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[08 Mar 2006|02:13am] |
My days are longer, in a good way. I don't have time to sit and sulk so much. I woke up early today to drive to the grocery store for supplies for a presentation for spanish class. I am getting to that point I was at once, where I am starting to think in Spanish again. I enjoy being fluent in another language, and I think that its beautiful.
Walked to school today. It was so nice outside. The trail didnt burn down like I had thought; only the trail on the other side of campus. Classes went well. Anytime I get to hear the words Ana Freud, Alfred Adler, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, or existentialism, I get really giddy, and those were all words from my personality class today. My presentation went well later on.
I met up with Daryll and Ryan at the gym right after class. I hadn't seen Ryan in almost a year, which is crazy to me. He is such a wonderful, genuine person, and it was such a pleasure to see him again. He's training for the army now, which is insane to me, but when I think about it, it fits. He deserves to do something really great with his life, and he wants to be a fireman and part of the army. We even climbed the rock wall which was fun, but I'll be honest, I didnt get very far up. It apparently takes long limbs and height.
Tuesday nights dinner was tonight. I don't want to concentrate on the food, it makes me feel disgusted and guilty. Guilty has been the most frequently described emotion that I've written down for my therapist.
Watched Crash afterwards and was inspired by it. It was my second time seeing it, but its still so very good. Had philosophical talks with the boys until 2 in the morning.
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[15 Feb 2006|04:09pm] |
She drove down a narrow road on the edge of the earth. He lived on Crystal Lake, like the song; named as such because the stars reflected into it as if it were full of diamonds. A guaranteed group of black old men always sat in lawn chairs on the coast, with rods casting into the glimmering water, fishing for stars. There was no horizon, it all meshed into one great liquid sky. The only visible difference was the lit up factory in the distance, that still looked like a galaxy at most angles. She had always thought it a shame, that something so beautiful could be so destructive.
She pulled into his long driveway. There were no streetlights on and the neighborhood was old. It was the kind of ancient town that could be looked at as either beautifully historical, or wretchedly unkempt. Even the grafitti on the bridge reflected intensity to her, and all was unbelievably stunning in her eyes.
He usually waited for her on the curb, or sitting up on his brick mailbox. This time he was asleep inside. She opened the door without a knock, and there he lay, asleep on the worn couch. She did not try to wake him. It took loud noises and shakes, and she was too exhausted. She moved his tired body over, and laid beside him. We will rest here until you awake, she thought, as she looked at his peaceful face.
She pulled his arm to hang over her side, and stared intricately at his hands. She had always told him how beautiful his hands were. The nails were worn and the skin was rough. His palms were calloused and his wrists were thin. He never wore the ring she gave him. He always kept it in his pocket. As experienced as his hands appeared, they still had an obvious look of freshness. They still looked as though he was a child.
She moved her eyes up to his forearm and moved her neck to look at his upper half. His skin collected freckles as if they rained on him and they only settled on the flat surface of his shoulders. Some had trickled down to his back, but most made a puddle where gravity would suit them. His back and arms were strong and protective. She marveled at them, as if he were a God. He was a masterpiece. She painted and wrote, and some called her an artist. But he. He was an artist for perfecting the instrument he was given. And she felt beyond honored to use it as her blanket when she was cold or tired.
The movements she made had surprisingly awaken him. He mustered an exhausted greeting and a self-assured smile. It lit her up inside, as if the stars and lake had poured inside her, but she kept composed, though the light beamed through her eyes and skin. She laughed to him, and moved her body on top of him playfully, and tickled and kissed his neck. She left marks on his skin, as her contribution to the piece of art. It may look like a mistake, and even if it was, she just wanted to be a part in it. She just wanted to be an artist like him. And more than anything, she wanted him as property, like a patron would. And the marks wouldn't last long, but for the time they were visible, he was hers.
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[01 Feb 2006|11:08pm] |
She sat with him on the curb infront of his orphanage. His jeans were falling off him; he bought them big so they'd last long and he'd grow into them. Even though he wasn't growing, he was shrinking, with the lack of nutrients, the lack of motivation to do anything that he really needs. His jacket was his prized possession. It looked newer, the corduroy made him look sophisticated, contrasting with the worn t-shirt unkempt hair and face. His face was so dirty, yet his eyes stood out enough to make him look innocent and strangely clean.
