Bread and Bandages
6/05/2006
Displaced Persons and Misplaced Ghosts
I was born in Ohio because that’s where my memory begins and I’m going to die in Virginia. In between I’m racing back and straining to get as far out as possible – if I can just get far enough from everyone who’s heard me say my name then sooner or later the momentum will snap me back home. Mostly I’m walking to places I’ve been before, glancing around between the songs in my head to check if everything is there – if the pictures in my head match my surroundings. It’s important that I get the details right – later I’ll change all the plot around them. The details are what’s important—what’s verifiable—things like how many gunshots was it, that startled my father into letting go my neck.
¶ 10:56 PM 0 comments
5/08/2006
Imaginary Circus
02.03.00
12.11.03
[Imaginary Circus ]
I dreamt myself tall/slender with flowing long
hair and a black top hat. I stood in the
center of a varicolored carnival tent, ringed on
three sides by faceless spectators under a red and
gold banner reading “Mistress Maydela’s Imaginary
Circus.” I wore a deep red dinner jacket,
like an old time carnival ringmaster trimmed in
black sealskin, with a tiny, tiny black rubber
skirt and tall black boots. I strode
around the ring, snapping a fearsome looking
single-tail whip, gesturing commands as to a
set of performing circus animals—but all the
cages were empty. I did a trick with
riding about on a tiger, and one could see the
cage door slide slowly open, accompanied by
scary music and hungry-sounding growls. One
could see the sand on the ground shift under
its four paws, and all gasped in
amazement as I slid up onto its imaginary
back and rode slowly around the ring.
Later, those seated in the first row would
swear they felt its hot breath against their
faces, and one woman leaning too far
forward felt its silky tail brush
against her cheek. Certainly, all saw the
steak I offered it quickly being
devoured, though none could see the terrible
teeth that left such enormous gouges
in the meat. I performed similar tricks
with trained seals, an elephant herd, sticking
my head into a lion’s mouth and other such
circus tricks. For the grand finale I flew
about the bleachers on the back of an
enormous imaginary white swan, showering children
with tiny, bright pellets that flowered into
cones of spun sugar candy as they grasped it,
and flitting strange blossoms of velvet hues
into the hair of every beautiful woman.
As I flew down for my glorious dismount I
cracked the whip once, loudly so that it
sparked electrically against the packed ground. At that
signal small, leprechaun-like men began
moving quickly through the rows of onlookers,
holding out green leaf-felt
hats for donations. Children threw in lucky
coins and magic marbles, real flint arrowheads
and gemlike bits of glass. Women shook out
their jewelry in cascades over the green hats
which never filled and men emptied their
billfolds before pulling their families along to
waiting responsibilities. And as the last person
left the tent the little men all instantly
donned their hats and the cages snapped closed as
one by one all the animals came to life. ¶ 1:41 AM 0 comments
12.11.03
[Imaginary Circus ]
I dreamt myself tall/slender with flowing long
hair and a black top hat. I stood in the
center of a varicolored carnival tent, ringed on
three sides by faceless spectators under a red and
gold banner reading “Mistress Maydela’s Imaginary
Circus.” I wore a deep red dinner jacket,
like an old time carnival ringmaster trimmed in
black sealskin, with a tiny, tiny black rubber
skirt and tall black boots. I strode
around the ring, snapping a fearsome looking
single-tail whip, gesturing commands as to a
set of performing circus animals—but all the
cages were empty. I did a trick with
riding about on a tiger, and one could see the
cage door slide slowly open, accompanied by
scary music and hungry-sounding growls. One
could see the sand on the ground shift under
its four paws, and all gasped in
amazement as I slid up onto its imaginary
back and rode slowly around the ring.
Later, those seated in the first row would
swear they felt its hot breath against their
faces, and one woman leaning too far
forward felt its silky tail brush
against her cheek. Certainly, all saw the
steak I offered it quickly being
devoured, though none could see the terrible
teeth that left such enormous gouges
in the meat. I performed similar tricks
with trained seals, an elephant herd, sticking
my head into a lion’s mouth and other such
circus tricks. For the grand finale I flew
about the bleachers on the back of an
enormous imaginary white swan, showering children
with tiny, bright pellets that flowered into
cones of spun sugar candy as they grasped it,
and flitting strange blossoms of velvet hues
into the hair of every beautiful woman.
