And this would have been his finale.
Whore.
But the point is not this.
The point is I wanted to be a guy.
By which I mean I wanted to get up in his face.
I’m not talking about anything deep.
I’m talking about a generic performance of guy.
I’m talking about strapping on the proverbial pair.
But I never had to.
Because there was this second guy walking down the sidewalk.
And this is the point.
This second guy was walking down the sidewalk and the second guy had seen the whole thing, had seen me scrape this first guy’s car, had seen the first guy smack his head and yell at me, and the second guy walked up to the first guy and called the first guy an asshole.
And the second guy got up in the first guy’s face and told the first guy to get back into his car, said there wasn’t even a scratch, said, I’ll call the cops if you do not get the fuck back into your car right now.
And the second guy asked me if I was okay.
And the second guy called me certain names reserved for women, certain other names I’d been called before and would be called again.
It was then I became some sweet thing.
It was then I pushed something down, pushed something else out.
It was then I knew I owned the situation, meaning I knew I now owned both guys.
It’s not something I want to explain.
If you’ve got the parts you understand.
As for the rest of you.
Just know I knew it was good to be a woman.
Meaning it was very bad to be a woman.
And the first guy squeezed into his car and left.
And the rain slowed.
And the sun, at some point, came out.
Listen.
There’s a chair across the room and were you here with me now, sitting in the chair across the room, I would get out of bed, I would walk across the room to the chair, I would sit at your feet, my head in your lap, my head demanding you pet it.
And you would pet it how I wanted it.
And bricks would loosen from the walls.
And sidewalks would fissure.
Animals would run to their dark holes filled with leaves.
I’m just saying.
Would I own you.
Do you think I would.
I’m just saying something.
I’m just saying I’m kind of a whore.
Which is not to say don’t like me.
Because I’m also kind of sweet.
Which is just to say.
The world should no longer be about wanting and wanting the way it was when I was younger and dumber, drawing in my bed, drawing some asshole’s name on my hand, and hearts.
But here we all are.
Meaning here I am wanting again.
The utter inconvenience of what I am.
The utter inconvenience of it all.
But I was just so fucking powerful that night.
I was in the backseat of my car that night.
I had a stolen stereo on my lap.
I was feeling like a superstar.
The kids up front were singing again.
And the bar door opened and the guy whose stereo I stole stumbled out.
Someone turned down the radio.
Someone was laughing, then everyone was laughing, even I was laughing my head off.
And the guy whose stereo I stole stumbled out with that girl on his arm, the girl stopping to untwist the strap on her shoe.
One of the kids up front said, Who’s she, and my legs were shaking, then I wasn’t laughing, and I almost screamed out the window, I’ve got your stereo, you dumb fuck.
I almost waved the stereo around, almost smashed it to the street right there in front of the bar, in front of the guy and the girl, and I would have screamed something, would have done all of this, but the guy driving my car sped off before I could scream.
Next someone turned up the radio and some song was on, and the six of us were riding up some burned-out Baltimore street.
There was no one on the street but us.
We were screaming out the words to this song.
Then another song came on and we knew that song too.
And it was only us, the six of us, singing on this crazy, burned-out Baltimore street.
I was just so fucking powerful in that moment.
Like how I’m just so fucking powerful in this moment.
Like how I kind of, admit it, own you.
I don’t.
I mean I kind of, admit it, have you.
No.
I mean I think this is the climax.
This is it.
This is it now.
I rolled down the window and pushed my body, hands first, arms next, head next, upward through that open space and threw the stereo as hard as I could.
I heard it smash to bits against the side of some burned-out building.
I think you saw this coming.
I think you think, Big deal.
But someone could have gotten hurt.
I could have gotten caught.
It’s enough that I feel like shit.
Because I would have done almost anything that night.
Though I resisted hard at first.
Not stealing the stereo, which I didn’t resist.
I mean something about the guy whose lap I was on.
He pulled me back into the car like a savior.
He whispered to me to spend the night.
I said, No way.
And he said, Why not.
And I said, Because.
And he said, That’s not an answer.
And I said, It’s the only answer you’re getting.
But later that night, when it was me and him on some sidewalk somewhere, he came closer, nearly tilting his head, and I closed my eyes, pretended.
