Leave me alone
Memoirs of an Exmormon
by B.E. Hewson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 B.E. Hewson
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Preface
Popping fights and picking cherries—cutting ties with the Mormon church is culture shock at its finest. In a new trans-genre form that combines short stories, short prose, and poetry, B.E. Hewson anthologizes the memories, emotions, and imaginings of a faith-failed adolescent colliding with an uninviting world. Virginity, rejection, familial angst, ignorance, fear, heartbreaking hope—Leave me alone captures snapshots of life in limbo between two worlds, a life struggling to break the barriers of a sheltered past only to find a cruel and unadjusted awakening. Readers will be intrigued and unnerved at Hewson’s unflinching honesty. In the tradition of authors like Steinbeck and Salinger, the mental and physical realism leaves no stone unturned and no lie undiscovered. Readers may be offended or uncomfortable. Readers may be confused or surprised. But one thing is for sure, readers will breech new territory. Never before has an author tried to portray the confines of growing up in a Mormon home and the chaos of never believing. Through many characters and many speakers, an overall consciousness emerges that speaks to the fornication and fortification of faith and femininity.
Let the rebellion begin.
How to Win Him
You told him to meet you at the bar. All the girls were going after volleyball practice. You don’t think he’ll come (he doesn’t like your friends). But you wear the yellow top you think he likes, just in case. Tell everyone you’re not drinking tonight, you have a paper to write. But really, you don’t drink. So be the lone sober with nervous hands. Laugh casually with your mind on the door and your eyes in front of you. Listen as the girls talk over each other and fight for attention. You’ve never been too competitive, but you like the company. Forget for a minute you are waiting. Then remember. Make an excuse about having to pee like a racehorse and go upstairs to make the call.
He answers. He’s drunk. He wants you to wait outside, he’s almost there, so you can walk back to his place. You want to tell him to hurry. Say, “Sure.” You feel alone when you hang up the phone. Think you should go inside to say goodbye. Halfway down the stairs realize no one misses you.
Button your coat, it’s cold.
Unbutton it, your boobs looks better.
Wish you had a cigarette but you don’t smoke.
Stand dumbly and wave off two cabs who assume you need a ride.
Then, he arrives with a swagger, after a period of time only he would call “almost there.” He’s wearing that dumb coat that looks too good on him to button no matter how cold it is because it would throw off his ensemble. Feel silly in your yellow shirt.
“Why you standin’ there? Let’s move!” he says.
Reach for his hand. He doesn’t return. Put your hand in your pocket like that’s where it was intended all along. Chitchat. Walk in the middle of the road in Soho. It feels like a movie, one you’ve never seen. And you like that. His collar’s popped; his language vulgar. Laugh too loud in puffs of white air. He’ll smirk in your direction; you’ll look at your shoes. Force out swear words like sore thumbs. Punctuate with apologies. When he bumps into you when the bricks get uneven—“Oops!” Say, “I’m sorry.”
He pulls you in with a half-twirl. Don’t notice he’s trying to dance with you until you’ve stepped on his toes. Twice. Think your arms are too long. Don’t consider his might be too short. In the dip, he looks at you for the first time, glazy and unfocused. He’s beautiful, better looking than any guy you’ve ever dated: messy hair, dark skin. Think the word “exotic” and blush slightly. He’s bad too; you like that about him. There had been too many good guys, too many self-righteous, dentist-type, walk-you-to-your-door guys.
“Your hair looks different,” he says.
Worry what your chin looks like from this angle. “I straightened it,” explain.
He looks at you for a long time before pulling you back up. He’s good at what he does, making you feel like the only girl in the world. “I want to take you dancing for your birthday next month.”
Don’t tell him it’s actually in February. Instead, scream. You’ve seen a rat. He chases it and you try to giggle, but it ends up sounding more like a snort. He quotes some movie in a half-British accent and you feel stupid. Cough suddenly so he won’t know you don’t know it.
He pulls out his ipod and you share earbuds. You like this because it keeps you leashed to him. He knows all the lyrics and you bob along, feeling too white and too obvious. He asks you who it is. Guess “Kanye” and he’ll kiss you, stopping dramatically, taking a long drag from your mouth. Wish your lips weren’t so dry. Wish you’d touched his back or elbow instead of just standing there stiff-armed and compliant. His tongue leaves an aftertaste of what you figure is tequila and a bit of toothpaste. Wonder if you tasted like salt. Wonder if you’ll taste different when you’re not a virgin.
The street is dark and wide. It’s late. You’ve been lucky. You’ve been alone. Tell him not to do pull ups on that fire escape. He takes that as a challenge. 1-2-3-4- Try to look impressed but your eyes can’t escape from we-shouldn’t-be-doing-this panic. -5-6-7-8- Men come from inside and he threatens to fight them. Pull him away shouting apologies, hoping they speak English. You reconsider, though, when he starts to bark-gloat at the end of the block at the top of his lungs. Wonder if “pussy” is a universal term.
His cheeks are pink now, his squint a bit more lucid. The ear bud previously in your ear swings as he picks up the pace. He puts it in his ear and you’re alone, now only able to hear the tiny sound, the zzzt zzzt sound, of the bass. A group of girls turn the corner, a single unit of skin and metallic clicking along in high heels. He’s already walking a step or two in front of you, and you hate it that you can’t tell if he looks at the mass of passing cleavage. Feel silly in your yellow shirt. Feel much too brunette.
