novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ghosts Ghosts (text for artists book) There are people who follow me and never let go. Becca in the car the night we decided to sleep in the parking lot of the record outlet, eyes shining and cheeks so perfectly round, looking at me like I�m her sister. She told me I was beautiful in the bathroom she�s the only person to say that besides my mother. We went to Denny�s and she got hit on by a thirty year old, grown desperate by her. He asked me for advice. I was seventeen, she was eighteen. Becca joined a cult and moved to India. Greg used to stick his hands in my armpits and leave them there until I�d finally notice. I go where the warmth is. Once we were all at a park in the middle of the night I tried to do a stunt off a swing but fell on my head, Greg laughed and I flipped him, just like that, I don't even know how I did it. Directly afterwards he got up and ran around like a beheaded chicken, laughing and pointing at me, darting underneath slides and swing sets. Matt Jacobs, the asthmatic, chapping heavy breathing boy with giant eyelashes and a pet just like mine. Fourth grade. I was the only girl invited to his birthday party; afterwards we married our dogs. Standard black poodles. Skippy and Snoopy. The prisonesque middle school where Kineta and I banded together. So beautiful, such elaborate hair styles, so many notes written on lined paper. Threatening Krissy with physical violence because she insulted me. When you took off your shirt that one time at my slumber party the color of your bra looks so strange against your skin it looks so different from mine. Jakub and me at the boardwalk, three am. Walking around, pausing at the railing and staring out into the ocean. We were rarely quiet like this. I watch his face, he watches the water. Contour. A cartoon nose, a hard forehead. A strange way of walking, jerky movements. Little noises. On the beach in front of us walked a woman, her dress and hair flapping in the wind like she was in some movie. �Jakub, that woman has no feet.� �Yeah, I know.� �You see that?� �Yeah, I do.� Muffie the first real person who knew everything about me. Moon face and hands that point the direction we're heading, eyes behind bangs tiny lips perfunctory lips and giant pools full of water full of love and cleanliness and hello kitty. Lori in my mailbox. Whenever I�d get mail from her I�d cart it around proudly, opening it in public places. She�s real, she�s magic bones, she�s too far away to see clearly. If she were here we�d be like magnets, shoelaces, or bumper cars, slamming into each other and then peeling away. I had a dream that Lori owned a van and we went traipsing around America, surprising far away people and forgotten pen pals. We made music in Ohio, movies in Georgia, saved stray cats in Brooklyn and ate bagels out of a dumpster in Boston. I think the bagels thing is because whenever I hear stories about fantastical road trips they somehow involve excess breakfast-type foods thrown away and then retrieved. And whenever we touched hands, there was a spark of electricity. 3:30 am - 10.17.01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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