At Midnight

Daddy built a fort in the living

room out of cigarette ash and

empty beer bottles while I

kept busy sweeping up the soot.

 

I tasted it once, licked an

index finger and dragged it

across my salmon tongue

in the shape of a crucifix –

it was thick and earthy,

it hid between my teeth and

told me stories while I slept.

 

Mommy poured another glass

of iced tea on our front step and

exchanged gossip like rubies

with our next door neighbor.

 

I hopscotched over purple

crooked numbers on our

pavement, stared up at the

clouds that watched me overhead –

at six the streetlights would kick

on and I’d hide between their yellow

while I waited to be whistled inside.

 

At midnight I was in bed carving

holes in my mattress by moonlight:

one for the ash,

one for a bottle,

one for the rubies.

 

I smoothed down

the pink sheets and dreamed.

Decoding

(http://theconversation.com/ash-to-ashes-what-could-the-2013-fires-mean-for-the-future-of-our-forests-12346)

 

I remember my grandmother’s house

as a pile of amber ashes I’ve been sifting

through since birth. I’d cup some in my hands

like cool water, lace up my insides then knife all

the seams in one breath, watch them drift to

the rug like black snow and begin to cool.

 

I’d wade under the rusted aluminum overhang

with my father, peek through faded pink

lace curtains on the windows. She’d offer me a Sprite,

I’d sit on a foot stool in the basement and stare at

old photos while she enlisted him to help her

navigate the present, run an errand or two.

 

He always looked ready to run, my father,

seated on the corner of a chair with his hands

folded in his lap. Every visit I’d sweep some ashes

into my pocket, take them home and

press them in my diary until I had enough

to decode the tension in my shoulders, the stones in my chest.

 

I studied the message for days, ran

my fingers over its veins. I took

our sharpest kitchen knife to the pages

and threw a party with the white-lined

confetti, then I cupped some in my hands

like cool water, swallowed every piece and cried.

 

 

great-grandmother

(http://www.pinterest.com/pin/34902965834451729/)

 

didn’t smell like freshly

baked bread or even musky perfume,

she smelled like all that was right

with the world in a cashmere sweater and a

hand-knit American flag pinned to one shoulder

 

great-grandmother

was a 1930’s movie starlet on our home’s

answering machine, she was

“toodles” like a

New York City doll with a cigarette perched

between two red polished fingernails

 

great-grandmother was homemade chocolate

pudding and a tired couch where all of her

anxious great-grandchildren sat, turning over

small trinkets from corners of the living room

where it was never a crime to place curious

hands on every aging surface

 

great-grandmother was all modern woman

she scoffed at the cancer in her chest like we’d

just spilled hot chocolate on the peach rug,

always keeping busy always in a rush

she called it from the end of the hallway

“toodles”, just before the curtain fell

marked

Photographer: Amelia Fletcher (http://designspiration.net/image/1600174134540/)

I’ve been busy

digging around

for a part of me

I buried before

you

out in the backyard

behind the

only tree

like a duffel bag of

latex gloves and

bloodstained clothing

crucial

 

you found me

on a monday

poured over a

treasure map of

old photographs

marking a figurative ‘x’

on every familiar

face you asked

what I was looking

for I said the

breath in my

own lungs

 

you took me by

the elbow like

authority like

old love

you stood me

up raised a

finger to my

lips marked

an ‘x’ there I

closed my eyes

mouthed the words

where did you find it?

 

Romantic Monday (Week 3) – Age Ain’t Nothin’ But a Number

Halloween 2012. (Charlie’s Birthday!)

I’m just gonna break it down for a minute here – you know, get all sappy and lovey and emotional, and maybe even shed a tear (seriously). Three years ago I met the man I so lovingly refer to as Charlie, even when he’s in trouble. (His mother prefers to call him Joe. Pft. That’s just his real name.) We met in a bar (you really can meet the love of your life in one of those) and he bought me a shot of whiskey and I resisted the urge to throw up because I was 21 and had never tasted whiskey let alone smelled it, and some song came on and we danced and by the end of the night he asked for my phone number and I was holding his hand and rambling some drunken nonsense.

