My Handwriting Isnt Any Better

My Handwriting Isnt Any Better 

I hate your handwriting.

I hate the way you inconsistently punctuate text messages and occasionally correct misspellings.

I hate that “how are you?” is never what comes to mind when youre done disclosing every detail of your day.

I hate that you don’t wear cologne and still manage to smell like candy and craving.

I hate knowing that you’ll never bring me home to your mother.
I hate that your family terrifies me because they are broken worse than my own.

I bet that given your situation, your mother is a bitch.

I bet she is bitter on top of being all of the things I hate about you.

I bet youll be poor and irresponsible for as long as you live.

I bet you’ll never make it as a writer. Not because you arent good enough, but because you’ve never been well-behaved enough to learn the rules.

I bet you will stop singing when you realize that im the only person who loves it when you do.

I hate that I cant imagine your voice in my mind, even seconds after you leave me.

I hate that I anticipate hearing you with so much vivacity that I cant eat.

I hate that when I do hear you, I am suddenly full.

I hate that  we cant listen to country because your exgirlfriend did and you cant help but remember.

I hate that you show no inclination of remembering singing Jimmy Buffet with me before you knew her.

I hate that you don’t call me Reba anymore.

I hate that song “Country Roads”  because every time I hear it I am forced back to a time when it felt like you enjoyed me.

I hate how desperately I want to taste you and rebellion again.

I hate my passanger’s seat because you are the only person that matters who has ever sat there.

I bet that that you have never noticed I have a scratch-off ticket you won two dollars on above my driving visor.

I bet you don’t know that I cry every single time I see that picture of you taking a picture of me.

I bet you never even thought about asking me about the girl in the picture of a girl taking a picture of a boy, when you know damn well what id give to know the story behind the boy taking a picture of a girl.

I bet you don’t even want to know me.

I love that you told me every story you could about a boy in a picture of a boy taking a picture of a girl.

I love that I know why some of your stories are lies.

I hate that you constantly lie to me and I still think youre the most honest person I know.

I hate that I lie to you.

I hate that that one girl is not the only person I have bribed to be nice to you.

I hate that ive convinced everyone at work youre a douchebag by exposing you to them entirely, and I told you think no one knows.

I hate that I said I didn’t want to date you almost as much as I hate you for believing me.

I hate that I told you I wanst hurting myself when I was.

I hate that I convinced you my failures had nothing to do with you.

I hate that I told you I’d been in love once because I convinced you it was with someone other than you.

I hate that I told you I would be fine all three times you broke my heart.

I hate pretending I don’t remember everything you’ve ever told me.

I hate when anyone says your name.

I hate that you feel so much closer to so many strangers.

Im surprised by how close you get to me sometimes.

I am surprised by how much you do know about me.

I am surprised that despite the fact youre always judging me you haven’t abandoned my logic yet.

I am surprised by how much you let me hold your hypocrisy against you when we both know you get it from me.

I am surprised by how much you think you have a right to call me out on.

I am surprised by how often you respect my secrets.

I am surprised you haven’t noticed that I am the only person who will ever love you like this.

I hate that no one understands how I love you.

I hate how isolating supporting you has become.

I hate that my friends wont hear about you hurting me anymore.

I hate that id prefer to let you hurt me than have a world of people to help me heal.

I hate that having you has forced me to have secrets of my own.

I hate myself for putting you before my friends.

I hate you for thinking we are friends.

I hate you for making me so selfless.

I wish that I wanted to feel good with you.

I wish that making you feel good didn’t make me feel better than cumming ever has.

I wish that you offered to reciprocate sometimes.

I wish that you understood that I want to make you happy more than I have ever wanted anything.

I hate myself for wishing you the best with someone who I knew would never love you like I could.

I hate that your happiness is and always has been pivotal.

I hate that I cant go a day without missing you.

I hate that I honestly believe you’ve never missed me.

I hate that I didn’t start loving you earlier.

I hate that you knew me before I knew you.

I hate that I wish you had already been my first and I  loved you longer and younger.

I hate that I wasn’t your first.

I wish that I could have told you I was ready.

I wish that I could have taken some innitative and kissed you.

I wish you thought to kiss me.

I wish we cuddled.

I wish I could have left your hand on my thigh.

I wish I could have told you I trusted you instead of being so scared.

I wish I could have surrendered to you and let you prove your good character.

I wish you hadn’t said you used me- even though we both already knew you had.

I wish being used by you bothered me enough to stop wanting you.

I wish we had sex.

I love you for wanting to have sex with me.

I hate you for wanting to have sex with me.

