expunge

Being far away is like being close to home with better glasses. You can see things a little more clearly. You can see who is important, what isn't important, and where you might want to end up in the long run. I can remember now being a kid and playing Mermaid with my mom where she pretends to be a little kid in a village who finds me in a pool. I am surrounded by rocks which are legos and I stay on my stomach for the duration of the game. Floundering about on my side when she takes me out and in the end we learn the lesson that some things are not meant to be taken out of water or out of their natural environment.
My mom plays best with childrend, so now we struggle as adults.

Sitting under starry skies I know that when I was eight years old I was dating Justin VanDevoort and he said I have nice knees... that maybe was on of the most genuine compliments I've ever received. (Some months later he put me in a choke hold during recess because he wanted a hug and I bit his arm so hard that I can still remember the imprint of my teeth on his flour white skin and the little red dots that showed through. As small as pin pricks. And I had to stay against the wall and no one believed me when I told the truth.) He grew up to be a big weirdo and when I was 18 working at CVS I met a girl who was dating him. She said Yea, he told me that he dated you. I was repulsed and saddened for this kid who had to count a fleeting romance at the tender age of eight as something serious. Something to be counted. Me, I only count sophomore year of highschool and up. Making it not 1 2 or 3, but maybe five. And maybe Justin has the right idea because if I counted from the third grade I would be MacMama of hot to trot ladies. And it would be my secret. I wonder if he ever told anyone that he was eight when he told me I had nice knees. Oh and six when he stood at the door of our classroom and kissed every girl on the cheek whether she liked it or not. Happy Valentines Day.

Being nine years old in teh After School Program my mom put me in when I was six because she had to work and we would play dress up with the costumes in the closet. There was Mr. Tree who was really just a tree that had grown over a fence rail and now it looked as if he was smiling. And we played Around the World on the basketball court, raced eachother across parking lots, sang about Jesus, and picked worms out of the dirt and made them our pets until snack time. And Julius went to the after school program and there is always an awkwardness surrounding puberty and I did not want to give up wearing my dance leotard just for kicks. But I had to because whispers are one thing... stares are another and being nin is early early for all and everything of that.

Here I see friends sitting next to me in cars on the way to diners, shows, movies, coffee houses and we are laughing, listening to music, or maybe just sitting in the most comfortable silence I've ever known. The most reassuring, forgiving. No Explanation needed silence and I'm glad I can give that to them and I'm happy to receive it. I see them there, sitting next to me, driving the car, and it's Nora, it's Rachel, it's Jenai, it's Bethany. Four. Four is my favorite number. I used to eat four of everything. I used to eat four bowls of Rice Krispies throughout the day or take four cookies. It's divisible easily, you can square it easily, and it has a root. Saying it, my mouth makes a round shape at the end and in the beginning my teeth have to touch my bottom lip just so... making a soft momentary impression.

Ridgewood in the rain. Short train rides, southern accents, and I take note of that look in your eye, the first time you've ever seen me in that light, maybe. Leaning over the railing outside of the movie theater and I hear our truth muttered .. Sometimes it's hard to just be friends.
Vans in parking lots. Space shuttles in parking lots. Sitting and wondering when is it going to happen or how is it going to happen after me not letting it happen for so long. And there it is. You're a good kisser, Kate Brown. I know I know. And I'm glad to have given it to you and months go by, and planes fly up and rain pours down and who's the better for it? Us. We. Moi et Toi.

Piercing Shattering Staggering Maddening Fathoming what is going to happen is unfathomable and I am holding on tight as the rollercoaster goes down and I feel it in the small of my back and my neck is loose like a rubber band. My eyes are forced open because keeping them closed is a cop out. My knuckles white and then up again. Up and to the side. Every time I get on one I think that I might die on it because it happens now and then, but I guess that's part of the thrill. Is that macabre for you or what? Going on a ride you might die in and that being part of the excitement?

My hands are small and they grab small handfuls, never hold on tight to anything because there isn't much to hold on to. They hit, smack, create, ruin, touch, feel, pass themselves over skin and mounds of flesh - finding their way down until the pleasure rises up.. taking in every crevice and they are all the love I have right now.

Barefeet on uneven rocks cause me bloody sandals later and cracked heels. I don't do it often. I try and do it never. But they are so smooth and cool against the hotness of the sun on my peeling back which I have made worse during every class by finding my new hobby.. watching the layers float to the floor and seeing a piece of skin that isn't supposed to be there yet. Pink. Bright.

I am in India and the past is sitting right next to me and the future is before me and I can't figure the Present out for the fucking life of me. I don't get it. I will get it later. Five minutes is "later" so is one month. The gift that keeps on giving. And what do you call the things that are not gifts which keep on giving.. pouring themselves out into your reluctant open hands? The boyfriend you dated when you didn't know how to put one foot in front of the other.. the one who called you a slut or a ho just for fun and Hey it's just a joke, relax! The one who asked you to take off your glasses before a party so that you'd look better and "Thanks babe, you're the best" kiss kiss. What kind of gift is that? And what is it giving me? It doesn't hurt me as much anymore so maybe it's null and void, but it's there. I am here and it happened and what has it made me? How has it effected how I conduct myself.. Yes, the gift that keeps on giving to myself and others. How generous, magnanimous... Supercilliou to even give it a second thought. Over is over and Under I am no longer.

So it's back to bananas and gruel and swimming pools which just opened up and now we want to go every day. And volleyball and bathroom stalls with cracks in the wall and where does it all all go? Because we should save it up here and use it for fuel so that women are empowered and I'm pleasantly surprised that human shit is worth something more than a scowl if you step in it on the streets.
Drive through the streets of Bangalore -- it makes your snot black and your stomach churn to see poverty and affluence living side by side, but is it any different from home or do I really have to come half way across the world to want to write in my blog about it? I shop there, eat there, drink some drinks there, and I don't know how much of a tourist I still am.
Cooking tonight in the kitchen I let myself feel at home. I walked over to where I know the cutting boards are without asking. I got a knife when I needed one, joked with Big J and played hand games with Cheche. Miss Mary Mack is her favorite. My feet are growing roots and maybe it scares me because I know I'll have to leave soon... the way when something feels as if it's too good you get scared and try and turn it around in your head... never works.

The present is a present and god gave it to you so be happy for it and get down on your knees and look up at the sky and realize how small you are and how things work out in the end and not like it really matters anyway. Considering how small you are.

Yes, considering how small you are and how your heart is not the first to be broken/inflated, your eyes are not the first to cry, and you are not the first to laugh when everything looks down because you've run out of tears in the first place. And since you are not the first small person to do these things, that means there have been billions of others who are just as small when put up against cerulean skies which explode at night and take your breath away Your little breath out of your little lungs. There is comfort in that. Not being the first or the last, but being able to commiserate with so many others... a link in the chain.

I press flowers into pages which were given to me a year ago and then I send them in letters all over the world all over the globe. They have been touched by my own hands are small in the big envelopes I use; swimming in between pages I scribble on, imagining I'm sitting across from the person I'm writing to. That makes for interesting eltters and rambling paragraphs which I forget the minute they are in the post. Now knowing what I said, but remembering the jist.

Rollercoasters, cereal bowls, letters, sluts, phone calls, and therewith alls.