There are things that now I know.
Nothing deep.
Like that only the guy is the guy.
Like that objects are only objects.
Listen to me.
It had been a hundred degrees that day, and it was a hundred degrees that night, and after the guy and I hooked up, we were lying on top of his sheet, sticking to his sheet, a fan droning on the tilted dresser.
And I was already looking at the door, I was already thinking of moving like a ghost toward the door, I was already thinking of moving like a ghost away from that burned-out city, and I was praying for the apocalypse, I was praying for that final standstill, and when the standstill came, I moved.
It wasn’t the real standstill, of course, but a tease.
Still, it felt real.
Still, it lit the proverbial match.
It looked like a window and I went through it and landed here.
All this to say I’ve learned a few things.
All this to say I will not steal your things.
All this to say if I did steal your things, I know now the things will not have your name.
And they will not have your eyes.
And they will not smell like your sweat forever.
And they will not make me remember your hands on my face.
Or what song was playing when you tilted your head.
Or the lie you said that I believed.
They will only make me remember the sound the stereo made when it hit the burned-out building.
A sound I can’t describe.
A sound that was more like a color.
A color that was more like a pain.
A pain that was more like an answer.
UNDERFED
; there was the time I stood outside; it had snowed the night before; a sound in the distance could have been voices; it could have been something else; it could have been machinery; it could have been just in my head; I wanted the sound to be something else: waves crashing to the sand, an ocean I was standing in, an ocean I was drowning in; I wanted to be sinking into sand; but I was standing in snow under a tree; I was standing in my underthings; there was something about just standing there like that; there was something about just standing still, the sky about to turn light; I was not in a state of dire need; but I’d been up late thinking of dire things; I’d been thinking, for instance, of the reasons girls love love; I’d been thinking, as well, of the reasons guys love war; I every day bought the paper from the box on the corner; I every day spread the paper across my bed; I was reading up on various wars; I followed wars in various places I didn’t know; I was becoming well informed on battle; I was becoming well informed on invasion; because there was nothing going on where I was at all; there was nothing going on where I was but snow; everyone had gone away for the winter; everyone loved to leave for the winter; and yes, I was feeling abandoned; yes, I was feeling melodramatic; then this one friend called who hadn’t yet left; and of course he would leave for the winter too; he would leave, of course, like everyone else; but I wasn’t yet thinking of him leaving; and that night I was up to nothing; I was all the time up to my ears in nothing; and so he called and it wasn’t my fault he called; and so it was completely his fault; look: I want to make a public confession; I want an interrogation; I want a fitting punishment; and where was I on that winter night: I was with this guy in a bar; and who else was with us on that night: there was no one else but us; and did I know that night he had a girlfriend: yes, I knew he had a girlfriend, but I knew nothing specific about his girlfriend, she was just a cutout of a girlfriend, she was just a flattened thing; and how did I feel about this: I felt all right, I felt pretty good, I felt pretty great; so punish me however you see fit; but know I wasn’t all bad; in the bar that night I knew to get this body out the door; so I got this body up the street; I got this body up the stairs and laid it flat on the bed; I was home, safe; I was where I belonged; and I’m sorry my thoughts turned dire; I’m sorry I’d been reading up on wars; I’m sorry for the metaphor; but I confess I was thinking of battle; I confess I was thinking invasion; I knew too much about crossing lines; then I was rushing outside to think in the cold; I can’t explain; years before, things with me seemed all right; I was with this nice guy back then; all my friends liked this guy; he would pick me up in his car; he would take me on hikes; he owned things for going on hikes; I didn’t know the proper names of the things he owned; I still, years later, don’t know their proper names; they clamped to things and heated up and stuck through ice and stuck through mud; the guy and I would walk up hills; we would sleep on wet grass; we would stand there holding hands, staring at some or another sunset; and I would pretend to like the sunset; I would pretend to be a better person than I was; but I would stare at the sunset thinking things like: Tragic, like: Big fucking deal, like: This is not meant to be; it was not, me and him, meant to be; I said, This is not meant to be, on the ride home from our final hike; the radio was up too high; I said, Did you hear me; he pointed to an ear, said, I can’t hear you; then his hand was somewhere on me; I