When you reach the garage on Broome St., he has to pee. You cover him while he conspicuously sprays the wall. Still zipping, he tells you. His friend, the one who came to town last week, she wasn’t just a friend.
Feel numb in your jaw and the tips of your fingers. “What do you mean?” Blurt out like one word.
“What do you mean what do I mean? Don’t you get it? I took her to my friend’s apartment who collects all the horror shit. We had a few too many and when we got back, body parts aligned, you know? We’d talked about it but I didn’t know we were gonna do it. It just…happened.”
Start to nod in a motion you can’t stop. The rest of you is cement, a tequila-flavored rock in your throat. You nod and nod and nod.
“It’s okay, though. Listen,” he qualifies.
You don’t look at him. You just stare at the piss dripping down the brick. You rock back and forth and keep your eyes open.
“I dumped her. I decided you were the one I wanted to be with. She wanted to tell her mom and get all serious. But, I just wanted you.”
Start to cry.
“No, don’t cry. God, don’t you get it? I chose you. You win. You should be happy. I want to be with you.”
You didn’t realize you’d entered a contest.
Walk the next few blocks in silence. When you get there, tell him you need something at the deli and you’ll meet him upstairs. Walk around the block 27 times. When you come around the 8th time, stop and buy a pack of cigarettes and matches. It’s about as rash as you can muster. You light one up and cough. You force yourself to walk and smoke and not breathe and not cry. You like how grey the smoke looks coming out of you. You like how black your lungs feel on the inside. It was the whiteness, you know, that did this to you.
When you come around the 13th time, a homeless man asks if you’re lost. Nod and nod and nod. Think about the night you met, how thrilled you’d been by his drunken charm, how persistently he’d followed you around—at the gym, at the movie store, at the pizza parlor until it closed. He said he’d never talked like that with a girl before. You felt different, desired and reckless, and so you went home with him. Wonder if loneliness has a location.
When you come around the 16th time, the lights in the deli are off. Wonder if her birthday is next month. Wonder how she looks in yellow. Wonder if she knows about you. Remember the first time he’d called you his girlfriend. You were in the bathroom and you’d heard him ask his roommate where you were after returning from a cookie-run. It had rolled so easily off his tongue and you felt safer now that is was official. Wonder what you want. Did you really expect him to come looking for you?
On the 21st lap, the homeless man asks you if you’re drunk. Nod and nod and cough and cough. Laugh because you wish you were even though you don’t know how it feels. Think about days you laid naked on his bed, feeling vindicated and so close to breaking, trying to tear him away from an email he was writing. You never considered it was for someone else. He was so patient in seducing you, so tender when he touched you. He said he’d wait until you were ready; he said he didn’t need to do it. Wonder if she felt alone when she read his emails, like the only girl in the world. Wonder if she’d laid in that same position with the same shadow tracing her calf, feeling more satisfied and much more gratifying. Wonder if you’d asked too much of him.
Unbutton your coat, you’re starting to sweat.
Button it, you hate your boobs.
Stamp on the last half-smoked butt still smoldering.
Search for cabs that no longer want you.
It’s lap 27 and you decide to go inside. In the elevator, wonder if she likes Kanye West. You bet she knows the words. You bet she’s blonde. Imagine her earwax mingling with yours and his on that promiscuous earbud. Wonder how long her arms are.
At his door, you remember knocking that day after she’d left. Giddy and antsy, you’d believed the bullshit about her intensive shyness, of course that was why he didn’t want you around while she was there. The door had opened with an instant hug. He’d said “I missed you” in a whisper. Consider if he’d meant it. Wonder if she knew she’d just failed the tryout. Wonder if he’d have told you if he hadn’t been drunk.
This time, you just try the knob. Inside, he is spread eagle and naked on the hardwood. Flacid, brown, and goosebumped, his head raises as you tiptoe in: an empty bottle by his palm, drips of liquid down his chin. His roommate sits across the room with headphones and tunnel-vision for the computer screen.
“It’s time,” he slurs. “It’s the right time.”
He wants to take your virginity.
Take him to the bathroom where he throws up violently for 13 minutes. Then lead him to the bed where he sprawls out unconsciously. Make sure he’s covered. Then walk back to the bathroom. Wipe up the toilet. Flush it a few times. You walk back in and survey the area. The roommate never looks at you.
You lay on the floor with your coat as a pillow. As you will yourself to sleep, wonder what your prize is. Is it in the bed? Know you couldn’t do it even if you wanted to. Wake up at 5 am. Take the train back to your place and write your paper in an hour. Later, you see a girl from the team. You exchange hellos, and she doesn’t ask you why you disappeared last night. You’d spent so much time with him lately, she probably forgot you were ever there.
Later, you run into his friend, the one who collects the horror stuff.
“What’s your name again?”
You remind him and understand when it’s not what he’s expecting. Your name isn’t the one he remembers. Flush. Feel generic. Knock your bangs into your eyes so he can’t see them water. Excuse yourself too politely because that’s who you are.
At the next bench, you decide to sit because you’re not heading anywhere anyway. Check your phone. Turn the ringer up a few more notches. Test your lungs and your ankles and your eyebrows for pain. Feel overused and nonspecific. Check your phone for 200th time. Tell yourself he’ll call, he’s just not up yet. Tell yourself he’s sorry, he never meant to hurt you. Tell yourself it’s your fault, you’d been too difficult. Wonder if you forgive yourself. Maybe if you sleep with him, everything will be better. Wonder if good conversation makes you good in bed. Doubt it.
