Oh baby baby

I'm just another girl
Just another pair of lips
Just another night.

I get it.
I get it.
I really do.
But I wish I didn't.

I wish that I could fall into the traps of your words
And believe
That maybe
For once
I am an "only" and "first" a "special unique pretty different"
Kind of girl.

I wish.

But baby you're a writer
And you've invented and experienced more things than I can even bare to imagine.

Honey, I'd love this night to be reivented a thousand times over
For us to be able to have a agonizingly wonderful time more than
Just. This. Once.

But I get it
You're a writer.
And I'm just another story.

Just another character in the book.
In the play.

Baby.
I'm a fucking actress.


I can(t) deal with it.

Travis.

he was canadian.
he was short.
he was 15.
he had long hair.
he had gray skin.
he had shiny clear eyes.
he made me laugh.
he made me smile.

and we were
so.
close.

those 10 minutes were the most valuable of my life.
that changing moment.
where I altered my perception towards everything.
and it could have been
it could have been great.

but the glass shattered.
the illusion ripped off the wall.

and perhaps in a day,
a week,
maybe a month.

you won't remember me.

but I will always remember you.
because of what you mean to me.

love doesn't take a lifetime.
love happens in seconds.
in snaps.

I've never felt like this before.
and I never will again.

perhaps we'll meet again.
somewhere between toronto and naperville.
but probably not.

the media plagues us with the assumption that love is this stretched out story of passion and devotion.
where really it could be two people talking about a cardigan.

I can safely say,
for the first time in my life,
that I was in love.
and then,
it failed.
'technical error'.

home.

i am sitting in my house

but i am not at home.

home is where i feel accepted.

home is where trust abounds, radiant and secure.

at home, i can smile and share my thoughts

and people will understand.

what is this residence in these pretty chicagoan suburbs?

this is where i sleep at night.

this is where my blood family lives.

but this is not my home.

here i am aloof from the other strangers that inhabit this space.

they fortify their walls against my protests and encroach on my own.

they slam and coerce and decimate my one corner of comfort

so the only warm, safe sancutaries are miles and walls too far

and i am left to cry standing on the threshold to nowhere.

this is not home.

i don't know what is anymore.

Espresso Stories, 8 May 2011

"Mommy, why do we have rainbows?" "Because, honey, even God makes promises he can't keep."

He looked like a bad ass Jesus; and she was crazy to nail him.

Everyone brought an item that represented their youth. Among the teddy bears and dolls; the toy soldiers and ballet slippers; the crayon boxes and VHS tapes an empty whiskey bottle stood tall-- threateing to bring back the memories.

___________________________<---sometimes we just don't have anything to say.

She wished she could be on the plane, among those sleepy people from somewhere else; instead she was stuck on the runway, just one sleepy person from here.

she peeled the final label from the sheet of plastic and wrote in black sharpie. "Gay". she plastered it to herself on top of Thin, Lonely, and Karen. 

he knelt, feigned the everlasting cross over his chest, and waited for Him to reap His subjects. 

I'd hate to be the one to tell my child that there weren't no pretty flowers to look at no more. that the bees were gone.

i wanted for us to be alone together, but now that we're together, i've never felt so alone.

"Mommy, I brought you some flowers!" "Those are weeds, honey." The little girl threw the dandelions back into the grass. "They look like flowers to me."

--Julie, Mark, Christie, and Patti

Pull the Trigger

What would it be like

to be the man who killed Osama?
What would it be like

to press the button,

to give the order,

to pull the trigger?

What would it be like

to see the people in the streets crying

Hugging each other

Waving their flags

Cheering the death of an old, unarmed man?

No, not a man--

A monster.

He killed so many

evaded us for so long

damn straight we're cheering.

But still a man

still a man with a long, long beard

and a wife who charged at the troops as they knocked down the door

maybe a heartless man,

maybe an evil man,

but still a human one.

