Foolish

Falling out of love is quite enough to make a person sick, to ruin their liver, to shrink their waistband and interrupt any chance of a sleep pattern. It is a horrible, wretched feeling that begins in your stomach before it can creep all the way up to your heart. The absence of happy butterflies flitting about above your abdomen causes a sort of concaving to occur around your middle. Most mistake this feeling for common anxiety, but it is far more powerful than that. It squeezes the life out of your internal organs, until you feel oddly lopsided and deflated, as well as shockingly empty. Your heart will not break until much later, when you are eating un-purchased chocolates in aisle thirteen of Vons, casually gorging yourself while telling your best friend that you are absolutely fine. It is in that moment that you realize that you want your mother and your drug dealer in the same room for the first time in your life, as both perform their nurturing duties for you simultaneously.

There are far too many things in life that you become incapable of handling the moment you are told that you are no longer loved or wanted by someone you care about very much. Bathing regularly quickly becomes one of them, and touching up your roots completely falls to the wayside. Shoes that match your panty hose are another problem, as is remembering to do your Calculus homework for summer school. You seem to forget quite frequently that you are no longer supposed to send your ex charming text messages in the morning, quirky jokes and pictures mid-afternoon, and drunken fragments of sentences when the bars get out at two am. All of the weight you swore up and down that you would lose for him suddenly slips off of your frame effortlessly, if you consider spending hours bent retching and coughing in front of the liquor store “effortless.”

Hearing his voice on the other end of the phone becomes a maddening chore, where it was once a pleasant ritual. Never do you come out on top of a conversation with someone who has just broken your heart. These talks always start off well, crescendo, and dive, crashing into the earth and shattering all hopes of any future un-screened phone calls.

“Oh, uh, hi, hey what’s up, how have you been?”

“Whitney, its been five days.”

“I know. I was just calling because I um, you know, was in your neighborhood, I mean, the neighborhood, not necessarily yours, I’m not like, stalking you or anything, I just, um, well, you live a few freeway exits away from my brother and…”

“Your brother lives six exits away. How did you get this number?”

“Well, anyways, I just wanted to see if maybe we could, you know, grab a coffee, and talk, maybe, say, Wednesday?”

“Whitney, I’ve told you eleven times. We are not dating anymore. Please move on. You’re starting to embarrass yourself.”

“Ah...I can see that I’ve caught you at a bad time. I should probably let you go. Its just that I miss you and we were in love two weeks ago and I’m really not sure how this all happened, and...oh, god, please don’t hang up on me…”

Click.

“Dammit.”

You hang up the phone feeling like a complete loser, a failure of life, the universe, love, and everything else. It seems you cannot sink much lower into the abyss of shamefulness and depravity that seems to be cradling your fragile soul. Buying a cat and living the rest of your life as an imitation of Holly Golightly seems quite attainable, so you slip into that black dress that now hangs loosely off your emaciated ribcage, pour yourself another glass of whiskey, and tell yourself that you are a wild thing who cannot be tamed for love. In reality, you are simply another fool who fell, and now, you must face the consequences.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Deity

Feared and loved by the people of Ancient Greece, the deities of the time controlled society and culture. Their power, as well as their frailty, attracted the Greeks to a complex, polytheistic religion that changed generations of human life for centuries. Offerings of love and sacrifice were given to these hallowed beings in exchange for blessings and guidance, and monumental houses of worship were constructed out of celebration and reverence for each god and goddess: The Acropolis, the Pantheon, the Temple of Athena Nike.

We fill that need to devote our love and adoration to a greater being by following a new generation of idols. Replacing images of Poseidon in the stain glass windows of Roman cathedrals are the rock-stars featured on the massive billboards that crowd Sunset Boulevard, the posters that litter adolescent bedrooms, and the t-shirts worn by tired concert goers after a show, as they stumble blearily to their cars in the early morning moonlight. Those truly devoted to rock and roll make love to the concrete floors of venues with their high-tops and assault the pervading air around them with their voices. They understand what it means to be part of a unified whole, to be part of something universally larger than themselves, to be part of the music and the night and the adventure. Our concepts of Zeus and Hera have been replaced by Kurt and Courtney, Sid and Nancy, John and Yoko. Offerings of panties and merchandise money are given in exchange for guitar rifts and drum solos.

