Theron's poems.

• 
  Jul 15, 2006

A dove in a grave

There's a reason i'm crying, there's a reason I  don't feel sane. your the reason dying but what do I know? Where do we go when life dies today. The reflection in the water led me to believe the world was coming to an end. I saw the sun in the sky, there was an angel flying with a dragon of peace.  I didn't question why? There was hurt wrap and wounded story of incomplete.  The night grew weary, bleeding snowflakes, a depth of winter, a shot of gin.  It was near and I was so far away, to die just to see her, the ocean, a non believer.  I saw you standing near the decaying willow tree. Your  eyes and nothing she could save. I saw you staring at the dove in my grave.  What did it mean? What could I say? Where do we go when life fades away time is ending the memory of you was dying to soon.  I say love I think hate.  I remember the sunset and the shine of the moon but what do I know? what do I know?

• Feb 2, 2007

And its me

And it's me the moon, and the stars, and the sea.  And it's me, the dying in the lonely.  Hey  lover  how  I miss you tonight, it just doesn't feel right with out you  by my side to break down, yes  break down. It'll fall all around, like memories that took my soul away from me. I wish you'll see, you  mean the world to me. Hey killer I wait for you tonight, this is the time of your life, to shake down, oh shake down, but don't let them see your frown.  They'll never understand the smiles in you. The smoke was raising from the floor, she grab my hand, you can't die here, yes I saw her open the door. It only takes life to stop or begin, I only saw life as a story ready to meet it's end. Hey lovers and killers, heres your knife, go out and kill all your strife. For its time to break down and shake down all the reasons we can't be true, this is love, this is you. And it's me the moon, and the stars, and the sea, and it's me the dying in the lonely.

• Jul 29, 2006

another season

I found her dying in the snow, her last words reflecting hurt I could never say. In the moonlight I remember when the angel call my name. The killers were coming I knew there was a chance to die again. Like the season raped and bleeding, in time we'll see each other again. She said I don't want this to end, not like this, not with out a kiss, not with out a song from out of the gray. Only in a dream will the sun kill the moon, only through faith will tender love be consume. Another season I found her crying in the rain, if you love say love, but never forget your pain.

• Aug 22, 2007

Sand bags of sorrow

I woke to rain dancing on my window payne, sometimes life will represnt all the words you mean. Tomorrow, another season away, another season of forgotten names. You should hold on to what matters the most, the rain will keep dancing, like the mist surrounding a ghost. Lost pages water damaged, from your tears, I know life can hurt with words one can say. I know love, its every reason for me not to stay. Maybe what were fighting for could only end in strife, what a lovely suicide wipeing blood off her knife. I knew time was coming to an end, she saw hurt, and she didn't want to hurt again. Yesterday I woke to rain dancing on my window payne, only life will represent all the words you mean. I brush the blood away from her letter, in her words we all die here tomorrow. To me its just another day, and one more sand bag of sorrow.

11:48 AM

beautiful queen of mine

Beautiful Queen of Mine

By:  Theron Jackson

It’s raining in the pastures and she runs with a smile on her face.
She holds my heart in her hand.
There in a special place.
I can hear the angels sing every time she passes by.
I can’t control myself when I look into her winter eyes.
Lady who am I?
Because the answer I do not know.
Am I love or a lie or merely the wind in a starlight sky?
So will you remember me as I fall in this deep sleep?
Will you be my sweet dream before the nightmare’s creep?
Can you imagine the essences of true love as we open our arms?
And somehow we fly with the doves?
Gentle lady I can’t stop now
Because I’ve fallen for you.
I don’t remember how,
But I know the feeling is true.
And as you caress your pillow when you fall to sleep at night,
I’ll watch over you, angel, as you’re wrapped in your sheets elegantly tight.
And tomorrow when you wake to the warmest sunshine,
I’ll tell you again one more time,
You’ll forever be this beautiful queen of mine.

Mine, Dance

Dance

Hot

Desire

I will sink

In your courtyard

Stand

Delicate

Holding my desire

Bleeding

Beside the fountain

I will

I will touch

Desire

With my tongue

Elongated

Into your left presence

I will

Want

To run

I will stay an hour

Or two

Until the silence

Becomes my answer.

feel my pain

Feel my pain

By: Theron J…

I lost myself in fantasy unreal, but came into reality to find a soul I could steal.  Woke up to a song I never heard before, then I listen to your heartbeat, but felt love no more.  Should I even the score with this demon inside me, should he be allowed to live, well maybe I should kill him and see.  Is this a dream or a reality I hope I’ll know, so my mind will be free to be who I am, to find who was me.  To understand this notion the pressure of the fire and it’s flames to steal another soul, make them shout "Forever Caine."  To find the answers to the question at hand, for them to fear me because I’m more than just a man.  For all to realize you can never be me, you can never understand that you can never be free, to memorize you are not who you think you are, this life is a journey and you haven’t gone that far.  Forget what you heard  and believe what you did, for you have only had dreams of the rain, but you haven’t tasted life until you feel my pain.        

• Jul 2, 2006

killers don't know my name

I know, I said, I wouldn't let you down, but time has proven I love like it grows from the ground. They said the heart can be a crazy place, the sounds of laughter, the pointing, the look on your face. This time as I walked in the door, I remember the look in your eyes, they were all dead. Blood shed, the hurt and no sound, the demons hung around and I couldn't breathe. She said you'll never know how far I'll go. Well I know I said I wouldn't care this way, the raining morning, heaven and my faith. So why is it you want to run away, I said I love you, but those feelings can be erase. Like seasons I buried in my blame, I never thought the killers knew my name. These sheads of red  become stains on my floor, the knife in your hand as I walked through the door. I won't decide if I'll let this go, I love you but hurt is a story I already know. Then there was tears in her eyes. 

Like kissing in a dream

Current mood:awake

In the circle of my eyes I wonder what love means?
I know I shouldn't lie, she told me once about faith come home my son, but I came to late.

They were laughing at me, I wasn't strong enough to say goodbye. We fall and fall again, and we can only wish to hear love's voice in the end.

It's like kissing in a dream, the forest the color green. If it was ever lasting maybe I could see autumn smiling before I die.

Then maybe this day the angels will not cry, but she said its all the words you mean, it's the hurt, it's the love, it's the ocean scream.

If only a wish is what it seems, I'll love you like I know what love means, my sweet dove with rose petals in her bed, so lovely like day dreams in my head.

How I hope your smile never fades away, I do care, so don't believe with dead killers ever say. All in time I'll watch them go to a road where no one knows.

Yes I'll love you from this start and till the end, we are strong, and with these wings we could fly through the terminal created their negative wind.

Yes the clouds puffy white, I want back yesterday, I need you to come along with me, but I know you can't stay.