We hung out a few times, and by the fourth time I felt it was necessary to know things such as age and last name. Well, my jaw dropped when the words “thirty-six” left his lips and he shifted a little in his seat, too, when I stated my age. But, as we’d just been laughing and talking about music and movies and making plans to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, I took another sip of my wine, shrugged my shoulders, and kissed him.

After that, almost every night turned into dawn and notes were scribbled onto paper towels and left where he would find them when he woke up and I had to leave for class, and those words, that “thirty-six” had faded from my mind as fast as it had appeared, because my heart was beginning to grasp at something that does not know such limits as age (no worry of legality here). I was sleepless for weeks but so high off of my own happiness I didn’t even notice until I was in his arms, in his bed, listening to that Company of Thieves song and watching the flames from the candles on his book stand flicker against the ceiling. I’d never dated anyone who liked Jazz, and his bedroom was filled with books and albums and instruments and artists I had never heard of and it was clean, a room of someone who was responsible and it made me smile.

He still smells the same as he has since we met and I still love to bury my face in that little crease between his neck and shoulder and inhale. You know how a familiar smell can bring you to a specific moment in time and space?

We spent time – weeks, months, laughing and playing and drinking and learning about each other. He taught me, I taught him, I’d found an equal who held more life experience in their grasp yet didn’t hang it over my head as if my age were a sure sign I knew nothing at all. We’d never had such a large age difference in the dating realm. But it worked. It worked – and works – beautifully.

A year flew by, then another, the few fights we have (knock on wood) end in hugs and kisses and someone cracking some nonsense joke. We talk in strange voices and make strange faces and sometimes we look deeply at each other for a second or a minute and go right back to whatever it was we were doing. We watch television and he wraps a single finger and my single finger, he’s scraped the frost off my windshield since the first time we got snowed in together. We live together and he still walks me to my car even at seven in the morning. He tells me to be careful when I leave to go shopping. I say I’m cold and a minute later there’s a blanket on my lap. I make him coffee, sometimes I make the bed, I try my best to be as amazing as he is but I can’t even compare. I break things and I can’t cook but he loves me anyway.

We are so, so, so lucky, those of us who feel this sort of love. Knowing there’s another human being who can look at me when there’s a pimple between my eyes and there’s eyeliner from two days ago streaming down one side of my face and I’m wearing slippers and Christmas pajamas in September, knowing this person can still look at me and have a genuine smile spread across his face as he leans in and kisses my chapped lips? No. Words.

To you, Charlie; you saw me through one of my darkest moments this past year, you have, and continue, to treat me like a queen, you accept all of my quirks and my craziness (and maybe even embrace it), and you support me in every single thing I do. And I will always do the same for you. We’re buying a house, we’re just getting started, and I get to spend the rest of my life with you. So, what about that age difference thing? The man stole my heart – I have to follow it.

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” – Sarah Dessen

At the end of, at the end of the world

Will you find me?

So that we can go together 

Thing, Thang, Thung

Fat book? That isn’t very nice. Also, that cat look suspicious.

Quite a while back, I rediscovered an old diary that had Winnie the Pooh on the front and talked about my love for food and boys. Well last night one of my very best girlfriends was kind enough to bring over her ridiculous book of old memories (circa 1999), and she may just have me beat for highest level of adolescent arrogance. I thought I was hot stuff, but this girl….

Well, just see for yourself. While she may be older and wiser now, she still possesses the same love for boy-watching. Get ready for some serious entertainment.

*Some names have been changed. The grammar, however, has not. 

 

MY VACATION IN OCEAN CITY JULY 17-24

I had a lot of fun in Ocean City. My mom let me bring *Peggy Sue with me for the week. There was a huge park across the street from my house. Me and *Peggy Sue went there almost every day. There were so many cute boys cheking us out. We decided to give them names:

Thing, Thang, Thung, at, ut, it, ya, yo, yoo, hoo, cha cha binks, tennis boy, car boy.

[This is quite possibly the best thing I have ever heard. Especially the name Cha Cha Binks. And the fact that she still lists people in her cellphone next to something important like the make of their car, or the color of their hair.]

Thing was very cute. When I saw him he was wering shorts with a shirt that was unbuttoned. He was staring at my butt when I was climbing a tree. Thing was at the park. I never saw him again. [So mysterious….]

