Pamphlet

Manila.
The walls were that washed out yellow.
Sick skin tone paint job.
Trying not to look at the walls, my eyes wandered over to the chairs.
Sharp, angular, metal and plastic.
Keeps you awake.
Anything more comfortable would put you to sleep, and we can’t be sleeping.
Have to remember all of this, they said.
It was too cold
Not cold enough to turn the walls blue.
And the crush crush crush of the wax paper underneath was starting to hurt.
Just the sound, ricocheting off raw nerves.
Crush Crush Crush.  
Manila manila manila.

There was a long waiting period.
Before he came back.
And I just lied there.
The tiles from the ceiling were going in and out of focus.
Count them.
One two three four…don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
Five, Crush, Manila.

A magazine, with this smiling baby.
Toothless, grinning, mocking.
I could hear it talking.
“Mama. Mama. Mama.”
Shut up shut up shut up.

Air conditioning, it just kept humming.
Needed to keep moving to stay warm.
Medicinal frostbite is what they were doing.
Trying to freeze me. Trying to freeze it out. No no no.
Just stay in motion.
Crush. Crush.
Mama.

He came back.
No sleeping, he said.
No sleeping.
You’ll need to be awake.
To remember.
So it never happens again. So you don’t think this is ok.
Now LAY down!
I grabbed the sides of my hospital gown
and cried while whimpering, it hurts.
I don’t want to hear it, he said. Shut up shut up shut up.
Bleach, heavy bleach.
Disinfectant, steal, and antibacterial gunk in bottles, tubes, and dispensaries.
Clean, the counter tops were so brilliant.
Jar of dry cotton balls, cotton swabs, giving me
cotton mouth.
The corners caked with parched medical powder.
  They were dehydrating me.
  Freeze it out, dry it out.
Lips shredded, divided, sore and bleeding.
Constant licking, waiting for healing.  
It just makes it worse, he said. Stop that now. And please lay down.
The baby mocking the walls vomiting
Doctor says just sit still now.

And that machine, so angry and vibrant!
The buzz so loud and arrogant.
And me, just laying there, swearing, my fingers and toes were turning black.
            I was beginning to shrivel and sear.
            I was.
And Doctor said to a nurse I only now noticed,
She’ll have no idea what’s happened.
But I do.
Oh I do.
I remember them trying to mummify me.

A pinch, some pressure.
Suck suck suck.
That seaweed, that pissed off machine.
            It’s eating me!
Doctor said, LAY STILL!
Nurse just shook her head.
Almost over.

Don’t let it happen again, they said.
That baby shrugged and says “maybe next time”
Jeering toothless bastard.
You need to get clean they said.
Junkie swollen bellies
With addicted infants
Waiting lists for welfare.

Manila prison cemetery.
Don’t let it happen again young lady.
Just don’t let it happen again.

Not So Much Like Stamps

I guess I'd have to say...Bedrooms.
How?
Not so much like stamps in a book
or
Thimbles in a box
More like film canisters in the attic.


Have a favorite?
Many. Most.
There was one
that looked like a textbook
the way all of his photos were perpendicular and parallel and pasted tightly to the walls.
The corners of my canvas always curls
and are usually stained with coffee rings.
I've never been good at sticking things
to the wall.
I spent only one night there
under the purple light he had over his headboard.
He was an artist
-no. He was an art major.

He loved me methodically
   and then maliciously when he wanted nothing to do with me.
His roommates pretend they don't recognize me.
He had such bad tastes in movies.
Fucking Nickleback was on his Ipod.
He had an Ipod.
He had such a bad taste.
But I slept as if I were dead on his pillow.


And?
And, there's one that's the color of wax
sunbleached cotton
and honey gone bad.
I lay there some Sunday mornings
not able to scrape my eyes off his popcorn ceiling.
I just suspend in smeared bloodless dandelion.
I feel like an allergy.
There are messes in that room that have been there since the first day I came over.


How long?
I don't like to talk about that.
There are yearbooks
from April. Because I remember when he snuck into his parent's late at night.
I waited in the truck
in the middle of the street
in the middle of the night
in the middle of...all of it.
He brought back these yearbooks to show me
proof
he really didn't have braces.
And they're still laying on his floor.
They're still there?
Who am I to judge? I'm still there too. Like hay fever.


Another one.
There's this one
with Christmas lights.
....and?
I want this one.
You know I hate winter.
I dislike the layers, shirts over shirts and coats and scarves, mittens. Skin needs to inhale and it can't when it's so...brumal, and how dry the skin around my fingernails gets, I peel back the layers. Stick it in my mouth.
Suck.
But I probably could have left my car running for days.