We get lost but I know in time we shall be found. What sweet peace when your around. Yea it's all what you mean, a thousand words like kissing in a dream.

2:09 AM

lost butterfly

Lost Butterfly
By:  Theron Jackson

My murder, my vengeance, it’s simple to watch a body burn.
She’s crazy, she’s awesome.  My humans try to make the ocean bleed.
Not only are we dying, I wanted more than you could supply.
The needles, they’re craving.  They love to pierce through my skin.
So lovely, so lonely, I’m anxious to love destructive energy.
She’s smoking, she’s choking, and it’s simple to see she’s never done this before.
Not only is she horny, she wants to stab me with her lies.
I’m so sorry to love you.  She’s willing, but she’s a lost butterfly.
These emotions, they hang me.  They pull me under but I want to breathe.
Someone help me.  I’m forsaken.  I’m not caring like the demon I adore.
She asks me to hold her, to please her, to make her smile this way.
This fever is turning the winds in a dying sea.
Don’t laugh, I’m not a joke.
Don’t kiss; I’m not your lips.
You are needing me.  You are feeling me,
The way I feel a tree, jagged and helpless to the memory of being cut down.
How funny, how crazy, reluctant pissing on my bed.
Just lick your shit, your spit,
Your hair smells like forgotten puppies killed for meat.
So make believe, more green leaves the season yearns to love a whore.
She’s pretty, she’s ugly, hey beautiful give me a call.
To love my murder, my vengeance simple to hate a love loving me.

• Jul 17, 2008

melissa

I wish I was the sun so I could melt your smile away. If only I could see the demons running after me, maybe I could reach my sword and fight them all away. It's only right to be called a fool if you do what a fool does. What is the measure of a man? If I can't save my life then I know no one can. Trustworty attributes, I might as well just give them away. She's not coming back, but I hope to visit her grave someday. I saw how devious, how cunning a storm can be, the clouds never lie, this tornado is hunting me. I won't find a place to hide. I'm as brave as brave can be. Even when she put the gun to my head, she wanted to know do killers ever feel free? This fucking whore and unforgiveness, this pretty whore and sweet lies, broken glass, shattered promises, a bleeding sky. No more excuses, your demise is a must, you want to see flawless, I want more than just life itself . I want to destory your sullen mind, I want to behold the acid made from your tears.  I never wanted  to feel like this, I only wanted to see you smile. I know its crazy to hate love, and yearn for it to hold you tight, the game never ends. Don't play it, if you can't handle strife. I just wish I was the sun so I could melt your smile away.

Morbid Pink

I was walking alone, down a street, and I heard a sound, and I saw a splash, a weird splash of an discreet color. I guess one can only call it a splash of Morbid Pink.

A color you had to sneak up behind, because it to had a demon to hide. It to had simple and hateful words inside, It had sullen love like no one else ever knew.

Yes this color was a Killer you wouldn't want stay long, only because this color was hard to see, unlike the others, this one had to be free, but what a lovely splash this color could be.

Morbid Pink a bleeding flower, a dream, the warth of a killer with a sunset trapped in his mind, you need not to see this color, it's vision can make  your eyes blind.

Though I yearn to give it's power away, it holds me close. It comtemplates reason I would kill the sun today.  I wish I could see tomorrow in your lovely smile.

I wish I could see forever, I wish your love could show me how.  Maybe in time as my nightmares grow, there will be blueprints of it's demise and I could become a beautiful afterglow.

Oh but this Morbid Pink,  a simple splash, with an evil style, I guess to day is the day, and forever maybe now. I'm happy I forgotten you.

my heart died here

MY HEART DIED HERE

BY: THERON JACKSON

An open womb on side my head the hurt is leaking out my shirt stained red. Thought I heard a knock on the door, but my ambition is blinded I can’t walk my feet are sore. I pull this knife out someone stuck inside of me, this life has crumbled why couldn’t she let me be. Broken by the hate I cannot hide, a subject to your torture excite this blood inside, did you hear me cry bound by your pain, told you I care then put my own feelings in vain. Maybe I should have listen to myself, and realize I lost the faith, she ask me how does it feel when your going to die, I replied it feels great. I never was afraid to cry, and certainly not afraid to live, I can take your shelter, so that I can have something to give.  There we go again this ecstasy of the essences of your hair, I smell your beauty, tantalize your mind then you tell me it’s not fair. Was it fair when you left me all alone! When I looked for your help to keep me strong! Was it fair when you told me goodbye! When you knew I was hurting but you pass bye with a desquise? It’s never fair to be treated that way, not now, not tomorrow, and certainly not today. I remember everything my mind has become clear, I buried my soul cause my heart died here.

Naive Blue

Mr. Frog is afraid of the dark, and we know now that it's to late. to see the sun break through her face.

All we kill remains the same, I'm lost I'm in true pain, I can't remember the words to the songs, she use to sing.

Oh how I try to forget the day, that my love flew away, and I know it won't come back again. 

The spiders spawn a web in a decaying wind, you don't love me, so why would you call me your friend.

You can leave my message on the table. I forgot my trust on the broken shoes laces.

This is not tears I cry, these are broken dreams and deadly lies, yes I won't disguise my feelings for you, Naive Blue.

I just wonder who will kill your demons for you, I know I could learn to love another one day.

But all she could say, it's that you have to know when to run away.  sweet hurt, a shatter heart.

Mr. Frog is still afraid of the dark...

No Bullshit

I saw an element for destruction, brewing nightmares and blood sucking disease's in a pot. Such venom was meant to be drank by grateful souls like you and me.These contemplating thoughts in my head, I was picking roses because their beauty reminds me of you. Oh how they dried out and their petals fell off to the bleakness of a bleeding floor. You can't forget who you are, you can't forget why you came. This is love you have inside this is hate you have to blame. Remember who you are, remember through your tears. We all become something, you must remain powerful in this fear. I won't forget you my friends, I'll die with you all in my hearts. How could I forget you my friends, losing your smiles could tear my soul apart. I saw an element for destruction, and I ripped through the pages of that sullen song. Even though the sky grew angry, and the ghost was beating on my door. I started to laugh, what is fear? Because I fear no more. I looked to the right and saw you, I looked to the left and saw what I use to be. You all said "we really shuck the peelers of heaven didn't we" And I said. No bullshit.

No One Fears
An Original Literary Articulation by Theron Jackson

Here is a description of a better place, where no one lies of their past years
And there goes a mirror, shattered from the rocks, made from all my tears

“Never” is a negative term that shouldn’t be used in my paradise
Lost little girl, feeding from white grapes, slices my tongue with her strife 

Can I beg you for a kiss? Would it void everything in my memory that I miss?
Yes, June is another year away, and I am getting younger
Just something atypical to say

Should I fear a bomb crashing through my window while I sleep?
I should fear my conscience; a stereotype for the deceased

Words are jumbled up; confusion has made a bed in my head
Though we see even when we’re blind, may I live to kill the time? 

