Fire: A Love Story

Tell me again how we were bound from birth like the wildest animals bred in captivity, born in cages. Tell me again how baptism by fire won't work on wolves like us. Tell me again how even star-crossed arsonists deserve to be loved.
Tell me about the time when you were fifteen, the first time you put something burning between your lips; tell me again how I was busy wailing, bloody, cold, eyes opened for the very first time.
Tell me about that night that you turned twenty and didn't care if you lived or died, how your lungs felt like they'd crumble easy as ash—how that same night my parents began to hide the lighters because I'd stick my fingers in the flames wanting so badly to catch fire.
I can't remember if it was when you were turning thirty or if it was the year that I turned sixteen that we made homes inside warm women's arms and curled up quiet. Wasn't it within a month that we burned those homes at the stake for aiding and abetting known criminals? How many fires did we start in all? How many innocents do you think were burned?
Tell me the one about how a woman loved you for who you could be, just like a girl loved me for who I once was. Tell me how she saw the light in you, just like she refused to see the dark in me. Tell me again how star-crossed arsonists deserve to be loved.
Remind me again about that time that I thought true love meant the end of self-inflicted suffering because I found a girl who'd use me as an ashtray. Tell me how I made that false discovery at the same moment that the doctors were sure they'd found cancer in you, and you kept on with your pack a day. Tell me how when I woke up alone on a red-stained pillow and licked crusted blood from my lip, they told you there was no tumor. Tell me how your girlfriend said she'd stay on the same day they insisted that the smoke was causing my nosebleeds. Tell me how my lips were numb from tobacco when you found her suitcases packed and ready to go.
Tell me about when we ran out of lighter fluid. Tell me about when we ran out of cigarettes. Tell me about when we were unhappy and there was no one left to blame. Please, remind me again how star-crossed arsonists deserve to be loved.
Tell me how they chained us before we ever met, tell me how watching me walk through your door felt like coming face-to-face with the convict you'd been cuffed to your entire sentence, each of us with hands crossed behind our backs and bound together. Tell me again how when my skin blisters you feel it. Tell me again how when you suffocate from the smoke I stop breathing. Tell me again how we each love an arsonist though we hated ourselves half our lives.
Don't say that I'm still a child with my hand held to a candle. Don't tell me you're just an addict with a box of matches. Leave out how this could consume us. I just need to hear you tell me one last time how even wild animals who've burned down whole forests deserve love like ours.

Rorschachs and Russian Dolls

I opened your letter and saw "I'd rather we not speak"

I unfastened your request for the dissolution of us and out fell a soggy jewelry box 

I forced open the waterlogged box and inside was a rusty wedding ring

I cracked open the ring and found that you'd failed to remember your prescription

I uncapped your forgotten pill bottle and realized that I was the sick one

I unhinged my skull and inside I found you pole dancing

I drilled a hole in the pole and peeked inside to find you taking out my nipple piercings

I unscrewed the left barbell and found that I had once been a commodity

I tore open my torso and inside was a girl who believed I was God

I pulled back God's curtain and revealed that I’d been making up rules as I went along

I burned up the rules and in the ashes found that I needed you more than I could admit

I unwrapped my own neediness and inside was a history of tangled dishonesty

I unknotted those lies and at the center I found that I look for love amongst brambles

I weeded through the needles and thorns and there you were again dressed as a nun

I unzipped your dress and ripped off your habit and inside was a bitter white banshee 

I unrolled the holy ghost and found that I'd rather we not speak

"In Vise" and other works I could not translate

The past three nights

I dreamed you were crying.

You stained my doorstep with your tears on the first,

you lamented our fate by my hospital bed on the second,

and I led you and your lover to safety

from the storm of the century on the third

after assuring you that she would warm up

your cold feet, if only you'd ask her.

Still, I was not allowed to touch,

just like now.

I offer you my arms,

and when I think you'll accept them

I wake up wrapped around nothing,

longing to fall back asleep.

I have yet to determine whether these dreams mean

that you are in trouble

or that I am.

