

Being kicked out of the last place of refuge you had makes you quiver in places you didn’t know were capable of that kind of movement. Having to actually use those two quarters to call out for help and hearing no answer, not because they didn’t hear you but because they don’t feel like answering.  please please pick up. it’s an emergency. for real. i mean it. i always mean it, but i really really mean it now. only u can cradle my pain with a well placed lie. You’re beyond the helplessness of having to leave a husband that makes demands you cannot meet anymore because they are beyond your scope of comprehension. i dont care if he doesnt love me back, or if the phone rings at night with the navy telling me he’s a bad man, or if he is suddenly forced to take a sexual harrassment course. if he got kicked outta the military for rape, she probably made it up. really, i can’t know what happened for sure. she’s surely lying. i’ll put my hands up to my ears and hear what i need. He promised he would never go to a strip club, and now he says that he needs a third girl living with you for him to have sex with, and you don’t say anything. i know im stuck, but i wont leave. i love him.You don’t leave him, and your son grows up afraid that nothing will ever change.  i wish my mother had just had the courage to leave him. i will rescue all damsels, even if they want their distress. 

 Take the hesitation in a policeman’s trigger before he gets himself shot by the criminal he didn’t want to have to take out. Find the primal cry of a baby that won’t stop crying in its teenage mothers arms. Follow the shivering of the hardest man in jail, trying to remember the sound of his mothers voice. Note the puff of a cigarette that helps keep denial at bay until one day the cigarette doesn’t work anymore.  Feel the lovely plush of a needle into a vein until the blood clots.

The only thing that circumvents fear is the absence of fear, but as long as you use drugs or sex or people not to  feel fear, the fear will come back to you as soon as you don’t have your blanket around you. Lie about the sensation that something went wrong and nothing will change it. The worst of all is being given a chance to fix it all, then fucking it back up for the ninth or tenth time.

Don’t admit that people like to harshly say the word “stupidity” with a certain reluctance and a roll of the eyes, as if by treating it with an iron fist, they can beat it out of their lives for good. Soften the lies you swiftly tell the welfare workers who come in asking you about the bruises all over your body and you tell them, no, of course you fell down the floors for the tenth time. he doesnt know how to show love without his fists. Forget the dreams you have afterwards of leaving home and never coming back again. Hoard those broken promises as you would ratty newspapers. When the ceiling comes falling down from the weight of everything you couldn’t throw away, don’t let the firefighters in. They won’t understand. They will bulldoze their way in, and instead of history they will see garbage piled over garbage. who would let themselves get that far gone, man? that stench. how could anyone live like that, what a disgusting ho. Forget what’s lost.

 Take the moment you turn from a victim into somebody that has to batter other people for making a mistake into an opportunity to smile crudely.

 

 

Schoolgirl Dreams

Rule number one: You need a few good personas up your sleeve. And.. that’s really it.

Take that girl strutting down the hallway. I Act Hypersexual and Slutty When I’m Practically a Celibate Girl. Dresses provocatively, full of coy glances, she’s banned shyness from her vocabulary! So hyper. So unladylike! Finds your ignorance on matters of the female anatomy hysterically funny! Do you want to talk to her? Do you really? She’s an interesting choice, as most people in the hallway take one look. They don’t want to see beyond a projected persona…takes too much effort. But this one is so shiny and pretty! A lot of people will do anything she wants to get behind the projected persona. (When projection is done well, people get curious about how the process behind the mystery works.)

Lesson two.. People are comfortable with personas. Personas are predictable, people are not. Decide now which persona you want to commit to. They all have their ups and downs. If you want to be the shy prissy girl? Well, right there- the hypersexual we were just pointing at- that is your new best friend. Cuddle up to her. Because. If you want to be shy and prissy without having freshman year be a plague of innuendos and insults going the wrong way than you really mustacquire her as your new BFF to make you look good.

Otherwise.. you’ll be a loser with a capital V on your forehead. Forever! Didn’t anybody tell you that how you do in high school determines the rest of your life?

Now that you’ve made your choice.. Let me hook you in for the trade secrets…

Pretend to be all hypersexual and blatant about sex because it makes guys think you’re slutty. When they think you’re slutty, they are much less likely to think of you as girlfriend material. Now that you have them at arm’s length, the only place you can  get comfortable, you may act all platonic. Do wild things without having “them” get all sentimental (boo hoo). The few guys that have crushes on you despite your completely one hundred percent made up “I’m a player persona…”  Stay the hell away from them! They should make you incredibly uncomfortable.

(Why do they like you? Why?!) To cause you discomfort. To make you feel self-conscious. To make you feel good? Don’t ever buy into your own persona, that will create a real need for therapy later on..

Guess they’re just desperate! Remember, to them you are one of the loneliest people out there. And you will call up “one of the guys” just to hang out for a few hours, and they will walk away with a blush on their face, embarrassed that they came out to your place and nothing happened. That’s right! No kiss, no cuddle, no fuck, nada. Because when you are feeling out of your skin, there are very few people who will make you want to cross that barrier over to feeling instead of guarding. Don’t let it happen!

(The few times when you become interested in the technical facets of sex, you’ll just feel incredibly inadequate. Do you like kink? No. Want it in the ass? No. Want to put a webcam on and…? Not now. Want to talk dirty? Well, um, you don’t know? Want to be tied up and saturated in cum? NOOOOOO? Well what’s wrong with you! You’re so crazy for not wanting to do all that fun stuff!)

Be interested in private. When the pervy but popular guy sees interest he will use it to explore every fantasy he’s been having since he first started shaving.

So how do you maintain the façade? Well, guys need somebody to say they’ve gone all the way with. It gives them status. High fives in the locker room. Which is important if they want to belong to a fraternity, then end up joining wall street and getting a key to the rich and powerful club.. and so on.

Does that mean you are one of those vanilla people who enjoy cuddling? Well, that’s where it gets tricky too. I mean, if you’re obliterated enough, I’m sure even you can act totally normal.

Booze! Yay for booze! Another status increase! (And don’t mention anything else, the other drugs are delicate terrain to navigate unless you’re hanging out with 8th graders.. And why would you?)

Nowadays you have to be more careful- back in the nineties it may have looked cool to be ahead of the curve, acting out- putting your self-destructiveness into excessive drug-use made you seem “deep-” but we’ve passed that whole era. We are all too aware of the parents that embarrass us with they’re “I need these pills or these drugs or I’ll wake up vomiting and honey, hand me my crack pipe” moments. We don’t want to be them. We don’t want to know them! So it’s reallynot cool to be a stoner with “potential.” They might be occasionally fun to date because their inhibitions are lowered, but as a generalization, they’re staggeringly oblivious to consequences.

You like making out in crazy places, closets and banisters and the nurses station when nobody is around.

That is where it starts and ends.

Jessica, a striking brunette with a lithe body and a penchant for guys that challenged her, made a huge mistake: she let a guy know she didn’t care one way or the other! Well, except for them getting off, she did care about that a little bit, at least. And If she got off, she had begun to feel kind of shy about the whole matter, prefered they not get too involved in it. Only guys really do have a huge ego thing, they are really into pussy, what it looks like, how pretty yours is, and they’ll be irritated if you aren’t as insanely curious about it as they are. And they are so obsessed with noting what you look like during that one moment of.. Whatever. You risk putting a lot of people off by not faking or caring about that part but don’t worry; those guys are too goal oriented anyway. And they need you to tell them just how altruistic they are, when really they have super low self-esteem, a few extra pounds or shaggy hair, and a constant need to know how good they are. They want somebody who is all taste and no flavor, hook and no bait. It’s a trend. They come, they go. Mostly they annoy.

Matt, the bulky red haired anti-hipster with an ambling walk, a fierce left hook, and penetrating blue eyes met Jess on the debate team. They’d make out for three hours straight, and it would go other places, but the fact that they could stay interested for that long doing the same passionate yet monotonous thing was interesting to her.. Until it wasn’t. For soon Jess wanted that guy at arm’s length, too. He kept saying “are we in a relationship or not?”

If a guy ever says that, be freaked. It’s consistent with the persona, anyway.

She told him they couldn’t fool around anymore, ever. He thought she was a tease. He kept trying when they were alone to make things difficult for her.