She was neither beautiful nor ugly. She had no striking features, she was a face in a crowd, a mundane being that at all angles looked like nothing special. She'd rather be ugly than unnoticeable, and she had tried desperately on both extremes, but couldn't reach anything other than being commonplace. One of those faces that reminded everyone of someone else, and not with fond memory, just recall and curiousity. It struck no one as incredible, nor was she repulsive. Just a face. Just a being.
She was the only one that visited him. He never mentioned how much it meant, because he couldn't get past how ordinary she was. He hadn't noticed that it was the only thing he ever looked forward to. He appreciated the orphanage. It had people that understood what it felt like to be alone, unloved, and incomplete. He knew she could never understand that.
They looked out onto the sky, smothered with stars in a perfectly cloudless night. It should have made them feel small. It only made them feel that the universe was right there, only the two of them. And as small as that sounds, it meant galaxies of missunderstandings, differences, and connections. All one universe, yet so many variations.
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[14 Jan 2006|01:13pm] |
If life's not beautiful without pain, well I'd rather never even see beauty again
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| i wrote this on the plane |
[11 Jan 2006|06:49pm] |
Have you ever had a decision that was so unbelievably easy, yet inexplicably impossible to make? And then you just ask everyone's advice because maybe they'll give you permission to make mistakes, when really, they all give the same rational answer. The decision itself may be simple, but not following through, even if its a win-lose situation: the easiest to make.
And that fork in the road is so damn obvious. One path is full of beauty, happiness, health, and simplicity. The other is just full of deep sadness, regret, confusion, frustration, helplessness, gult, and cheap lust. It's empty. The road has no direction, its a dead end, or a roundabout. Its just cyclicle and theres no end unless you turn back.
So you block off that road with tape and every physical boundary you can think of. You step foot in the path that will lead you to better times. For some reason you can't stop thinking of the other road. If it'll be okay blocked off and lonely. If anyone else will cut off the tape and make the mistakes you already have. But maybe its their turn. Someone elses turn for a lost cause.
So please, walk proudly on this new path. It will treat you will. It will lead you to good places.
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[25 Dec 2005|12:37pm] |
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I have the flu. Fantastic.
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| ode to katie halsey |
[07 Dec 2005|12:32am] |
A tree had fallen in the path they had been walking on. The hurricane must have knocked it down and spread the branches outward, reaching their arms sideways to sides of the sky. He put his foot up on the bark and up into a strong trunk that he thought could work as a seat for them. He put his palm outward toward her and took her small hand into his, as she tried to find balance up and onto the horizontal branch.
They sat down, her legs up, with her arms wrapped like ropes around them, and he sat with his feet dangling downward. The sun was setting.
She looked over to the unruly sides of the tree that spread like thin fingers up and over poking holes in the colors changing in the sky. She smiled, and laughed to herself as she looked down to her knees. "Isn't it wonderful? That something so destructive has made something so beautiful?"
She looked over to him, trying to get him to move his chin, therefore his eyes into hers. She smiled once he did.
"I wish I didn't push away the people that love me." He stated.
"It's strange you say that."
"Why?"
"Because I've never said I love you."
"But you do."
"If I disagreed, would you not push me away?"
"I don't know. I wouldn't believe you."
"Well, you're here. You haven't quite pushed me away."
"Damnably, I'm a bigger fooler than you are."
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| Wish you were here. |
[28 Nov 2005|11:21pm] |
She walked down an empty path, hands in the pockets of her jacket. It began to rain. She put the hood on over her hair. Her eyes outstood all other feature on her face, and her lips were small and modest. Really, all of her face was truly stunning since her hidden hair made it all look more profound.
She moved her large eyes down to the ground, then up to the sky. All the rain fell around her, as if she were the reference point to which it all fell down. She slowly closed her eyes and moved her small lips into a grin. I guess it rains when he's gone, she said aloud.
A few hundred miles down the path, he was there. Standing in the middle, looking up and around, and laughing quietly to himself. His hands were in his pockets, and he moved gracefully further. I suppose it rains when she isnt here, he thought.
