For CLP

you asked for this a long time ago
ESTIMATION
December 7, 1993

There are two worlds.
That of the Pretty Ones
and that of the Real.

Everyone wants to be a pretty one
no one wants to be Real.

It's a fair shot, they'll tell you
EVERYONE CAN BE A PRETTY ONE!
some of us believe that 'til death.

The pretty ones laugh at them for that.
All their lives they'd tried to convince
WHO?
themselves and they almost believed.
But no one else did and this they knew.
So they catered to and worshipped on
The Pretty Ones
and they told us we should, too.
EVERYONE CAN SERVE A PRETTY ONE!

Where there are pretty, ugly can be found.
Of this group I found myself.
I knew this to be true.
They'd convinced me well.
I let them connive me, deceive me, torture.
and all the while I asked myself,
WHAT'S SO GODDAMN PRETTY ABOUT THIS?

Watch my friends go down over the coals
Daily Hourly Every Grade

How was 7th grade, darling?
Did you get over that nasty compulsion stage?
sorry we made you feel so bad, but you had to get over it
Don't you know?
YOU TOO CAN BE A PRETTY ONE!

THEY'RE FULL OF SHIT!
I yell, and I mean it.
I've watched them all my life
Step on people, and watch them bleed
See hearts break and watch them weep
Laugh all the while, the chosen few
I've watched them all my life.
They told me I was nothing.
Didn't care what I had to do.
Broke me, too. For years
Anytime they could
Any way they could

AND WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?
No one wants to go against them!
Everyone secretly hopes they'll eventually fit in.

And my ROARING, SWELLING, OUTSTRETCHED
middle finger, THRUST up the nose of the
PRETTY ONES

Lifts the hearts of all those bound
even as they purse their lips and disapprove.

FUCK THIS! I yell
And hope that someone hears.

Even as I join their ranks
gain their trust
An insidious REAL among all
THE PRETTY ONES

How my mask slips every now and then
As my passions torment
and torment and torment

I walk among, my eyes not blinded
my brain unclouded

I walk among, but I'm unaffected
I DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SAY

He who suffers remembers
and I will never forget.

And I refuse to play their game,
their methods I detest.

In a battle of wills
they'll never forget
I'll turn these mirrors around.

On all THE PRETTY ONES.

They'll run into that night screaming
consciousness shuddering
all support beams crash loudly down.

Then those beautiful nothings
will crawl from every part of the woodwork
and stand on the decay.

I told someone once
DON'T YOU EVER UNDERESTIMATE ME

but he wasn't listening.
If I could see him now
I'd sweep my hand over all the blessed wreckage
and show him
REALITY.

Journal Entry 6/10/02

June 10, 2002

I wanted to.
I wanted to take you under my wing, to Amazon w/ blue-hair your troubles away.
You were desperately searching to belong somewhere in this room of lithe pulsating bodies and skimpy, designer sportswear. I’m searching to belong there, too. But I’ve got Claudia. She jokes and laughs my way to comfort with her in-shape-ness.
There was a time when I would have taken you on with much more commitment than I gave to you today. But that was a long time ago, and I’m a far different person now.

I always tired of the work it took to keep an adoptee in comfort. I ritually hurt the person out of my presence, out of my circle, out of my sight.

So I’ve learned a little. From the broken bones of those before you.
I offered you a smile. A tight, taut beckon into this world. Come here, I said.
Come here, and we’ll turn this around. We’ll turn this around to a welcoming, laughing group of women bound together in our beauty myth. Bound indelibly by the cottage cheese on our thighs. I hate the lithe women in skimpy sportswear as much as you. I know you’re probably a kinder, gentler soul.

But take it from me: toughen up or get the fuck out.
There’s no place for kind, gentle souls anymore.

The thing about being vulnerable is that SOMEONE will take it from you. Someone will reach up and rip out your neck, just because you offered it. There was a time I thought myself a martyr. I would offer up my neck for all those who were yet unable to. That lasted about as long as my 25th birthday. Then I hardened, and gasped through torn larynxes, bled through torn carotids, until I fashioned a new throat. A new voice. A louder one, with an edge. Now I’m aghast to say that if you offer your neck to me, I’ll take it from you.

Because I can.
Because you asked me to.
Because there is no other way to help you here.

But then, I’m here and there’s no help for me, either. Train wreck. Avalanche. Barfight.
So I guess there’s not much left out here. For either of us to take, much less share. I wish it had all been different. I wish I set out on a nicer, smoother path. I wish I didn’t fall and then turn around and curse the branch that tripped me. But I do.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing most of the time. I can’t shake the feeling that all my friends are going to turn around and call me a fraud. I can’t shake the feeling that they’d be right. I can’t find anything at all that I’m genuine about, except my love of words, my cats, and being on stage.

My marriage is unsatisfactory and I can’t afford to do anything about it.
The life I want to lead is on a shelf somewhere.
I work over 40 hours a week and still live in constant fear of being fired.

I am nastier than I seem to be.
I’m nicer than I think I am.
I wish I were someone else.

I’m always somewhere else.

Journal Entries Redux

7/30/03

I have not had a cigarette in over 24 hours.
The monkey leaps from my chest, scampers up my back
And launches from my shoulders in search of fire and tobacco.
Chattering and screaming like monkeys do.

I have not called him and my fingers and brain are itching
How many times can you pick up the phone just to see it be normal.
Achingly, depressingly normal.

So you know you have to do it.
Set yourself afloat in this big, beautiful city
Alone again.

You didn’t even really LIKE him.
But he showed a modicum of interest and
You flailed in the calm waters
Like a drowning
Thing.

Stuff your head with someone else’s words
And try to build your own.

The monkey thing, that’s a good one.
Funny and you can see it and the screaming and chattering part really breathes.

So many bad writers out there.
There’s got to be a place for me.

Embarrassing Journal Entry

January 16, 1996

It's so depressing to be right when you hope so desperately to be wrong.
There's no one even to say, "I told you so," to.
Because it is only to yourself, and you fucking knew it already.

Damn. He's not at all feeling like I am, and he USED to, and so I JUST CAN'T GET IT!
I just can't believe he no longer cares like I do.
I just don't understand.

The first man to say he loved me, forgot all that, or put it aside, or left it at the bus stop, or whatever the hell they DO when they shrug it aside, 3 months later.

And it was BECAUSE I left.
So I cannot rightly be mad, or upset, though I am, and my heart RIPS in quick, time-elapse motions.

Ah, love, the pain familiar.
The pain familiar.

Keep your smile, Salome.
Look as if you're still in one piece.

Shattered does not become a lady,
bloody never has.