As I flew down for my glorious dismount I
cracked the whip once, loudly so that it
sparked electrically against the packed ground. At that
signal small, leprechaun-like men began
moving quickly through the rows of onlookers,
holding out green leaf-felt
hats for donations. Children threw in lucky
coins and magic marbles, real flint arrowheads
and gemlike bits of glass. Women shook out
their jewelry in cascades over the green hats
which never filled and men emptied their
billfolds before pulling their families along to
waiting responsibilities. And as the last person
left the tent the little men all instantly
donned their hats and the cages snapped closed as
one by one all the animals came to life. ¶ 1:41 AM 0 comments
4/15/2006
The Smell of Solitude
08.20.2003
01.05.2005
I'm 25 years old, in between tails, and developing a fetish for medium-nib
black ink fountain pens. They only come in packages with purple
and blue, but I also use the black ones first. The blue ones
I use when necessary, the purple I give along to friends.
I never throw out the black pens, and never keep
the blue after they run down. The lovely thing about fountain
pen ink is how it smells.
-------
"As sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sickness, is solitude....Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in Hell itself."
John Donne
As quoted by Oliver Sacks; Awakenings (21) ¶ 4:17 AM 0 comments
01.05.2005
I'm 25 years old, in between tails, and developing a fetish for medium-nib
black ink fountain pens. They only come in packages with purple
and blue, but I also use the black ones first. The blue ones
I use when necessary, the purple I give along to friends.
I never throw out the black pens, and never keep
the blue after they run down. The lovely thing about fountain
pen ink is how it smells.
-------
"As sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sickness, is solitude....Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in Hell itself."
John Donne
As quoted by Oliver Sacks; Awakenings (21) ¶ 4:17 AM 0 comments
4/04/2006
The Lullaby Man
The lullaby man only comes when you wish for him. When you're small and the lumps in your bed are moving, when parents and stuffed animals have deserted their posts, when the night terrors freeze your throat.....The lullaby man will sing you back to sleep. Will croon you to sleep with scraps of song, wandering melody and sing-song phrases from your dreams. The lullaby man can never dream again, has no dreams of his own to sing....only yours...only wants your bad dreams.....wants to free you from your nightmares and help you to sleep. The lullaby man weaves all his artful music from the nightmares he collects, and once your terrors become his art they can never be escaped. You will hear all your most intimate horrors in various radio genre stations, mixed into background music for commercials and soundtracks. They will find you in the elevator, will stare at you from advance release posters, you will live in constant dreadful anticipation of yourself.
¶ 1:58 PM 0 comments
Return to the Crossroads
[12.02.2004]
06.21.2004
Return to the crossroads.
Give me a room where I can close the door and turn my back. Give me sleep without the past turning to ghosts. Give me nights without my father’s grunting snores. Give me days with no need for apologies. Give me safety and a little time to stretch. Give me the sense to use my body while it’s whole, my bank account while it’s positive, my brain while it’s sound. Lead me to places I can occupy guiltless and unafraid. Give me a summer to remember that I’m brave. Lend me a room that’s as safe as a womb so I can practice breathing loudly and singing audibly—full-voiced—so I can write without fear of discovery by others whom I wish to write about; so I can get used to being naked shamelessly; so I can invite others to enjoy being there, with me.
06.21.2004
I am determined to believe:
in God.
Which I do with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I can believe that God, like quantum mechanics, makes sense at the microcosmic or macrocosmic levels, exists and is true in them, even if not here tucked into time and space with me.
that suicide is unethical between
the ages of 18 and 60 (or possibly 65)
so I might as well make it to
66 before I start planning out
anything so potentially bathetic.
that a deliberately careless death
is nearly always undignified. Thus the
condoms, thus seatbelts and vitamins
and washing of hands, thus double-
checking the labels on pills, thus
care in mixing any psychoactive drugs,
thus looking both ways before crossing
the street and staying out of strange cars
and avoiding armed strangers, thus
keeping my broke-ended fingernails away
from the temptation of open sockets;
if I cannot choose death on my own
terms just yet then I’m not going
to play coy and wait for it. Besides,
death by youthful misadventure is like
suicide without balls.
That wisdom is the way God answers
prayers.
That writing is useful.
That using your life to learn
and share knowledge means that it has
not been wasted.
That there is always at least one
person alive who may be the Messiah.