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[11 Nov 2005|11:51am] |
The ballet dancer moved her thin, elegant leg into the air, her toes pointed with poise. Her eyes closed at times, in her concentration. She breathed in, but felt a piercing pain in the middle of her chest. It made her smile. It was then that she leaped into the air and gracefully back to the floor. She looked to her instructor, in the pink lit gymnasium.
His eyes were half open and his arms were tightly folded. He looked at her with his middle aged, wrinkled frown, and sent to her a feeling of pure disappointment. It hit her just as the pain of breathing, and it still made her smile. I'll do better, she thought. I'll prove it to him, I'll be light enough to be elegant. I'll be beautiful and perfect.
He pointed his awkwardly muscular arm to the back room, where the scale was. She stopped her dancing, picked up her bag, and walked with him there.
She stepped on the scale, and he looked so angry, his coarse face turned even redder. She kept her head down, with such shame and sadness.
"Give me a week," she said.
"We don't have a week. Your audition is in two days."
"I'll be ready in two days then."
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[08 Nov 2005|01:57pm] |
It was late. They laid in the grass, eyes up to the sideways trees and the dark sky. There was something so depressing about the night time, he thought. She just moved her hand close, and wrapped her pinky around his. They didn't move, they just kept looking to the sky.
"I'm losing my mind," He said. She wasn't sure if it was directed at her, or if it was just a blank statement. One broadcasted but without thought.
"No you aren't."
"See. People tell me that. People that don't understand. And what do I do with that?"
"Would you prefer if I agreed? It's like you want to be insane. Like it's all you have going."
"I would prefer if you didn't always sound so text book," he said.
She closed her mouth. She didn't know the right things to say to him anymore. It used to be exciting when she went out of her way to hurt him. But now that she wants him, she doesn't want to hurt him. And he is now uninterested. She looked to his wrist and saw the cuts up and down. His frame was getting smaller too. He wasn't eating.
"Who am I to you anymore?"
"You are a harbor. You know, like the rope that ties me to the dock."
"I used to be the wind."
"I know."
"You preferred me then."
"Yes."
She then decided it would be best if she hurt him. He wanted that. She was going to give him what he wanted.
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[11 Sep 2005|01:34pm] |
She sat on the train with him. They weren't in booths as she had desired, but in rows. In impersonal rows, where she had to move to the side to even look at him. And he did not want to talk.
"Baby, can't we talk?"
"Not now. Everyone can hear you. Are you trying to embarrass us?"
"No."
"Then look out the window and we'll talk later. We're going to see the city soon, I know how you love the city at night."
"I'm not a child."
"Do you want to make a scene here? In this train? We've already turned heads. I have people next to me, infront of me, and behind me. There's a few inches between this isle and the next, and the train is full. Maybe you are hungry. I have crackers for you here."
"I'm not hungry." In fact, she was starving. The hunger pangs were so strong that she begged for her stomach to stay quiet so he'd not mention it. Her wrists were thin and boney, her fingers like skeletons tapping against the glass in anxiety. She was anxious to eat, she was anxious to not eat at all. She couldn't wait until days went by and she'd be thinner, and prettier for him. She put her fingers through her hair, and a clump of it came out onto her fingers. She untangled them and rushed to put them on the small space between her chair arm and the window. She twisted her long, thin figure so her back would be facing him, and she looked at her reflection in the window.
It wasn't that he didn't know what she was doing to her body, and it wasn't that he didn't care to fix it. He simply didn't know how, and didn't want to admit to her that he knew. He wasn't as calloused as she thought, but if she ever knew that, he'd be gone. She would love him less if she knew he loved her. She counted the bumps on her back from her spinal column protruding through her shirt. He looked down to his other side, where the crackers and a flask of whiskey sat against him. He opened it and drank.
She heard him drink.
"If you can drink on this train, I should be able to smoke. This is absurd."
"Yes, but the whole train doesn't know I had a drink. Everyone could smell your cigarette and see the smoke if you lit it."
"Well aren't you lucky. You have an easier addiction to satisfy then."
"Don't talk so loud. People are sleeping here. There are people in the world that actually sleep, unlike you."
"And unlike you, baby. You never sleep."
"Don't call me baby here. We can talk when the train stops."