They say that on firing squads

one gun is always loaded with blanks and mixed in with the rest

so that each member can pretend to himself that his gun was the blank one--

that he didn't kill that criminal.

Nobody wants to take a life, not even an evil one.

How many lives, I wonder,

does it take to cancel out one?

How many people does a man have to kill

before we have the right to kill him in return?

How many people before we can celebrate instead of mourn?

One million? Six million? Ten? 

How many lives until we can congratulate a murderer?

How many until it isn't murder any more?

And what about that brave, unlucky soldier

did he know the answer?

Did he wonder right from wrong as the bullet left the gun?

What did he wonder

I wonder

the man who pulled the trigger--

the man who killed Osama?

--Patti

Opposite inversed reciprical

She was dying
She was dying
Right there
In front of me
At this moment
Everyone knew she was going
Leaving
Forever
And
Ever
And.
Ever.

She was dying
But I could only think of myself
Think about how I would go on with out her
Think about what I would say at her funeral
Think about how long it would take until I could pick up the mess she left behind
Think about all the times I felt angry, confused, abandoned, sad, crazy, crazy, crazy because of her
Think about how many times she wronged me hurt me inhibited me
Think about my outrage my angst my disgust
Think about everything I had put up with
Think about all the things I tried to do
Think about the lack of  "thank you"s, "I love you"s, "I need you"s
Think about what I want to say right now

As her breathing movements become unsteady, whispy, farther apart
I don't think about her for a minute
The patience, the sacrifice, the love, the hard work
The times I've wronged her hurt her inhibited her

I only see myself as I whisper final words into the ears of the one who birthed me
"You're welcome"

Turn It Up.

the puddles of main street.
gray patches of precipitation splattered on the dull excuse for a road.
the pathway to a different dimension.
drifting towards the sidewalk on which she walked.

her pink boots bright.
umbrella raised high.
shock of blonde hair straightened to her elbows.
her eyes a pair of stars.

speakers pushed into her ears.
with each footstep the music seemed to grow louder.
and she began to sing,
with that soft, sweet, sickly voice.

"You don't say anything,"
she plodded merrily along the street.
a man passed by her.
the stench of urine wafted into her nostrils.

"You're talking but you don't say anything."
some mud splashed against her boots.
the umbrella being pelted constantly.
busy stores, empty minds.

"You don't do anything,"
she giggled to herself.
people stared as she ducked behind a parked taxi.
her head facing the ground, strands of hair touching the wet surface.

"You're moving but you don't do anything!"
she screamed.
her umbrella would hit the truck first.
and her body would follow.

so turn it up.

stories.

"whose idea was it, i wonder, that stories can never be real life?" -patricia wallinga

but of course they can be, somebody else says. that's why people write autobiographies and semi-autobiographies and fictionalized versions of their-

wait.

why does the truth have to be fictionalized?

i mean, it's the truth; the truth is always there,

even when it's dressed in different clothes.

the blood and the feeling and the colors are still there underneath,

dynamic and pale and flushed full of all the rolling colors of humanity.

but most people aren't comfortable seeing the truth dressed in our own garments

and i don't really understand why.

maybe because it's too difficult to perceive ourselves outside our own bodies,

and expressing our own truths in words is one way to place our insides

outside of ourselves

and most of us feel naked and insecure

and then other people look at the nudes and call it artistic

they like the realism

they like the truth because truth is beautiful

and it's easy for them to quietly feel the pathos, feel the connection

because they're not the ones who cut out their godforsaken hearts bits and molecules and vessels at a time to arrange for public display

hoping to be understood.

the jarred, uncomfortable details of experience are specific to the individual,

never to be fully shared.

others can imagine, form refabrications in the mind

and to them, anyone else's clothing but their own is enough

enough "falsehood" to cover the truly intimate parts,

the possibly painful areas,

the places that couldn't be seen even if somebody tried.

so i guess stories can be real,

but only our own.

