It was a high-school gymnasium, basketball hoops on either
side, bleachers with the outlines of invisible teenagers--dashes like on
coupons cut from the newspaper---two giant slicers rolled diagonally. The game
was to run across and not to die. I did that. Later, up on a giant sidewalk
floating in space, none of the concrete pieces touching, Lucille Ball chased me
and tried to pull me off. There was no bunny rabbit. There was no neighborhood
scare dog. There was no prank call to the McDonald’s strawberry shake. It was
just us. You weren’t there. Don’t keep saying you were.
my daily journal of things that happened before I knew about being adopted and a ward of the state.
March 7, 2012
March 6, 2012
I got my dress cut off of me once.
one day, when i was a bird and a not-girl, meaning i wasn't what i am now, but different in the way wherein i was exposing myself to a variety of things that should not and will not be discussed under any circumstance except in the arms of my next lover. for the sake of things, in this story i was a bird--a pretty little bird who drank and swore and fought her way through the bars of los angeles. i was in the middle of a breakup in a long line of breakups and this one breakup i was drinking at a kind of sports bar wherein people would get up and sing songs and make general fools of THE SELF and this one night i was next to this minor celebrity. i say minor because i've forgotten her name only that her first name was lisa and that she was a comic type actress if my bird self remembers correctly. ANYWAY, my bird body was sitting at the bar near Urth Cafe on Melrose. my bird-brain is not remembering its name. the actress Lisa was sitting to my left and we were doing shots, i was saying things like, "i broke up with him by never calling back," and she was saying things like, "one day when i was a TOTAL WHORE i met my husband and he didn't ever CAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE." (That-Lisa was very dramatic swinging her arms around and saying worse stuff than even I can come up with and i was laughing and drinking going, "the thing of it is..." "the thing of it is," and she points at me and goes, "That's FROM A MOVIE! You SLUT. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA." "not a movie, twilight zone, the one where the dude is in the giant bank vault, the dude who hates humans and has giant glasses, and then he is ALONE FINALLY AT LAST with all his books and no one to fuck or bug him and then he is GLORIOUS AND HIGH from being alone with the self for the FIRST TIME EVER, and then he breaks his fucking glasses." "OH FUCK TO THE YEAH." she goes and i go: "The thing of it is..." "The thing of it is..."
Then, we drank some more and laughed our filthy mouths off until closing and i drove home.
TWO BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE i get spied by the cops. I pull over they cuff me and I try to kick out their windows. (when i was a bird i could be very adamant about how it was when i didn't want to go somewhere). then they spray pepper spray in my little bird eyes and i'm choking on the fire air and screaming out, "i have contacts in!! MY EYES. MY EYES." So, they take me to Cedars. At Cedars I'm strapped to a table and they give me an eye wash and cut off my dress (for reasons unknown--i guess it was in the way of the giant Haldol shot they gave me) yes. horse tranquilizer stops bird. So, flash to the next morning. I wake up and i'm in a holding cell my dress is cut off and i get let out and i go running down the street holding up my dress without contacts or a sense of what was next here on planet earth or why i wasn't in my nest calling for a cab. my bird self goes, i hated that dick, but still i kind of missed him and that's why. well---someone always pulls over for birds with their dress cut off and someone did. they took me to get my car out of impound after the bank and i got home okay. my bird home was still there as if nothing had ever happened. that couch from that time period is being taken away from my apartment tomorrow. she saw a lot of things no one should see, but i am no longer a bird, now i am a human person. but, when i was a bird, i liked to perch on branches and make things out of twigs and cottony findings from every gutter in this whole city.
March 4, 2012
The Other Woman-The Bounty-And P
Well, it
happened again. I was the other woman for like five minutes. Some guy, a sorta
interesting guy, a guy I thought was sorta cool got my number awhile back. He’s
sorta kinda well known in an underground sorta way, but I won’t say what field
cause god knows he might read this and then I’ll get sued or some other crap. But cool enough to go to the Oscars. That kind of cool. But, he texted me weirdly, never trying to see me but asking me the kinds of
questions a guy might ask if he were interested in you intellectually and maybe
even physically, but he was involved with someone else. Not that he didn't like
that someone else, just that I provided a little happiness or romantic intrigue
between that someone else. Only I didn't know, because I am naive when it comes
to men. The ones that tell me the truth or the ones that lie to me, all feel
the same, you know? I can't tell which one is really telling the truth or really not telling the truth. Which makes me feel not quite as smart as I
really should be. I know you guys think I'm smart, but if you just scroll
through this junkstyle blog, you'll see that I'm not smart. In fact, I'm kind
of dumb when it comes to men. It's a blindspot. Don't hate. I have that
blindspot with cops and shoes as well, so you could say I’m multi-dimensional.
I guess I
should consider that any guy calling, texting, writing, might be involved, but
since when I am involved I don't call men unless they are established friends,
I assume the same morals apply to the rest of the world. Not that I don't
flirt. But, there is a certain level I don't engage on and I don't text dirty
things to other guys, just nice happy things. Things about birds and my love of
graveyards and whatnot. So.. today, I called the person on it and said
basically you've been texting me for weeks but are weird, why so weird, you married
or something? He goes, if I were married would you stop talking to me? I'm
like, do you know the sex act that men do with Oysters? It's super
gross--unsanitary and disgusting, but I can't really find anything about it. He
goes: Yeah, I'm involved. So? I'm like so, what? I didn't get dirty, text you
anything that would remotely go into the direction of a strictly sexual or
emotional relationship--I just met you, dude gave you my number because I'm
single now. I called him dude. Swear to Jesus. Then, I said, we'll be friends,
we just won't be alone in any dark alley up against any walls or anything. He
goes, why not? I'm like, you can't be serious. DUDE. P.S.---he’s still texting
as I’m writing this, but in a minute he won’t be because of ATT super block.