(You see, the physical barrier wasnt there for Matt anymore; he thought he could just reach out and touch her as if there weren’t any barriers there at all, as if he’d gone through all the hardship, resented her for even putting him through it at all, and he didn’t need to use words to explain he was done with THAT!) Now it was just straight-up ownership. Sort of like somebody who.. How do I put this? Somebody who thinks getting their first apartment and living away from mom and dad means they never have to vacuum the carpet. Somebody who thinks getting a girlfriend means they no longer have to play any games, dress up in a tux, or try very hard because they have it made now! I get the lazy reasoning behind all of that, but really, it’s not about sealing the deal, it’s about maintenance.

Naw, Jess had put the barrier back up, only unlike when she’d first met Matt, he was super-angry that it was there! She had to treat him as if they had no past because he was using the past as if it was a one way ticket to wonderland.

If there is one thing she was a delegated pro at, it was abrupt switches in place, time, and moment. Asshole-ish, yes, but she got away with it. She liked being able to control how she came and went. At the beginning of Junior year she’d loved letting Matt go down on her for hours, but she was at a new apex where she wanted to be able to decide the course and trajectory of a romance right down to the details in the scripting.

Of course, Matt turned into a major asshole. Whereas he used to be the guy that Jess could call up with questions about her physics homework, he turned into that guy- the one that makes jeering remarks in public to humiliate.

He went from being a supportive agent- telling people how brilliant she was, how cool, how multifaceted, yack yack yack- to the boastful enemy. He wanted her to know just what she’d lost. She was nothing without his praise.

Which, by the way, is how guys feel when we stop getting off..

When she felt she sucked at something, he’d boosted her spirits without fail, telling her “you are being way too hard on yourself, you overwhelm yourself so you have no choice but to sabotage the school term by not having enough time logistically no matter how talented you are!”

But after he saw how difficult she made it for them to hook up, he acted like another person. When she confronted him and said “hey, why are you different now? It’s not fair that you are mean just because I want things to be platonic now.”

He thought what Jess said over with a hungdog look, then replied “You’re right. I’m sorry. You are my best friend and nobody is closer to me except for my mom.”

Watch out, hon! When guys call you a best friend.. It’s a big red flag. So, you’d think this would have been the end of it for them, but it wasn’t. Her “frigid” tone was death. (For the record, Jess was never frigid, just bitchy. Especially since she had to make boundaries extra-difficult just for him, and he’d see that other people didn’t get the same treatment. They had it easier, he thought! How unfair.)

I know you are thinking “If I had a hunky Matt by my side I wouldn’t have done that.. I would give him everything he needs.” Don’t think that! Don’t be the hussy. You’ll see other slut-girls doing that and it’s a mistake you don’t want to make.

Jessica would tell him about dates she’d go on, and because she didn’t have any close female friends to do the “girltalk thing” with he would respond nastily.

“Shut up about your exploits, you think you are some dog bringing me a bone?”

Matt and his language! No wonder he couldn’t get a girl! Although, the poets were much worse…

But she found this preferable to wanting to be with nobody. It was a boost for her self-esteem. But in his eyes, it meant Jess would rather be lonely and miserable than hook up with him! That was a blow. He’d rather go back to seeing her flirt with the tools!

Now, explaining all this to you, I am so NOT more confused than when I started. What I’m trying to say is that when you are capable of fierce, unadulterated, even painful passion, you don’t like to be put in the place of a caged animal. You must become capable of complete sociopathic behavior.. And so you turn into somebody who flinches if a person so much as places a hand on your shoulder when you don’t feel like it. Hypersensitive is hypersexual, right? Hypervigilant is hyperactive. Superpowers have downsides.

You’ll probably prefer to go a few months between partners. You should prefer the partners you do have to be people you can’t talk to easily. Always opt for the challenge. And never call relationships “relationships.” They are “games,” “experiments” or maybe just “attempt not to be substantial.” I mean, tied down. But tied down is fun. Held back? Held back can be fun too. Oh, whatever! To keep the slut persona going, you don’t do relationships.

Matt would randomly come back to Jess like a lost puppy, finding that other girls were much more difficult. (I know, right>) But after a few days of “hanging out,” he would switch his tune and tell her they couldn’t be friends anymore since she was denying him the connection they used to have.

“You have lots of suppressed rage at your mother,” she told him, snickering. “Mommy found your porn stash again?” Matts mom was a Jehovas Witness, so that was something people made fun of him for. (Always take careful note of peoples weaknesses.)

His mom had unrealistic expectations. Then again what mother doesn’t? She wanted his son to be chaste, but she didn’t want him alone and unhappy. Matt found this chasm impossible to breach. He couldn’t find any glue to hold the two disparate ideals together, and he was a fellow that gave up too easily. As a result of the hypocrisy at home, he stored up too much anger, then unleashed it on any girl who rejected him physically.

Matt played the social game. (Don’t think just because they’re close to you that, well, they’re actually close to you.) He denigrated girls who did spread their legs for him, because he decided they weren’t good enough to be with him.

“Oh, the cokehead whore? Well, we had a good time, but she just wasnt girlfriend material.” Such a common male attitude. Turn cokehead to redhead and you know what half the males at Tacoma Prep are saying. Tsk tsk. What does a guy expect? Matt was the type that you know will leave school full of promise, then enter some kind of stupor- 1) the high expectations, 2) the reality, 3) the chasm between the two- and remain unemployed. He’ll live at home with mom and never have money.

When a guy does not obey even the simplest social courtesies… well, it’s a very bad sign.

When guys meet up with a girl of their own kind, their own status- (yes, we still have class in this day and age)- they find the girl repulsive. All the things they hate in themself they finally see in somebody else. Only she’s really not even as bad! Guys are always delusional about their status. They aim too high, girls aim too low. While she at least holds down a job, be it at a grocery store, he’ll never work! His expectations will never be in line with reality. And does he think about the girls he claimed were not good enough and remember them fondly, wishing he had tried harder? No!He really doesn’t consider them at all!

It’s really important not to be too impressed with any one trait. Super-athletic? So what. Incredibly talented and artistic? Okay. Brainy with a high IQ? Look for the one who can hold it all together. They tend to be the one that can actually live up to their dreams.

You’d think guys could treat you like one of the guys, especially since you will make the mistake of spending all your time with them. (Don’t deny it. “They’re not as catty as the girls,” you’ll say.) You’ll say it’s not sexual. But no, they will never treat you like one of them. And really, why want that? He’ll resent the fact that he feels he has to be nicer to you than the guys, that there is something to figure out, that chivalry dictates one thing while feminism (which one? There are so many types!) says another…  If he spends extra time on you, tutors you, and hangs out with you because you are a girl, don’t be surprised when he surreptitiously blames you for being unable to meet other girls. “If only I hadn’t been spending time with her..”

You’re surprised that you became a Her?

Honestly.

As for the guy who is most loyal.. well, their yearbook quote will read, “most likely to live under a bridge.”Okay, it won’t read that, but it should! So, in all likelihood he might end up being somebody spectacularly brilliant, so they don’t insert the quote there. Hope is everywhere. Adulthood isn’t something that affects people in high school! Playing hooky, lying, getting stoned, avoiding class, that doesn’t mean you would do that with a job! Preparation for life is nothing like how you’ll behave once you  have the life they want!

That’s a lie, don’t fall for it. On the flip side, just because you’re valedictorian doesn’t mean you can hold down a job. It doesn’t mean you’re set up for life. Or say you’re the prom queen: doesn’t mean that beauty and charm will always get you what you need.

The players all want to be hustlers and pimps in terms of their mindset. They think there’s no limit to the punches they can pull. These girls will break rules just so that they seem unattractive. And why? Yes, they want experience. They pretend they will do anything. They say it’s never for closeness, but because they feel sheltered and they need something on their internal resume. The truth is usually in the rift in between two disparate ideas.