Sad, beautiful shadows inflate my sad balloon
Wishing upon a star, waiting for her flower to bloom
“She’s not coming back, son.” That’s what his father said
“She still loves you, son.”
But no gentle words can resurrect the dead

Look at the time, my dreams will find me soon
Here’s a rhyme for you all -
May you live peacefully in tomorrow’s afternoon

Editing credits to Lauren Avet

• Aug 22, 2007

Sand bags of sorrow

I woke to rain dancing on my window payne, sometimes life will represnt all the words you mean. Tomorrow, another season away, another season of forgotten names. You should hold on to what matters the most, the rain will keep dancing, like the mist surrounding a ghost. Lost pages water damaged, from your tears, I know life can hurt with words one can say. I know love, its every reason for me not to stay. Maybe what were fighting for could only end in strife, what a lovely suicide wipeing blood off her knife. I knew time was coming to an end, she saw hurt, and she didn't want to hurt again. Yesterday I woke to rain dancing on my window payne, only life will represent all the words you mean. I brush the blood away from her letter, in her words we all die here tomorrow. To me its just another day, and one more sand bag of sorrow.

take my sun away

Take My Sun Away
By:  Theron Jackson

Dying with such sweet sorrow,
My name is words built to keep the demons away. 
Yeah, maybe tomorrow we’ll find our way home.
When I get there, can I borrow your coat to keep myself warm? 
It’s cold staring at the moon, feeling the universe. 
Plot reasons the sky is going to fall. 
No one remembers their dead,
We keep breathing,
Hoping it won’t end. 
Is it where I live that makes me feel this crazy
Or maybe just thoughts too many won’t stop playing in my head? 
You talk too much; those are words I remember someone said. 
What are you going to do? 
Well I assume that one must take his sun away
So that it can shine in happiness one day. 
There are too many tears to fight,
Too many years behind. 
Lots of fear's and dead birds clinging to decaying vines. 
No, we don’t have time,
No, we can’t run away. 
Yes, tomorrow may never come. 
Dying, just losing our way. 
Home? 
When I get there,
Can I borrow your coat to keep myself warm? 

• Mar 28, 2006

The angel and a lie

It seems we all live with a desquise. Killers of wisdom, killers that cry. I only want some one to talk too. Just to see things their way, but theres no one to talk to at least not today. Though we die blind, maybe our dreams swim through the skies alone. We just erase ourselves until were almost gone. Maybe one more time I'll wish to see your face, I want to hug you, I want to be in an angels grace, but were just lies told from the lips of nothingness and black seas. Do you love from your heart? Or do you see love as a diease? I'll cross the line a million times, and I'll still be alone. We'll kill our dreams just to hear another dying song. Maybe I'll find some truth in your lie, maybe I'll see tomorrow through some one else's eyes. What angel? What ghost? What truth? The window stays open the candle burns so there's a light for you to come home to. 

Through the lines of Love and Lost

Percious dancer in the moonlight, your song beckons my grave. In this life you can only acheive what you put forth. I believe in heart, and thoughts of truth, but my soul is jaded. Yearning for all I cannot have, with theses eyes I see a beauty waiting to be born. Such lovely cancer in the sunlight, broken words for killers to kill. How I wish we all could be saved like a dream we want to be real. Just know your heart will destory you, all your hopes of love, all those hugs you'll miss. Time will end upon jagged rocks bloody tears as the waves crash in. I know you dream of me, and what we had. The snow won't fall in the morning, and the lillies won't be cover in dew. Please play me another song, like fading pictures as this life goes by. Sometimes you can only sit and wonder, how did it go by so fast, that you could never take time and look back. No one can see in the dark, but if you could its like staring through the lines of Love and Lost.

Where ever the rainbow goes

Wherever the rainbow goes, she says they follow. This lesson was learned on my own, what is it thats calling me? A disillision, to many gentle seasons of my rebirth. Careless like my bubble intergraded through my demise, this killer wiping blood off a heated gun. It's five o'clock a.m. I'm bleeding. This world has me stress, the argument was uncall for but she push it. Stop begging me to do this, none of us were capable to deviate songs from hell's lullaby.I've chosen lesser painful thoughts, unruly destructions I'll call her a bitch. That unpredictable word, " flatliners" ugly girls sniffing on white lines to improve their figures far to fat for the mirror. It kills to be jaded, way to many lessons to learn to fast. I'm a mess all those tears making the sun feel like it doesn't belong. None of this has to be a factor, the sad stories concluded while being murdered by demons. The dreams of heaven, angels making love under the willow tree, the smoke is getting in my eyes, far to unstable to be inccomplete. I listen to the whispers chant the words I love, God knows how much I do, but does it ever get any better? I thought it would but pain seems to be my only true friend, maybe thats how it is for everybody? Oh how I remember as if it was yesterday, she ran away from me. I shouldn't have said what I did, Words can cut like a knife she said with tears running down her face. You don't know me, so don't judge me! You haven't lived my life, your not God so stop trying to be! She was right I was trying to be something that I wasn't. She went home to the old house built next to the willow tree the one she always dreamed about. For days to come I constantly ponder what it would be like to see her face again. I wish I could see her just one more time. So funny I allowed myself to be trapped inside my own imagination, and she was just trying to break me free. Where can I find happiness again pretty smiles don't grow on trees to many killers cover in dead leaves, my conclusion sings songs from out of the gray.

Theron

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Whenever he was sick he would dream of fighting tornadoes - colossal grey twisters that blackened the sky and ate up the land- the kind you would only see on the weather channel and in the Midwest. Alone and without protection, he’d fight them with his fists, and though it sometimes came close, he always won. Two weeks before he died, he told me he had the mother of all tornado dreams: “There were so many of them Jen, and I lost, Jen, I lost,” he said to me. My heart dropped to my stomach. He’d never lost before. But he’d been fighting a horrible Lupus attack that stole the use of his legs, and left him bedridden. And now this dream, foreshadowing his death. Then two weeks later, he had a heart attack at age 31.

Theron was tall, over six feet, and the color of dark chocolate. He never left the house in less than perfect form. He always wore black and white Converse high tops, dark grey or black slacks, button down shirts in white or black, and grey brim hats with tiny grey-blue feathers pointing to the sky. The hats sat upon a head full of dreads with dyed tips, sometimes red, sometimes blonde.  I never tired of looking at him. There was a lot of him to love also. He had his mother’s wide hips and full belly. From the day that we met, Theron and I were rarely apart. Our friendship started with me buying marijuana from him. I’d pick him up in my Kia and we would ride to his cousin’s house and on the way there he’d do anything and everything to keep me laughing.