Dear Peach,

When I first met you, you were wearing sweatpants, and I was probably not wearing much of anything. I know that I was with three or four people, and we were probably doing something weird, though I cannot remember what. You were visiting your friend, who later became your roommate. Whatever we were doing, you seemed not to approve of it and made a comment and gave a look to indicate as much. Maybe you were put off by encountering a group of people as strange as yourself. Sweet southern belle that she is, I think that you are the only person in the world that my roommate ever called a “cunt.” And I know that it probably wasn’t her first word of choice. She probably just agreed once I said it. (I, however, have always appreciated the word cunt and used it freely. Cunt. I think of canned peaches when I think of cunt. I can’t explain why.)

I miss our freshman year insomnia. I don’t miss staying up so many nights in a row that I felt like the floor was moving or waking up confused on benches in the mid-afternoon, but I do miss you.

After I got past calling you a cunt, our relationship entered into a new territory where I was vaguely afraid of you. Not because of anything you did or said but because J-Fro tried to convince me that you were in lesbians with me, and I was freaked out by the possibility of an attractive not strictly hetero girl having any kind of anything for me, though I was (and still am) pretty sure that J-Fro was just a sociopath who was trying to get me to think that you were a weirdo so that I wouldn’t befriend you. He would always tell me that you’d been asking where I was or that you talked about me a lot when I wasn’t around. And then there was the time that you were really excited because you’d just gotten your hamster, and you burst in and exclaimed, “Want to see my hamster?!?” Of course immediately after you left, J-Fro quipped, “She wants to show you her hamster. You know what that means!” I did not know for certain, but I was pretty sure that it meant that you wanted to show off the rodent you’d just purchased from the pet store.

I eventually wrote J-Fro off, deciding that you were not in lesbians me or with anyone, except maybe the silent boy who lived across the hall. You and I had become friends, bonding over sleeplessness and Tennessee Williams plays.

You did kiss me on Mardi Gras, and your lips and tongue were stained red from whatever you’d been drinking. Your mouth tasted sort of fruity. I didn’t know how to react to the entire situation because you were drunk and a pretty girl and my friend and kissing me in public and Richard was there and Richard’s mom was also there. Did Richard’s mom think that all fags were going to hell? She seemed good-natured and fun-loving but hailed from Alabama; I couldn’t be sure. I had this part-embarrassed, part-confused, part-ecstatic buzz for the next few hours. I was like, “Oh fuck, Katy Perry, I kissed a girl and I did like it, and sexuality is much less straightforward than your pop song makes it sound.” Growing up, I’d clung to very close friendships with other girls, very, very close friendships. I’d been naked with plenty of these friends. I’d slept next to them, showered with them, cuddled them, held their hands, massaged their backs and necks, watched porn with them, and exchanged notes with them that (taken out of the context of our fairly tame relationships) could be construed as passionate love letters. Sometimes we would kiss each other affectionately on the cheek or forehead, every once in awhile, we’d peck on the lips. I’d shotgunned smoke out of one these friend’s mouths, but all of the things I’ve just mentioned were not quite the same as the Mardi Gras kiss from you because all of these things had been the result of gradual boundary-pushing caused by intense, codependent friendships. Most of these things were easily explained away (showering together to save time because we were in a hurry, hanging out naked together because it was too hot) or top secret. I’d been accused of lesbianism before by concerned mothers, but their daughters were always quick to come to my defense, “Mom, she is not gay!” Even though in the back of my mind I would occasionally pick up on a barely audible whisper that taunted, Or am I? Your kiss had come out of left field, and there wasn’t even a whisper, it was just a loud and clear YOU ARE AT LEAST SOMEWHAT GAY.

All of that being said, I think it was even more what happened a few hours later that confirmed my interest in women. J-Fro texted me and asked if I’d seen you. He said that you’d gotten lost and needed someone to make sure you got home safely. You called me sobbing saying you’d been separated from your friends and were having an anxiety attack. Your phone was dying, it was raining, the streets were impossibly crowded. You needed me to come find you.

“Where are you?”

“McDonald’s.”

“Which McDonald’s?”

It was too loud, you were too drunk, my phone signal was awful.