Pigeons begin to venture near you. They think you’ve become scenery enough. Kick in their direction. You are too clean for them to touch you. For a minute, forget you are waiting. Then remember and let them in. Decide it’s time to let him win.
The Winter of Our Discontent
Outside, the snow swirled in silence. Fast and heavy, it coated the ground foot after foot. White turned to brown then black on the streets under the tires of muted cars passing by. Then the cars stopped altogether.
Inside, it was dim and raucous. She scraped uneaten salami off the china, the nice china she’d never used in five years of marriage. She shoved aside all of the nice-dinner components he hadn’t noticed: the table cloth now heaped on the counter, the napkins, folded, the one wine glass sitting empty and expectant.
He pushed his way into the kitchen with shaking hands, red in the face. “Did you put the dog in the garage?” he demanded.
Looking out the window with her hands in the sink, she let the hot water sear across her skin, torn between jerking away and letting it boil her slowly. Maybe tomorrow I will build a snowman…
“Answer me, goddamnit! Where’s the dog?”
She didn’t blink. Staring at the buried lawn she envisioned it: the snowman melting, the body blowing over to dismemberment and implosion. She wondered how long it would take.
“Hey!” He grabbed her arm. Water and suds streamed to the floor and across the red of his sweater, making a sweeping slash of darker red as the water set in.
Her hand looked red, too, hot from the water and tender to the touch. “Let go of me! I don’t know!” she yelled.
His grip lessened but didn’t release. “Whaddyou mean you don’t know? Did you put him in the garage or not?”
“No.” The word was tiny and breathy, said with eyes diverted. Attempting to wrench away her wrist, grabbing the counter for support, she saw the bottle. They had splurged on the $20 selection nearly 8 months earlier, swearing only to uncork it when there was a reason to celebrate. She wasn’t usually a drinker, more wheatgrass than whiskey. But she had agreed with the superstition for a good omen.
“Why don’t you just shoot me already. Fuck!” He tossed her back with too much force.
She hit her elbow on the edge of the kitchen counter on the way down. Tears sprang but she bit them back with squinted eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He tramped five feet to the closet adjacent to the back door. “It means I gave you a dog…” He swung his coat on, stamped into his boots with a one-two, thud-thud.
I guess that made you feel like a man, huh? Like you gave me what I wanted?
“…and you left him it for dead. How’s that supposed to make a guy feel, huh?” Half-bundled and with her on the floor, he opened the door. The cold was effective immediately, a quick punch to the lungs and a sting in the nose.
“Goddamnit!” He jiggled. He shoved. But the storm door wouldn’t budge. Against the glare of the hazy kitchen light, the snow appeared four feet up the glass. He tried the window to his left, flipping the lock back and forth between yanks. But the window was iced and immobile. He stopped, slumped, palms resting on the rim of the windowsill.
In the quiet, she got up, turned back to the sink where the water was still running. Looking into the mush of pink salami bits, she thought it looked like worms. She imagined worms between her fingers and worms in her mouth. She wondered how many she could eat before her stomach gave out.
Then he started to laugh. “God! This is just great!” He slapped the wall. “Great! We’re…” He laughed louder. “We’re fucking trapped in here. God that’s great.” He picked up the empty fish bowl on the counter and hurled it to the floor. It broke it to seven or eight pieces.
She turned, calm. She looked at him now slumped against the storm door.
“You know he’s dead, right? He’s out there frozen now because of you.”
She knelt across from him, sitting on her legs with her hands smoothed on her knees. “Listen, I can fix this. I have something that can fix this whole thing like it’s supposed to be, okay?” She took his hand, squeezed it between both of her own. And she couldn’t help but think about the snails: the dozen shells she’d cracked yesterday just because she was fascinated by the crunch. She wondered if snails survived storms without shells.
“What makes you think I want to hear anything you have to say?” He looked right at her. “You think because I’m stuck in here with you I give a damn? Well I’ve got news for you, I don’t. And I don’t have to stay.” He pried her fingers off with his free hand. He stood up, grabbed a hat and gloves from the open closet, and headed to the hallway opening on the opposite side of the room.
She sat still, obedient, like a robot in an apron. “You can’t drive in this weather.”
At the door frame he paused, the wine catching his eye. “You might as well throw that bottle away. There’s nothing to celebrate here.” He turned to leave and then turned back. “I want a divorce,” he said like an afterthought, obvious with an awkward nod. Then he headed to the garage.
His footsteps settled like a rock in her stomach, nauseating and hollow. Slowly she reached up for the bottle, then the corkscrew from the drawer above her head. The first sip dripped a bit of red down her chin. I want an abortion…
Planet Moron
Pajama Day would be different, I was sure. On Pajama Day, I was going to make a friend. From my third-grade debut, Mayfield Elementary had proven a hard venue for such a conquest. One girl had been nice to me, but she was removed from school after the first lice check. I made it out of the encounter physically unscathed but only chalked more downfalls to my reputation. I soon found out I didn’t need bugs on my scalp to be quarantined.
