Chocolate Paper Cuts

"I'm not a paper cut, darling, I'm a full on, old fashioned spear through the heart..."

The cucumber echos crunched inside Emma's head as she ate her 3am salad and ruminated the break up.

Emma never knew what it was about Rachel that made her so intangible and so goddamn real.

She never knew what made their relationship so entirely confusing and so intrinsically simple.

They had met on a church nature hike back in high school, although their romantic relationship was only kindled in the secret caverns of college life. 

Emma was a quiet girl from a actively religious family and Rachel was the church rebel that thrilled Emma just by sitting next to her during mass. 

Rachel had broken everything of Emma's.

All the rules, the family bonds, the shyness, even God

Everything had shattered the moment Rachel pressed her lips against hers

The moment Rachel slipped her hand up Emma's shirt

The moment they had whispered "I love you."

Rachel broke everything

But she also pieced it back together

in her own way.

Emma was Rachel's Frankenstein monster, ugly and sad, but beautiful in the eyes of her creator

And Rachel was her doctor.

But now she wasn't here to mend Emma's broken heart.

So, Emma just sat, eating a 3am salad

Because Rachel had taken all junk food with her.

Emma knew that now everything could go back to the way it was

She knew that her parents were believers in redemption 

That all she had to do was beg for mercy in the eyes of God

And everything Rachel had broken would  be restored

The family ties, the shyness, the salvation.

But Emma didn't care

Rachel wasn't a paper cut

And she took all the junk food with her

So there was no sweetness left in her life

Rachel wasn't a paper cut

And she took all the junk food with her

And salad couldn't fill the voids that she and the whipped cream had left

Rachel wasn't a paper cut

She was a full blown, old fashion spear through the heart

And Emma knew that she couldn't be saved.

dishes and lawsuits.

after plodding home from her shift at the diner down the street, jeanette stumbles into the apartment to find sonya drying the dishes. "hey bitch," the latter calls over her shoulder as the door shuts and her roommate turns the lock with a click. "there's a letter for you at the table."

jeanette's exhaustion only allows her an eye roll. "is it from the attorney? seriously, sonya, i'm tired. this whole will-lawsuit-inquiry fiasco can wait for tomorrow."

"no, i swear this one's not from mister-hello-i-wear-too-much-hair-gel-and-i'm-here-to-take-your-money. it's from anna."

at the sound of her sister's name, jeanette raises her eyebrow almost imperceptibly. "fine, i'll take a look. but it better be from her."

sighing, she walks over, slings her bag on the corner of an adjacent chair, and seats herself. sonya isn't kidding; their apartment address is handwritten in her sister's familiar scrawl. as sonya stacks the plates into the kitchen cabinet, she tears along the envelope's seal, grateful for a change from the bills, junk mail, and interrogative papers from lawyers demanding to know details about the relationship between her and her late divorced father. to jeanette, it never mattered that her mother kept custody of her and anna, and that dad raised another family with another woman. she would always be her daddy's girl. always.

another thought crosses her mind--what news does anna bring whose importance merits not a phone call, not an email, but a letter via snail mail? her sense of urgency rising, her fingers dance forcefully around the folded paper until the envelope's contents are exposed and pinned to the table, bared for her eyes to pore over. it takes her one time to read the information, a second time to allow the impact of its implications to envelop her, and a third time for her to believe it.

all dishes now piled into the shelves like a great deal of uncommonly clean soldiers in their bunkers, sonya shuts the cupboard door to turn on her heel and join jeanette at the table, whose eyes are motionless but shiny. "are you crying?"

"yes, but it's the type of crying that happens when i'm so happy and these tears aren't salty but made of fucking lollipops and lucky charms. come here." she beckons sonya to her side to peer at the cause of her tears in question. as she recounts the letter's contents, the words pass her lips in a husky whisper.

"the lawsuit's over now. anna finally got them to give me my part of the will and life insurance. my god, it's finally over. it's finally over."

wonderstruck with a revelation, her arms seize her roommate in an impulsive embrace. "we won't have to worry about the rent, sonya. the rent, the utility, the tuition...it's gonna be okay now...everything's gonna work..."

and as sonya wraps her arms around jeanette in return, accomodating the latter's head buried in the former's shoulder, everything really is okay, at least for now.