You’ll play games, and you’ll make things too complicated. I know you are a tease.

becoming a feminine ideal requires just the right amount of insecurity, don’t skimp

 .. 2012 ReWrite

and what do you think is underneath? Under the surface that could be removed, would YOU find satisfaction in completely fresh skin, a starry smile, and a chest that inspires a volley of prayers, makes the world crawl under its radiance, would you see a happy ending sunset, long pink boas of cotton batting, arching, through the sky, or would there be nothing at all, even less than capillaries and lack of symmmetry, a crater lower than disappointment, mutations failing to turn into gold and becoming something completely different, something no one has ever seen, the desolation of a body deserted by itself, slabs of meat that you dont dare name, I really dont know but it couldnt stop there, oh no, not yet, you’d always find something else to peel away layer by layer, some part of a body to lose, deport, an anorexic hollowing out her belly, her tomb, and dont start thinking it’s the exception, because it isnt, millions of women make a career out of their body, an art out of food,  mastery of their mouth on pieces of fruit so small they make you cry, and above all, there’s the message they send to others, take a good look at me and know how fat you are, look what’s hanging under your ass, look what’s slipping off your sides and jiggling to the rhythmn of your walk, how disgusting, being that heavy can’t be endured if you are going to go on living, women often have too much of what they have, they are too much what they are, nailed to their sex and what is said about it, hopeless at reinventing their history or conceiving of life outside of fashion magazine polls, continually alienated from what they think they should be, bimbos who have orgasms when they’re supposed to, bimbos with such and such a waist measurement and such and such a hairdo, who dont want anything and always want more.

The room is dusty and cramped. Therapists on a budget. They obviously start out at the place where the poor need help. They come here out of school and are handed some cheap pamphlet of guidelines and a $30,000 salary from money the government managed to take away from corn crops. People who wear cheap suits always puzzle me; why do they bother to dress up at all? Might as well wear something comfortable because that fabric is not doing them any favors.

I showed up. I know the drill by now. Sign in is over there. I, Zoey Paxton, am here, 4:30 on a Wednesday…

I no longer feel like I’m doing something special by coming here. I’m not unearthing a new hidden place or discovering a new way of interacting with somebody. I used to only want my therapists to be men. Perhaps I felt that kind of relationship would be a great gateway into a romantic involvement. I know, it sounds crazy, and it’s a catch-22 because for me to like the guy he’d have to find breaking the rules ethically loathsome, but want to do it anyway… I have this desire to be seen as an exception to rules a lot of times; to see the situation as extraordinary because I don’t want to miss a beat. That could be wrong.

I’ve been seeing Laura for a few months now.. She’s pretty cool, like somebody I could see being my friend, but I don’t know if I make progress.. A lot of the time I don’t believe therapy can really do anything, unless the therapist is one in a million, somebody with really rare abilities.. And if that were the case would they be in a government paid building with paint flaking off the exterior, pipes that are rusty, and air that always smells stale with a twinge of factory chemical solvent in the air?

As usual, her door is open. I plop onto the small sofa chair and start talking.

“So- this friend of mine, he’s a writer I respect, although he’s not published or anything. I guess I feel he edits his stuff a lot more than I do? Anyway, he sometimes comments on stuff I write- I um tag him? on Facebook? Well, he likes some of my stuff and usually his comments are constructive. But the last time, he labeled this piece I wrote about my friend Kristen as male bashing. And.. it wasn’t male bashing!”

My voice gets higher, more feverish, frantic. I take a deep breath, It’s always so important, all these details. I have to convey what happened accurately or she won’t be able to help me. 

” I was trying to capture her world. But he said I was bludgeoning the reader. With my intent, but, what intent? Not that I write things that don’t have a point, but… I figure it out as I go, you know? And what I wrote was about getting down my anger at Kristen for her willingness to sacrifice everything for a guy that mistreats her AND her two kids. I mean, if it was just her, being destructive, well, okay.”

Laura nods.

“Where does the anger at Kristen come from?”

“I feel very protective of other peoples innocence. Because, I guess I feel my innocence was taken away.. and it wasn’t fair. And it shouldn’t be something that’s ripped off so harshly. Okay, this might sound weird, but there’s many ways of going about something. For instance, um, some people get away with cheating on their wife all the time, and everyone knows about it, even the wife, but they still love the guy. He doesn’t break hearts!”

I pause, think over the implications of what I just said. How do I explain how he manages not to break their hearts? How is it even possible? I know, as I’m speaking, that I have somebody very specific in mind..

“Okay, I mean, if he does? It’s the most gentle way that there is! Maybe… somebody gets let down, but he doesn’t let people get serious. He just.. knows how to be affectionate without going there. It’s weird! I don’t know how they do it! He lets people down so gently I guess? It’s some kind of gift in a way. Maybe he just sees the best in people AND doesn’t get disappointed? Which I think is a rare combination? So, he sleeps around, and he is emotionally engaged, but it’s not about them.. not really. He makes them feel like they are playing hooky with him. He wants to feel loved and show his love all the time. Maybe you’d say he had narcissistic personality disorder, or maybe just borderline.. But with that comes low self-worth, and it’s so obvious. But then his contagious joy and love is as obvious as a puppy.. You know? Although maybe he’s wearing down his wife, maybe her heart is breaking. Which is sad. Really sad. But I’m getting off track.. What was your question? Kristen? God, I used to be able to remember everything.. I hate that I don’t anymore.”

God, I’m always interrupting her.. I’m always interrupting myself…  

“You were talking about being angry at Kristen? Angry at innocence being stripped away? Who took your innocence away?”

As every second goes by, it feels so long. When I pause to answer her question I feel like I’m taking forever. Like if I don’t answer right away the moment will slip by. Like it’s paramount I find the words right now. Is it true that as adults age time starts slowing down? I read that somewhere recently. It was in an article about the downsides of living forever- if we could. Like we can even imagine that! One of the downsides was that it would feel like our cellphone was always being interchanged with new numbers, but that would be our life, and who knows if we’d fit in in an evolving world? Would we become a monkey walking upright among humans that were so much more evolved?  And, we’d have to keep it secret or else. But the main thing was time… How time would become so fast. That doesn’t seem so bad. I mean if we had all the time in the world, wouldn’t we want a decade to seem faster?

“Um.. I guess… So, why is innocence so important to me? I don’t know who took my innocence away exactly. I was over-sheltered one moment, totally unprepared for the real world, and then.. it was like those dreams people have where they are naked in a crowd? I don’t have those. I have these reoccurring dreams involving packing luggage. But um, yeah, it was like I was stripped and I realized I had always been this exposed, only now I knew it. But I couldn’t do anything about it. And the shock was terrible. Not that ignorance was better but.. I feel like I live under my own magnifying glass of reflection  Analysis over analysis. And then I’m here. Is that bad? It feels kind of escapist in a way.”

“I don’t think it’s bad, per se.. Do you feel like you analyze everything?”

“No, that’s the extreme part. I’m all extremes. Either totally out of control- which was why I went for Snow, in a way, he was so into his control- or I’m so over-aware of everything I’m doing. Hyper-vigilant. I was comfortable being out of control- but not when people try to put me in control. I don’t like it. But my parents were kind of control freaks.. I don’t like that word freak. They wouldn’t like me calling them freaks…”

“Who is Snow?”

Impatience rises in me. She should know who these people are. 

“Snow, my ex, the architect, he runs his own company.. he and Jack are the only two people I feel like I’ve felt serious about. Jack was a college professor. I mean, my friend Lisa thinks there have been a lot of guys? But.. I don’t see it that way. She’s only been with one guy, ever, and I guess had one boyfriend outside of that. My old friend Sasha has dated so many more guys than me? I mean, I’ve had experience, but it wasn’t the relationship kind. It was the adventure kind or something. There was Oshima, the prodigy who tried to kill himself by jumping over a bridge onto a freeway overpass? He hooked me up with opiates… I mean, he secured them for me! Without him, so much would be different. A lot of people would say for the better. But the blame game thing- I can’t think like that. And while I am the only person Oshimas ever been with? And sometimes I miss him? He can turn on this cold switch so fast…. I mean, he can be so gentle, and then… so cruel. I guess all three of them can be like that. So gentle, and then.. it’s gone, like I’m a stranger and why am I talking to them again? And I wanted to be able to be like that. But now I sort of am and… I don’t know. I guess it’s a little lonely.”

The inflections in my voice are melodic, the rising and the falling, like a Bjork melody. Friendly on the surface, dark and anxious on the inside. 

“We’ve drifted. You were talking about Kristen?”

“Oh yeah. My friends reaction to my story. And the point of it was.. well, Kristen’s husband took advantage of her, but she’s willing to give up her whole life to be with him, even though he doesnt pay child support, doesn’t do anything! Nothing!”

“You identify with Kristen too, don’t you? You feel you’ve been mistreated as well?”