12.02.2004
I want to believe that is true almost. I want to decide that it’s bullshit some other stupid me snuck in and wrote. There is nothing in this room but worms and me, and the other room holds only file boxes of damp and mold-smelly books, parasite spores and fungus flowers. The things I see are ugly as always. I carry an ugly mind around with me. I can only believe in a God that exists wholly outside myself. ¶ 1:50 PM 0 comments
06.21.2004
Return to the crossroads.
Give me a room where I can close the door and turn my back. Give me sleep without the past turning to ghosts. Give me nights without my father’s grunting snores. Give me days with no need for apologies. Give me safety and a little time to stretch. Give me the sense to use my body while it’s whole, my bank account while it’s positive, my brain while it’s sound. Lead me to places I can occupy guiltless and unafraid. Give me a summer to remember that I’m brave. Lend me a room that’s as safe as a womb so I can practice breathing loudly and singing audibly—full-voiced—so I can write without fear of discovery by others whom I wish to write about; so I can get used to being naked shamelessly; so I can invite others to enjoy being there, with me.
06.21.2004
I am determined to believe:
in God.
Which I do with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I can believe that God, like quantum mechanics, makes sense at the microcosmic or macrocosmic levels, exists and is true in them, even if not here tucked into time and space with me.
that suicide is unethical between
the ages of 18 and 60 (or possibly 65)
so I might as well make it to
66 before I start planning out
anything so potentially bathetic.
that a deliberately careless death
is nearly always undignified. Thus the
condoms, thus seatbelts and vitamins
and washing of hands, thus double-
checking the labels on pills, thus
care in mixing any psychoactive drugs,
thus looking both ways before crossing
the street and staying out of strange cars
and avoiding armed strangers, thus
keeping my broke-ended fingernails away
from the temptation of open sockets;
if I cannot choose death on my own
terms just yet then I’m not going
to play coy and wait for it. Besides,
death by youthful misadventure is like
suicide without balls.
That wisdom is the way God answers
prayers.
That writing is useful.
That using your life to learn
and share knowledge means that it has
not been wasted.
That there is always at least one
person alive who may be the Messiah.
12.02.2004
I want to believe that is true almost. I want to decide that it’s bullshit some other stupid me snuck in and wrote. There is nothing in this room but worms and me, and the other room holds only file boxes of damp and mold-smelly books, parasite spores and fungus flowers. The things I see are ugly as always. I carry an ugly mind around with me. I can only believe in a God that exists wholly outside myself. ¶ 1:50 PM 0 comments
3/18/2006
Let this be the story of how I write;
Last night I woke up from a dream as though
dropping back into my body, awoke from a dream
two weeks above the sandblasted ceiling and
was thrown six stories back into a body, into a
bed. Muscles cramped at this invasion, body
trying to push me back out, and I awoke
doubled over, face to matress, desperately
trying to rub the cramp out of my legs,
feet and hands. By the time I was me again I’d
forgotten everywhere I’d been.
Let this be the story of how I
write with both hands when one grows
unforgiveably tired, backwards and forwards
in frantic indescicion across the page.
“I can’t stop writing – so there’s an end to it” our
teacher quotes Virginia Woolf and tucks her
head back proudly against her hair, pleased
with herself for having discovered such a
goodexplanation. “I trust the Divine Child of
my dreams,” she says.
Alexandra trusts the hyperspace elf
machines, the golden child playing with colored
balls. I don’t trust anyone but Alexandra—I hope
she never finds this out.
Let this be the story of how I write
because I never get beaten anymore – because
I am oiled and vitamined and smooth
smooth smooth – tie me up, tie me down, I can
absorb anything without shaking. How can you do it
without fucking, everyone asks. Doesn’t it
make you horny? The sight of my own
applet breasts beneathe my t-shirt makes me
horny. Being beaten just makes me want more. And
sex just makes [me] that much crazier for pain.
I bite every vanilla boy harder than they can possibly
enjoy, in hopes they will eventually just once
bite me back – I am eternally sick
of adoring kisses. Kisses devoted only to the
softness of my skin, and not to me. Oh, oh,
what do I want? Shut up and I will tell
you what I want. ¶ 3:32 AM 0 comments
Last night I woke up from a dream as though
dropping back into my body, awoke from a dream
two weeks above the sandblasted ceiling and
was thrown six stories back into a body, into a
bed. Muscles cramped at this invasion, body
trying to push me back out, and I awoke
doubled over, face to matress, desperately
trying to rub the cramp out of my legs,
feet and hands. By the time I was me again I’d
forgotten everywhere I’d been.
