I swear to God in heaven, to my father and
To Elvis Presley, all I was raised by and love
With the best, fullest, and most childish belief.
I promise you, as every season eventually envelops the other,
Sending one sealed, off and away, like a water bill paid too late,
With that small and silent prayer of a quick delivery.
That I will stop looking for him.

Into the farthest reaches of my skull,
He will be shoved. His limbs crammed and broken,
Into that dusty antique store of my mind.
I won’t even recall his Dewar’s and water,
His obsession with Andrew Bird or whoever,
or Whatever, his eye color is long-gone from me, it was
Maybe a dark, seaweedy green or brown and plaided
Like the soft sweater he wore on our one-year anniversary,
The one we spent vacationing in Grenada, where we
Played bingo with those forgotten people, in a place
made up on shit-hotels and parking lots. It was the best, still.
By the sultan of Blues music, by the October nights alone,
By all of this, I will forget all of him.

marie story

As a little girl, Marie held many boys in the palm of her hand. One was John, who lived two houses away, with the Brigmans stuck between the two households. The Brigmans would later divorce and their only daughter, Michelle, would walk down the church aisle, beautiful in white and vibrant in pregnancy. At the reception, Marie’s mother whispered to her now fifteen-year-old daughter, pointing at the bride with her cocktail straw, “She really shouldn’t be wearing white.” Three years later, Marie’s father sits at the kitchen table; it’s the last family dinner before Marie leaves for college. It’s also the last time Marie can call the house home, for she loses her room to her baby sister a month later. Then, her childhood dog, Libby, is put to sleep. She and her mother cry to Elvis Presley on the drive home. At the dinner table, there are rare steaks, edged in fat that is discreetly spit into napkins; no one wants to hurt Dad’s feelings. The father tells Marie, “Guys are scum. Don’t have sex until you’re married.” Threadbare advice for a topic so messy. Marie doesn’t recall having the talk with her parents, and strangely her parents don’t remember giving the talk. The talk was never spoken of; it was a subject that just laid there tucked away, like those fatty edges, folded neatly in a napkin.
John, the little girl Marie’s best friend, kissed her once while she slept on the floor beside his bed. Because of their young age and close friendship, Marie’s parents permitted her to sleep over at John’s house. On this particular night, John watched Marie, with her blue eyes shut and dreaming about collecting bugs or finding frogs, when leaned down from his bed and floated over her sweet face. He listened to her living there, breathing as he breathed, dreaming those beautiful girl-dreams. You wonderful, incredible, sleeping thing, he thought. He had loved her for a long time. A year ago, from across Hearne’s Creek, John had shouted to her, as she stood on the opposite side, “Will you be my girlfriennnd?” Marie laughed and yelled back, “No way!”
Now, as John floated over her sleeping form, he lowered his chestnut eyes and smoothed down his bed head, and said softly, “Hold on, Sugar! Daddy’s got a sweet tooth tonight!” It was line from The Mask, one of his favorite movies.

aassddffjjkkll;;

I live with a girl who I don’t know. Formerly, she was my neighbor and we were, of course, friendly toward one another. When we decided to give conversation a try, we sounded like distant relatives, gently hugged like fragile aunts, commented on the condition of the bathrooms or the odd smell coming from 906. Her name may have been Sarah or Megan or Elizabeth. Either way, we never committed to a friendship. I often asked her to join us for dinner or go to a party, but she was a very pale, very thin, and a very sickly young woman, which usually omitted her from social engagements. She had the chronic cough of a ninety-nine-year-old miner, with a throat that looked like the surface of Venus. Consequently, many of our talks turned ugly. I’d see her unlocking her door, with a deep, chiseled frown.
“Hey! How’re you doing?”
“Hey, Jessica. I’m doing well. I actually just got off the phone with my mom. She thinks I have strep again,” although optimistic and smiling, her voice called for pity. She wanted my sympathy for her absentee immune system, but she also needed to be assured of her bravery. Like a good neighbor, I indulged in her sickness, patted the ridges of her spine, and gave her my condolences, all wrapped up in a flourish of tenderness.
“Oh my goodness. Again? This is, what, the fourth time this semester?
“It may be up to five now. I think it’s something circulating in the air vents.”
“Yeah, that probably is it. I don’t know how you stand it here. Is there anything I can do? Do you need water or medicine?”
“Nah, thanks. I’m just going to skip my next class and get some sleep.”
This was probably the most irritating of all. Sarah or Megan or Elizabeth never visited a doctor. Even when deathly ill, panting and sweating and unable to swallow, she would call her mother and let her do the diagnosing. I would later learn more about this codependent, somewhat morose relationship. Both of these women were unlucky in health and would delight in explaining their diseases, giving unfavorable prognoses, and developing a treatment regimen of Vic’s vapor rub for infected sores, cranberry juice for digestive problems, herbal tea for pesky migraines, and most often, just go to sleep. Once, this girl showed me a picture taken with a cell phone of a puss-filled sore, with this volcanic eruption of ooze. I, at first, thought it was a dish ordered from an Olive Garden.
“What is that?” I ask her, squinting.
“It’s my mom’s blister. She just sent it to me.”
“What? Why? Why would she do such a thing?”
“It’s something we do,” she said, laughing.
“That’s pretty weird,” I said, shaking the image from my head.

a little something

I walked home this morning in the rain. I didn’t tell him I was leaving. I did not make the bed or leave a note, saying, “Let’s do this again soon!!” The guilt that usually overwhelms me around this time has thrown in the towel and committed itself to the bench or the box or the dugout. As I hike the little hills in the cold swaying rain, the garbage men haul in the trash of college kids; it is stacks of empty beer boxes, fast food, and other bad things that I wish I didn’t do.
I have nightmares that my little, thirteen year old sister will grow up to be like me. In my dream, her greasy hair hangs limp in her face, with smeared eye makeup and red pouty lips. She’s inherited my mother’s particular brand of drunkenness, that of repeated questions, half open eyelids, and a higher pitched voice that grates on the eardrum like a cheese shredder. She is smoking a cigarette, after lighting the wrong end and dropping it on the ground twice, and this is when I see her and berate her acting this way, for acting like me. “Julia, what the hell are you doing?!” Maybe this means that I hate myself.
It’s strange that I may hate myself, even when I’m not hated by anyone. People generally like me even though I don’t generally like people. After spending an extended period of time as a waitress, one grows cold to the human race. It’s a great defense mechanism when tipped poorly. People are gratuitous and coarse and ungracious and complaining. Repeat that to yourself ten times a day, and you will never be hurt in love.
However, I’ve encountered glimpses of good in people, and it surprises me every time. Last night, I wore dress that was fit for Oregon Trial. The shade of red was too obvious, and it had little white flowers tumbling all over it. The print would be more appropriate for bathroom wallpaper than a dress. Someone said to me, "You look like the American Girl doll, Kirsten, except without the bonnet." Kirsten was the Swedish immigrant one whose friend dies on a train.
Despite my retro, early 20th century fashion, I received compliments, from both men and women, from friends and strangers. Really, this just proves one thing. People love Laura Ingalls Wilder, dolls, and Swedes, and therefore, people must be essentially decent.