“What if…”

Her words were knives, carefully poised under the pretense of being playful.

“What if I tore you apart right now? Ripped you open, sucked you dry and played with all the broken pieces?”

“You’re rambling. You’re cr- not in your right state of mind and you’re rambling. You won’t hurt me, come on doll just lay down with me. Please.”

Her eyes shone, dark and guarded, holding me and turning me over and setting me back down again. She was whispering, quietly at first but then louder so I could hear her.

“You’re a fucking liar, you’re lonely and you’re cowardly and I know you, know how you are and know how it is, just break it open and break it out, that’s what you need, we both do and I could help you, could help could help rip the poison out-“

I reached for both her hands, gently taking her wrists, padded fingertips over scar tissue. “I’m tired, aren’t you? Why don’t you lie with me, the poison will ease out. The demons are sleeping, let’s get to dreaming.”

“But what about when they wake?”

What did I say, oh what have I done?
I didn’t mean to bring this harm to anyone
but I fear my loose tongue and my oh so guilty heart
have let out the secrets that will tear us all apart.
I hope you can forgive me, I hope you can see why
my heart flung itself open and let those words fly.
You only protected me, took me where it was safe
And now I may have ruined it and lost that secret place.

Tell us

Tell me of that worldly girl, with her coffeebitter smile

Tell me what she meant to you, tell us. it’s been awhile.

She didn’t visit often, but when she was in town I knew.

The air felt different, atmosphere changed; I can’t explain it to you.

She made us feel alive, brought back something forgotten but once dreamed

We’d known it once, before we were born. At least that’s how it seemed.

She was electric, her touch was magnetic and her eyes burned so deep,

And when she sang, voice in pain, she’d make the angels weep.

Torn stockings and crooked spine, she was a street-smart sarcastic one

With alluring airs and borrowed promises, she’d invite you along for the fun.

“Would you like to be serenaded beneath a newmoon-black sky?

Here’s a song, I just made it. It’s for the trees, stars, you and I.”

You couldn’t help but follow her, couldn’t help but learn her song.

You were with her the entire time she was there, though the visits were never long.

You were in love, infatuated, in fear of losing her to another

Though you’d been warned “Don’t trust that one” by your domineering mother.

She’d come back wearing another’s ring, someone’s name etched in her skin.

If you’d wait long enough for her stories, eventually she would begin.

“This was a sailor, a boy in the Navy,” and she absently touched her shoulder.

His name was above another tattoo, one faded, homedone and much older.

And that date was the day she and her female sweetheart became engaged,

But the woman was hospitalized for a time and returned greatly aged.

They ended on shaky terms, but the woman meant enough to remain

Plainly visible on her right forearm, the numbers meant more “because of the pain,”

She told me fiercely one night, whiskey wet eyes looking into mine.

I nodded, not knowing what to say and that response seemed to be fine.

Her stories were long and changed over time, and her visits grew further apart

From time to time we would receive postcards covered with her art.

Adventures and travels, both real and imagined, were written in her red pen,

And below them a kissmark, a signature and the promise to come again,

But her last visit to this town was several years ago-

I wish I could say what became of her but the truth is that I don’t know.

I’m awesome, my sister’s awesome and there is so much love- not the vague wholesome wishy washy sort of love but actual tight and true bittersweet but so very real love- right now, in the air and in my heart and I’m feeling rather alive.

She lives according to the signs,
reads her horoscope every day.
It tells her how to live her life
what to do and what to say.

She says she needs the guidance
that they help her find her way
that she’d be lost without them,
But I think she’d be okay.

The Dancer

We became another stereotype

the first time you hit my face,

When you told me I’d spoken out of turn

and I’d better learn my place.

Didn’t bother to count my bruises,

They covered my arms, I knew,

numbering the mistakes I’d made,

in colors black and blue.

Just another battered woman,

a lost, misguided teen

‘Cause you knew I’d defend you to the death,

didn’t matter if you got mean.

I loved you in a twisted way

I knew you loved me too,

No matter what the people say

or the violent things you’d do.

I clung to every moment,

the bloody kisses shared;

You’d be gentle afterward

and that’s how I knew you cared.

I became another statistic

when I went and bought that knife.

Just another faceless statistic,

a wasted teenage life.

”I want you to tell me something.”

“Hmm?”

She was at the table with me, watching as I worked on the collage, offering an idea every now and then. Her hair was all down, and it was long, the uneven split ends and ragged dreadlocks dragging over the table. She pulled one up, twisting it between her fingers and smiling at the bit of wet paint on it.