People people

I mostly think about people.

Ya know, people people.

The ones I miss and the ones I missed and the ones I'll miss.
That's mostly what goes through my head.

Occasionally, though, I'll stop to wonder if the people I think about ever think about me.

And on such occasions, I also tend to wonder if they'll ever know how much I think about them.

Today I thought about how many people I think about

And how few of them must know I think about them.

It surprised me as to how limited my ability to express how much I feel for people really is.

Society has taken this stance where if you think too much about someone that you don't talk to very often, you're being a creepy kinda platonic daydreamer.

But I don't know

It kinda bothers me that so many people will never know how much I think about them

How much I value them

Her eyes

His laugh

Her beauty

His kiss

Her writing

His tolerance

Their love.

It probably won't make a difference in their lives 

Whether I decide to keep my stalker thoughts to myself

Or actually get the guts to tell them

How much I actually think about them.

...

It's kinda impressive isn't it?

That at this very moment

There might be someone thinking about you, too.

uproot.

no one is left unmarred by the smear of blame.

you're no exception, but neither am i.

and i hate it.

my brain has a low emotional capacity

so it regularly discharges excessive feelings

plopped into tied-up bags of polyethelene to drop at other people's feet

and perspires the rest in catharsis,

all to expire, to be forgotten.

you spike the system with more than it can process

so the remnants linger, building my tolerance.

i don't need this, i tell myself.

when the time comes, i will return to self-assured balance,

restock my supply of smiles,

regain the ability to give

without you.

but right now

the idea curls around my throat in aching little wisps

and it hurts in a new flavor every time it arises again.

it's silent, but it's a growing baobab, grasping at my veins.

not a breath of it catches in your ear

so you don't notice the disparity between what it looks like

and what it really is.

Espresso Stories, 6/19/2011

Maybe the reason she practically lived in the movie theater was because she thought that maybe, someday, she can be sucked into the world on the giant black screen and escape all her terrors and fears at home.
Or maybe she just really liked theater popcorn.

She looked at her new school schedule and scoffed at the first class of the day, written in plain a simple text: Forbes.....Room 21.....Religion. As if that was something they could teach.

He wondered if Jesus new how big God's world really was before He set out to save it. And if He did, he wondered why He didn't beat Columbous to it.

She always blushes when I call her my trophy wife, but I don't think she remembers that I won her in an intense company-wide mini golf tournament.

Her fingers are stick with caramel and her mouth is smuged with chocolate, but she likes to remember that it's summer and she's no designed to be plastic in the heat.

‎"moooom I want to buy her!"
"who?"
"herrrrrr!"
"son you're not allowed to buy people"
"but moooom if daddy does it why can't I?"

we can't save the earth, it's gonna be here for another 4.5 billion years regardless of what we do. but we can give in to human nature and selfishly save ourselves whilst playing the facade of 'saving the earth'. y'know.

While all the people marching down the sidewalks were hoping to save the earth he drove through the streets in his big ass hummer just hoping to destroy it.

‎"Please write legibly." She didn't give a shit about what the test directions were. She thought in scribbles.

she huffed and she puffed and she blew his house down. and then he ejaculated.

He straddled his bike and took off, the tattooed road belonging to him and only him.

Circling his arms were an array of tattoos that the entire cast of Miami Ink couldn't reproduce, and he worked at the gas station down the street just so he can say he has a job.

Because no matter how many cuss words spew out of my mouth, no matter how many fights I start or fights I end, no matter how many little girls I make cry, I will never be as much as a bitch as you are.

‎"Why were you avoiding me?" "I was testing to see if you forget me."

A friend is a person who you absolutely have to talk to even when you don't have anything to say.

"What does family mean to you?"
"I guess it has something to do about blood or something..."
"...I'm on my period...if you want I could bleed on you."
"That's gross."

His teeth are are cracked and the lower half of his face is bloody; a vibrant reminder of the fight that happened just a few hours ago.
As she grabbed more tissues to rub her eyes with, he reaches forward towards her from his bed, clumsily knocking i.v. tubing besides him.
"Hey. It's okay. I'm okay."He smiles at her again, and her heart is trampled inside her chest, but she can't help but smile back underneath another tissue.