But in the
midst of this, I was reminded about the time I'm about to tell you about, a
time when I was much younger and very drunk most of the time, bumping around
Hollywood with crazy people who I can't even picture now. Some of those people
I knew, because I drank with them and some I didn't and those were the ones
that haunt my dreams.
One night, a
guy--I shouldn't say his name in case one of you can track him down. It's funny
that I always use names, but I am going to tell something about this guy that
is kind of sad, not embarrassing sad, but call your mother the next day and cry
to her sad. This guy, we'll call him P---P drank with me at Molly Malone's and
we drank there a lot. So P calls me and goes a group of us are going to Koreatown
to do Kareoke, but we're hitting the Bounty first. I had just had a DUI so I
said, I won't come unless you drive me. So he went for it. Picks me up with
three people in the car--they are guys and girls and I can't remember what
anyone looked like. Just that we went to the Bounty and the guy in the suit,
not P, but the other guy, liked me and paid for all my drinks and maybe other
people's drinks. I wasn't paying attention. I was wearing these sex shoes and cargo
shorts that tied at the knees. Guess made the shoes, they had stillettos and
tied around the ankle with tiny leather straps. Fuck---wait. Going to the car
to see if I still have them. Scared fuckless. OH THANK YOU LORD. They are still
there. If they weren't there all would be fucking lost right now. I was
thinking of eating a mound of cotton and have that big cottony feeling in my
stomach soaking up all my acid-sorrow if my whore shoes were gone, but
alas---at Goodwill last week I must have known about this post. That is why you
don't donate shoes, yo.
Anyway,
P and suit and me and a non-pretty girl were all drinking fast and furious.
Acting out little skits right there in the middle of The Bounty---greatest bar
in L.A. 'cept for the lights. Too damn bright in there. But, we were drinking
so after a time we don't notice anything. I'm sitting in the booth next to a
girl and P and I'm holding P's hand under the table and we are pretending to
ignore each other while me and the girl make best friends. Girl gets prettier
and prettier and at one point I think she has the prettiest lips and her nose
is the kind of nose I’ve always wanted but then I don’t know, I just go back
and forth. Then, we go to some Kareoke bar and I'm in there and we are singing
and a beautiful Korean girl walks in and P goes pretend you don't know me. Not
like I was with him in any real sense, but I had to pretend not to know him.
She comes in things get awkward and we all decide to bail and go eat. She is
staring at me like I did something horrible. It was a group of us, but I was
guilty in the mind of the pretty girl. Let’s call her Cindy. That seems safe
and unlikely. We are eating some fried intestines and drinking more and I can't
tell you where we are only that it's like 3 am or 4 am at this point and P is
sitting with the pretty girl and I am sitting next to this guy, I turn to him
and I'm like, gosh you are the most cutest handsomest man I've ever seen and I
start kissing him. Right in front of everybody. He was in shock, the restaurant
owners had kept it open for us and they were incredulous. Who is this fucking
girl kissing our "his name here" but I don't remember his name.
This
was in the days of Highland Grounds and I said. I want to see you again come
meet me at Highland Grounds and we will be lovers or at least a proper
non-drunk date because its dark and maybe you won't like me in the light or
I'll think twice about dating you because of your Asian hair or some obnoxious
thing. He laughed and then we held hands. P got pissed, but was too drunk to
drive me home and I was too drunk to call a cab so he said, you can sleep
here but don't say anything when you get inside. I'm like, what would I say? He
brings me inside and puts me in his bed or on it or whatever and he goes off to
sleep on the couch. I'm like what was up with that girl, she your girlfriend?
He's like, we were or are, or on again off again. Whatever. I said, who was
that Korean guy I was kissing, he's famous or something, I've seen him on the
TV. P was like, yeah. yeah. yeah. That was some show, you kissing him---real
class act, you are. And we fall asleep---Here's the part. The part I shouldn't
tell you. I have never ever been sad about telling a thing to you no matter how
low people sink, no matter what I've seen and done, no matter what my friends
have seen, and been and done---I'm no judge. I'm not. But... when I woke up P's
place was a disaster like the disaster in A Beautiful Mind--anyone see that
movie, where the guy cracks up and has clippings everywhere? In the
morning when the light hit the
place I saw whatever he didn’t want me to see--- This guy P had clippings
everywhere---and I mean everywhere---up every wall on the ceiling on every
surface. Clippings of cartoon strips. He was a cartoonist or something. Can't
remember. Anyway, I was like, holy fucking jesus P, you need some help. You
can't live like this. The rest of the place was dirty. Like layers of dirt,
like you would see on that Hoarders show. I said, sweet P, please, I'm happy to
come help you sometime. I kept shaking my head and he said, you swore you
wouldn't say anything. I go, I'm sorry, but Jesus man. Come on. I can help
you---we're friends. I started to cry. Weeping. Please let me help you. P was
PISSED and dragged me out of there and took me home and never ever ever ever ever spoke to me again.
A
short time after that one of the bartenders at Molly's took his life. His girl
found him hanging from her tree in the front yard. We all met at Molly’s to
celebrate his life and to kill the pain of being a human. P didn't show for
that party--he never showed his face again as far as I could tell. I felt bad,
I knew his secret. He looked exactly like Ralph Fiennes. A few weeks after the
event, I was at Molly's and the Korean actor dude came there looking for me and
he was the handsomest man I had ever seen in a long dark coat and he was tall
and had shiny eyes. I pretended not to be myself. Like as in not-Lisa. Not that
I didn't like him, I just didn't feel good enough for him and he saw me pretend
to be not me and he smiled and shook his head and went away like I never happened.
