Men won't let me write. Men muzzle me. Men talk at me from the kitchen about shark steaks and mushroom rice. I'm wearing donut pajamas in the afternoon. My face is wrecked from stress and bad food and toothpaste. White toothpaste zaps zits. Men murder me in my sleep. I'm dead. I'm dreaming of a writer's retreat in New Mexico. I didn't sign up for this. No one will sympathize. We get the hell we pray for.
Last night I swallowed two blue pills and read about Jessica Wakefield's wedding and sobbed because I am still twelve and in love with Bruce Patman and I am still five with a broken heart and a sore ass because Daddy has a leather belt and he ain't afraid to use it. No one can find Goree, Texas without a map. You love a man. You lose a man. You write it all down and that is betrayal and that is suicide. I know what it feels like to burn at the stake. That is hyperbole. That is projection. That is metaphor. That is Mercury in Pisces squaring Saturn in Gemini tight. I've been burned to ash six or seven times. That is understatement. I've ascended but not terribly high. That's Truman Capote with a dry martini in one hand and a pen in the other. He's still signing autographs and two nooses still swing in Kansas.
Do I love a motherfucker deep enough and hard enough and true enough to gouge out my own eyeballs and cut off my own arms and eat my own fingers? I pretend to be a mermaid but I don't dwell in a deep cold magical realm where sailors are the only lure. I live in the desert. Everything is spacious and dry. I might be a lizard of some kind. I know I'm not clever enough to be a spider. I'm not always one web ahead of tonight's juicy fly.
Once there was a workshop and my story was about a fish. The story was really about me. The fish didn't ask to be put in my story but there he was, splashing his little splash. I cannot pronounce his name under penalty of death. Today the fish died. He's still floating black in his too small aquarium. There will be a burial of some kind. "Fish don't ever last that long. He lasted five or six years. He had a good home. He was an only child."
I have some graves to visit but first I want to grow my own flowers. I'm tired of buying things that die. I'm tired of getting what I pay for. I've got blood on my hands. I've got blood in my eyes. I don't know what white is. It must be nice to be pure. It must be nice to be a bar of Ivory. It must be nice to be buried in snow or encased in ice. Glacier. Yes. Quite. God I want that feeling.
Last night I swallowed two blue pills and read about Jessica Wakefield's wedding and sobbed because I am still twelve and in love with Bruce Patman and I am still five with a broken heart and a sore ass because Daddy has a leather belt and he ain't afraid to use it. No one can find Goree, Texas without a map. You love a man. You lose a man. You write it all down and that is betrayal and that is suicide. I know what it feels like to burn at the stake. That is hyperbole. That is projection. That is metaphor. That is Mercury in Pisces squaring Saturn in Gemini tight. I've been burned to ash six or seven times. That is understatement. I've ascended but not terribly high. That's Truman Capote with a dry martini in one hand and a pen in the other. He's still signing autographs and two nooses still swing in Kansas.
Do I love a motherfucker deep enough and hard enough and true enough to gouge out my own eyeballs and cut off my own arms and eat my own fingers? I pretend to be a mermaid but I don't dwell in a deep cold magical realm where sailors are the only lure. I live in the desert. Everything is spacious and dry. I might be a lizard of some kind. I know I'm not clever enough to be a spider. I'm not always one web ahead of tonight's juicy fly.
Once there was a workshop and my story was about a fish. The story was really about me. The fish didn't ask to be put in my story but there he was, splashing his little splash. I cannot pronounce his name under penalty of death. Today the fish died. He's still floating black in his too small aquarium. There will be a burial of some kind. "Fish don't ever last that long. He lasted five or six years. He had a good home. He was an only child."
I have some graves to visit but first I want to grow my own flowers. I'm tired of buying things that die. I'm tired of getting what I pay for. I've got blood on my hands. I've got blood in my eyes. I don't know what white is. It must be nice to be pure. It must be nice to be a bar of Ivory. It must be nice to be buried in snow or encased in ice. Glacier. Yes. Quite. God I want that feeling.
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