It didn’t take long before we were one hundred percent convinced there was no one else like us in the world.

I don’t even remember the transition from friend to soul mate. He was a sun people revolved around. I wasn’t the only one to love him, not by far. Anywhere he was became a place full of people and laughter. People would drive hours to spend time with him. They could never stay away. He made everyone laugh, but more than that- he listened to their deepest fears, and took them in as his own. He knew empathy.

My younger sisters loved him truly as an older brother. He lived with us for a while after his last parent passed. He would wake up early in the mornings and cook breakfast for my whole family. He would talk to my mom for hours in the morning, sitting at the breakfast nook, waiting for the rest of us to wake up. He became like a son to her. He was there while my sisters grew from children to adults. He became their confident. My youngest sister came to me after his death, sobbing, and told me that he had asked her to come by and she didn’t. She showed me the last text he sent her. It said, “If you don’t come by, I’m going to have to kill Alvin, and he’s the only one left of the chipmunks. The rabbits killed Simon and Theodore yesterday.” I held her and told her it was alright. He knew she had a child and was busy. He loved her. He loved us all.

For hurricane Katrina he evacuated to Tennessee with my family and I to my stepdad’s small town that may as well have been named “White-ville”. It was one of those towns with one dirt road and a school that taught kindergarten through high school. When we pulled up in my stepfather’s mother’s driveway I thought she was just about to fall over herself and die of shock. She’d probably only seen black people in movies, and here was one in the flesh, standing on her God-blessed land. You would think a six foot two, 300 pound black man would be a bit intimidating, but over the next week, Theron spent his days hiding in our room, asking me to sneak him things to eat and drink. That old white woman scared the be-jebus out of him. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life as I laughed at him hiding behind doors and running to the bathroom after I’d called out “Clear!” I teased him relentlessly. At night he kept me up laughing as he whispered in the dark that she was gonna come in, drug him and hang him from her tree. I laughed so hard my sides hurt. He made me sleep by the door so I’d wake up first if it happened.

            He wrote about it, too, a funny little story that made her a vampire. Theron was a poet. He had written over 200 poems, and many short stories. At first, his poems were about vampires and killers, autumn and girls. As he got more and more ill, death became a prominent feature in his poetry. Titles like “Hospital Bed”, “If I fall”, and “Prelude to a dying girl” were on the top of the list of poems I edited for him. They were dark pieces about being sick and alone. He was getting close to publishing a book of poetry. It would be titled “The Intrigue”. He had found a publisher and I was working with him to get his poems edited and the photographs taken that went with each poem. He was so excited about it. The last one he wrote was “The Gift”. In it he played a man who had moved away from his best friend and got word that he was dying. He came back to New Orleans to tell her. His main character in the story was also in love with her his whole life. He told me “that’s you,” and I tried to smile. I edited his death away with commas and semicolons and grammar agreements. It was my way of controlling it. I calmly revised his fears and anger and sent it back to him in neat word documents. I saw the anger, terror and acceptance of his death in the pages he sent me. I saw it, and I put it in compartment in my heart and would open it at times so I could feel what he felt. It was agonizing. He had known death for so long. Both his parents died while we were friends. I think that killed him faster than the Lupus.

A week before he died he told me everything he’d ever written was for me. I told him through crying eyes, “I know.”  Later on that night I slept in his bed and he held me and whispered in my ear,

“I’ve always loved you, Jen.”

“I know. You’re my best friend.”

 I pretended to be asleep when he whispered not too much later:

“I love you as everything. More than a friend. You are my everything.”

As I lay in his bed that night, and many other nights, I thought about what it would be like to make our friendship romantic. I owed it to him to try, because I loved him that much. One night he asked me, “Jen, can I kiss you?” We had been drinking all night and I thought maybe I should give it a shot. I loved him more than anyone I’d ever known, already. So I kissed him and touched him, and let him touch me. Nausea quickly came. It was a nightmare for me, probably heaven for him. I didn’t talk to him for weeks after; I didn’t know how to face him.

I never tried again. Two days before his final Lupus attack he was scheduled for gastric bypass surgery. He was due to lose over 200 lbs., then his attack hit. If you’ve never seen a Lupus attack, it’s a hell of a thing. It involves ambulances, steroid shots, radiation treatments, and hospital stays. It involves immense pain, and tears and dashed hopes. The dashed hopes were hard to swallow the last time around. His bypass doctor refused to do the surgery because of the condition the attack left him in. The surgery was his portal to a new life; he was going to be able to get healthy. Without the weight he would run, travel, do the things he always wanted to do but was too big and sick to do. And in the back of both our minds, we knew we were thinking the same thing without saying it, because those words would have hurt too much to say. The words were, for me, “Once you lose the weight, will I be able to love you like you want me to love you?” Maybe we could finally be together the way he wanted us to be together, just he and I, forever. I was too much of a coward to give myself to someone I wasn’t attracted to, someone fat and black. Even as much as he meant to me, I couldn’t give him the one thing he seemed to want more than anything, me.

So he took whatever I would give him. Years before, on a lazy sunny afternoon in my car, while waiting for a bridge over a bayou to open, we both sipped on snowballs, mine coconut cream and his nectar.

“Where will you be in the afterlife?” he asked me.

 Death was the furthest thing from both of our minds. This was before his parents and my dad had died; and death was something we read about in books and watched in movies. It was just a question. But it’s a question we hoped to remember forever.

“Hmm,” I thought, “I’d probably be in a field of flowers, like a wide open field of flowers. And there would be a tree…”

“A willow tree,” he interrupted. He smiled a perfect white smile and took my hand.

I smiled back. “…a willow tree, sure. And you? Where will you be?”

“If I’m not there waiting for you, you can find me in a cave, by a waterfall. I’ll be a hermit, like a cool samurai hermit, waiting there for you to find me.”

“I like that,” I replied, squeezing his hand in mine, a hand I thought would be in my life forever.

The sun was warm and our snowballs were cold and everything was good with the world.  But this was before he had his first Lupus attack. Five years later the last attack rocked him to the ground. He lost the use of his legs and was in the hospital for two months. Every day I brought him food and every day he put on a smile for me. The nurses loved him because he brightened up their day.  It was almost like they were the patients and he was the nurse.

“You have a cute nose” he’d tell one.

“Is that your real nose?” he’d ask another, laughing. When she left he turned to me and said,

“Man, I don’t like her. Her nose is ugly. She probably eats bunnies,” and we’d laugh and laugh. On his last day in the hospital he told me,

“Jen. I love you more than anything or anyone I’ve ever met, or ever will meet.” I cried and told him he was not allowed to die. If only it was that easy.

He called me every day with his walking progress.

