Category: Prose

my hands are making little fists while they remember your hands and how they felt when i held them on a day that seems like yesterday, and will forever seem like yesterday. my mind pouring a rush of words on to paper later wondering what it would be like to kiss your face again. i can’t keep up with conciousness enough to build the stream but i know what i think, and its about you. i have to know that you’re okay with holding my hand, even if its only when we’re alone together and you have to know that i’m comfortable with hiding our interlocked hands as long as it means holding you. i have all of these questions that i pose in so many unecessary words but i spent so much time asking questions expecting no answer or at least no positive one to come out of my guessing and now i get the chance to second guess. i’m glad, i’m glad, i’m glad. i’ve wanted you for a long time and if i can’t have that on a crowded bus where we’re tired and i’m wondering what it would be like to see you sleep and you are wondering what it would be like to finally sleep again then i will settle for doubting you, at least i’m touching you. even if i have to wear gloves.

use your hands and make me feel like the earth.

i think thatyou’re crazy but in that good way and i know how you feel about me but i just don’t know what to say so i let go of everything.. of myself of my apprehension of everything. literally. i slip away and slide into you and i don’t know who i am anymore. i’m just some kind of girl that’s sitting around waiting on a phone call from you but i can’t think or breathe or feel without you here all because you had some wonderful idea that i should become a part of you and now who the fuck am i without you. i want you again. i never got over you. that’s all i have to say. maybe i’m just talking out of the cough syrup but i don’t know who i am and i want me back. because at least i fucking knew that girl. and i still know you so well because you never fucking change and you never say anything but nice words and did I ever tell you that I loved you. yeah, you did. well, it’s just another fucking broken heart.

i never said thank you for that.

it’s funny how one can fall in love with someone else in between the spaces of fonts on computer screens late at night when reading visions of girard and growing to know all about keroauc. when the dawn is fading into twilight and the children are all going home, following the commands of flickering lights. that is when i see you:your face hair eyes. and i remember that first day. when i wanted to know more about you and i wanted to follow you around. funny, i remember exactly where we stood and i practically knew the room number and it all felt so fucking real when you and i were there just the other day holding hands this time. it felt so real that i thought it must have been but how could i believe in something that seemed so far away for so damn long.

tell me your name.
if you’re real you’ll say the same thing twice.

i woke up today with you in my arms a few months ago and for the first time i felt dirty. i felt like maybe there was something questionable about my behavior and maybe my skeleton was outside. i thought that it was written all over my face like some sort of black-face paint in a nickelodean. but i was black to begin with like when i was born.

i don’t care if the cards are wrong. you feel right.

sometimes, i want to drive off of the topeka boulevard bridge but then i remember that on some maps it’s called topeka avenue.

jess: (inhales cigarette smoke slowly) I love the way this feels. It’s comforting, like sleeping in the bed i spent my childhood crawling into for solace.

the heroine: I know how you like to second hand smoke.

jess: (exhales, pauses) no. i mean being with you.

when you close your eyes i feel little bursts of electricity that dance across my nervous system and i wonder if behind your closed eyes you can see pictures of me. or if you’d even want to. i’ll admit that i can’t convince you of my feelings because reality is such a hard thing to be sure of. sometimes love is just a game and we sit all alone on our abandoned beaches and hold our own hands waiting for the tide to come and then it’s there and our feet are wet so we run from it. but it was what we wanted the whole time. if you want me to walk away. i’ll turn my head (teary, of course) and wish that i could make you feel the same way too.. you could put me in a box and throw me out into that ocean so that i could drown in the salt from my own tears. and i would understand i suppose. a proactive reaction to pain that may never occur..

i want to collapse into fits of giggles when i think about you. and sometimes i do. you’re name looks good on paper — like communism. i hope you’re not imperically denied.

the leaves are crunching under us like our hearts that have been broken too many times in the past. we hum various songs the one in my head right now is by tiffany and we scatter our thoughts in dishevelled patterns, i can see you walking and the tears cascading beautifully around your face. i can never tell if you’re tears are there because you’re happy or sad. you can’t feel it but my heart beats faster when i run, and i sing weezer (heart. beat. heart. beat.). sometimes it feels like panic attacks, but i welcome it with a sense of accomplishment and i know that sometime soon we’ll figure out where we’re going, drop each others hands and fall to the leafy ground in a fit of “looks like we made it.” and we will, we can. together. we can because i want to. because i want to be with you. because i don’t doubt that i like you. and because i feel so comfortable when we’re together.

Everything seemed so perfect that summer. I was sixteen, I had a midnight curfew, a house by the beach, that curly hair that ‘all the other girls would die for’. I felt so indestructable. Everything was so new to me and so wonderful. I wanted to live there, in the first moments at least, forever.

I even made friends with the other Boardwalk kids and I finally felt like I fit in with someone. Usually I was just “that girl usually has a pencil.” But these kids actually talked to me and let me talk to them and they hung out with me, not because they were just being nice, but because they actually liked me as a person. That meant so much to me.

