my friends are all laughing
and the weather has been kind
i am about halfway to happy

and it is okay if i look utterly
atrocious in every picture
you've taken of me

i hate my smile with passion
and almost all of the time
but i like to think that

my smile is most
beautiful and genuine
when it is mirrored

by yours

Scents of satsuma and cinnamon
bottled up into reminders of the little things
this blurred motion has created a mirage
of incomprehensible reasons
to forget our love for patience
from strings of silver threads
and sentimental alliances
woven into patterns of picture frames
completely blurred, alive in motion
together, a collage of all the times
stillness couldn't find its breath
and laughter took us by the shoulders
shaking and shaking
till we fell into a rhythm of remembrance
with all the little things
bottled up in an illusion of permanence

It’s Friday afternoon. Anna, Lisa, Leong and I are sitting around our common room - sagging actually - after a long day.
“I need a break,” I said, “now’s the time - today, this day -  it's been a long week.”  “Document,” Leong affirmed.
“Sometimes you gotta..” Anna faded out letting an arm flop like a dead soldier.
“Let’s go OUT to dinner somewhere,” I said, “my treat.”
“We can eat for free here,” Leong said.
“We might have to economize someday,” I said, a little annoyed, “but it won’t be today.”
“Can you believe we just came back less than a week ago?” Lisa asked.
“I can’t,” Leong said.
“It’s shocking,” Anna sighed, winding a ring of her auburn hair around her index finger.
“I’ve lived many lives since then,” I admitted.
“On Wednesday,” Leong began, “I was like, I feel like I’ve been here for weeks.”

“It’s coming up on time to leave!” Anna exclaimed.
“And leave for a WHILE,” Lisa undogged.
“I’m VERY excited to leave for a while,” Leong laughed.
“It’s going to happen,” I said, like a prayer.
“Then we can come back and be like, I’m glad to be here” Lisa said
“After you’ve been gone for a while, you DO miss it.” Anna admitted, shrugging.

A hot moment later, I asked Lisa, “Should I use this for a poetry pic?” Turning my iPad in her direction, “Yeah,” she says laughing. “My hair looks like I’m coming out of a cocoon.” I added.
“You know when you don’t have enough pictures for an Instagram post?” Lisa asked, looking critically through the pics we took last night. “Look,” she says, sharing them up to our 55” TV.

After a few, I said, “Lisa and I were talking about this yesterday,” turning to Anna and Leong, a little exasperated, “Lisa, has all of these pics of me with my underwear and it’s like..”
“Wait!,” Lisa gasped, NOT on purpose! That makes it sound.. don’t SAY THAT like THAT,” she laughs.
“And it’s just like.. you don’t need to share those,” I laugh, waving my arms.
“You’re making me sound like a *******..” Lisa snickered.
“I’m not a baby!” I hooted.

“They're not at ALL ******,” Anna noted.
“I’m not saying THAT,” I winced.
“When we're drunk, at home, snapping pix and we’re wearing these little dresses..” Lisa begins, “it’s not like I’m taking pictures of your underwear” she stammers laughingly.
“There are angles and there are angles where you see!” I point at the example on the screen.  
“We were drunk!“ Lisa said, “I wasn’t trying.. YOU were drunk too!” She said, counteroffensively.
“But you were CrAzY,” I laughed.
“Crazy,” Lisa laughed, “Yeah, anyways - why’d you have to say that? You took similar pics.” Lisa added, smiling knowingly.

“No one gets to see them,” Leong said, she’s new to Instagram and Lisa is usually her mentor.
“They do if they’re public,” I noted, pointing to the little icon.
“Shut up!” Lisa snapped, “I EDIT them before I post them - blur things or whatever!”
“Ok, I said, “We don’t need to do this now.. you brought pix up.” I held up my hands in surrender.
“Jesus Christ, merzy, murble flurble,” Lisa muttered, her voice fading out into incoherence.

“But If you wait, save the good picture for a dump - then, it’s too far away to post.” Leong said.
“Well, that’s not true, I don’t believe that.” Anna chirped in, “a cool pic is always welcome.”
“I don’t like dumps,” I said, “I don’t want to scroll through a ton of someone’s pix, it’s tiring.”
“If you’ve A cool pic or even one kind of cool pic, then everyone knows what’s up, Anna offered.
“Ethos 2024,” I pronounced.
“Post whatever,” Lisa updogged, as I dabbed my lips with lip gloss.
“Can I borrow your lip gloss?” Lisa asked me, rubbing her chapped lips.
“Sure,” I said, handing it over. Yeah, we argue like sisters but friendship involves nuance and shared understandings.

