I Just Want To Paint And Forget A While;

And I am content to keep hurting. I am content to keep pressing my soft body into the recesses of his absence, if it will only bring me closer to his place in nothing.

The Dog’s Way

I do wish I could be gentle with myself. I really do. But my way is the dog’s way, anything I don’t like on me I chew up and swallow. I carry everything I hate in my gut because it is all I have to take. And I cannot bear to live hungry.

If I have learned anything of those who are advanced and civilized, it is this:

New technology is praised even as it wrecks the earth and is manufactured by children’s hands,

Rich men can kill millions so long as they do it sitting in a board room in a suit and tie, but let a poor man kill one rich man and he is quick to die,

Advancements in medicine are available only to those who can afford them, all the brilliance in the world distilled behind a paywall,

In the heat of all their innovation and progress, they have forgotten empathy. And that renders their advancements useless and backward, their intelligence only lets them be more unique in their cruelty.

I often love men I know I have no future with. I build castles in the sand near rising tides, and I watch lovingly as they are eroded away by reality. I don’t know why I make things that don’t last. I’m afraid to have something that matters to me I think, that could hurt me more than I want it to.

There is something so shameful in trying. In putting forth the effort out in the open where the onlookers look and dig their forks into my darlings. My creation dies in the end, regardless. Whether they relish every morsel or idly masticate while their eyes are drawn to the street walkers, just like all that came before her, my idea is eaten. And I am left alone to wonder if a piece of my soul had any flavor worth talking about.

I cling to the anchor because I think the ship will drown me.

I crave the familiarity of the salt water over the cold whipping of the air.

Because I would rather drown than change, I would rather stay stuck in the same place for the rest of my life than breath the air of tomorrow.

Eyebrows thin as wire and lips black and dotted with white latex highlights; Lottie was unmistakable.

She kept her hair short to her ears and curled like cat tails, determined to spend one of her nine lives dying fast and young. Fur cheap and puffed up over her head, she strutted down fourth avenue like fire dripped from her heels. Her eyes were naturally half shut and her neck was as thick as a wrist; she had a way of easing people into spilling all their darkest secrets to her. I was not among them. As a friend of Lottie, she switched off her siren like personality for me, to spare me I think. Maybe she felt comfortable enough to drop the act, or like I was too lowly for her to bother dawning a mask for. Either way she got me into the best dinner spots and didn’t let me spend a dime on anything. I had to appreciate her for that.

-a Friend of Lottie’s

When you wear masks like you take breaths, you don’t notice that the act is killing you. You don’t see the bags under your eyes, the redness invading your scleras. The undying tug on the corners of your thin pursed lips. You see only the delighted faces of those so pleased to see not your face, but the faces you adorn for them. Catered to them. For some, the mask you wear is a mirror, for they want nothing more than to see themselves in you. For others, black as night to obscure anything akin to their likeness. But you are so enraptured with their happiness, you neglect your own. For there is a worse fate than being unloved.

It is being loved as something you’re not.

You wouldn’t understand it, you aren’t a mimic. I miss crawling into other people’s skin because I feel more comfortable there. Sir John of Kistchire’s outrageous ski slope nose and eyebrows so furry birds mistake them for caterpillars, or Miss Browden’s pursed cherry red lips clinging for dear life at the end of her chin; they feel like second homes to me.

Why can’t you just be yourself?

I told you, you wouldn’t understand. I can be outrageous as Sir John when I’m him, I can be as persnickety and secretive as Miss Browden when I’m her. When I’m just, me, I’m. I’m nothing.

Most people don’t need a wardrobe of skins to feel at ease you know. Of course I wouldn’t understand you. You’re ununderstandable.

I’ll show you ununderstandable. I’ll take these eyes and strain them brown, I’ll take this hair and stretch it into a long flaxen rope just like yours. Though I don’t know how to braid, so we may look different still.

Do not wear my face. Ever.

Afraid of what you’ll see if I do?

Sorry I don’t write to you anymore. I’ve been meaning to, surely. But I just haven’t gotten around to it. Every time I try I see the blood dripping down your face, from your hair slick to your forehead. It didn’t even look blonde that day, you barely looked like yourself shambling toward my car like that. A part of me hoped so badly that it wasn’t you, or that you didn’t recognize me through your haze. But it was, the voice croaking in its throat was coarse but it was yours. The creature on fifth street was my best friend.

I know you don’t remember much now, and letters like these are probably meaningless to you. Who bothers to read and write when they’re.. becoming what you’re becoming. Maybe you’re finished becoming..I hope not. I hope there’s still time.

Do you remember before all this? It’s all I can think about. Things were so normal then; I didn’t appreciate that enough. I didn’t know I was going to lose it all to the awful man who did this to you.