Let this be the story of how I
write with both hands when one grows
unforgiveably tired, backwards and forwards
in frantic indescicion across the page.
“I can’t stop writing – so there’s an end to it” our
teacher quotes Virginia Woolf and tucks her
head back proudly against her hair, pleased
with herself for having discovered such a
goodexplanation. “I trust the Divine Child of
my dreams,” she says.
Alexandra trusts the hyperspace elf
machines, the golden child playing with colored
balls. I don’t trust anyone but Alexandra—I hope
she never finds this out.
Let this be the story of how I write
because I never get beaten anymore – because
I am oiled and vitamined and smooth
smooth smooth – tie me up, tie me down, I can
absorb anything without shaking. How can you do it
without fucking, everyone asks. Doesn’t it
make you horny? The sight of my own
applet breasts beneathe my t-shirt makes me
horny. Being beaten just makes me want more. And
sex just makes [me] that much crazier for pain.
I bite every vanilla boy harder than they can possibly
enjoy, in hopes they will eventually just once
bite me back – I am eternally sick
of adoring kisses. Kisses devoted only to the
softness of my skin, and not to me. Oh, oh,
what do I want? Shut up and I will tell
you what I want. ¶ 3:32 AM 0 comments
3/17/2006
Thank You for Calling Old Age
Thank you for calling. Shoshana does not exist. The phone has turned to gold lame. Please leave your message now.
I try to transcribe my dreams in shallow sleepless pauses between songs. The Cure is playing lullabyes to brittle-boned children. My comforter is stuffed with clouds of dust, it sifts powdery through the duvet, settling uneasily over ratty carpet; when I step too hard it crowds into my lungs.
The cats are fighting again—I can feel a single, sharp horn growing up from the center of my head as they chase each other [sic] through stacks of furniture. My house is a department store for the recently blind, everything has a scent/feel of its own.
I have given up going to salons. I polish every fingernail a different color; that is how I see them, anyway. My weight fluctuates between 98 and 380 pounds, depending on who is standing next to me. I forget to shave my legs, delaying my period for monthes on end; I am hoarding my estrogen for old age. ¶ 5:18 AM 0 comments
I try to transcribe my dreams in shallow sleepless pauses between songs. The Cure is playing lullabyes to brittle-boned children. My comforter is stuffed with clouds of dust, it sifts powdery through the duvet, settling uneasily over ratty carpet; when I step too hard it crowds into my lungs.
The cats are fighting again—I can feel a single, sharp horn growing up from the center of my head as they chase each other [sic] through stacks of furniture. My house is a department store for the recently blind, everything has a scent/feel of its own.
I have given up going to salons. I polish every fingernail a different color; that is how I see them, anyway. My weight fluctuates between 98 and 380 pounds, depending on who is standing next to me. I forget to shave my legs, delaying my period for monthes on end; I am hoarding my estrogen for old age. ¶ 5:18 AM 0 comments
Pulling Secrets Out of My Socks
04.26.01
11.24.03
[ ]
“We don’t have a boob for this poem yet.”
Solidify the vague self-consciousness,
self-rightousness of poems and you can
fill any vaccuum.
When I take over the world no one will be allowed to cry in public. The world is not your support group. “Go ahead, discuss please.”
The tranquilizer wears off and I start to get itchy, twitchy. This is the last long class like this. Pebbles under my skin. “Who is the one that went in for triple by-pass?”
I’m 6, it’s summer camp, day-camp, at the JCC, Dayton, Ohio. The little kids have pre-school in the regular pre-school rooms. Also swimming, holding beads knotted along a rope, each assigned a different color—how retarded did we look—unable to walk in a single short line unassisted. The elastic is always pulling out of my socks. I want to go home. I want to go home please. My jaw aches with spurts of wisdom teeth. Pleasesomebody come and take me home. I’ll be good.