“Will you tell me about the first time you had sex?”

“The first time I had sex, or the first time someone had sex with me? There’s a difference.”

I didn’t want to hear about the first one. I only knew pieces of that story from things she’d said over the years, about her father’s family and why she didn’t talk to them, from her wry, bitter comments to what had spilled out last summer when our walk down the bike trail turned into a bad trip for her and she had relived it. I didn’t want to hear what had been done to her, I wanted to hear about when she chose it.

“The first time you had sex.”

She sighed, leaning back in her chair and looking up at the ceiling, digging for the memory. A smile slowly appeared on her face and after a few more moments of going through her mind, she began. “It was really very sweet, if you must know. I wasn’t in love with him but I loved him, and he cared about me.”

“Who was he?”

“He lived in the same apartment building as me and my friends. This was when I was… sixteen? Yeah, sixteen ‘cause I’d left home that summer and then got that place with some other people, and he lived two flights up, shared his home with his band. He was eighteen I think, seventeen or eighteen, but I never asked.”

I was looking down at my work, moving the cut out birds on the page, arranging them and waiting for her to keep going.

“I’d go over there a lot when they were practicing, and he taught me a little guitar. They let me paint on their walls, didn’t care if I fell asleep and stayed over. I met his dad once, he stopped by to bring the guys some sound equipment, a new amp for the bass or something. He was nice too. But the guy I was with… you wanna hear more about him? Or am I taking too long in telling the story?”

“No, no. I like hearing about it. Please keep going.”

“Mkay. I only lived there for a year, but we hadn’t been together that long. Just a few months, but we spent so much time together and had so much fun and were so comfortable together, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

“But you weren’t actually in love with him.”

“No, I wasn’t.” She was quiet a few minutes, and I glanced up to see her still gazing at the ceiling, hands idly playing with the ends of her hair, twisting it around her paint-stained fingers. “We’d do everything a couple did, going to run errands together, going out to see shows, walking through town holding hands, kissing and cuddling, but I never really saw it as us going out. I think I was trying not to take anything seriously, so I just laughed it off whenever he said he loved me, whenever he called me beautiful. I didn’t think he was really in love with me, though he might have been.”

“What about his band members? Did you like any of them, did you all hang out together?”

“Yeah, I liked all of them. The drummer was really fucking cool, a total weirdo but funny. He was pretty smart, in college I think, and their keyboardist turned me on to some really good music, and I had my first experience on shrooms with them.” She started laughing, and I could tell she really missed them. “Those guys were fucking crazy, I loved them. I loved my friends back at my apartment, don’t get me wrong, but there was something about all that laid-back boy energy I really enjoyed. We didn’t drink that much since he hated getting really drunk, which relieved me. And even though he’d done a lot of drugs, by the time I came around, he was getting sick of it. Sick of people only coming by to hang out when they had some weed to smoke, or alcohol to share, so he was branching out to make new friendships when I came along. Right on time, he’d always say. ‘Girl, you came into my life right on time.’ And then hug me or kiss me and squeeze me or something… He was so cute. Goofy, cute, sweet, but such an immature guy.”

I couldn’t figure out how I felt, because I’d never got her talking about one person for so long, and she’d never even mentioned this guy to me. She was usually pretty vague about her past, telling snatches of stories and bringing up certain people only when they related to something we were talking about or doing, but rarely sharing the whole thing with me.

“He’d had a lot of sex before, he told me that because he wanted to be honest with me, and I told him that I hadn’t because I didn’t want him to know about my childhood. It wasn’t important, doesn’t count. We took it slow, but we were both such physical people- holding hands, touching, kissing, cuddling, pushing and play-fighting, rubbing each other’s backs and arms- it was gonna happen sooner or later. And I figured that it didn’t matter if I was in love with him or not. I loved him and I was comfortable with him and I trusted him, so it was okay.”

“You got so much more into the details than I expected.”

She laughed. “What’d you expect, huh? Some dirty retelling, some steamy descriptions? Okay, well, he had dark hair, long, he was skinny but still strong, could carry me around and I loved that- oh god, I’d make him give me piggy back rides all the fucking time- and um… It was really nice, y’know. But it wasn’t about it being super hot- which it was!- but being comfortable and close and intimate. Many more emotions were involved than I expected, more than I realized at the time. But it was a really nice first experience, and I’m happy it was him.”

“I have a question.”

“What?”

