wonderland

breathless, she comes to a clearing. she stops at the edge, where the trees meet the field, looking into the new found emptiness. she must cross, she must get to the other side. but like shark infested waters, there is danger ahead. tucked deep in the thickets of the snake grass. hiding behind that boulder off in the distance, on the other side of the field.

she knows what she has to do. it's been a long time coming. and in many ways this feels like the end of the road to her. if this doesn't work...but she doesn't want to think about that right now.

like Alice in Wonderland, in the palm of her hand she holds a tiny white pill imprinted with the words 'eat me'. rolling it back and forth there in her palm, trying to guess if it will make her big or small or maybe have no affect at all. wondering, 'will i be a different person tomorrow if i swallow this today?'

if she eats the pill is it an admission that she really is crazy? that there is something truly and inherently wrong with her? the highs can be so powerful. she's never felt out of control, but sometimes she feels intoxicated simply feeding off the essence of the people around her. feeding off their energy, exhausting her own.

the lows are harder for her to control. moments when tears well in her eyes. she's trained them to not let go. she doesn't cry much anymore.

untitled

the wind knows it all,
it hides the secret whispers of the soul.
it can hear your thoughts, and carries them,
echoing through the valleys of the heart.

truth told through the whispers
of the eyes and the touch of lips.
bodies intertwined as a breeze blows in
and suddenly you are blind.

(10/9/95)

exposed

well, fall has finally made it’s way to our doorways. it rained for seven straight days here in the great state. at first it was a welcome event as our well has needed the nourishment and it has been a particularly dry summer. by the end of the week though, i was feeling the pull. down into the puddles that were on every street, in every pothole and rut, in every leaf left on the trees, and in that which was becoming my heart.

the leaves have covered my yard with a fine first of many layers to come. and the wind is crisp and brings with it the chill that goes to the bone. catfish’s old winter jacket makes a fine blanket as i huddle on the steps in an attempt to catch just a glimpse of the already fading sunlight. it is moving down in the sky and casts shadows with the moving trees.

i don’t know why i am always trying to push catfish away. sometimes i try to imagine what life would be like without him. but i know it can never happen and so then i become afraid and ashamed at these thoughts. fearing that my thoughts alone could cause some harm to come to him. and i feel guilt for that which hasn’t even happened.

the fact is, is that i miss him when i’m not near him. i think about him, moments in my day, moments i’d like to share with him. times i just want to have him hold me. tell me i’m ok and feel safe in the warmth of the embrace i know he will give me when i see him next. i do love him. this man who has seen me, naked to the world, demons and monsters exposed, and told me he never wants to be without me. this man who has forgiven me, even when i couldn’t forgive myself.

sometimes i hate him for loving me. how strange that is to me – to be angry at love. there were times that i would wish he would have just cut me loose, let me go. others i’m glad he helped me fight for my sanity. but sometimes in those dark places i go, the places i cannot take him, the places where i hate even myself, that’s where i find it hard to love him. for how could he love a creature such as this?

i know i live a lie. there is no strength here, there never was. there was no bravery in that fifteen year old little girl who couldn’t tell her mom that something bad had happened to her. there was no strength left after the dejection of that scared child that told her 6th grade guidance counselor that something wasn’t right. she lied about her fears and covered them with what she knew would be acceptable. then when it came time to tell her parents, she lied to them too. and where was that strong woman who spread her legs over and over and was afraid to say ‘no’ because she thought this was the road to being loved, by others, by herself? where was she when she had doubts about getting married so young? she couldn’t find her voice to say, ‘maybe we should wait awhile.’ she let herself be pulled, moving without thinking, never stopping to say, ‘wait, maybe i want something else. maybe this isn’t right for me.’ and why did she want to get pregnant just because esta’ was? was it to feel closer to this woman that didn’t want to feel closer to her? why does she want to know people that don’t want to know her? feeling rejection and disappointment – always allowing herself to have what should be normal expectations of the people she cares about. always allowing herself the letdown – the letdown she would never show them, because they don’t want to see it, they don’t want to know. why can’t she just let them go when she knows it will just come again if she doesn’t?



i dance on the edge of sanity. i can see myself there, floating. there, i am beautiful, graceful, calm and light.
i slip sometimes. dancing in the dark. dancing on the edge of madness. i know this is reality. i have felt the flash of rage run my veins at the thought of making a simple decision. the inability to reason, however momentary, is causing me to crack.
i dance on the edge of sanity. confusion is what is real. i feel as though i am walking thru a cloud. haze in my mind, haze in my eyes. dead, no life. exhaustion.
there is a fine line between sanity and chaos. i find sanity in the chaos. the chaos taking over now. after all these years. taking me to places darker than before. places i am afraid i will never escape. the dark eating the day. piece by piece, moment by moment.