“Today I walked to the bathroom on my own Jen!” he’d say, excited.

“Won’t be long now ‘till we’re dancing together again.” I could hear him smiling. Other days it was hard, and he’d call on those days also.

“I’m not sure I can do this, Jen. It’s so hard. My fucking legs hurt all the time. This body is failing me. I’m getting weak and I don’t know how much longer I can fight off these demons.”

“You have to be strong,” I’d whisper into the phone.

 He always described being sick as “fighting demons.” Sometimes they were his demons, sometimes they were demons from somewhere else. In the end he never conquered either one. There just wasn’t enough time.

If I had made it on time, I would have been there to see him die. I was supposed to pick him up and take him to a poetry reading, but I was running late due to an impossible computer lab. I had sent him a text saying:

         “I won’t be able to make it in time. I’m sorry and I love you!”

 He wrote back saying:

        “I don’t feel well anyway. I love you too.”

 When I got out of lab I sent another text asking him if he was ok. I got a text back that simply said,

“I’m sorry to tell you, but Theron has passed away.”

I wrote him back and told him not to ever joke that way. My heart pounded as I waited on a response. I got a bit angry. A phone call from his roommate moments later let me know that he had died. “Passed” is how she put it in a voice that could have been relaying the weather conditions on Hwy 90. I don’t remember the ride home from the university. All I remember is collapsing in my mother’s arms. My mother was strangely calm; I guess she had seen it coming. Everyone had. I wouldn’t accept it; he was always so strong.

            Everything collapsed. My long term relationship ended with my boyfriend. I dropped all my classes but three and failed the computer class that kept me away from him that night. Turns out everything I was doing was supported and driven by my relationship with Theron. I was taking my classes so that upon graduation I could buy a house for Theron and I to live in. I was dating my boyfriend because Theron loved and approved of him. He thought he was safe and good for me. I often wonder if I had left my boyfriend earlier and dated a jerk would Theron have hung around longer to make sure I was fine?

 I drove to my hometown in silence that night and considered the trees along the highway, and which one would be best for a final crash. As I ran out of trees I considered the sharp objects in his room and if they would make a burial plot big enough for both of us. When I got there though it was occupied by his friends and roommates. I stayed for a while then I left, ill to my stomach, and went on to another friend of mine’s house, where the people who truly loved him ended up anyway and stayed up two days drinking and talking about him. Sometime in that period his sister called and asked me if I wanted to see his body before they cremated him.

            There were other people there, at the funeral home. I think they were crying. They may have been sobbing. They may have been hysterical and out of their minds. He was already laid out on a slab, a sheet pulled over his head. The funeral home director pulled it back and exposed his naked flesh to the waist. It was hard to look at him so I focused on his left arm. I stared at it. I held it in my hand and put my right arm next to it to complete the phrase we’d had tattooed on our arms three short weeks before. My arm: “Mona lisas..”. His arm: “..and MadHatters”. My arm was pale and his was the color of ash. My tattoo was in red and his was in black. The words still fit; the font similar. If you’ve ever had a soul mate, you know that there is a world where only the two of you exist. “Mona lisas and Madhatters” was our world. And soon there would only be half of us left, like half of the tattoo. I touched his face; it was stiff and chilled. I kissed it anyway.      

            I often think of what I miss the most about him. I think what I miss the most is hearing his voice simply say, “I love you, Jen.” I thought for a while it was our jokes about squirrels and rabbits and other silly things. I thought it may have been his brawny hair, or the way he smelled, or the way I always wanted to touch him.  Or his style, his brim hats and converse, the way he always looked so good. The way he would introduce me to new people: “This is Miss JEN SOIGNIER” he’d say with a beaming smile, like he was introducing the love of his life. He was. He was the love of mine.

            I selfishly miss receiving his texts and phone calls, his attention. I’ve made a few friends since but nothing sticks; it’s not even close to the same. It’s like having Velveeta Mac and Cheese from a box after you’ve had pasta under the stars in Italy. This feeling of being bored-I was never bored- because Theron was always there. It’s hard to get used to. I miss the nights of wine. I miss the sushi trips he loved so much. I miss the way he looked last year, like a kid in a candy shop, when I bought him his first birthday cake. He walked in on that and his eyes lit up.

“You bought me a cake!?! My first cake! This is so cool! I love you guys!” he laughed.

 It was such a simple thing, but so important to him. I’m thankful for the things I could give him: for the cake, for the dinners I brought him, the Christmas and birthday presents, for the hats and the tats we have matching. I’m thankful for the love I could give him, though it’s never enough. I wish I could have given him more. I wish I could have loved him romantically, and had his child, so that we would live on. This is my biggest regret. He always told me we would make the most beautiful child, and he was probably right.

            He wasn’t well educated. He wasn’t pretty, or sexy. He wasn’t a particularly hard worker or a rich man. He wasn’t a lot of things that others need, but he was mine. Some people looked at him and saw just a fat, sick, poor black man, but I saw so much more. Now that he’s gone I have to live for us both, and make it worthwhile. My only hope is that wherever he is, he knows that I love him more than I ever realized. In the words of Sir Elton John:

“I thank the Lord there’s people out there like you...while Mona Lisas.. and Mad Hatters, sons of bankers sons of lawyers, turn around to say “good morning” to the night, for unless they see the sky, but they can’t and that is why, they know not if it’s dark outside or light.”

My Mad Hatter is now in the light.

            

how i became a lesbian spinster english professor, or, thank you mom.

How I become a Neo-Feminist Lesbian Spinster English Professor, or, Thank You Mom.

Houma, Louisiana, or “Coma” as my cousins from Colorado call it, is a Catholic town of less than 300,000 people, set on the winding brackish bayous of the most southern tip of “Louuusiana”, as the locals say it. Ten years ago, the population was less than 100,000. There are many stories about how people come to stay there, ranging from the typical story of being born there, to cars breaking down on their way through that held families who never left. My reason for being there was the former, though I understand the latter. The town is something of a black hole. Whole days are spent planning escape, yet little comes to fruition. My family was no different. The weeks were spent working the 9-5, living good Catholic Republican lives. That included us, on the surface. When I was a pre-teen, my mother decided I would no longer go to public schools. She enrolled me in Vandebilt Catholic High School, the one private school in town, ignoring my tears. She stood her ground. He reasons were sound: she wanted me to get a good education and have the right kinds of friends.  She was very strict about the latter. The right kinds of friends were the kind whose mothers watched over them (and me) like hawks; the kind of friends who stayed away from drugs and alcohol. When I was a young child, she made me call my best friend at the time and tell her I could no longer hang out with her. Through tears, I asked my mother why, and got the worldly answer of “she’s not going to end up in a good place in her life.” At ten, this answer seemed mystical, and my mother, powerful. She could see into the future. It turned out she was right. The friends she picked for me graduated with Masters in Business and Law while the friend she made me leave behind ended up pregnant at sixteen.

