Watermelon Chapstick - written in high school

Watermelon tastes nice on

chapped lips, especially when

they’re yours. I’ll soften those sweet

petals with mine, tainted pink,

like fruit-candy on my tongue.

I’ll massage soft, braless flesh

with chipped polish tipped fingers

and warm palms cupped to send waves

pulsing tropic through us both.

Full of your candied kisses,

my feet cannot touch the floor.

Lashes dust your cheeks, and mine.

Watermelon lips on me,

like moths, damp with morning dew

pressed in to whisper words that

don’t actually exist.

I’m in your sea electric.

I will lick salt water from

the valley of nose and cheek,

stroke withering hair weary

of bleach, wisps kissing your face

beneath sun and trees that bare

your diagonal grace.

Heated, watermelon breath

fans over me from below;

a flushed cheek to silken thighs,

tangled in white sheets, writhing.

Please: don’t ever disappear

Distract

Distractions work well but when I'm alone to think on my own like this, the bad things overwhelm me and my heart hurts.

Ready for Goodbye

I am ready for night to fall, for the uncertainty of dreamtime, for the sparkling newness of the unknown. I am ready for the ride to begin, ready for my heart to beat, to make a mistake deep down in it. Ready for the unsteady, ready to rock my own world for a change. Goodbyes are just hellos waiting to be acknowledged.

I told her.

"I told her, don't touch me that way. Don't come at me with that sour-cream smile. Come at me as if I were worth your life.... Take me like a turtle whose shell must be cracked, whose heart is ice, who needs your heat. Love me like a warrior, sweat up to your earlobes and all your hope between your teeth. Love me so I know I am at least as important as anything you have ever wanted."

-Dorothy Allison

Stripped eyes and pantomime

Saltwater layer wraps my eyes, stinging, persistent. Blink and here comes the rain again. Bed sinks beneath a heaviness. Moving seems pantomime and all I can do is listen to sweet voices that are not mine. She is singing through my speakers telling me to run and come and run and come.

It will all be okay.

Interference

After a long day at work, I come over to Jessie's house in an attempt to strengthen our bond, our closeness. I want peace and love, like any good pseudo-hippie girl wants.

Of course, I come "home" to Jessie's. It is no surprise that her mother has oldies music blaring loud enough to cause serious aural bleeding. I cannot escape it. Jessie cannot escape it. I can only tune it out or leave. How fucking symbolic is this for the interference we are so weary of enduring? I want out. Preferably, both of us out together with a life to call ours.

I woke up feeling that I no longer want to smoke. I have not smoked all day. The only other time this urge occurred was after getting sick with a chest cold, never while "healthy". I have a theory as to why that is though.

I can be remarkably persistent in the way a stubborn 5 year old can hold his breath in a tantrum until he passes out. But this streak can lead me to perceive a situation as being one over which I have little control in that I am not willing to part with one thing for another. So I wait in limbo, growing increasingly frustrated. This everyday wear and tear is coupled with other things, namely the impending layoff I face at a stressful job, separation from people I have grown to care about try as I might to keep work separate from personal life.

I think I have simply projected the control I do have on the situation (but refuse to use, at least on the root issue) to another desire instead. Smoking. Smoking behavior is predominantly intended to soothe, calm, pleasure. It seems counterproductive to curtail a behavior meant to illicit the pleasure I find little of in life right now. But not really. I imagine it's like a cutter that might self-mutilate in order to express the pain within, try to translate some raw, dark emotions into something understandable, perceivable.

I may have just twisted that tendency of mine into a choice that might turn out to be healthy for me.

Right now, I am sitting here with Jessie and Debbie smoking and being frazzled around with the fucking soul-piercing music, people bitching, shit dropping, dogs barking - enough to send me into an anxiety attack. I think the vacuum is about to be added to the mix soon. Normally I would bust out a cigarette but I don't think I will. I'll see where this goes.

It's been several minutes since the last paragraph. It is now quieter - the CD has ended, laundry is just in the dryer - and I sit here alone in my thoughts.

Sore

I am aching.