vinegar.

i guess you could say i feel like i've been scraped clean. with a sharp metal spoon, my insides have been scoured. when i walk i rattle a little, my stomach is hollow and the heat from my heart makes me sweat.
i talk to all these fractured people and they have so much to say. one said that it was like the clouds parted and she could see the light. one said it was the right thing for him to do for the time being, he was just ready. maybe they just talk like they know what they're doing. or what they've done, because it's hard to go back. the sharp smell of vinegar in your head, the windy feel of falling over your face. a quick alertness settles over them and it was time to move forward.

liar liar

there is this pressure on my chest now, like i've pulled the muscles in my esophagus by lying over and over again. my hands keep moving all the time but i don't know what they're saying.
i know that growing up is painful. i thought that pain subsided after adolescence, like white waves spreading over flat, wet sand, the bubbles of foam disappearing into the ground. the absorption of all that unbounded energy that made you say all those stupid things.
but people they grow their whole lives. i guess i never thought about the growing pains you feel when you're twenty-one, or thirty-seven, or turning forty-eight.
my throat feels swollen, the glands in my neck tender and achy. i'm a liar girl, i think. my hands keep moving like they've got something to say. i'm a liar girl and these bruises on my chest, this push in my lungs are telling me to slow down. a body that talks.

sandpaper skin

this is about a friend. the older i get the more i understand that friendship is hard. being a good friend, saying the right thing. you have to learn how to be yourself, define yourself by other people. standing in front of the chalkboard in elementary school, your shoulders pushed back and tracing collections of chalk dust on your scapulas, your hips pushed back into the ledge and your palms sweaty. not everyone can be a good friend all the time.
monica, she stands up at the chalkboard and she can’t get over it. she can’t see past the smoke and ash. my friend, she’s tiny bird bones and sugar cubes, she’s breakable. but she’s a liar, and she’s destructive. the words that come out of her mouth, i take them with salt and pretend that I’m okay even if I’m not.
but i did it. i pushed through walls that were bricked up and violent. waded through thick, dark mud that clung to my legs and threatened to pull me down, pull me down through a curtain of golden wool strung between dark green trees in a wood that is blackened and smoky, into a place of permanent night where tea cups fall like precipitation, smashing their tiny china bones in crusty bird's nests and the hollow places in trees and lay scattered jagged and delicate through the dewy grass.
why can't she, why can't she stop walk walk walking through that dirty sticky mud, leave a trail of selfish though our lives, glass and pure white sand, sickening pink champagne spilling over the walls and trickling in puddles and pools on the ground. you can't do that, you can't do that to people you like, you need to get a grip, grope, grasp on consequences, push all of those heavy laden cartons and boxes tied with string into an old baby carriage, and push push that baby carriage down a hill. let it go, let go and lick honeyed waxy candies from your pockets and stop taking out your tragedy on your friends.
i wish she would be a graceful loser. I wish she hadn’t gotten caught up in some sort of cycle of personal tragedy. I think that I don’t know how to be a good friend to her.
monica, she’s beautiful. and when she wants something she gets it. monica digs herself into everyone’s arms, leaving lasting indentations in the skin. people don’t forget monica, she doesn’t let them. she presses herself against them, asks questions and gets involved. she is everyone’s friend, she works so hard, she works herself so hard..
when i look at her i see her sandpaper skin: thin and vulnerable, her brittle bones but also her bold questions and focused eyes – she doesn’t look away, she never looks away. but she doesn’t look brave, she looks lost.
monica and i, we have had our battles. i don’t know how to feel, i don’t want to feel sorry for her anymore. her desperate eyes and her pretty china doll mouth. i don’t know if i want the responsibility of being close to her. her fragileness, her uncertainty, they hurt me too because I say things, my wavering voice and my own uncertainty and they smash into her and I don’t even know.

she knows what she doesn’t want to keep, but past that – after leaping from the third cement step all the way down to the sidewalk, ankles curving to steady the foot, she had landed, brittle bones intact – she doesn’t know what to do.