Shane said, tell me something about your carnal preferences, something I don’t already know. I tried to tell him about my bad-girl thing, wanting to get dressed up in school-girl outfit and go out for a day to the mall or movie or amusement park and just be really bratty and bad. And Shane said—that doesn’t count, I knew that already. But this was the secret I’d been saving for him, this was the secret I hadn’t told anyone else, that no one knew, not my master, not his mistress, not Alexandra, not my best friend—this secret was mine and I was offering it to him red-faced in the pillows and hoping he wouldn’t think I was too weird. And he just said yeah, I knew that already, it wasn’t too hard to figure out. I wanted to know how he knew my secret, and he said it was the same way I knew he was kinky, and a virgin. But I didn’t know he was into watersports specifically, what right did he have to know this about me? So tellme another, he said. I told him about Robin, about Sassi – not just the basic ‘I was in a cult’ stuff, but what I did, what it involved, some of it anyways. Because the same way I don’t think they would ever have guessed about my bratty side, I don’t think he would have understood how deeply submissive I can be. And I tried to tell him, but I think it was only rituals, to him. Things I did to please Robin because I like authority. Not the whole of it, not the way I obeyed because I enjoyed it, because I was compelled to, not by threat of violence or indifference but because the only thing I like better than being bad is being good. And I was very, very good. I was late once. ¶ 3:28 AM 0 comments
11.24.03
[ ]
“We don’t have a boob for this poem yet.”
Solidify the vague self-consciousness,
self-rightousness of poems and you can
fill any vaccuum.
When I take over the world no one will be allowed to cry in public. The world is not your support group. “Go ahead, discuss please.”
The tranquilizer wears off and I start to get itchy, twitchy. This is the last long class like this. Pebbles under my skin. “Who is the one that went in for triple by-pass?”
I’m 6, it’s summer camp, day-camp, at the JCC, Dayton, Ohio. The little kids have pre-school in the regular pre-school rooms. Also swimming, holding beads knotted along a rope, each assigned a different color—how retarded did we look—unable to walk in a single short line unassisted. The elastic is always pulling out of my socks. I want to go home. I want to go home please. My jaw aches with spurts of wisdom teeth. Pleasesomebody come and take me home. I’ll be good.
Shane said, tell me something about your carnal preferences, something I don’t already know. I tried to tell him about my bad-girl thing, wanting to get dressed up in school-girl outfit and go out for a day to the mall or movie or amusement park and just be really bratty and bad. And Shane said—that doesn’t count, I knew that already. But this was the secret I’d been saving for him, this was the secret I hadn’t told anyone else, that no one knew, not my master, not his mistress, not Alexandra, not my best friend—this secret was mine and I was offering it to him red-faced in the pillows and hoping he wouldn’t think I was too weird. And he just said yeah, I knew that already, it wasn’t too hard to figure out. I wanted to know how he knew my secret, and he said it was the same way I knew he was kinky, and a virgin. But I didn’t know he was into watersports specifically, what right did he have to know this about me? So tellme another, he said. I told him about Robin, about Sassi – not just the basic ‘I was in a cult’ stuff, but what I did, what it involved, some of it anyways. Because the same way I don’t think they would ever have guessed about my bratty side, I don’t think he would have understood how deeply submissive I can be. And I tried to tell him, but I think it was only rituals, to him. Things I did to please Robin because I like authority. Not the whole of it, not the way I obeyed because I enjoyed it, because I was compelled to, not by threat of violence or indifference but because the only thing I like better than being bad is being good. And I was very, very good. I was late once. ¶ 3:28 AM 0 comments
3/16/2006
The First Time Was a Disaster
The first time I did ecstasy was a disaster 4 hours of nothing except extreme frustration compounded by teen hormones and october sweat or was it november I remember it was cold at night the next am at the nile and how did I get to the nile anyways was it aaron I don’t actually think it was but maybe or possibly sara though I thought I just went with her that one time with dave I did not make a particularly good impression that time I know. anyways, teen-age longing I had such a lust for jay then and now in retrospect I like that word a lot retrospect I have trouble sometimes even remembering why I liked him in the first place Scooby remembers things like that for me because he told you stories he says because he took the time to get to know you as a person but alexandria did that too didn’t she or maybe not maybe that’s why things were always so fucked up between us anyways because we just sort of fell madly in love or thought we did without ever stopping to consider each if we actually knew the other or just thought that we did.