But it had been nearly three months since that incident. Pajama Day was going to be fun. So I awoke with a skip, shimmied into different pjs (even new for the occasion), and assembled my premeditated stash of snacks and books. Then I rode to school in hyper-speed. The twists and turns of the hillbilly highway only frenzied the flutter in my stomach. The hum of the van swirled with the blur of the boondocks as my fingers absent-mindedly traced the seams of my nightdress. The cloth was a bit itchy, but even despite I was beaming. My anticipation was a whirlwind of smiles and nerves in the motion.
“Don’t forget your pillow, sweetie.” I had to be reigned in upon initial bolt. “I’m sorry you’re down to only one these days. You know Mark really needs all the extra comfort we can--”
“It’s ok, Mom. Me and my friends will probably have a big pile to share. So it’s no big deal.” I flashed my first fake smile of the morning.
Mom gave a satisfied blink. “I’m so glad you’re fitting in so well here. Between moving vans and hospital trips--” Her eyes refocused, as if seeing me again. “Nevermind. You just have a good day. I will see you in the afternoon.”
There was a kiss, a slam, and then a solitary me on the brink of battle in a pink flannel nightgown. My slippers proved harder to navigate than expected with an armful of assorted supplies. I sidestepped my way to class without much interaction, trying to avoid the inevitable trip as I attempted to scratch my elbow.
Teacher greeted me at the door. “Good morning, Mormon Melody. Come on in and find a place on the floor.” Her grin was too big. And I had told her countless times before that it was Melanie, not Melody. Her adjective, name game obviously wasn’t working. “Hello, soccer Steven,” I heard her say behind me, but I hardly noticed as I scratched my head and started to scope out prime spots and identify assembling cliques. I walked near a group of boys where my desk usually was and pretended to sort through my stuff. It seemed like a safe enough place to be initially. But with head down and eyes averted, I heard the first snickers.
“Teddy Bears?”
“Yeah, nice nightie, Melody. I seen the same ones on a four-year-old.”
“You gotta be from some other planet or something. Planet Moron!”
“Do all Morons wear stupid clothes like that?”
I furrowed my brow as if something in my backpack were especially interesting, stifled a started “haha yeah,” and then just walked away cursing my own stupidity. Why couldn’t I just laugh it off? I found a corner to retreat into quickly, trying to act as if I had honestly not heard. My mind was ablaze as I rubbed my knuckles on the ground to relieve the blazing itch. I wanted to do two things at once. I wanted to stalk over and yell back at them, pointing out ten different grammatical errors they’d made and drawing attention to the worn-out and over-sized features in their own sleepwear. But more overwhelmingly, I didn’t want to do that. My face was hot red so I hid it. I zipped up my jacket, hiding as many teddys as possible.
When the bell rang, I was more or less situated reading The Phantom Tollbooth.
“Hey, um, this is our spot.”
I looked up at three hovering figures in pigtails. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this is wheres we we’re gonna sit.”
“Oh, well, there’s plenty of room.” I scooted over a bit, patting the ground. “I could share my stuff with you guys if you want.” I chanced eye-contact upon my sincerity.
The girl in front put her hands on her hips dramatically and smacked her gum. She did look kinda cool. “We don’t read books like that around here, ok?”
“Yeah, you think you’re so smart,” another piped in. I glanced around at the picture books littering the floor, recognizing the juvenility but more horrified at my grave error.
“Watcha got to eat?” the leader interrupted. I reached in my bag, eager to correct my mistake, and pulled out the veggies Mom had packed for me that morning. Laughter ensued.
“God, do Mormons eat like rabbits? My daddy said they fuck ‘n’ make babies like ‘em.” She said “fuck” with some extra flare, as if this was supposed to impress me. And it did, even though I had no idea what it meant.
“Quiet down class! This is reading time. Everybody take a seat.” Teacher decided to enact discipline at the precisely wrong moment.
Through safe glares at the back of Teacher’s head, the girls were forced to sit in my vicinity. They whispered exaggeratedly for a few minutes, knowing everybody’s eyes were still on them. Then they turned decidedly. I was blank-faced in my raging embarrassment, hot in my jacketed flannel and inflamed with itch all over. They were ugly. I knew that: straw hair and dull teeth and wiry frames. They smelled bad, too, like mildew and animal. But I wished it all upon me in that moment.
Suddenly, one girl was pulling on my skirt. “Let’s see your underwear. My preacher said ya’ll wear special underpants.”
“When are you gonna shave your head? My sister says she goes to school with your brother and he shaves his head like some kinda weirdo.”
I wanted to yell at them that my panties had pocahontas on them. I wanted to scream at them that he was sick! But I didn’t really want them to know. Tears threatened to break the barrier of my eyes and my head sweltered in a feverish heat.
“Leave her alone,” one girl said from across the room. It wasn’t loud or even defensive sounding. It was drawled and mumbled. But the parade diffused anyway.
“Well, this is still our spot.” Her pursed lips and fixed eyes made me feel all prickly as I rushed to pack-up.
“It’s nothing personal. You wouldn’t wanna stay anyway. I’m gonna tell the girls about the movie I saw last night where a lady put a guy’s penis in her mouth.” They all erupted in a fit of giggles with perhaps the best joke yet. “You probably don’t even know what that means.”
“Uh huh,” was all I could manage as I stumbled away, even though I didn’t. I sulked over to where my defendant was sitting with a stack of Bernstein Bears. I sat down without a word, scratching my leg and looking away.