I hate how good you feel to me and I love how effortless I am for you.

I love you for not filtering what you say to me.

I hate you for not filtering what you say to me.

I love hating you.

I love you.

I love you for being.

I love you for being who you are.

I love you for being who you are to me.

But I fucking hate who you are to me. 

Sincerity

Dear Boy,

I’m going to skip the How are you and you look good in that blue shirt and those ray-bands and get straight to writing all the things I can’t say to that blue v-neck and those protective shades.

For starters, think about the things you say to me. Don’t say things that hurt, unless your intent is to hurt me-but that is another paragraph. I am funny. I am a nice girl. I am a good friend. I am not a liar. I am not any of your stereotypes. If I smoke every day until I am too high to move and drink three fifths for breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays you still shouldn’t tell me I’m an addict until it is a last resort. I am not a workaholic just because I work more hours in a week then you have in your lifetime, and appreciate the fact that I always manage to see you when you want to be seen. I am a good poet. I am not prude just because I will not sleep with you. I am not a tease because I am indecisive, or because I am scared. I am not crazy just because you don’t understand me. I am not a bad driver just because your dad is a better one. Know that as hard as I have tried to think nothing of the mean things you have said, my mirror spits them up at me every single morning.

Don’t take advantage of me. Don’t leave your trash in my car. Don’t borrow money you don’t intend to pay back. Don’t smoke my herb with my pipe exclusively. Don’t assume I am going to pay for your dinners, movies, and gas. You have no right to ask just because you know I can’t tell you no. Do not think you are tricking me when you guilt me into buying you stupid stuff or taking you places either. Don’t use me for unreciprocated oral sex. Respond to all of my text messages as I do yours, not just the ones specifically about you. Make our relationship mutual. Make me believe that I am worth a smidgeon of the effort I give you.

Can we have more time together doing nothing? Can we cuddle? Can we hold hands and not make strings and attachments? Will you be the first boy to feel those two new piercings and to kiss those nasty scars? I miss unbuttoning your sleeves and kissing your fingers. Call me all those derogatory pet names I’m ashamed to love again. Try and remember telling me that you like the way I look with my hair down. Ask me to look at you some more. Smile down at me, cause you know it is suggestive. Give my inbox a couple of the kind of messages a good girl hides again. Hold me. Tell me you like holding me. Let me please you, and tell me I feel good. Forgive me for every time I have said no, and being indecisive and scared. Let those hands teach me to trust you. Don’t let them hurt me.

Don’t feel bad for making me cry. Feel bad for doing what you did to make me cry. Don’t be sorry you said you were embarrassed, be sorry you were. Don’t apologize for sadness that isn’t your fault either. It isn’t your fault the world uses me. Nor that I get in fights with my parents. Take some responsibility for what you do have a part in though; am I really not funny? Make an effort not to use me when you know how much it hurts when other people do. Don’t apologize when you aren’t sorry. Don’t feel obligated to apologize just because you know what you have done is wrong. Forgive yourself for everything you’ve ever been genuinely sorry for, but don’t forget why you were sorry you did those things. Don’t do them again. Show me when youre sorry, as much as I hate to say it, you’ve lied too many times for me to trust your words alone. Don’t be sorry when you see me crying, because you’ve been the cause of a million more tears behind the scenes. Just make an effort to concern yourself with my well-being and be sorry for being inconsiderate.

Know that I adore you. I will defend you with every fiber of my being for as long as you allow me to. I love so many of your attributes and I am so amazed by your talents and your intellect. I am honored to know you. I struggle through so much of our dynamic yet I am delighted by the idea of you. You are the natural light in my dimly fluorescent existence. You are hilarious. You are a nice boy. You are not a liar though you have told more lies than anyone else I know. You are so forgivable. You are so loveable. Maybe it’s just the v-neck.

It’s too bad you’ll never see this letter.

-Sincerely <3. 

Check Your Mirrors

Dear: Five two, permed and dyed, freckles, period breakouts, eyeliner drips, and scarred heels:

                I have some tough love for you. Some insight. Some advice I know you won’t take and you know you should. Remember, I take care of you like no one else does. I acknowledge I am your toughest critic, and we have had our moments of hatred, but know I expect you to take every word personally.

For starters, don’t let laziness become habitual. Show up at seven fifty to your eight am. Work every weekend. Worship your days off, but never ask for them. Do your homework. Go to class. Make dinners and eat slowly. Go to the gym and go on walks on the same day. Drive out to see your parents, even if you’re tired. Don’t miss birthday parties or baby showers. Give everything 100%, and when that isn’t enough, work till what was 100% is only half as hard as you can go. Then go harder.

