Friday, November 26, 2010

The Hipster Summer

Every night tastes like piss
in a forty ounce bottle, smells
like sweat and the staleness of our cluttered,
knick-knacky bedrooms, closing us
in with their picture-book
walls, sounds outside like hello's and good
bye's and high-fives, inside
jokes, heavy breathing and little moans, sights
like dim lights, the watery wandering
of his eyes, headlights and lighters, the wide
grins of friends and the pretty red
buds at the ends of our American Spirits.

Every night's air is thick
with smoke and laughter. Often we feel
like we could evaporate, disappear
in the thin folds of a moment, be tucked
away in arms soft and salty in the sweat
we bleed, blink and exist only in the past.

The hipster hates the hip and loves
only that which has been discarded,
the naïve, forgotten remnants of our mothers' decades
which seem somehow more genuine, and this
is the inevitable conundrum, the wounded hole
in the heart of the hipster: the authenticity parade
is inherently inauthentic.

And so we dance away the disillusionment,
melt into each costumed other, our identities lost
in the crush of a pill or the bottom of a PBR, knowing
sadly that the tortured artist ceases to be
the moment we stand next to another.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Mustache & Gums: A Love Story


Susan was afraid that she had become one of those pathetic, saggy-boobed, sweat pants-wearing, white bread bologna sandwich in a plastic baggy-munching, bird-watching, tacky, boring women whose asses drooped down off rolly chairs behind cubicles plastered with knick-knacky things, like calendars with pictures of kittens in costumes or mugs that say Merry Christmas. Those women who type ads in Craigslist or Singles.com with one glossy-nailed finger, too old to type without looking and too young to meet men at diners, or the library. Susan, not one for epiphanies or self-realizations, felt all of a sudden uneasy and self-conscious as she sat alone at the corner table inside of an Olive Garden, waiting for her blind date. 
 
Roger, according to his online profile page, was an Aquarian telemarketer who sold “all-natural, all organic” products and his hobbies included long walks, hiking, dancing, and deep thought. Susan was delighted. Though she hated dancing, had never actually hiked, and was often exhausted from long walks, Roger seemed like the type of person that Susan aspired to be, and so she contacted him with a picture of her from five years ago, when probing her scalp for grey hairs for fifteen minutes wasn’t a part of her morning routine. But she still looked the same. Mostly. What Susan liked most about Roger was that he had a thick yet humble mustache that implied fiscal responsibility, the desire to have children, and middle-class values. Their short email correspondence appeared to support these assumptions; he used proper grammar and punctuation, did not use silly modern acronyms, and had a pre-made online signature with his contact information at the bottom. 
 
Roger was five minutes late and Susan was crinkling a piece of her napkin into a ball, wondering if she should leave. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe Roger had changed his mind. She thought about her own online profile page, wondering if he had considered her a catch.

Susan Deschaine, 39 (but actually 45).
An executive assistant who enjoys swimming (she didn’t), nature walks (she hadn’t technically been in the woods in over fifteen years, but she thought if she had the opportunity that she would absolutely enjoy them), and music (mostly talk-radio in the mornings). Looking for a man who wants commitment (no cheating with the slut next-door neighbor after five years), and who is passionate (but not kinky), and loving.

Surely Roger fit the description, and she didn’t peg him for a man who would back out, particularly because she fancied herself slightly more attractive, especially in the picture she gave him, which featured her more slender but still-not-particularly-slender body leaning against the fence outside of her father’s farm with a big-gummed smile under her favorite shade of red lipstick and her brown curls blowing in the wind. Yes. She was more attractive than Roger. 
 
This conclusion was immediately confirmed as she watched Roger walk towards her table. He was wearing a large pair of glasses that had not made an appearance in his photograph and dress pants that were slightly too short for his long legs.
His thick mustache smiled at her and her big gums smiled back.
“Susan?” he said, with a friendly point to her face.
“Yes, Roger?”
“I certainly am!” he exclaimed with a sort of whistle, sitting down across from Susan.

The waiter, who had refilled Susan’s water glass several times out of pity, approached the table upon seeing Roger sit down, and asked them if they’d like any wine. 
 
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Susan began, trying to blush and seem bashful.
But Susan had indeed done this before. In fact, for the past three years Susan had been perusing dating sites online and had gone on eleven blind dates. 
 
“I haven’t either, but I looked at your picture, and read your profile, and something told me that I could trust you,” Roger said with a hairy smile.

Susan felt confident that Roger approved of her and so they indulged in small-talk. Susan ordered a soup and salad (though she really desired the garlic haddock or the white sauce ziti but could not risk the possibility of bad breath from the fish or gas from the alfredo). Roger ordered chicken parmesan and when their food arrived, Susan wished she had not been so reserved with her ordering, and looked lovingly at his plate. 
 
In between bites and chews and slurps, they talked about their lives. He rode a bike to work, he said, not because he couldn’t afford a car, but rather because he cared deeply for the environment. Susan liked this. She envisioned the future: they would share a two-seated bike, ride along a rocky trail in the mornings after granola and lovemaking in his Lincoln-Log cabin, within the bowels of some far-away dream-forest, where there were no insects and they’d often have picnics under trees with pretty singing birds in them. As Roger talked about the realm of telemarketing, Susan listened only to the sound of his voice, while daydreaming about cuddling on the couch with him and his mustache, watching Lifetime dramas for middle-aged women, and sipping coffees and teas with more sugar than necessary. She imagined him not only tolerating this, but enjoying it as much as she, and when she would wear her baggy, pink-bowed pajamas, he would not find them distasteful but rather he would get entirely turned on by the honesty in them. 
 
So when their dinner was clearly over, the table with empty plates and wine glasses, Susan boldly asked Roger if he would be interested in having coffee and perhaps watching a television show at her apartment. Roger’s mustache smiled wide.
_ _ _ _
Susan had every intention of sleeping with Roger. She hadn’t been with a man in months and had forgotten that she should have shaved her legs and armpits before the date and given herself a thorough washing in the shower. She’d showered the night before and was afraid that he would feel the prickling stubbly hairs on her legs and lose his erection or worse, find her pathetic. She had left Roger on the couch with the coffee and the television program to stand in front of her bathroom mirror, frowning at the thin black hair growing out of a small mole on her face. She plucked it. 
 
She then hurried to prepare for lovemaking, afraid that if she took too long, Roger may suspect that she had reacted poorly to the food at dinner and was embarrassingly confined to the toilet. This idea crippled Susan with fear, and she rushed to lather soap on her legs and run a cheap razor down them, and do the same with her armpits. She splashed water on them and reapplied deodorant. She then took her pants off and frowned. She wondered if Roger would approve of her unruly pubic hair. She did not have time to trim it, so she merely gave herself a sink-washcloth mini-bath and quickly lubricated her skin with a thin layer of lotion she bought at a Bath N’ Body in the mall on a Friday shopping trip with her mother.
Did she smell like a woman? 
 
Susan felt that she had to compensate for her slightly aged and sagging body, so she sprayed a strong perfume on her neck and then that was that. She opened the door slowly and Roger was laughing loudly at a sitcom. She cleared her throat and he turned around. He gave her the up-and-down with his grain-colored eyes and winked.