anyways, yes the ecstasy why did I buy it it was from some guy that jay knew at least I think he did but I had the money corrine was there I think she and I really stopped hanging out after aaron it just seemed like such a weird time and also I lost a lot of faith in her judgment from how she reacted to him plus also then scooby and I moved out and the house-warming party where we segregated at becky’s and corrine and jay had sex at our house while we slept was it in the bathroom or was it at our pv apartment that they fucked on the bathroom sink maybe both I’ve lost track perhaps it wasn’t that important after all.
yes, the ecstasy…already described the pills in my journals lumps of beigish powder that reminded me in color of all those children’s tylenol I used to chew up six at a time cause I was too afraid of swallowing anything whole to take the adult pills but even then I got the moist miserable headaches. lumps of powder and maybe that’s why they didn’t affect me for so long cause I didn’t think that they would cause they looked so innocuous to me not innocent but…they were really these gritty brown speckled lumps about the size of a frozen pea and they looked like someone had just taken a pinch of wet powder and squeezed it together and let it dry that way no real shape or imprint or anything at all total bathtub shit in the days before sammy the bull and 20/20 ecstasy exposes.
the e the e the e…and we called it e then or ecstasy not x like kids do now back in my day and all but I remember it truly did confuse me the first time I heard someone refer to it as x and why is it always so important that people not mistake me for younger than I am anyways?
the drugs...i still have that book I was reading at the time….what car were we driving that night it feels vaguely important somehow that I remember it would have been scooby driving of course none of the rest of us had licenses then or anything. prospero his first car had already died, he only had ruby for about a week or so and didn’t have the trashy red car yet…must have been his dad’s van, I think, though I guess it could have been the truck. No, no I don’t I think that yes it must have been the minivan and we drove back to jay’s house tip-toeing in and I was wearing those high-heeled black boots, pointy-toed gothic fake suede I was vegetarian then and still trying vainly to repress my leather fetish and they made my arches hurt after a while sometime the ones in the shoes were so high and I was so used to wearing those shapeless sears flats all day god those were horrible shoes and the boots had a bit of black embroidery at the ankles.
I was trying to set my feet really carefully on the tile floor so as not to wake up jay’s mom or grandma but I remember the heels still clicked kind of loudly anyways cause I wasn’t terribly used to them and really my main objective was not to slip and fall and I seem to think I remember his mom coming out into the hall anyways after we scampered to his room maybe they spoke out there for a minute and she said something disapproving and told him to keep it down and I would inevitably have had to get up and use the bathroom and now I remember we took the pills with root-beer cause that was all the soda they had and the water there always tasted sort of funny it came the refrigerator tap cause they seemed to feel that there was something sort of barbaric about drinking it in a glass straight from the sink but the fridge water always tasted like freezerburn though that might have had something to do with the glasses they were huge blue glasses with a faint scum of dishwasher soap left on them and it made nearly everything taste a little odd but at least with soda the soap taste was covered up a little bit.
we swallowed it with root-beer….there must have been music playing through the room when I lay on the bed for all those hours full of joni mitchell….i remember scooby holding a lit cigarette to my mouth jay is the only person I’ve ever known who lived with his parents and smoked in his bedroom I guess it represented a kind of defeat on everyone’s part I still remember how after we were semi-officially together and I was spending the night there all the time his mom asking if I wanted to keep a comb or toothbrush in the bathroom or something and I never have been entirely sure whether she was being sarcastic or not but I was really embarrassed and it made me feel like a slut or something. but that was not for a year or so after this night, though maybe none of it would have happened at all if nor for the e….
but so scooby tried to hold a cigarette to my mouth and get me to smoke it but I could only manage one drag it was just too much effort and I could barely hold my head up anyways I was so fucked up.
and later I think someone tried to get me to drink from a glass of water maybe that was scooby again or possibly jay I have the instinctual feeling that it wasn’t corrine and actually maybe that was the night that finally killed any chance of friendship between us cause I got to stay there with jay in his room on his bed and she had to go home and maybe she thought I tried to make it come out that way on purpose cause I think she was just starting to pursue him then but maybe I am just ascribing negative feelings to her now in any event I will never know for sure.