I felt ashamed, but I was too scared or something. I hope he didn’t think it
was his fault. I really loved him for that one moment and no one can take that
away from us.
March 1, 2012
Carter
When I was sixteen I used to got to the mall with my friends---I had been going to the mall with my friends since I was younger, but I can't remember how young. 14 or 15, most likely. To tell it straight, my sister used to say, "Sometimes you are the prettiest girl in the world, the prettiest I've ever seen and other times, you just look weird." That might explain my teenage years best. I used to be super skinny and then I got these giant boobs, I didn't know how to dress anymore--nothing fit and my mom wouldn't really help me---I think she just thought I was fat, but I needed new clothes and it was embarrassing to ask for clothes cause I would get a lecture, etc. etc. I started shoplifting at that time to get around my family's weird money issues and because it was fun to get away with something. I still have to go back to those places and say--I'm sorry I stole a lipstick but I was a messed up kid with very little supervision. I know the giant boob comes up in my blog again and again and when people look at me today, they think I am delusional, but they were HUGE. Too big to be comfortable and people stared at me a lot and I got followed, I thought they were why I got followed. Not because my face isn't pretty, but my mom told me I wasn't pretty enough to be a model (she had been a model), so I never thought I was unique, I thought I was only average.
I had one guy follow me once and tell me I had fat boobs and that I had the kind of face people jerk off to. He told me to take up jogging to be thinner. I don't remember what I did. I think I must have told him, "Look, old man, get the fuck away from me or I'll scream." But, I was really polite to crazy people and I probably said, thank you or something really wrong for the situation.
I was at the mall with my mom, back before I knew what it was to be self-conscious and this man came up to us and told us he was a photographer for playboy and he thought I was very pretty. My mom looked at him with hate and of course I thought she hated me because of the way I looked so I stopped wearing shorts. I stopped all the way until recently--I was scared of her hatred. Looking back I can guess she hated him and didn't want me to grow up, but it was a hard thing walking around with my mother or with my friends and bunches of guys walking up to me giving me their numbers. I came home with pockets full of numbers--I had a drawer of numbers, but still didn't think I was pretty because I had fat boobs and all my friends were way skinny. I also didn't feel pretty because of my mother's reaction. People affect me and their reactions affect me and I shape my reality according to that stuff, so, if I'm around someone who really doesn't like me then I stop liking myself. What a long tangent---and boring to to get us into the story and I'm really sorry, but this is how it comes out and I can't help it. I was stalked a lot. The first stalker I ever met was named Carter.
On the day I met Carter, I was at the Thousand Oaks mall, I was wearing a red dress and I was with a friend. I was awkward but still boys like awkward and as I grew up I realize boys also like crazy. Crazy fucks better, they think. Crazy won't get boring cause they make their stuffed animals talk and then give you a blowie and then get you arrested. I have always been labeled as crazy or different or weird. I like to break into houses and places on Melrose, but more on that in another blog entitled, ways to do weird stuff without getting caught.
My friend and I had been walking around and Carter followed us. I guess I was driving at the time, because at some point, Carter and my friend and I all went to my car or maybe it was his car and I made out with him on the side of the car while my friend waited for me. Soon after this incident most of my friends stopped coming with me to the mall, cause I was looking for ways to feel better and they got bored. Sometimes my friends and I made out with each other, but that was only special super hot friends.
Anyway, Carter didn't live in Los Angeles and I gave him my address and phone number and he started sending me love letters. Long love letters. I had only met him once and he was super cute, but I just kind of remember flashes of the day. My friend and I laughing and making fun of everyone and laughing and laughing and then trying to pretend to be older than we were, then trying on makeup and trying on shoes, then Carter. We most likely drank something too, but how can I know? I also remember asking her what she thought of him, it was always important that my friends thought the boy I was about to get into a car with was the cutest one we had seen that day. I didn't say I was well.
Carter's letters kept coming and the day I met him he had been wearing a necklace that I said I loved, it was Saint Christopher or some other saint and it was gold. I complimented it and being inappropriate as I always was, asked for it. He promised to send it to me when he got back to South Carolina or North Carolina or wherever he was from. One day it came in the mail. I wore it, but I knew I couldn't remember Carter or see Carter in my mind or think of Carter and as I'm writing this, there was another Carter who came to visit my friend Blair at the lake where I grew up, and in the midst of memory the way my memory works is maybe I've conflated the two Carters into one Carter, but I can't ever tell. I just do my best to tell you what it was like knowing Carter, having this weird power over him that I never wanted and getting these love letters from only one meeting. I still have the necklace and was going to take a picture of it, but it's too early and I can't go through my closet, so we'll all have to wait.
There is a point. I was telling my friend recently that I had never been in love, I was telling him that I date people but can't fall in love because only some of the pieces are there and I try but it doesn't happen and someone always gets mad and then I want to be friends or they want to be friends but no one really wants to be friends with someone who doesn't want to fuck them who used to want to fuck them but now doesn't. But, I don't know if that's true. Sometimes I lie because I'm trying to convince you of something. Sometimes I lie to myself and I can't help it because I'm hiding the real pain of myself from myself so I can walk around on planet earth and be okay. Sometimes I can't remember the story, just that if I told it straight--there was a guy named Carter, he was 15 or 16 and we made out at the mall. Then I got letters for the next three or four years. I have love letters somewhere I hope. I'm too scared to look. One time my mom and sister broke into my room and read all my journals and all my letters and then I tore them all into tiny pieces so no one could have any information about me unless I wanted them to. I stopped writing for years because there was no safety from prying eyes. I couldn't even talk to my notebook and say how hard things were at home and how I liked a boy but then got scared and disappeared because I didn't know how I was supposed to be and I know it will just end with one of us sad anyway, so why try. Then of course there's sex. So, the why try when you are uncomplicated and innocent becomes very different when you just become and animal and still have to pretend you aren't one.