_ _ _ _

They made love modestly in Susan’s bed. Roger slowly moving up, down, up, down—a type of mechanical movement, without any sort of natural rhythm guided by pleasure. Susan was not bold enough to move with him, though occasionally she did release a small, contrived moan for the bliss she imagined she was supposed to be having during sex. Roger had not been very good at foreplay, so when he was busy kissing her neck, she sneaked a small spit on her fingers and applied an artificial wetness onto herself, hoping that in discovering that Susan was moist for him, Roger would become inspired to make love more passionately.
And though this didn’t happen, Susan felt content nevertheless because after Roger was spent, he did not curl away from her like some of the others had, but rather wrapped his arms around her, held her drooping stomach, and for once, Susan thought that her expectations matched very nicely with Roger’s, and she felt as though this was the man she had been looking for and had now found. He began snoring loudly in her ear, a tiny breeze of parmesan-breath on her cheek. Susan smiled and fell asleep as comfortably as she would if she were alone. 
 
She was happy.



COPYRIGHT 2009 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

The Centipede


I sat smoking a cigarette as a centipede
crawled towards me,
its little legs speeding onward with a lively passion
that startled me

so I jumped up and from a distance watched, sickly curious,
my stomach soured by the threat of its closeness, how it seemed
that it might crawl onto me, for a moment
become a part of me.

I could have killed it, ground my heel into its ugly writhing body
but instead I stood over it like a God, smoking and wondering
how something so small and insignificant could race toward death
with such arrogance.

Does it know? I asked myself. Does it know that I'm here?
That my eyes follow its every pathetic creep and crawl?
How the life moving its legs toward me could in a moment be taken
by a single movement from my own mighty legs?

I imagined myself in its millions of little eyes,
Death herself, in billowing clouds of a ghostly smoke.
The centipede could see nothing else.

As I squished the fire out of my cigarette,
I thought perhaps I knew then how God might feel
as she watches the human centipedes creep and crawl
over the world she thought she made:
terror.


COPYRIGHT 2010 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

X


Two fat chemtrails make an X
(marks the spot) in the pink and yellow sky
over 185 Pine, its third-floor browning window
glasses frame two disapproving eyes.
Those are mine.

Look here, on the stoop, a gypsy in the smoke—
waving in those greying tendrils, all the secrets
your uncle Sam wouldn’t want you to know.
I see you, flocks of Sheeple, tapping the insides of your arms,
your quadruple-seated strollers dragging you along
a street whose corners you never dreamed of knowing
so intimately.

Off to the bodegas for powdered meals,
back Home to fluorinated baby’s milk
or the empty taps we named our breasts.
Have you seen me, children?

cutting in line for society’s stamps,
eyeballing your mothers and their boy-friends
who know not the truth, so don’t blame them too long
for your future in the service sector,
the twenty years you’ll spend in queue,
vegetables spray-painted red and green in your baskets.

Please, little sisters, do not let your eggs be poisoned—
not by Big Brother’s angry prick,
or the Weatherman, who works nights obscuring the stars
with a cancerous fog.
Eyes to the sky!—this is what a quiet death looks like.
The King of the Sheeple orders in whispers, I tell you;
he’s kissed the palms of that malevolent ghost,
who made us weep that one September.

I wait for that first day in 2012, a beautiful chaos.
A chorus of underfed mouths, screaming
that they wish they’d listened to me.
I’ve heard the lies, known the truth, seen the future.
Come here, look into these crystal balls,
two blue heavens, two blue hells.
See the X’s in the gypsy’s eyes.


COPYRIGHT 2010 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

Morpheus & Me


For Danica

My lover's name is Morpheus, see us riding on the train--
see me starry-eyed, see him in my lap singing me to sleep.
See him kiss my hands, and my wrists, and my breasts,
wherever the blue lines run
'cause that's how we fuck, and how he makes me dream
of those times when my eyes weren't black cakes crusted shut,
of gap-toothed smiles and dark curly hair
And hopes and prophecies,
and rope swinging into the stars reflected off the water.
There is always the future.

My lover's name is Morpheus, see my worries melt on a spoon,
see me nodding on the couch, and see me never leave again,
see me happy, ever-smiling.
There is no other place than now, where I am.
There is no other thing I must do.
There is no other lover, there is no one else,
there is Morpheus and me.

My lover's name is Morpheus, see him blanket me at night
See him scare away the monsters
And all my friends that loved me.
See him roll my eyes inside,
so that I can love him,
so that I can always love him
and no one else again. 


COPYRIGHT 2008 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

The Resting Brain


Marijuana is seeping through the doorway,
Am I high now?
Or too awake?
Either way, I’ve been delirious for a very long time,
Watching the holes in the wall of my home
And wondering if they are the homes of anyone else,
But me.
My television's upside down,
Singing a song about jealousy and I thought,
“I’m jealous.”
I think,
Everyone is laughing and I am not.
I’m lying to drag queens,
Just to give 'em a slap in the face,
For being so in love with themselves;
Caked in superficial colors,
Like pink and blue.
I hate them.


COPYRIGHT 2006 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

Thanksgiving


That last supper
only Jesus was excused—
How unfortunate
that the smell
was mixed
with pizza on my right
and turkey on my left
(Vegetarian sinners)
Jesus would have walked out
and he did, in a way
How disappointing
that he didn’t wait
for this apocalypse
What a shame
that my last days are
the antithesis of
these movies I’m watching
on the family channels
It’s funny how
the phone cried
right in the middle of dinner
And I blinked once, for no
And she blinked twice, for
Fuck you.
I could laugh about
how communication
is taking away
all the communication
that we have left.


COPYRIGHT 2007 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

Late Night Screams & Fungus Dreams


At five to two, I ate the ‘shrooms
And locked myself inside these rooms
They’re cheap,” he said, and licked his lips,
Dan’s always up for fungus trips.

I want to feel my sight and sound,
I want to float up off the ground,
And now my lips, a crusted frown
One eye perks up, and one sags down

At first we laugh so much it stings,
And soon we see all kinds of things.
The walls inside my dorm room shake
The veins inside my arms look fake.

Let’s go outside!” my girlfriend yells:
A rush of sights and sounds and smells.
But then it’s dark, and I can’t bear
It seems I’m trapped in a nightmare.

Out of the Earth, depression grows,
Who’s got the weed? Nobody knows.
Maybe one day I’ll have my fill
Of man-made thrill inside a pill,

Of torn-up jeans and shady scenes,
Of late-night screams and fungus dreams.
But never now, I’m not done yet,
Sniff, swallow, cut, burn, to forget.

The things that keep me up at night,
That make me cry, block out the light
The fear is back, I don’t know how,
And all I seem to know is now

The monsters came to me today
I wish, I wish they’d go away.


COPYRIGHT 2009 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

the little tampon that couldn't


I always imagined that I would get my first period like seemingly every other girl in the world—I would one morning wake up and shuffle to the toilet to pee, only to find a blood stain when I would then jump excitedly off the toilet and run to my mother to share the news. Or maybe I’d be in a girls’ bathroom with all of my friends, and when I’d shout, “I’m bleeding!” five tampons would cascade across the floor tiles into my open hand at the ready. Maybe I would just discover the rosy-red stain by myself and I’d privately smile because I was a woman now. But really, when it happened, I thought I had shit myself.