I didn’t stay on purpose, I didn’t even know that she and scooby had left till about three hours after they’d already gone, and I asked jay where they were and he said they left and didn’t know what to do with me so left me there with him and part of me wonders why the fuck scooby left me there like that but what else could he have done cause we couldn’t have all stayed and corrine had to get home and he also had to get the car back before his family was all up and he couldn’t have taken me back to his house and I guess I should be glad that they didn’t just try to take me back and drop me at the dorm like happened with that one dj guy who died od’ing in a pma fever in a small room by himself and god what kind of hell that must be I think one of the things I am most frightened of is dying by myself especially like that so perhaps it was all for the best that they left me there with jay, and certainly it was nice for him to take care of me and let me stay like that I know I wouldn’t really have wanted someone like me there in the way like that when I was trying to come down from a trip like that. and I’m listening to no woman no cry bob marley the song that jay played for me after we were together late one night and he sat on the edge of the bed and I woke up abruptly to hear it playing and for some reason I thought he might be close to crying, and he told me that the song always made him think of corrine and then I was the one near tears cause I really did love him the and how could I compete with something like that I was always so uncertain of myself and it’s strange at the time I was horribly sensitive to any critical comments jay made comparing me to corrine like saying I was going to get fat and stuff but it never actually bothered him in her so why should I have been so upset by it maybe I was afraid that if I wasn’t careful he was going to leave me if I wasn’t good improved enough and of course that is exactly what happened though it turned out to be a good thing for me that it did I am so a million gabillion times glad I am with shane instead of someone like jay…I think I need to take a break from this for now and go pee again and watch the simpsons this is getting to be a bit much and anyways my back is doing its evil computer chair thing again. I’ll take a Xanax maybe…. ¶ 9:55 AM 0 comments
anyways, yes the ecstasy why did I buy it it was from some guy that jay knew at least I think he did but I had the money corrine was there I think she and I really stopped hanging out after aaron it just seemed like such a weird time and also I lost a lot of faith in her judgment from how she reacted to him plus also then scooby and I moved out and the house-warming party where we segregated at becky’s and corrine and jay had sex at our house while we slept was it in the bathroom or was it at our pv apartment that they fucked on the bathroom sink maybe both I’ve lost track perhaps it wasn’t that important after all.
yes, the ecstasy…already described the pills in my journals lumps of beigish powder that reminded me in color of all those children’s tylenol I used to chew up six at a time cause I was too afraid of swallowing anything whole to take the adult pills but even then I got the moist miserable headaches. lumps of powder and maybe that’s why they didn’t affect me for so long cause I didn’t think that they would cause they looked so innocuous to me not innocent but…they were really these gritty brown speckled lumps about the size of a frozen pea and they looked like someone had just taken a pinch of wet powder and squeezed it together and let it dry that way no real shape or imprint or anything at all total bathtub shit in the days before sammy the bull and 20/20 ecstasy exposes.
the e the e the e…and we called it e then or ecstasy not x like kids do now back in my day and all but I remember it truly did confuse me the first time I heard someone refer to it as x and why is it always so important that people not mistake me for younger than I am anyways?
the drugs...i still have that book I was reading at the time….what car were we driving that night it feels vaguely important somehow that I remember it would have been scooby driving of course none of the rest of us had licenses then or anything. prospero his first car had already died, he only had ruby for about a week or so and didn’t have the trashy red car yet…must have been his dad’s van, I think, though I guess it could have been the truck. No, no I don’t I think that yes it must have been the minivan and we drove back to jay’s house tip-toeing in and I was wearing those high-heeled black boots, pointy-toed gothic fake suede I was vegetarian then and still trying vainly to repress my leather fetish and they made my arches hurt after a while sometime the ones in the shoes were so high and I was so used to wearing those shapeless sears flats all day god those were horrible shoes and the boots had a bit of black embroidery at the ankles.
I was trying to set my feet really carefully on the tile floor so as not to wake up jay’s mom or grandma but I remember the heels still clicked kind of loudly anyways cause I wasn’t terribly used to them and really my main objective was not to slip and fall and I seem to think I remember his mom coming out into the hall anyways after we scampered to his room maybe they spoke out there for a minute and she said something disapproving and told him to keep it down and I would inevitably have had to get up and use the bathroom and now I remember we took the pills with root-beer cause that was all the soda they had and the water there always tasted sort of funny it came the refrigerator tap cause they seemed to feel that there was something sort of barbaric about drinking it in a glass straight from the sink but the fridge water always tasted like freezerburn though that might have had something to do with the glasses they were huge blue glasses with a faint scum of dishwasher soap left on them and it made nearly everything taste a little odd but at least with soda the soap taste was covered up a little bit.
