untitled longer piece

Do you ever just feel so trapped? Like you walk outside on an exceptionally beautiful spring day, when life is exploding from the ground and all you can see is that they sky is pressing down on you, that no matter how far you go, you'll never get away? No, I can see you don't. You've never sat alone, wondering if there's really anything to look forward to, really worth living for, not because the world is oh so bleak but because you know what you're going to spend the next fifty years working for, just like your parents did, and their parents, and did any of them ever really find it? You can't call that crazy. That's logic.
But you're logicking yourself to death.
But what real purpose do I serve? In a spiritual context, I suppose you could say that I serve God in all I do - but what does God need me messing around here for? And you know I've never been all too big on that anyway.
Maybe I need you around here.
I've told you before. If you get into it with me, you'll get burned. Playing with me is like throwing yourself on a landmine.
I knew going in that I'd hurt him. Boys always pretend they're so strong and there's no way you could do a thing to them, but I knew from that first night that he was going to get his heart broken, whether I wanted to break it or not. At the same time, I don't think he was a masochist. You can tell someone a thousand times that a bomb's gonna drop, and they'll still look shocked as the flames fall from the sky, as if they didn't know it was coming.
So. This is your house.
Yeah.
Oh.
It's funny how thick some moments can get with things that haven't even happened. The way you can feel fireworks in the way the crowd looks just before the first one goes off. You can be a few feet away, not even looking in his direction, and still feel his eyes following you.
Where did you say they were?
Are you sure you want to do this?
Yes.
And then sometimes, it's not even in your eyes or anything you'd call a feeling but you can still almost taste it, smell it, and the moments before it happens feel like your entire life, twice. And you stand there, waiting, because you know you should be because that's how it always looks in the movies but the girl never looks just how you feel. She always looks afraid - just afraid - and you feel - god, what do you even feel? It's somewhere between when you had your first grown-up party and the instant you knew your leg was broken and you can't pinpoint it any closer than that. And you don't know when you started to cry.
Oh my god, what's wrong?
Nothing.
But you're crying!
So?
Why?
Why aren't you?
And the moment between laughter and tears is so indistinguishable, isn't it? Probably because they're so close, they're practically the same action, and if you do either long enough you won't be able to tell which you started out with. But at least it was exactly the thing to take the strangeness out of his touch.
I just realized! I don't know what your favorite color is.
It's green.
I should've known that.
How? You've never asked.
But I should've known anyways.
Silly girl, how do you think the world works?
Just the way I want it to.
And I kissed him. The first time is the only time you really remember, unless you have a kiss that you tell everyone about, but even then, it doesn't have the maybe feeling of the first kiss. Like even though you know he likes you you still feel like you could be just so off-base on this one, just so wrong, but you kiss him anyways. And it's worth whatever happens after that. Even when you knew going in that it wasn't going to end well.
I've told you before. Playing with me is like throwing yourself on a landmine.

yes

yes. and the words are slurring and spinning and slipping from your lips, not at all the way you'd imagined when they sat, strong and stalwart in your brain, keeping time with the slow uneven pulse in your wrists.
yes. people are staring and smiling half smiles behind their napkins and menus, your hands are sliding through your pockets, searching for something to make this all stop.
yes. it's all too familiar now as she slips her hand through your arm in a show of false sympathy when you know all she wants is silence.
yes. it's a slippery slope he'd said that morning in the office, sliding a small plastic cylinder across the desk, it's one you'll take all too quickly if you don't take these, they'll stop it all.
yes. all you'd asked silently, staring down the cylinder and its sinister implications, and you feel it now under the silk lining of your dinner jacket and you wonder what exactly he meant by all.
yes. he must've meant all, he knew your intentions.
yes. or it was a trick, was it placebo, merely a psychological test, just to see how much you'd take, how many you'd take, how much you wanted it all to stop.
yes. he'd watched you swallow one, two, six, seven, seventeen maybe, you didn't know anymore.
yes. in six hours, he'd said, take the rest, and it'll all stop.
yes. you want it to stop, all of it.
yes. the voices, the crying.
yes. all of it.
yes.
yes.
all of it.

AMERICA!

from my page-a-day calendar (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader):

Every Fourth of July at Graceland, Elvis and his entourage celebrated Independence day by shooting fireworks at each other. Wearing gloves and football helmets, "they would level arsenals of rockets and Roman candles at each other and blast away at point-blank range for hours," says Steve Dunleavy in Elvis: What Happened? According to Presley's aide Red West: "I've seen Elvis bend over a giant rocket and watch the thing go off, nearly blowing off his head. My brother has a scar on his chest where one of us tried to blow a rocket through him. The house caught fire twice."


happy birthday, america.

ii. lee

your hair is thick with product
and your perfume reeks of cigarettes
black-ringed eyes shine wetly under heavy lids
sticky-sweet lips full of words I won't hear
I'm pressed against you
my mouth pushing hard to keep your voice inside
I want this to mean nothing
you want so much more
but if I don't hear it I can pretend
that I didn't know what your eyes were saying
as we frantically search each other
in the dark quiet of your lonely little-girl room
my parents aren't home you said
we're all alone
you're all alone
because it means nothing to me
you're just another girl
who ate up my cheap words
and fell into the light trap of my skin against yours
I wish I could mean something more
when my hands press into your hips
because I know that to you
this means everything
but I'll keep your tongue in check
and we'll both pretend tomorrow
this was just a little fun.