“Why’d you get mad and punch that guy that one night we went out, for calling you a whore? When you like sex and you do have it a lot, you have it with a lot people, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s different. There’s nothing wrong with me having as much sex as I want, but it’s not okay for someone I don’t even know to get in the conversation and say something to me about it. I didn’t even fucking know him, but it wasn’t okay for him to judge and condemn and be such an asshole about it. I wasn’t mad or ashamed of what I do, just pissed off that he got in my business and was saying shit.”

“Oh. And another thing, about your first… boyfriend? Um, weren’t you scared?”

“Scared?”

“Of it hurting?”

“Not really…. that worst part had already happened to me before. I was a little nervous about being so close, letting myself be so exposed and vulnerable around someone, but I wasn’t scared. I trusted him, and was always myself around him, and he was always kind, and loving I guess. Very supportive. He didn’t give a fuck that I didn’t shave- here listen, this is sorta funny. We were laying in bed together and he was touching my leg, running his hand over the hairs, y’know, and said in a sort of grossed-out jerk voice ‘So what the fuck, are you French or something?’ and I told him to fuck off or something, that I didn’t want to and he didn’t shave so why the fuck should I? And then we both started laughing, and he actually told me he liked that I’m so different. He liked that I was not fake with him, with anyone.”

“I like that too.”

She looked at me, and the affectionate smile had returned. “Thanks babe. Now enough of all this talking, get your shit together and let’s go. Don’t you have a bus to catch?”

I’m still getting used to texting you and overthink my replies and it’s silly ridiculous and-

“And your other blog is silly ridiculous, what the fuck is the point?”

She was argumentative tonight.

“Not argumentative, I’m just wondering why you’ve got that other blog when you could be writing it all here. I’ve been trying to bring it up for days but you didn’t have the time so I’m asking you now.”

“Because I don’t know everyone who reads my blog, who keeps up with all we talk about, from school or otherwise. And I don’t want people getting hurt or misunderstanding or taking things personal that they shouldn’t be. It’s not much different than keeping a written journal, is it? Not more secretive or suspicious than that. It’s just more private than this tumblr, and allows for more rambling and thoughts like this.”

My phone vibrated and I checked the text. She was smiling too, when I glanced up at her, not as widely as I’m sure I was and she certainly wasn’t blushing, but she’s happy along with me. She likes him too.

“I think it’s funny,” she said slowly. “Seeing you figure stuff out and not being sure of yourself. Like in texts, or in person, when you’re close together and even just talking. It’s funny to see you out of your comfort zone.”

“Who says I’m not comfortable?”

“You’re trembling right now,” she pointed out, eyebrows raised at my continuous shivers.

I swatted playfully at her leg, “I’m cold!” And pulled her and her blanket over. She however, was having none of it.

“Really? Even in those layers, those sweaters and scarf and that freakin’ fluffy robe?”

“Yes, I am…. Hey.” I didn’t use her name, but she looked up at me anyway. I’d been struck by a thought and was curious, maybe a little worried. “Are you gonna come with me to college? To New York, if I go out there?”

She raised an eyebrow and seemed to think a minute. “Well yeah, if you still need me. And I love New York, even though San Francisco is more of my city. It’s gorgeous there, you so have to go.”

“I know I do. You’ll come there too?”

“‘Course I will, if you want me to. Maybe you won’t, y’know, you fiesty little troublemaker, you wild child you!”

I rolled my eyes at her teasing, pulling her hand onto my lap out of comfort and familiarity, almost unconsciously. Her fingers were callused, her palm cool, and her hand felt almost as comfortable in mine as my sister’s. Not the same- her hand is slightly bigger than mine and her fingers are filled out and not crooked, not much like my sister’s at all- but still, so familiar.

“Oh yes, you do such a good job of keeping an eye on me, my voice of caution, the angel on my shoulder telling me what to do… Like Erik was always doing to me that summer.” She gave me a look and I rolled my eyes again, sighing. “Really? Come on, which one do you think I’m talking about? Which one did I even know back then, and which one would’ve scolded me for drinking that night and skinny-dipping with my friends the other night? Blondie would’ve hopped right in, he and his brother would fit in so well up there, it’s effortless to imagine them with us.”

“Blondie?”

“Uh-huh. It’s what I call blonde people, guy or girl, when I don’t know their name. Or if I think they’re cute. But I don’t actually call him that, this time was used to differentiate between him and my beloved Opera Ghost, my French gentleman who put up with and loved insecure 14 and 15 year old Solana, who stuck with her through cutting and crying and adventures and wondering and hippies and summers spent with people she almost maybe loved, or maybe just liked the idea of loving. He was an angel, Woof too.”