By no means was my mother a “Southern lady.” First off she was as atheist as the day was long. “You’re gonna go to Vandebilt,” she said to me, “but you don’t have to believe any of what they tell you. Remember, you’re there for the education. There is no Jesus.”

My mother also was a liberal. She taught me masturbation was ok as long as it was in private, and that My Body Is My Own. The latter was a record she made me listen to over and over while pointing out the parts of my body that were not ok for strangers to touch. She ran a Montessori school in our house when I was young. At the time Montessori was considered an “alternative” style of teaching children. That’s why she chose it. She had me reading at age three and introduced me to Jack London at age eleven. I thought Call of the Wild was the most boring thing I’d ever read. I traded it in for Stephen King’s It at the used book store by the mall. She was tall, and sweet, and gave good advice, and knew how to cook where the other moms just ordered pizza or took us for burgers. My hand-picked friends would curl up in her lap, and preferred sleepovers at my house because my mother would help us build tents and teach us games and stories. When I got older and it was time to steal our parent’s cars, I was the only one who wasn’t punished, because she had done the same when she was young and she didn’t believe in punishment really, anyway. When I was twelve and my father refused to give up marijuana, she came into my room and told me calmly that they were getting a divorce. When my Dad left her with nothing, she worked impossible hours and still was there to be my best friend. Today she lives next door to me, and I see her constantly. So looking back now and knowing that I never gave her the one thing she wanted is a rather hard pill to swallow.  

She only wanted one thing. This thing she wanted was carefully sounded out with warm lips pressed to my young ear at quiet sun-lit moments of my life, probably carefully chosen by her to remain like shining diamonds in my memory. “You catch more bees with honey than vinegar” was a favorite saying of hers, and she lived it. Her favorite time to tell me was as I was sitting on my four-post bed, the afternoon sunlight gently bathing the room with soft striped shadows of light. She’d brush out my long dark hair, identical to hers in every way, and repeat it to me like a mantra.

“I want you to marry an English professor.”

So simple, this one thing my mother wanted from me. I could give it to her. How hard could it be? And so began my quest for my mother’s approval.

In retrospect, I tried, I truly did. My first few years in high school passed by quickly, but as I my body changed into a woman’s I found myself looking at the boys around me knowing that they’d never be good enough for Mom. In tenth grade, my English teacher was a woman. In eleventh; a closeted gay man. In twelfth; another woman. I struck out there. But in truth my high-school thoughts were elsewhere. They were on my body and on the changes in me. My hair got longer, my breasts fuller, my hips wider. I started to notice boys as they became more than just basketball friends. Mom thought it was great I was “becoming a woman”. She took me shopping for bras and had responsible conversations with me about abstinence and sex.  I examined every inch of my body in the mirror in the bedroom, giggling at the changes. I poked and prodded. Things bounced. I poked my friends. They bounced. We giggled. We wore our socks higher and our plaid uniform skirts shorter. I don’t know if the boys noticed, but one teacher did. Mr. Moreaux, my ninth grade science teacher, began winking at me before class and in the halls. I’d hang around after class with a few other students, and he’d tell us of his dream girl, describing me while staring into my eyes. I fell, hard. I started lining my eyes, my lips and my fingernails with paint, hoping he’d notice. My afternoon mirror examinations became more critical. As I walked the halls of my school my eyes wandered over the other girls’ bodies, and every inch, every strand of silky hair I mentally compared with mine. Every body part stood up to theirs, except one. My butt was flat as a pancake, while many of theirs were round as the sun. Their skirts fell over their behinds in perfect bell-shaped forms like drops of Hershey’s Kisses. As I climbed the stairs behind them, their oval derrières bouncing with upright glee, my own pancake anterior fluttered in shame. My friends confirmed it through relentless teasing. “Pancake butt!” they’d giggle, laughing.  I’d grumble and spin around so they couldn’t see the lack of bell shaped perfection. Oh, the horror of being so bubbly challenged! 

            Soon, I couldn’t take it anymore. Mr. Moreaux’s flirtations began to taper off. Surely it was because of this burden on my backside. How would I ever attract the English professor mom so vehemently wanted me to marry with this thing? There must be a way, I thought. I sat and racked my brain for hours. Then suddenly, it came to me. Socks.  My heart raced as a smile slowly rearranged my face. The answer was socks. Socks I whispered out loud. I could put socks in my underwear! That school day dragged on and on as I waited impatiently to go home and raid my sock drawer.  Daydreaming of socks and the perfect plaid butt, I spent the day in a daze. I wondered during History if I should use the long white socks we wore to school? Science came and went and I wondered if tape would hold them in place, or some levied system of shorts and tight underwear. I impatiently tooted my way through clarinet practice until finally I raced upstairs, fending off mom’s questions about my day, and found myself in my bedroom, door shut and locked, facing my wooden dresser. I slowly opened the sock drawer. Where to start? I picked out the long white socks, turning them thoughtfully in my hands. Yes, they would work. Giggling to myself, I put the white socks in my cotton undies, rearranging them so that they looked like two cheeks, a perfect bubble.  Then the moment of truth came: I pulled down my plaid skirt over my new butt. Twirling around in the mirror, my reflection beamed at me with a smile, and a perfect bell-shaped buttock. Success!

            The next week or so was the best week of my high school life. Attention: I had it. The popular girls stared at me through narrow eyes as I took my place next to them on the stairs, my butt now one of the bouncing leaders. Other unlucky pancake-shaped girls now followed my backside gait to their classes, the fruit of my labor level with their eyes. I’m sure they wondered. I didn’t care. I flaunted my new found half-pound freedom all over campus, and especially in Mr. Moreax’s class. Oh, those days of bliss! Was it my imagination or did he pay me more attention than before?  It seemed his clear blue eyes followed me out of class. But I was soon to learn anything good didn’t last, not for girls like me, the awkward, smart ones.

 It was a stormy day in English honors when it happened. So stormy, in fact, that I was late waking up, and didn’t take the time to wear my usual under-skirt shorts that held those soft white cottons of confidence in place. I figured, what the hell, one day won’t make a difference. Besides, I’d gotten so used to them that I almost imagined they would stick to me out of habit and loyalty. Surely they were as happy with their newly appointed importance in my life as I was!