Espresso Stories, 5/1/11

The product of our last three weeks. Enjoy!


Through the torture of the crowds, she still believed peeing in that 0,50 euro stall was life-changing. 


It's like I'm a shark, and you're the reason I can't stop moving. It'd be easier without you, but I wouldn't be who I am.


Melanie had never learned how to mend a heart, but she knew fifty different ways to break a window. For now, this was enough.


with every step she took her mind screamed 'fuck it fuck it fuck it' but she couldn't help but imagine that gorgeous climax.


And as spring blossomed into summer drifted into autumn solidified into winter melted into spring once again, she pondered how long all of it took and how short-lived it was anyway.


The red plastic cup that once held chocolate milk and now held beer fell off the table as she watched the boy dive for the pool cue and crash into the floor. She wondered if, maybe, they had had more fun back then.


it was only when his chocolate-coated drops of hair smashed against the window that she wondered if there was something wrong.


She wasn't sure if it was the chocolate or the milk that tasted funny, but for some reason the hot cocoa in her current country was different than the one back home. Three sips in an she realized- there were no mini marshmellows.


her biology teacher said that people ate chocolate as an attempt to compensate for low endorphin levels. what her teacher didn't know was that her brain chemistry was too far beyond the reaches of chocolate to save.


as she curved her body into the crevice of the discarded tree trunk, the wisps of coiled seductively around the incline of her neck and highlighted her ashen-gray face with the haunting melody of something lost.


like a thrash of theives they marched in their black-outlined-red coats and together they banded together even though one by one they fell to the cold.


as eyes met eyes and he noticed those stone tracks of tears down his face, and the ghosted-expressions hidden by the foot of the bed, he knew that one of them wouldn't be coming back any time soon.


The world is full of ghosts, you see. Most people just like to call them memories nowadays.


"Momma, how do they make the cheese slices the same size?" "The same way you make dreams, dear. By machine."


"You're a big girl now; you can handle sleeping with the lights off." "I know, mom, but what if the monsters are still scared of the dark?"


In the end it was just a rock engraved in metal; in the end it was just another abandoned dream; but in the beginning it was a marriage.


Have you ever noticed how much worse things sound when they have forever tagged to the end? We'll be friends...forever; it'll be peaceful...forever; she's dead...forever.


Whose idea was it, I wonder, that stories can never be real life?


‎"And this is the button you press in case anything ever seems important." "But what if it nothing ever does?" "Then welcome to sales."


one day, your child will tug at your elbow and ask you how babies are made, and you'll say that a computer took mommy and daddy's genes and mixed them together perfectly and out came your baby, and it will all be true.


‎"ba-dum-kshh," sang the percussionist, right on cue. but this time, nothing was funny anymore.


the only things he broke better than jawbones were promises.


it started with a clumsy pinky-promise and ended with a slender wedding band. oh, how times have changed.


‎"He proposed on the swingset." "Aww, back in kindergarten?" "No, just last Saturday."


It was sad but it was true; his hand was the only woman that had never left him.


And as he walked down the wide-open tunnel he realized that he had smoked all his tomorrows and left only the used wrappers of yesterdays still faint from the leaves' burnt perfume.


‎"I don't think you understand, honey," he said laughing into his coffee at my wide-eyed confusion. "We're writers. We write our way into the grave."


"What does a mirror look like when there's nothing reflected on it?" "I'm not sure. What does a human look like when there's nothing reflected on it?"


It remembered everything that had ever happened. Quite clearly, in fact. But when it laid down to rest it all happened again.


"These statues in the rain always make me sad," she said. "I just want to take them inside and sit them by the fire." "Well," he answered, throwing his jacket over the shoulders of the abstract bronze man, "why can't we?"