"It's too long." Was a phrase he never meant to take as an offense.

He woke up just in time to see the sun running away from him.

Because when you give something a name, it makes it that much harder to cut open--or in this case, break up with it.

Very quickly her life had gone from being an exclamation point to an ellipses.

Gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. He repeated it silently to himself thousands of times. And for a moment it became just another syllable. For a moment it didn't mean anything. For a moment it didn't matter that he was. gay.

I only went with you that day because I thought I could hear the faint sound of a heartbeat beneath your lies.

"This is the guitar I never learned to play, this is the sweater I've never used and this is the wife I never loved."

My mother never taught me what to do after something like this, but she had taught me well nevertheless. So once the winds had died down, I went into what was left of the kitchen and ate a banana.

She looked down at her unshaven winter legs and the borrowed business sock and realized that if it wasn't for the slight arch in her foot she'd look just like her father.

Martha wiped her free hand on her cargo pants and tightened her grip on the metal pole as the streetlight took off like a seagull, carrying her off into the starless night.

Because, darling, you make the minor chords in my life sound not only haunting, but brilliant.

"Seriously, cool it, bro. I know you like her cause she's a gamer chick, but I'm pretty sure your princess is in another castle."

No matter how many times it happened she was always surprised when the sun managed to set...and doubly so when it managed to rise again.

‎"I... think I have feelings for you." "Cool, what kind?" "Huh?" "There are lots of feelings. Disdain, curiosity, admiration, itchiness..." "Oh, definitely itchiness."

"Go to college in Virginia? I might as well go to college in vagina."
And that's how she knew she was definitely not ready to graduate high school.

--Mark, Julie, Julia, and Patti

"He takes his pills but never takes his medicine"

"You know..." Emma said, sucking lightly on the grape lollipop, "I can swallow a popsicle whole."
The two college aged boys almost dropped their pants right there.
They laughed anxiously and looked expectantly at the other girl.

Rachel scoffed, "I can't even swallow my pills in the morning."

Turn off.

"Sorry," one of the boys kissed Emma on the cheek, "I gotta look after my boy."

Emma smiled through the frustration, "Yeah, yeah, call me when you're alone."

The boys left.

"Don't even start, Em," Rachel spat, "You can't be mad for not giving them what you can't really offer."

Emma threw the lollipop stick in the trash, "But you should feel bad for lying about what you can."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
She carried the silver ring gingerly in her palm, fingers running nervously around the newly waxed edges.
Something about shiny things just made her want to rub mud all over them.

The rain dripped hesitantly on the newly softened spring earth.

Soon the worms will be out. She desperately tried to distract herself.

"Hey!" Shouted a voice behind her, "Hey!"

She pivoted like a ballerina, body rigid, but relaxed.

Cute track team boy.

He stopped mid run and smiled, "Hey girl..."
She smiled politely and continued to stroke the newly waxed ridges.
"So I was wondering, right...uh...if you would want to go see that one movie that's out...you know that movie? yeah....uh...I was wondering if you would watch it with me?"

"Oh...oh....I....oh....not....no, I don't think that...no..." She fumbled with the ring, furrowing her eyebrows in terror.

"Oh...I-I'm sorry...uh...gosh...um...it's raining...I should..." In his shame,  he tripped over himself and fell lightly into her.

The ring flew from her hands and sunk in the fresh spring mud.

"Oh God." He searched frantically for the shiny metal.

She smiled, "No...I'll go with you."

"What?"

"To the movie. I'll go."

She'd never have to worry about the newly waxed edges again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"You know why we all need to feel so damn special all the time?"

She blew cigar smoke at his face, knowing full well that her answer to the rhetorical question was inconsequential.

"It's cause we kill things we think are the same," He blinked his eyes through the greasy smoke, "We kill cows, we kill pigs, Hitler killed the Jews. Just cause we figure...or he figured...that they're all the same. Look at what we don't kill. Dogs, cats, kids. Cause we think they're all different--that they're all special. Like, if they were gone then they couldn't be replaced. That's how everyone wants to feel, right? Like the can't be replaced."