If anyone knows what Saint Christopher does please tell me, so we can look back over my life and see if he's done his job.
February 24, 2012
A Birthday Rant
When
I was a little girl. I got a ball for my birthday, it was before I knew there
were other things to want and get. So, I was happy. It is the only photo of me
being happy opening a gift on record. Once I knew what there was to want and I
developed wants, I opened things and made a frowny face. No one could satisfy
my wants because they would require you to be more open, more affectionate,
more loving, more generous, more funny, more of a trouble-maker, less shut down
and actually someone else entirely. I think of birthdays as a day where you get
let down, the disappointing truth is, I just want more than the known world has
to offer. Growing up we were poor enough that my mother made our dolls and made
us clothes sometimes. I think that i never knew we were poor because my dad was
buying oriental rugs for $10,000, but when I think about it now, I go, it's
kind of like all our money went to that and we really didn't have much for regular
living stuff. Not that i really ever went hungry, but we were supposed to ask
for food and i was always too shy to ask. I went hungry a lot. I told myself
not to be hungry. That's kind of what I feel like today. The list of
disappointments, choices in men who couldn't love me but were happy to pretend
to but didn't see me for what I am, but never actually going for boys/men I
actually liked. I let myself get chosen because I was old-fashioned. But, it
was like only the scavengers could find me, never someone with their shit
together. So, it was a series of men sort of like my father, who were good on
the inside but was too wrapped up in trying to make a future for us that he
didn't spend that much time with me---nor unless it was a holiday were they generous.
My father is Scottish and very focused on money and how much everything costs,
so we had a few games and the reasons we were given for not getting real
barbies was because of the cost. There are a few memories of my father I'll
talk about now, because on my birthday I think of many things that are great
losses to me. My father is still alive, but I count him among things I have
lost that I can't really get back and when I think of it, I don't know if I
ever really had him at all. I like to think so. I was definitely his favorite.
I knew that much, but he was scared of the world in a way that I was not. He
was interested in cults and meditation and strange ways of eating. But, when I
was a little girl he sang with me and taught me to sing. He drove me in our
giant car---(a Cadillac? I can't remember only that it was brown) to visit a
goat he kept on a farm out in Sylmar. We lived in Franklin Hills, so that was a
very long way to drive. We sang songs and talked about the universe. I loved
the stars and he told me what he knew of them. He told me "Johnny
Boy" stories of his struggles and near misses with death when he was just
a kid trying to help support his poor family in Maryland. My father went to
work when he was fourteen. Like him I went to work when i was fifteen, but
worked for every penny I ever had. Allowance? I don't remember it. I think we
washed cars or mowed the lawn for money. I am tired. i have worked that whole
time. Nothing was ever easy for me. I always struggled. I was told I couldn't go
to college because my father got sick and was in the hospital and my mom was
afraid of making ends meet, so at 20 I dropped out of UCLA. My dad was always
there, he just had some problems that equaled yelling and made me scared to
talk to him. When I was 12, it was the last time I gave him a massage and he
tried to tell me he was special, but I felt that even though he thought I was
special, to keep telling me would make me never try for anything. I kind of
told him to lay off and he did---only he laid off forever. I think my dad loves
me very much, but might be a little scared of me. I can't explain to him
entirely why I am still scared all these years later, but there was a lot of
pain and absence and deprivation. I felt unloved. All my other friends had necklaces
or some kind of jewelry, but we didn't have jewelry. We didn't spend money on
things like that. I always wanted some shiny jewelry from Tiffany's to make me
feel like I was loved. It never ever happened. But, not that they aren't
generous now, not that they don't give me money during the holidays, there is
just a period of years that happened where they hated me. I never really got
over it. One time my father and I went jogging around Marshall High and I was
walking on a handrail on the top of some stairs and I fell backwards. I think I
was 5 or 6. My dad grabbed me and saved me. I remember knowing he had saved my
life that day, but I miss the things we used to talk about. I miss the before
the psychotic break he had. I miss him just being fun and happy. I miss him.
Here's the time to say it. Maybe it will give you insight on the reason I am
like I am. But, my father has never called me on the phone. NOT EVER. I'm am
broken because of that in a way I don't expect you to understand. People always
try to say---oh me too---my dad never calls. But, my dad has NEVER called. Nor
has he asked me anywhere. I have to ask him. I guess there is a pattern that
was set up a long time ago about the little bit men can give me. The
withholding of affection. The me being expected to know how a person feels.
But, I never do know. That's the thing. That's why every birthday, I know I've
made good on a life that could be crime filled. I've been the better brighter
smarter star. But, when there isn't love from family, what really do you have
to work with? So, to all of you who are sick of me dating men who don't live
anywhere and don't really love me anyway or don't have cars I submit---Some
boyfriends have had the four story house, but I didn't feel love from them
either. You can say I have a blind spot. But, I am fully aware of what I am
doing. I am not closed off or shut down. Recently I decided to go towards people I want--- to tell the people around me how I feel. I did this recently to someone I really cared for, he isn't sure if he can give me anything back, but in my life that means no---and while I take no hard, it made me feel alive to tell someone that I love them anyway. Happy Birthday to me.