What's that got to do with anything?
Everything. There's no pollinosis. It's just too cold.
But never mind, tell me, what do you collect?

463 North 3rd Street

There was this winter night where I got a phone call after I got off of work from a boy named James telling me to meet him on the corner of such and such streets. Where he kidnapped me and took me across town to what he referred to as “not his bar” but a good one. He held my hand while we trekked through stiff snow that bit at my ankles in a group of strangers with even stranger faces and even stranger laughs. These people were my age but I felt so young trying to step in the footprints they made in the snow.

Into this bar we filed in and dispersed and James began giving me an acrimonious tour of the place. He pointed out who, at the time, were regulars. Who he had fucked, who he had tried to fuck, who had fucked him. Who was good, who was real good, and who had bad jokes and bad taste in music. Who could hold their drink, who pretended, who dressed the part and who was the part.

He ordered me a seven and seven. I’ve never had another since.

That night James got smashed and showed me a tattoo he said he never shows anybody. And almost got his ass kicked by a guy who had less to drink and better tattoos.

That was the first time.

There was another winter night nearly a year later where a girl came to me and asked me to take her to a bar. I made plans on going to what was my favorite barroom, a hole in the wall. Small, dark, seedy but not desperate. You come or you don’t. And most don’t, which is why I love this bar. Across from a dollar theater and always has a parking space, this is where I would take her. But she was not impressed by the empty parking lot, or the size of my bar. She was looking for people, she was dressed for people. So I took her to the same place James took me.

And there we shook off passes made to us, and declined the free drinks. Which I guess is what she was looking for.

This was all before he was 21.

On his 21^st birthday, at midnight he wanted to buy liqueur because he could now. And so I drove him straight to this bar because it was the closest one to his apartment that was still open. He handed over his ID and while the man looked it over for the birth date this boy got cocky and said “Don’t worry, it works out”.

After that this boy started showing up at this bar more and more and I found myself not wanting to show up so much because I don’t care for the way he ignores me when there are people around us breathing.

This is not my bar anyway, I concluded.

And then, there was this summer night where I walked with under the table consorts and we shared our stories of heart wreckage. We stumbled and trotted, catching our own limbs from under us until we found a back door to the infamous bar I’ve been going on about. We snuck in our 20 year old friend and decided to drink until we forgot everyone else in the world but the three of us.

This plan of harmonized amnesia would have been the exact medicine I needed only that was a night the boy was there, and decided not to ignore me. He bought me a drink and I rode on the handlebars of his bicycle to his apartment.

So I began showing up more regularly because there was a chance that night could be reenacted, or at least mocked in some drunken joke. And the girl joined me because we were not real friends, but just convenient friends, which I didn’t know at the time.

Then there was this night where all of us were at this bar, and this was a night he wasn’t pretending I was wallpaper. But it didn’t matter because this was a night she got trashed and pulled him aside to talk to him. I lost precious time with this boy to her, this girl who wasn’t my friend. Although I didn’t fully know this yet.

That was also the first night I noticed the man in the black suit who leaned against the wall with me while I stared at them through the window as they laughed together in the smoking section. The smoking section I can’t spend too much time in because my throat starts to close and I panic.

He looked on with me and told me what I already knew. And when I found another wall to disappear into, another pattern to dim myself with he’d come over and just blend in with me. We were bar scene chameleon’s and we were Siamese twins, and I just wanted to be left alone tonight, but he was there telling me what I could see for myself.

So I wasn’t going back to this bar.

But that never happens. You never stay away from the place you swear off from because there’s still that chance where your night’s going to turn into something improbable and euphoric all because you changed your mind and decided to walk down to that bar. Which somehow has become the only bar in town you ever go to.

After the girl and I parted ways due to a number of things that were never really reasons but more of excuses of why we just couldn’t be in the same room anymore, excuses I won’t argue, we would find ourselves in the same room of that bar. And so I vowed again. And again. And again. But kept finding myself there on the 3 days a week I always find myself there.

There was this night I sat at the bar and concentrated fully on how the edge of it tilts down just slightly enough to where you don’t notice until you about tip your drink into your lap. And every time I sit down at this bar it’s like I’m rediscovering it for the first time.

And the girl’s there, she’s dancing. She loves to dance. I love to watch her but right now the tilt of the counter is engrossing me. That and the fact that she hates me. I guess that’s keeping me from watching also, but right now it’s not that important as the angle of the glossed wood plateau.