“Your parents are back in Ukraine - ya? Leong asked me, “Are you going to Lisa’s? (for Christmas)”
“It’s been agreed,” I confirmed, smiling.
“We gonna tear it UP!” Lisa laughed and we high-fived, smiling in anticipation.

Slang..
Document = true, fact

Regal, reserved;
Jaundiced youth.
Reasoning mad,
The mind of an absurd,
Without Camus, with no Kierkegaard.
Knowledge gleamed from living hard,
The blurred tatters of the patchwork memory,
Loose sense of self,
And fragmented morals.
Abuses have left their scars.
I know you hurt,
When you cut yourself.

Pictures, now, are strange to me
Once upon, what "is"
Has no "never be's"
Pictures, now, are strange to me

A snapshot back to a certain future
Laughter shared; tears, too
It precedes my doubtful memory
Pictures, now, are strange to me

Once upon, what "is"
Lives indefinitely
Unaware of what will never be
Pictures, now, are strange to me

Printed pieces of boundless time
Whose citizens are full of life,
Safe from looming trajedies
Pictures, now, are strange to me

Once upon, who "is"
Are now all ghosts
Free, from framed captivity
Pictures, now, are strange to me

She keeps saddest memories
Closest to her heart;
A death-like permanence
Keeping us apart.
Like X-ed out family pictures
In an album loosing pages.
She believes there were no good times,
Her memory's gone hazy-lazy.

Kim (one of my BFF) brightened with inspiration, “Oooo! Send him a **** pic!”
“I’m NOT going to sext a guy out of the BLUE,” I grumbled, indignantly.

Kim turned to her phone, “No, No, of COURSE not.” She said as she texted.

“Come on” she said, as she pulled me off my chair and out the door. We raced over, on foot, to my friend Bili’s house (two houses away). We entered without knocking (as usual) and ran upstairs.

Bili lay on her stomach on her unmade bed, fiddling with her phone, ankles up and crossed but she twisted up to attention when we came in.
“What should we do first?” She said, as if there were a million things to do.

They set upon me and had my regular clothes off in a heartbeat. Like all makeovers, this had a prelapsarian purity - the ritual stripping down to blankness before rebuilding.

They quickly went through about half of Bili’s closet - selecting just the right combination of ****** and classy clothes designed to ******.

They finally settled on a black slip under an ivory peignoir, stockings with garters and black strappy heels.

Kim twisted my hair up into a loose “Gibson Girl.”

“Hold still,” Bili said, as she grasped my chin and expertly blended red, gold and black glittery eyeshadows followed by lip liner and gloss. “This is just a quickie job,” she reminded me.

I stared at this strange version of myself in the vanity.

Kim frowned and looking around, she spread a pink scarf over the desk light to give the room a rosy glow. They went into studio mode - posing me in various ways from coquettish to bored lounging - suggesting expressions and taking endless pictures with my phone.

Finally, they were satisfied and handed me my phone.
“Shall we go through them?” Bili asked

“Naah,” I said, “I’ll go through ‘em and pick one - or two.”

Later, at home, I looked through them - I looked SO different - and I had to admit - **** even. But was that ME? I cringed, what if my mom saw these ******, Kardashian-like photos somewhere?

I never sent them. I thought I’d have to explain it to my girls.
“HA!” They laughed, “We KNEW you’d never use ‘em” Bili said, as Kim shook her head “Nope.”
“It was fun though!” We all agreed.
.
.
.
*NOTE: This is a pre-pandemic story from August 2019. I was 15 - the idea wasn’t to ****** this guy, it was to get his interest so he would ask me out 🙃

Sometimes I think of selling pictures of my feet online
Then
I immediately think of the state of my feet;
The state of me.
After conforming to your dress code of black dress shoes and shattered dreams For 11 long years.
For 11 long years
I sat in rows of grey white and black
Perfectly poised in the presence of our educators
Our guardians
Our wardens.
If we deigned to relax,
Laugh,
Breathe,
They would find more to give and give and give
Until we became nothing but frayed nerves
And therapy bills
That should be addressed to our parents
And then I think
I can’t sell pictures of my feet online,
How could I correctly value them
If I don’t correctly value myself?

You want my pictures so bad, but never stopped to ask my middle name, nope simply to look at my nice frame. Never noticed the color of my eyes, you were just too **** focused on my thighs. Not where I'm from, but "hey, nice ***". Just give me a smile, don't be so hostile.You never asked my favorite food, only if I was "in the mood". You like my lace, not really my face. Asked if I was alone so you could be shown. But you never once asked my middle name.

A.C.