Her neon red hair blew freely in the wind as she brought the cigar once more to her pierced lips.

"Like right now. If I told you you weren't special. You'd feel like any other girl could replace you. So you act all different....so that you can't be replaced....but that's not really true, I mean, not really. I've had girlfriends in the past....you're replacing them, I guess."

"Is this your way of breaking up with me?" She sighed, letting the wind carry cigar smoke into her bright red hair.

"N-no...no. You're missing the point. I'm just saying that what make us different. Us...you and me and the rest of the world. What makes us different is what makes us pathetically the same. We're all want to be different because we want the same thing...ya know...we want to feel irreplaceable."

"Or maybe we just want to believe we're different because we're scared to believe that all the screwy things that go on in our heads are normal."

"What?"

She bit his lipsticked mouth.

"We don't want to believe that everyone is as messed up as we are...on the inside... where it really matters...so we pretend to be different by saying our outsides match who we are...but in reality...we're all the same...in the end...we're all humans after all."

Turning Tables.

I can't give you what you want.
and you can't give me what I need.

I need a light.
someone to guide me through my own mind.
someone to rely on.
someone to truly help me.

and perhaps you used to be that to me.
but no more.
no more no more no more.
move along, fight through.

it's a tough thing to become your own savior.
to have to blast through walls of resentment and fury solely in an effort to recreate that resentment and fury within the self.
I'm perfectly capable of helping myself.
I won't let you close enough to hurt me.

for what seems like forever,
in an effort of course to recreate the past,
I've been abused.
battered.
smashed.
and this is my final stand.
draw your scythe and I'll pull my sword.

our relationship prepared me.
our past inspires me.
our future destroys me.

and oh how I try.

but I can't keep up.
one swift blow to end it all.
a quick forced palm into the chest.
and I fall.
again I fall.

again I fall for you and again I fall for our trap.

you don't deserve me.
you don't respect me.
you don't love me.

but you have me.

soulmates and ketchup

"How do you tell who your soulmate is?" The 13 almost 14 but looks like he's 2 Damian wonders, kicking his feet up on the table in front of him, ignoring the scowl sent to him from the waitress across the diner.

College-grown Juliet has her lips puckered around the straw of a Coca-Cola, biting slowly as she continues her stare out the window, taking in the sights and sounds of New York City at 1:13 A.M. on a Monday.

"How do you tell who your soulmate is?" She repeats, glancing at him before shoving her arm out to knock his boot-covered feet to the floor. A few seconds later they're back on the table. She doesn't touch them again.

"Yeah. How do you tell?" His gaze stares at her, and she can see him in the reflection of the window; short black hair and blue eyes partially hidden by designer sunglasses that have slipped to the edge of his nose.

"Why are you wearing sunglasses this late at night," She mumbles, before shifting herself so her chin was resting in the palm of her hand, and the other arm was curled around the first. "Anyway. I don't know. There are, like, qualifications, I suppose -- "

"Qualifications? Like, for you, or for people in general." He interrupts, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat, but doesn't take his feet off the table. The waitress across the diner clicks her tongue at him, but doesn't do anything; instead, she hurries behind doubled doors to the kitchen to do whatever.

"I don't know. It depends." She brushes a strand of deep red hair from her face before glancing at Damian from the corner of her eye.

"Sure. Anyway. Go. Qualifications." Clipped voice, and he shuffles himself into his leather jacket, well worn-out and indebted with the smell of cologne and somthing else that makes up the boys scent.

"I don't know. I'd know someone was my soulmate if..." Her voice fades off, and she looks out the window again. Damian if shifting in his seat, trying to silently prompt her to finish, but she doesn't.

Minutes pass, and soon the waitress returns. Blowing a strand of scruffy brown hair out of her face, she easily drops trays of fries, chicken tenders, and cheeseburgers infront of the two. Then without a word, she rushes off again, only glancing back in annoyance as Damian doesn't lower his feet, but instead just bends forward for the food.

Their silence grows comforting, each busying themselves with eating, and within 10 minutes all the food is gone, except for stray ketchup puddles and cup-stains on the table.