“Well of course I did, but I was fooled! She led me to believe she was getting over Tim! I related to feeling suicidal, to feeling like nothing without them there, the feeling of being heartbroken- it’s sorrow is unmistakable! I can see that feeling a mile away. I just do. And I related to those FEELINGS. But.. But I would never give up my self, my life, my kids for some horrible person just so I could feel wanted.. When I realized that she was willing to undo all her progress? I felt kind of.. betrayed.”

“It was a smart thing you did, writing down that story…”

“You think so? I mean if I hadn’t done that, I would have been another emotional person in her life screaming how could you? How could you do this to me? And she wouldn’t understand. She would think this doesn’t have to do with you, this is about me and what I’m going through.“

I suddenly remember that I am wearing my sunglasses, and wonder if Laura will think I am avoiding eye contact, so I make a point of setting them down, fingering them, and looking at her in the eyes for a moment. When I look at her in the eyes sometimes I wonder, is that what my eyes look like? She has kind of big eyes, and she wears dark eye make up like I sometimes do, and I wonder if it looks a little dated and, well, obvious, on me too. But ever since Laura cut her hair, she looks so much prettier..  The difference is amazing. It makes me wonder if I also would look better with shorter hair. When my hair is blond, i seem to want it brown, and vice versa.. I guess it’s restlessness of a sort. 

Would Snow fuck Laura? Under the right circumstances he’d probably even date her… Not now, not that he’s dedicated to being some kind of monk. He is extremely picky about who he ever sleeps with, he’d rather go a decade without having sex than sleep with somebody he didn’t completely choose or want, but yes… I think Laura is his type.  So. THAT could be his type? It leaves me feeling unsettled. Laura: youthful but nice. Analytical but sweet. Cheerful but interesting… Like that Israeli pop singer whose fan page Snow joined out of nowhere…  Is it okay to have a lot in common with your therapist? I doubt Laura sees me as her physical equal though..  A therapist can’t see a patient as an equal, can they? What does she see when she looks at me?

“Kristens husband or future ex-husband has mistreated her and manipulated her, and.. she will do anything to get back together. I know Kristen, you see? So.. the story was nonfiction. Creative nonfiction. And okay, I feel weird because if Kristen saw the story she would probably be really upset that I wrote all the stuff she’s told me down. But, if this wasn’t her life? And she was somewhere else? Like, married to another guy, or without kids, and she read the story- she’d probably be the first to tell me how much she liked it!”

“Anyway- the point is- I don’t understand why La Forez- my poet friend- said what he said. I forwarded his response to my friend Simone- even though he specifically told me not to- probably because he thinks she’s against all men or something? Which is really not true at all.. she’s like a best friend to me, although there is some distance there, she lives across the country, like a lot of my closest friends do.. Which sucks.. I guess I feel like it’s not totally reciprocal because she holds back on me? I don’t know. I feel like I talk too much about myself to her, that I’m probably hogging the relationship, like I’m self-centered and I am constantly apologizing to her…”

I trail off. Suddenly the silence feels like it’s threatening to eat me alive. I need to say something, anything.

“What do you do if you have a narcissistic patient?” I pick up my coffee cup for a sip but it’s empty.

“Well, I would not feed into their delusions.”

“Right. I want to talk about narcissists more because I feel like one of my best friends is like that and I don’t know how to deal, I can’t seem to make boundaries. But um, back to La Forez, well, La Forez likes fiction because he says why write about things that are real when you can make something up? But I feel like reality is better. It’s perfect in its detail. And I just want to get it down, like a journalist. And sometimes what he says is so interesting. But this time.. well, before he even responded, Simone thought he might have ulterior motives, which totally puzzled me. La Forez lives in his head, what motive could he have? And then Simone thought I was upset with her, which was not the case. Maybe she was upset with me? But anyway, Simone wouldn’t tell me what his motives were. Maybe she hadn’t though it out carefully enough, or she didn’t feel like sharing, I don’t know. But usually she gives me all this feedback, and I even went behind a friend back which I did not like doing to get her opinion and she holds out on me. And this probably sounds paranoid, but I wondered if it had been a test that I had failed, me sending her something I wasn’t supposed to share. Maybe it proved I was untrustworthy to everyone so she doesn’t want to tell me anything. But… I don’t know. I do feel bad about stuff like that but it seemed like an unfair request because usually La Forez is all public about stuff, and he wasn’t here, which was not normal for him.”

I look at my watch, to let Laura know I’m aware of the clock, I know I’m talking a lot.

“Then I sent Simone my reactions to La Forez’s reaction.. which was also weird he tends to be kind of.. rigid in his thinking? And in his reaction he said I COULDN’T react to criticism, I HAD to just hear out what he said with no defenses.”

“And.. the worst part was he used stuff on me like…’i didnt have enough sleep when I wrote this-’ as if I would use that excuse on him? No way. I didn’t have any excuses, I stood behind it! What the hell! It was like he didn’t hear what I said! He read what I wrote, but he didn’t get it and that makes no sense to me. How could he not get it? And he said he felt strongly about the Kristen story… as if he was being ethical. I think he was just being decisive. But a strong reaction could be good.. Even if it’s negative. It means there’s something there to get upset about.”

I pause, my elbow resting on the wall panel underneath the window. holding my head up, like I’m holding my thoughts together.. 

“He did say one thing that I thought might be accurate though; that I was all hyper-focused on content and subject. And I guess that can be a problem if you ignore style and grammar. But sometimes I think he could be such a better writer if he just.. wrote instead of editing everything he did so much. And when I try to give him constructive feedback, well, this one time he was just so surprised that I spent the time thinking about it, like it’s not something people DO. I guess people have let him down a lot or something. He’s older, and unlike other older people I know, he’s often prefacing his experiences with his age. But the point is- there La Forez is, putting his work out there, in the world. And how he does it seems kinda professional. Of course I want to react and be helpful, he’s my friend!”

My hands are raised in an exasperated ”of COURSE” gesture. 

“What I wish I could do was.. not feel like every time I make my writing public feel like I am exposing my utmost private thoughts. He does this, of course, but it’s okay, it’s like he has some professional facade I don’t? But.. I am professional, why do people act like I’m not? It’s such a slap in the face. They might respect my talent, my abilities, but they treat me like I have no ability to act professionally. It hurts. I’m totally sick of it.”

“Why do you think they act like that?”

“Well… everyone seems to have their own rules these days.. Some people treat Facebook like a résumé. I don’t treat it like that but I DO try to manage stuff on there, or delete something if it’s too outrageous. I try to keep things in synch with my aesthetic, I guess, and my honesty. I feel like I DO have integrity, but in today’s world it seems like character and integrity can oppose professionalism. I just don’t know. And I have no idea if it’s appropriate or not when I put my writing out there for people I KNOW to read. Is it okay for other people to read this? But they will judge it, I think. The people that know me from other areas. And that.. I hate that. But La Forez does it. And he is respected, or at the very least accepted. But then again, his writing is different. It’s shorter. And… the writing comes across less.. confessional, I guess. Confessions make people uncomfortable.”

“Maybe I have to take emotional risks in everything I do… It’s just that expression is so important to me. “

“We are out of time. But I want you to think about why you feel you don’t measure up. Is that really how others feel, or is that how you feel?”

“Okay.  So.. what should I write about for next time? I like being given assignments.”

“Okay… write about other peoples doubts and what they sound like.”

“I don’t know if I can do that really, but I’ll try. Have a good weekend.”

“Bye Zoey.”

Your clinginess follows me like an afterthought. Really bad cologne. A bad song that won’t leave my head. Didn’t used to bother me as much before, but you just had to wave a flag and bring it all out into the open. You ask me about my mood. I don’t say anything because that last stunt did things. It set the world back. You can’t just say things and then wish them back. Believe me, I’ve tried. I send words out the way the Unabomber sent letters out. Okay, not exactly. You are the voice at the séance I wish I wouldn’t hear, but that doesn’t diminish the importance: a ghost tried to communicate. That in itself is more important than your childlike antics. I used to consider a certain childlike quality to sometimes be bait I found palatable, even enticing. But with you it’s attached with the cold rage of a fairy caught in a heterosexuals body that bangs his fist on the table, lashing out at mommy. Oh wait, but you didn’t get to do that during your life. Is it her afterlife that consumes you? So caught up in relishing what enjoyment you can and denying the sights that frighten you.