February 18, 2012
My Brother's Keeper
There is a door. I am on one side.
You are on the other. Standing in your checkered vans. I can see you standing
there, not knowing what to do. You are afraid. You are staring at your father.
My father. Someone is bleeding. The kitchen floor is covered in glass. My brother is crying and trying to clean up. He is only eight. I don’t
know why it happened any more than you do. This isn’t about that. I can’t tell
you why. Some things just happen and we stand there and watch. If I had been
older, I would have helped, but I didn’t know what to do then. I am there too.
You can see me if you look. I am covered in blood. It is on my school uniform.
Mother is gone. I don’t know where she is. I look at you. I catch your eye and
I know you will save me and I will save you. It’s just how that I don’t know.
It’s just how that I can’t imagine. It’s just how that will take me out of this
world.
But, I am still with you now. I am
here now. Please take a look at me. Remember my sweet eyes, because they will
look at you with love. Remember how I smell, because it is that you will miss.
Remember my skin and my smile born out of longing. In the darkness, you hold
things to yourself. We call that love. I loved the broken thing. My father. I
held his broken parts in my hand like so many flowers disintegrating into dust.
I knew it would happen. That’s the other part. I knew it would happen, but I
couldn’t stop it. When we were
watching it. We knew it would change us, but not how. The how is what I’ve
forgotten most. The pact I made with you and with myself is still there,
unbroken and unflinching. You will say it was me. I will agree. I am the
culprit of our deviance. I am sorry, dear brother. I am sorry, my father. I am
sorry, my mother. It is this thing. This hatred of choices, I carry, but cannot
put down. If I were to put them down, what would happen? Love could come in the
door like a butterfly.
After the end, you will say you saw
it coming. But, you didn’t. You held me in your arms and loved me. I didn’t
want it to ever end, but I had to go to school. The girls’ school with witches
posing as nuns. Their hatred changed me too. Wrapped in normal clothes with
pinned back hair, I look like the rest of them. You will say I was the best,
but I wasn’t, I was just angrier than they were. She was my friend. Katie
Santini of the mother on the couch and the playboy magazines where we asked the
questions of sex and ate cookie dough. When Katie stood in line with us, the
mother nun, Mary-Catherine asked Katie why she was fat. It started then. The
anger. I never told you, I beat Katie with a lunch pail until she was bleeding
and crying. Blood was on her uniform then too and we became the arbiters of one
another’s pain and forgiveness. I put the pills I found into the holy water and
watched while everyone got sick. Sick from lack of spirit within themselves.
Sickness that felt like love. It still does.
School was closed, but no one ever
found out who did it. It wasn’t so bad, no one was permanently sick; I just wanted
the nun to stop being so mean to Katie. I guess I was wrong. Still, I would
never take it back. It was as satisfying as any thing that you can do and get
away with.
My brother, you came to my room
when I was only thirteen. I was in bed, my smile was innocent, but you knew I
was not. It was before I knew. You crawled into bed and we lay like that
against all things holy. Against god. Against hatred. Against our violent home.
Your arms were like paradise. Something I did know about, but wanted to. You
smelled my hair and I cried for hours and shook the shakes of longing. How can
you say it was wrong? You can look at it and say for genetic reasons. The
propagation of species it is wrong. I will believe you. That’s what they did on
my father’s side. That’s what made our uncle retarded. A genetic flaw. But, you
touched me softly and told me I was beautiful. You told me my secret name:
angel water. You whispered a cobweb I couldn’t get out of and now, we are here
and deciding the future. Well, one of is.
When---or I should say before the
day when I went to the other side. I stood before you like a shimmering candle.
You ate me with your eyes and told me you found another girl. I knew it would
happen. I’m not sorry. In fact, as long as you think so, I will yearn for a
life we can be proud of for both of us. But, I am lost now. I cannot explain to
Katie who I am crying over night and day. I cannot explain that it is my own
brother. There are consequences for that, with no forms of sympathy.
“In one way, longing kills us all,”
you said under the Jacaranda trees lying on those sharp pointy things at 3 am.
In the middle of Franklin Hills, Los Angeles smells like wet leaves. “Dead to
the world,” you said about our parents, when we would sneak glimpses of the moon
and pretend it would be okay. The thing that would never be. I loved you then
as I love you now. I remember your smile and the gap filled grin. When I look
into your eyes I have no fear of the future. But, it is in your eyes that I see
my own death. I do see it. I do not look away. I don’t welcome it. I love this
world more than anyone. I love the taste of oranges in the summer and the
laughter of my father when he makes me taste watermelon juice. I’m supposed to
like watermelon, but I never do. He laughs at me and tells me about the
universe. It is in his laughter that my own madness grew.
I told you about the grey-blueness
of them. In the mirror, you see it too. I stand alone at first and look at my
naked body. I am beautiful. You come in beside me and looked at me. It felt
like forever. Watching and waiting for the other to make the move that no one
could say no to. In my eyes though, we both see my father. You got lucky, you
got eyes from the devil, so we can see one thing, but not our own father. “The
devil is better to be with you than away from you,” you say. When the devil is away from you, you
can’t see what he is doing. If he is in your bed, then you know. You can feel
it. The cause of your humanness being opened bit by unstoppable bit.
In time I know you will forget I
was ever there, in the ways I was. You will remember things like drinking
orange drink from McDonald’s and keeping that a secret from our parents. You
will think of our babysitter, the one who taught me to French kiss, the one who
taught us how dirty a crank caller could really be. You will think of me while
undressed with your wife and you will feel guilty. No one will be what I was to
you. It’s my voice that you won’t be able to remember and you’ll want to.
