a-lesson-in-vengeance

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

You are a girl and you are in love in a way your mother told you you should never be, like a split lip and a H-E-Double hockey stick and a childhood friend you still wave to through the chainlink fence.

You are a hollow girl, a sallow girl with bruises for eyes and a blood clot for a heart. The kids on the bus will always sit across the aisle from you and claim it’s because you’re too fat. You are a fat girl and the love of your life eats a fruit cup for lunch and climbs up fallen tree trunks and gets drunk off two beers. She’ll never know what it’s like to be asked out on a dare and you want to kiss her for that.

You are a girl who learns that holding hands is only a month away from fucking, but you won’t be able to remember your first time because you don’t know the difference between “fooling around” and “sex,” and most people think that a penis has to be involved anyway. But now you know what it’s like to be wanted, you are a girl who is wanted and you know how your name feels on another tongue. Maybe she’ll tell you later that she never wanted you, but how can you believe that when you know how her forehead shines under sweat, how her chest moves from the momentum of your fingers?

You are a girl and you think you are still in love even though you haven’t kissed her in two years and you don’t dream about her bed anymore, but if you’re not in love with her then what are you? How can you be a girl without having someone telling you how desired you are?

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

Oh I know my father loves me and he loved me with the sweltering embrace only fathers know how to give. And when he took out my doorknob I could watch him through the exposed hole walk down the tiled hallway with so much love on the rubber of his boots-- the ridges just caked in it. I could fall asleep on the length of his chest and feel it shift like tectonic plates itching for another earthquake. I can still watch him cry and it is because he loves me that I tell him I know what it’s like. Please, don’t call anymore.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

Holes in her t-shirts so big I could see the bumps in her skin. Have you got moths in the closet since last I stepped in? I wish I didn't remember how hot it gets in the summer. There's a man out here who carries a stick and swings it like a conductor, prompting the trees to bed. I don't go walking anymore, not just cuz of the stray, scowling dogs, but also cuz I'm afraid that the stick could bend me, too. I still have the habit of stopping and looking for you. She's the space between my legs when I fall asleep, the thing that keeps me from touching my own skin

I don’t go walking anymore , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

The smell of wet earth and cedar, burnt dust coming off the heater, hot breath of a dog who's not your own, but you stoop down every morning to feed her. If you won't do it, then who will? Bruised right heel and creaking knees, Pay off the bill so the kids don't freeze, diabetic-induced comas aren't anything but hospital fees. If you won't do it, then who will? The Taurus can't reach 82, but 81's too slow for you. Dad's suicidal again, so you ditched school to tell him things he already knew, tell him hings he never says to you. Austin afternoon traffic blues gives the mic to our self-ridicule. Sit with him in silence and let the tear-ducts fill. If you won't do it, then who will?

then who will , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

When do you think of me? Is it in your good times or your bad times? The easy times or the hard times-- the times you lie in bed breathing in the pillow (do you miss the smell of my shampoo) or the times you throw it against the mattress and wish the feathers would burst out in your madness? Do you think of me in lovesick, purple dreams, or in the nightmares that wake you up at 3:15? When you shake from tears or joy or pleasure? When you stare at your phone in uncertainty, or when you spread peanut butter on your toast-- what times are they that you miss me the most? When do you think of me?

when do you think of me , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

I thought I made it up: The high priestess, the moon, the five of cups, A woman who sits upon her throne to find That loneliness does not just inhabit her mind, But her joints and her bones as well. Shouldn’t the ability to love be enough To make it to each day, To find the soft belly of each stray— But I suppose that’s just a lie they tell.

I had thought you to be a figment of me, A woman of cards manifested, But you’re stuck with the swords, The pen, the words, The eggs cradled between twigs, nested By a mother who could not stay. Now, tell me, is loving enough? Are you even made of feather-stuff? Or are you still waiting for your mother to come Back in the visage of another plume?

--feather-stuff , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

There is so much to learn. Grace of the neck to memorize. Heliotrope of sleep. Hieroglyph of bones to decipher. Love, if at all, comes later.

excerpt from “A Few Items to Consider” , Sandra Cisneros

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

My hands are clammed up; I imagine I am a spider and you are the web. I touch you and we stick. I touch you and we stick. You find humidity as bad as frostbite: You can feel parts of you swell and break off.

the humidity , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

I pick up a bundle of sticks-- a child who thinks she can start a fire if she moves the twigs fast enough. It's a hot day in August, the cement from the school playground makes the yard nearly a hundred degrees. Why does a young girl in the Texas summer want to start a fire? Is it simply to see if she can? I strike the sticks quick, like Diamond matches but without a stove to light. I strike the sticks quick, like I'm throwing something off my skin (a hair, a gnat, something that itches). I strike the sticks quick, biceps cramping, tugging at my bones. I strike, I strike, and I strike again, see the bark peel and fly, raw, naked wood peering through the abrasions--moist by water trapped inside, seeping through like sweat soaking a cotton shirt. No sparks. Perhaps not ever girl can make fire. Perhaps not every twig is capable of it.

strike , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

Hail came down the size of cherries; My brother wanted to stick out his tongue and catch every single one.  He did not know of blood       and split skin, of bruises and head trauma.  I've always hated real cherries, the pits scrape against the mounds of my molars, send me wincing as if the cyanide were detectable. I prefer maraschinos soaked in Red40 and gutless. I like to see the stain on my teeth and pretend to be a monster instead of a woman.

cherries , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

In six years, I had never felt your hand. It is soft, uncalloused, slightly dry, like how cotton is both dry and soft (we usually hate the drag of wet shirts clinging to our backs, so why should we romanticize the moisture of skin?) What did mine feel like? Embroidered cloth or cutlery? Did you want to pull away from the razors in my thumb every time I circled it around, or did I manage to hook you in? I worry that I don't know the difference between a friend and a fish. I'm glad your hand was dry, in any case, because you couldn't use your wet scales and thrashing fins to slip from between my fingers. I am sorry to act as a fisherman.