--Julie, Patti, Christie, and Lynn

Up and down and up again

He got on the elevator and just stared at the mirror.
The girl glanced at him and went back to tapping on her Blackberry.
The elevator passed five stories and she turned pink, wondering if she should break the law of silence that permeated the metal box.
"D-" She looked up from her phone, "Don't you need to press a button?"
The boy turned slowly away from his reflection, still obeying the no talking rule.
"Aren't you going somewhere?" The girl asked desperately, sorry she had even bothered to care.
"No." The boy said blankly, turning back to the mirror.
The silence painted over the awkward conversation.
The boy, still consumed with his image, took a risk and asked, "Where are you going?"
The girl didn't make the effort of moving her eyes from the Blackberry, "Home."
He smirked, eyes fixated on the tears filling his mirror, "That must be a good place to go."
She clicked to the default screen, "Not really."
There eyes met for a second, and the oxygen in the elevator left to go find the silence.
"It sure beats going nowhere."

The elevator stopped, suspended between floors.
They braced themselves, fear filling up the space.
When the big box started falling she grabbed his hand.
And they crashed together,
while silence took back its rightful place.

错的人

you didn't do anything wrong.
you were just the wrong person.

nobody understands how I feel.
when the dust settles.
my dry lashes
settled hands
uncrossed arms
truthful words
firm poise
lax mind
indigo bruises
quivering mouth.

I am the aggressor.
I am the victim.
I am a
broken heart
scythed wrist
popped pill
diluted image
scarlet letter
tired soul
velvet pendulum
fluid stone.

and what is left.
is a another life torn away.
a
grounded dragon
flightless swan
paradoxical conversation
methane blast
trashed paper
longing schoolboy
fruitless tree
barren gas tank.

and that existence is I and I am that existence.
not life.
existence.
the way to change my destiny is to change myself.
and that is simply not an option.

"what

are you doing?"

"drawing"

"that's not drawing"

"yes it is"

"scribbling obscenities on a piece of paper isn't drawing"

"it's a form of art; i'm expressing myself"

"if that's how you express yourself, you have problems"

"i don't have problems"

"but look at what you're drawing"

"i don't know what you're talking about"

"it's all obscenities"

"yes, yes it is"

"people don't do that"

"i just did, and i'm a person"

"that's debatable"

"all because i wrote a few swears on a sheet of paper?"

"you're so obscene. what happened to you"

"i grew up"

"grew up into this? impossible"

"well, i grew up near you, doesn't that stand for something"

"no"

"thanks"

----

"in the world of today, i rate it a 2"

"what the fuck"

" i rate the present world a 2"

"why a two? because of the japan-earthquake?"

"first off, japan is a country known for earthquakes. so this one was stronger, they'll come back from it. they just have to clean up. they'll be fine"

"okay, so what else?"

"i am really kinda disappointed in the scientific discoveries lately"

"why?"

"i haven't heard of any"

----

"what's wrong?"

"eh?"

"what's. wrong"

"oh. uh. i dyed my hair today"

"so you did. any reason why?"

"nope"

"so, why multi-coloured?"

"rainbow's a nice colour"

"so why the sad face?"

"i have cancer"

"WHAT?"

"yeah. got diagnosed around noon"

"oh my god i am so sorry for you"

"why?"

"what?"

"why are you sorry?"

"that's terrible news!"

"no it's not"

"what?"

"i'm secretly suicidal. i can finally die without having to do it myself. my funeral won't be as depressing"

"that's a terrible thing to say! and suicidal? you should talk to a trust adult"

"that won't work"

"why not?"

"i'm already an adult in societies eyes"

---

"how are you feeling?"

"like that cat that crossed the road on it's 9th life"

------

"why do you have so many buttons on your backpack?"

"so people i leave behind can see what i'm leaving them for"

-------

"why don't you ever listen to me?"

"you have nothing worth listening too"

"don't talk to me like that"

"i'll just keep thinking like this then"

"you'll never get into college with your grades"

"that's okay, i'll survive on the streets"

"you're born upper-middle class. you'll never survive"

"i'll make it"

"how?"

"i'll prostitute my words out"

Let's be here.