She looked out the window again, to the city, the lights and the people. And she saw a larger woman for the quick moment that they drove past her. She was sitting on a bench, with a crowd of people around, but none close enough to her. It's like people think that weight is contageous, and they could catch her disease. And this sad, obese woman, just sat there on the bench alone.
She looked down to herself, then to him as he sipped more liquor out of his flask. She leaned her head towards the glass as if she could still see the woman, but she was long passed. And she thought to herself that she was beginning to understand that woman, and desired to tell her. Of course, she wouldn't see that woman again, but there were plenty of people like her in this world. And how sad it is, she thought, to know that so many people are lonely in this world. If only all the lonely people could find each other.
But when lonely people find each other, they are still lonely.
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[10 Sep 2005|09:36pm] |
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I feel in a corner, my legs propped up and my arms playing as ropes around them, head burried. But I'm not, I'm sitting in a chair. I'm still in a hollow room, and desperately need you next to me. I don't know when I started to need you. But it physically hurts, quite a bit. And you sicken me. You won't call me tonight because you forgot you were supposed to. You are wasting your night drowning yourself in wine, or smoking until your eyes turn red. Fuck you and your misplaced dependancy on substances. Misplace it on me.
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[09 Sep 2005|07:31pm] |
He was a homeless boy, as much as I tried to get around it. It's easier to be blunt about these things. He had no home. He had greasy, long hair, that was for one reason or another, quite becoming. His clothes fell off him like his shoulders were a hanger, and his pants were entirely too large so he'd always have to pull them up, and couldn't afford a belt. He said that he bought pants too big for him so he could keep them for years and he'd grow into them.
His eyes were somewhere between brown and green, and his eyelashes unnaturally long and measmurizing. He had that pathetic quality to him, but still completely innocent and beautiful. He didn't always look so completely helpless, but he did always intrigue me. And by this, I mean I could never forget about him. I met him because he approached me in the street, as though I was an old friend. A friend of mine thought he was mine, I thought he was hers. He had charm like that. Complete and utter clumsiness that found its way to be charming, and completely wonderful. And with that kind of charm is a real kind of danger. He knew exactly how charming and absolutely unbelievable he was. He never hid his greasy hair or unkempt face. On anyone else, it would be absolutely atrocious.
And I fell somewhere completely outside of his world. And when he kissed me it was as if he was as sincere as an animal. He liked to bite, he liked to leave marks on me. I was property and I loved it. He was into pushing, he liked to scratch and grab me. And he turned me into nothing, and I simply am not.
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[08 Sep 2005|10:49pm] |
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Please do not make marks on my neck. I don't want anyone to see. No one to know that we have this. And you don't know that I have this with others. And I tell them, please, do not make marks.
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[08 Sep 2005|09:11pm] |
She sat there, foot tapping, moving every which way to comfort her mind through the anxiety. She looked at a painting on the way, the water colors bleeding down to the very corners and all the colors meshing together. She wanted to touch it to feel its texture, but it was just a copy anyway. just a transparent image of what an artist deemed a masterpiece. she wet her lips, biting them, folding the bottom lip in and out until she accidentally cut herself.
"Dammit", she thought to herself. She took part of the fancy napkin left on her elitist table and dapped the middle of heer lip. She heard once that sugar clotted the blood, so she dipped her finger slowly into an artificial sugar packet because they didnt carry whole grains. the brands that are so real that the sugar actually looks brown from the cane as it naturally grows. Trying to keep the sugar on so her cut would heal, she tried to pretend the substance on her mouth wasnt sweet and calming. She licked it anyway, and had to reapply the sugar several times before it stayed. By then, the bleeding had stopped naturally, and she had downed a good few packets of sugar. She laughed inwardly at her clumsiness. She almost enjoyed the pain from her cut. It took off the anxiety she had originialy felt. But the cut was like her "guest" that she awaited. The pain that wouldnt heal. The cut that wouldnt close.
He walked in confidentally, the table shook a bit when he came closer, because the wooden floors were weak. They look better though, and thats what the fancy restaurant was aiming towards, she supposed His hair was in his eyes. She hated that. She hated his damned t-shirts and how he never changed his appearance, because he felt so smug in his own skin. His hair was really the only thing that had ever changed in the time she had known him, and that wasnt insecure change, that was fucking fashion.