As an eleven year-old, the last thing I expected was to get a visit from what my Aunt Sharon had coined “The Period Fairy” after cackling into glasses of wine the color of the blood that had invaded my underwear. I tossed my stained garment into the garbage ashamedly, burying them under wads of toilet paper. And that was that. Until the next morning, when I questioned whether or not this could have happened not once, but twice. I stood in the doorway of my mother’s bedroom with a pained frown.

“There’s something wrong,” I told her as she sat cross-legged on her bed behind a newspaper.
She folded the newspaper and looked at me inquisitively through tendrils of cigarette smoke.
“Like what?” she asked, her cigarette bobbing up and down. 
 
“I think maybe I got my period,” I said, looking at the floor. 
  
Nice,” she said, giving me the thumbs-up, “Do you want a pad?”

What a bummer. I looked her in her red eyes before I turned around and said, “You’re a pad!”

I wanted a mother-daughter moment. I wanted, at the mention of the word “period”, for red sparkling confetti to fall from the ceiling, for all of my lady-relatives to spring up from behind furniture pieces. I wanted there to be a trombone, a parade, and I wanted to be carried away into adulthood by the hands of my mother, my friends, and the world. But instead, in spite of my mother, I did not explore the bathroom for a “pad”—those dreadful diaperish vagina mattresses I had seen mocked on television by tampon commercials in the evenings. I would use a tampon, goddamnit. 
 
So I crept into the bathroom and barricaded the door with the clothes hamper. This was serious business and I was not to be interrupted. I sat on the floor and examined the box of tampons by the toilet.
Insert and remove plastic applicator.”

Wait, what? Where was this supposed applicator? These were the only directions?
I frowned and unwrapped one of the tampons. I examined it and decided that it was ugly—a little plastic tube with a bulb of cotton protruding out of it, with a string at the end, like a tail. It reminded me of a sperm. I imagined thousands of little tampons crawling up my vagina and swimming around in my insides, hunting for blood to absorb. I didn’t like this.

Nevertheless, I dropped my pants and copped a squat over the toilet, shoved the freakish tube inside of me, plastic-cover-and-all, and stood paused for a few moments. I was a woman now. A woman with a tampon. I was not to be reckoned with. That is, until the tampon fell out once I moved my legs.
I didn’t understand. I followed the instructions. I removed the wrapper and inserted the tampon. What more was I supposed to do? I picked the tampon up off the toilet seat and tossed it into the garbage, frustrated. And then I tried again. Same process, but this time, instead of walking so boldly, I thought perhaps my vagina had to adjust to being a woman-vagina, and not a lame girl-vagina, and this meant walking with care, with the elegance of fancy ladies.
I spent most of that day sitting, daydreaming about the tampon and being very careful when rising to move or shift positions. It was difficult, being a woman. I reckoned most of my girl friends knew nothing of the trials of womanhood. A woman must be careful with every step, not rise too quickly, and when standing, always have one’s legs together. I was proper!
That evening I smelled Ramen Noodles when my mom called, “Dinner!” into the living room, where my younger sister and I were watching television. I stood up immediately, and the tampon fell out.
Uh!” I exclaimed in surprise.
What’s wrong?” It was my mother, walking into the living room.
Well, you see, my tampon fell out. No big deal,” I said, nonchalantly, because I was a woman now, affected by womanly troubles, like tampons falling out.
It fell out?” she asked, furrowing her brows.
Yes.”
Are you bleeding a lot?”
Not really,” I admitted.
Well, then, did you remove the plastic applicator?”
Yes, you mean the paper wrapping stuff?”
No, I mean the plastic applicator.”
It was then when I realized that I had clearly missed a step in becoming a woman. That damned plastic applicator! My face was immediately stained red, and I waddled to the bathroom to remove the tampon that had been absorbing nothing at all, behind me the hoarse cackling of my menstruating-savvy mother, who clearly knew more about womanhood than I did. I came to two conclusions as I stared at the sperm-like tampon now slowly expanding, unfolding, blooming like a flower in the clear water of the toilet bowl: first, that one must remove the plastic applicator before inserting a tampon, but secondly and most importantly, that perhaps the little tampon that couldn’t stay inside me was telling me not to be embarrassed, or frustrated, or ashamed, because even though there were no parades, no red-sparkling confetti, no trumpets or trombones, it would be okay. Maybe it was telling me that I could be a woman, even if I wasn’t really given instructions on how to be one. Although, I knew this for sure-- as I flushed the little flower down the toilet--that it would see me again next month.


COPYRIGHT 2008 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS 

The Deflowering


His name was devil1983 and he said
he wanted to fuck me. 

At thirteen, the sharp, black, the letter F
was Paris to me, black and white-striped men
in berets, singing poetry over the tower. 
The letter U was a finger
curling upwards, a cheeky suggestion,
C was a breast—the right one—
which ached for more alphabet. K
had never felt so consonant, like spread
legs, or sliding down the playground pole
in grade school. 

When devil1983 asked
me who I was, I told him that I was
old enough to know
what that meant / cherry-lipped and big-
breasted / and living in the lonely cold
attic of America. 

At thirteen, I was true
until in this white box I wore, not the t-shirt
of a band that girls like me
would wear, but a tank top (tight)
and a black skirt (mini), and devil1983
undressed my Comic Sans with his Arial Rounded Bold. 

After italic thrusts, I blushed behind
a screen and fell in love
when he renamed me Baby.


COPYRIGHT 2010 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

What Bukowski Has Done


Watching tv interviews with Bukowski,
I can't look away from him--
that stumbling, bumbling, asshole drunkard
who has shown everyone my insides.

Every burp and raspy swallow,
purging poetry in a voice that drags,
all my secrets droned on and on and on. . .
for the masses to lick clean.

I am reminded of things.
Emotions which have clung to the vacant corners
of my throbbing brain:

Father's shiny beer gut winks
at a nervous, pimpling grocery boy.
A squeak asks paper or plastic?
and the belly gets scratched with fingers
too bloated for a wedding ring.

On the telephone line--
Mother's words are all one again, wet vowels stretch
across an American afternoon.
Little brother in the background, tugging
at a three-day old sleeve, asking
can't I come back?

There are places you can never leave,
like how I can still smell cat piss
and lies under a man's breath,
how the color of vodka
has stained my sight clear.

Bukowski reminds me that I am a human;
Each morning, I scrub my skin raw with soap
only to pretend that the filth goes away.


COPYRIGHT 2010 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

Nothing Between


Give me, give me, give me
the fast-talking
lip-smacking
sweet treat drip
the chain smoking
and hand waving
the fertile
brain and quick fingers
loquacious and ready to dance
on lambent candy clouds
with you, with you, with all of you . . .

~

. . . You know, I've been on
the floor and it's a lonely place to be.
All the dust and the grime,
the world heavy and stinking
with the forgotten still draft
on the bottom of everyone's shoes.
There is almost nothing
between the dirt and sky.
Worse than being stepped on,
I've always gotta look up
at people staring back down at me. 