Keep loyal to your loyalties. Appreciate Daddy and Mother. Appreciate your teachers. Thank your bosses. Appreciate every single Subaru that ever waved you into traffic, but don’t be ashamed to say you drive a foreign vehicle. Think about how undecided, poor, and idle you would be without the people who help you. Tell them you need them. Then pick up more shifts. Do more extra credit. Buy more Christmas presents than you did last year, every year. Do everything you can to be the kind of someone that someone will appreciate.

Drive safe. Seatbelts and speed limits aren’t suggestions. Don’t hug the center line so much. Don’t even touch your phone. Take turns slowly and less aggressively. Speed less, (I would say not at all, but let’s be realistic, and it is important to live a little). Sit back further and up straighter in the car. Clean out your backseat more often.  Avoid California Rolls at stop signs. Always yield. Listen when they tell you to pump your brakes on the ice. Check your mirrors every day every time you get in; you lean forward when you’re sad and sit back when you’re tired. Check the air in your tires and get a jack for your trunk. Keep being a good passenger and offer to drive more.

Be a better housekeeper. Burn more candles for less spiritual reasons. Vacuum more. Stop sweeping without a dustpan. Do laundry before you run out of cute dresses. I understand you struggle with dressers, so make an effort to keep clothes in the closet. Keep journals closed. Don’t fall asleep with pens or plates in your bed.  Keep your vibrator in a drawer. Do dishes in hot water and rinse them well. Clean counters with soap. Don’t use dirty mop water, but don’t cut grease and stains with straight bleach-even if you like how it stings you.  Fold blankets carefully. Make your bed, and use your sheets. Try not to spill. Fold socks. Recycle plastic bottles and old mail more often. Don’t hoard as much. There is enough that you can’t touch in your life to hold onto, clean everything else up.

Spend money carefully. Never let your accounts be so empty that you can’t afford to have lunch with your best friend at your favorite steakhouse. However, you do not need to eat out every week.  Keep receipts of your checking and saving account, and update them every time you go. Limit how much cash you have in the ashtray of your car at any given time. Deposit your tips, even if you are embarrassed by what all those ones could imply. Coffees and sodas count as luxury expenses.  Avoid drive-thrus as an excuse to waste gas and time. Bike more often, or walk with someone. Drive someone else’s forty-miles-to-the-gallon whenever you can. Buy clothes second hand. Donate money to charities to sponsor yourself. Do the walks and the Zumbathons that accompany those fundraisers, and go to them with a water bottle you didn’t buy at the gas station on the way. Buy presents altruistically. Every two things you buy for yourself, buy something for someone else. No gambling. No occasional lottery tickets or scratch offs because you need a bookmark. Be in charge of your own financial success. Be prolific and generous, but be aware.

Be a better friend. Forgive people for being busy. When you need someone, don’t be so distant. Expect less of boys. Expect more of boys too, you’ll save yourself a lot of heartbreak. Never be afraid to say no when you have to, but keep a little sensitivity and guilt every time you do. Forgive your friends for being in love. Forgive your friends addictions. Don’t dwell on character flaws, even if you think they are endearing. He can’t help it that his nose is his big and her hair is straight, and no matter how much you love those things they frown at them in their mirrors. Don’t imitate your friend’s voices as much. Be understanding and compassionate, but don’t be so self-sacrificing. Let people keep their secrets. Trust people enough to give yours up. Love people unconditionally. Mean what you say. Remember birthdays and anniversaries. Call before you visit, but visit frequently. Write letters on paper with purple pen. Listen to your messages. Keep pictures. Have an excess of friends.

Most importantly, forgive yourself. Do so slowly, and seriously. All of your accidents were pretty minor in the scheme of things. Do not make the same mistakes twice, unless youre sure that they were worth it the first time. Don’t blame yourself for other people’s problems and be accountable for your own. Don’t cry about the bill you didn’t pay, know you will have many more to make up for it. Do not hold too tight to rejection, it is just a story to write on the way to success. Don’t chide yourself for doing what you love, even if it was not suggested. Do not hurt yourself. Look at your eyes and hair and chest in that mirror, and forgive yourself for those thighs and that gut. You are holding up okay, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

This is your life. Just keep trying. 

(Communication)

She says “goodmorning” to her mother. Her lips barely part, her words are barely audible. The gesture however, indicates that the rising and shinning and walking and working and living that needs to follow may begin. She always says “goodmorning” to her mother.