We have built new houses of worship: The Roxy, CBGB, The Astoria, The Whiskey-A-Go-Go. Bars and clubs house these modern saints and their obedient followers, while the musical performances provide sanctuary for the masses without the heartache of religion.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Fairytale

It began, and ended with, a simple story. I was nineteen years old, and a fool to fall in love, but then, we all were. The half-masticated remains of our high-school battered hearts yearned for something deeper than second base on prom night. I watched in amazement as the girls I once knew slipped lazily into the silky deceit of what they believed to be true love, wearing its lies like a pretty negligee. I followed them blindly, led by the smooth, deep voice of a man called James.

“Once upon a time,” he began, and I saw his eyes smile brightly, across four states, and through the web-camera we had been using to stay in contact with one another. The tears streaming down the left side of my nose made soft plicking sounds as they hit my keyboard. I heard my roommate roll over, coughing, but I did not care. I held onto his worlds, the night, and this magic like a thread I could not see, allowing it to lead me wherever he wanted me to go.

“We’re going to be so happy together,” he explained, his voice cracking slightly, his lips barely moving, his teeth shaking hard. “Honestly sweetheart, I think about marrying you when I’m lying awake, looking at the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling. I think about the love we’re going to have, and how someday you’re going to be such a wonderful mother, such a lovely wife.” I listened to him speak, and I pretended that I was not two thousand miles away, shivering in the moonlight of a tile-floored dorm during my first semester of college, frightened of the distance between us. I imagine that it is the year nineteen forty-four, and that it is perfectly acceptable to marry your first love. It is expected that you will write letters to your beau as he fights battles in unknown places very far away, and life is absolutely splendid when he finally returns home to the charming young lady with long, white gloves who has been waiting for him all this time. I allow James to tell me that we will live happily ever after, and I fade into a calming sleep, filled to bursting with his stars.

That is why, half a lifetime, and several thousand dreams, plans, and hopes later, I stand shielding my eyes from the afternoon sun, ruining the front of my polka dot dress with my fat, sloppy tears, trying to make sense of why he is leaving.

“Please,” I choke, “Don’t go.” How many times have I said these pitiful words, these pathetic, last syllables, to which I know the reply?

“Once upon a time,” he begins, but his face is the controlled, barren side of the Berlin Wall. Ach du. “There was a beautiful princess, and a handsome prince named James. James fell in love with the princess, who although quite lovely, was badly broken. He loved her so much that he wanted nothing more than to put her back together again. Little by little, he helped her heart heal, placing pieces of his own heart into hers. One day, James did not love her any more. He wanted his pieces back, but they were a part of her, and she held on to them.”

“You can have them back,” I whisper. “But promise me that you wont leave me. Promise me that all the plans we made will still come true.”

He drives away, my bare feet burning on the asphalt, trying to keep up with his car as it fades into the distance. I had been a foolish girl, becoming drunk off the false photographs of the future he had planted in my mind. James was a fairytale himself, a broken promise, a misleading story with a surprise ending. He was not the Prince Charming I had assumed him to be, but simply the actor who had memorized Charming’s dialogue, mannerisms, and lifestyle with astounding accuracy.

Darling, I truly believed that you were a man made of flesh and blood and bone, but you, my love, were nothing more than a fascinating story written with fading ink on yellowing paper.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Simple

Cocaine. It is white, simple. Searing holes in the nasal cavity on its way to the central nervous system, it makes its way to these fragile areas in the brain from the leaves of coca plants, and into the pockets of dealers. From there, it is purchased, stolen, or transferred by men with needles, men with slim, red straws, men with pipes, men with rolled dollar bills. Men like my father.

Elisia. She is Cuban, simple, with bird-like features; a hawk’s nose, a sparrow’s bones. Her fingers are long and spindly, the brown skin stretched tightly over the knuckles, her fingernails filed into points. She is the kind of woman who accepts tickets to the ball game from charming, married men. Men like my father.

At five o’clock in the morning, I roll out of bed, tugging the hem of my nightgown over the goose bumps on my knees. This is my favorite time of the morning, when the daylight shining in through my venetian blinds casts an eerie, royal blue light over my bedroom. Imagining that I am Princess Irenie from my favorite fairy tale, following her magic red ball of string into the sunlight, I pursue the sounds of scraping, of rolling, of bumping, into the hallway, down the staircase, and into the entryway.

“Daddy, where are you going?”