It's not until you stop to ask yourself if you're really happy that you actually start being sad.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I'm not sad.
I'm not sad.
I'm not sad.
I'm not sad.
I'm not sad.
I'm not sad.
I'm not sad.
I'm just exaggerating.
~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~
"Smile, honey. Just smile. Really. It could be worse. You've been through harder times. Just smile-"
"Don't tell me to smile."
"Then don't frown."
"Let my mouth do whatever the hell it wants."
"I can't stand to see you sad."
"I'm not sad."
"Then why don't you smile?"
"I'm not happy."
"Doesn't that mean you're sad?"
"It doesn't mean anything."
~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~
She looked at the stars on the the ground
Spread vertically
Up and down

She knew that when the sun came up
The stars would be gone
and in their places would be a favela

But for now
She would just wish upon them
Ignore the truth behind their shine.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I'll never forgive you if you jump."
"I won't forgive myself if I don't."
"Please, I'm begging you. Don't leave me here alone."
"You don't need me here, it's not doing anything good for you."
"Please. Please. Please, I need you. I can't. I can't stay here without you."
"Then you better jump after me."

She jumped
Into a sea of happiness
Joyful waves crashing into stones of satisfaction
The wind turning over a thousand new leaves.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Take a dive into life.

Why The World Is Wrong

why would anyone choose to be different.

it's all nice and fine to say 'oh well I love being different'.
but no one really does.

those bug eyed stares.
the snickers behind your back.
the amazement of seeing something so strange.

I hate being different.
everyday I look at what I see in the mirror and spew hate at it.
I hate everything that I am.
being different isn't good.
it's just another vice that someone can twist to warp you.

so yes.
I am different.

but I wish everyday that I wasn't.
but who would choose to be so different in a world that is so reactionary.
a world that refuses to move into the future.
I know I wouldn't.

this is the world I am forced to know.
we are all forced to know.
this xenophobic homophobic cainotophobic existance.
it isn't pretty.

is it wrong for me to want to be normal?
to be average?
maybe.
maybe not.

perhaps difference is synonymous with bravery.
that being different, or allowing ones self to be, is progressive.
beneficial for the future.

then again,
maybe being different is a curse.
and we're all designated for a fiery existance in the pits of hell.
or new york city.

is it worth it?
this constant ridicule, pain, hatred?

I don't think so.

but then again,
I have no choice in the matter.

Espresso Stories, 3/6/11

"The most basic rule is that they're just a sentence or two, totalling 25 words or less. Less hard-and-fast - but equally vital - are a theme, plot, characters, and narrative development. Everything you'd see in any good story - but short enough to fit into the time it takes to reach the bottom of that bitter little cup, as you ponder on how even the briefest experiences can make life more meaningful." (You can read more at http://espressostories.com/.) Some of ours are admittedly a little long, but here are our collective attempts:


When Maria came back, the stain had moved to under the chair.
--

She pushed each seed into the still-cold dirt, wondering how many more she had to plant before enough of them bloomed to choke the weeds out from her heart.

--

Their eyes met across the dusty road and with each step they took, another car blasted them apart.
--
Amy kicked back the last shot of alcohol, grimacing. The night was long, the party was far from over, and it was better for all involved if she spend it drunk.
--
Bridgette glanced awkward around the retirement center and held her breathe silently as they slowly shuffled past, vowing to kill herself before she got to this stage.
--
Roger knew then and there that he had never been so happy in his ninety-seven years as he had in that moment, Lois' age-spotted hand on his knee, asleep in her wheelchair parked by his bedside.
--
they didn't give her hair until they had to prepare her for the wake--twenty three hours after she stopped breathing, and twenty-three months after she stopped living.
--
"Nice cowboy hat, loser!" But Gary merely tipped his hat at the boys in the corner, winked, and kept dancing.
--
even as her last breathe was stolen by his magical lips the last thing he said was swallowed by the dirt as he hit the ground running.
--
The little girl swallowed the last of her cherry-flavored popsicle, absentmindedly chewing at the juice-stained stick as she sat in the back of the car, watching the hospital smear past the car window like fingerpaint. Today was a good day.


