warning: neither term will be employed correctly here. the phrase i wanted to use doesn't make much sense at all. 'visceral impact.' it's about the guts. i wanted ears. tonight, it's all about the noises.
we went back to the playground at young. i can barely fit in the doors of my elementary school. like alice, but not. like: kendall. give me some magic potion so i can shrink, keep shrinking, shrink until there is nothing left.
i swung. swang? i leaned back, i let the night sky swallow me, i kicked the shit out of the stars. and i bled on the woodchips. and she listened.
just give it one more day, she said. a day at a time.
a ball. was this here when we got here? yes. oh.
a little too less air, the sound of the bounce was off, but i sunk it. the chain-link net raped the rubber and i think i came. what a beautiful, beautiful fucking sound.
i have to pee. so? go pee.
i found a shadow that was dark enough, leaned back against the rusty fence, and pissed a good piss. i stared at the parking lot, painted orange by the lights, a hissing in the background coupled with a relieving sensation, and i thought, i don't do this nearly enough.
intonations, modulations. the sounds: a ball getting sucked into a mitt. whack. the first heartbeat radiating from a computer. woopwoopwoopwoopwoop. the blood pumping in your ears when you know what you're doing won't make sense in the morning. inflections to die for.
uplifting, for once. soon to be disheartening, for sure, but for now? smylez. for now. for you, for now.
journey's right. everybody wants a thrill. sometimes, i turn the thinking switch off. and i just go. go, go, go. thrill.
but what about when they're so hard to read? retinal failures? man, screw it. read with your hands, braille the shit outta that boy.
i hate the people i'm not.
[what finds you is not yours,
what leaves you is not stolen]
i'm jumping all over here, and i'm embarrassed. not a single coherent thought today. at all. every single day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life.
or the worst.
contents under pressure.
avoid contact with eyes.
i'm the description on the back of a bottle of raid.
The most vicious cycle of life arrives in the midst of pimples and newly discovered hormones; between perky breasts and cracking voices, we learn to tear each other apart from the inside out. Extended, lanky limbs coupled with greasy foreheads allot the freedom for the destruction of others. Adolescence is a period on the timeline when we find out who we really are and—more specifically—who we would much rather be. A cruel, cruel segment of life, the cruelest of all, but not even that excuses us. When the blood dries and the bones stop stretching, we find that our behavior was hardly permissible. We find that it’s already too late.
Everyone was mean to Shawn.
I was mean to Shawn.
He was awkward, short and ugly, with crooked teeth that were confused by their own placement, running into one another, creating a chaotic scene behind his puffy lips. His eyes were set too far apart and his nostrils were too big for the nose they were on, which was spread across his face in a hurried fashion. His hair was short and greasy, matted to his small skull like a helmet, though random hairs fought desperately for freedom, dancing under the ceiling fan. An immense birthmark resided on his right cheek which everyone claimed was shit he must have forgotten to wipe off; it was large, right next to his eye, extending down his cheek, brown on white. They came up with some ingenious and innovative nickname, something to really leave them speechless: if I recall correctly, and I do, it was poo stain. Poo Stain Shawn. They couldn’t say it without laughing; red faces hot with blood twisted and contorted, the words exploding from perfect lips with spit and breakfast, followed by that silent laughter that rocked the bodies.
He ran like a crippled duck, and for some reason, this was funny. Boys would chase him down the hall to make the rest of us laugh, the yellow tile of the basement hallway mirroring and mocking his futile and gawky escapes.
And they all laughed. I laughed.
Our laughter bounced off the tan bricks and followed him up the stairs to his next class, where more laughter waited around each corner. Laughter followed him everywhere. My laughter.
One time he tripped down the steps in Graves’s classroom and he heard about it for weeks. (Have a nice trip, Poo Stain?) The steps were uneven and he didn’t just fall, he fell hard, papers running from their folders and air jumping from his lungs. A shin crashed painfully into the edge of the step and the binding of a book cracked like an egg. I remember tripping in the same spot not too long after, but only hearing mere acquaintances inquire about my well-being, genuinely concerned; someone picked up my papers for me.
