Gifts

At the end of the day, words might be the nicest things we can give one another.

finger painting

i lie limp as you pull up your pants, kiss my cheek, and say "i have to 
    take a piss"
once the door slams my eyes draw an arc from the ceiling to your phone on 
    the nightstand
the answers to my burning questions are waiting to be unlocked
and my itchy fingertips are dying to rob the truth
but instead I grab the neck of a half full Heineken 
and choke down day-old beer while looking for something more potent to 
    numb my racing mind
being logical is crippling, naivety seems so peaceful
i wish i could live in the dark, i wish i believed in the grey between 
    night and day
but i don't 
what i do know is that if i have to invade your privacy to pacify my fears then we are already dead
because trust is the heartbeat of love
without it we are two comatose bodies on life support
waiting for the other to pull the plug 
and i know you won't dare
you live life so scared
rather be a vegetable in someone else's presence than be important alone
so i know what needs to be done
but just for this once
i'm going to paint grey over the canvas of my reality
and lie comatose with you until the sun comes up tomorrow morning
and melts that paint away

yellow yarn

you're watching her unravel 
and it's beautiful
imperfection suites her 
like a perfectly placed freckle
her endearment is palpable
she's a writer with no pen
a barefoot dancer
not someone you should take a chance on
but she has this sideways glance 
like a puppy who's been caught
and in that moment she seems penetrable 
so you keep rolling with her punches
pretending you're untouched
even though most of her blows are near knockouts
you keep eating your heart out
because it feels so good when she picks you up
she has this look in her eyes that makes you believe in unicorns and God
she screams that 9 to 5 is a sham 
and insists that happiness is the one thing we are all born with a shot at
and you believe her
she is gospel
you're converted
sometimes she looks so young your feel perverted
other times she perverts
and provokes you
her words choke you
you're watching her preach passionate convictions with wine stained lips
she makes no sense but intently you listen 
hoping time will help you learn her language 
but she is trilingual and too hard to translate
so you press mute in your mind and just watch her perform 
a silent film starring her and her twelve personalities 
but you realize you're not the only one watching
she captivates a large audience
and she treats each viewer like a star-struck fan
tattooing her autograph delicately on each individual heart
she eats salad with her fingers and laughs with her mouth full
she is a smoker with no light
a penniless princess
not someone you should get involved with
but you can't stop watching her unravel
while thinking to yourself, "how beautiful."

death will come like a thief in the night
and when she gets here to whom will your material objects belong?
will you be rich in things or rich in love?

I'm Not Old Fashioned But I Don't Like the New Fashion

When I was four, my Grandma died of cancer. That same year my fish, named Fishy, jumped out of his bowl.  So until I was nine, I thought “Cancer” and “Harry Caray” were monsters hiding under my bed. I dreamt I would end up like Grandma and Fishy, which scared me because we burry bodies in the ground, and flush fish down toilettes, and even at 23 I just can’t see the humanity in that. Or in the fact that people have been stealing pieces of my soul since the day I was born. They say the crime rate is low in Newport Beach, but that’s because the newspapers didn’t report when my parents robbed my childhood, and I didn’t call 911 when teachers murdered my imagination. But now I’m stealing those pieces back, one by one, and I am becoming myself reincarnate.

“That’s impossible,” they object.

“Watch me defy,” I reply, as they stare with confused eyes while their frantic, boney knuckled fingers search for a calculator to compute my un-theorized human nature.

I want the heart of bird with defiant wings, so I can fly above convention and soar through unprecedented clouds. Because it’s getting hard to breath down here where the air is full of dollars and cents. I can’t see through the labels and I’m scared that all the mansions might come crashing down upon me.  

And the housewives are trying to furrow their botoxed brows while shaking their heavy fingers at everyone’s “sins,” but the rocks are weighing them down until they drag them on the ground. So they walk like gorillas, but gorillas are smart—these women have lost their minds. And as they drag their heavy stones to church they carve indents in the cement behind them, oblivious that their children are falling in the cracks. While standing in the pews they remind me that my blonde hair would look good with pom-poms, and wonder why I write when my blue eyes say it all.

Really? Can you see the disgust in my crystal blue manuscripts? Can you tell my bleach white teeth are starving for revenge? Did you know these talons are freshly manicured to rip out your son’s heart? And would you still let me date your boy if you knew I used to cut off Barbie’s hair and make her lay naked with Kelly?

As if the spawn of these lobotomized ladies would date me anyways. Dating is a thing of the past. I’m not old fashioned, but I don’t like the new fashion. I don’t want you fondling my text messages by the door while I kiss your facebook goodnight. And if I have to suck your cell phone just to get you to bang my voicemail then honey you can forget about going all the way.

Truth be told, my heart belongs to someone else… another theft I never reported. I wish he knew I was fighting for him, not with him, but Goliath’s shoes always fit me better, and guys never want to be David. So now I live life like I’m in the limbo line—I see how low I can go. And I fall in love like it’s a Ferris wheel—I’m always getting off right after getting on. And sometimes I wonder if heaven is just a dream that we never wake up from. And other times I don’t believe in heaven at all.

After Grandma and Fishy, the next person who died was Princess Diana. I remember hearing my Mother sob while she ate stale Saltine Crackers and watched that funeral. She cried harder than when we buried Grandma or when we flushed Fishy.

And it made me wonder, if I’m wearing makeup when I die, will more people cry for me?