The man in the black suit is sitting only a stool away from me. He’s been here every night I’ve showed up. He’s drinking a seven and seven and telling me to get my face off the bar because it’s sticky and I don’t want to break out. I wave a hand at him, trying to tell him to mind his own business. There are fibers stuck under the varnish. Particles fixed here for eternity to watch girls like me eyeing them, and they wonder why I don’t get the fuck out of here. The man in the black suit agrees, why don’t I get the fuck out of here? I’m starting to wonder myself.

But I can’t move because I’m wasted off of root beer and sick from the candy cigarettes I couldn’t keep out of my mouth after the girl told me we were never really friends. Just two girls who annoyed each other.

While I’m mouthing to the dust stuck inside the enamel asylum “Don’t worry, I’m going to get you out of here” another regular sits in between me and the man in the black suit.

The man in the black suit tells me to get my head off the counter. Sit up straight. Only he’s more serious this time, and in fear he might make me drink his seven and seven I do as he says. The regular looks at me and I suddenly become very aware that half my face is probably red from the blood trapped under my cheek that I’ve been pressing into the sticky bar. The man in the black suit tells me not to worry about it, he’s drunker than I am and he doesn’t care because he thinks I’m pretty. The regular hasn’t said a word but I know the suit is telling the truth because the regular’s pulling my bangs apart Just. Like. So.

And the dance floor, the pool tables, the smoking section, they all just cave. People are probably screaming under the concrete and wood’s splintering like supernovas. Broken glass shards and ruptures through the red and gray brick dust that’s blooming up from the floor. I can see chalk, mirror pieces, and teeth flying past the three of us, the man in the black suit, the regular, and me. Yeah people are probably screaming.

I couldn’t hear anything though. Just felt the way he ran his fingers through my hair.

That was the night I claimed the bar as mine. 

I'll be waiting at the finish line.

It started in a crowded kitchen, early December. I haven’t seen Damian in weeks and he’s drunk. Offering me cake and burritos because that kid knows exactly how to make me fall in love. Everyone has their coats on, and there’s traffic going each way through the front door next to us. Damian’s leaning up against the oven and keeps accidently turning it on.

There’s this conversation about what it is to be the Nice Guy. To always finish last. At this age, being the nice guy is the last thing you want to be. And I can’t argue, because of this scene that took place minutes before I got here.

{In the street I’m walking to my car, where I run into Ship on his bike. He’s got his hair cut and I want to melt into the asphalt and ice. I think he can tell and in the middle of our conversation hits me with

“We’re not doing anything tonight. So just don’t think of it.”

Fuck. But it’s not a surprise when he says these things. Things that hurt but luckily I have that ego to bandaid me.}

I can’t argue with Damian because I know that after Ship gets drunk, he’s going to change his mind and he’s going to text me and ask me over. And I’ll go. Probably only for the sole fact that he’s not nice to me. (And I did).

Damian: We have one spokesperson for the Nice Guy. We got Michael Cera. That’s it. That’s fucking it.

I’m thinking, I’d do Michael Cera. But it’s not so much the point.

Damian would never tell me what to do. But, he makes a good argument on behalf of the Nice Guy. They never get the chance because in your early twenties it’s not what girls like me are looking for. Later, when we’re looking for baby batter, that’s when the Nice Guy gets his. But now, we need an asshole who’ll take us down a notch.

A few days later when a Nice Guy asks me out, I agreed.

So I go out with this really sweet kid. Really good looking, in college, has a job. But he’s timid, shy, and only 20 so I feel awkward. In conversation I feel like I have to censor myself because I’m afraid of offending him. I spend the whole night saying “freaking” and “gosh”, crossing my legs, keeping my hands to myself and trying to play Mormon.

It hits me, I am so used to the role of Nice Girl I’m not sure what my identity is when I’m with a Nice Guy. By the end of the date we’ve made plans to go out again.

Over the next week I’m reflecting, on my relationships. Who I am in relation to who I’m with. When I go out on my second date I don’t repress anything. And for 2 hours that kid sits and hears me talk about the jerks I go out with, the sex, douche bags I give my time to. Basically the only thing I ever talk about with anyone who wants to listen to me.

This guy, he’s amazing. A genuine great guy. And props to him for sitting and listening to my bullshit. But I couldn’t see myself getting involved with someone like him. So this was my way of avoiding the conversation “I don’t like you like that”. I’ve never been too keen on being brutally honest, even when I should, when it’s necessary.

After this second date I don’t think he’s interested in me anymore.