She simply said, “I’m not allowed to sit by you.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
“My parents told me not to me play with you, okay? Sorry.” She scooted over a bit as the first recess bell rang. Everybody jumped up and ran out for the savored experience of black-top and jungle-gym. I lagged behind, talking in my head about how I could beat all of them at kickball if they’d give me a fair game.
“Melody, recess is for everyone.” Teacher looked at me expectantly.
“I thought I could just stay here with you and read a little more.” My hopes were obvious, but she wasn’t really listening.
“I have to run an errand so hurry along.”
I followed her out and walked slowly down the long hall to the double-doors. I didn’t know why she always wanted to go to the fifth grade room during recess. I heard her laugh as she went in. But he really wasn’t very funny.
The sun was blinding for a split-second. And then I saw them, a group with full fists and smirks.
“Want to play a game, Melody?” one called out. I didn’t answer.
“Oh come on. I don’t think it’s very Mormon-like to ignore us.”
Suddenly I had a furious itch on my shoulder, then my side, then my lip. I began to scratch.
“Ew she’s diseased!”“She does have lice!”
I felt rocks hit me but I wasn’t looking, eyes closed and scratching.
“Look at those bumps.”“Gross!”
“She’s so weird.”“Get away from us!”
More rocksAnd more.
I felt sick. I was mad. But suddenly I felt damn well better than anyone else. “My name is Melanie!” I yelled. Then I ran back inside.
The nurse called Mom, said something about chicken pox. Pretty soon I was on my way home. The hill-ridden ride had never been more welcome. I embraced the car-sickness warmly along with my spots, both were leading me far away from school. Mom tried to explain to me about Mark’s white blood cells and weakened immune system, telling me apologetically why I’d need to quarantine my germs and stay in my room for a few weeks. But in that moment, solitary confinement had never sounded better.
“I’m sorry, baby. I know you were really looking forward to today.”
“It’s ok. You were right, two pillows would have been better.”
MIMICRY
mim·ic·ry n
1. The act, practice, or art of mimicking.
2. Biology The resemblance of one organism to another or to an object in its surroundings for concealment and protection from predators.
He liked to wear yellow. It contrasted with his skin tone and made his eyes appear darker than they really were. And he knew it, too (for he did in fact consider such things). He liked what yellow said about a person. A yellow shirt was like a badge of confidence, proof of personality. It was a talent, wearing yellow. You could not wear it every day. No, he knew this rule. Overuse of the color would just be brash, a sickening misunderstanding of the essence of the color, really. Because, wearing yellow was also a skill. Some days were safe days for colors like blue and red. Alternatively, yellow could not be forced into any cranny of a day. It had to be calculated. He cringed when the fair-skinned attempted a bright canary. He rolled his eyes at a mustard scarf thrown on in casual addition. The color needed to be scattered with intention and sprinkled for flare, for God’s sake. Yes, he knew about wearing yellow. And as he stared into his closet at the taxi, gold, and neon shades in waiting, he knew it was a yellow day. So he reached in and grabbed a buttermint button-up perfect for a day like this.
She preferred black. Maybe because it made her pale skin paler, contrasting against the darkness of her eyes. But she didn’t think about it. She didn’t agonize or even realize such details in the selection. And her preference wasn’t a telling sign of inner drama. Wrist-slitting, droning music, and dismal poetry had nothing to do with her black. It was simply nothing. She didn’t notice when others wore black. And that is precisely what she liked about it. In black, she felt comfortably in the background, casually unnoticed. In black, she felt like scattered blinks of the eye or black leader before a movie. It wasn’t a statement. It was her anti-statement. She resigned from light as she resigned from life, showing no emotion or emotional color. She intended to be left alone, not in defiance but from sheer preference. So in the same way, she preferred to walk around as vacant or all-too-occupied space—whatever worked. It seemed to her as an average black-letter day. Therefore with no consideration at all, she pulled on a black t-shirt fitting for such an occasion.
Bright as day he downed the elevator. Dark as night she sulked the stairs. Simultaneously they emerged on opposite sides of the street. His appearance demanded to be noticed. And she did, acknowledging his gluey-spiked head, his ipod bass cross-street audible, his jeans strategically frayed and belted, and of course the generic yellow of his belly. She perceived and disregarded immediately, subconsciously aware she would see variations of the same efforts everywhere.
He didn’t flinch with any acknowledgement in her regard at all. His brain flickered as it did across things he was not to be bothered with. She was nothing—a blip, a smudge, a black sheep shading the sunniness of his day. In a glance he perceived her combed back curls, pale face, and nondescript attire. And in a glance he assumed enough.
On the train he was horny and bored. He searched for skirts in hopes of catching open legs. His greatest success was a glimpse of some lacy blue panties on what he imagined was a sexy librarian. He winked at her through chestnut contacts, feeling bold by color association. The woman managed to blush and he was pleased, swelling his chest a bit and straining to look dispassionately away. Today was no day to hide his light under a bushel, he was sure. But his attention was diverted by a buzzing in his ear. He fanned the air at the potential bug, but found no suspect to be swatted. And although the action was awkward, he didn’t mind the eyes that darted to his vicinity.
