She’s all disappointed.

She is very brave, over the phone. She’ll say things she’d never say, over the phone. A phone is a like a couple of glasses of wine. A phone gives her courage.

So she puts her ego out there–Out There!–where it hangs suspended for a few seconds, untethered, shimmering around the dust motes, and suddenly free-falls to the hard ground below. Do you want her, she wonders, or do you want an escape from the sameness of life? Do you want her, or do you want to feel alive, and she’ll do that for you. See, it’s not a game with girls like her. You are playing with fire with girls like her. She’s one of them, the kind who put guys like you up on mad-high pedestals. You either have to live up to that, or you have to jump off that pedestal, disappoint her, disappoint yourself.

They never teach that in school…the disappointment of doing the right thing.

(i want a perfect body, i want a perfect soul. i want you to notice when i’m not around)*

* thank you, Radiohead.

Consider this. A day in October.

There are things you say (or let slip) that point to a closeness you won’t admit to: for Crimeney’s sake! she picks out your gym shorts!?

She doesn’t appreciate you, mocks you as “needy” when you need, drives the Benz you made possible away from you with a sneer, compartmentalizes you: “there you go again, picking the wrong moment (again!) to say the wrong thing.”

What would happen if someone appreciated you? What would happen if someone who was worthy stayed and stroked and validated and built up and became for you a mirror beaming back to you all the good you give? Think about it.

Pen & ink.

At Limantour Beach.

At Limantour Beach, I get what I want.

At Limantour Beach, I taste salt and sand and skin. Oh, at Limantour, I throw caution up over my shoulder and laugh freely, reclining in the willows, feeling the deepness that my one life on this earth can offer. This one life, one Limantour, one chance to grasp hands and fall to one’s knees in the surf.

Don’t you see, October is upon us. Soon it’ll be much too cold for Limantour.

(How long will you deny me Limantour?)

Quantify it.

So I am, what now? On a scale of 1 to 10, what?

I’m a seven in prettiness,

a six in brains,

a two in articulation,

an eight in presence,

four in emotional brattiness,

five in the ability to be realistic,

three as compared to your peers,

nine when compared to my peers,

a one in confidence.

Come on. Come on, multiply me. Make me more than the sum of my parts.

Friends the merest. It’s simple math.

Friendship is what again?

Two people deciding they have something in common, be it satisfaction or dissatisfaction–they become friends.

Where does it start, and where does it conclude? When does a friend become less or more than what begins, and who gets to make that decision? Do you get a vote? (If you are me, the answer is NO.)

An acquaintance, through familiarity and time, becomes a friend. Through simple mathematics, you add something a bit more, and that person becomes a companion (of the heart. Of the body.) Subtract sentiment, and he or she goes back to being a passer-by you lock eyes with for five seconds. A shiver may touch you, and if it does, you go back for another chance and try to extend those seconds. You stretch them to a minute. Two. Electricity. You give great credit to Benjamin Franklin, but I give credit to those who first recognized that light eyes fixing on brown eyes can stir the air, create magic.

Friendship is a funny thing. (I’m not laughing.)

Here’s the math:

Subtract time spent together=acquaintance

Add a silken touch=lovers-to-be

Take away courage=back to friends

Plus insurmountable complications, minus willingness to deal with it, add inevitability, take away rational thought, subtract the desire for depth and meaning, contribute genuine caring and affection, multiply by significant looks and insignificant excuses = mere friends are we. Well, friends the merest.*

(*Thank you, Robert Browning)

Tools for damn good writing.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Angst
• Put someone up on a pedestal. Now watch him fall off. Re-play that image in your mind as you write.
• A bottle of cheap wine
• Breaking (not broken) heart
• A romantic predisposition
• A dash of real eccentricity
• A feeling that you don’t quite belong
• A hesitancy to speak. A propensity to collect scaps of paper and scribble on them
• A love/hate relationship with food. Strong opinions about flavors and textures
• Strong tendecies toward apathy regarding politics
• Guns N’ Roses, or if not that…Coldplay can work, but if that isn’t for you, try Getz/Gilberto
• Feelings of inadequacy, or feelings of grandeur. Pick one
• Did I mention angst? It’s the writer’s best friend.

Reminder re: duotrope.

Writers,

Go here: http://www.duotrope.com

Publish, publish, publish…then sell, sell, sell. This is a proven strategy for new (and not-so-new) writers. Publish in the smaller periodicals, get established, then start in on the paying markets.

Just a thought.

Use your words.

 

Use your words.

 

Take heart, broken sad heart. Autumn is on its piper way, and with it, orange-red something somethings

no no no

 

(Deep breaths, girl.

Okay, try again. And a one, a two.)

 

Take heart, sad heart. Autumn is on its way, marching forth, and with it, fire-crossed embers that seal off pain. Isn’t that what they did? Sear the skin with molten coals to prevent bleeding? And didn’t they

 

… tttttt

 

Didn’t they—

 

Um, didn’t they used to (something poetic and profound to be written here)

 

(Deep breaths, honey)

 

Oh God. I cannot write.

 

The body majestic, electric, magnetic.

His body doubles as something majestic: a tree among short and brittle plants (such as you, such as me). His body is ever reliable, ever durable. He performs at level 10+plus, every single day of the week.

And then, he does not. He cannot.

And for a proud and physical sort (such as he is, you should see the pride and physicality!), the loss of control this imparts is humbling, raw in its ability to bring down to earth a man who steps lightly somewhere above most men. His body is strong and lithe, he moves with grace and athleticism: that’s the truth.

A man such as this does not know what you and I know–he does not yet know that his body is most enviable in those rare moments when it falters and in the time when he must stop to let it mend. It is in these moments that his vulnerability elicits the most tender feelings, the urge to reach out to touch him, to comfort, mend, shape, give cool relief, soothe, imbue with affection.

Perfect bodies are untouchable, lest your inprint make some mark that mars their pristine status. It is the imperfect body that endears, invites touch.