My father glances up at me, startled. His red-handed guilt makes me feel afraid to look at him. I hide my face, but he crosses the foyer in three, neat strides and lifts my tiny body effortlessly. With my head resting on his shoulder, my eye-glasses drooping off the tip of my nose, and my heart silently wilting, he paces the entryway, whispering soothingly into my ear. I memorize the steps he takes on the tiled floor, the way his shoes sound, heel, toe, scuff, when he turns. I am ten years old, but I pretend that I am three, burying my face in his neck and holding tightly to his tie, begging in my smallest voice for him not to go.

The bedroom door opens, and my mother fills the space with her voice, with her sadness. Our two-story house with high ceilings cannot contain her anguish, as she wails, screams, sobs, and crumples on the floor. My feet touch the tile and I become sharply aware that my father has let me go. From my place on the floor, one hand in my mother’s hair, I watch his suitcases file out of the front door one by one until the entry way is empty. His tall, wide frame fills the doorway for a brief moment, and I lift my eyes, fully aware that this will be the last time I see my father entering the front door of our home. He opens his mouth, and there is deep sorrow and a kind of gasping in his voice. My mind jumps to the last scene in Return of the Jedi when Darth Vadar takes his last dying breaths with his son at his side, admitting fault, and saying good-bye.

“Angel,” he whispers, stooping to reach my eye level. “Be brave for me, okay?

I glance behind me, where my mother has collapsed, her sobs becoming a more inaudible, torturous tremor throughout her body. The front door seems much more inviting, but before I can ask my father to take me with him, I feel his lips touch the crown of my head. He is gone before I can open my eyes.

My mother shifts, her skin imprinted with angry, raised lines by the grout. She lifts herself with ragdoll grace and curses my father on the way to the shower. I think about crawling back into bed, but I remember that the serene, morning blue will have lifted from my walls. I choose instead to remain on the hard, smooth, surface of the last place my father loved me.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Full.

I sit in the driver’s seat of my first car, affectionately named Walter after my grandfather, who had passed away and left the vehicle in my name. One leg is bent, my knee mashed against the doorframe, my foot falling asleep beneath my right thigh. The steering wheel feels hot in the warm, Texas moonlight. I grip it tightly, trying to stay awake, Ryan Adam’s voice carrying through the stereo as I drive through the vast wastelands of the south. Fourteen hours of driving west from Waco will land you in Las Cruces New Mexico, a small border town with excellent Hispanic dining. The town right before it, El Paso, provides you with a clear view south of the border from the freeway, displaying Mexico as a dingy mirage that wavers in and out of focus in the distance. I have absolutely no idea what town I am currently roving through. There are no signs welcoming me to this unfamiliar territory, nor do there seem to be any gas stations or rest stops. In abundance, however, are the yellow-green bugs that smash and die against my windshield every six seconds, their miniscule lives ending in a matter of painful, blurry moments. I curse, and turn on the wipers, which only smear the entrails of my road trip companions even further across my line of vision.

For the first time in my life, I feel a tiny glimpse of what it must be like to be free. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, save for miles and miles of stretching, unpaved road ahead of me, and, as far as I can see with my car stuffed to bursting with suitcases and hanging bags, even less behind me in my rearview mirror. The road is never unkind to a traveler seeking answers. It is soothing to spend hours of the day spinning by farmland and cloud formations, watching the changing climate around you while you maintain homeostasis within the microcosmic world of your vehicle.

When I was small, the only thing I ever dreamed of doing with my future was to get out of my hometown, get out on my own, and go someplace far, far, away. I wanted to run away to a better life in a place where I could be lawless, unabashed, and uninhibited. I would watch the Wizard of Oz and shake my head at Dorothy for wanting to go back to Kansas to live with her hick, un-tornado-proofed family when she could have easily sparkled in the Emerald City for the rest of her life. “If it was me”, I whispered to myself, as I watched in horror while she clicked those gorgeous ruby slippers together once, twice, three times, and was transformed into a feverish, black-and-white version of her once beautiful, Technicolor self, “I would keep the heels, run away with the Scarecrow, and find myself a happily ever after somewhere over the rainbow.”

Today, I find myself hypocritically whispering, “There’s no place like home,” as I make my way through four states towards the house I grew up in. My eyes fill up with tears, and I can taste the Pacific. I shiver. Another burst of freedom overwhelms me, and I stare ahead at the glowing horizon, my heart set on California, my gas tank marked full.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Ma'i

The first coyote to be born into the world was given the name Ma’i. Guiltless and prowling, he stalked the nights without conscience. Ma’i was nervous, hungry. So was the man I fell in love with when I was not quite sixteen. On all fours, he encircled my silent,trembling frame, observing my every angle before pouncing. I saw his eyes flash yellow before his lips collided with mine, enveloping any and all words I could have gasped. My heart raced, my breathing grew shallow, jagged.