Embrace

One day, quietly, with no warning, she said, “Will you hold me?”

And so he did, of course. His arms around her in an embrace that fitted his body to hers. Kissing her hair, eyelids, tip of nose. Asking, “Did something go wrong? Did you have a scare?”

She seemed not to have heard, her arms around him tight, tight.

Feeling against her cheek the comforting scratchiness of the wool sweater she’d knitted him years ago. When they were newly lovers.

Minutes passed. How very odd. He felt her trembling – a deep subterranean shuddering. He asked, “You didn’t have an accident with your car, did you?” And, “Did someone threaten you?” And, “What is it?”

Still she made no reply. Gripping him close.

So he was having difficulty breathing. So his heartbeat quickened, as if in the presence of danger.

He said, “Darling, please, I love you – what is it?”

He tried gently to push her away from him, just a bit, so that he could see her face. For, suddenly, it seemed to him he could not recall her face.

But she was holding him tight, tight.

Saying, almost inaudibly, so that he felt rather than heard her words, “Just hold me.”

“Yes, but – what is it?”

How many minutes of this embrace could he endure? – five? – ten? sixty? one thousand? He said, bravely, “Yes, I’m here.”

Outside, an unexpected rain pelted against the windows – or was that sunshine? That sudden glare?



Joyce Carol Oates

and frank was playing in the background

so last weekend it was new york, this weekend it was vermont. (i guess opposites do attract…at least in this case. new york brings out the raging city girl in me, head spinning, moving fast thru the moment. vermont, well, i’ve lived there once and when i go back to visit, i get to revel in the quiet stillness of the mountains. i guess i’m just destined to have the in-between of suburbia…what?!) technically we were in a little town just over the border of vermont in walpole, new hampshire, but who really cares anyway? the point is that we had a wedding to attend, an old friend of catfish’s.

i like most of catfish’s old friends. they are good boys that accepted me into their little family the minute they met me…some i met years ago, some only in the last year…simply because i was catfish’s woman.

the wedding was to be held at 4pm, in an apple orchard at the top of a mountain. the view was spectacular as it was the beginning of sunset, and the low hanging sun gave off that late afternoon heat that warms you from the inside. it was a beautiful, clear day with a slight breeze that let you smell the crisp of fall coming in with the evening air.



there was a restaurant connected to the orchard where the reception was to be held. people were milling around, hugging those they hadn’t seen in awhile, drinking. this is when i had my first drink. (this is important, remember this.) i went out to the back patio for a cigarette and this is where i found gus and catfish chatting it up.

it was time to toast, so we made our way back to our table. we were seated at table 13. if you think this is a coincidence, you are wrong. and all of us seated there couldn’t help but remark at the satirical humor of debo and his new bride. this is when i had my second drink. (remember this too, there is a point to all of this keeping track stuff.)

gus was the best man at my wedding. he has since adopted me as his little sister, which is weird because i’m older than he is, but whatever. he is rowdy and funny and always has a smile, always makes you laugh and tends to be a fantastic person to spend time with.

at some point after we had finished dinner we went to mingle and smoke on the deck. this is where i would have my third and final drink. (the number three being key here.) there was a moment in time, and i couldn’t tell you what the context was right now, but my hand ended up on gus’s ass. and i think there may have been some reciprocal ass grabbing…and then it just all got out of hand with me grabbing guys asses, guys grabbing guys asses, all in an effort to determine who’s ass was the best. i deemed the groom the winner, after all, he was the groom and this was kind of his night. but coming in a close second was cray. (really it was cray that won, but we don’t need to tell debo.) and gus, poor gus, he just didn’t have an ass to grab!

it was directly after this mini-scene that i leaned against catfish and was about ready for some sleeping. i have no idea what happened next, except that i woke up at around 3am, at catfish’s parents, tucked into bed. i found out the next morning that it was exactly 8:15pm when catfish helped me stumbled out to the car so i could pass out…catfish went back in and hung out until well after midnight, and good for him for doing that. he told me the next day that he hated to be mean but he was glad that i had passed out because i was about to go over the edge of reason…frankly, i’m glad i passed out too!

the next morning when i woke up, i found my clothes in a pile on the floor. laying suspiciously close to my bra were a few folded dollars and a cow….so, where did the cow come from? (troy you sick fuck.)

i felt a little better when i found out i wasn’t the only wife that night to make an early exit…women and vodka tonics, predictable i know.

