Now I’ve written this. And it’s not about my grandparents. And I’m trying not to have it be important.

Lying awake in their bed, she feels for the lamp in the darkness and flicks the switch. She watches the insects on their ceiling jump with excitement and bound towards the light. She counts them. She counts seven. She switches off the lamp. Alone again in the darkness, she rolls to face the place he used to lie. His back should be to her, and he should be asleep, while she is awake. That’s the way it always was. She would move closer, her lips to the back of his neck, her arm draped around his chest. In his sleep, he would take her hand and hold it, and if they shifted, he would hold her, even in his sleep. She rolls back again to look at their ceiling in the dark. She reaches her fingers to flick the switch. She counts six insects bounding towards the light.

I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous of you. I am a bit jealous of the tattoos on your hands, of your hair, even though I don’t like it. Of your piercings, even though I don’t like them either. I am jealous of your fishnet, and your latex, and your rubber, and your metal and how you hold it all together with too much make up. And that make up, I’ve never seen you without it and I’m convinced you must just paint it on. New each morning, without taking it off. Ever. You’ve been homeless, and alone, and poor. I’m not exactly jealous of that, but still, I am a bit, yeah.

Remember when I used to go to your shows? And how much your band sucked? And how you wanted everyone to take you seriously, but even the people in your band didn’t take you seriously. I’m not judging, baby; I used to wear black wigs and black electrical tape and try to bleach my skin with yogurt and lemon juice. I also remember making out in your parents basement after watching Big with Tom Hanks and you grinding your hips into me and I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, are we going to have sex?’ And then your grandma came down stairs and we though if we held really still on the couch, she wouldn’t see us. I think she did though. (And later her and I talked about the dead pets we had once loved and now missed and I visited her in the hospital before she died. I don’t think I ever told you that.) I also remember lying in your bed as you sat in the corner and took blood from your arm and then wrote the word STRAWBERRY on my arm and then I licked it off. I remember feeling detached and watching myself enjoying it, while my other self wasn’t convinced you were as cool as I thought you were. And remember when you attempted to ask me to suck your dick? But you couldn’t come out and say it, so I laid there watching you struggle to tell me what you wanted me to do when I knew fully well what it was, blah blah. I didn’t care. And then I got up and left. Remember when you broke up with me? I was sure my heart was broken. I was sure I couldn’t go on. I was sure I was more in love with you then I’d ever be with anyone in my entire life. I was really wrong, but heart break is so necessary for 16 year-olds.

Ah! The entire point was not to talk about me. Okay. Again.

He had always hoped he wasn’t a jealous man. He had watched girlfriends fuck other men, and other women, right in front of him before. His dick in his hand, those girlfriends with pussy lips on their lips and cum in their cunt. Never had been jealous. It was just who he was, and who his friends were, the crowds he moved in; open was just how they all were. But now here he was, his dick in his hand, yes, but he was still. He watched her, dressed in rubber, with her lipstick smudged, and her hair a long tangled mess. He watched as another man stuffed himself into her. He watched as a woman, half as beautiful as she was, grabbed at her breasts and stuck her tongue into her mouth. He watched as the entire time, she looked right at him. He stared at her, and she stared at him. She stared at him. And suddenly he was scared because he though he might not be able to live without her. He realized that he loved her. He knew that he couldn’t stand any other man touching her. He wanted her all to himself. He needed her to be his. All his. He had to hear her say, “Baby, I’m yours.”
He stood up and walking over to her, took her hand and lead her away from the other man and the other woman and as he was dragging her back to their own room she demanded to know what he was doing? Where were they going? He stopped in the stupid hallway and looked into those fucking eyes that he knew would be the end of him and told her, “I’m a jealous fucking bastard and I am completely in love with you.”

telling you a story.

i do not want this. any of it. i want to change direction. (I want to be a dancer. Seriously. I dance all the time. And want to be a ballerina. A very good one. Sigh.)

Once upon a time, there was a boy who could do no wrong. He was blonde with those icy blue eyes that stopped adults in their tracks when they saw him, as he created a ruckus, as they were unable to stop him, for he was a force. He never cried, even when he fell, and was bleeding. Really, he rarely would notice the blood, not until later. And when they took him to the hospital for stitches, he sat very still as the doctor used nine stitches of neon blue thread to close his head up. He got everything he wanted, and because of this, he grew up to be a lazy mother fucker. He was handsome, and charming, and could have any woman he wanted, but chose ones who treated him like he was retarded. The ones who picked out his clothes for him in the morning and told him what their plans for the future were. Told. This is important to note because being told and making a choice are two different ideas. But even so, you can be told something and then choose to disregard it, that is also a different idea. But this boy, who was now a man, had grown into something that disappointed his mother. And that was ironic because his mother had always been a disappointment to him, but truth be told, it was only because all his stupid girlfriends wouldn’t let him forgive her.
And I want to free him. I want to let him be more. I want to show him what could have been. I want to convince him that he was meant for so much more.