Damian is leaning back, a small sigh escaping him as the lack of sleep catches up with him, eyes warily glancing around the diner slowly. Juliet is back to looking out the window, gaze enaptured by something outside that Damian can't, and probably will never see.

"Sharing toothbrushes."

Damian starts, whipping his head to stare at the girl who's leaning back, satisfied with her outburst. Her eyes are hazy and there's something like a dent underneath both her eyelids; a wrinkle from too many late nights, maybe.

"What?"

"You'd know if someone's your soulmate if you can share your toothbrush and be fine with it."

"That's disguesting."

"It's the point. You'd be so used to this person, you wouldn't be afraid of anything; germs, cooties, nothing. It's be just like using your own toothbrush." She hums thoughtfully to herself, bringing her cup of Coca-Cola back to her lips, and begins biting on the straw again.

"That's....That... I guess. Sure." He wavers, and bounces his shoulders before continuing his observation of the diner, the old posters on the wall, the scruffed up tile floring, the flickering neon light against the door.

"What about you, shrimp?" His eyes turn sharp, and he glares at her over the rim of his sunglasses, before he rolls his head back with a hum.

"Kissing in public." He admits finally, scruffing his toes together on the table. "If..." He starts again but for some reason the words are fumbled on his tongue, and he squints his eyes in anger. Juliet doesn't say anything, but continues her stare out the window. Damian wonders if she's watching their reflection.

"If... If you can kiss them in public, and not care about others thoughts or opinions, then... Then they're special. Notsoulmate special, but... special." He tries again, floundering for the words that can't quite come to him.

Across the table, Juliet stares at Damian blankly, lifting a finger to swpie it through a left-over blotch of ketchup, before bringing it to her lips boredly. "Makes sense. I'd never feel comfortable with a person if I couldn't even kiss 'em in the street." A hypothesis, but she accepts it, and Damians grunt on the other end reassures her.

hate.

i hate people.

i hate you and myself and them, just as i hate everyone else. equally, no more, no less.

i know hate is a strong word, but hate i do.

in the end, we're all so inconsequential,

a handful of beings senselessly coping with our lives,

tiny in this universe.

when i am alone, no one is as special as i thought they were.

when i am alone, no one cares. not enough, at least.

when i am alone, i lack the courage to speak aloud.

when i am alone, nothing can quite fill the places where i loved you,

perhaps not even you.

and i hate that.

my tears are inconsequential to you because i dare not show them

and i'm trying so hard to convince myself that you're not more significant than that,

because the difference between living around people and living with them

is that i only remember how to do the first one.

Espresso Stories, 6/12/11

"What do you think?" "...what were you THINKING?"


In my dreams someone told me I was beautiful; oh, how our fantasies deceive.


She never let herself get too close to the edge because something inside of her just made her feel like

jumping.


‎"Stop being a whore." She moaned softly into his lips.
"You first."


Regret hating someone, leaving someone, not getting to know someone, but don't regret loving someone. Love should never be regretted.


nothing can quite fill the places where i loved you, and i hate that.


She fell back in bed with a sigh. A girl in pink pajamas could never save the world.


‎"I'm sorry, but I can't." I hung up the phone before she could protest. With girls like that, the truth is the greatest and least you can give them.


"Mommy, when we die, do we turn into ghosts?" "No, no, honey. When we die we turn into angels. When we're forgotten, then we turn into ghosts."


 Passion made her want to tear the lips of her lucky target; love made her want to sew back his heart.


The difference between living around people and living with them was that one was easier, but the other worthwhile.


 All he wanted was to be told he was beautiful. graceful. pretty. but those aren't compliments fit for a boy.


Distance made her feel like someone could actually love her. 5000 miles of imagination.


Stupid humans. Thought Gravity. They'd never know how misunderstood he felt.


Gravity may be the only thing keeping you down, but it's also the only thing keeping us together.

Day 249

I am not alone. 


For two hundred and forty-nine days I have called this island my home. I have hunted and gathered, I have built shelters and made weapons, I have explored it day after day and night after night. I know it as well as I know myself, and yet today I find I am not alone. It's like finding a new mole on your arm. For all I know, it could be cancer.