You’ll try for months to find that one tape I made when I was in school, but
you won’t find it and my voice was on nothing else. You’ll think I left because
of you. That’s not the reason I’m going. The reason is not you at all. The joy
my body felt for knowing you, made this life sweet. The reason I am leaving is
I can’t make sense of not loving anyone else and I can’t make sense of what
happened to my father. That is why. I can’t make you believe it though. You
will think it is because we did the forbidden thing. I want you to know, my
darling brother, that you gave me the one reason to stay. Like oranges and the
yellow bird or childhood or the speed of roller skates. The innocence isn’t
lost if I say it. In the innocence I found you. The blood from father and the
madness is stuck in my mind forever though. The only time I ever forget it, is
when you look at me and smile and say, “I want what you want.”
Say goodbye to my beautiful pink
dress that glows in your mind. Say goodbye to words on paper that fill me up or
leave me breathless. Say goodbye to sitting in churches and cursing God. Say
goodbye to Valium’s pull and the hot sex of the bar-room floor. Say goodbye to
air and its glorious filling of the lungs. Goodbye to the sting of whiskey.
Goodbye to an after the gym cigarette. Goodbye to my fair city, filled with
more beauty than I can name. The list of things I will miss should include my
mother, and it does. Her voice and the dolls she made me when she couldn’t
afford to buy them. The list of
things I love is too long and to say them all would cheapen what they mean to
me. My last thought was not about the mundane. My last thought was of you and
your warm hands on my skin and the look in your eyes holding me captive and of
my father bleeding on the kitchen floor.
February 17, 2012
By All Human Measurements
When I was a yellow bird. I sat
high in the jacaranda tree amongst the velvety periwinkle flowers. They looked
good against my feathers. I was small then. At least by all human measurements.
In bird world, I am as I should be. All feathers and down and attitude. My
mother died in the mouth of a cat. I saw it go down. She was looking for
crumbs, for me. I was too young to know the difference—as in what I would have
been like had I a mother to raise me. I don’t know if you saw me eating or
heard my song, but I was there day after day watching you in your plastic
play-pool with the sponge shoved in the crack to keep the water in. your mother
made fun of your watermelon belly and you cried. You looked in my direction
when the girl who did that bad thing to her belly button started screaming and
bleeding. You didn’t know why you had to play with the girl. Far apart eyes.
Dull voice. Blood everywhere. But like all things, there are no reasons, not
when it comes down to it. I sang you a song the day your dad was taken away for
thinking he was Jesus. The song was the best I had—you didn’t hear it, you were
explaining the universe to the ambulance guys, vying for attention. Showing
them how normal you were. But, you weren’t normal. Later, after
you knew me, I came to watch you from the tree above your bunk bed, but you
didn’t look out. You told your mother, “I’m never wearing dresses again,” but
she didn’t see the impact—not like I did. I saw you steal cheese from the
fridge and wipe the knife clean. They had put locks on things and you were
starving. I saw you the day you ran out into the middle of the road screaming
naked wanting to go to gymnastics class. Your mother laughing at your
nakedness. It made me want to be a dancer.
The Loneliness of a Body
The Loneliness of a Body
Your arms are a casket
white tulips; money;
mouthwash
they push me into a garden
where ghosts keep us
they push me into a garden
where ghosts keep us
from being ourselves
I dig my hands through wet
earth and find your father’s skull
vine-wrapped with a dead bat
sticking out of his eye-hole
I dig my hands through wet
earth and find your father’s skull
vine-wrapped with a dead bat
sticking out of his eye-hole
I suggest I sit in a
saucer of milk
or drag you with a chain
You ask me to come back
on a day when you are living,
but nothing lives, not like the dead
I stare into the sky
one hand on my grand-mother and one hand
You ask me to come back
on a day when you are living,
but nothing lives, not like the dead
I stare into the sky
one hand on my grand-mother and one hand
on your chest --- the
stars are wondering
if your piercings indicate
slave or
master
What else is there, if we can’t talk
about the things you hid---
lovers in closets, man--
but, your girl found me, told me
you wouldn’t fuck her
I am not yours now
and that fact is endless
and that fact is endless
February 15, 2012
February 4, 2012
Becky Fisher--Know It All
Becky Fisher opens her eyes and
takes off her little eye mask and she goes, what time is it baby, only baby
isn’t here anymore, baby is living with that ugly slut, the one with the chin
job and the suboxone habit. Becky isn’t angry, Becky likes a big empty bed, one
where dreams lived and died. Becky is feeling happy, she takes one happy blue
pill every night at 7 and then another when she wakes up at 7. 7 to 7 she calls
it. They make her not feel stuff. It’s part of her master plan, the part where
by not feeling she can stay on planet earth with all its ants and weird clothing made for special purpose sex. The pill's side effect makes the air
smell of butter and makes being quiet almost like sleeping in the arms of someone that loves you but won't say it. Becky takes a blue one
without water or any hope in a future. Becky Fisher can get through heartbreak!
Becky fisher is All American. She was a cheerleader her big boobs bouncing so
far up her chest they called her Torpedos. She remembers them fondly, now she
is old and they aren’t big like that, they are small hanging on to her
starvation frame for dear life.