It’s like people can’t have room for space or themselves because by accepting themself they must be rejecting you. Any time spent alone cannot compare to how you will make them feel because you will do anything they want, anything except leave them alone.

Then there’s the matter of hygiene. Pretty key for somebody like me. I spend enough time living in my head, so I really need somebody that takes me out of it. Somebody that dresses well and always smells nice. I’m pretty particular about people close to me. I’ll let a lot of things slide that other people won’t, but then things most people would overlook- it’s like I can’t overlook it. Because if I did you’d be sitting in my blind spot waiting for me to hit you, or worse. That’s just an example.

We’re the ones that need to know what it feels like to be saved before we can rescue everyone else.. Rescue this damned place we don’t know if it’s worth rescuing in the first place. Well, I hope most of us do but think of the future, a future without trees or worse. Although I’m sure there could be synthetic this and DNA-altered that… a place like the Hunger Games where existence is only beauty when entertainment is near, and the entertainment is functional because it stops people from protesting and reminds them of their place.

 

Love Addict

Kristen Dushong; 27 years old, two boys to take care of. She is the girl next door who sneaks a smoke outside your garage. She is simple and beautiful with a (small) hint of exotic. Long natural hair, never colored.  Friendly and sophisticated.

Kristen: one class away from a college diploma. One step away from gracing her way into your heart with her easy smile and hot bod.  She will always be one class away from a degree.  It’s so not her fault. It’s about a boy. (Isn’t it always about one or the other, boy or girl? Cutthroat heart-stomping bitch or abusive slusband? Choose your favorite in the panel above! Will KStew and RobPat survive this rocky path?) Kristen (Dushong, not Stewart) chose to give her career up so her childhood sweetheart could join the Navy while she raised their first kid. At the age of ten, Tims family moved in next door to Kristens. He spent more time with her family than with his. In high school she saved him from a life of crystal meth. He stood in the shadows watching (waiting!) for her to be done with other guys. She was giving them emotional lap dances.

Smoking behind the bleachers he ruminated on that irresistible force, beauty. The most captivating and mysterious alien. He watched how the boys were around her, and realized it was best to play dumb. I will let her have this moment of arrogance. Watching her, he became certain he was destined to own her. He was to tame her, then show her men were the superior sex. He thought of this with a silly little sneer. Imagining her drinking his sperm as if it was wine was his favorite fantasy. looking in the mirror at his pock-marked face gave hin no pause.. he continued to imagine his greatness being celebrated by her.

Kristen felt a kind of raw power sliced with innocence in those days. She was high off her own image, the way she saw people visually adoring her. The boys did what she wanted with little prodding..  she was great at mind games and she liked feeling like an ice queen. Tim went down the line between awkward and slick, not choosing one for the other.  It felt like she could tell him everything. It was a huge surprise (to Kristen, anyway) when the feelings of friendship developed into more. In Tims eyes she felt like the relaxed but assertive self-supporting girl she had always been.

Present day: Acme stinks up Tim’s face like Gods marked it. At 27, he still doesn’t take anything to make the huge, blotchy swells go down. He has grown to like it, to be defined by the red scratchies, those bloated marks of his inner rage. It bothers Kristen that he won’t take Accutane, which would easily cure most of it. It is the one thing that still resembles his insides and other women must stare at it! He finds ironic satisfaction in it for while he gets drunk off their loveliness, they stare at those marks on his face- an apt metaphor for unfulfillped promise if you ever saw one. He feels the silly vain women deserve it. Flaunting their beauty everywhere- it only diminishes their power. Just stupid.

Self-centered Tim expresses interest in others only when they serve his ambitions (whatever those ambitions are, for people don’t consider him talented, and Tim feels best when he gets ahead by sticking his foot in between other people and their opportunities. He’d be better off in another field, the Navys way too uptight for him. He has found a crowd that accepts him, but he walks alone. (They’re rowdy, they like violence; they make deals behind closed doors. They get to sleep with the whores at every port! They know to say yes mam to the wives, the mothers.)  He’d choose strategic partnership over genuine friendship any day.

Unfortunately, the calculations behind Tims scheming have never been anything but transparent… And as everyone knows, he will fuck anything- especially if it has fleas, for cheating on Kristen was good proof of how much other women wanted him. He had to punish her for flaunting her good looks, her easy smile. Cheating on Kristen was something he can brag about. Now he is getting her back. The bitch hasn’t picked up her phone in weeks, ever since that lawyer filled her mind with bad ideas and sent her going to TANF to filed papers to steal his money. HIS money, not hers. The nerve of those stupid women. He knows it must be women who convinced his brother to yell at him. Why should his own brother stick his nose in his affairs? Because his brother secretly covets Kristen, of course. Well why doesn’t he go help the damsel in distress, he snickers?

Tim doesn’t have enough charm to cover up his deficits, but Kristen taking him back will do the trick- further evidence of how amazing he is! He can really get away with anything!

He abandons his children because he’s already turned into the parents he hated- they are better off without him, he thinks, and so they were. He’s been taught that people should gratify him unquestioningly, and when Kristen first gave birth to a boy, it infuriated him. She gave the screaming infant his attention. In Tims world there’s only room to satisfy him. The baby cried with way too much zest. Baby Timothy Jr. was against him from the start. And then, more than a year later she tricked him! Got pregnant a second time! There was no way he could deal with another screaming brat that felt entitled to have its cries met with a bottle, a diaper, a phrase, a coo. He has never changed a diaper in his life and he is determined to keep it that way.  The entitlement of babies disgust him to no end. So, he patiently bided his time until about one year later. Now it’s different; she wants his money, the children are older; she is more desperate for his attention. He can have it. Kristen acts like she can’t give in to him, but he knows she will. He doesn’t know if he still wanhts her, but he is going to get her back just in case. He doesn’t want to have to pay alimony, and he misses her making his lunch and doing his paperwork. So he arrives in Washington to go get her. Surprise! You weren’t picking up the phone, you stupid wife!

In private moments he laughs at Kristen; how pathetic she would be to take him back! Freakish, even. Buckets of praise continually poured into him would still not mend the hole inside his greedy heart, but… it is a useful balm for his rage. Anyhow, what Tim lacks in charisma, he ratchets up in points using snarling contempt and self-pity to motivate. Kristen mistakes his hang-dog look and reckless behavior for stupidity; she has always underestimated him. It’s her most attractive quality.

*********

Kristen thinks back to when she was 26 years old. Crying her eyes out. Saying enough is enough. Standing outside in August on the lawn that never gets mowed.  Omaha Nebraska. One year ago. So many cracks in their marriage, if what they shared had been a building, their building would have been condemned. Desperation, humiliation drove her to crawl her way out of the marriage.

She thought it would just be for a short while, as Tim came to his senses. She left most of her stuff with Tim (a mistake, as Tims girlfriend Kaylie would recklessly use and steal the stuff she liked, a thought that made Kristen not want to get out of bed in the mornings. The care she had lovingly taken in assemling her things, leaving behind a bra here and there for Tim to linger on in moments of despair. A well-hidden toothbrush, a magazine from that beach cottage they’d stayed at for their honeymoon. She did not expect some hoe to move in on her territory.)

Kristen wasn’t in the city, where her best friend Zoey lived. Zoey would be happy that she’d finally left Tim. Maybe Zoey would let me live with her, she thought dizzily..

Kristen was stuck in Bainbridge Island, Washington, at the house she’d lived in since she was ten years old. Her mother, Karen, took up the large upstairs room on the right and her grandma took up the one on the left. Kristen and her boys was delegated her old room, the size of a small walk-in closet. Kristen, always the martyr, refused to move into her sister Sophies room, for Sophie was away at school and might want to visit her old room. Sophies room was a bit larger and nicer than the walk-in closet Kristen lived in. Maybe Sophie would come live here now that Kristen was in trouble.. As long as her guest room remained unchanged..

Karen, the drunk, the nuisance, had a birds nest of bright frizzy red hair sticking out in all different directions. As usual, she wasn’t any help with the boys. When Kristen was five, her dad tried to molest her; Karen was ruined. It took all of Karens strength just to leave him, driving for days on end to take her three little girls to a place where they could be safe. Karen was dependent on her mother now for her living situation; Kristen was dependent on them both. Karen and her mother didn’t agree on much, but they both agreed being a single mother was not the life they wanted for Kristen. Karen, the drunk, was too tired and too wasted to be trusted with the boys. As for Grandma Barry- she was too strict, too religious, and too strange for Kristen to ask for anything more than free rent.