said, This is not meant to be; I said, I’m incapable of falling for you; I said, I’m incapable of falling in love; I’m a wreck, I said; I need another wreck, I said; It’s my father, I said, of course; It’s my mother, I said, of course; I turned down the radio; I said, Did you hear me; he kept on driving; I turned up the radio; I will wreck you, I said; I swear, I said; I was talking at the radio; I was talking at the heat vent; I was talking at my dirty knees; I’d hiked all day through mud; I was scraped all over, dirty all over; I wasn’t averse to dirt; I was averse to something else: like the pressure of having to pretend I cared about a bird, a stone, a star: like the pressure of having to be so fucking nice: like the pressure of having to be a certain type of guy when I was just a certain type of girl; I was just two tits a hole and a heartbeat; I’d heard that somewhere, my brother, my father; I’d heard this somewhere too: two tits a slit and a heartbeat; that was this body; and this body was standing in the snow; this body was up to its ears in nothing; this body was thinking of invasion; this body could be a wrecking ball; this body could swing right in and wreck your home; I confess: it could make itself do awful things; it had done plenty of awful plenty of times; just look at it up in that old tree as a kid; just look at it dangling upside down from the highest branch that could hold it; just look at it dangling by its legs; this was a family trip to the South; this was the trip I learned to climb a tree; and it was on this trip I learned to dive through waves; we stayed in a cottage by the beach; my brother threw bread to birds; my father sat on the sand; my mother slept in the cottage; there was always the sound of waves; I know it all sounds spectacular; and I assure you some moments were; but I assure you some moments were not; nights, I stayed in the tree well after my name had been called; I wasn’t hungry for dinner; I wasn’t ever hungry; I was underfed and happy being underfed; I dangled, nights, from the highest branch; I waited for my father to come back from the bar; I waited for my father to walk under the tree; from up in the tree I would see him stumble up the sidewalk, shirt untucked; I would see him drop his keys to the grass, hear him cuss, see him stoop to the grass; and on one night I would drop down from the tree; and on this night I would crush my father to dust; because I knew it was my job to crush him; because I was the only daughter of the man; because he was the man and I was the only daughter; but most nights my father walked up the sidewalk; he walked into the cottage; the screen door slammed; the cottage went dark; and eventually I would come down from the tree; I would lie on the grass; I would consider stars; I would consider my size; I would consider how the world began; it began, as you know, as a spark; and I began, as well, as a spark; and then everything grew; and a lot of things happened; and a lot more things happened; and the future was the present; and the present was a battle in my head; it was another line for me to cross; and no, I wasn’t terribly cold; and no, the sound wasn’t what I thought it was; it wasn’t what I wanted it to be; it wasn’t waves crashing onto a beach; and yes, I wanted something to come through the snow; yes, I wanted the savior to come through the snow; and yes, one day the savior would come through the snow; but no, it wasn’t on that day; on that day, I was still unsaved; on that day, I was waiting to be punished for my sins; so punish me however you see fit; I shouldn’t have gone with the guy to the bar; we were not supposed to be in the bar; he was supposed to be with his girlfriend; I was supposed to be a better person than I was; I was supposed to be just about as regular a girl as I could be; but just look at us drinking way too much; just look at him looking at me like that; just look at him forgetting his girlfriend; we probably fell in love right there; it was probably total love right then; I was probably totally capable now of falling in love; on our last hike, the guy and I watched a bird soaring over a field; it was a hawk I think, and I wish I’d cared about that bird; and I wish I’d cared about that guy; but I dropped his hand; I sat on a rock; I watched him watch the bird; I’m sure he wasn’t thinking the awful thoughts I was thinking; I’m sure he was only thinking of this bird moving through the space through which he was also moving; I’m sure he was feeling connected to it in a way I could not feel connected; but it was beautiful, I confess, the bird; it was spectacular, I confess; So am I awful, I asked the guy at the bar, and I can’t remember why I asked; I knew he didn’t think I was awful; because he was looking at me a certain way; because he was looking at me like he wanted to devour me; and I wanted, of course, to be devoured; and there was his hand; and there it was on me; and it felt, in that moment, like the world had ended; but the world hadn’t ended just because it felt like it had; and so I downed my drink; I looked away; and the door was still there; and the street was still th