She says “Lets stop for coffee” to her sister. It means, I appreciate you. I am not ready to say goodbye yet. We have something in common. I owe you one. It mean,  continue to give me reign of this passenger’s seat and I will continue to give you three dollars. It means I am trying to make up for all the pleases and thank yous I have ever forgotten. She says “lets stop for coffee”.

She says “im sorry” when she walks through the double doors to grades and friendship and lies and truth. It never means what an apology should mean, and maybe because she knows that, shes sorry for her insincerity. It means you just hurt my feelings. This just became about me. I cant deal with you anymore. It means I need you to notice me. It means I don’t know how to give up. It means no. It means I don’t want to touch you, I don’t like you, I need some space. She says “im sorry”

Her mom says goodmorning too. Her sister stops for coffee. And you say “it’s okay” because it might as well be her fault. 

If I Knew

I know you, boy.

I’ve held on to all your secrets

So they could safely cross the street.

I know the lines on your palms,

The veins in your feet.

I know your mama’s hair

I know the triggers to your daddy’s yell-

I know everything about you, boy.

I know more than you can tell.

You don’t know my parent’s names,

You dont know my cat’s stripes,              

Or my car’s scratches.

You would not keep my trust, boy

You scattered it like ashes.

You don’t know my sister’s sicknesses

Or my mama’s poverty.

you don’t know I can drive standard.

Boy, you don’t know enough about me.

I know you, boy.

I spit out all your insecurity

Like it was venom beneath your skin.

I know your bedroom here

I know all of the places you have been.

I know the tint of your lips

And the melody mixed in your eyes.

I know the honesty in your vulnerability

I see the truth in your lies.

You don’t know below the surface.

You don’t know my middle name

You’ve never asked about my birthday.

You don’t recognize my tears falling before you –

You don’t know what to say.

You don’t know the dances I take

Nor the cities I have called home.

You don’t know who has shared these blankets and these four posts

On the nights I haven’t spent alone.

I know you, boy.

I can tell aggravation from anger in your voice.

I know sincerity in your exhales.

I know all your past successes,

I know where your future fails.

I know how you look when you’re lying for me.

I know who you wish you were-

And as much as I love him, I know you’ll never be.

You don’t know how I take my coffee.

You don’t know where I keep my change.

You don’t know my handwriting.

You don’t know my body-

At least not in entirety or in proper lighting.

It’s too dark, too excused, for you to tell my eyes are blue.

You don’t know my height or weight.

You don’t know I eat everything with a fork,

You don’t know when I’m angry I brake plates.

You know me, boy.

You carried my heaviest secrets

To help them feel thin.

We skipped all the details-

And skidded out into letting you in.

You know when I’m up and my bedtime

And youre always around to tuck me in.

You know I’d love to know more of you-

But you’ve got places to go and im just somewhere you’ve been. 

Given

Sometimes, I want to drive my car right into whatever the fuck is on the other side of that guardrail. Sometimes I want to be reckless and out of control so that never again will I have a desire, or an ability to be in control of anything. Sometimes I wonder how many pills I have to take to get my stomach pumped, how many more I have to take to end it. Sometimes I think about how bad it would hurt to slit my wrists and how long I would have to think about what I had done. Sometimes I think if I was prettier, I would hang myself in that bay window in your apartment.

Your apartment. The one I helped you move into. I helped you move in there. I helped you shatter the plaster of the ceiling carrying a bed frame neither of us were built to support. I helped you hang curtains. I sat up with you when he was gone and I slept over when you were too tired to go out. I windex-ed that bay window a million times, a swept your floors and wiped down your counters. I sealed your checks and stamped your love letters. I have your spare key on a chain right next to the key to your Honda Civic, in case something happens and you call. What the hell would happen to you, if I was on the other side of a guardrail and didn’t answer the phone.

I think about you at work the day I went to the ER. I remember your hands shaking as you sliced watermelon, and I remember the juicy pink overflow on your polo. I thought for a second you would cry. I thought for a second, in that stupid Nike hat, and that work polo, that those blue eyes would water for me. I remember sitting knelt over with my head against the floorboard as I rode to the hospital, and I wished you were driving. I wished we were in my car, that I always let you drive, and I wished you were telling me about how you shouldn’t have hooked up with that girl at that party. I wished I was helping you write a paper over the phone and I was comfortable in my bed. I wished that we were still at work together, and what had happened hadn’t happened, and that I was starting your coffee and stacking your trays. I wished I was helping you, I wished you weren’t worried and I wished we were together as I rode alone to the ER. I wonder now, if those blue eyes would water at the hospital if they said they tried to pump my stomach but it was just too late.

