daisy chains, growing pains

your silhouette against the window,
your long arms and long legs stretching,
all elegance and brilliance and strength—
you are art without my help.
and with the morning sunshine,
the curves of your body,
(i see your breasts
and think of allen ginsberg:
“what peaches,” i marvel, and
at the hollow between, the creases below,
“what penumbras”)
dark edges against the light,
pale skin against the dark,
you move with such grace.

the day is young and new,
as your skin, your heart,
and from your teary eyes
(you yawn like a baby
with teeth)
to your long toes,
tomorrow is already coming. 

“Acid Tongue” is the name of Mary’s short story, at least tentatively. I don’t know for sure if it’s meant to be permanent; all I know is that was the heading on the 11 or so pages she turned in on Wednesday. Acid Tongue. The story is about an acid trip and I’m sure it will be good but that isn’t the point of this; the point is I like the title. Acid Tongue. Right now I have a tongue with a sore near the tip, ouchy and stinging, and my whole mouth tastes strange and feels stranger, probably from too much candy. I like my candy tangy and sweet, and I can only imagine that so much citric acid and sugar isn’t good for that delicate semi-skin with all those teeny tiny nerves. I recognize that there are nerves everywhere but pink places, it seems, have more. Mouths and fingertips and soft squishy genitals. Pink and sensitive. I used to think the word ‘genital’ sounded clinical and disgusting, but I think I’m coming to like it now. It still has a harsh tone but when you separate it from its so-often-clinical-and-disgusting context and examine it on its own terms it becomes such an interesting word. Generative. These things are generative, they are necessary for the movement through generations, they generate. They generate, obviously, little pink squirmy squishy beings, but they also generate everything else. They generate the hormones that drive or seem to drive so much of the world, they generate strange fluids with colors and smells and tastes no one understands the point of, they generate so many feelings. Because of the nerves. And the thin skin. And, by my theory, the pinkness. And I imagine if I stuffed my cunt full of candy it would feel sore and strange (disregarding the immense probability of a yeast infection).

Triggers (sexual assault) behind the cut, and context note: my school is all girls, we all have to give senior speeches to 9-12.

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or, my story for Creative Writing class.

“That ancient squishy-looking basketball was actually the first piece of athletic equipment ever to go on a commercial trans-Atlantic flight.” I gesture towards the sagging leather object in the fairly small trophy case. “So, that’s about it for the athletic center… Any questions?”

A green-eyed girl in worn blue varsity track sweatpants raises her hand. “Can we participate in sports in some way other than varsity athletics? Also, if we are varsity athletes, are teachers, like, accommodating about the amount of time spent in practice and, like, traveling to games?”

Another girl, with red hair and rainbow shoes, rolls her eyes and sighs. The situation had been exactly opposite just a few minutes before in the concert hall: the redhead had asked inane but enthusiastic questions, while the athlete had rolled her eyes and sighed.

I feel like I need to say something about diversity of student interests. Instead I just answer the question. The part about diversity is later in the script, and really it’s not my job anyway; the admissions officer talks about that. I just walk and talk and try to exude contagious adoration for the campus. It’s a gray day and as normal as that may be, I am worried it might rain on my tour.

(continued beyond the cut)

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So I’m sitting here, insomniac, waiting for the rest of my west wing episode to load on this mediocre hotel internet, 4 am, and I’m thinking about Pittsburgh. I’m thinking about we have another hour’s drive ahead of us in the morning and I’m thinking about if I got in there we would do it every year, twice. But then I’m thinking, it was a nice drive. I’ve never been to western Maryland before. It’s beautiful, at least at dusk. The mountains and hills, and the banks alongside the road sparkling with fireflies. The hazy lines of tree-covered mountains beyond mountains, the lights of farms in the valleys, and the rest stop towns lit up like the Vegas Strip, except instead of gambling and hookers there’s one of every chain restaurant, convenience store, and motel. The big low yellow moon and beautiful Venus, the evening star. The sky fading into indigo obscurity and the empty road behind me turning into a dark void where occasionally headlights appear. “Balance” and “Ontario” playing in my head— “I know what can hurt me real bad/ and what can’t hurt me anymore./ I know how to rise up with the sun,/ and I am learning what sleep’s good for.” I will rise with the sun, if I ever get sleepy enough to lay down, I feel. We’re at an elevation, here in Bedford, still in this hilly country, and it’s chilly outside, almost. Compared to Baltimore, anyway. And the sky is clear and dark and there’s a glowing cross and a bottom-lit American flag glowing on the hill behind our hotel, like they’re daring me, ominous, or maybe just kind. And the hills and the stone and the valleys and the trees and the fireflies and the farms and the towns all stun me. This is damned beautiful country.

