0-a

She was always one for testing the limits of what she'd been told, you know.  Pushing the envelope or crossing the line, but not anything in a daring or romanticized way, if that's the kind of thing that you're thinking.  Always with an inclination more towards social self-destruction, financial ruin, or bodily harm, a blind eye turned towards caution and prudence, always riding the proverbial razor's edge one fraction of an ounce of pressure away from rending the artery hopelessly and irrevocably useless for the sustenance of life.  That’s not a complete sentence, is it?  I don't care.

 



0-b

For example, she's got this scar on her hand, these interlocking curves that form all these perfect 75 cent circles, like the rings of a tree, kind of, and they're from when she was just a kid and she had to touch the glowing orange eye of knowledge on the stovetop because she didn't believe mom or pop when they told her that it was HOT, that it would BURN, and that burns always HURT.  She’s also the type that never cries, at least as far as I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of her, you know, so I doubt that even then she reacted in a way that revealed weakness... a real tough-girl type, you've met someone like her before, I’m sure.

 

1

Mom and Pop, before they moved on, they told the story a little differently than she does, of course.  I guess all parents have them, these stories of a loveable but stupid and disobedient little kid2, screaming at the top of its lungs as it runs through the house with an extended finger or hand or arm, lamenting the gods for placing such curiosity in their thirsty little heads, all the while with tears and snot flowing freely from all available facial orifices, blind faith in motion that usually concludes with a more dramatic meeting of said child with a previously unnoticed and also quite inconsiderately placed chair, door, or wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

Well, that's just how she is, you know?  So I was kind of surprised when she started listening to everyone's advice one day on matters of the heart served in conjunction with a waste pile of really bad ideas, and even more surprised when she totally flaked out on this guy that she was really into, and I was really, REALLY surprised when she stopped answering the phone when he called because he was, after all, potential for a REALLY REALLY bad mindfuck.  Really.  And that's probably why he was perfect for her, and also the reason she'd let him get away, with her new resolution to follow instead of lead and to let everyone else make her decisions for her.

 

 

 


            Time passes like a dream.  We reach for the sky,
            we seem surprised when our hands return, empty.
            
            
            But what of all the breath that we've just captured
            and let slip between our fingers?
            
            
            How many lives have shared that air?

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

I’m learning to be more like the other Sheeple, she tells me. I’m learning to be safe and predictable and boring and mundane and encapsulated, because that's a million times easier than the kind of thing that scars your hand, or worse, your heart, for life, and it's the kind of loss I’m willing to take and the kind of medicine that I’m learning to swallow without gagging.  this conversation evolves as I smoke an emerald green Nat Sherman, an American cigarette the color of money, so fancy and fashionable, in an unkempt roadside cafe near Toulouse, France.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

At least I didn't fuck him, she sighs as she says this, and she looks kind of regretful and sad, and I put my hand onto hers. Is it any wonder that the words for Heart and Hurt are so similar?

 

 

 

 

 

every moment is an open door