Why did Conor lie
about his broken cock and tell her that it didn’t look as much like a tomato as
like an eggplant? And why did this make Becky actually go the Ralphs even
though she doesn’t even shop Ralphs, she is a Whole Paycheck kind of girl to
see one. Becky goes to the produce and chooses one out. A giant throbbing
Eggplant, not the Japanese one either, but the ugliest fattest one she can find
and she goes home and waits for Conor. Did it look like this Conor? Did it
happen with the girl on the trapeze, the sex nerd? Is that what you forgot to
tell me? Because now here we are. Like this. Me with my perfect pussy hole and
my mouth that knows what to do but look at you, yours is BENT. Not right angle
bent, but hurty kind of bent a bent that doesn’t make physical sense unless you
have a giant pussy hole which I don’t, mine is small. Remember the story about
the children’s speculum?
Becky
was not calm. Becky tried to remember the therapy session that made her feel
better, the one where Becky got mad and instead of saying the same thing no one
could ever help her with Becky just peed in her pants right there. She peed
right through those little shorts that she had cut because she was featuring
her thighs now that she was far away from her sexually repressed parents. And
speaking of being far far away from sexual repression she had taken a female
lover, that’s right---trying it on, just to see if she liked fisting better
than cocks, only she was built too small so she never ever got to even try.
Becky said, I’m a pillow princess and wouldn’t know what to do and plus it
grosses me out. If we were both dudes then maybe because I like cock, but you
cannot judge what God is not judging. Unless HE is and then we are both fucked
anyway and Becky Fisher showed that girl the door and tried not to mention her
giant chin hit her in a way that was painful and worse than that was the
accent. Who has a gay irish accent anyway?
Becky
Fisher was All American, she had good breeding, a genetic lineage that she
could follow to the Hearsts on one side and then there was the white trash
bacon side. That was the side that seemed to pick her boyfriends.
Becky
Fisher landlords stole her bike and she called the cops and told them, if you
don’t come now, someone will die. I have a knife and everything, but they
didn’t come. Instead a little
Mexican named Sergio came. He tries to give Becky her bike back through the
door, but she has her period and if he comes any closer she’s going to kill him
with the knife. Never mind it’s a paring knife. For apples. Sergio is smiling.
That dick shouldn’t be smiling. Becky says, what the fuck? Why were you born
you mother fuck. Becky isn’t very smart when she gets mad. Anyway, She says
show me the bike you ass-fuck. How dare you? Your children are going to die of
eye cancer. Then he steps back from the door, he’s getting the picture that
Becky is crazy. Step away you mother fuck. you’re gonna die. WALK AWAY. Becky
is lost, screaming, red so that her eye mask to help eye fatigue are falling
off ruining the look she had and completely destroying the relaxation the box
promised. She puts down the knife and opens the door and brings the bike
inside. She goes to her phone to look at the big giant perfect penis her friend
sent her. She looks at it like a child would look at a teddy bear and she
becomes calm. Who knows calm Like Becky Fisher. Becky Fisher knows what to do,
she wrote affirmations that tell her so. Becky Fisher is pretty. Becky Fisher
is not embarrassed for liking a big cock. Becky Fisher makes money. Becky
Fisher is skinny. Becky Fisher has style and class and then the door rings.
Becky
is like now what, and then she goes to the door and it’s just the UPS guy, he’s
got her straightening iron the one she’s been waiting for. The one that Gwenyth
Paltrow used when she was pretty before she got old.
February 3, 2012
PAPA, CACA, DOO DOO, WEE WEE
Today I created something, it's called, "Put this oil on your pussy lipgloss." It's my very first product. I'm hoping it will sell well and that I can share my wealth with those people who have been nice to me and withhold it from the people who have been mean to me in the attempt to make themselves feel better about their own mediocrity, lack of loyalty and cowardice. This story isn't for you ridiculous people. This story is for the rest of you.
START: When I was a kid, my neighbor's father said I was a bad apple. My neighbor's name was Michael Soma--for the life of me I can't remember his father's name and for the sake of things it doesn't matter. Michael Soma hung out with me and my friend Tom Maher. We were always together as kids. Michael's father said I was bad because I was the one that told about a snake that didn't exist---which I only said because me and Michael and Tom were ALONE and didn't want to be bothered by adult people or other kids that we thought were dumb. Our cave was our cave and we were being quiet and telling our dangerous secrets of the Witch Coven that existed in Lakeside and how on most nights I could feel a demon trying to steal my soul directly out of my chest. We had been trying to figure out what to do about the demon. I had been up all night praying. My mother bought me worry dolls who I whispered the problem of the demon to, and they were supposed to handle things in the night. But, they didn't. The demon stayed digging into my chest--trying to steal my soul.
If you ask many kids at the lake---I was not the only one having night terrors, demons and witchery happening to me. Most of the kids start their stories by saying--i know you are going to think I'm crazy, but I swear this thing really happened. All of us spoke like that. Those friends at the lake had secrets that were loaded with the supernatural. I believed in God, but also that a devil worshipping cult near by could hurt us. We were all superstitious--not just me---and if you didn't believe an arrowhead could kill you, we didn't want you around. Michael had a whole collection of them but we didn't talk about what that meant.
Michael's father said I was bad because Tom chucked a rock at me and I chucked one back and his rock didn't do anything, but my rock chipped his front tooth. Michael's father said I was bad because were were playing catapult off a bed wherein Tom and Michael would sit on my feet and I'd be laying down with my knees bent and fly them across the room and of all the times we took turns it was Tom that broke his arm when I sent him flying. Lisa Douglass is a bad apple. That should go without saying. I wasn't actually the one that talked about sex and how to spy on our parents and then report back, but I was blamed for it. And even though when we were older I was the one who mashed the coke into my floor just to see if anyone would take the dare to eat it directly off the tile and no one would--I still shared with everybody. I knew what friendship was.