Kristen had just given birth a few months ago and was now living in the basement in a room smaller than most walk-in closets. She was literally penniless with Timothy Jr, now almost three years old, and baby Logan. She didn’t feel welcomed at all. Sometimes fights broke out and she was threatened with eviction. Her grandmother tried to force bibllical  principles Kristen didn’t agree with onto Timothy Jr, including spanking, interfering with toilet training. Grandma Barry insisted she let Timothy Jr. run around like a wild indian. Kristen shouted back that after being deserted by his father, he should be allowed to run around like a wild indian.

Even the younger sisters (Sophie and Emma) who visited in between college and partying had their two cents, and Kristen found the lifestyle jarring. She could never get a break. At least with Tim they sometimes hired a babysitter! Emma, the baby of the family, was in a relationship with a guy who hit her, choked her. When Kristen couldn’t convince Emma to leave, she considered it a personal failure on her fault. She did not see any paralels between Emmas choices and her own. If anything it made her grateful for Tim.

Tim never calls to talk to the kids, not even for birthdays. When asked, he says calling is a waste of money. When she begged him to write them letters, he said it wasn’t worth the stamp money.

When Kristen spent months scraping together 25 dollars to put into a savings account. Tim found out and took the money out of her next check, which was one hundred dollars less than he promised. Often the $150 or, if she was very lucky, $200 check came late, and she would have to call him frantically. She applied for food stamps, but because Tim was in the navy she was not eligible for anything more. They told her they could go after him for child support. She could have filed papers that would have forced Tims hand, but she told everybody it would get Tim sent to jail. If the Navy found out that Tim wasn’t paying child support, they could kick him out! She claimed she didn’t want to kill the golden goose and that the situation was extremely delicate. She remained in this delicate state for a year. Licking her wounds.

Tim spent his money on food for his skimpy dressed girlfriend Kaylie and his girlfriends kids. He took them out and spend 50 dollars at the Pancake house. It made him feel appreciated, something he decided he hadn’t felt in a while. After the homeymoon period ran out, Kaylie began to call Kristen for advice, wanting to be consoled, for Tim slept with so many women! And Tim had stopped calling Kaylie back! Tim was ignoring Kaylie! Why?

A few of Kristens old neighbors from Omaha would call to ask her to get Tim under control! Come back Kristen, come back! Without Kristen around to pacify them, he had become the neighborhood nuisance. He was throwing parties, making noise, rousing husbands anger. Since Tim was always on the make for sex, he was a threat to any guy with a wife that had a wandering eye.

It was the idea of Kaylie that really upset Kristen. More than the lack of money, more than the indignity of it all, even more than living off food stamp! The idea of him with this skank– it suggested he was moving on. She spent hours online looking at the girls picture trying to understand what he could possible see in her.

“She’s white trash,” Kristen decided haughtily. A much lesser version of me; she’s not anywhere near as pretty, so that’s that! Always a competition between the sexes. A struggle to be seen.

Whenever she saw it was Tim on the caller ID her heart raced, only to find out… well, Tim wanted to know if Kristen had any ideas on how to calm Kaylie down. Kaylie was hysterical, and how could he make up with her?

“Please Kristen, I like talking to you. Help me,” he said, and Kristen didn’t know how to react. She saw the irony in the situation, made fun of him with Zoey, but couldn’t stop taking his calls. Couldn’t stop being his friend. Couldn’t stop wanting him back. Things didn’t look so bad from far away… He hadn’t been that bad, had he?

Compared to this situation, where grandma Barry was always hounding her for not doing something right- well, what was a few extramarital affairs? So what if he demanded she be a swinger and engage in three-ways; the other guys hadn’t been too bad. There had been some violent behavior, but it was rare, and it really wasn’t Tim’s fault, it was the booze, the pressure, the challenges of being married young.

She was surprised that Kaylie lasted as long as she did! Kristen felt a twinge of satisfaction when Kaylie called her up sobbing: it meant Tim hadn’t been serious with the skank after all. When he broke up with Kaylie, she wanted to get back together with Tim.

In the meantime, her friends and family were yelling at her to move on, get over him!

Zoey was adamant. “Yes. Sweetie, I know you are heartbroken. I can feel it. This sounds cheezy but.. time really does heal. Or blunt it anyway. You will recover.. It will take time, and you need a break. Just one week to think your own thoughts without the responsibilty of the kids.” Kristen couldn’t get time away. Zoey was shocked to find out that Kristen still hadn’t filed the divorce papers.

“He’s scum! No, no, Tim is lower than scum, lower than toxic scum, lower than the bacteria that feeds OFF of toxic scum! That slusand.. Rabies would be too merciful for him!” Kristen laughed at Zoey, but when she got off the phone her worries about surviving flooed back. She was expected to raise the kids when she didn’t even feel like going on living. Killing herself would be retribution, wouldn’t it?

Tim knew how to hide his assets. The navy is supposed to kick out anybody who cheats on their spouse or refuses to pay child alimony. The navy lets you pay the child-support or takes you to the slammer. But Kristen was emotionally trapped.

Kristen needed a year to summon up the courage to call the Navys phone number. She only called when she felt there was no way Tim would try to fix their marriage. Even then, her heart wasn’t in it. She took her anger out on her friends, not Tim.

She couldn’t get a hold of the right branch. So many numbers. Overwhelming. Made her feel like she couldn’t breathe. Made her remember picking up Tims socks. Tim leaving the first time. Tim proposing the first time.  The day he told her he had done everything wrong and his eyes leaked shame.  The way his chest had been a pillow for her head.  She wanted the memories to go so she could forget, but then… No, she doesn’t want them to go anywhere. She wants to be able to take them out whenever she wants, an old map with creases that tell the stories behind their fights, their making up… They had married awfully young, hadn’t they? That wasn’t his fault..

And calling to beg for money was embarrassing! If Tim didn’t want to pay she would make it on her own. But she couldn’t get money from the government.  To even ring anybody out there up there to talk about it, to use that awful word, DIVORCE. It took Kristen a year to feel ready to do anything about it. She was heartbroken and alone with two kids asking her questions and needing the edges of their peanut butter sandwiches cut off just right. At least she could do that right, if nothing else.

At night she got drunk, ran around in the forest-like trees that circled her neighborhood, good Eastern Washington, and in her darker moments thought about leaving her youngest son to be adopted, or even worse, just killing herself. She had to, there was no other way out. There was an albatross on her neck at all times. She was in chilling pain, and when an animal is in pain, it sometimes forgets about survival. Not all trapped game will chew their foot off to get out of a trap. Some hope death hits them soon.

Kristen knows that during the marriage Tim did horrible things to her, even unspeakable things, like the time he left her at the bar to get raped, or the many times he manipulated her into participating in threesomes, threatening to take the kids away if she  wasn’t into it. The many times he just got up and left her crying on the floor. That was basically every other night even though she had done everything to get his lunch perfect, copied out notes for his exams, made it so he could make it to level 2 in the Navy, something that he lost when she left because he got a DUI. Strangely enough, he did not lose his job, he just got taken back.

Kristen was sure he would ask her back after he got the DUI but he did not. Didn’t it prove he was helpless without her there? She didn’t think he could keep his job without her reminding him to get gas, to pay the bills on time. She told her friends how stupid he was, not to write angry letters on her behalf, because he was dim-witted and wouldn’t understand the words, but… He was smart enough to get her to do all his work, wasn’t he? He was smart enough to get her to marry him, right? And then she found out he had another kid- a kid that had been born when they were together, together- and she shoved that knowledge away into the corner of her heart, a place blackened by the soot of his crimes, so black that not even the salt from a thousand nights of tears could touch that corner. Her tears, coming so easy, so ready, just made it sting all the more.

Kristen didn’t really believe there could be another kid out there until she saw the picture. There had been talks of getting back together but when she saw the picture something inside her gave way and she told Tim no, she could not get back together.

While Kristen lived in Bainbridge, guys threw themselves at her, just like they had in high school. One guy even offered to buy her a house and marry her. But she was not materialistic enough or hardy enough to look at another guy and think about being loved.