--Lynn, Patti, and Christie

Nuclear Spring

We stumble out into the sunlight, squinting. After twenty-seven months underground, I've almost forgotten what it felt like. The mayor shouts instructions through her megaphone as mothers try to shepherd their fascinated children and young couples whisper to each other, pointing at the trees and hills in awe. Some of the older women are crying. 

I hear a familiar voice behind me. "Hannah!" 

It's Darryl, stepping uncertainly out of the bunker, listening for the sound of my voice. "Over here!" I shout back, laughing. I grab his hand and lead him out into the field, past the snow-piles slowly shrinking to reveal grass almost afraid to turn green again. Instinctively, he turns his face towards the sun, amazed at the warmth the bunker's fluorescent lightbulbs never gave. 

"What does it look like?" he asks me.

I look around at the melting snow drifts, like clouds too lazy to stay up in the pale blue sky. "It's beautiful," I answer. 

In the distance, I can see the remains of the city, melted and charred in the aftermath of the war like a cake left too long in the oven. I shudder; I can make out the outline of what was once my office building in the mid-morning sun. I notice what remains of the city's residents around me peering over the hill crest, surveying the damage. The mayor says it's probably not safe to go into the city just yet, so we sit on the hilltops instead, sharing the last of our rations and wondering how to put our lives back together. Most of the survivors are women and children; some men stayed behind because of disability like Darryl or old age like the mayor's husband, but most were drafted to fight in the war. Once the bombs started falling, it's not likely that many survived. 

We're refugees now, that much is clear. Nobody knows how many other cities built bunkers; any communication we once had with the outside world has long been cut off. It's scary to think about how empty the rest of the world might be, about the billions of lives gone in a flash of fission and a mushroom cloud. I try not to focus on what's been lost, try to tell myself that we're part of a beginning rather than an end, but it's hard not to think about everything that's gone. They say that the winners of wars write the history books, but it doesn't feel like we won anything. 

Darryl and I are sitting on the ground now, his arm around my shoulder and his other hand trailing absentmindedly through the grass. Suddenly his thin, able fingers run into an unusual shape in the grass; he plucks it and presents it to me. "Is this what I think it is?" he murmurs. 

"It's a snowdrop," I answer in awe. I gently take it from him, marveling at the perfect white bloom. "I'm surprised one survived." I remember back to before the war, looking for snowdrops peeking through cracks in the ice as soon as it started to melt. Finding them was always like finding a new beginning; the little flowers seemed to reassure me that winter was finally over, that life could finally come out of hibernation and start living again. 

I turn back to Darryl. "It's beautiful."

"You're beatiful," he answers, although I know he can't see me. He brushes my bangs out of my face and tucks the snowdrop behind my ear, and we sit at the top of the hill in the sun as the world rubs its eyes and crawls out of hibernation, ready to start anew. 

--Patti

i feel like a drama queen

And as their whispers to each other
over the confines of the internet
got dirtier and more intimate

that little bubble of hope grew
and grew and grew and grew
till it overpowered that small

little thing telling her to stay
on the ground
Because the air will only lift you higher

But she kept jumping and the
whispers
got more and more dramatic

secrets revealed and letters
released because it all made
sense in this only parallel universe

they created at the darkest hour
but as she kept jumping the atmosphere
got in her way and with a pop

she went crashing
down
to the ground.

agnosticism.

religion.

what is it?

why is it?

and how can i believe?

people like having religion around. it's something to which they can hold. it's their hope that gets them through tougher times. it explains the afterlife or lack thereof. but i just can't see what this faith is founded on.