We checked the McDonalds near Canal and University and didn’t see you. Fighting our way through the crowd just to get there probably took an hour. We realized we’d have to elbow our way through the masses on Canal to check the next McDonalds, blocks away. We found you there, and you were standing near the doorway, holding your phone, trying to call or text, though I’m pretty sure it was useless at that time. You were wearing a purple dress that I’d given you. I think you’d gotten ready in my room before you went out. You were so happy to see me and I was so happy that you were okay, and it took forever to make sure that you’d be getting home, even after we’d found you, but what eventually occurred to me was that I like taking care of girls. I like taking care of girls and kissing girls and having very close friendships with girls that may as well be romantic relationships, so yeah, I probably was kind of a lesbian. I carried that knowledge around with me for another year, trying to get comfortable with it, before anything came of it.

I’m pretty sure we never talked about any of that.

I’m also pretty sure that I was pretty sure that you were a little bit gay, and we never talked about that, either, though my suspicions were confirmed years later after you confessed that you’d slept with a yoga instructor. (We all did hot yoga together later. I’m still sad that the studio closed.)

I have a lot of important memories of you. I can’t explain why some of them are important to me. I sometimes crave the oatmeal bars that you used to make. You gave one to me one day when I was really, really hungry when I was working at the library. I don’t know why that sticks out in my memory. I always want to ask you for the recipe for those oatmeal bars but then I forget or just don’t do it. Listening to you tell me things that you didn’t tell other people is an important memory. Not being able to sleep, watching film adaptations of plays is important. Thanksgiving at your house was the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. And the day that you gave me a glass of wine and I just bitched about Kay, I remember Q left me a really nice voicemail and I listened to it in your living room while you cooked something in a pan, and I felt really okay, like I was free to hate Kay and to hate everyone else I’d ever dated and everyone else in the world and it didn’t matter because genuinely nice people who deserved my attention were giving me theirs.

I feel bad for not responding to your letter sooner. Sometimes large pieces of time pass by unaccounted for in my life. That’s another thing that I don’t have an explanation for. I wish that you were still here or that I’d applied to grad school and ended up somewhere close to you because I like that we can exist separately from each other and then run into each other and listen to each other like no time has passed and it was just yesterday that we were both up at 4 AM on the Honors floor, completely unable to make ourselves sleep. I also like knowing that you’re okay because you’re important to me, and I will be there for you every time you fall in or out of love or find yourself unable to sleep or need someone to get you home safely, if you need me to be.

I hope that you’re okay.

Love Always,

Stella

Dear Judy Moody,

I hope that you marry him because I really can’t think of a worse punishment than that.

I hope that you devote your life to having his unwanted children, cleaning up everyone’s messes, crying about never having enough to make ends meet. I hope that you get pregnant, and he doesn’t force you to get an abortion this time. I hope that you keep it and quit your job at the mall to stay home with it, while he picks up extra shifts at Max and Erma’s Casual Dining Restaurant, partially to pay the rent for your one-bedroom shithole apartment and partially because he dreads coming home to his bloated, bitchy, accusing wife. I hope that when he stays out for a shift beer with the new, blonde 18-year-old cocktail waitresses, you’re at home losing your mind, like always.

I hope that you know when you pick up the phone to call me and tell me about how much it hurts, I’m going to press “ignore.” I’ll be at home, more money than I know what to do with, head full of meaningful conversations, heart full of love, and I’ll be giving all of that to anyone who isn’t you. I’m doing what I should’ve done when we were 17 and cutting you out, cutting you off, getting rid of all of my love for you, and pushing it off on anyone who will take it because chances are, they’re more deserving.

So there it is, that’s my plan. That’s why I haven’t screamed at you or thrown your things out on the lawn. I’m just waiting for you to do the damage yourself. Because god knows, you’ll make yourself more miserable than anything I could do to you ever would. I’m setting you free to fuck yourself over and wallow in your unhappiness. And knowing that you’re going to turn into your mother—a bitter, sad, withered woman—makes me happier than putting your head on a spike ever could. 