COPYRIGHT 2010 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS

I Need


i need his voice in my ear
it's deeper than the one in my head
so terrible, it tells me
i'm no good.

i need his body close to mine
so i can hold his hard belly
feel the coarse hair, forget that
next to him i'm a sack of flesh and jelly.

i need to be close to his heart
and hear the beats louder than my own
sad parade of sobbing drums, what do you do
when the conductor hates conducting?

if i could, i would
replace the thoughts in my brain
with his whispers: he loves
me, he says. "I love me," I would say.

when i am alone and the shadows dance
wickedly and the tongue licks me
with its jagged edge, and there is
only my thoughts, i need him.

in my dreams, i pluck out my eyes
and wear his, i speak low, touch
my breasts with harder hands, press
against the soft body of a ghost
and i am not alone. 



COPYRIGHT 2010 CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS 

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Future


the future is my husband
i wait for him to come home
drink red out of a wine glass
so i don't feel so alone 



CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS COPYRIGHT 2009

Ode to my Clove


My clove,
Smoke out of my lips,
Smells like Christmas, like my mom,
Like a tough-shit bad-ass motherfucker version
Of me,
Like being defiant
Like being too proud
Standing, not lying, erected
Out of my mouth:
My favorite appendage
Wiggle as I speak,
Little black worm,
Feisty, fiery beetle,
Shake your finger in protest,
In pretension;
Who do they think you are?
You’re not some camel, some cowboy
You’re inside of me, outside of me,
On fire, my fire,
My clove.

CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS COPYRIGHT 2008

The void

(        )


the babies of now have been caught in the fray
where hearts beat--apples in ghastly decay
an assembly of dead living not for today
but the silence of sleep around fingers in pray

the lows eat the highs and the highs eat the lows
the wide eyes feel better when everything slows
and the slugs buy their wings where the firefly goes
by sunlight we’re starved and the emptiness grows

a cyclone of horror is storming our way
an army of black eyes in great disarray
on the way to fulfillment have been led astray
we’re praying and dreaming the storm smoke away

the Void is a tumor ‘tween the head and the toes
it’s location precise is what nobody knows
why a species of souls that are pregnant with holes
can’t see past their eyes and can’t nurture their woes

now our sad mothers sleep in buildings of grey
to dream for the bliss of a better today
when their babies wake up and can feel just okay
devoid of the poison we seek every day.


COPYRIGHT CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS 2010

On the Rainbow


Tennessee sucked me knee-deep in the boiling mud
When I smoked the juice in my eyes and ran
Into the arms of the bile-stained lights,
Heaving over their resident moths all eyes-wide;
Do you know how good it feels to flutter?

A million little teeth and a thousand little mouths cry out
And I wish I could shoot the clouds with a southern pistol;
Their silver linings lasso around us like God’s white ribbon,
Weary of our sagging flesh and how we give blowjobs to angels.
We can climb the rainbows, but can we stop falling down?

How can God blame the little sisters trying on her dresses—
Who cannot know the finger-fucking, lip sucking taste
Of flesh inside bodies inside cars inside mountains
All inside the hair-sprayed curls of our big sister;
Can’t I just try on your dress?

The void sits in our stomachs like a frowning tumor
As the mud crawls back up our legs to the sky.
On the rainbow we forget our names and the nightmares
Like an endless film on the backs of our skulls;
What if we are just God’s bad dreams?

CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS COPYRIGHT 2009

A poem from high school

HALLMARK FOR THE REALISTS


L is for the letters I wrote you when I was drunk and in the mood for some Nyquil and bean burritos, watching late night talk shows and wondering how celebrities maintain relationships through their sphincter-tight work schedules and the paparazzi in their toilets watching them take a morning load off. We were on a time-out but that didn’t mean we couldn’t still fuck and correspond through the buzzing screens of our modern technological advancements, and this being so, I sometimes felt the need to allow the old carpal tunnel to take a nap and exercise my writing hand in an ever-so-quickly-socially-declining snail mail note with which I would seal with a kiss-my-ass and a distant spray of perfume, hoping that you would respond in the same fashion rather than tapping out a lethargic “thanks” on your cordless, wireless, weightless cellular telephone, which I would never respond to, but rather revolt against you and send you another letter.
O is for the office in which we met, cubicles side by side, occasionally smiling inside of our headsets, drowning in the dull hums of oversized, white calculators and the chitter chatter of our coworkers, who sounded like rats, who looked like rats, who were talked about on our lunch breaks given to us far too early in the day over moth-eaten bologna sandwiches with too little mustard and coffees with too little cream. We felt naughty taking even a second over the allotted break time, and at least once a day, while we were still eating lunch at the same table, the need to use one of the stalls in the fourth floor men’s bathroom together was considerable.
V is for the first Valentines Day that would at last, pertain to you and I individually, but secretly mattered to neither of us, as we spent the day chained to our desks from nine to five, trying to smile genuinely as we punched out simultaneously, creeping into our own cars to follow the cheeses in a maze to our separate houses, I wore the pearls you bought me and touched them like they were real, and you wore a pretentious suit with pinstripes, and when you arrived at my door, the sun’s skin starting to prune, I was certainly embarrassed to be seen in your arm, but I put mine in yours with a sense of duty, throwing myself out the door, awkwardly into your car rather than my own. At dinner we tried as best we could to fill the air with noise, in a fit of politeness, trying to convince ourselves that we weren’t already like the comatose couple at the table in the corner, I had an itch on my thigh and debated on whether or not I should consider scratching it in some way, but instead excused myself to the ladies room, to powder my nose, defeated.
E is for the early morning shags at your apartment, very loudly, yet quiet enough not to wake your cockroach roommates, afterwards pretending that your mouth didn’t smell like your dog had unashamedly relieved himself on your tongue, but when you leaned in for a kiss, I dived into your neck, your unshaven hair-spears at the ready to attack me, but the offense was well worth it against the experience of unpleasant salival exchanges. Never wanting to be the first one to rise, I would wait until your ass was scratched, rising to the bathroom, shaking the dandruff off your head, and I would slip on clothes while your back was turned, despite the ridiculousness of the act, considering you had seen it all, but maybe it wasn’t my undesirables I was covering. After all, we’re over, aren’t we?


CARRIE-LYNNE DAVIS COPYRIGHT 2010

The Passport


Tim Davis carries a passport with him in his burgundy leather briefcase. Its pages are blotted with the ink from green stamps, and red stamps, and blue stamps, and yellow stamps, and even one orange stamp. His necktie strangles him when he tries to sleep on the planes, but he won’t loosen it. Loose neckties are sleazy. 

He reads a National Geographic while waiting for his plane to board and watches a woman uncross and cross her legs while reading a Vogue. Her son squirms in the next seat, his shoes untied and his nose running. He smears the snot off his nose and wipes his hand on his shorts. Tim looks at the boy, creasing his eyebrows, and frowns. The boy picks his nose again and wipes the boogers on his tongue. “Hmph,” Tim mumbles, and looks down again, at the naked, indigenous women of Chad. 

“I wanna snack,” the boy pulls his mothers arm, knocking the magazine out of her hands.
“You’re on my last nerve. You just had a snack. Enough,” she says, pulling his arm off and pushing his belly back into his seat. 

Tim Davis sweeps her Vogue off the floor and shakes his head: “Kids!” he smiles. “Thank you.”

“I do what I can,” he laughs, and gives her a wink. He looks at her long legs and imagines them over his head. 

She frowns and turns to her boy, “Are you excited to see Daddy?” she asks, and then glances at Tim. 

