Lunch with Janice.

I planned on eating alone.
But my plans were ruined when Janice sat down.

Like they say—
People make plans, and God laughs.
I doubt God laughs at people’s plans,
but who knows.

I didn’t really make a plan, anyway—
lunch happened on a whim.
Half a Brie and pear sandwich, spicy vegetable stew on the side.

Someone else is sitting here with you,
said Janice, but really she was asking.

Do you mind if I sit here—the only other table is a big one.
asked Janice, sitting down.

I’m always like this—
said Janice,
always rushing, and nowhere to go.

Janice had golden earrings big as eyeballs,
she had fingernails painted clear and shiny,
she had a sticker stuck on the lemon slice that danced inside her glass of iced tea,
she had the spicy vegetable stew, also.

Janice ruined my plans.

Well,
exhaled Janice,
I had a lovely time eating lunch with you. It’s nice, sometimes,
not to be alone.

Yes,
I said and thought at the same time,
it is nice.

Meow

The weak cry,

Cat-soft syllables.

Tasteless, tame-tongued,

the guttural purring,

evolution

Of the lion, tiger, leopard, panther, cheetah—

the hollow tin chiming,

Pretty Miss Kitty’s collar.

Thursday Night

I start hitting him but not too hard—definitely not as hard I could, definitely not as hard as I want to—I start hitting him and he acts like he doesn’t know what’s going on (after all, I don’t even know his name).

So he just stands there all wobbly and kinda laughing but really kinda nervous laughing and does nothing.

His friend says, “What the fuck are you doing this for?” I say, “I’m a bitch—I’m a slut? You can’t just talk about women like that! Who are you? You’re everything that’s wrong! You’re the power, you’re the patriarchy, and look who you are! You don’t even care (I keep on hitting him). And you don’t even know what the fuck is going on!”.

I keep on hitting him and they are not doing anything, they’re still doing nothing.

I cry a little bit but no tears come out—I’m smacking his friend now with my keychain and they’re still doing nothing, because, probably, they don’t even know what the fuck is going on.

I slap my keys across his fucking button-up shirt, I drag them across his friend’s face.

I’m waiting for them to hit back—to do anything—I want him to.
I’m waiting and I’m wanting, but they’re still doing nothing.
They start to walk away from me, they pull one another towards the Opposite Direction and I want to cry more than anything in the world but I’m too angry.

He tells me, “Just unbuckle your bike—go home”. I tell him to fuck himself and think about bashing my bike buckle into his brain until something oozes out of it.

There’s a girl with them, she’s been with them the whole time.
And that’s what started this all in the first place, really. The girl has been smoking on the sidelines the entire time; she doesn’t say anything til the end. They’re all walking away now and she looks at me, says something like “Fuck you”, and I first think to scream back but instead she makes me cry but no tears come out (too angry).

I remember looking at her. I don’t remember what she looks like because it’s dark out and everyone is drunk and she has a face that is not easy to remember in the first place.

I say, “I’m with you, girl! Come on (sounding desperate now), Go learn! Educate yourself, learn about the world—learn that you deserve better than this! Don’t go home with these ass holes!”

She looks back, screams, “Fuck you, I go to class!”.
Everyone laughs real loud now which makes me want to live a life in jail just to see them die first.
He looks back, yells, “Now you’re goin’ home—too bad, I woulda taken you home with me for five cents! (everyone laughs)”.
“Yeah”, his friend adds, “I woulda taken you for a penny! (everyone laughs) You look sexy!” (everyone laughs).

I want to set the city on fire, I want to burn down buildings and watch my muscles melt into the ground, grass, street.
I tear my skin open with the zipper on my jean jacket, I unbuckle my bike, I rip into the asphalt.

I’m pedaling home, I’m sweating and shaking and my hand is bleeding onto my coat now.