            It was a test day and the class was quiet with eyes on their papers. This diversion of attention is the only thing that kept me from transferring out of state and possibly out of the country after what happened. It went like this: I got up, turned my test in, and sat down. The next one up to turn in their test was hands down the most popular, beautiful and smart boy in my eleventh grade class, Matt Matherne. He came from a long line of Dr. Mathernes and had class and wealth along with looks, intelligence, kindness and the role of the high school quarterback. You know the type.  Blond hair, blue eyes, tall.  Everyone loved him, popular or not. He had the locker next to me and I still remember the first time he told me “Hi”, in eighth grade.  He was THAT guy. Ah, Matt Matherne. How many girls wished they’d get close to him? How many girls wanted an intimacy with him, of any kind? Well, I got it, just not in the way I’d ever dreamed of.

Matt stood in the middle of the class, holding a long, white, slightly damp sock. “Hey, Mrs. Manns, how’d this get here?”  He asked our teacher, interrupting the class. He turned it over in his hands, his eyes lit with curiousity. Of course! It was strange! Everyone thought so. Everyone but me. Oh this was not just any sock; it was the sock that moments before had been nestled tightly in my underwear for a period of hours. The whole class looked up from their tests as he stood there, dangling it from his fingers. He shook it a bit. “Does this belong to anyone?” Mrs. Manns asked the class. She and Matt stood waiting. The class looked around at each other, giggling, while I tried to avoid eye contact without looking guilty. My face was bright red; I could feel the heat rising off my cheeks. It was mine; it had to be. I shifted in my seat and felt it--one half of my butt was flat as the horizon, while the other sock, the non-traitor sock, still sat snuggly against my behind. My thoughts raced forward at a rate that surely broke Newton’s and Einstein’s laws combined. One thought stood out from the others like a giant gold glittered blinking Vegas Casino sign: HAD ANYONE SEEN IT FALL????

            As class let out I raced to the bathroom and pulled out the one lone sock that had stayed loyal till the end. I stared at it, then wrapped it in toilet paper and threw it in the trashcan. The rest of my day was spent with my ears bristled, jumping at every girl’s giggle. Paranoid beyond belief, I wondered if every whispered conversation was about me and my sock. The story spread throughout our small Freshman class as people told and retold it during recess, then again at lunch, then before and after class. “Where had it come from?” It was a strange occurrence, I agreed, face burning. I tried to laugh. It came out high and nervous. The image of Matt Matherne holding my sock, probably still warm and damp in his hand played over and over in my head for days. I lived in constant terror, torturing myself, waiting to hear the words that would mean the end of my high school life, and probably the beginning of my stint as a missionary in Africa. Finally the day passed, and the story died out, replaced by new ridiculousness that is the gossip of high school.  I silently said a thank you prayer and joined the ranks of the pancake-behinds, once again watching the bell-shaped bubbles dance in front of me on the high school stairs. It was better this way, I thought to myself, and I didn’t even mind so much when my friends teased me. If only they knew what kind of ammo I almost gave them. I decided never again to try to change myself in this pursuit of mom’s dream. If I was to nab a professor, it would have to be with the gifts God gave me.

            I graduated from Vandebilt a few years later. I saw Mr. Moreaux at an outdoor festival not long after. He kissed me on my cheek, dangerously close to my lips.  He’s the closest I ever came to my mom’s wish. But as time went on and I entered college, my mom’s enthusiasm doubled. Surely now I would make all her dreams come true! Who could resist her daughter’s beauty, creativity and intelligence? She told me, “Now is the time, now you’ll meet him! Your life will be perfect.” Perfect—what was so perfect about marrying an English professor? Did she think her life would be full of evenings of mother-daughter-daughter’s husband-readings of Thoreau by the fire with glasses of fine red wines? First of all, we live in the South. No one lights fires and hardly anyone reads Thoreau. What kind of psychological bullshit was she trying to pull; was this her having me live out her own dream? Why was the title “English Professor” so profound? To this day, I’ve never gotten an answer that made sense. When asked, she only says, “It’s just how I picture your life.” Well ok.

            I took a break from school and traveled to Turkey to teach English. I told her before I left that I’d come back with a husband. “An English teacher!” she called out to me as I walked to the plane. I rolled my eyes. But in essence I tried to find the closest thing. I came home with a Turkish opera singer with multiple degrees. A true metropolitan, he stole her heart. We listened to Debussy and he sang her songs in Italian. He won awards for his wild-life photography. He knew how to fold his napkins and what forks to use at dinner. He loved to shop for shoes.  Our first date, his friend played the violin while by candlelight he sang a cavatina from Don Giovani.  He picked out my first bottle of women’s perfume. And most importantly, he talked to my mother.  Maybe I should have known him longer than a month before we married. I’m still surprised it lasted two years, though strangely enough that’s the time it took him to get his visa.

            After that….whatever it was, I enrolled at the University of New Orleans. My mother not-so-gently reminded me of her wish, and that I was getting older. “Maybe it’s time you find your life partner and settle down?” But every English professor I had was married, until my junior year. Studies in American Literature with Dr. Hazlett: a divorced bachelor with small children. Older, for sure, but brilliant. I sat in front, and it was Mr. Moreaux all over again, at least in my head. Was that a wink? No? I thought I saw it...in reality it was the sun in his eyes, but that didn’t stop me from making a fool of myself and inviting myself over to his house for wine. How shocked he must have been, and what a gentleman he proved himself with his response.

“I’m out of the country right now, but maybe when I get back? “

Then later: “Saturdays, Sundays aren’t good for me.” “ Oh?” “ Sorry, Wednesdays are kids’ night.”

At least I had some integrity and gave up at that point, bowing out with a simple, “I do hear that kids change your life.”

            I’m thirty now, and what may look like straight out rebellion to my mother is just really me giving up. I’m tired of trying to fulfill her dream; honestly now I just want to be alone. Alone with cats. And music, and what I want to watch, who I want to see. I hear there have been great strides in vibrators. It’s enough. I even thought about girls, but that would break my mom’s heart. I mentioned it once to her, just gently, asking in a round-about way what she would think of one of her daughters coming home with a woman. She looked me in the eye and told me she could never deal with it. I imagine her liberal strength evaporated with her ovaries after her hysterectomy. Or maybe everyone has their limits. So that was the end of that. But surely anyone would be better than who I’m with now, the Cajun Redneck. She hates him. Perhaps that’s the real reason why I’m with him, because truly I’d rather be alone.

            So it may seem I’ve gone the route of rebellious daughter to some, surely to her. I can only laugh at what I’ve become. My stumble from poetic grace to white trash has been thorough. Just last month, I chained a used transmission from an old truck my boyfriend owned to my porch so no one would steal it; I have dirty glass cups, a beer can, and smashed cigarette butts on my lawn. I don’t have a washer or dryer; I hang my clothes up on a line. I hung my wet underwear out of the window on a ride to my hometown so they would dry by the time we got there, while the Redneck and I rode in my jalopy with no bumper, radio, or a/c; decorated by window wipers that no longer worked but stood straight up to the sky, he in his “wife-beater” t-shirt with a beer in each hand, the two of us sharing a single iPod. On the way there he thought he saw a UFO. Oh, how Mother is so proud. “Is THAT a life choice?” she asked me, pointing toward my house, toward him. I walked out. It’s too much to be unhappy and have your mother know it also.