“Yes,” says the boy, plainly, now knocking his feet together.

Tim clears his throat and turns his body away from her, while slipping his magazine into his burgundy leather briefcase. He feels around for his passport, and when he finds it, he flips through the pages to admire the different colors. Every color has a feel and a smell and a taste. 

Each stamp, a woman; Yolanda was a Mexican green stamp. Her skin tasted like cocoa butter and her hair was soft and black. When he fucked her she screamed, “Dios!” her arms bound to the bedposts and her legs spread; her eyes were shut until she came, when she opened them to a suffering Jesus Christ hanging over her bed. Afterwards, Christ stared down at Tim with raised eyebrows and a pained scowl. Never one to be judged, Tim left the sleeping Mexican woman before they could get dressed for mass. 

Marie was a French red stamp and an atheist. Her eyes were the color of the sea, and her lips tasted like wine, and she wanted the lights off, and that was okay with him, as long as she locked the dog in the other room. There was nothing less sexy than the heavy breathing of an old pug, his lazy eyes wandering over their naked bodies. And when Tim left, the dog’s barks followed him out the door and down the stairs, but the dog’s barks were little moans compared to the screams of the husbands.
Yan Li was a Chinese orange stamp, and her dress was orange, too. Her house smelled like burnt rice but her hair smelled like flowers. Tim hated how noisy China had been, all of the lights and the cars and the people. Yan Li was everything that China was not: quiet, soft, and patient. So when the bedroom door swung open and cracked the wall, Tim shrieked embarrassingly at China itself: a built man with a black ponytail, who ripped the bed sheets away and spanked Tim Davis’ ass out of his house.
He had never been spanked before; though he had spanked many. One of which was a blue stamp, a Czechoslovakian widow named Selma. She was used to being smacked around and though she had many scars, when Tim Davis said, “Are you sure?” she said, “Abso-fuckin’-lutely.” When he left, he noticed a National Geographic on her kitchen table. He took it.

“All passengers in executive class, please board now with your ticket and passport ready,” says a voice over intercom.
Tim Davis locks his burgundy leather briefcase and walks toward a flight attendant who is scanning tickets.
“Hello, Sir, how are you today?”
“Very good, thank you, and yourself?”
“Mmmhm,” she says, while scanning his ticket and flipping through his passport, observing all of the stamps until her fingers touch his picture.

“Well, you’ve been around, haven’t you!” she exclaims.
“I guess I have,” he says, while smiling at her breasts.

- - - - - - -
I wrote this freshman year, when I first decided that I'd like to be a writing major.



Carrie-Lynne Davis Copyright 2010

Love Is

I wrote this sophomore year when asked to write a love poem. At the time, I'd never been in love.

 LOVE IS

Love is when I tolerate your lousy lovemaking. When I spit on my fingers while you’re sloppily kissing my neck, and rub moisture onto myself, so that you’ll think I’m wet for you. It’s when I’ll let out a small, contrived moan for the pleasure I’m supposed to be feeling, your hands around my drooping stomach afterwards, holding me softly in the sweaty folds of your skin.

Love is when I kiss you in the mornings, even though your breath smells like the grave we’ll lie in together after we’re dead, and how I’m not embarrassed to rise in front of you anymore, my ass sagging, waddling to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. It’s when I make bad coffee and you make bad eggs, and we’ll both eat it without complaint and then shuffle to our different jobs in our different cars, parked in far-away spots and spend eight hours behind a three-walled cubicle in the back of the office, lights blinding us, headache all morning, our bosses coffee breath laughing too close to our noses.

Love is when we fantasize about fucking the new coworker who sits in the front of the office, their skin less wrinkled than ours, their hair smelling better, their stomachs flatter and firmer; we imagine they’d be a better lover, but we’re too cowardly to pursue it. Or maybe just too dedicated to each other. 

Love is when we come home early and don’t tell each other, so that we can spend time alone watching sitcoms on the television while eating greasy grilled cheese sandwiches or masturbating to internet porn. It’s when we smile when the other comes home later, and kiss each other on the cheek. It’s when we hold hands. It’s when we still take walks. It’s when we have kids, or we don’t, and we love them as much as we love each other.
Love is when we become realistic. It’s when we change the meaning of love to apply to our lives, to convince us that we’ve found it, and that we’re living the lives that we wanted to live.

Copyright 2010 Carrie-Lynne Davis

Darling Girl


 This is a short story I wrote last summer after I'd finished Last Exit to Brooklyn. It's not very good because I have no idea what it's like to be a prostitute nor a transsexual. But it's an attempt, anyway. 

DARLING GIRL

              Darling Girl’s legs are sprawled apart on the muddy tar of Towle Street, the alley in between one of the closed-down thrift stores and the black men’s barbershop where their girls sit outside under their afros and tangled weaves, smoking spliffs and admiring each other’s fingernails. They don’t notice Darling Girl’s legs or the dried puddle painted beneath her pretty neck like a red halo smeared from one outstretched arm to the other. Her mouth’s open and crusted with old saliva and her eyes brown and dull, rolled almost up into her blue eyelids. Darling Girl is dead in a way she never would have wanted to die: legs spread, exposing the little bulge in the white panties she saved for down days to the unforgiving black part of the city, her mascara smudged far into her dirty blonde curls. If she were alive, she would undoubtedly pray for death at the sight of her now. A cockroach emerges out of a curl and she does not scream. Darling is quiet now.