Same night I end up at the bar, feeling horrible about everything that just went down. Thinking I really shouldn’t have agreed to go out with him in the first place. Cause let’s face it, I’m that girl who digs the guy who’ll only care about her when he’s drunk and wants to get his dick wet. I’m that chick who’ll stay up for hours waiting for someone to decide if he wants me over or not…who’ll later slip up and say something that really hurts….such as mentioning the other girl he’d rather be with right now.

I have to be the victim in my relationships, so I can play the nice girl. Otherwise I’m the asshole and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

I see Damian, I tell him about my catastrophic date. He apologizes, I shrug. It’s just the way the universe works.

Alright, now. My favorite part. Same night, after the bar closes. Jk and I are sitting in my car. Heater on blast, windows down, some guy pissing in the corner. I’m looking at Jonathan Kelley and for some reason I tell him I have a secret to spill. Some secret I’ve been keeping under my tongue for weeks. Before I can say anything he just starts laughing and says “Darlin, I know more than I should already”.

This secret, I like a boy. One of those Nice Guys, only one that could probably keep up with me. Not really a secret cause I can’t keep a god damn secret about myself to save my life. But JK was the first I admitted it to.

That night, the boy I like, kissed me.

So I’ve been hanging out with him a lot. No sex. Just 18,372 second conversations. No sex. Just mix cd exchanges. No sex. Because I’m not feeling pressured.

He left today, back to his hometown. I ended up back at Shipwreck’s apartment, on his couch, and he tells me about a girl who gave him her number, with the prospect of hooking up with him. Normally not a big deal but the girl just happens to be someone who was close to me…who’s not anymore due to personality conflicts. Ship smiles and makes a comment about what it’s going to be like after he fucks her. I tell him I won’t talk to him again if he does *pause* but it’s not like it’d effect you that much. He just sits there thinking about sleeping with her, doesn’t combat my remark.

Yeah he’s kidding…hopefully. Yeah he’s just trying to get me to react. Yeah actually I don’t know why the fuck he’s telling me this.

And that’s when it happened. I’m not one of those girls. Yes, I love Shipwreck. And I have for so god damn long. Every rude or fucked up thing he’s said to me, gets written off by the pure endearment I have for that kid. It’s not reciprocated in every way I want it to be but I put up with it because I just adore the guy unconditionally.

Yeah, I love him but not enough to forgive him for what he may or may not be thinking of doing. He said he wouldn’t tell me if it happens. Cause it can’t hurt me if I don’t know about it. Then says if I get upset over it, I’m letting her win. He has no idea how offensive he’s coming off right now, or how hurt I actually am. It’s my fault; I never express myself properly when I’m hurt. I just hold my breath and hope he stops talking so I can rationalize it in my head. Pet the ego better until she can get back up again.

It’s just this whole situation of Nice Guy vs. Asshole. Damian’s right, I always pick the asshole. For some reason I like to give out a lot of love to someone who doesn’t know what to do with it.

I’m fucking sick of it.

So here’s to the Nice Guy: Watch out. I’m coming for you.

This is hardly an apology.

He calls me.

He’s not the kind to call me. Never does. In the entirety of this relationship I’ve gotten one phone call from him that’s purpose was to communicate.
I was on speaker phone, he was bragging to his friends about sleeping with me.

Tonight, he called me. At three thirty in the morning. He’s drunk and has this story of his night, explaining perhaps why he came off such a dick at the bar.

Earlier I saw him, sitting against the wall. There’s this part of me that thinks he wants me to publically acknowledge him. As my ego is telling me to go over and say hi, the rest of me is saying don’t you fucking dare.

The ego wins.

“Hello.”

And he pulls away from me like he’s scared. Like he doesn’t know me. The ego dies a little and I don’t have time for this.

Later there’s an apology over text, where I tell him I don’t understand but I get it.

So now the phone call.

Something about something that led to something. Names I don’t know, names I don’t care about. I’m listening to him waiting for him to break my heart, because the ego always puts my heart over the train tracks. He’s not talking about me at all. I have to make everything about me and my hurt feelings. I can’t follow the story he’s telling me because I’m waiting to hear something traumatic.

He keeps pausing, setting the phone down. And there’s static that's hisses at me in intervals. I’m not sure what to do. I’ve taken too much cough medicine.

My point is, my ego has a point. There’s this mental emotional tug a war I have when he’s telling me these stories about him, about what he does. When I let my guard down and just listen, he pulls out some sentence that’ll wreck me for a week. I hate it. It’s so hard to hear. So there’s this defense mechanism, where I blog while he’s talking.