the habit of being

I look up at the red curve, it’s not marble, it’s not real light. The dots glistening and it become blurred as I stare too long, I’m looking, I don’t see. Vision is a needless sense and my mind goes for walks. I shower in the morning to wash and I shower at night to think. I close my eyes as I sit up in the tub, the water streaming down in red. I lean over and place one hand on each side of the drain, it’s too clear. I know a camera lens would leave traces of noise, when it’s so silent and so smooth. I wish I could capture this picture that’s already been taken. I want to see it from above. See my body bending over too far, like today at work when I showed them all I could almost put my feet behind my head? Leaning in, leaning in. Could it suck me down? That’s too typical. The holes are too few and too small. I’m more jigsaw than this. The black strings around my neck won’t hold me together for long. I wonder if it’s not my unfortunate tan lines keeping my pieces from falling off to the floor. The skin falls, the hair falls, an eyelash even. My guts are still intact, my fingers won’t be hacked off today.

We talked in small words and short phrases about sex and rape fantasies. We have them, we like them, they’re ancient. Is this what we’re fighting? Oh no. I want the black fringe lingerie, see through undies and all. I want comfort. That’s basic, that’s pit. To want to be taken, is it so wrong? When it breaks me to shards I’ll see. A crack down the spine might do me good, if I’m so afraid of exposure. I won’t dance for you, I can’t. But I want to. I want it all. If just one fantasy came true, would it be this one? The one that will kill all the rest and make me flat as pie. Perhaps my legs would lengthen further, I always wanted to be a string. A string can be a feminist if it tries, if it ties. I’ve had them for years. They’ve had me. Won’t you try a bite? I’ll still have my pretty things, my girls. I want you mad.

Birthdays and baklava for my muse in a grey world where they give tennis bracelets to farm girls on pilgrimage to Italy. All my love this day, and I’ll keep telling you the dirty benefits of being eighteen. The drawing I’ll finish some time. The card I’ll send from Tennessee, Central Time.

I have hope for my freckles that fade and my hair that gets shorter, but blemishes won’t ever die out. An old woman with soft wispy white hair held back in combs said she remembered taking me to a pond with my father when I was a tiny tiny thing. She recognized me because I looked like Virginia in summer. She left then and brought back scones for the office (I was at work). Excellent, and I ate them cold, brought two home in my pocket wrapped in tissue. The sad thing is I can’t even remember her name. Nobility eludes me.

E. called me and we talked for an hour at least. So refreshing and she’s so like-minded and I’ll miss her so when she goes. V. likes Annie Leibovitz and we have the nicest things in common too. Where was I when all this happened? Where was I when I stopped being alone here? They entice me with visions of chilling and spilling our guts for miles all around and a river, but what can I do, is it real? Where’s the portal? Where’s the wall? We’re all on a road trip to the edge and I tell her don’t ever stop, not even when you get there. We speak of immoral things that aren’t and friendships that can be dispelled like mist. Questions you love to answer but you never have time. I got off the phone giddy, I did. How did I become so dependent on communication with things that aren’t me? It’s not my style. Miss Introspection and the wonder weeks behind. Start and stop I can do, but to let passengers in, it’s not easy.

I don’t know how I’ll write fiction when my stories are all washed up. I have three sentence tales mostly, and brevity isn’t so fine a treasure these days. I have a little book I want to write little poems in, but instead I write little quotes, thinking I’ll take it out and flip through when I’m low to be lifted. I know it will just sit almost empty like all my little books. The words fly out when I sigh and come back in when I sleep. My arms are by then too limp to record.

This isn’t what I do. I don’t make you sad so soon. I don’t ruin beauty. I don’t trash up the world with my dander and floozy whims. My face is sharper now; so is my scene.

. . .

Heavy heavy disappointment from yesterday wanes a bit, but other problems remain.
1. I’ve got relationship strain coming from a couple different arenas. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
2. I haven’t even begun to pack for Sewanee, and still have five books I’m supposed to read before I get there.
3. Senior pictures are Thursday and I still can’t do the Real Smile.
4. I ate salsa so hot it actually made me sweat.
5. I’m probably not -really- a sex kitten at heart and it’s making me upset.
6. I’m the most ridiculous possessive jealous lousy girl in the world.

But. .
1. I have a bigger purse that I can put books in. It looks like a moccasin and I think only of her when I look at it.
2. I’m going to Atlanta this weekend and the Ritz Carlton and the Betsey Johnson store await.
3. E. and I are going out to dinner tomorrow night.
4. We have new chicken salad.
5. Ani DiFranco might be coming to Savannah.
6. I will see J. in a month or so, hopefully.

. . .

I can still feel your hands on my skin if I think hard enough. It’s hard not to imagine it was a dream. I’m afraid it might be becoming one. Help me.