On the nightstand next to Darling Girl’s bed there is a pink fuzzy alarm clock and a long, silver fingernail pressed upon its “off” button. The man who had too much coffee had said that it was going to be a beautiful day over an excited little jazz diddy, and as Darling lifts her head from the pillow she leaves behind a mosaic of black, pink, and blue smudges that look like a sort of happy face. Yes, she smiles; it’s going to be a good day. When she turns her head there’s a greasy mess of grey curls belonging to an unknown man lying next to her. She’s startled for a moment, backs away, and pokes his fleshy back with one of those silver, cig-stained fingers. He makes no movement.
He looks dead, but she doesn’t jump to conclusions. Last night was a blur. Most nights were a blur since she moved down here. She met a man, she is sure. But was it this man? He doesn’t look familiar. She clears her throat and tries to decide which accent she should use.
Um, excuse me?
She chooses her dainty Southern and bats her eyes, even though he can’t see her.
He rolls over now and smiles with some brown gangly stumps in his mouth.
Oh God, he better’ve paid.
Hi there, sugar, she says, moving the blanket off him a little. It’s time to get up now, I gotta get dressed, and you gotta get on outta here.
She smiles sweetly like Georgia.
He nods and coughs up some gunk into his mouth, then swallows it back down. Darling hates that. Her father used to do it in the mornings when he brushed the alcohol off his teeth. The man scratches his belly, which is coated with sporadic forests of hair and drooping far too low for Darling’s empty stomach to tolerate.
Ayup, thanks for the good time, there Darlin’, he says and finds his skid-marked underwear on the hardwood floor next to the bed and tucks his fat little saggy penis inside of them.
Darling doesn’t want to imagine last night’s romp with this bulbous fleshy man, so she retreats to the bathroom to make her face for the day. She’s wrinkled around the eyes and her teeth are more yellow than she’d like, but she has a softer neck than her friends, so she likes wearing necklaces to attract the black-lined eyes of the ladies who pass on the strip. She runs her tongue over her dull yellowing teeth and hears the hairy man grunting as he puts on his boots.
She peeks her head out to make sure that he leaves, and when he gives her a little wink as he shuts the front door of her apartment, she smiles tightly in return and quickly locks the door behind him.
Jesus Christ, what was I thinking?
The window’s open and the morning air feels good on Darling’s pretty neck. She whips her hair back and sighs and imagines she’s in a sixties romantic comedy, like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and she’s Audrey Hepburn but blonde, and she’s just woken up from a twelve hour beauty sleep, ready to seize the day because, even though she’s beyond beauty, she’s a working girl, you know. She walks back the bathroom tiptoeing in elegance, swaying her hips in a subtle sexy swagger and flirting with the door frame before brushing her teeth. She hacks up some gunk like the hairy man did and panics when she realizes she didn’t check to see if the fag left already.
The fag’s bedroom is a mess of tacky fishnet shirts and dirty jeans strewn across the floor, the bed, amidst an array of saggy condoms with crusted jizz spilling out the sides. Darling wishes he was more domestic, like most fags. She didn’t sign up for a tornado. Her hair whirls around as she turns for the bathroom again.
I do think today calls for a splash of blue! Wouldn’t you agree? Darling winks at her reflection as she smears blue metallic on her lids. When Darling’s face is painted, she feels done, and she picks a pretty pink dress from her closet and for a moment is disappointed by the emptiness of her panty drawer. It’s laundry day, but she can’t be bothered when the wind smells so sweet, so she chooses what is left, which is a pair of white cotton panties that she doesn’t really remember ever buying, but she chuckles anyway, because she knows that every girl’s got a pair of these in the bowels of their dressers.
The door in the living room slams shut and Darling hears the fag and maybe his lispy boyfriend, the jew with the curls and the thin legs. She peeks her head out and she’s right, it’s the fag and his boy, and they see her and say, hello Darling Girl, in unison, and Darling just nods back. They’re taking off their shoes and flirting and poking and tickling each other, and for some reason it kinda stings Darling, so she puts her head back inside the bedroom and decides that she feels like seeing the girls.


It’s past noon and Darling’s having lunch with the girls in the back corner booth of Moe’s Diner. They’re giggling and talking about their Johns and looking at each other’s fingernails and saying things like, it’s to die for!, and oh please, and things like that. Moe himself works at the diner because he doesn’t want to pay anybody anything for what he can do himself and he’s sick of the girls always laughing. One time it seemed like they were sitting there all fucked up, maybe on the white stuff or something like that, because there they were at two in the morning chirpin’ like the fuckin’ morning birds and they wouldn’t stop for anything. He said to them, hey broads, c’mon, can you stop chirpin’ like a bunch of fuckin’ birds? And they giggled and chirped more and drank their coffees and he wondered when these broads went to sleep and who slept with them. That night Darling Girl had gone up to Moe at the counter, his eyes all sunken in from being so bitter, and said to him, I’ll show you a bird, honey, you wanna sleep in my nest tonight? And Moe laughed and said, Darlin’, you could be the prettiest little birdy out of all you all chirpers but you’ve got a little somethin’ extra that ain’t my business. Suit yourself, she had said, wiggling her cute little ass back to the booth and Moe tried not to look at it ‘cause he knew it
wasn’t a real broad’s ass and Moe would tell the other man, I’ll be around with ‘em, but they better not touch me, I ain’t no faggot or nothin’. 
 
When the girls are done, they say, seeya Moe, all flirty and pretty, blowing him kisses and all that, and Moe sighs when they leave. The sun feels good on their painted faces and Darling especially loves today. She whips her hair in a theatrical wind and suggests to the girls just hangin’ out and maybe indulging in a little pick-me-up. To this the girls nod excitedly in agreement, and Brandy offers up her place. 
 
When they get there, the girls are all tired from walking and the couch feels nice under them. They’re all excited and fiddle through their purses for their little bottles. A capsule out of each bottle, and they all put them on the table for Brandy to open and make even. Brandy’s got a crusher and she opens them all and takes all the little beads and squishes them into a powder like the kind they all wear on their faces. She likes looking at it all crushed up in there like that. She’s always the one that gets to do it and she always imagines it’s all for herself, a bowl of stuff just for her and she thinks about dumping it all on the glass coffee table and pushing it all with her movie rental card with her name on it and making one big line from one end of the table to the other and it’s all for her. Her eyes get so wide when she crushes it all for her and her friends.
A pile of powder in the middle of the table gets divided up into little piles with long pink and blue and red and sparkling fingernails all holding cards with what Brandy calls their slave names on them, scraping lines for their pretty noses. Brandy’s the first one to dip in and then she’s just a bunch of brown curls before her eyes feel bigger as she snorts again and lifts her head up. The other girls, they sniff theirs, and then they’re just making small talk and waiting for the candy drip at the back of their throats, and when they feel it, that’s when they get real excited
and start talking about all the big men and how some of ‘em are really nice and some of them are just brutes.
A drag named Camille talks about falling in love, and some of the girls get quietly uneasy, but shrug it off like it’s no big deal. Darling’s never been in love, and she doesn’t like talking about it. One night, though, she did think about it and took a few shots of cheap vodka and thought about it more and cried and cried and cried and called her Mom but hung up because she was afraid and a mess and tired. She wanted to die that night. She doesn’t want to think about love. Darling sits straight up and strums her nails on her knees, I don’t have the time or the energy for love, she says, and besides, who cares. And the girls all laugh softly and nod their heads in agreement even though they care. Darling cares, too, but her words feel more comfortable than the silent acknowledgement of their lovelessness. 
 
The television’s on but no one’s really watching it because they’re all still talking to each other about things that seem important and it feels really good to talk and they just wish they could talk for eternity! These girls, Darling smiles excitedly, these girls are my best friends. She’s telling them about one of her guys, David, whose real fancy and picks her up in a nice car and treats her like a fine lady.
David is balding and wears a wedding ring, but that’s no bother to Darling; she figures she’s just got a little something extra that the wife doesn’t have. About once a month, maybe, she’ll see him driving slowly around her street and the other girls’ll linger around his car, but he’s not looking for them and Darling smugly knows it. She strolls pass the other girls, flips her hair a bit, and gets into his car and always feels a little bit nervous and excited, but she keeps it to herself. In fact, sometimes she tries to dismiss it, given that he’s just a john, but he’s always real nice to her, and she’s not really used to that.
Hello, my Darling, he’ll say, and Darling’ll bat her pretty eyes, and he’ll drive outside the city to the same deserted lot, but while they’re riding he’s always asking her about her life and her friends, and what girls like her do outside making lonely men feel real nice. And she flirts with him, and winks, and says, oh, yanno, stuff. 
 