It had been nearly a year since I had last slept. He came to me in the time of the Santa Anas, born to Los Angeles Octobers like Ma’i to the desert. Existing to lick through my long, dry fingers and begin fires in the California hillsides, the Santa Anas blew ashy breath onto the dry sprigs of fall, blew newspapers out of stands and into the streets, blew something dangerous and dirty into the season. They were the mile marker of new history to begin. The Santa Anas have devastated thousands of lives. I should not have listened to the winds. My mind and body have always been overcome by the sensation that the dry, desert winds are pushing me around at fifty, sixty-five, eighty miles an hour. I cannot think of the last time I have taken something slow. Forgetting how to tip toe has become a problem; where others step cautiously, I jump, I dance, I fall, I fall, I fall.

“So, are we dating now?” I ask.

The boy looks up at me hungrily, pants, nods yes, the green in his irises showing his human side, saliva contained within his mouth for now. I pat him on the head, and fall asleep. I do not dream, but I wake up and he is still behind me, his head nodding into the back of my neck. I try to get off the couch to make myself some breakfast; it is past five o’clock, the fading orange sun is shining through the blinds. He snarls, his hands gripping my waist. I gently move them, finger by finger, until he is relaxing alone on his back; one arm flopped over his head, shielding his eyes from the evening sun. I pace my kitchen alone, searching for crackers, thinking about the coming Monday at school. My stomach is in knots. His girlfriend will be there, and I do not want to spend the rest of my sophomore year labeled as the rat, the gutter-trash-nobody, Whitney-Who? I peek over the edge of the sofa. He is breathing through his mouth now, sighing softly and kicking his socked-feet. Smiling, I pat his head again. He is sort of cute, despite the large nose taking up half his face, his wide forehead, his bad skin, his lopsided haircut, a Mohawk-gone-wrong. Ignoring the warning signs—his current relationship, his lack of self-confidence, the Santa Ana winds—I like him. I shake off the feeling that Monday is going to be a disaster, and work on getting this kid on my couch a ride home.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Twice

I’m with a person who makes me wish I had a different life. With the movement of his lips, his steady hands, his careful words, his protective hold, he makes me wish I deserved a fraction of what he gracefully gives me. We drive out toward Los Angeles at night, his hands on the steering wheel, my skin on fire from the burn of the lights reflecting off the freeway.

“Where do you want to go?”

In the rearview mirror, my eyes are black like a doll’s. He sees me as something better than what I am, as a girl who didn’t give her freedom away in exchange for shameful love. But I have. I wish I could tell him how pathetic I used to be, like a baby spider, clinging, swaying, wanting constantly. If I had a scarlet letter, I would wear it, I would let him know. Instead, I tell James to keep driving, and we wind down Mulholland onto Sunset Boulevard.

In another life, a million miles away, I once fell into a disturbing, deviated love with the man that came before James. He was nothing like the ocean-eyed marguerite tracing the outline of my hips and waist as we drive, stuck in traffic, through Hollywood. This other man didn’t even have a name. Half hypocrite, half vampire, he led me into a haze of obsession, of love unreturned. I fell for his charm, as all young girls do. No one had bothered to tell me that a fist -fight could never be romantic, that chains were ashamed of their prisoners. To say that he took everything I am would not accurately describe what I let him do. I no longer lived through myself. My lungs only accepted the air that had passed through his first.

James lays down the back seats of his car, and holds on to me. I am not used to this. I wish I could make him leave, make him realize that he could do so much better than an infectious parasite like me. But he doesn’t let go. He whispers, “I love you,” kisses my collarbone, says it again, “I love you.” I close my eyes, and when I open them, he is still breathing next to me.

I will forget the first man, the coyote that howled and cackled in the night as I tell him that I’m finally leaving. He will not follow me; I know this well. I say goodbye for the last time, and even as his yelps continue long after I am gone, I abandon him there in the desert.

A young boy sells oranges off the west of the road as we drive back home down the Pacific Coast Highway, offering to trade the clanging silver in my pockets for the Camarillo fire softly glowing within his.

“I love you too, James, darling,” I say.

Tonight, I am not that sappy, hungry, empty girl. He will never know her. I will make sure he never does.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.