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there was once a body here,
a woman, pressed off the land with pointed sticks. prickled with shining teeth embers and words filled with hate. i have half the heart to hope she melted, turned herself to rain to nourish the plants. maybe she offered her body as rations to be dragged off and licked clean by the loving creatures she freed from village traps. All right, kids. Class dismissed.
Time to join the working class. What you learned in class stays in the classroom. No need to find the volume of cones or the inverse of cosine when you should’ve learned how to cosign, to bow to bosses and cut your losses. Know that the classroom is not where class ends. That class permeates the atmosphere like the stench of foul cheese. That class clings to the walls like stubborn blood stains. That class is a construct caging clarity and keeping everyone in a certain class. at this rate
the hair on my head is more likely to be shaven than the hair adorning my legs, or hiding in the soft underbelly of my shoulders. what kind of woman am i? i miss being a child. i miss having my hair brushed and braided. but then i remember i can have my scalp scratched like a dog, and the prickles on top of my skull can still be laboriously licked clean by a cat who loves me and doesn't know a thing of showers or shampoo or beauty standards. I’ve been a not-so-serious girl, a pleasure to teach,
avant garde save this sink plug and plastic lavender on chains around my neck. I’ve been a comedy performance, a holed-up critique of the teenage girl, a series of vignettes about the same self-esteemed mistakes flummoxed in the grim light after staring back at the pale, watery eyes of the male gaze. I’ve been a starfish splayed on pool tiles, lovely and utterly sun drunk. I’ve been a clutch of flowers balled in a fist, a recommended song sitting filing my nails into pixels on a playlist or a desperate obsession for a thigh gap like a medieval conquest. I’ve borne the flame of intensity carried like kindling in my weak-willed heart: easily pleased, easily gullible, easily lit up by our own frail stars. Why wait until retirement to study those winking glints of inferno? We carry so much of their gaseous chuckles in our own pockets, our minds, further afield. Our music, our taste, to touch and know we are stuffed with the hope that humanity can at least be honest. I’ve been a graceful endeavour, a stifled laugh, never regretful of the blaze of it all, this inferno of desire. Don’t forget the world,
Where you most matter. Beneath the rough wood-- Windows that only shatter. The pieces fit so seamlessly, As if they were never touched. Infinitely and intimately, The gold rush has just begun. There is no map and certainly no treasure, For the knots have been buried For years and years, Under misread measures. Note: Story was originally published with She’s Got Wonder. They are not longer operational,
but the work can be found archived here: https://shesgotwonder.squarespace.com/journal/i- used-to-be-a-princess For those of you who dream of “Once Upon a Time”, I’ve had it. I’ve lived each picture perfect moment. Each chance meeting, every eye-opening kiss, and the most glorious of “Happily Ever After’s”. I could tell you of ball gowns and castles and of the Prince Charming who comes on horseback to rescue you from all that you have known. I have had it, and I have lived it. But I have also lost it. I used to be a Princess. Any girl can be one and any room can become an inescapable tower if you deem the conditions of your life fit to build one. And I lived in a tall tower, the foundations built from my life, and its towering visage of my own invention. I hid there for many years, melancholy, magnificent, and measured. A scared little girl in a graceful frame, watching and waiting for someone to save me from my life and from myself. It had felt as though I had been waiting for eternity, the rescue from my self-imposed exile untimely delayed. I grew more frustrated as the days went by, but I had friends in the form of birds who kept me company and sang me songs. I passed my days reading the old stories my mother had once shared with me beside my bed as I fell asleep. Whether it be day or night, I dreamed of a faraway land without trouble or care, and a man to rescue and love me, and make my life better with a single kiss. I wished for it every day. Then, my Prince Charming came. After Mary Karr, with lines borrowed from “métaphysique du mal”
In the pantry, the lychee nuts eyeball you, and here is what you think they see: a menstruating nun sneaking peach jam at dusk, unaware that she is the very confession spurned by the gloved tips of the apse-waltzers, the ones absolved of affairs with belladonnas, shriveled there, legs widespread. an odalisque of the Rococo, confidante of the cupids drowned in fountains and their insatiable, cat-eyed mothers who fled into the folds of flamenco skirts as their espresso cooled, furred with frost, everything glazed in place. When I was packing my lunch last night, I was almost impressed by how good it was. I
don't get that feeling very often of "this is exactly what you need" but last night, I got jealous of the future me who was going to enjoy this meal. So now, as I'm headed to the break room, I'm ready to devour my food. Lunch is my favorite time of day, as I can imagine it is for most people. It's the time to sit and relax. When I get hungry, I normally get grumpy so I depend on lunch to make those feelings go away. I also love my particular lunchtime because normally no one is in the break room. I take my lunch earlier than most people to avoid the traffic and it really gives me a sense of peace. I put my Tupperware into the microwave so I could set up my temporary dining table. This is my tradition and to make the tradition even better, a recap of Real Housewives of Potomac came out today so I had entertainment to accompany me. I leaned against the counter as my food sat in the microwave getting ready for me. Then my sense of peace was gone. As I was pulling up my podcast to be ready when I was going to press play, James walked through the door. James is my older coworker who used to be a cool alternative young guy and now is an alternative old guy who doesn't stop talking about the good old days. I liked James from afar. He was nice enough and told dad jokes that pained me but I managed to chuckle. It wasn't until he knew that I had seen Back to the Future or could hold a conversation about Pink Floyd, that James started to really interact with me more. I think I gave him some idea that I am an elevated, high-brow member of Gen Z. Not a regular, sticky-fingered, TikTok-watching, One Direction-loving member of Gen Z (which I am). Because of these revelations, he talks to me all the time. Whatever your “thing” is, it’s probably also somebody else’s thing.
If you’re feeling a little down, like there’s no reason to continue doing anything at this point, I would like to offer up some options for how to proceed: Option 1 Abandon your craft. You suck at it anyway. Or maybe you don’t suck, but somebody else could be doing it just as well or better, and that “someone else” will likely be more attractive, make less mistakes, and have a more engaging personality. They will be a better fit for the “energy” of the “collective,” and they will breeze through obstacles that once brought you to your knees. Set down your paintbrush, remove your character heels. They look unnatural on you. Walk barefoot into the Puget Sound and sit on the bottom with the broken chunks of asphalt that aren’t hurting anyone, wasting time, or embarrassing themselves. It is a wonderful place to be, completely separate from the opportunity to suck as hard as you were sucking previously. Option 2 Mercilessly continue doing whatever you want. Create funny trash and then frame the funny trash as if it were hanging in the Louvre. When someone else inevitably creates funnier trash than your original funny trash, make your funny trash trashier. When someone makes their funny trash even trashier than yours, unfollow them on Instagram so you won’t lose your mind and concentrate on something else, like learning how to dissociate. Eliminate preciousness from your creative process (and amass street cred) by becoming a postmodern saint of mess and mediocrity. Become startlingly unessential, dangerously mid, and completely and utterly shameless in your irony. have you ever seen a butterfly
go on a rampage? it’s a sight for sore eyes or a sorry sight for sympathetic eyes her picturesque wings fluttering rapidly in the wind her delicate body swaying trashing to escape and the giant roams with his butterfly catchers swatting, seizing, snatching prying, abducting, invading |