Well, and he laughs, what kinda stuff? Tell me. And he says this very gently and it makes Darling’s chest feel warm and she can’t help smiling. She talks, then, she tells him everything, even though she tells herself to keep flirting and keep it together. She tells him things even the girls don’t know about her, and Darling ponders this and decides that it’s because they simply don’t ask. David asks, and he always seems genuinely curious and satisfied with her answers, which makes her feel good. She tightens though, when he asks her, have you ever been in love? And she goes, aw, c’mon, we don’t gotta talk about that. David furrows his brows and says softly, why not? Love is something we all need. You can’t really die until you’ve loved someone, he says, and glances at her for a moment before turning to the road. Yeah, well, she says and looks down sadly at his wedding ring, people do die without loving. All the time. No, no, he says, they were never really alive. The warmth in her chest gets replaced with a wrenching sour feeling, and Darling changes the topic and won’t hear anything more about it. 
 
Even though they’re in a lot and there’s no one around, David always requests that they stay in the car, in the back seat. When David fucks her, it’s not like normal fucking, Darling doesn’t really know what to make of it. He’s gentle and strokes her hair and says nice things to her and he always wants to make sure Darling cums, too, and when they’re both done he likes to lay in her lap for awhile and look at her and talk. The warm feeling starts again in her chest but she doesn’t think about things to make it go away, and it consumes Darling and this feels better than a good fucking with a big dick, or going shopping with the girls, or the candy drip and feeling good on the powder, or watching her favorite television show, or anything in the world.
The girls like hearing about David and it feels so good to Darling to talk about him, and she wishes he was here right now, until Camille, that bitch, says casually, it sucks that he’s married, all the good ones are taken. This makes Darling sad for a moment, but she quickly dismisses it and she notices it’s getting kinda late. Geez, they’ve just been talking all day! Darling suggests they head out now, and the girls nod, all wide-eyed.