we swallowed it with root-beer….there must have been music playing through the room when I lay on the bed for all those hours full of joni mitchell….i remember scooby holding a lit cigarette to my mouth jay is the only person I’ve ever known who lived with his parents and smoked in his bedroom I guess it represented a kind of defeat on everyone’s part I still remember how after we were semi-officially together and I was spending the night there all the time his mom asking if I wanted to keep a comb or toothbrush in the bathroom or something and I never have been entirely sure whether she was being sarcastic or not but I was really embarrassed and it made me feel like a slut or something. but that was not for a year or so after this night, though maybe none of it would have happened at all if nor for the e….
but so scooby tried to hold a cigarette to my mouth and get me to smoke it but I could only manage one drag it was just too much effort and I could barely hold my head up anyways I was so fucked up.
and later I think someone tried to get me to drink from a glass of water maybe that was scooby again or possibly jay I have the instinctual feeling that it wasn’t corrine and actually maybe that was the night that finally killed any chance of friendship between us cause I got to stay there with jay in his room on his bed and she had to go home and maybe she thought I tried to make it come out that way on purpose cause I think she was just starting to pursue him then but maybe I am just ascribing negative feelings to her now in any event I will never know for sure.
I didn’t stay on purpose, I didn’t even know that she and scooby had left till about three hours after they’d already gone, and I asked jay where they were and he said they left and didn’t know what to do with me so left me there with him and part of me wonders why the fuck scooby left me there like that but what else could he have done cause we couldn’t have all stayed and corrine had to get home and he also had to get the car back before his family was all up and he couldn’t have taken me back to his house and I guess I should be glad that they didn’t just try to take me back and drop me at the dorm like happened with that one dj guy who died od’ing in a pma fever in a small room by himself and god what kind of hell that must be I think one of the things I am most frightened of is dying by myself especially like that so perhaps it was all for the best that they left me there with jay, and certainly it was nice for him to take care of me and let me stay like that I know I wouldn’t really have wanted someone like me there in the way like that when I was trying to come down from a trip like that. and I’m listening to no woman no cry bob marley the song that jay played for me after we were together late one night and he sat on the edge of the bed and I woke up abruptly to hear it playing and for some reason I thought he might be close to crying, and he told me that the song always made him think of corrine and then I was the one near tears cause I really did love him the and how could I compete with something like that I was always so uncertain of myself and it’s strange at the time I was horribly sensitive to any critical comments jay made comparing me to corrine like saying I was going to get fat and stuff but it never actually bothered him in her so why should I have been so upset by it maybe I was afraid that if I wasn’t careful he was going to leave me if I wasn’t good improved enough and of course that is exactly what happened though it turned out to be a good thing for me that it did I am so a million gabillion times glad I am with shane instead of someone like jay…I think I need to take a break from this for now and go pee again and watch the simpsons this is getting to be a bit much and anyways my back is doing its evil computer chair thing again. I’ll take a Xanax maybe…. ¶ 9:55 AM 0 comments
Refugee From Flatland
In Flatland there are no shadows; no shades of grey. There are lines, and there is the abscence of lines, as God created them, one from another and like light and dark, neither existed until the other was formed. In Flat land the world exists all together or not at all. And in Flatland, the Law is God.
Moving from Ohio to Arizona, these are the things I notice: the lack of fireflies; the way no one sits outside; and how the black people talk like white, and the white people dress like teenagers\20-somethings on tv.
I know doubt, I know uncertainty. I know grown-ups lie as a matter of course, but don't know why. I know what it's like to spend 25 years misunderstanding time. I know that I have memories of the last 21 years of my life, if not more, and I know just how faulty and self-creating memories are. I doubt their veracity but am uncertain where else to turn. I know I can't live another 25 years like this. ¶ 2:17 AM 0 comments
Moving from Ohio to Arizona, these are the things I notice: the lack of fireflies; the way no one sits outside; and how the black people talk like white, and the white people dress like teenagers\20-somethings on tv.
I know doubt, I know uncertainty. I know grown-ups lie as a matter of course, but don't know why. I know what it's like to spend 25 years misunderstanding time. I know that I have memories of the last 21 years of my life, if not more, and I know just how faulty and self-creating memories are. I doubt their veracity but am uncertain where else to turn. I know I can't live another 25 years like this. ¶ 2:17 AM 0 comments