At the red light: Some drunk young men yell something at me that I can’t exactly hear, but it’s all the same.
I squeeze my breaks right there in the middle of it all and look into their faces, say, “I will fucking kill you” (everyone laughs).

They keep walking, shout back, “No you won’t! (everyone laughs)”. I yell, “I will spend my life in jail to kill you! (everyone laughs)”, I go home.

I get home, outside.
I think about the world and about women and about how “to be a girl in public is to be watched” and about everything else , and I scream and squeak and cry harder and louder than I knew I even could.

Makeup’s smeared all over my face now. My sleeve’s all bloody and everything is horrible.

A man comes out of the bar across the street (it’s after-hours), lights a cigarette, stares.
I think about what he must think I must be crying about and then I explode.

I buckle my bike and go inside.

A Day

You live in a terrible way.

Daylight swims through slits
under closed doors,

Click shut, slam shut, smack—
(won’t), shut.

Someone says,
You can’t live this way.

Your teeth are screaming
so loud,
You can’t hear
what Someone is saying—

A sticker still stuck on
a slice of lemon,
is dancing inside a glass of iced tea
on the other side of the room.

You’re sitting in the
far-far,
far back.

Daytime shapes itself bright,
shimmers across freezing floor,
shines inside spiky veins of
white-white,
white flesh.

Someone says,
It’s a terrible way to live,
the way you do.

A Morning

My teeth are screaming—
saying (I don’t know what).
They’ve been yelling since I brushed them this morning.
And I’m all the way in the back of a room now
wondering (if anyone can tell
that I’ve been crying all morning long),
wondering (if it’s written all over my face—
all over my teeth).
If that’s what the little white mouth mounds are trying to shout:
“Hey! This girl has been crying all morning long—Hey, look! You can see it
on her face.”

Limbo

There’s a lot to say about Limbo.
But no one says anything here—no one talks to you in Limbo.
Free time is spent with Yourself, the only other person who lives here.
But you and Yourself don’t really live in Limbo—you just sort of exist (right there in the middle of the rest of the world).
Very much not with the rest of the world, very much not a part of the rest.
Things here are different than the rest of everything (but not really).
All you do is exist amongst Yourself, and think.

Happy Sounding

There’s a race war happening down the block.

I can hear it from my apartment window, two stories high above ground, two stories up from the race war down the block.

“Who did I yell at?” a man yells.

Another man tells him he’s yelling right now. The yelling man yells, “This is racist”, and another man insists this is not racist; he tells him that he’s drunk, and he needs to leave—he needs to go home.

The yelling man is pumping his arms up and down. Slicing the night air with angry palms, he’s thrusting his body forward now in a fit of victimization.

Another man again tells him that this is not racist; that he’s drunk, that he needs to leave and go home now—that he’s belligerent.
And so he leaves, and maybe he goes home—but who knows.

Everyone out side sounds happy.

They’re yelling and talking about each other and laughing at inside jokes and laughing about things that are happening, about things that have just happened.

They’re drunk and willowy clouds from the tips of their cigarettes are furling around their happy heads, forming thick circles that hang in the forty-three degree Fahrenheit darkness.
They’re shuffling their feet back and forth—it’s getting colder out now.

Inside it’s warmer, the heater isn’t on because I'm trying to conserve but I’ve got warm socks and a big blue blanket and a red corduroy couch and the insulation of solitude wrapped all around me.

I wonder here a lot, sometimes.

A lot of times I wonder how all the happy sounding people know each other, and sometimes I wonder where they all met.
I wonder sometimes if and when and how I might meet any of these smoking, laughing, yelling people; and a lot of times I wonder, however and when I might meet these people, if I’d be able to sound happy, too. A lot of times I wonder if I’d be able to hear myself sounding happy from two stories up.

If I might hear myself, smoking, yelling, drunk but not too drunk, and laughing at inside jokes—would I think, Everyone outside sounds happy. Or might I think: Almost everyone outside sounds happy, but not everyone.