Her heart wanted only one thing. Tim was the one who had gotten her to break down her walls. She was not strong enough to take back what she shared. A lot of bad memories went where Tim went, but Kristen could only see what she was without him. Incomplete, pathetic really. Her family was always bothering and hassling her! She couldn’t stand it! How was she supposed to get anything done with their grumblings? She was desperate, always desperate. Desperation had become the emotion she was most familiar with, and she didn’t know any other color.

She filled out 369 applications for jobs, but by the time she did get offered a job, she didn’t have any money for day care, so she couldn’t go to the job!

The youngest, Tony, hadn’t even been around to meet Tim unless two months old counts, so he didn’t know any other life.

But the older one felt very hurt by it, and seeing that his mother cried all the time, he felt the need to act tough and extroverted, to protect her. He created his own imaginary world and was fastened to it. But still, when Tim promised to call and didn’t, Timothy Jr. insisted his mommy call the police to get a hold of him. The fact that Tim was not available by phone did not make any sense. if he wasn’t calling then his dad had to be someplace horrible, for his father would not do this on purpose. What had he done wrong? He would never again yell at Tony, he would eat his green beans. The idea that his father would forget about him was not possible, was it? How could he be so forgettable? He would be better, he yelled! Still, no call came. Kristen tried very hard to reach him, texting and cursing out Tim for not calling his son, but nothing good came of any of it.

They were just as important as the other kid from the other women- the kid from the woman Tim didn’t acknowledge.

Turned out Tim had another kid, too.

After a year of Tim seeing any girl he wanted to, partying, and never being nagged, Kristen resigned herself to the fact that Tim only called for three reasons. When he wanted something- no, needed something,  to manipulate her, and to get her off his back about filing paperwork for money. And the money reason could be put into the needed something category. It wasn’t until a family lawyer friend filed the papers for her that Tim started calling Kristen hundreds of times a day. Kristen was good, she didn’t pick up. But when Tim flew to Washington…

She lasted a day. Then he kissed her, the pressure so apologetic, the weight of a thousand redemptions were promised in that kiss. A sudden exuberance that had been empty from her entire being filled her in that moment and she would not be denied.

Zoey, who had only seen her twice since she had been in Washington was aghast. Kristen lived a ferry ride away, and the Zoey did not drive, nor did she like to travel. But she decided enough was enough, she really had to come out there. She would have come out the day Tim showed up but she did not get notice, her schedule did not allow for that luxury. She could only come up a few days after Tim showed. By that time Kristen went from begging her to come up to begging her not to come. And then Kristen started ignoring Zoeys texts, for she did not want a reminder of all the doubts she had spent a year living in. She did not want the euphoria she felt to fall down. No, she knew what her friend would do, and she did not want Zoey scaring Tim away! No indeed! Her family was being rude enough!

———————————————————————————————————

To the mother of the next generation:

I hope you can look at yourself in the mirror knowing what you know now. You chose a man who doesn’t respect you or his children over your childrens well-being and love. Clearly your goodness of character has been overestimated. A jellyfish has more backbone than you do. You are worse than a pussy, you are sauteed jelly. You hide behind your own cowardice, as if that’s an excuse. You’ve spent a year crying “what a scumbag!” Now you are ready to come back the moment he wiggles his finger. You chose him over good friends, family, self-worth.. You make women everywhere sick.

You are worse than the wife of the child molester who sits back idly and watches and tolerates the abuse. Calling yourself a victim does a disservice to other victims. Your father wanted you to do strange funny feeling things you did not understand, then he left, and it was all your fault. If that damaged you, think how much more damage it does to have a man leaving whenever he wants, the kids thinking their behavior can influence whether the door swings shut or open.

Oh wait, you have proven that you cant think with your head.

You think you are using your heart, but it’s something rotten to the core that’s being worked on here. You are the scam, and he is the con artist. He lost control, so he came to take it back. Once he’s gotten the reigns (which were really quite easy for him to grab) he’ll do all the things he did when you were together. You haven’t bargained. You haven’t forced him to go to sex therapy (and we all know he is a sex addict, as he’s sought out sex with other girls openly on nights you denied him, he’s even raped you when you denied him.) You feel sorry for him.

My heart, usually filled with forgiveness, can only feel revulsion because when I look at you I see the innocent being forced to handle what they should not have to handle. Hardships that destroy the purity of their hope. 

It’s quite personal for me seeing as you dragged me into your personal business, made me part of your personal life, and then you kicked me out the moment you no longer enjoyed the truths I had to give you. It feels… personal to me. Do you know how my innocence was taken away? Do you? Do you really? Because again, I feel very protective of other innocence. Nobody should have their innocence taken away like this.

  Your children are being attacked; you are NOT the innocent party here anymore, your children are. The moment you let him back into your arms you went from being a sympathetic victim to somebody complicit in a crime. At least the wife of a drug dealer does not tell herself her husband works in sales.

 

I’m angry at the energy I put into trying to protect you. What a waste!

You acted as though you had your hands tied behind your back but as soon as Tim enters the picture, you demonstrate an amazing agility- as if you’ve known your whole life how to get by without even needing your arms or hands.

You could have tried harder to tell me how entrenched in his grasp you were instead of trashing him with me. We called him Mr Slusband. He went from a noun to an adjective of a terrorist strike. He became something that happened to people… But he was not a person anymore. The idea that you can switch to the other side so easily.. I feel as though I have been living next to a double agent, and the betrayal stings. But you don’t have time to apologize- you need me to be there to pick up the pieces the next time he hurts you. Right now you can’t think about anything outside of his touch. 

 

You were so close, my dear. Didn’t you know this was his Hail Mary? Do you have any idea how good it could have gotten? You were a few inches away from celebrating a new life. The independence you see in me that you envy, you were so close. And now, sucked back into his grasp, it will take more energy to get back to being a victim than one year did to move you one inciment closer to feeling better. Seeing how hard it was this time, I don’t think you will have it in you a second time. 

Why? We fought for freedom. And you…. you are a slave, but not just any slave. You are a slave that cries to everyone they meet, I don’t want to be a slave! So I cared. I tried to get you free! but you keep walking back to slavery, again and again, and everytime you do, you get less food, less care, less medicine. Less protection. You lose the protection of those who gave so much to free you; you lose the respect of the master who thought he could lose you. When you go outside of that protection, you have to deal with not having that protection to come back to.

kidnapping letter 3 or 4 etc..

I’m still here is what I can’t believe. Poisoned by your lies? You are keeping me from experiencing life. The whole time I’m sitting here life is going by, and I get whiffs from the times you leave and come back. In fact, you are my only connection to the outside world anymore. Is that what you wanted? I know. I ask all the time. It’s just a quirk- don’t take it too seriously. I can’t believe you don’t narrow it down for me further. That doesn’t make much sense. What I mean is really that I fear my personality is leaching into the water and becoming less and less interesting because there is no order to sustain me beyond your comings and goings in and out of here, bringing some kind of book if I’m extremely lucky, but also bringing your phrases and ideas as my only source of stimulation. Oh, I have my head, yes, don’t I have my head. And there is enough for me to go around as long as I want on my merry go round of learning, noticing different patterns, enforcing a mental cloud. You have no idea what it feels like because you are on the other side. 

Why do you expect me to do all the talking and then when I do talk you pounce on it so suddenly for being too whatever I’m being in that moment? I’m sorry we all aren’t as perfect as you are. And then I’m so surprised every time you come back looking for more. The pressure to continue entertaining you is on and it’s dreadful. Like you could understand. You are all mask and all shell and all walls and all cagey as shit, with your soft and sadly mechanical voice and it’s wanderings and tidings. It’s a hesitant voice, not so much monotone as it’s lilting quality is drawn out for much longer periods of time than other voices that are put in the melodic category.The action everywhere else is startling.

You hate me, oh, you hate that I symbolize needs you can’t have without breaking every law, and so the physics of who you are has to be built on constructs all the time in order for your survival. Maybe it’s how lots of people survive though. In order to have certain things they have to interact with people and perhaps there is some equation that will help you to determine how to reach the most number of people with the easiest social farce.

This is the last time, isn’t it? I should have done more, never said a single thing to you, maybe that would have served my purpose better. But If I hated everything that happened.. No, that’s not right.

 

Unfinished

She is their crime of passion. Soundless screams escaping from her wilting luck. Can’t imagine what doesn’t reach her. Then again, she has more than enough imagination so she probably raises her head and pictures the closed doors that won’t open. Spins, blurs, and muffles the expanding horizon of streaming information; remembers shooting kaleidoscopes down from the stars, and dangling them in front of a howling cat- except that you could see angry sights coming from behind her reputation, drugs, prostitution- secrets.