We even had our own spot. It was about a five minute walk from the last store on the boardwalk. There was a bonfire pit and we could just be all alone with the ocean. Before we’d started going down there we noticed that lots of people went down there and no one really ever checked on them. It seemed like the perfect spot for us.

Our trips down there started out innocent enough. We just hung out and made fun of each other, threw things around, and other usual teenage activities. One night though, Amelie brought a bottle of vodka and we just passed it around. I didn’t drink much at first, just a sip, and then I passed it on every time it got back around to me.

Soon though, they were all pretty drunk. I don’t know how much of it was actually because of alcohol though. Sometimes when people, especially teens, drink for the first time, I think that they just act drunk becuse they don’t know how they’re really supposed to feel.

Ben came up to me, a tipsy journey for him, and asked how much I’d had to drink. I told him that I’d barely drank anything at all and he began to coax me. He said “oh come on, Eenie, just a little. it’s good for you.” I told him that I didn’t really like it but he was convinced that if I just tried it one more time then I would start to like it. I knew better, but I took a sip, and then he convinced me to take another, and soon I was just as out of it as he was.

We were all sitting around the fire still, Ben was next to me. Travis, Levi, and Joe were having a fire jumping contest but Ben said that fire and drunkness didn’t mix with his usual clumsiness.

While we sat there and watched it, Ben said, “you know, i like you, Enid.” He put his arm around me. I wasn’t expecting that, but I’d never had a boyfriend and I think sometimes desperation mixed with alcohol smothers one’s better judgement. I should’ve known better.

Pretty soon, he was kissing me, right there in front of everyone and I still didn’t really know what to do. We’d been sitting around for a few hours and the alcohol was kinda starting to wear off, we’d ran out of it a long time ago, but Ben still maintained control of me. He wanted to go somewhere away from the other kids. I followed him, relunctantly. He held my hand and pulled me along behind him, like one of those movies that ended so happy.

When we were out of site though, he started kissing me again and he pulled me down into the sand. It didn’t seem that bad at first or else i probably would have left. Soon though, he was on top of me. I told him “no” and i kept saying it but he just held me down. I was so scared because I didn’t know what they’d think of me. I passed out. It could’ve had something to do with the alcohol too, but it was mostly just my fear.

When I woke up, the sun was up again, and my clothes were kind of ripped and laying next to me. I looked around for Ben and I couldn’t find him anywhere. I didn’t really want to see him though. I didn’t really want to see anyone. I felt so dirty. Like if any one else laid eyes on me they too would become this way. I felt like a plague. I felt like a stupid girl. I felt like I wasn’t pretty. I felt unworthy of attention. I felt angry.

I wanted to know why no one had come to find me before they left, and why they just left, why they didn’t stop him. They probably were too drunk to worry. Maybe he told them that he was walking me home or something. It was probably about midnight when we left the group. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t save me. I don’t even think they’d believe me if I told them.

I walked home, avoiding people. I got grounded for not coming home by midnight. It was okay though, not like I ever would’ve gone back there. I started crying and told them that we all just fell asleep out by the beach and i would’ve called but i didn’t know i was going to fall asleep. The story didn’t work for my parents, but I thought that maybe if I kept trying to believe it then it would actually become true.

I went back to my room, still crying. I hated myself for letting that happen. It was my fault that it happened because I drank. I’d always told myself that I’d never drink, or at least i’d never get drunk. Then I went and did that and look what happened to me. I felt so terrible. I just hung out in my room and cried a lot. I put on my pajamas and got a teddy bear that i probably hadn’t slept with in years down off my shelf. I curled up with him and cried until I fell asleep.

When I was sleeping I had a dream that I was being raped by Ben again, and everyone in the group was standing around watching and cheering him on. I woke up in a cold sweat, crying.

I grabbed a box of kleenex and went over to the mirror to clean my tears up. When I saw my reflection though, I started crying harder. I went into the bathroom to wash him and me and last night off of my skin. I took off all of my clothes and stood there looking at my self. I had a bunch of little cuts and scrapes all over me. They didn’t really burn but they were there and I couldn’t forget them. Even with the cuts marring my appearance, I couldn’t stand the look of my face.

I grabbed a pair of scissors and furiously began cutting off my hair. Mom always said that my hair was so pretty so maybe that’s what Ben had seen in me. I cut it short and then I took a shower, scrubbing my body and my hair and my face. Ben couldnt’ stay with me if I could just wash him off.

When I got out of the bathroom, I was crying and Mom saw my hair and started yelling. She wanted to know why I’d done that to myself and if i wanted everyone to hate me. I told her that they hate me anyways and then I walked back to my room.

I stayed behind that door for almost two days. Finally, hunger got the best of me and I came out and ate. Mom and Dad said that we were going to the store as a family. They usually did things like this so I relunctantly agreed. We went to get ice cream first. Then they said they had a surprise for me. They blindfolded me and we started driving again.

When I was stablized and the blindfold was off, I was here. They tell me that it’s some mental health institute. They think that i’m a cutter because of all of my scrapes and cuts. I wish that I had made them. I don’t know if i’ll ever tell them what happened. I don’t want my problems turned into a movie on Lifetime. It was my fault. No one has to know.