Love, 

T.N.

The thorns they prick my fingertips/ And I remember her soft red lips

I am in love with a photograph. She doesn't love back, but she never changes and that's more than most can promise you.
I keep a spare bedroom for her, here, in my head, should she ever choose to come to life again and dance with me the way that only a memory can.

The Happily Ever After

I could hear her from the hallway; I couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying. I knocked, but she ignored me. I knocked again, louder.
"Mag? I'm here. Are you ok?"
No answer. I knocked more frantically.
"Mag? Are you okay? Answer me!"
Nothing.
"Mag, I'm coming in."
The doorknob didn't turn. As I struggled with the doorknob, her hysterical sounds grew louder.
I began to sweat. Something was not right. Mag's mood swings and hysterical displays of emotion had become routine, but something was not right. This wasn't her usual histrionic routine. She'd locked the door, something she would usually never do. She'd never want to keep people out, never want to risk losing her audience, never want to keep people from giving her the attention she needed. Usually Mag's suicide attempts were carried out with the door slightly cracked—not totally open, so that it didn't seem staged, but never, ever locked. She needed to be sure that a passerby could get to her in time to make her puke up the pills, bandage her up, drag her to the hospital. But, no, the door wasn't budging. This was different, all wrong.
What could I do? She wasn't opening the door. She wasn't acknowledging my banging and screaming her name. Could she hear me? Could she not understand that I'd shown up to rescue her, as the script seemed to go?
"Mag. Mag. Mag. What are you doing, baby? I can't get in. I can't get to you. Open up! How can I be your knight in shining armor if I can't get in? Mag, is this a joke? Are you fucking with me, Mag?"
She was quiet. Complete silence, no more crying or laughing, whichever it was. My hands began to shake.
"Fuck, Mag. What can I do, baby? I'm too small. I can't break down the door. I'm not a real fucking knight, Mag! I don't have a fucking sword or armor or any sort of goddamn training for this. I need you to open the door, baby."
She didn't.
I don't know how long I was screaming before two guys from down the hall whose names I'd never bothered to learn came and pulled me away. The taller one grabbed me and began asking me questions while the other worked on the door.
"What's going on?"
"I dunno. I dunno. She's in there, and she locked the door. She doesn't lock the door when she does this. It's a game. Today it's not a game."
"What's a game? Try to calm down for me, okay?"
"Mag. Mag's life. She does this sometimes, but not like this."
"You think she's trying to kill herself?"
"I dunno. I dunno. Something's wrong."
"Should I go get someone? What do you want to do?"
"I want to break down the fucking door."
So, the three of us kicked and pounded and threw our weight against the door until the hinges gave, but Mag was gone by then. Gone, gone, gone.
Her body was all the wrong colors. White and blue, some violet. She'd put red lipstick on, but most of it had smeared off. She wore a white dress, combat boots, white gloves. It was all wrong.
I went to her dresser and took her tiara from the top of her jewelry box. I smoothed down Mag's hair and placed the tiara on her head before kissing her cold mouth.
"Goodnight, my princess."

Tiaras

Mag once told me that stories about two girls never have happy endings. I'd never thought about it. I wanted to argue, but I couldn't make a case.
"What about us, Mag?" I finally asked, "Aren't we happy?"
She didn't even take time to consider, just rolled her eyes. "It's not the same."
Realizing she'd hurt my feelings, Mag ruffled my hair and gave me a dismissive smile.
This took place during her tiara phase. One of her little protests against normality, against heteronormativity, against patriarchy, against the mundane and socially acceptable. Mag backed up her tiara phase with this reasoning: "How often does an out bull dyke get to wear a tiara? When I was five, my daddy called me his princess. I'm not giving that up just 'cause I've grown up, and it turns out I'm gay."
"I don't know, Mag," I ventured. "I don't think straight people get to wear crowns much, either."
Pretending she hadn't heard me, she continued her monologue: "What? Just 'cause I'm into women, they take away my crown and my happily ever after gets revoked? It's bullshit. I'm a motherfucking princess, and I'm gonna wear this tiara."