He stares back at me wide-eyed and terrified, like some punk kid who just got caught with a can of spray-paint in his hand tagging a bridge. For a second I wonder if he's going to run. He doesn't. Neither do I.


I can tell he hasn't been here very long. His skin is still raw and pink from the sun, his hands not yet calloused from building and hunting. He's been here two days, three at the most. I wonder if he's even found anything to eat yet. I hear an all-too-familiar gurgle from a few feet away; likely, he hasn't.

Being alone on an island is a strange thing. Between your daily struggles for food and with nature you've got no diversions but those you can create. There's only so much hunting and storing and building you can do, only so many traps you can make and endlessly check. Your thoughts rage and hone themselves, your fantasies becoming more real than the driftwood in your hands. I think of how many times I'd imagined just such a meeting, carefully scripting and re-scripting what I'd say to another human mind that happened upon these shores. I faintly wonder what this scripted welcome was; all my mind draws up is the look of wonder and terror and hope in this stranger's stark blue eyes. 


My much-neglected vocal chords finally sputter into usefulness. "Hi."


"...Hi." 


I extend a tentative handshake. "Welcome to Zero Island."

Sadist

 Darling

I want to walk bare footed on the rocks of your soul

And watch calouses grow over my feet

The way they grew over your heart

I want to feel the bruises being beaten into my skin

Watch my body turn purple

The color your soul turned

I want to be a prisoner in the jail of your sorrows

Watch my tomorrows go from blue to grey

The way your eyes dimmed

I don't want to wear shoes

And tip toe past your anger

To be free to be happy without you

I want to love you unprotected

To kiss your scars with my own

To let you know that

The disasters in your life

Have made you beautiful.

Corkscrew.

You're just a cork.

You're just a cork.

You're a cork that he will use to try and stop the wine

of his emotions and regrets and sexual tension from

Spilling over and staining the floor

The bright, white, totally stainable floor of his perfect little ego

It's all he has to hold onto

Since the walls are stained with blood

And the ceiling is bruised

And the furniture is all cracked and dusty

And that picture.

That picture

Of that girl

The girl he loved

The girl he loves

That girl that first popped open his bottle of wine

And put her pretty little lips to the rim

Took a drink

And left

Leaving you to fill the void.

breathing prescription is expired.

screech screech

good morning, world.

her hand jerks out from under the threadbare covers, aims for the snooze button, and knocks the clock floor-bound. her eyelids are midway through the efforts of lifting open, and the invisible claws already clench at her throat in their ravenous vice. dammit dammit dammit. as her corneas blur her bedroom in and out of existence, her eyes dart wildly around, searching desperately for a flicker of yellow plastic on the dresser. she needs that inhaler to feel okay. she needs that tube of medicated vapours.

there it was. that familiar mist of sanctuary, an escape from herself, the antidote to living--all in a single plastic tube connected to a mouthpiece on the dresser. breathing ragged, her vision blurs everything else as she staggers toward it. finally, her fingers clutch at the inhaler's hard plastic, and she yanks it to her lips, sucking the air into her lungs with early-morning panic and desperation. as she breathes in, the cool vapours soothe her bloodstream, and her heartbeat relaxes. inhale, and her eyes zoom and focus back into twenty-twenty vision. exhale, and she is relieved. inhale again, and she is calm. she never understands why her breath is so drawn to the drug-filled air particles from that plastic tube, but she doesn't care. now, she can battle the world for another morning. now, she is okay.

now is only for now, though. by the time the bell rings for the second passing period, she is instinctively reaching into her purse to steal another puff. this happens third period, and maybe fourth period too. the classes melt in and out of her memory like footsteps in the muddy, half-thawed winter slurry on the sidewalks outside. the only interruption is lunch hour, when the cool, impersonal glares of the other students turn to splintering, hard-edged ice, and rough elbows begin to appear among the cold shoulders. she bites her lip as she contemplates the cafeteria doors. no, she dares not buy her lunch there. instead, she turns on her heel and, head ducked down, darts to the nearest girls' bathroom. in a stall moments later, the medicated vapours of the inhaler benevolently envelops her in some semblance of comfort. it takes several drags, but eventually she can sigh back onto the toilet seat, shoulders relaxed. maybe she can stay here until english class.