He looked at her. Smiled. Her face was flushed from stress, her make up under her eyes stained too far underneith because of the heat, her lip mysteriously beat red, and the lip stick smeared off to the side a bit. How clumsy she looked. How her naturally hair stuck out entirely too far down to be considered an accident. It wasnt that he didnt care. It was that he simply had many of the same person. She was like the girl he'd go home to fuck. She was the girl he went home to once. That was the reason she was not anymore. So he tried to glance at her in a different light this time. He saw her eyes, trying not to focus on the old mascara, and then remembered what he used to ssee. He used to laugh with her. He used to hold her. He got over the superiority for a moemnt, so he could sit down.
"I ordered you a coffee, dear. I know thats what you like. The sugar is atrocious though. Something truly awful. The artificial type, just gross..." She trailed off. As she said this, she sweeped the sugar grains that remained on her side of the marble table. The empty packets already found there way to her back pocket.
"Thanks, but I don't like sugar anyway. Just creme. They better have creme."He responded.
"Something tells me a place like this doesnt just carry milk. Theyy probably have all sorts of creme. The fancy stuff. The elitist shit."
He paused. "You love to be completely not classy in a classy place, dont you?"
"Am I ruining your elitist moment? Its just creme. Drink it black, it'll make you look older." She said. He looked down again, this time obviously because he was contemplating her suggestion.
"So theres no greeting? No, how have you been since you left? No, what have you done with your life since our last conversation?" He whined.
"I really didnt want to bring up that you left."
"What, are you in denial?"
"No, it's just fucking rude. Why would anyone bring up a horrible memory to anyone else if they loss a bit of comfort around that person in their absense. What I mean is, of course we arent the same now. Of course I wnt talk to you with the same ease now as I used to. I don't know you the same. You dont know how I've grown and how you should or shouldnt be proud of me. If you came up to a complete stranger, which is almost what this is, why would you ask them to recall a sad occurance in their past?"
"It was supposed to be small talk. You used to love small talk." He recalled.
"Thats because I never knew what to say I was so intimidated by your outward arrogance. The only time I felt comfortable enough with you was when your clothes was off. When we were intimate, and you were vulnerable. At that time, I didnt want to talk anyway. It defeats the purpose of feeling like the words arent necessary."
"So what's changed?"
"I see you the way I saw you when you were naked and stripped of your clothed, artificial appearance. When you had meaning. The way you saw me when I stood up on the corner of your bed. I'd rather be in that position, seeing you in naivety and simplisticy."
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[08 Sep 2005|09:11pm] |
He called from the top of the stairs
"Once you get here, I'll love you"
But I walked step by step,
And the distance grew longer,
As I grew weaker, and I simply
Never arrived.
I could have sworn
He could have saved me.
He cried once when he found
A dying dove on the street.
I thought it was some kind of sign
But I could cry at the sight of death too,
It doesnt mean I can heal.
I climbed the last step,
He somehow fell to the bottom,
Some kind of empowering thought
Even though he never waited like I wanted.
He just toppled down
So disgracefully
Now I can save myself.
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[08 Sep 2005|09:06pm] |
""Maybe this is it. Maybe it's because it's human nature to want what one cannot have."
"And you don't want me, because you can have me."
"I was thinking more along the lines of you wanting me because you cannot."
But I fell in your arms, and my knees buckled and collapsed, and were tied around yours, and you rubbed your legs against mine because I was locked in. You kissed my eyes and kept them shut. You kissed my neck and choked and bruised me from ever feeling love from anyone else. You kissed my forehead. No one else does that anymore. I'm no where near upset with you. Don't mistake this for remorse. In fact, I wish I would feel a spec of regret about you, but I simple do not.