Leah says my writing is good.

I worry. What if I do not write enough? A person is given a talent to use it. So they say. Given by whom? What use is my talent to write?

Is my talent to write? Not, “is that my talent?” but is it. Does it be. Does it exist; do I have a talent for writing.

Leah says my writing makes people feel, touches them. I say only her. She says “but I separate you from the writing” and I say “still.” because I am afraid to believe her. Because there is no evidence. Strange for a writer (not a scientist) to crave evidence, but I do. People only ever say of my poems that they are eloquent or Whitmanesque or interesting. Not “I was touched” or “this is good” or “this made me feel.” Never “this made me feel.”

Because of you I felt. That is what I want to hear before I die. I want to induce, seduce, produce feeling.

May I do this by my words printed on the page? Maybe. Maybe. What if I can, what if my words do work, my writing is good, but I don’t know so I don’t write enough? What if something important is hiding inside my mind, waiting for me to get to it, and I stop writing. And it sits and it waits and it withers away and this important thing never gets out and society needs it, this important thing, but there was a too-scared girl who wouldn’t write because she wanted to be adored—-

she also had an inflated ego. There is nothing hiding in my mind that is not hiding in others’ minds too. Society will get what it needs, whether I write or not. So never mind that.

Never mind that. Mind, though, that just because it is not integral does not mean it does not matter. It may well matter. I am audacious enough to hope that it might matter. I want my words to matter. I want to matter, really. That’s all. I’m just another small speck of skin and soul who wants to matter.

And I want to make you feel. So I will keep writing whether she’s right or not, because she might be, the chance is endless and hope shoots up new and green every time you lose it, a perennial. Maybe someday the words will be good, the way she says they are.

Flowers, kisses. Pictures. Earrings and lipstick change. More pictures. Feet up and growling. Time to go. Cold wind in the parking lot of the bowling alley. Sitting in school buses and cheering forward motion after 15 minutes’ wait in the bus and and 20 outside. Hungry. Rattling along 95 and 83, into the city. Still hungry. Surprise! Photographer on the steps of the hotel— feel famous imagining him paparazzi.  OH NO! Revolving door! Up 12 floors in a tiny elevator, try not to get stepped on by Kelly. Still hungry. Arrive, check in, table 27, in a little niche- cool or terrible? Too many people assigned to our table, and Caroline doesn’t make any sense to be there anyway. Salad and bread! Hunger sated— sort of. Nava brings me a drink with a swagger. We realize that the teacher/chaperone table is 20 feet from us. Ew. Eat Dyllan’s and Mitch’s tomatoes. Still kind of hungry. Mingle, get pictures with Mr. Waters. Gracie’s vegetarian entree arrives (pasta). More mingling and waiting and being hungry. Finally everybody else’s food comes (sundried tomato chicken, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables [with YELLOW SQUASH AND ZUCCHINI EW EWWWW]). Dancing gradually begins. When 90% of the prom populus is on the dance floor, the lights go down and the music up more. Dancing for hours. Shoes off. Glitter from Nava’s dress all over me. Sweaty already, and my bow is sagging. Pull it off and put it with the shoes. Keep pushing back sweaty hair— the over the head comb is my signature dance move. Grind a little, don’t understand why people think lesbians can’t enjoy that. I certainly can enjoy having a woman rub her ass on my crotch- maybe differently than a guy, but it’s not unpleasant in the least. Unlike many others, we also actually dance. For hours. And kiss. And get told we’re cute— twice. Rethink a few things. Stop thinking and keep dancing. Pull sweaty hair into a ponytail- pretty hair is for the lucky few. Take a break and drink ice water. Dance more, get cramps. Nava gets foot cramps- time for another break. More dancing. Maddi steals my woman, then hers. The night goes on and on and we yawn and nap on each other during the single slowish song. Eventually the senirs get told to leave, then us. Wait and wait: elevators are small. Nava has to decide whether to go home or go to afterprom for a little while. She decides to go home, gives me her claim check. She and her mother still have trouble determining if she is actually allowed to leave, but the upper school head steps in and lets her go. Goodnight, I am on the last bus without my friends. I rest and we rattle along back to the bowling alley. We arrive. It is cold between the bus and the building. The theme is nautical/cruise. They give us tshirts: on the front, a life preserver that says “BMS Prom 2010” and under it “I’m on a boat” and on the back a spyglass captioned “Take a good hard look”. I don’t understand the back, but I accept it. I change and sit with Mary and Curtis and we are crashing, hard. Finally we bowl. Mostly I bowl for all of us, though. Mary wins, mostly based on the two or three frames she actually bowls for herself. We finally get up the gumption to move to the raffle room and enter raffles. We wait, they draw, none of us win anything (oh how I coveted those Bose headphones, though. hmm, birthday coming) but the darts people did not give out all their prizes so I get a big bag of skittles. I know I will crave sugar tomorrow. Seth is awkward, as always. He finds updos hot. Okay, Seth. Curtis and Seth and I freeze on the minute long walk to his car and turn the heat up all the way — brisk night for May. I am home. I want nothing more than to take out my contacts, but first I whisper to my mother that I am home, that prom was good.