it would be an oversimplification to say that i think god is to man merely as imaginary friend is to child. faith is more complex than that. i think a less offensive analogy would be to say that god is like language. you grow up surrounded by a presence of particular vowels, a given set of consonant combinations, and those are the ones you learn to recognize. and the older you get, the harder it is to add new sounds to that familiar set of phonetics. of course, it's possible to embrace the new sounds later in life, but it's harder. it happens less often. that's why there are chinese-speaking people who spend a lifetime trying to learn the difference between r's and l's and w's--liquid consonants, the linguists call them--but to no avail.

it's just that for me, god is that difference between those liquid consonants. i get by just fine without understanding and embracing the concept of him. it's not like the lack of god is creating some gaping void in my soul, like something's missing. but i'll confess:

i tried to believe

i can't believe

there's no way to believe

not when i have questions and i'm not buying the answers that organized religion offers.

i mean, there's the whole question of whether or not a god/higher power/supreme being even exists, and since there's no proof (and yet, maybe faith is the only proof necessary), i remain thoroughly agnostic in regards to that issue.

no, what bothers me is death. heaven. hell.

it's accepted that the body decomposes into molecules and atoms and ATP particles for use by small organisms. or it turns into ash. whichever one is chosen for the dead. but what happens to the soul?

the consciousness is life. it feels like an intangible tangle of energy, and you know what they say about energy--that it can be neither created nor destroyed. it's bothersome to not know where this consciousness goes after perception in the physical body fades from the third dimension to the zeroth dimension, where there's nothing at all--no space, no pain, no color. even the word nothing probably doesn't fit quite right, because there's no perception of absence. no existence at all. or at least that's how i imagine it.

so where does the consciousness go, anyway? one would think that it has to go somewhere. heaven doesn't really make sense to me and neither does hell. why? maybe i'm too worldly. maybe i'm too dependent on logic and proof. but the whole idea of collecting souls into two ever-increasing groups as individuals die each day just seems too inefficient to be true. i'd like to believe that when i close my eyes to die, my consciousness will leave my body and be placed inside the being of another, and when i open my eyes again i will begin a new existence. souls could be immortal that way, making experiences anew with the same ageless bundles of breath and spirit time and time again.

but there's no way of knowing if that's true, so i guess i'll never know.

and yet

there's a part of me that wants somebody to come along and prove me wrong.

Sugar High

It's no secret that her blood sugar is already sky rocketing, and she's been feeling sick since the second bag of peach rings, but nevertheless, she manages to slip one more sugar coated, manufactured, ringleted piece of hope into her smiling mouth before all the wrappers dissappear behind a veil of darkness.
She's not sure exactly why she does it, but ever since the age of seven she's been self inducing these diabetic atrocities. Every time it's a different candy- at the beginning it was candy dots; easy enough to devour just because there were so many interesting and intricate patterns in which she could eat them. She'd eat the pinks first, then the blues, then the greens, then the yellows on the first roll, then eat the next roll like a pack man- following the sugary specks around and around and around from the outside edge to the center, in a continuous stream of munching.
The most challenging candy coma by far was Mr. Wonka's supposedly ever lasting gobstoppers, which, disappointingly, were everything but everlasting and released quasi unbearable shots of ridiculously sweet powdered sugar that made her teeth hurt and her gag reflex retaliate. That time, waking up in the hospital with the dreaded IV needle lodged in her veins was a trophy of the sweet victory against her body- against all odds, she managed to force almost three hundred of the gross little orbs into her bloodstream.
Through the veil of the coma, she can hear her mother shrieking and feel her body twitching. The conversation between her parents makes her want to laugh, but the saccharine paralysis has already flooded through her face.