I had a small inkling of how much I missed you being around. That feeling I had before I knew I'd see you. I mean, there's nothing like it. And the happiest feeling I've ever had was waking up in your arms for the first time. I could sleep whenever I wanted, but it wasn't often that we could spend the time together, so why waste it sleeping. Because the waking up part is that much more beautiful with you there next to me. And everytime after that when I woke up to you, you'd kiss me on the forehead. And I felt so old. When you'd roll over onto me a little by accident and I'd move and you'd smile in your sleep and pull me closer. You'd let out a content sigh or say 'aw'. I liked how we could sit at my kitchen table after just holding hands and calmly just being, and you'd read the newspaper and I'd make a snack. "Do you want a drink, honey?" - "Yes, m'dear. I love you!" And then you'd change for work and I'd wait for you on the couch, and you'd give me a quick kiss before you left.
But I never really knew how beautiful we were together, or atleast I didnt recall it, until I saw you again. So many months in between. But we always pick up where we left off. Bite my shoulder, kiss my cheek, blow in my ear, rub your nose to mine, bat your eyes on my skin so it tickles. Pull the covers over us, and lay your head on my chest and let me kiss it, put your hands through my hair and make me calm. Make me feel beautiful, kiss my freckles, my clavicle, my nose, and voice to me what they are when you do. Kiss my hip bone and cover the marks under my shirt, cover my bruises with my long hair, bite my lip, kiss every knuckle one by one and hold my hand from the tip like a gentleman. Touch my cheek bone and slowly move it down my face, and just know that you're the only one that I let do that. Just know that all I could think of was how beautiful this is, and how I'd be a fool to ever forget it, and that I know I never will. Know that I miss it and tell me everytime I see you because you do too. Know that hiding this from everyone isn't the worst thing in the world, and just know that sometimes I feel like calling you up just so I can kiss you once.
Because even then when I laid on you with my cheek to your chest, my eyes watered and the tears gathered to the corner of my eye and I always worried if they'd get on you or your pillow. And when you'd lean against my door at night and I'd just hold you, I would cry silently because it felt so beautiful. Because we could lay in a room with nothing on for hours and be completely filled. And I could never figure out what the perfect words were until I met you. Because they are what doesn't need to be said. They are everything I tried to say just now, that a meer smile or kiss has shown you. Though we don't speak always, we have the most wonderful communication.
So just remember my smile. "
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| this one isnt finished |
[08 Sep 2005|09:05pm] |
“Do you know what she’s doing these days? I haven’t seen her in months,” he asked.
“She got pregnant by that guy she was dating. He beat her up before that and when she found out she was pregnant, he left. She tried to have an abortion but when she got to the clinic she couldn’t go through with it. Maybe adoption. I don’t know.”
There was a long pause.
“Vindicated.”
“What?” she asked.
“I feel vindicated. Very vindicated. And the best part is I didn’t have to move a finger to feel this way.”
“Timothy.” It wasn’t an accusing tone. She just wanted to say his name. she just wanted him to know she loved to say his named. And caringly. She loved to say his name caringly.
“She was the type of girl that pressed the mute button when she spoke, but turned up the volume when you had anything to say. She never had anything important to say anyway. It was always ‘timothy, you can be so mean.’ Then she’d cry. Then she’d kiss me, and push me away, and tell me I’m mean again. And then she’d leave and forget about me as she fucked her boyfriend. The next day she would always call, though. She was always so weak. No wonder he beat her.”
“Timothy.”
“Hah. Vindicated.”
He looked her over. Her pale skin started to look a little weak and shaky. He took his fingers and grazed her wrist, putting his thumb and ring finger around so they’d touch together. He tried it with his thumb and pinky finger. He easily did that as well. He put his hands down behind him. Her collar bone stuck out too far. It made a plunging triangle from her shoulder to her neck. He betted to himself he could fit his fingers around her arm just as easily as her wrists. He cringed at the thought.
“Anna, are you eating enough these days? You look awfully skinny. I’ll get you some food inside. A sandwich. Come on.”
“I’m fine. Don’t condescend to me. You know how I hate it.”
“I know how you hate to eat.”
“Shut up. I’m fine. I ate earlier today.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“By whose judgments? Your own? Hah, that doesn’t mean much with your distorted body image. Get the fuck inside and eat a sandwich. There’s one I didn’t finish in the fridge.”
She jerked her head in a subconscious twitch. “I hate your food. You put mayonnaise all over everything. It’s disgusting.”
“You’re disgusting. Eat.”
“Vindicated.”
“How is that?”
“Because you were the one that made me stop eating.”