Yellow flowers

"I could learn photography. That could be something to want. I could photograph children. I could have my own children. I would give them yellow roses. And if they got too loud, I would just put them some place quiet. Put them in the oven. And I would kiss them every day, and tell them you don't have to be anybody, because I would know that being somebody doesn't make you anybody anyway." —Gia Marie Carangi

Today my friend Andy and I were sad, so I bought some yellow flowers for us. We walked around and gave them to people who looked like they needed flowers, and we left one for an old friend. It was her birthday recently. Hopefully she'll know that the flower was from us, that we haven't forgotten about her, and that we miss knowing her.  

The Alphamale (or the ABC's of why I'm leaving you for a woman)

A is for asking for anal and the “accidental” slip into the wrong slot when the answer was still NO.

B is for beer pong and your Budweiser breath on my ear begging me to go bed with you, a charming “you’re beautiful,” and suave belch.

C is for cheating when we played checkers, cheating when we played chess, and cheating when you said it was love.

D is for the dozen drunk dials I awoke to when you dared to slur, “Are you suuuure you’re disease-free?”

E is for every time I envied the eternally true iloveyous of lovers lost in each other’s eyes when my own ears were only ever graced by echoes of my malcontent emotion.

F is for my favorite feud: who got too friendly with whose friends first and all the other fights over who fucked who over most; it got far too physical for me pretty fucking fast.

G is for your grotesque grease-stain glow because you think you look like a rockstar when you don’t bathe, but really you have all the glamour of the gray gravy goo my granny saves in a jar in her fridge.

H is for your hard-boiled heart and my hunger to be held by a human, maybe one made of some humble heat instead of your unholy hands at my haunches.

I is for the imperfect self-image I developed ever since you inquired if I’d ever considered implants.

J is for being jarred by your jealousy of the jocks at the gym who I’d never even talk to.

K is for keeping secret your kamikaze-style of kissing because I could never find a kind way to say that a shish-kabob could show you up in a kissing contest.

L is for the look on your lying lips when “I love you” leaked out for the first time.

M is for my mother’s well-meant advice to look for a “more well-mannered man (maybe one with money or at least morals)."

N is for never finding it necessary to nix your unruly neck-beard, no matter how many times I let you know it nauseates me.

O is for the outrageous outnumbering of your orgasms to my zer-Oh!

P is for the puke on my new purse, pulling off your piss-soaked pants before I put you into bed, and the putrid lack of apology lingering in the air the morning after.

Q is for your not-quite clever quips and the quiet that quickly follows in order to quell the pique to my pride when you speak.

R is for my resentment towards the way you never make my phone ra-ra-ringgg when you promise, “Really, I’ll call you right after work.”

S is for saying, “Let’s see a movie at seven,” stealing sixteen dollars from my wallet, and not being able to spare seven stolen bucks for my ticket.

T is for is for your Tic-Tacked tongue, the tartar-crusted teeth you never brush, how your tongue tortured my mouth like the rusty tool used to poke at a dying fire.

U is for my unfortunately under-touched undercarriage and your unappreciative utterances once you’ve used me to get off.

V is for my vain attempt to fill the void in my life with your volatility.

W is for when I washed your whites and found an out-of-place pair of women’s underwear, which you swore were mine.

X is for the X-rated stories of your exes that you are so excited to recite to me, despite my vexed protests.

Y is for your yo-yo yearning and spurning of your loved ones.

Z is for your zealous Zoloft-popping so that you no longer have to feel anything human and can go on living like the alpha males of the zoo.

I would come back for you and only you.

After the shards scarred me

Mom and Dad left me for dead

Grinning guards barred my bedspread

They said I’d never be free

But in my cage I learned to sing

Songs of hope scratched on my cot

I built myself a pair of wings

Out of lullabies and coins and rot

In every song I sung your face

In every song I sung your taste

In every song I sung your flesh           

In every song I sung your breath

The Liar

She was an artist.
Picasso had painting.
Poe had his writing.
Dickinson had poetry.
She had lying,
and her masterpiece
was a love story.
It was the story of us.