His chest stuck out exceedingly far and everyone mimicked him, poking fun at it, at him, at the instrument of his imminent death.
Shawn got a nasty cold one Monday and died that Friday from an enlarged heart.
I went to his calling hours on a cold December night, my mom waiting patiently for me in the car. I crossed through the stream of exhaust expelled from the back of the Taurus with my Letterman’s jacket—a public announcement of both my academic and athletic achievements—wrapped tightly around me. The funeral home was trying to be comforting and inviting, but its doors were intimidating and its carpet too soft.
I remember standing over his dead body, dressed so nicely in a suit without wrinkles. My eyes traced the length of his corpse down to the shiny, spotless shoes, never walked in, never ran in, never used to run away. His hands were folded awkwardly at his waist, simultaneously unnatural and natural; fitting in a disheartening way. His hair was combed to the side, not a single one was trying to get away. Not a single one. His eyes were closed, but not tightly; not the way he closed his eyes when he was covering his ears, trying to make us disappear, painfully running away inside of himself, creating darkness so dark that it made light.
A teacher from school came up behind me and thanked me for coming. I returned a blank stare with crooked eyebrows. Scanning the room, I saw it was empty. A few relatives sobbed quietly in the corner, but the guestbook held only my name.
It stood there by itself, screaming infidelities and imploring urgently for forgiveness. It was shaky and small, not confidently sprawled across the page like it was on my jacket. It was timid and tiny, the hand behind the pen forever reliving the taunts and the apathy and the failure. It wanted to remove itself from the page and again join the ranks of the crowd, far away and distant, in a group, without a name and without guilt.
I looked back at the box that held Shawn. I had laughed too.
We kept his seat open in every class for the duration of that year. The empty desk stared at us with accusing eyes, a fear of retribution, the overbearing castigation. By leaving the seat untouched, we were beseeching the unseen, begging for vindication. It was as though we were trying to make up for what we had done, for what we didn’t stop, for what we caused and allowed to happen, because we all had laughed.
no excuse for my neglecting this here outlet for my mangled and stifled emotions.
we've been typing away, fingers on a rampage, but not here. typing stories that dig up things i'd rather not investigate, hence the dirt on them. brush, brush, brush it off.
some visits, some ideas, some cataclysmic events. but that's no excuse, either.
they spotted a UFO over a chinese airport. all of a sudden, my life made sense again.
things to do: formally renounce catholic faith, mainly for shits and giggles.
oh, and for women everywhere.
i make enemies to break enemies. also, donate some bone marrow, sort some lives out and fix my own. where am i? no excuse.
and you'd think that, after all of this, after all the patience, actions, and right words dropped at the right time, you would have fallen in love with me by now.
there's this house off of 619. it sits there, it's comfy, you know? just sitting there. you get some siding, a nice garden, a bit of grass, then the curve in the road. my mom would always take that road, and each time, without fail, would tell me the story. the story about how, one day, when a mom, dad, and five-year-old daughter were sitting down for dinner, a car went off that curve, over the bit of grass, over that nice garden, through the siding, into the table, leaving broken dishes, a brand new five-year-old carcass, and a mess.
i saw the international space station last night. N to NE, a bright blob. it passed over, quickly and quietly, billions of tax dollars above the earth, and faded away. not to get all homer hickham on you, but damn.
what's worse. six people, in there, above me, all i ever wanted: the ultimate escape. instead, a laugh in front of the entire school, failed calculus tests, and the truth.
the truth? he likes her, more than anticipated, she doesn't know what to do with a good thing, another she and another him, the pronouns screwing themselves, the human eye can distinguish between one million and ten million different colors at any given time, but i bet i can't. i can't even do math. kid, you'll never go into space if you can't get this down. a B. an F. pulls out by .016 of a point, and you (i, me, she) didn't even deserve it. practice makes perfect.