“It’s funny you think that’s vindication. I don’t get guilty, remember?”
She hunched her lower back when she ate over the kitchen table. His apartment is dim and horribly cold. She hated the tile floors and how they made her feet feel so cold they burned. The roof is too close to the floor. It makes her feel trapped, like he’ll never let her leave.
So came the inevitable line.
“Would you stay here tonight? I can’t sleep again. I don’t want to be alone,” He asked her.
“Hah, weakness, Timothy. Vindication.”
“You don’t understand that word, do you?”
“I’m not staying with you tonight.”
“Have to be somewhere?”
“Yeah. With him. Not you.”
“I can’t believe you.”
“I can measure how much someone means to you by how hateful and jealous you get over them, did you know that? How much you want him to be horribly abusive so I can cry to you. So you feel like you deserve me. But you’re the abuse, Tim. I’m taking the sandwich. I’ll eat it on my way home.”
She sat on the apartment stairs as the sun came up; the different colors lined her face. Her ring sat beside her on the concrete; she always took it off when she smoked cigarettes. Taking it into her right hand, she moved the ring in between and over her knuckles, back and forth until she finished her last smoke.
The leaves were early in changing. One floated down from an oak tree like it was dancing in freedom. It chose to accompany her- resting where her ring had been.
Timothy opened the door of his apartment to see her sitting alone. “Have you been here all night?”
“Yes.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t have admitted to that. I would never know the difference.”
“I couldn’t just leave.”
“Didn’t you have to be somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Come inside.”
“I’ll pretend like your saving me for just a little longer.”
“It’s too early and I’m too tired to fight with you right now. Get inside or leave.”
“Okay, that’s more like you,” she said, and came inside.
She tightly fit herself into a ball on the couch, her knees up and her long, thin arm roped around them. Just as quickly as she had done this, she fell asleep. He didn’t look at her at all. She looked so innocent when she wasn’t conscious, and he didn’t like it.
They sat together at the kitchen table after he came home from work. They ate in silence like an old married couple that has forgotten the meaning of sincerity. He kept pushing portions of food in front of her that made her uncomfortable. He began to see the beauty that is her skin and bones but he still found it his responsibility that her stomach contained food.
She hadn’t left the apartment in days. The smell of it stained her clothes. She borrowed his socks to keep her feet warm on the unbearably cold tiles in the kitchen. She played with her food and stared at her plate without any direct contact with him.
He wrinkled the newspaper and looked through the headlines. Another day of just sitting at the table with coffee and a paper with Anna right across from him. She watched him read and looked down every so often at her section of the news, but hardly read. She didn’t have much interest in it. He sipped from his black coffee, and she lifted her cup bitterly. She only drank it because she wanted him to think she was sophisticated.
They lived in this kitchen, together yet separate, like an old married couple that’s lost the meaning of sincerity. Or maybe it was her detachement of everything else that wasn’t in the room. She couldn’t quite wash off the addiction she had to this.
He lit up a cigarette. He knows how much she hates it. The whole place wreaked of it.
“Put it out, Tim. I’ve had it.”
“Well, I’ve had it with your complaining, and you blaming for me for every nuisance you can think of.”
“I don’t know how to ask you to stop then. You never take my advice.”
“It’s an addiction, Anna. What do you want me to say? I’m not just going to quit. I’m sure you have your addictions.”
She wet her lips, biting them, folding the bottom lip in and out until she accidentally cut herself. "Dammit", she thought to herself. She took part of a napkin left on the table and dabbed the middle of her lip. She heard once that sugar clotted the blood, so she dipped her finger slowly into an artificial sugar packet, one of many that she’d bring in her pocket because he never had any sweets in the apartment. Trying to keep the sugar on so her cut would heal, she tried to pretend the substance on her mouth wasn’t sweet and calming. She licked it anyway, and had to reapply the sugar several times before it stayed. By then, the bleeding had stopped naturally, and she had downed a good few packets of sugar. She laughed inwardly at her clumsiness. She almost enjoyed the pain from her cut. It took off the anxiety she had originally felt by his words. But the cut was like her company. The pain that wouldn’t heal.
She began to smile. It grew into a giggle, not so innocent, but as though her thoughts were bitter and sarcastic.