It went like this:
Once upon a time,
(This is how the best
lies always begin.)
there was a lovely girl
without a name, and
one day she met another
lovely girl without a name.

And together they were
lovely—no, they were more
than lovely, they were
happy. They were in
love. Everything was
absolutely magical.
And the frogs got along
with the toads. And the
witches stayed in their
fortresses. And the princes
stayed in their castles.
And the nameless girls
lived happily ever after.

The end.

Leanan Sidhe

And I've tried to put off writing about Mag because she's a cliché—a real life cliché. She's been written ten thousand times over by writers ten thousand times more talented. She is Holiday Golightly, Miss Daisy Buchanan, Beatrice Portinari, that stereotypical kind of extraordinary that permeates pages of classic literature. It's true—she is my muse, but she is also part demon. She is a spider whose bite I invited. The venom dripping from her fangs is inspiration. She pumped me full of it, and now I dance like mad for her amusement, scribbling away at sonnets in her likeness as her poison courses through me and rots my insides. I can feel her sauntering through my blood stream, her laugh echoing in my brain, her scent causing my lungs to swell. My greatest works are merely seizures brought on by her bite.

The best kind touches the soul, she said.

After Mag, I stopped touching people. I stopped letting people touch me. It wasn't something that I thought about so much as it was a chronic symptom of knowing her.

I remember the first time I zipped up her dress, the first time I braided her hair, the first time she silently grabbed my face just to scrutinize my every pore. I remember our first meeting, how she snuck up behind me and placed her hand on my back, as if this was the customary way to greet strangers. I remember our feet and knees nervously touching under restaurant tables and in movie theaters. I remember her arm casually brushing against mine when we stood in line together. I remember each strand of hair, each tear, each eyelash, each bit of mascara or eyeliner, each smear of lipstick, each trace of paint or pen or frosting or foam, each miscellaneous smudge we wiped from each other's face. I remember my palms sweating when she took my hand in hers. I remember her collapsing onto the floor, sobbing at the thought of being apart, and I remember lifting her up into my lap, holding onto her and truly wishing that I never had to let go. I remember smoothing back her long, blonde hair with one hand, squeezing her cool, dry palm with the other. I remember how her skin was always just a little bit colder than mine, how on a cold day she'd pull my hands to her face or her neck or wrap them around her own to warm herself up. I remember the bruises, the bite marks, the scars—hers and mine. Mine: wine-colored, some shaped like words, some shaped like stars, precise. Hers: little gray-pink crescents, a galaxy of quarter moons in a milky white sky. I remember the first time she sunk her teeth into my shoulder, purring, "I hope you don't mind pain." I remember the first time she peeled off her jeans and t-shirt, straddled me in star-patterned underwear, told me to relax. I remember tracing her ribs with my index finger and her calling herself a "starving artist." I remember waking up in a cold sweat over reoccurring nightmares and how she'd pull me in close to her, breathing warmly into my ear. "Shhh, it's okay. You're okay. I've got you." I remember her standing in my doorway, screaming at me over things I'll never understand and how much I wanted to grab her and shake her and yell, "It's me! Don't you remember me?" I remember letting her go, letting her slam the door behind her, after she looked at me like a stranger and didn't kiss me goodbye. 

The Scar

"It's like this," Mag said, lifting up her shirt to expose a jagged, moon-shaped slash across her ribcage. 

A gasp fought it's way out of my mouth, though I tried to keep it in. "How did you get that? It looks awful."

"No, it doesn't." She sounded frustrated. This was clearly something that she had expected me to understand. "It's my scar. It's beautiful. It's me."

I found myself staring at her and felt my cheeks start burning when she suddenly grabbed my hand. With her thumb pressed against my palm and her slender fingers wrapped around mine, Mag traced the length of the scar, coaxing me into touching it. She gingerly uncurled her fingers from mine, and my hand was left pressed against her cool skin. She had goosebumps. My whole body felt hot. I became very aware of the sweat forming on my palm and wanted to jerk my hand away, but as long as I was touching her I could not seem to connect my thoughts with my actions. 