what is this mess?
the truth? i just wanted to be happy, and the former occupants of the house off of 619 just wanted a quiet dinner together.
i think that, more than anything else, it was about friendship. sitting and talking, just talking, for hours. hours on end. about nothing at all. about everything you've ever needed to say and never needed to hear. substance: you wouldn't think it, but these kids have it. and the worst part about it? the kid doesn't know how beautiful he is. my fix, gotta have it.
i think that, more than anything else, it's in the denial and the proposal. what could you possibly want from me at 2 in the morning? we can sit and talk, just talk, for hours. hours on end. heat lightning, plans for the greatest summer ever, heavy air and cold raindrops. i'm home, come over. windshield wipers on, locked and loaded, falcon to raptor, over. my fix, gotta have it.
i think that, more than anything else, it's in the lies. more truth than you can handle, in ambiguity and in metaphors. in stretched stories and twisted adjectives, there you have it folks, last chance. i've captured something here, but you can have it back. next to the power rangers is the greatest summer i ever had, but this will be better. we planned it, after all. summer fucks and fuckups, my fix, gotta have it.
reassurance to live on, a vibration on my left thigh: a reminder that i am desired at 3 in the morning. and without that? nothing. what's so great about being a girl? well, let me show you.
what i am doing is wrong, and i haven't cared since.
fractions! figures! issues! what a beautiful atrocity!
besides,
the day was too short to not stop and talk to the dog.
...
“Why do we only fuck when we’re drunk?”
A pause, then a thoughtless, moreover, careless, answer, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, don’t give me that. You know exactly what it means,” I answered in a soft, nonchalant voice. The entire dialogue was soft-spoken, the implications too heavy and neither one of us really cared much at all, I am sure. Rather, some sort of heartless conversation to take up space in the night sky. We were both all about the continuous cycle of regret, accepting that that’s what life was all about: one giant regret, or many tiny regrets all piled together, else you wouldn’t have something to toss and turn about every night. “Now finish this fag and shut the hell up,” gently placing the cigarette between his slightly parted lips. His lips gave a bit, the cigarette leaving a minimal impression on the pouty surface. I kept the cigarette at the left side of his mouth, biting my own lip as I concentrated on the matter. Then I rose, purposely swinging my right leg over to momentarily straddle him before standing up. He bent his neck to raise his head and let loose one of those exasperated grunts, but I paid no mind as I continued to rise and then walk away. The grass was cold and wet and splashed as I shoved my feet through it and I didn’t turn around—you can never turn around when you’re the first to go. I learned that from him some time ago, that turning around meant you were weak and that you actually might give a shit.
And I gave a lot of shit. A ton, actually. Two thousand pounds of steaming, hot shit.
The key went into its home and the engine of the Victoria purred, headlights illuminating the shadow of his lanky body, but he didn’t look either. Instead, I saw a puff of smoke rise, the same puff that rose after a mistake in the early morning. I turned the boat around and sailed on my way, the taste of him by way of a cancer stick lingering in my mouth. I gave weight to the pedal and the white dashes on the road became solid lines, the trees dancing in unison with the sounds of cars passing by, a constant whoosh of air. It was nights like these where I wonder how I ever made it home safe, dizzy and blurry and speeding and sad. Really, really fucking sad. Sad outweighing the fuzziness of vision, sadness outweighing the delayed dexterity of my fingers as I tried desperately to find a fitting song on the radio. A song to change everything, a song to remind me of some other mistake, some other starry night, anything but this.
...
mmm i hate titles, but i have chosen the title for my future autobiography:
existentialism is a bitch: the chronicles of steinle.
sounds like: apathetic while paying attention, a hippie wearing brand new nikes, dancing in public, the voice of god, anti-american coke-drinking son-of-a-bitch, your worst nightmare, your dream come true.