            She’ll win in the end. She always does. Don’t ever fool yourself: as long as they are alive, you are never free from your parents influence. The lucky ones are the ones who are free after they are dead. Sometimes that’s not even enough to break the intensity of the mark they have left in your brain. So whether it’s a Redneck, an Opera Singer, or finally one day: an English professor; it’s still her life I’m living.  But I have a surprise for her. If she keeps on pushing me this way I’m gonna end up with an English Professor, all right. A Neo-Feminist Lesbian Spinster English Professor: Me.

Istanbul

                Istanbul

Ikindi. It’s the afternoon call to prayer.  The time is 17:07 and the afternoon shadow races along the cobblestone street in battle with the diminishing sunlight. The slow overhead circling of seagulls seems to synchronize into a silent dance as the Imam starts to sing.  "Allahhhhhhhhhh." There is a pause. "Allahhhhhhh." The Imam draws out the name of God in one long deep breath that penetrates the air. Another Imam calls from his tower. "Allahhhhhhhhhh."  "Allahhhhhhhh." Each chant calls forth an internal silence from the people. The words sit heavy in the air.  The once busy street slows to a stop, frozen like an ancient mosquito trying to escape some prehistoric amber. I can hear my heartbeat in the silence between prayer. The streets are empty; people have disappeared moments before, involved in a dance of their own. Inside the mosques and in street corners on unfolded prayer rugs they move back and forth in a seeming trance from their knees to their foreheads, barefoot, engulfed in an unwavering devotion to God. As an alien I am stunned by the beauty of the moment. Time stands still. I feel myself upright, I know I am there, but I’m also caught in history, transported through time. Past and present have merged into one. I stand in the plaza of Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque, its rounded tips and dark blue circular corners casting tall shadows, towering over the cracked stone streets under my feet, the air full of the smell of fried black sea anchovies and fresh clams, lemon, and the squalls of the salty Bosporus. I hold reverence in my own small way, not touching the cold hard stone of the visitor’s benches and not moving advantageously through the empty street of stalls and vendors to beat the crowd to my next destination.The pale blue of the sky holds vault over the ancient city and as the people and birds move together I absorb what magic it is to be in Istanbul. 

Enter Decator Street.

Jennifer S.Tem

Enter Decatur Street, downtown, ancient New Orleans. Time has not changed the area much. See the cracked street before you, torn and worn with 300 years of wear. It’s late. Dawn is still a few hours away. But the street is not quiet. In a corner a man sleeps, his face curled in his arm, turned away so you cannot see. His dog, a shepherd, watches you with soft eyes as you pass. You make eye contact with him and he seems more human to you than anyone you have met tonight. There is sorrow in his eyes that disturbs you behind the numbness you feel. You’ve been drinking for hours, and the street is a mellow haze. Strangers pass you, their footsteps hard against the ground. Stumbling along, “there” but not, you almost pass it up. A dingy yellow sign hides it in plain sight. Before you knew it existed, you walked pass it many times. Someone had to bring you there to make you aware. There is no door, only dirty plastic strips that hang down in your face. You push them out of the way and make your way inside. It is always the same. Behind the bar is the most beautiful boy you have ever seen. His golden hair and light eyes smile into yours as you enter. “Hey!” he calls out, welcoming you into the indoor night. Now take a seat at the bar. It’s long and you sit next to a man in a black shirt and beard. He turns to you with interest. “Come down in time” he reads off your back. You nod. You are still waiting to meet the person who knows that phrase and with it, you. It won’t be him.  

You turn around in your seat to make sure everything is the same. The Beatles poster hangs upside down and once again you wish it were in the back so you could put it in your purse and take it home. You love it, and you don’t love most things. In your bag you still have the book you found that a leprechaun-man gave you that night your best friend turned 21. The whole series once graced the shelves of the bar but over time you and your friends, and random strangers, have picked their favorite pieces. You chose The Thrall of Hypno. Number 20. Running your fingers over the remaining books makes you feel lonely. Number 11 is leaning next to Number 56, its cover bending away from 56 as if it knows it’s not in the right place. You want to move it but there is no other place for you---it---to go.

Making your way toward the jukebox changes your mood. Turning the page of the cds brings your friends closer to you. Elton John. Push. Queen. Push. Mika. Push. Three 1.75 dollar Paps Blue Ribbons later you hear Grace Kelly and feel at home.  Once upon a time you would write here, with your best friend, both of you with laptops open on the tall tables next to the red leather sofa, writing about the people around you, most of them wearing black and beards and boots. Giggling at each other over one too many beers. But that was a time before you betrayed her for a boy you didn’t even love. Now you are here alone with the bearded men and the dark bathrooms that don’t lock. If you really hit bottom there is coke available there if you let a fat man kiss your breasts. But you aren’t there tonight.  Tonight you are on a dark wooden stool with a cheap beer and a man behind a bar that lets you believe, for a small price, that you could be his. He’s selling the dream in sleeveless shirts and you are buying it from him in tips larger than you can afford. It’s a balance that only works if you let yourself lie at a timeless bar with a jukebox you can control. This is what’s for sale; control.

Control. This makes you remember the night you watched a boy rejected by girl after girl through quiet dark eyes. Then, when it was over, you took his hand and led him to the jukebox where you paid for him to play whatever he liked. He chose every Michael Jackson song available. And together you danced and discovered his talents, while the same girls looked on, jealous, wondering how you could be so free.  You weren’t about to tell them the simple answer; that all it takes is a heart that says yes instead of no. For a while he had the control you bought with your money and love. For a while he was invincible.

But back in this hour the sun shines through the plastic, barely penetrating the darkness inside. Inside it is eternally 3 am. By now you’ve sworn your love over sticky bar counters to whatever bearded person was “kind” enough to buy your drinks. By now you’ve danced to every song you spent your last dollars on while jocks and freaks alike have moved stools out your way and twirled you around their fingers. “I want to see you kiss” they say. You laugh and turn away. Not tonight. Tonight is for counting the fake spiders hanging from the ceiling and tonight is for the shadowed benches in the back to stay empty of entwined bodies with no names. Tonight you know your name.

List of complaints.

1. Pervs. Have a new job, and omg is it full of pervs.
2. Appreciation. I do everything..yet no appreciation.
3. Manners. Is it so hard to eat with your mouth closed? To pick up grocery bags for women? To not leave the table early?
4. Exercise. Tired. Exercise fixes tired. But too tired to exercise. Who came up with this shit physiology?

RAWR

Is it weird that I thought about sex with one of these things?