She searched my face for some sign that I understood, but all that I offered was a look of terrified confusion. 

She didn't seem upset. "Think about it, what is a scar? How does it happen?" She paused, perhaps expecting me to answer, perhaps for dramatic effect. "Pain. Something wicked, unimaginably horrible happens to you. It slices through you, opens you up, makes you vulnerable, and it hurts you, but then, naturally, you sew yourself back up. And this time you've changed. You're made of stronger stuff. You look different, you feel different, and that's how you keep going."

Mag's eyes burned through mine. She let go of her shirt, smoothing it back down and pushing my hand away.

"I am this scar," she said. "You got it?"

Schadenfreude, a melodrama

2 figures standing on bridge over a rushing river. One dressed in a wedding gown (BRÜNA), the other in funeral attire (BLUNDELLE). Both women look as if they are in their 20s. The ledge of the bridge should come just below the women's waists. 

BLUNDELLE: I knew you'd turn up here if I waited long enough.

BRÜNA: I'd hoped you'd be gone by now.

BLUNDELLE: What, and leave you behind after all of these years? I've put too much into this—into you—for that.

BRÜNA: It's been seven years, Blundelle. I'm better off without you.

BLUNDELLE: And what does that mean to me, Brüna? What could seven years possibly mean to me? It's not as if I'm aging. Time does not pass for me the way it does for humans, or maybe you've spent so much time among the living that you've forgotten.

BRÜNA: I'm not like you anymore. I've gotten better. I've fallen in love, and it's pumped some life back into me. I belong to Carlomann now. We'll be married soon.

BLUNDELLE: And does your loving groom know that you're here?

BRÜNA: No, he doesn't.

Outer space is not a perfect vacuum

I am writing this to make you feel stronger. I am writing this to make your day because it's the only thing I can do to make you feel good anymore. I am writing this because I can't call you up, can't make you a mix tape, can't buy you daisies. All I can do is throw these thoughts out into space, hoping that they will find you and find you well.

Incursion

My mind is fucked so hard that she can't stand up. She's sore, a little ripped, a little bloody. She hurts. She wants to be alone. She doesn't want to be examined or interrogated or pitied or patted on the head. She needs a few days for recovery, a few days of staying in bed with the lights out before she's okay enough to stand on her own again. She needs a second to herself before she's ready to face this thing. She's okay, she's okay, it's going to be okay, she's telling herself. She doesn't need your sympathy.  She's going to be okay.

Waking up at Jackie's

23 June 1966, New Orleans
It's six o'clock Sunday morning. I'm still in Jackie's nightgown, and I'm sprinting barefoot down the trolley tracks with my suitcase banging against my thigh each time I pick up my leg to propel myself forward. Last night's eye lashes are still glued to my eyelids, but I can feel the edge of the left one coming loose. It's fluttering around my eye, making it water, but I'm not gonna touch it. Just got to keep moving forward.
The sun is coming up.
I can feel the vodka sloshing around in my gut. I promise myself I won't get sick. I have to keep moving, or I won't make it in time. Jimmy'll come home to an empty bed, and that'll be it for me.

I try not to think of Jackie, but she forces herself into my mind. That's the way Jackie is. Last night at the club, a man tried to feel her up. She got on top of his table and kicked his drink in his face with her gold platform go-go boots. Somehow that same man ended up spending eighty bucks a piece on the two of us. We had a good night. Me and Jackie make a lot of dough together down at the club; she says we make a good team.

She

Frankie, Maggie, Mag, Kit, Kitten, Jinx, Lia, Iphis, Artist, she, you, who am I missing? Each character I write is the same kind of fucked up unforgettable, a version of some sorry dead girl I can't blot out. The women who walk through the revolving door to my life are the same breed: beautiful, emotionally unstable, charming, vindictive, never shut up, manipulative, spontaneous, kindkindkind until someone's feelings are hurt, cruel. And each time I shut one out, a new one bursts through the door and begs me to write her, and I do. I do every fucking time, not realizing she's the same fucking woman with a new name, a new haircut, new hobbies, maybe. She tortures me until I put her down in words.