Three seats down, she heard the buzzing, too. But she took no action to shoo away the culprit. She just stared at the floor, not wanting to draw any attention to her direction. But the sound was shortly the least of her worries. She could not be sure (and intended not to be), but it was possible that the man sitting across the train was looking at her. She avoided the man’s eyes at all costs, darting her stare nervously across the floor only. It was not definite, the man’s looking. But she wouldn’t chance a glance for certainty. She preferred to remain in the dark on the actuality of his gaze. So, kept her head down and willed her body to mold into the plastic of her seat.
Once at work, she gratefully took to her cubicle. She embraced the dark-side of office life, relishing in the tight space and restricted human interaction. Hunched over and tucked away, she consulted papers and computed numbers. But in her computer she sprung to life, chatting, blogging, becoming a blonde with double Ds. The buzz of the machine ignited her fingers, dancing away her cyber-nightlife with verbal frenzies all afternoon. She was flushed and unflustered, her hard drive and sex drive synonymous. But when footsteps rang in her proximity, she ducked and mumbled hellos, blending in with the vacant walls around her.
Across the greater room, he worked in sales. In between phone calls filled with flashy over-the-top attempts to be dashing, he drooled over spankmetv and hotelerotica with forced nonchalance. Heavy bass buzzed through his earpieces from cunt-filled club scenes. With blood pumping in his tightened jeans, he took his laptop on a smoke break, thinking about the secretary. He had heard her complain about a lousy lay in accounting last week. She probably just didn’t want to take another chance. That’s probably why she had turned him down—again.
That night at the café, he was all about breasts. From his table-for-one he looked for bending broads and deep-cut necklines. He ate meat. He drank beer. And he ogled the room. Wide-eyed he stared on shamelessly; and his face appeared vacant, as if the lights were on but no one was home. Titty-watching was apparently an autopilot function. No pre-teen perk or boob-job MILF went undetected. Beer after beer and fantasy after fantasy, his head began to hum with a new buzz. He hit on his waitress who turned him down with some excuse about being married. Such a fact only fueled his interest, but he surrendered in his own assurance that it wasn’t worth the extra effort.
A few tables over, she drank coffee. She couldn’t help but notice that her waiter was rather attractive. Ordering has never been so nerve-wracking, contemplating the subtleties of implication behind a meatloaf or spaghetti. In the end she settled on a simple bowl of soup, and could not even voice the request without a nervous giggle. She didn’t want to think about sex. She was well-aware that she was in no position to. But she imagined him naked anyway involuntarily. The thought made her blush. And as she wiped her lips with her napkin, retreating into its covering, she wished she could somehow crumble into the paper. She was immediately self-conscious. Even if by some miracle she found herself with the actual naked version of the man, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She secretly hoped she’d prove a dark horse in bed. But in that moment, as the buzz of the radiator only heightened her flush, she was certain she’d perform more like the black plague.
Her walk to her door was a definite retreat. His walk to his door still held arrogance in its swagger. He noticed her this time, drunk and aware of his singularity. His transfixed eyes made her uneasy. He didn’t know her, but he called out to her anyway. He invited her in. He invited her up. She didn’t know him, but she didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t wait to tell his friends about the girl he’d picked up and fucked within fifteen minutes. He could exaggerate on looks. After all, all cats are grey in the dark anyway. In the buzz of the moment, it wouldn’t really matter.
She spent her days envying the inert items and static material in her surrounding world. Maybe this was another object she wanted to be. For once it would be easy to be touched. Resisting would cause a scene, call attention to herself. After all, inanimate objects don’t punch people’s lights out. It would be easier to remain the faceless fuck, melting into whatever fantasy men demand. She could be any girl, and he would pound her like any guy. People always say the night is darkest before dawn, but a bee can sting at any hour.
Looking at a Snapshot
In this one you are ankle-deep in the lake, the water glistens turquoise behind you, and the sky fades into white, making the top of your head disappear. I remember this moment because it’s when I realized how skinny you were. The wet suit hung loosely, not like a wetsuit should, exposing bones that used to be hidden by a pizza-eating, football-playing body. You didn’t look like my brother, pale and scarred instead of ruddy-cheeked and pimpled. I’d hardly believe this is you in the picture if I hadn’t been there myself, witnessed day by day how you got to that withered state. The summer before, you’d been fifteen, pushing the truck down the road in what dad called defensive line training. “If you can push a truck, you can push a defender,” he always said. Now it seemed like the wind could push you over if it tried at all.
Rhab-do-my-o-sar-com-a. I used to say it over and over like that in my mind, broken into pieces like it would make more sense that way. One day you’re shoving guys over on the field and the next the doctors give you a 20% chance of living. They take your hair away, even your eyebrows and your eyelashes. They burn your face until your neck is purple and chunks of your tongue begin to fall out. They melt away your body until you hardly weigh more than I do. They say this is to help you get better. But I never saw you so sick until the doctors said that word.
I didn’t know what it meant, then, you standing there in the water, your chest tube taped to your skin. I knew it was in there because I could see the lump under the rubber. The doctors had said if it got it wet you could get an infection. I worried tape wasn’t enough to keep it dry. I remember a spark of anger in my eight-year-old mind. Why was mom letting you do this? Swim in the lake. Ride in the boat. Jet-ski even? I could see you were too fragile for any of that. I’d hardly seen you leave the house except to go to the hospital for months and months. Was it because you were getting better? Or because you never would?