They weren’t hushed up for long: foolproof blackmail was flung at anyone who bore a shred of recognition to transports in recent memory cast on the image of the day. Feeling a shiver of foreboding, she swept the unfamiliar sensation under the rug. The unfamiliar was nothing compared to the pressure felt. There was an insane idea going around that she couldn’t make it. The rumor was that instead of holding something dear, she carved up multiple selves and held them up to her sex-fueled bodyguards, taking scars away, choreographing them into a ritual that became part fate part inclination. Expectations were a prison, perfection just a gateway, pale as the dead, to appear comatose on so many occasions. How to know how enough was ever enough. She made bold statements, then expected people to just.. get over them. The statements were wild birds flying in rushed zigzags up the sky, and with the speed of time being so exponential these days, why did anyone feel they needed to protect their students from her?

Encountering  snooty brush offs at certain affiliations- school and work- made her prematurely regret the last five years.  Listlessly she’d watched as people in positions of power relative to her in competition and power inspected her openness coldly, then used it as a torch to burn down the plank on which she stood. Her days of hiding in plain sight felt very over. Didn’t they have a duty to say what didn’t work? She could guess without bullshitting relatively easily. Did they have a problem with explanations? Was registering the truth a stifling place for the weak or just all those willing to clobber to get ahead?

Damn that grim circling vulture of a musician- he was in all the dying reputable music circles, the ones with big American names that sounded as common as Mcdonalds in this town.  He’d played her music… and now he was looking down at her as if she was a housewife with an apron covered in flour and a hand in the cookie jar. As if her mind was charred beyond recognition and her deaths all false. He filled his calculation with avoidance, using the usurped powers of perception of those always casting a stone of judgment to wrench her history into a revisionist pity-filled party of scandal. Just enough seriousness to the charges that those hearing would whisper under their breath.

It wasn’t as if she had lost her talent- that would be one thing. But for them to care about things like what she wore? Silk camisoles and fish nets over jeans with loose-fitting hoodies smelling of fresh laundry clung to her like protection. The perfume was sweet but never cloying, like being underneath an orchard of apple blossom trees. Her eyes were swimming underneath the war paint of black eye makeup. Wide and circular earrings- the design modern but the pattern classical- dangled from her ears. As if provocative clothing would evenhandedly bring learning to a revolt? Wasn’t provocation a way to get people to think?How could a shirt corrupt an entire populace? She was on a mission to understand things, not ruin! Any destruction she had in her would go in hurting herself, never them. And then, there was another thing. She was in part their product. She was a part of them now, as their education shaped her. She’d been going there since she was a child, only now she was left unclaimed in the lost property box. Except she had once belonged; that wasn’t her delusion. There was violence in belonging…But there was also violence in separation. If there was any harbinger of blame going around, then why weren’t they looking at themselves?

Parents lovingly abolish their children out of a sense of pride. Or they try so hard they will get down in the mud and mole a tunnel into the future for you only for the authority figures they entrusted with your well-being to reach down and knock the revelations under, until you are wandering through the underground transportation system trying to find a gutter hole or ventilation shaft to climb up through.

There’s so much lost ground to cover and that school won’t hire people whose past they don’t admire more than anything.  A lot of people treat life like a race to the finish line by refusing to accept forms of human suffering. In order to win their race they’re inclined to invent their past to white-out suffering from prying, leaching eyes. There’s a startling thrust of motivation after reinvention. The penalty for getting caught depends on the uniform you wear. There are ways to bypass privacy and just because you can appear respectable doesn’t mean you can change your social security number.

“I guess I could change my name.” The red tape was gone, she was laughed out of their dumb graces. Motives like braces adjusted to fix teeth. Faith averted as a drunken girl hung up on her… so sudden. Felt sheepish for telling the girl to stop drinking and take care of her kids.

Security went undisguised, respectability diminished. She’d explored the dumpsters, cradles, blistered hearts, dirty needles, useless begging, and finally, the violence of the unlovable. Upon staring back at all those judgmental fishbowl eyes, she realized she was not prepared for the bitter-sweetness tainting the flavor.

Let there be no final roll call.

Young faces peep in and out of her phantom longing. Power might just inform this confluence; if they fear her they just might pretend to respect, and pretending could take on a shimmer to those who bought truth as the life-size artifices adults wear. Saints arrive in all different forms. Angels can come shrouded in darkness. Redemption… a white noise from a television. Suppose she’d traded in on her feelings of powerlessness, and it’d been mixed as the real thing. She had wanted people around her to know all the horrible things about herself, but she had made her workplace into a church and these people were not priests. They went for the jugular.

Kidnap story

On or off, what’s the difference? Extended time delays turn into a postcard. That’s all anyone cares about, the postcard. What looks like confidence is way more important than the actual thing. All those hundreds of people in line were waiting to get married.. but people were robbing them of their vows. Where was I?

I found a book in here to read. I reread it over and over.It says that it’s a new Family Original Series. Something that is connected to the outside world!  Finally Mr. Tibbit left me something.. That’s the name I give him. If I’ve been silent for a while, well.. tell it to the pigeons. I lost my sense of words, of knowing what to say and why. Then he gave me something to do with GHA (yes, the supposed date rape drug) some cousin or something of the actual thing. I guess he switched things up, you know? Something clicked, like a metronome starting.
Anyway, I never did like newspapers. I wonder what is happening out there. Maybe a war has happened, a bomb, and that’s the real reason he put me in here, to save me. I know it’s unlikely, but anything could happen. Especially when it’s just you and your mind. Monks live in this space, right? Except they get to breathe the open mountain air which just slaps you in the face with its liveliness. Personally, I care more about animals then people.. We have too many people on the planet. Maybe that’s why I was put here.

I’ve started losing the past. My mind no longer goes to what I had before this. I saw some early scrawls of mine hidden in a secret place and it was like reading what somebody else wrote.. except I felt things. Like, pain and loss and all that boring stuff. (I’m just kidding about the secret stash Mr Tibbit! I don’t have any secrets places! you get to them all anyway, you just pretend that I still have secrets to keep me calm.)

I’ve developed my own way to tell you things now.. I’m going to get them out to you even if it takes all the time I have. I hope there’s a point.

I’m back. Who knows how long this time will last? Better have some fun this time around.

my generation

I might do a redo with it being more choppy, diced, for when I read it out loud I have ideas about cutting stuff out- just the filler words. making it less accessible in some ways faster flow in others. Some of the best lines or ideas arent supported by the piece overall.. but it’s a bit weak of me to start with a list of this pieces potential problems, so, read on reader.

sometimes i think my generation is like a bunch of lost children on a ship in the middle of the sea with nobody steering. so i tell the adults “there is no adult to steer” but they dont believe me. they say there’s no way any “adult” would leave a bunch of kids to fend for themselves and that there is NO WAY an adult can act like a kid (only worse as adults have responsibilities and enormous pressure on their shoulders so when the blow stuff off the repercussions can be catastrophic….) Adults don’t believe me that people from THEIR generation could act crazy. They don’t think it’s possible. They hide their sins very well. But my generation does not. We display our taboos in every way we can and get in trouble for it. We don’t know what to do with all the rights not to mention the wrongs. Then there is empathy getting in the way. Is it rescuing us or making us toss more people overboard. The wind won’t let up and the kids are in pain because they’ve never steered a boat before. They want something to take for the seasickness. They don’t know how to scrub the boat or change the wind panel. Some find the trip boring so they junp over or drill holes in the wood. Others take out their iphones- look at the ratio on that wave dude! Every day the crew faces the ocean taking us for breakfast. We don’t need redemption, of course, because we’re going somewhere, if somebody could remember. Some put on great fronts, shaking our fist and acting as though we are a leader and know what’s going on out there. What would we do without the fronts. The cold front especially. We do have a lot of information, it’s true. But it’s not firsthand, it’s thirdhand or fourth hand and when we tell the adults what we know they do not believe us. We must be lying as we don’t know how to cover our exposure. No, we won’t die from not knowing how to steer but from the exposure. We didn’t consider that. Not really. We didn’t want the adults to be mad at us. But whatever, there’s no adults left.

Shipwreck by *oO-Rein-Oo

Photography / Conceptual (www.deviantart.com)