Thang was really cute too. He had dark hair. Every time me and *Peggy Sue passed him, he would say, hi! Thung was one of the cutest ones. He had dark hair and wore sun glasses. Before he left the park, he stared up at me from the tree and moved his eye browls up and down. [What exactly what was he suggesting here, by moving his browls in such a manner? I wouldn’t trust that Thung.]

At had blondish hair and a good body. I saw him at the waterpark on Wendsday. He was wering a dark green bathen-suit with flowers. He keep starring at me. [Oh giiiiirl, he keep starrin’ at you?! I’m not sure about that At, either. guys in bathen-suits with flowers on them are questionable.]

Cha Cha Binks was driving by in a car when he saw me. First he stared, then nodded his head and stared some more. He had dark hair. [It sounds like you and Cha Cha Binks had come to some mutual understanding.]

These guys were some of my favorites. Even 16 year olds were looking at me and *Peggy Sue. [Pretty sure she was 12 or 13 at the time. Pervs! Especially that Thang.]

One day on the board-walk [You will soon learn she had a deep love of hyphenating anything she could.] it started pouring. *Peggy Sue yelled out, “I’m wet, your wet, we’re all wet!!” and these guys cheered her on. [I wonder why.] One guy said “We’re all going to die.” [Someone had to be a party pooper…] And then this one guy wanted me or *Peggy Sue to go out with his younger brother who was 13. But we said “no!”.

School Stuff 12/10/99

Guess what! Adem has a girlfried. (disapointed) 😦 [Adem fried a girl?!?!? Maybe you should have told someone about that.] 

But a few days ago I think it was on tuesday, *Bob told me that his friend Adem wanted my picture and he wan’ted to meet me. So I wait-ed by the stairs right by my locker after 7th period. Right when I saw him walk up at the top of the stairs he started smililing at me and said “hi”. So I smiled back. He seemed really shy because the only other thing he said was “bye”. Adem was so cute!!! *Bob kept telling me that it sounded like Adem liked me the way he was talking about me.

But the next day on Wed. , only *Bob passed my locker and said Adem went a different way.

But on Thursday he didn’t pass my locker again. I ask “were is he today”. *Bob said he had a girlfriend. And also that Adem didn’t want to go out with me at this time but that he wanted to be my friend. [That’s what they all say!! Don’t do it!!]

I think *Bob just said that so my feelings wouldn’t get hurt. Adem might be avoiding me because he hasn’t passed my locker in a while. A bunch of boys only want to be my friend. This sucks. Well I’m going to go to bed so I can dream about what would never happen. [This is depressing. #12yroldproblems]

The Next Day at the Mall [an excerpt]

Later on my mom stopped at *Victoria’s house so I could get changed and *Josh [yet another young man] could get droped off. After I was changed *Josh and *Victoria came into her room. After a few min. my mom said we’re gonna leave. So I said good-bye to *Victoria then *Josh. And *Josh just decides to give me a hug (I was so happy) when I went downstairs and my mom was talking so I went back upstairs. *Josh said “Back all ready” happilly. *Victoria left the room right then to do something and *Josh put the JO CD in he bought that day. He played one of my favorite slow song “I want to know” [I will forever make fun of her for that.]

I just wanted to dance with him so bad. exspecially cause he was starring right at me during it. Then he said “You were acting all crazy in the tube” [The pool tube, of course.] We were flirting back in forth saying “not ah”, “ya ha”, “I was you not me” He’s just so great. [That’s how Joe flirted with me when we first met. It was magical.]

I didn’t want to leave. I had to go in a min. So I said “Bye” He gave me another hug. (I just new he had to have some fealings for me)

My mom was talking a little more still so I was talking to *Josh downstairs. Then we left. As I walked out the door he said “no hug” in a low voice. I said “what” [This is her usual response to most things I say to her.] but he just said “bye”. I hope I get together with him again soon!! 🙂

*Josh was tall, muscular, had brown hair & brown eyes, 15 years old. [Are you getting his milk carton ad ready? I wouldn’t trust this girl…]

* and such a hottie [Don’t forget the most important part now!]

I’m gonna miss him so much. [See? She’s already planning his demise.]

——————–

I hope you guys enjoyed. I know I sure did. She’ll be reading this, so please feel free to make fun of her in the comments section.