visible blue veins

her house is quiet. quiet with a chance of stepping on eggshells, tiny shards of white shell ground into the plushy suburb carpet. I can feel the tension coursing through her veins, as she pads up the stairs to discuss tonight’s plans with her mother. the first time I saw her mother I was surprised. the way hannah talks about her I expected a bossy woman with big shoulders and arms, ruddy skin. she hasn’t talked to her own mother in two years, she hasn’t talked to her sister in three. but hannah's mother is small, with a wilted kind of posture, smudged blue eyeliner and wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, a crinkly smile. she is soft with visible blue veins running up and down her neck and wrists.
when we sit in class I can feel the row of lecture seats pulse with the nervous bounce of hannah's leg. she constantly shakes her right leg. I’ve taken to pushing my hand into the top of her knee when I see her doing this. her face flushes and she takes a pause in what she’s saying, and stops.

paperback.

when his hands fumbled, i asked him if it was his first time. he said it was. somewhere in there i became the expert. after i watched each of the stripes on my flannel sheets peel off and squiggle along the hardwood floor, i thought about her decision. i was never one for waiting. i was never one for waiting for someone else to decide. somewhere in there i became the passive. i never would have thought. i watched the leaves on my curtains flutter in the wind, tear themselves from textiles and fall into piles against the woodwork. i type out these assignments with my mind on automatic, i try to eat a few meals everyday at the appropriate intervals but it's so hard to stomach anything these days. i watch the yellow light bulbs unscrew themselves and shatter in lemony glass shards, sending sparks through the clothes on my floor. somewhere in there i became that girl, laughing and twisting and shrugging it off. i never would have thought.

northshore.

maybe my heart beat's connected to this thing, no i'm not ready for a downtown trash collection. somewhere inbetween my mouth talk talking, flexible jawlines and dry throats, i stopped telling the truth over there. i'm not used to that, compulsive lies, i used to be impressive, he used to be impressed by me but that doesn't work anymore, i need to be more, i know you feel it too. sliding into a desk where my palms can sweat on the tabletop, leave liquid handprints before i need to leave, swift down a hallway, there's no air down there, no air down there in the basement. i've created a monster (eyes focused like a microscope) cause now i've got these shadows following me, i'm all too accountable. you know me, fifty shades of grey and i'll pull you under, every facet of my life, glass jars on every surface. did you really think it wouldn't be that bad? turn me into some kind of angry nomad again, you're all too accountable. i don't want to think like this, in lies and exaggerations, but he said, he said think of the moment when you are most serene. i laughed because i don't think i've ever been serene. jittery on three cups of chai tea, sweat on the backs of my thighs, spontaneous tears that freeze on face, no, i've never been serene. and i'll probably keep on lying, i'm sorry, i'll probably keep on lying until i feel like i impress him again.

mason jars of sea salt.

i did it. i pushed through walls that were bricked up and violent. waded through thick, dark mud that clung to my legs and threatened to pull me down, pull me down through a curtain of woven gold wool strung between dark green trees in a wood that is blackened and smoky, into a place of permanent night and where tea cups fall as precipitation, smashing their tiny china bones in crusty bird's nests and the hollow places in trees and scattered jagged and delicate through the dewy grass.
why can't you, why can't you stop walk walk walking through that dirty sticky mud, leave a trail of selfish though our lives and loves of lapis lazuli, glass and pure white sand, sickening pink champagne spilling over the walls and trickling in puddles and pools on the ground. you can't do that, you can't do that to people you like, you need to get a grip, grope, grasp on consequences, push all of those heavy laden cartons and boxes tied with string into an old baby carriage, pull on some skeleton keys for clothing, and push push that baby carriage down a hill. let it go, let go and licked honeyed waxy candies from your pockets and stop stop sending envelopes of serpentine sentiments to your friends. ride your bicycle and tie your hair into knots and take a step back, take a kilometre back, take a couple of steps back before you've discovered that hole in the wool of your grey pockets.