meanderings of a psycho teenage drama queen

i will never forget the first time i met him. ian that is. the moment was defining and i believe will stay with me forever, burned into my brain on that beautiful fall afternoon.

it was sophomore year in high school, before i could drive. i had walked home with natalie that day – i probably had detention, and going to natalie’s afterwards was always a good way to avoid an argument with my mom. sometimes on the short walk to her house duff would pass and pick me up. he lived one street down from natalie and he and i always had a thing for each other. but duff, well duff is a story that i’ll never tell.

natalie and i were going to a soccer game and walked back down to the school at some point in the late afternoon. but the game was postponed until later, so we decided to walk to mcdonald’s. we were already half way there anyway, and this was a thing we did. besides, when you’re 15 and don’t drive, walking places you probably shouldn’t be walking becomes an every day part of life.

as we walked past the pro drive neighborhood on that warm october day, cars flew by…but one, one came to a screeching halt right next to us. it was a two-toned, four door, dark blue and camel ford bronco. and driving that bronco was ian. some kind of punk music blaring, we could barely hear him over it as he asked, ‘do you guys like need a fucking ride somewhere?’ and so a chapter in my life began. it was a small but truly beautiful one…that i will always look back on and smile.

that day we met, i immediately went home and wrote every detail down in my journal. at the time my journals consisted of teal blue and hot pink notebooks. there was also the lefty notebook that i taped a picture of a donkey in red chucks with the slogan ‘all you need to cover your ass’. brilliant. i’ve read what i wrote that day on many occasions over the years. and it takes me back to a time when i wasn’t quite so jaded yet – it was only the beginning.



(please feel free to laugh out loud as you read this next part, i know i did. me at 15, with a journal…this has the potential to be seriously disastrous!)
10/9/90
…We were walking and half way there Ian pulls up in his bronco and says, ‘Do you guys like need a fucking ride somewhere?’ (Natalie and I look at each other in astonishment that he stopped!) and I go, ‘Can you take us to McDonald’s?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, hurry up and get in.’ So when we got there he was like, ‘So how are you two getting back?’ When we said we were gonna walk he said, ‘Well, I could hang out here for awhile and drive you back if you want.’ (Of course – anything’s better than walking!)…Ian told us he was a vegetarian and thought McDonald’s was fascist and killed rainforests. (So he didn’t get anything.) It was kind of weird talking to him – he’s so different! But it’s kind of neat – he’s so different but the same as I pictured him. Anyway – I was like, ‘What does your room look like?’ He goes, ‘It’s hard to describe.’ I go, ‘Well can I go see it – like now?’ He goes sure – so we went and looked at his room – (It was so cool. Just like I pictured it – small and dark with lots of pictures on the walls.)…So we left there and went to the soccer game and Ian was like, ‘Well give me a call sometime and we’ll do something – if I’m home.’ So I was like, ‘Would you take us to a fascist football game tomorrow?’ (I was just being stupid!) He goes, ‘Yeah, I have to take my brother anyway.’…


as you can imagine, that journal entry went on for several pages…single spaced. you know i don’t even think i knew what the word ‘fascist’ meant at the time. when i read about that day, there is this overwhelming feeling of uninhibited innocence. i was so excited and just not afraid of it. God don’t you wish the belief in that feeling could go on forever?

it is so random that he stopped that day. i often wonder what he was thinking. why did he put his foot on the brake that day? we were so very different. him with his spiked black leather jacket, hardcore punk music and attitude, artistic senses and jello spiked hair. and me – loud, rowdy swimmer girl that tended to remiss in the unassuming.

had he noticed me before that day? had he passed me in the halls and done a double take without me noticing? and how did he know my name when we had never spoken before that day? or was he just passing that day and thought to himself, ‘what the hell?’

i knew who he was. he was hard to miss. but it had never occurred to me that he and i would ever become a part of each other’s lives. before that day, i had never given him a second thought, and yet natalie and i climbed up into his bronco and let him give us a ride.

through the years when i would be reminded of him i would imagine seeing him again. spending a few moments and asking him all of the questions that i wasn’t brave enough to ask at 15. but i will never get to ask those questions. i will never forget the day that i learned that ian had died.

he was living in colorado with his girlfriend. after we had all graduated, i would still hear about him every once in awhile from one of my boys. in the early part of 1997 ian died in a house fire…it wasn’t until almost three years later that someone would bother to tell me. tell me that this boy that i knew, this boy that i had loved, this boy that i shared time with, was gone. that was the day when i realized that chapter had come to an end. that was the day when the 15 year old girl that still lives inside me had to say good-bye. forever.