Plastic shovel in hand, I was gripped with fear at the sight of you in the water, dripping there, panting too hard. I was afraid the lake would leak into your heart, terrified the tape wasn’t holding and the tube was letting your blood seep out. If someone had walked up to me then, on the beach, next to my half-formed sandcastle, and told me you’d be okay, that you’d become a lawyer, learn Cambodian, and get married, I’d have thrown sand in their eyes for their insensitivity. “Don’t you see he’s dying” I’d yell. And then I’d tell no one of the incident.
I’d learned to keep things to myself that year. I learned to put on a good face. I had been called names at recess. I had spent two weeks quarantined in my room so you wouldn’t catch the chicken pocks. That year I’d lied to my parents every day that I liked my new school because my problems didn’t compare. Because my brother was more important. I could take the truth. I could take burden of untruth. This is how I learned to be adult, looking at the shine of your head.
Leaving Oklahoma
The little black truck only had two pilot seats in the cab. But behind them, between them and the back windshield, there was a little space on the floor. This is where I sat. My dad gave me a pillow to lean against and a blanket to sit on. This would have to do, he said. I remember staring out the back window as we drove away, watching my house disappear as we turned the corner. I remember feeling nothing.
I had moved once already and made less friends here than the place before. It didn’t feel like home anyway. Dad had already started working in Missouri six months earlier. Mom and Brad hadn’t left the hospital in St. Louis since the fourth of July. It was August then, and the house had just seemed poisoned. The stationary feature of the for-sale sign spread a toxin through our floors, breeding resentment for the walls that had taken our home, the walls that had tried to replace the place where we grew up first. It was the house that started the cancer. People knew it, I thought. That’s why it wouldn’t sell.
Brendon was gone, off to Columbia to teach people about Jesus. So it was me and Brian, eight and eleven, left for my dad to retrieve from the vacant house. Grandma and Grandpa had come to stay from Utah. She made fudge and he let me win in checkers, and me and Brian would lay in the middle of the floor in the middle of the day in his closet-of-a-bedroom and watch shadows trace the walls to the tune of With or Without You by U2. We cherished Brendon’s CDs like they were magic or radioactive.
We tried to think about Columbia and could only imagine dirt roads. We tried to imagine chemotherapy and could only picture icicles. We tried to picture Missouri and only came up blank. Who knew they’d have too much of both where we were going.
Packed up snug in the back of a truck, I felt like one of the items bungeed in the bed, just part of the relocation project. Dad talked about trees and Brian reached for my hand and we watched the house disappear in slivers. And for seven hours I felt nothing until the Ozark hills made me sick.
postMormon Digression
I am at war
one plastic purple piece
synthetic scared and singular.
Negotiations of appropriation
hide white flags of
self-destruction.
Am I lonely? fulfilled?
deserting alienation
evading conformation
is this actual? counterfactual?
That group thinks
I’m fallen.
This group thinks
I’m fake.
That I love and this I confuse
resent that, envy this
miss that, pity this
fuck that, shit this
It doesn’t matter.
Has it ever occurred to
you as you assume
that I may know
something you don’t consider,
lying in your blind-spot
by your garbage,
above the potholes that makes you trip?
Beneath your lofty lies
beyond your smug sense of
reality, I found a
smile, but even more
tears.
New ignorance with awareness
far outweighs the former fog.
I trade celibacy for inadequacy
to be in the middle
in the better
in the bitter
erased & backspaced
affected & defective.
I am out of strategies
sorries smoke suspense.
I am here and I am sure
I don’t surrender,
I have won.
Maternal Instincts
Because the last time I called my mother “mother”
was when the boy I loved did my wrong
just like she said he would,
and I cried into her sweater for
hours and hours until a soggy flower
bloomed across her chest in her
favorite color of pink and brine,
and she patted my back in quick
I-told-you-so rhythms,
but never said them out loud,
instead mumbling “baby, baby”
over in my ears,
rocking us
while her eyes stayed far away,
now we’re on a first-name basis,
not like friends who swap nicknames
and communicate in glances and giggles,
but more like acquaintances
who fumble on full-name articulations
stuck awkwardly in the throat,
uncertain in the last second
as if the wrong thing were said,
but then remember the patting
and the crying and how
saying the right words
never felt right either.
Corinna’s Going A-Maying Again
Her great great
grandfather was a polygamist.
yes, like Big Love,
like Brigham Young,
like Tom Green & Abraham.
From one man
who had so much sex,
(35 children, 2,407 great great
grandchildren)
came one girl who learned
to fear it.
He only knows
his people came from Mexico.
Sitting on a sun-streaked sofa
on a Saturday morning,
he is too old for cartoons.
So, pants at his ankles,
he makes the most of time,
five-minute pay-per-view previews scrolling…
His single mom
cannot be everywhere.
Now she’s in the shower.
We sleep amongst Christmas lights
We sleep beneath the swollen blood
vessels in our eyes, trembling lights on
our fire alarm about to go off, a sticky
mess of cherry cough syrup. We sleep
beneath the shimmer of certain insecurity.
We sleep beside the minty film left on our
tongues from toothpaste, not the immediate
ocean but how it looks afar off, the slight chill
at one hundred and twenty below. We sleep
beside the distant light of possibility.
We sleep with a sunglass-tint to our
indoor view, stale French fries piled in
wrappers from old meals, the amazement
contained in a single lit match. We sleep
with the glow of silly preoccupations.
