The broken record, a cacophony of sound, shattered shallow silence. Disillusioned, she slipped back into her old devices: a masochistic mind and a poinent pen.
I raise my hand, signalling that there are five more stops.
He high-fives the hand and gives me that crooked smile.
Four more stops.
The train lurches left. I lean into him. Subconsciously, my legs, which are straddling his knee, tighten around him. I realize what happened and release in panic.
Three more stops.
I put up three fingers and fling them in his face. He mirrors me. Our fingers touch at the tips, as if to three finger high five. But then they linger longer than they should. And our fingers intertwine and he plays with them.
I may only sometimes be a girl but I swear that’s suggestive.
Two more stops.
He teases me. My friend is hot but I’m just crazy. Oh yes, you like that don’t you? Making me out to be crazy. I over-react and he laughs.
One more stop.
He stops. He stands and walks away. Muttering about getting ready to go. He’s standing over a ways, talking to the other girls.
I’ve never felt more awkward.
It’s all in my head, isn’t it?
Except you see it too right?
It’s not all in my head, is it?
He flirts and it isn’t fair.
Fucking unfair.
1. The Portal Master Pauses
Climbing up onto her bed, she reached for the wall and grabbed the item of her desire:
a dream catcher.
Item in hand, she bolted outside.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the cold, smooth, metal object.
With a flick of her hand and a scrape of her thumb, a fire sparked from the lighter.
The flames licked the catcher as she set fire to her dreams.
She should have dropped the burning object or else let the flames take her fingers with it, but she remained distracted.
Destruction is beautiful.
The flames transformed.
A swirling orb of yellowish-green light appeared in her hands where the object had been.
She paused, momentarily shocked.
She let go, closing her eyes and shaking out her head and hands.
When she opened them, the greenish orb had grown.
Reaching her hand out to touch, she realized it wasn’t solid. She could put her hand through whatever it was.
She hesitated, but pushed curiousity over fear and stepped through the unknown thing she had created.
___________________________________
For the first time, the Portal Master pauses.
47 seconds later, the earth turns again like nothing happened.
Spring Breath
I let go of the sinking in my chest and the lonely in my heart. I forgot about the pain in my mind and the worry in my gut. I put everything aside and let myself just…breathe.
It should be so simple, something so imperative to survival. Of course, as the non-stop New Yorker, I usually take the short cut. I intake oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. The air comes quick and heavy, in short bursts of polluting buses and sky riser’s smoke stacks. My body remains permanently hunched over, racing, reaching for the next destination; relaxation is a state of mind.
Today is different. Today I decided to breathe, to truly breathe. I stood up straight, my body long, my head pointed toward the sky. I smiled at the sun beaming back down on my pale face. I’d almost forgotten that if you stared up high enough, you coul see the endless blue sky. I stretched my arms out wide, trying to match the sky’s vastness, trying to open up my chest and rid myself of this natural state of city hibernation. I didn’t care if anyone saw—not that they would, the city dwellers around me were too caught up in their own mechanical breaths, too buys drowning in their own hibernation.
So, with my head high and my arms wide, I breathed in the sweet air of spring and felt a light-headedness, a weightlessness I had forgotten. The breath was deep instead of shallow, long instead of quick, and intentional instead of necessary. It was cleansing, relaxing, releaving, regenerating, renewing—
if only I didn’t know it was the last time I’d breathe like this for a very long time.
“Fixxxxx itttt…” I moaned, my eyes still glazed over from my last bout of tears.
“Fix what?” he asked innocently.
“My life.” I stated glumly.
“Gaff tape fixes everything,” he said profoundly.
I watched as he ripped the gaff tape off the roll and began sticking pieces randomly all over me.
Why is everything you do perfect? I thought.
You really don’t make this easy.
A black gaff bodice with tie line straps, LED solar powered christmas lights line the skirt, and pumps with wrenches for heels complete the ensemble.
Techie chic has never looked so hot.
If only.
Ramble: The Blonde Boy.
I was driving an old friend back up to college. Which is weird, because I don’t know how to drive. Still, I drove, just the two of us at first. Up from her appartment in Hell’s Kitchen to Harlem. The next thing I knew, her boyfriend was in the car with her and they were both in the backseat being cute.
Oh shit, I thought. We forgot…suddenly were back on 59th street, picking up a blonde boy in a light blue button down shirt. If you asked me to identify him now, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t even remember his name. He was tall, and liked to write poetry. That’s about what I could say about him. Oh and he liked me. He had a huge crush on me. And I might have had a crush on him? I wasn’t sure. It was all very hazy.
The point being, we were all driving up to my old friend’s college. God knows why. And then suddenly on our pit stop pee break, I run into a friend of mine, and I get the feeling here at this pit stop, that she’s into blond boy. Which to clarify, makes no sense because she’s got a lovely girlfriend. And I start basically showing off that he’s into me.
My last words to her are something along on the lines of “It’s nice to know someone likes me…” as I head back to the car.
Suddenly, the dream slips away.
How anti-climatic, I think.
And then I face the day.
3/20/12
Sometimes I wonder how much people are actually absorbing. We all are such selective listeners. I used to be a really good observant person. That’s one of the upsdies of invisibility, you get really good at observing. It’s been a while though, since I thought like that. Even after I shed my invisibility, I kept my observation skills. It isn’t something I lost just ‘cause people could see me now, hear me now, say hello to me now, hug me now, value my existance now. Reccently though, it feels like all my perception skills have gone numb. Maybe I’ve been so focused on being a teenager, I’ve forgotten how to be a writer. My listening has become so selective lately. I wonder, is this how people always are? It certainly feels a lot more “normal”. But it also feels a lot more ignorant, too. Am I wrong?
Do you notice?
I wish I had my sight and knew.
I come from colorful jumpers with matching hats.
From mary jane’s and patterned tights.
I come from paper dolls, and barbie dolls, and stuffed animal tea parties.
I come from everything it means to be a girl.
And that girl still exists. She does. That little girl lives inside me. And sometimes, I’ll catch her peaking out from under my teenage exterior. She’ll slip from my lips before I can catch myself, and suddenly I appear hypocritical.
But I’m not.
That little girl stopped growing up a long time ago. She lives inside of me, barely aging . I carry her with me, and she keeps me balanced. But she doesn’t dominating my existance. She doesn’t grow with me, at the same rate as me, but much slower, much more reluctantly.
We are the same but we are not one.
Maybe one day she’ll meet me here at adolecence.
But for now her colorful jumpers and matching hats remain preserved inside.
The wounds healed slowly, forcefully. It was a conscious process, but a necessary one. Some believed it to be impossible, but I knew better. It was all a matter of control, that’s all.
Self control was key.
It was like a bad habit. All I had to do was train myself to stop, and eventually, I would. Yes, there would be relapses. Yes, there would be struggles. But in the end, life would go on, like anything else.
And I would move on.
I have to move on.