Her eyes went behind me and I knew he was there. So dependable now, not like I remembered.

“You two…?”

Her eyes came back to me and she smiled slightly, shoulders raising in a half-shrug. “He’s a sweetheart, totally gorgeous, my kinda guy. You know.”

“I do know. Be easy on him, he actually cares about you.”

“Hey.” Her hand pulled from mine as she stood up, and I knew they were gonna go somewhere tonight, maybe Hollywood, probably to Santa Monica beach though. “I could say the same to you, so watch yourself missy.”

Everything falls in shades of grey, but tell me love, are you okay?

Remember when you chopped off all your hair and got a buzzcut?

“Yes. Remember when you filled a backpack with clothes and wore your dark red, glittery turtleneck sweater and your cheetah print skirt and told your mother and her boyfriend that you were running away?”

I do. Remember when you did run away?

“Which time? I was in and out of homes from fifteen onward, doll, remember?”

I do. Remember when we were in that bar-

“-yes, and you wouldn’t stop with your nervous giggles because you were certain someone would know your ID was fake! And-“

That guy, that cute long-haired guy was talking to us? And he called you-

“-oh god, yeah, he was a lousy jerk-“

-a whore and you punched his fucking nose in and stained your favorite dress with blood?

“Yeah, but do you remember how I got that dress? It was the wedding dress of the woman who owned that coffeeshop I worked in for a year.”

Yes, I remember that. She was so sweet.

“But not her daughter. That woman abused the hell out of her little girl, remember how she would pinch her little arms whenever she spoke out of turn?”

Well don’t you remember your mother doing that? Didn’t she do something like that?

“Uh-huh, gave me a scar ‘cause I twisted my arm out of her grip and she had those goddamned long fake nails, they dug in too much. Remember when you were seven or younger and your mother dragged you up the stairs by your hair, pushed you into every room and closet on the second floor and yanked you back, still by your hair, to prove that there were no monsters?”

I remember that. She says she doesn’t, though, the one time I brought it up.

“Remember what it was like for you to see the monsters that no one else sees?”

Remember what it was like when you realized that they wouldn’t go away?

She moved closer, elbow nudging mine before she wrapped her arm around me and pulled the quilt over both of us. Whispers, now.

“Remember when we realized that they leave us alone for awhile when we’re together?”

Mhmm.

“Remember when you’d be the first to fall asleep at all the slumber parties?”

Uh-huh..

I was drifting off already and my responses had become yawns or simple murmurs, but before I fell asleep I was wondering what it will be like to remember this, the first she’d agreed to stay over the whole night.

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“You know what I’m noticing?”

“That everytime I see you you look different? That I imagined you being a lot different, more kind and inspiring and whimsically sweet at times?”

“No, not that.”

Her foot reached out and nudged my leg, and her voice was teasing but also sort of serious.

“You’re getting worse. The whole OCD thing? The compulsive collecting of leaves, the touching in threes, the counting whenever you walk to school, they’re all getting worse. You’re doing them more often, and can’t handle when you lose track.”

“I can too- just today I left for the meeting without touching the three sides and edges of the hallway door even though I was supposed to.” My fingers had itched, twisted, and I could feel my lungs stretching, hurting, and my heart had been going faster, beating harder and heavier. It had not felt good, so uncomfortable and heavy and wrong. But I hadn’t gone back.

“So what though? That’s the first time I can even remember you doing that. Most of the time you’ll try but then turn around and go back to the tree to get it right, you see a leaf but try to ignore it then stop halfway down the block then return for it. People look at you funny.”

“They’re probably looking at you,” I reply loudly. “And I don’t compulsively collect leaves, I just like certain ones, their colors and edges.”

“And your mother hates that you bring them home every single day you go out. You leave them on the table, by the computer, in your backpack, in that school folder. You’re getting weirder.”

“Crazier? Maybe it’s the seasons. I don’t have as much of a problem when there aren’t leaves to catch my eyes.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed, and I didn’t have to look over to know she was tapping her tongue piercing against her teeth. I could hear it, the click-clacking and sounds as she moved it around.

