some jingle jangle morning

Roads

Ten people I knew in the world survived, although knew is a strange word to describe them. The ten, well I knew them in that face in the crowd sort of way, not the kind of knowing that carried any weight of consequence, or care. The girl who’d rung up my morning coffee every day, the one with the pierced lower lip who had fought every Wednesday with her boyfriend on her mobile. She would try to text him back, unnoticed, her hands underneath the counter, but she would give it away, mouthing each word as her thumbs slammed the tiny keys in anger. She is among us now. The boyfriend may be here, as well, come to think of it, though it’s hard to know for sure. That kind of distinction has become hard to recognize. Coupling lines blur, and bodies cling, without much regard to any propriety of love.

There is that boy I dated once. For a week, I think. He had a summertime green tint to his once blonde strands back then, the tell-tale sign of an Orange County boy with too much time on his hands, and chlorine soaked into his hair. We drove to Santa Monica once. He sat under the pier with me while I’d come down off one of my latest and greatest drug-fueled escapades. He’d let me scream into his hands, and I’d let him slip his dick inside of me. A fair trade, it had seemed at the time. I tossed his number into the third bin from the left, behind his apartment, as I walked home with sand itchy on my skin. I wonder if he still tastes of Peppermint Schnapps and Marlboro Lights, and if he does, would he be willing to share.

The rest are nameless. Images peeled off of a blueprint memory, faces from train passes and elevator rides, doctor office receptionists and that barely recognizable gas station attendant who used to sing Foreigner's Urgent out loud, and sold me discounted cigarettes with his number tucked inside once. It is hard to tell if they recognize me, or what stories they try to attach to my skin, pinned on like a kindergarten reminder. We all forget everything eventually, or at least feign at it, posed and smiling as if all this dark is just the contents of a normal day. Anymore now they all back away and shield their eyes from mine, afraid that the things I see above will rub off on them, poison the well, so to speak. They huddle in misconceived safety and try to re-write the world. I am not interested in any of the fabrication.

I used to be the girl in the back of the class chewing her nails, and looping letters into lyrical refrains. I would have traded my Grandfather's bicentennial coin collection to live within the confines of a song back then. Clumsy and awkward, gifted my life span's height before I hit puberty, towering over all the skinny blondes who fit into that Everybody Wants You mold. My first sexual experience had been with a shy boy two years my junior, his braces had left tears in the inside of my bottom lip, and he had kissed with as much grace as two elephants with tied-together trunks.

Most days I was just invisible, fading into the grey walls and missed opportunities. It was hard to grow up amongst the beautiful people when my body screamed ordinary, and hopefully refundable. Now my invisibility is just their desperate grasps at denial. No one cares to admit cowardice, or to look the community martyr straight in the eyes. Even the ones who empty and re-fill my veins avert their gaze, leaving gashes in my arms, but nothing more. Or the ones no one mentions, the ones who gave me this job in the first place. They send in their troops when my head is blood loss fuzzy, their masks barely registering in my view, just the sharp sting of what they take from my body as I lie there motionless, more dead than the last time. It was one of them who gave me my afterworld name. I can still hear it slithering out of his razor thin lips, burning my skin as he pressed his lips much too close to my ear. We all have them, new names, all the old ones tossed aside like regret, like yesterday.

None of us are who we were before.

janie's got a gun

“remember when you used to sleep here all the time, janie?” robert walked back in from the kitchen, smiling as he spoke.

it was late and the house was dark. so silent, i’d forgotten how quiet his house gets. no television playing all day, no wandering through the halls, no sleepless nights. he is balancing a tray in his hands, a childish grin painted all over his face.

he sits down behind me and pulls me close to him. i can feel his breath on the back of my neck, down my spine, warmth spreading across my whole body. he hands me a cup. he's made hot cocoa for us, out of those little packs with the marshmallows that never really soften like they should; they remind me of the ones they gave us at seventh grade camp.

“yeah. troy would fall asleep on your pile by the closet, over there," i point at the pile, smiling at the sight of our clothes we had recently added to it, "you and i here in bed. i think troy hated me for that, for being the one in bed with you. he probably hates me still, or will; for this.”

i was starting to unravel what had happened between us, taking it in. the possible consequences and how the reactions might play out. i could picture how it will ripple through our intertwined lives, how it could affect us all. but, i don't want to think on it, not yet. i just want this right now, robert and i, in each other's arms, drinking cocoa. so, i sip the sticky sweet warmth and move myself in closer, flutter shut my eyes. i just want to forget the entire world tonight.

“janie, maybe we shouldn’t tell troy about this.” his words thud out of him, hit the wall and pound back. they hit me like a fist, like a bucket of cold water being poured all over my naked skin. i stiffen, a thousand questions and assumptions lining up in front of me. my psyche firing squad. ready. aim. fire. 

love will tear us apart

troy fell asleep on robert’s pile of clothes, over by the closet. he was lying amongst jackets and corduroy pants, jeans, and concert t-shirts. sleep came like that, sudden and slamming into you; before you could stop consciousness was gone. so many hours of lacking those deep moments of sleep when things become clearer. when you are running fast and away from clarity the lie of awake is phenomenally addictive.

i should go home. my mom will wonder, not worry, but wonder. she will just make up her own drama filled conclusion that i would wince at, i can already hear it. and really, i don't want to leave. i watch robert and his sleepy eye stare, and i just want to bend and fold into a miniature me. disappear into the curve of his spine, float around inside of him. there are no words that can make this true enough. this moment. the pull he has on my every pore.

“do you want to stay?” he asks me, reaching for the light switch and motioning towards me with this impossible to resist warmth. there is absolutely nowhere worth knowing that i’d rather be; not anywhere.

we climb into his bed. a double. he has the softest sheets. they smell clean, they smell like babies, like safety, like love. he opens up the blankets and envelops me into them, then wraps an arm snug around me. with my head on his chest i can feel each intake of breath, the soft murmur of his heartbeat, the slight pause between that i begin to memorize. it is all so intoxicating. i can feel my entire body suddenly give in and collapse.

“you should sleep more, janie. you and troy both. i don’t understand it. the way you chase around, running from the night. i love sleep.” he takes my hand then, reaches over and kisses the top of my head softly.

"it’s just…it’s just, like, so hard sometimes.” i choke on the words. the sting of possible tears hanging precariously in the balance of my eyelashes. i try to blink, i try to let go.

"what is?” he asks, not looking at me, but looking all the same.

“everything.” i whisper.

he knows things, i know he does. i can tell by the gentle way he is with me. how careful he tries to be, as if he's touching something fragile and new.

“you know, you and i are all he has.” he is whispering now, too, taking my lead.

“i know.”

i want to say they are all i have, too. well, the two of them, and sam. when she isn’t fed up with all this mess that i am. i know i have her, even now when we don't talk. i wish i could tell him i love you. in this huge, encompassing way i love you. but the words just refuse. that kind of truth is jagged. raw. with far too many doors to open, all of them with possible hidden traps inside.

but, i feel it. a beyond my age kind of love. and i know that it isn't something fleeting. this is that thing in my heart that will probably end me.