We sleep under absent-minded mold
creeping into our bread, a tinge of old
bruises on our ribs, the twisted seaweed
that arrests yesterday’s sushi. We sleep
under reflections of forgotten infractions.
On the Path Train
In case of emergency
buy liquor, buy wine.
Life is too short and
you are too stretched
from door to door to
lean on labels, mere
jargon. So give up
your seat, go home
retire, graduate from
the middle class and let
tradition take its toll.
The happiness you
fathered will take its
place crowned bastard.
So rest easy. Be aware.
The state of your future
cries convenience, bleeds
Caution: those who can’t
do, preach. And those
who can’t preach, preach
lies. So Remember:
Jesus is not a daycare.
Wednesday Evenings
She sits in a tub full
to the brim, her chin submerged,
her knees bent and revealed.
She feels the water drift
as her lungs expand and deflate
with every breath. She imagines
the space inside her it doesn’t
touch.
The shower faucet is
leaky. She watches as droplets
swell and drip—drip—drip
above her abdomen,
slowly injecting a poison into her
clarity, offsetting the motions of just her breathing
with ripples she cannot control.
She hears him
on the stairs outside, creaking,
slow steps, and she hopes he is coming
to knock for her. But they fade
the other way.
Pulling the plug
with her toes, she closes her
eyes and lets the hope drain from her
touch, and lets the poison drip on her
skin.
To a Stranger
To have never met is to have never been disappointed.
I wanted you with your dark eyes so wide and your face so round and apathetic (surely those who love you don’t show it, I told myself)
But you didn’t look at me when I left you on the train,
I turned to you and waited in the sea of passing people, waiting for you to wave to me as if we would see each other later, at the house,
As if we had a dinner-date together where we’d order wine and talk about old times and you’d brush your toes across my heels across the floor beneath the table…
But you looked to your left and I was your right,
And you didn’t notice I was waiting, you didn’t know that I knew you were not looking at me, that you were never supposed to look at me
Like you knew me—but I saw your loosened tie, the top button undone on your shirt,
I wanted to tighten it, to fix you, to wipe the toothpaste off your mouth with a licked index finger, off those soft, telling lips of never-knowing,
I would not let the feeling of so raw a touch leave the tip of my finger.
Behind the Door
Behind the door you sit
seemingly hiding yet
you long to be found.
When you cry, you attempt
to mask it yet you
like to be noticed trying.
Your house was filled with
few passengers, less than
you wanted, more than
you could control and
now the emptiness is all
you can handle. Tenants
gone, fled further east,
lost further north, wary
of the places they came
from, wary of you—the place
they started. Yet you long
to be a destination, not
a pit-stop or passing-through
for the children who hug
you with blank faces and
kiss with cordial mouths.
Your phone calls are a habit,
your words a chore and the
people you love have been
taught to say it back but
never got to wonder if they
really do. Do you know it?
With your watery eyes,
tight lips, ever-busy hands,
cemented feet with no
where to run? Do you like
it there, where you have
landed? The place no one
wants to come back to and
you can’t leave? Do you
cry because I’ve been able
to say I hate it? Or because
you never will?
Immaculate Love
I see with my tongue,
smooth lemon-motion over mouth
making pricks drip electric from
grazing lips on ears and jaws.
I taste with my fingernails,
exploiting nerves in pop-rock patterns,
ankles quake and knees explode, exploring
cracks and sacks and tips to coax.
I listen with my nipples,
humming sweat and gropes in gasps,
hips infuse, mouths infect, screams
inject like hot-twinge lightning.
Abomination! recreation.
thou shalt not and yet
I do, hellfire rages deep within
me, brimstone boils unbridled
and unbrided—godforsaken
senses singe, and with blood
still simmering, I softly curl away
to be held. You touch me and my
fingers twitch, You blink and my
eyes flutter, You look at me to
see yourself in hazy hues;
All neon fades to cream,
all strobe-like shocks and
probings calm, all blinding noise
and boiling shapes fade into
stillness, into sleep, while the
condom rests in innocence.
New York State of Mind
I am too tired to smell
the stench of unfamiliar;
I am too angry to relish
the sights of my home.
I hurt in places too specific
to name, too pointed
to touch, too rounded
to remain untouched.
Why does the sidewalk
push back against my heels,
the noise shred against my tongue?
Why can’t my fingers clench and
make the fist they long to throw?
It is not my nature to
yell but the lights are
too loud not to try.
Trek
Pioneer women bled as they walked and walked and walked and walked and walked,
bled from palms pulling handcarts filled with furniture and blind faith,
bled from soles shown through shoes worn-through by Kansas, stepping, sticky in metallic footprints,
bleeding out for desperate sacrifice, bearing vials of conservation, transporting generations,
burying spills of red and stifling tears that would only dilute what was spilt.
Seven kids in tow,
poverty settled under fingernails,
tar scarring the corpses of once-husbands,
hymns on their lips,
pioneer women bled as they walked and walked and walked and walked and walked.
Bled for belief, they say, bled for me, they say,
bled for mothers birthing daughters into truth today.
This is why, because of ancestor sisters and their oozing feet and their starving babes and their steadfast faith, that we are not to question the cause they suffered for.
My grandmother urged
me, "think of her, think of them, you disgrace the pioneer
women,"
But I think the hands that pulled through wind and
storm and the womb that bore despite the war would be proud of the
path I bleed that is not easy.
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