I think about holding your hand. I think about the way that your nails were chewed even worse than mine. I think about your calluses and your long fingers. I think about that time we pretended to be together to protect you from some other girl. I think about the time I sat up all night memorizing that stupid song so I could sing for you while you caressed keys with those hands. I think about you told me you needed me the only time I ever told you no, and then all the handsey procedures that followed. I wonder if you’d find another hand to hold, it mine was bloody and cut to the bone.

Then I think about your apartment. And how your bay window has blurred the lines between the world and me, between yours and mine, between you and me. I think about how I need to do something for me just a little bit less than I want to do everything for you and thus I tie a rope to your curtain and not to my neck. I hope you like the favors and contributions I’m trying to give to you. Maybe they’re worth hand holding and can persuade you to care a little bit about me. The little things I have given you are all I have…

it really is too bad I’m not just prettier after all. 

A Saltine to be Specific

A Saltine to be Specific

I ate a cracker this morning. A saltine to be specific. Dammit. It was only eight-thirty.Devoured the entirety. Perfect, complete, but so gluttonous. I had not intended to eat it,when i think of it, i didn't want to. It was like a reflex, a breakfast reflex. The first bite was anyways. That’s my biggest problem I think, I start something and I’m in it for the long haul.

One touch of teeth on teeth. All of a sudden my  body was rolling on the most hardcore drug in town. Sinful. Goodbye clean body, toxinless temple, and goodbye caloric record. I should have known you would come back for me blood sugar. That’s what you do isn’t it sir, come in, infect me, tell me I need you, tell me it’s a cracker, tell me its not that bad- you come in and you make me like it, tell me i need it. you're telling me you keep me alive sir, but i know it is you thats killing me. You’re the forbidden fruit of Eden Mister, and you come right in and take my innocence and purity.

Maybe with all that euphoria and a bite of saltine in me, I lost all my coherency. Maybe Blood Sugar was already working his black magic, maybe I had already lost control. It always happens like that. I took just one one bite, of a damn saltine, and then i had to take another- like I said, im in it for the long haul.

I took another bite. It was smaller to avoid indulgence. That time I paid attention to the every contraction and relaxation of chewing. I concentrated on how it felt. I personified my teeth. They liked it. It was different from the gum they had been given yesterday, and the day before. Gum is like a four speed bike: enjoyable, better than nothing, but more work than reward. If I chew gum for two hours, my jaw alone burns sixteen times the five calories I ingest. Besides, I spit gum out, and my boyfriend always says, it doesn’t count if I don’t swallow. So gum, like I said, is like riding a four speed- because at the end you're tired and hungry, but you got where you needed to be. A saltine is just a pleasure cruise. Three bites and my body hoards three calories.

Three calories. Like the ones from a saltine, are actually three kilo-calories. That’s thousands of calories. So compact, so bland, so substantial. I ate thousands of calories this morning. three thousand six hundred is a pound. how close i had cut it, how reckless i had been.

Two bites in I just stood there in my apartment kitchenette, with one bite left. A little bite. It looked so innocent in my hands. It always does. Saltines are the most malicious cracker i have ever come by. temptation in the rawest form. you always want the little bit that remains. i know i didn't deserve it, i know three days of gum and four of hard salsa classes and sleepless nights being used for crunches gave me no right to indulge. I did it anyways. thats the thing with me and food, i know whats good for me, and i know how to get healthy and that i shouldn't do what i do, but i keep on doing it anyways. So I took my last bite.

It felt like such a binge after I was done. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head from way back when telling me: “don’t feel like you need to finish that honey. Never eat when you’re not hungry. We need to control what we put in our bodies.” I don’t know what hungry felt like anymore. I cried then, I had been waiting to for a while I think, and maybe that saltine gave me just enough energy to let it all out. My mom would be disappointed in me. And she would probably blame herself or some equivilant craziness.She would miss her daughter and fear the monster replacement. All that time and all that effort, and I still don’t know how to eat.  And to top it all off, I have no control.

 I convinced myself what was probably just nerves and upset, was bad digestion and stayed home today.  I spent three hours at the gym repenting and trying to burn some of the kilocalories I had for breakfast. When I got home, my boyfriend asked me what was wrong and offered to make me dinner like usual. something is always wrong, and he like everyone else always eats dinner. I refused and said only, “I had a big breakfast, I don’t feel good.” I am shameless.

So today resulted in three hours on a treadmill, a morning of tears, a sick day, a million lies, and thousands of calories. I have weeks worth of guilt i'm building now, toxins in my temple, and a probable blow to my figure to deal with. All because I ate a cracker this morning. A saltine, to be specific.