I knew her piercings and all of her scars. Where the cat had bitten her at her grandmother’s when she was six, where she’d run into a plastic play structure as a toddler and cut open her lower lip. The scar went from right below her lipstick line to the curve of her chin, and it moved when she spoke and stretched when she smiled. There were the scars all over her arms, both of them, not just the insides either. They went all the way around her wrists like bracelets, and there were words there too. I couldn’t read them all- she never stood still long enough- but I could guess. Her legs too, though, the inside of her thighs were crosshatched with thicker ones, standing out in bumpy, pale relief against her skin. I saw those ones when we went swimming together.

It had been night but there had been a moon out. Not full, but close, and we were up in the mountains so the light from the moon and stars had seemed brighter. We’d hiked up there at her insistence.

“I have something to show you. Something important.”

“But how much further?”

“Shut up, listen. Do you hear that?”

At first I didn’t hear anything but then the faint humming became an army of chirping crickets, of croaking frogs and rustling leaves and the calls of owls. A splash.

“There, we’re close now.”

Her fingers laced with mine and she tugged me forward, half bent over to avoid getting whacked in the head by any branches (and also avoid being easily seen by any predators, I thought. Mountain lions, bears, the like.) and trying not to get my hair or sweater caught on every single bush and tree we passed.

I could hear it getting louder now, it was the sound of rushing water. The frogs were louder and I could hear the splashes of water slapping over stones. She stood up fully, still holding my hand, and we were at the side of a stream. The sounds were all around us, and I crouched by the water, mindful to avoid stepping on any creatures, and dragged my fingertips in the water.

“Come on.”

She was pulling up her sweatshirt, slipping off her jeans, stripping down to her socks and a loose fitting wife beater until those came off too.

“Come on.”

She didn’t dip a toe in, or fingers like I had. She just walked in, one step after the other, ankle deep and then it was up to her calves and knees. There she waited, expectant.

I rolled up my jeans, intending only to go up to my knees at most.

“You’re taking forever.”

But I gave in and ended up taking them off, following her in only my underwear. She was wading downstream and then it dipped, the water suddenly up around my waist. She turned to make sure I was alright, then slipped under the water, arising with her hair a gorgeous sopping mess and her mascara streaked. I put my hair up in a knot high on my head, careful not to go deeper than my bellybutton, not higher than the bottom of my ribcage, not enough to get my bra wet, and then after that I didn’t care.

There was a curve in the stream, it clung and wound around the side of the mountain, and there was a cluster of boulders there. She climbed up the side of one, took a seat. She had her legs crossed, and that was when I saw the full effect of the moonlight- she wasn’t remarkably fair skinned by day but she gleamed pale now, and the ridges and bumps on her skin were more visible. My eyes fell over them. She pulled me up beside her and I mimicked her pose, feeling that this could be a spiritual experience, meditating in the forest on a summer night. She kept one of her hands on my knee and I placed my hand over it, fingers curling over hers.

I could forget the long hike back and fear of the dark, fears of what awaited me if I got caught sneaking back in, when I was there with her. I bet if you had been there you could have forgotten them too. That was the only time we went there at night, and we ended up not going back for the rest of the summer. She disappeared for awhile, like she does, and when I got bored with waiting I busied myself with other things, other friendships and school and painting.

About the scars though- she saw mine too. I don’t know if that was the first time or if she’d known before, but that hand on my knee moved like it knew where it was going and her fingertips ran smoothly over my bumped skin, gentle and not condemning. I’d never had that before, not with anyone, that quiet understanding.

A limerick I wrote when trying to take a nap. I like the words “reluctant heart”.

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guess who just decided to make use of that neat little “private” posting option? it’s that or get myself another blog, one strictly for writing/journaling/sorting out all these characters and voices and feelings, giving them their turn to speak (though one in particular, she knows who she is, doesn’t wait for a turn. She just speaks, screams sometimes.) and voice their thoughts/opinions/feedback on a situation.

And idk how to manage another blog, one is enough. So here’s for returning to writing in secret for myself, so as not to bother anyone else with it…

-clinks glasses with her self, drops them both to the floor-

 Oh insanity. Oh self absorption. Oh self preservation, and you. You, that strange state of mind where it’s just me and sharp bleeding corners and the feeling of “You’re safe Solana, we’re keeping you safe and it’s just you.” that’s back, and that might be good.

Note to self- keep this online, and in the journals if you start those again. And away from college applications. Just sense, y’know? Nothing’s being compromised here, and that’s not too unreasonable.

“Solana.”

“Coming, one sec…”

See? I’m being taken care of, they’re all here. Not all, but most, who I need.