He seemed bored with her antics, but still curious. “What?” he asked, impatiently. “You looked so lovely when you weren’t making a sound.”
She laughed. “You’re the cut that won’t close!” She kept laughing at the exclamatory remark and its meaning.
“You volunteered yourself to injury, Anna. Don’t blame your misplaced dependency on me.”
She kept laughing, louder and louder, mocking herself, mocking him, reaching a point she knew had to eventually arrive. She looked down and around, moving her fingers around, fidgeting, moving so fast that she twisted the ring off her finger and it feel to the ground.
“Lets go somewhere, Timothy.”
“I’ll get my things.”
“Lets go now.”
“Fine.”
There had been no talk of direction. They knew they’d end up in a place that would make them want to give up and go home, but maybe this time was different.
He put some packets of crackers in his jacket and closed the door behind him. He had nothing left in the empty apartment, really. His useless job, his tired ambitions, and his tormented relationships meant nothing then.
They drove all throughout the lazy day. The sky had cleared up for awhile, and they drove up a florescent bridge over an industrial city. The lights from the factories shined into Anna’s eyes as she awoke from her sleep in the passenger seat, curled up in her usual ball.
“Wow, what a city,” she said.
He sat there silent for a minute because he had enjoyed the ride before she had awoken. It was so nice to feel like he was in control with his hands positioned over their destination, wherever that might be.
“Yeah. Too bad it’s a factory,” he said. She seemed disappointed in that thought.
“A shame that something so beautiful could be so destructive.”
They passed over the bridge and he drove into a diner. “You should get something to eat.”
She looked so uncomfortable at the diner, sitting next to him, closely, holding his arm and trying not to look at his food. It looked as though they were expecting friends because they sat in a booth and the entire other side was empty. He slid the side order of fries her way, and she ate a few, and kept her head down. He looked down to her, put his finger to her chin, and moved her head up. He took the fries away and gave her some packets of sugar. She smiled and dipped her finger into them and indulged. This was more comfortable to her, and she drank enough coffee to feel satisfied.
As she licked her finger, she asked, “Do we have a plan, Tim?”
“Isn’t the plan to not have a plan?”
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[08 Sep 2005|09:05pm] |
As she drove, him in the passengar seat, twiddling his fingers and trying to find the beat to the songs she played in the cd player, she took the longer roads. She ended up making them late, which meant they must go all the way back home, to do mundane things like mundane people. She took a longer way home, because she wanted to take time to drive her own life in her own way, but he seemed displeased. She blushed and joked about how it was silly she'd accidentally taken a longer way once again. He didnt seem ammused, and at that very second, it hit her. She wasnt happy. She didnt enjoy this anymore, nor had it been awhile since she had. It kind of crushed her in a way, to think that something so small could bring attention so much. And it just took his cold look when he folded his arms like a child in the passengar seat to make her realize that she didnt want this at all. She needed to bring to her own attention what she really did want, and she knew they were all attainable things. Just for some reason, what she had been holding herself back from doing for awhile.
If only, she thought, I had put my hand down onto the man next to me at the coffee shop. As one does by accident, but just keeping it there for a few more seconds so he'd understand that she needed him for a few moments. She needed the freedom to make mistakes. She needed the freedom to enjoy the man in the coffee shop when he relayed his emotions to her not through his voice, but his mouth.
And its a tired tool to use in asking how shes feeling, what shes thinking, whenshe'll always answer something different. It will never be that she can't do this anymore, because the honest would break him. But it simply must be done, doesnt it? It wouldnt be unheard of to just be able to keep their thoughts to themselves. To keep the privacy that she harbors to dearly inside.
But she was tired, and she desired to be able to open her arms all the way on both sides and not touch another human being with them. She just wanted space, to cut the strings, to breathe fresh air, and to laugh genuine laughs away from criticism. She asked, why must a man take it so seriously when the girl he loves laughs with another man. Maybe because it showed so desperately that she enjoyed other's companies. And that she did indeed want that life just as much if not more than her own. Just to be careless as humans should be. As the responsibility that she held within herself was to do what made her comfortable and guided her in her persuit for happiness. And he simply blocked the way in those days, and it made her want to spread her arms further out with more space to spare.
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