But, Michael--the son of the dad who called me a bad apple-- used to pee on his own dog. His dog's name was Pudgy--he was a doberman pincer. Michael would chase him saying PAPA, CACA, DOO DOO, WEE WEE and then unzip his fly pee on Pudgy. He did this a lot. After Michael died, I saw him once in a dream. He was wearing eyeliner, speaking to a baby cat. Telling it what he wanted. "I want love. I want kindness. I want obedience." The baby cat ignored him and just licked his face over and over as to make the rest of the dream people uncomfortable. I tried to speak to Michael but he held up his hand and said, "Not now, Lisa. My dad said I can't talk to you anymore."
Before Michael died and years after I moved away from the lake and was living with my sister (or had she moved out?) off DeSoto, Michael came to visit me. He came with Tom Maher. They were there. I was on drugs, in bad shape and didn't know what day it was. They drank wine coolers with me or whatever I had back then. Maybe Bacardi 151. They lay on a bed, that for some reason was in the middle of the living room. We laughed like we had always laughed, making fun of ourselves and people we knew. We fell asleep in each other's arms, dreaming of somewhere safe.
Michael died from a shotgun his girlfriend/wife fired at him during a domestic dispute. I think they were high. His ashes are marked with a cross at the top of Sugarloaf---the mountain that overlooks Malibou Lake. I miss him a lot. He was always my friend.
January 13, 2012
Dear Caroline
Dear Caroline,
I don't know if you can hear me, now that you are dead, but on the thought that I might not know everything there is to know, I am going to take the chance that maybe you can hear me. Your friend Michael wrote to me today and said, "you don't know me, please call me, it's about CT. it's serious." It took me a moment to realize CT was you. CT equals Caroline Thompson in a way that I couldn't quite understand. So, I called the dude. The dude said you were dead. I listened and didn't know what to do. I called to coroner to be sure. I felt bad. I felt really really really bad. Worse than I've ever felt. Then I remembered Romeow. Where was he? Your cute cat. You loved that cat. Was he in the apartment? Did we have to go break in and save him? I didn't know, so I called the coroner back and kept calling back until someone answered. At some point in the early morning I realized that the coroner might have said they had a Caroline Liz Thompson, and on your blog it was Caroline Ruth Thompson. So, I called back, to see if they were wrong or if I was wrong or what. I asked about Romeow. Where was he? Could I save him or keep him and the whole time with all these phones going I knew your parents and your brother didn't know yet. I had already called Matt, your recent ex boyfriend. So recent that he had called me Saturday going I haven't heard from Caroline, do you think she's okay. I was like, yeah, we spoke she seemed cool. You said you were sad that you may have hurt him, but were really excited and happy. In fact, we spoke at 2 AM on Thursday morning and all you talked about was going to this poetry conference and grad school and about shopping with me at Betsey Johnson. (I had told you I put a dress on hold and was too sick to go pick her up..dresses are shes.). You told me you'd buy me the dress, to forget about the sale---the 50 percent off the 50 percent off sale--you'd cover me. You had it handled. I told you I was broke and you told me you'd pay if I agreed to come to the Chicago Poetry conference. We could room together you said.
We talked about our date. The night we went to Beyond Baroque to see poets read their work. You wore your cashmere hat and your lace up knee highs, your cashmere jacket. We shivered outside because the Beyond Baroque people had set up chairs outside. We were bored. It was supposed to be cool, but it bored us. You showed me a photo and told me you were sending it to Matt. You looked pretty, I can't remember what else about the photo---oh yeah--your ass. You sent a photo featuring your world class ass and we laughed to the point of crying. Then, you told me we should go watch him and see him do the comedy. But--before all of this, you and I had our date. Our date at Marmalade or whatever the hell that deli is called near Palmetto---that guy stalked us. He was wearing a white man hat. I can't describe him. Weaselly, like a pinched bunny face. I don't know. He walked in circles around us eating us with his eyes. You told me about your family and I started in on telling you my weird dating scenarios and weird sex fantasies. Then, White Hat man comes over and brings us a chocolate souffle and starts talking about himself. We stare up at him and don't care about him and his stupid story of his wife leaving him and NOW HE WAS BROKEN and did one of us want to pick up the pieces of the broken White Hat man? I made him tell me which one of us he wanted. Just say it, I said. He wrote his dumb name on a napkin---had to get up and walk all over the place to find a pen and we just sat there going, will this man ever leave us alone? Then he came back and set it in the middle of the two of us and then shamefully went away. IT TOOK FOREVER. That White HAT man ruined our date, but only for awhile. Then Beyond Baroque, then laughing till we peed. Then, we went to see Matt--in Hollywood. Matt performed--it was funny, but now you're dead and I'm real fucking sad. Matt became your boyfriend that night. You two became inseparable--it made me happy because I love both of you. There's more, but it mostly was about how talented you were and I'm not in the mood to do it more today. This isn't the end of you. I remember you. How could I ever forget, it's just that. WHAT THE FUCK? I love you and I miss you, that's all. It's rare that I meet a girl that's smart and charismatic and doesn't hate my fucking guts while pretending to be my friend. You were my real friend and i'm sick and sad that you are gone. Remember your Louis Vuitton bracelet? I saw it the day I went to meet your parents and Romeow was there and there was a moment he got out and your dad was overwhelmed in the car and we weren't supposed to tell because it would just have made him stressed. I grabbed Romeow and carried him back through the door and decided I'm getting a cat. So, me and your mom and you brother Jeff made our first secret. I'm getting one just like Romeow. I'm even putting the photo of us up, from when we were freezing. You look cute and I look shitty, but as vain as I am---this is for you. I love you.
Lisa
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