the afternoon classes pass as uneventfully as the morning's--in a daze, automatically mumbling a proper BS response to the teacher's occasional inquiry. before long, she is free to take one final pull from the inhaler before moseying off to the bus home. once she stumbles through the garage door fifteen minutes later, she can make immediately for her bedroom and collapse on the worn mattress, unfettered from this consciousness for a few hours.

at seven-thirty, though, her eyes flutter open and her heart tightens as always. so she sets her lips to the tube once again and the air rushes into her lungs like water pours into the open floodgates of a blue whale's mouth. but this time, the vapours barely soothe. disbelieving, she draws another drag, then another. and another. and another. but the last remnants of the medication have faded away. trembling, her fingers yank the inhaler from her lips and her eyes fall upon its label. NO REFILLS.

shaking, she lets the inhaler clatter to the carpet as the walls converge on her, constricting her throat so she can't breathe anymore.

Belated Espresso Stories, 6/5/2011

Don't worry chubby, crooked smiled, dull eyed girl. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So it's only a couple of shot glasses away.

the industrial revolution threatened to take our bodies, but this age of information is out to take our minds and our souls.

I want to walk bare footed on the rocks of your soul.

"Can you imagine growing old with someone?" "Almost, but it's hard. Like imagining God."

‎"What would it feel like to walk on a cloud?" "Wet."

She never knew an ampersand could be a suicide weapon; but she killed herself the moment she said "I do".

People never understood it, but she swore that she saw all the colors of the human soul on the painfully white walls of the waiting room.

If you don't experience anything you can't write... but trust me, life is creativity's greatest enemy.

It's not even the fact that cancer could kill me-- it's those little blond spiders of hair circling the drain that keep me up at night.

--Julie, Christie, and Patti

J'adore

You don't mind
That my legs are so pale they're almost blue
And covered in dimples and bumps from the cold


You don't mind that my hands and feet are the same size as yours
When you hold my hand and our fingers fit together easy as a child's jigsaw


You tell me my eyes are as warm and as green
as the lake in summer
you want to dive in, you say,
and watch the sunset reflected in their waves


When we're alone in your car
we sing duets
and air-guitar like there's no tomorrow
and you say love is a silly word
but oh, how I adore you. 


--Patti

Antithesis

"No." 

She says. Eyes filling up with tears and brows furrowing into that lovely how dare you embarrass me like this!?

He's left silent. On one knee. And all he can hear is his heart beating the red into his cheeks as the ring clatters to the ground.

The waitress blows the candle out. And the wax drips a liquid tear before hardening up into its solidly solitary state.

His father grips the woman beside him, trying to prevent her from trying to rescue her only son from his broken heart.

The would-be bride pushes herself from the table, gets up, collects her things and gets up to leave.

The crushed boyfriend looks up at her like a dog begging for food at the dinner table. I'm already on my knees. He thinks coldly. 

The ex girlfriend avoids his stare.

And her blood red heels go clacking out of his heart.

The only one with any comfort is the waitress

As she sneaks the little white wedding cake to the kitchen in the back

And licks the frosting off the candle. 

~*~*~**~*~**~*~

"Of course!"

She squeals. Eyes filling up with tears and smile expanding into that lovely I can't believe you're this amazing.

He stands up and wraps her in his future. All he can here is the sound of pitter pattering feet and school bus wheels.

The waitress does her job. The cake goes on the table and the couple blows the candle out together and the wax solidifies their relationship.

His father and mother exchange a look at the other side of the table. He grips his wife to keep her from rescuing her only son from a bad decision.

The will be daughter in law reaches across the table, smiles, pats the grey haired woman's hands and mouths the word "mom" in an excited whisper.

The engaged boyfriend looks into his lover's eyes like a puppy with a new owner. I'm gonna love coming home to you. He thinks warmly. 

The fiancee blinks into his eyes with a dozy grin. 

She clicks her dream red heels under the table, even though she knows she's already home.

The waitress is long gone

Into the kitchen

Where she searches for cake and frosting

To sweeten up her hatred for their happiness.