"I'm telling you, Richard..." her mother's voice floats through the veil in a tone that is on the edge of becoming high pitched, "...we can't be living so close to a Walgreens. Look at her! We're just enabling her by living here, with that big, red W flashing right across the street."
"We're not enabling her, Martha," There's a wary edge to Richard's generally rational and calm voice, "First off, sugar isn't a drug. And she wants to do this to herself, it doesn't have anything to do with the Walgreens...We've done everything we could. We've been throwing money at psychiatrists since these binges have started...and the insurance bills are going crazy with all this hospital talk. I can't even stand to see another IV needle. I think it's time we let the psychiatrist put her in a-"
"No. She's not crazy. There must be some reason for it. It's been happening since she was so young...and...and she can control it. It's-it's controllable...we can help her...and...it's my fault anyways, I shouldn't leave money lying around.." Martha frantically searched for and alternitave answer that hadn't already been refuted, "If a psychiatrist outside of a hospital can't help her, what will a psychiatrist inside a hospital do for her?"
"Martha," He sighed, "They'll be able to monitor her. We can't do that. We both need to work. To support her. At least we'll know that she's safe-not abusing her body...if it was drugs you would have said yes in a heartbeat."
"Drugs aren't a grey area, but sugar-sugar is...kids are just..."
"Kids like sugar, but our daughter is diabetic- that's not ok."
"She's just trying to be normal."
"Comas are normal?"

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation she had lost the urge to laugh. Behind the veil she could only picture the concerned faces of her mother and father. She wished she could writhe and protest about the decision they were making, but the darkness was becoming more and more blinding.
As the parametics arrived to the familiar address, she let herself slip into the gaping hole of her choices, the sickening taste of corn syrup and candy cocaine sticking to every tastebud.

--Julie

anaphylaxis

He had dusty freckles

and tree bark hair that stuck out behind his ears

with glassy eyes like washed-out perrier bottles,

translucent skin like incandescent light bulbs in the dinosaur lamp in his bedroom.

When he was two his mother gave him a peanut butter cookie and a glass of milk.

An hour later the doctor told her over his hospital bed

that maybe the cookie wasn't such a good idea.

His life was swallowed up by

no no, you can't have that

and

are you sure you can eat that? check the packaging, the packaging!

He liked to joke to his friends that he learned how to read the ingredients list before anything else.

While his mind day-dreamed about chocolate and crackers and tooty-frooty jelly beans, his stomach would grumble like a falling bridge, a jarring reminder of that if he isn't careful, a crumb could send him tumbling into unconsciousness.

Somehow over the years, the

watch the ingredient list

turned into

watch the road

better not try that monster drink

and

stop doing that, you'll overtire yourself

His mother was unable to bear losing him

so she strangled him with her love.

Her love was touching, at first.

a motherly-reminder of keeping him healthy

but soon that affection turned poisonous.

Her helicopter-hovering was trapping him in the mixed dimensions of

don't play football with the others, just sit and watch, i don't want you to get hurt!

and

i don't think you should be hanging out with that peter boy, he seems like he could be trouble.

So, like every hormonal, angst-ridden, parent-suffering normally-obedient upper-middle class suburbia-living boy of the 21st century, he acted out.

This afternoon, he propped himself up on his wrinkly, unmade bed. His knees stuck out as he examined a palm-sized package of M&M's, peanut-filled. His fingers flicked around the paper corners.

An itch already tugged at the back of his nose, but his nervous system was dying to know how they would taste melting on his tongue. The yellow packaging was too jarringly bright, as if they mocked his childhood years smelling of flu medicine and isopropyl from germX, a lifetime of can't touch, can't try. The voices in his mind were rising tremors, urging no no no no no

yes yes yes.

it will be sweet and there will be nothing like it.

you're done letting other people turn you into nothing by telling you you're not allowed to try

so start trying now, for fuck's sake

His fingers hesitated but did not tremble as they tore the goldenrod paper packaging and felt for a colored piece of chocolate, and on second thought, he took two. The walls of his mind were tense, shaking, screaming as he raised the candy to his lips. They fell between his teeth, ripe apples from the tree passing through the branches on their way down to the earth.

Slowly, the seismic noise in his mind calmed and faded to silence.

--Lynn and Christie