Old Friend , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

I think He came to me, dressed in hues of fluorescent blues etched against the forlorn night backdrop. I think He sat there, a house cat lazing about who finds more sport in watching birds than hunting them. His purrs rumbled through the earth, split apart the land in two. I think He knew what he'd done, but I'd find more remorse in a storm. He might have been made of lightning. He might have been made of ice. I was made of the same stuff as mice. I think He spoke, I think He spoke to me, told me what comes after entropy. But I couldn't hear, because it came out as a whisper.

I think He came to me , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

Things I’ve used as bookmarks

torn pieces of paper from a nearby notebook (always the corner because it’s easier to rip. I try to use an empty sheet but sometimes I’ve forgotten the notes on the back, so the word “maladies” becomes “ladies”)

folded up receipts (whatever is nearest, mundane--usually from the grocery store where I will probably never return my regular brand of bread or yogurt. But there are others, places I’ve never been to since, the numbers on the receipt faded, the date reading “Nov 2014″)

tissues (unused, of course; I’ve kept a box by my bed for the last nine months just in case)

gum wrappers (the aluminum folds like water, and sometimes I find myself fidgeting with it, turning it around absentmindedly--a reminder that I haven’t let go of human’s instinctual need to possess those shining, shimmering things)

straw wrappers (they say that there’s nothing we can do for Earth at this point; corporations will strip her bare anyway)

brochures (I still mean to go to that museum, I’m just afraid of the air, the space, and the dozens of interpretations of The Kiss)

pens (the ones that don’t work and I mostly just kept to sate my oral fixation)

my phone, the end of my blanket, another book (these things I use when I am just leaving to go to the bathroom or because my mom called me from the hall)

money (dollar bills, occasionally a penny)

a real bookmark (I’ve kept the one my best friend made me for my birthday in 7th grade. I still envy her artistic skills, her perfectly-curved lettering. It’s bent a bit from use, so I eventually tucked it away in the closet and haven’t used it in years)

love notes (from years ago, maybe high school, when heart-shaped ink was a seal, when “I love you” was a certainty)

ribbon (my favorite kind)

never a dog-ear

magnetic bookmarks (really just one: a panda. I lost it about a decade ago)

none (I write the page number nearby or try and memorize it. I’m not sure what started this habit, and I soon stopped since I would always forget)

none (set it down, decide never to finish it)

none (set it down, think maybe I’ll start it again someday)

none (set it down with a scrap of paper, forget about it for years, then eventually take it out)

none (I lend it to a friend. They never give it back. I’m too insecure to ask. I haven’t seem them since graduation)

none (I give it to a lover. They give it to someone I’ve never met)

none (I gorge it in one sitting like a drought-stricken river when the flood rolls in)

none (I’ve never opened it)

none (the words swarm in front of my eyes like a school of fish; I can’t distinguish them)

none (my eyes won’t open, my fingers are swollen purple)

none (just the thought grows algae on the lining of my lungs)

none (she was always better at it anyway)

none (maybe I’m afraid of commitment)

none (TV is easier)

none (it’s just not the same as when I was younger. I don’t have the same interest; I don’t have the same hunger)

h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

To be vulnerable is to live genuinely. Just as I don't judge the fawn for the quivering legs it walks on, I won't judge myself as I find my own footing.

fawn , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

I want a lover who will tell me she loves me and touches my face, never closing her eyes nor turns her gaze away. I want a friend who will entwine her legs with mine at night, who always finds new love-notes to write. I want a partner who knows how hard it is to turn a canvas into a work of art, who won’t throw down the paints because they look the same, who knows to turn a flurry of orange of red into flame. I want a woman who says a goodnight, honest– not as a farewell, but as a promise.

want , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

We may have all known obsession, the catastrophe of perception as it all revolves around a singular thing. I obsess quite frequently-- over tender love, over aching heartbreak, over the way I can still imagine her thumb caressing my hand. I've obsessed over music, picking apart the texture like a surgeon at the operating table. So, too, have I picked apart her words until they become but pulsing hearts throbbing in my wet palm. You may have obsessed on your failures, your givings, the dreads that cave you into your bed. We all do those things, even she. She used to obsess over me. Considered me honey, sweet. Until she found another woman-- sexy, new blood, new tongue-- that could make her feel whole again. Because while I am a surgeon, that woman is a taxidermist-- ready to stuff a rabbit with praise and sex and cotton. She felt full after so long of feeling only pieces with me. Too bad that the woman only wanted to display her head on the mantle and leave the beady eyes to tears. Yes, I may take apart, but I do leave you alive. What would you do without these hands to stitch back your heart and tell you how it'll be alright?

taxidermy , h.s.

[a-lesson-in-vengeance]

Disappointment rolls down the mountains of my chest like a snowball-- densely packed with every reconsideration, every betrayal, each morsel of solitude I've become condemned to. It grows and it grows, until it plummets down the mountainside, an avalanche which I hope will rain down on them. Maybe if they could become frozen, too, they would know the pain of snapping off your fingers as they purple, blacken, succumb to decay. Let them feel the heavy weight of snow crush them into the earth, suffocating as their screams are smothered into whispers. Let them know the destruction, the devastation of dismay-- they won't escape it again, I won't be the only victim again.

snowballing , h.s.