Exhilarating and excellent and I am glad I did not let the depression that came this morning grip me and keep me from going out tonight.

Normally I am a strong-young-woman type. I am not the swayed-by-media type, I am not the batting-eyelashes type, I am not thrown by one person’s perception of one snapshotted moment of my existence.

And yet.

Lately this self-loathing I haven’t felt in a long time (years?) is finding its way back into my mind. Things that shouldn’t bother me do: my mother said my boobs were dumpy, Anna says I am being bitchy, my father being so clueless as to think my hickey is self-harm, my mother telling me a particular wallet or pair of shoes I like is trashy, Mary giving me that look and tone that means “you’re stupid,” even Nava saying she feels like I am smarter than she is. Having no one to talk to at school or that look people give me in English class when I try to articulate an idea and can’t, quite— “why would she even open her mouth then?” The moment in French class when I know I need to use the subjunctive but can’t remember how to form it. When Aleeza said “your senior schedule sounds…interesting” but she meant that’s a slacker’s schedule, a stupid kid’s schedule, an underachiever’s schedule, a weirdo’s schedule. Not the kind of schedule that will get you into the sort of college you need to go to to get the sort of jobs and connections you need to make to be a Fortune 500 CEO or a U.S. President. Or when Erin said that in her college counseling meeting she and her mother asked her counselor which would look better, a new community service project or another Habitat for Humanity trip, and the counselor said it was really about doing what Erin liked, and neither Erin nor her mother accepted that, they kept asking, well, why isn’t it about just what looks good? And she says that to me knowing that I only do what makes me happy, not what looks good, and it doesn’t always even make me happy. Mr. Waters told me I was a pain in the neck. I know I have a squeaky voice and sometimes play devil’s advocate too much and take things one step farther than anyone else wants to go and I talk about death and sex and money and other things no one wants to hear about and I don’t always realize how “upsetting” and “inappropriate” I am until it’s too late, and some people are not like me, they hate being made intellectually uncomfortable instead of loving it, so then they hate me, and I realize this, and I realize it is because I am too much/not enough.

So here I am this imperfect creature and this hatred and insecurity that I thought I had conquered comes creeping in and suddenly I always want to curl up in a ball and cry and kill myself because I am worthless and nobody wants me around and that’s not true, it’s not, it’s not true, but nobody wants to hear what you have to say, so be quiet, so only the most important things get out, the things that fly up from the pit of my anger and hatred and loathing and come out as resentment and bitchiness and YES I DO RESENT YOUR BEHAVIORS THIS IS NOT JUST AN OUTCRY and YES I AM BEING BITCHY BECAUSE YOU’RE BEING STUPID THIS IS NOT JUST LEFTOVERS but also it is because it seems I am worthless to the world anyway.

I wish this would go away. I want sing the strong woman song again.

Lots of e.d. and body-image triggers beyond the jump.

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