It’s slow tonight and even the real chicks aren’t getting picked up. Darling and Brandy share a cigarette against the bricks in the 5th street alley when Darling decides she’s ready for a few drinks to get the night going. She asks Brandy, do you wanna come, sugar? Brandy shakes her head no, so Darling clicks her heels up the alley to Henry’s, the door almost off its hinges from too many fights.
A chubby dyke sits on of the bar stools, her ass drooping off the sides a bit, all in a cloud of clove smoke, which Darling thought was just precious. Darling flicks her cigarette and sits next to her and the bartender asks her what she’d like tonight. She says she’d like a man that’s got muscles just as big as he does, and the bartender chuckles and moves her man hands away, but he looks at his guns lovingly as Darling folds her legs and asks for a bitch drink. Sure, darlin’, he says, and the dyke rolls her eyes. Darling loves the dykes—they’re just as rough as the
men and they’re not taking any shit from nobody, not even their bitches. That’s the thing about the tough guys; no matter how tough they are, sometimes they’ll still cry like a baby after they come all over your face.
This is when Darling notices that the dyke is crying under her clove smoke. She turns her body towards her and bats her eyelashes and when the dyke doesn’t notice, she coughs softly. Are you alright? The dyke ignores her and puts her clove out on the table and eyes the bartender, whose back is turned away to a couple of femmes on the other side. Why are you crying, honey? And the dyke gives her a dirty look under her tears. I said, why are you crying?
Listen, Tranny, I’m not in a real talking mood.
Clearly, but you’re crying, I’ve never seen one of you tough girls cry.
Well, see it.
Why don’t you tell Darling Girl what’s troubling you?
The dyke’s pissed now and she whirls around in the bar stool, half smiling an angry smile, you really wanna know, Tranny?
And Darling Girl bats her pretty little eyes, of course I do, sugar.
You see that girl in the far back, by the pool table on the right? The dyke nods her head in the direction she’s talking about, towards a long-legged blond who’s beautiful even though she’s not wearing as much makeup as Darling woulda put on if she were her, but damn, she looks like some kinda model. Yes, I see her.
You see that man she’s got next to her? And there is a man, he’s a gorgeous man, some kinda man that would never pay for a girl like Darling. She immediately imagines kissing him, and she crosses and uncrosses her legs, saying, I see him.
She’s fucking him. After all this, she’s fucking him. She’s got some greasy, fat cock in her mouth after everything I’ve done for her. The fucking nerve. I don’t get it. I really don’t get it. And she starts crying again but the tears come out like bullets. This dyke’s really pissed, and Darling signals for the bartender to get them both a drink. Does she know you’re here? And she nods over to the blonde, who’s now bending over the pool table so Fat Cock can help her shoot.
She knows I’m here. I’ve been following her. I’m pathetic.
Darling raises an eyebrow as she takes a sip of her drink. And the guy, he hasn’t given you a talking?
I don’t think she’s told him I’ve been watching them. She fucking likes it. I know it. She wants me to see it.
That’s some kinda cruel, honey.
Her name’s Chelsea and I got her off crank. I got her a job. I gave her all of me, she says, and she finishes her drink. I gave that bitch everything she needed to leave me. I wasn’t man enough for her.
And Darling slaps her knee; I wish I wasn’t man enough! This makes the dyke stop crying angrily and smile a little.
They order a few more drinks and soon they’re laughing and the dyke forgets about Chelsea for awhile, who’s still in the back playing pool, occasionally eyeing the bar. A few more men, Fat Cock’s buddies, join their pool table and they’re all laughing flirting with the Blonde.
What’s your name? says Darling, and the drinks are hitting her good now, and she’s slurring a little.
My name’s Wen, and yours?
Darling.
Wen laughs, no, what’s your real name?
My real name’s Darling Girl.
And Wen laughs drunkenly, whatever you say, Darling Girl.
They drink more and crack jokes with the bartender and forget about Fat Cock and the cheating blonde, and Darling’s a lot drunker than she wanted to be tonight, in fact, earlier she had told herself she wasn’t gonna drink tonight, but she says that a lot and she always ends up drinking anyway. So Queen’s on the stereo in the bar and this makes Darling giggle and she asks Wen if she’d like to dance, and Wen says, oh, Darling, I’m an awful dancer. Darling says, c’mon, please! I love this song. And Wen says, alright, alright, ‘cause she’s too sauced to argue and they get up and start dancing next to the stereo and they don’t notice that they’re the only ones up and moving, except for the people at the pool tables. Darling notices the blonde looking blatantly now at Wen and raising her eyebrows and looking kinda pissy, or maybe smug? Probably pissy. Darling doesn’t know and she doesn’t really care; she’s having fun and she’s surprised when she feels Wen’s hands move over her body like a man would touch her, but Wen’s one of those tough girls and they don’t like girls like Darling, but she’s just going with it because Wen doesn’t seem too bothered. She looks at the blonde, who’s now looking irritated and signaling Fat Cock to take a look over at them dancing, Darling thinks, undoubtedly, because they’re dancing so nicely, they look so nice dancing there.
You’re pretty, says Wen, and Darling says thank you, but gives her a funny look, and Wen says, you wanna get outta here? Where do you wanna go? Darling asks her, unsure of what Wen’s getting at. She’s too drunk and confused and Wen doesn’t say anything, just leads her to
the Ladies room glaring at the Blonde the whole time. When they’re in the bathroom, Wen kisses Darling hard on the mouth, and Darling doesn’t get it, but Wen’s mouth feels soft and different, and she doesn’t stop her. They’re kissing for a long time and Wen’s hands are all over and Darling is feeling kinda sick now. Oh god, she drank too much, and the world’s on fast forward in all different directions but Wen’s always there, and she says in Darling’s ear, fuck me. Darling says, what? all tipsy-like, and Wen says, I want you to fuck me.
Wen saying that with her voice all low and rough reminds Darling of a man she had awhile ago who wore greased up, oil-stained jeans that were ripped at the knees that Darling had been bent over while he spanked the hell out of her ass. He never told her his name and ended up ripping her off, but that wasn’t what made Darling Girl cry mascara at the end of the night—it was that as he hit her he yelled at her, say you love me, Darling Girl, don’t you love me? And Darling would say, I love you, I really love you, and he’d smack her and shout in her ear, louder! What did you say? Do you love me? I love you! She cried out, even though in that moment she hated him, but he was like most of the others, and he didn’t love Darling.
Darling, lost in this memory, doesn’t feel like fucking anyone, and wants to hide in a stall and cry or burn a cig into her arm or walk out and find a John who’ll make her forget all the other ones, the horrible ones, like the bald man who shoved a bottle in her asshole and made her scream and the college boy who brought her to a party and all those guys who laughed at her and made her dance naked under all those camera flashes and drunken laughter. But this is how it is, she tells herself, this is life and this is how it is and this is all that’s out there for us girls, and we’re strong and we gotta take it, and oh god, make me forget. Please god, make me forget.
Wen’s touching her all over until her hand’s on Darling’s cock, flaccid in sadness. C’mon, Darling, fuck me. And Darling comes back to her face, all dizzy, and says, okay. They kiss hard, even though Darling’s pretending it’s a guy’s mouth all rough like that and she wonders if Wen’s pretending the same thing. They’re pretending together, and Darling stops and tries to keep her eyes straight on Wen. Will you tell me that you love me? You don’t gotta mean it, I just wanna hear it. I’ll fuck you, just tell me you love me, and she starts undressing, and Wen starts undressing, and they’re all making out and Wen says, I love you. Keep saying it, Darling pleads, and Wen says it over and over and Darling loves it more than anything.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Darling’s fucking Wen and Wen’s just saying over and over, I love you, and Darling’s smiling and begins to say, I love you, back to her, and she’s ready to cum, but the bathroom door opens and it’s the Blonde, who looks at Wen, all bent over and taking a big dick from Darling, saying iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou, and Wen laughs like a maniac and Darling is gonna cum, sighing sweetly, I love you! And she pulls out and cums by accident straight at the Blonde who’s staring in horror at the scene before her. Wen’s smiling all smug and Darling feels embarrassed and covers herself and the Blonde’s eyes are all wide and furious.
Darling’s cum is all drooping on the Blonde’s shoe, and she sees it and gasps, barrells out of the Ladies room and Wen’s pulling her clothes back on still laughing like a maniac and Darling feels like she’s gonna puke, and she leaves the bathroom looking over at the pool tables
while heading quickly to the bar. The Blonde’s talking angrily to Fat Cock and pointing her finger at Darling Girl and he looks at her with his lip curled all pissed off and maybe drunk and maybe ready to fight. Darling’s nervous and she pays the bartender and clicks her heels out of the bar and walks hurriedly to where Brandy and the girls might be.
The wind is a little cold now and she’s got goosebumps on her legs and it’s loud outside, even when she gets a bit away from the bar. It’s dark, too, and the streets look slicked in oil they’re so shiny; Darling looks at the ground at she walks, a shadow in the gloss of the pavement that looks like a ghost following close behind her. She’s still drunk and she’s closing her eyes tight and trying not to think about it, but everything’s still all loud in her head. Cars and people yelling and phones and Darling’s heels clicking clicking clicking, making her nauseous and she can’t believe this just happened, oh god, she can’t believe this just happened. And she hears footsteps and she doesn’t even need to turn around to know that someone’s following her. She’s scared, oh god, she’s scared, she doesn’t wanna turn around, but she needs to know if she should run.
FAGGOT!
It’s more than one man. It’s a bunch of men. She can hear them laughing. Oh god, she doesn’t wanna turn around. Please make them go away.
Hey! Faggot!
She turns around, and there they are. Big, filthy, drunken men and they look pissed as all hell and they’re walking towards her and Darling’s scared, her little heart’s beating so fast, oh god, please don’t let them fuck with me, she says, please please please. But they’re still walking and Darling is frozen, her heels nailed to the silver ghost that’s shivering below, and she’s
spinning spinning spinning and whispering to herself and she’s frightened and she wants to go home.
I gotta question for you, Faggot.
It’s Fat Cock and his voice is gruff and Darling’s afraid of him and she’s breathing so hard. She turns around and starts clicking away as fast as she can, whimpering to herself and her eyes are moist and messy black, and the guys are following her still when she breaks into a run.
Why you runnin’, Fag? We just wanna ask you a question!
Darling’s running and they’re running and some black girls pass and Darling screams to them, Help! But they just look at her like she’s pathetic and she keeps running and now she doesn’t care, she’s just croaking, Help! Help! Help! Into the black oily streets and there are the dope fiends and bag brides with their highbeam eyes on the stoops who won’t move for nothing and the guys get up real close and then there’s a hand around Darling’s mouth and she’s swept away, like flying, and she’s in an alley and the guys are calling her a Faggot and she can’t see, oh god, she can’t see!
Her stomach’s kicked in real hard and then she’s feeling kicks from all directions and she still can’t see. There’s someone holding her, and she’s crying out, please help, oh god please help, but no one will help her, and they keep kicking her until her legs give out and she’s on the ground and her ghost is gone, it’s just her on the ground and all these angry legs and they’re all kicking her and they’re spitting on her and screaming, Faggot! Did you think that was funny, faggot? And Darling’s screaming so loud, No! No! Please! Stop! And the men shout at her to be quiet! Shut up! Shut up, Queer! There’s a heavy and loud crack on her head and she’s not screaming anymore, she’s spinning spinning spinning the sky’s all black and shiny and oily and
for a moment she thinks it’s the ground and tries to move her feet up on the stars but she can’t move anything. Everything hurts. She can’t move anything and there are still hard boots crushing her little pretty bones and her eyes roll around their angry faces before a big boot stomps on her pretty little face and then everything’s black.
Nothing hurts anymore.
They must’ve gone away.
It’s quiet now, except for a man’s voice, and she feels nothing, except for hands lifting her body gently, and when she opens her eyes, it’s David, and he looks so nice and Darling’s so glad to see him and she wants to speak, but blood bubbles out of her mouth and her teeth are all shiny and red and her eyes all swollen and black but he looks so lovely. He looks so nice and gentle and kind and the blood leaks out of her mouth, but she whispers, how are you here?
And he doesn’t say anything, he just smiles and kisses her bleeding lips softly like he does when he’s inside of her and he’s touching her mangled hair and Darling tries to smile.
David, she whispers, I’m afraid.
Tell me you love me.
His eyes are small and brown and soft and he says it.
I love you, Darling Girl.
And the stars spiral behind him like the world’s spinning and she feels that warmth in her chest but this time it’s everywhere. She’s warm all over and it’s better than anything. Oh god, it’s better than everything. Her legs are open, her heels off, her skirt all knotted up, her hair dirtied and muddied, her lips smudged in brown and pink, her eyes swollen and blue-lidded and dull, and her mouth is open, gasping once and twice, and then no more.
It’s all black now and there’s an echo:
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Copyright Carrie-Lynne Davis 2010