The air is crisp.
Crisp, that is the word my dad used to describe Gwen's voice after the No Doubt concert. I was eight then.

Crisp, the word I thought of, when I was flicking that brown lighter I thought it would be funny to buy, sitting on the stoop. Striking the wheel, careful not to hit the little red button. The air swept against the sunglasses I paid too much for with the lenses that are mismatched and the sweater my mom bought me two christmases ago that originally I hated.

Falling leaves drift by those little windows to my soul but I am too distracted by the thought of him coming to pick me up to try to attach them back to the tree. Too bad too, because with every leaf detached, comes winter further on my face.

Thats when the crystals fall from my dreams, and cover the once adobe hills in spells of skyscrapers. Those are the guys who form tools out of my can of hairspray and chip at the ozone trying to scrape off the blue, and see what all that paint is covering. Icarus is horrified.

I think.
I think that its time
to take out my heart
to take the scalpel
and cut the capillaries
bandage the ends
and sew the incision.

I thought.
I thought that I would
not feel so empty
that it would be easy
to take the yesterdays
apart.

I am thinking.
I am thinking about
what happens next
when does the feeling
alone, pass
when does the past become past?

I forgot.
I forgot that when I took my heart out
I gave it to you.

I had a girlfriend in kindergarten but she had a cleft pallet.

Today I drove the Lexus to my job that pays minimum wage.

I'm not ***** I'm just making macaroni and cheese.

Your fake words carry more carcinogens than my pack of cigarettes and I only smoke on the weekends.

Yesterday I was about to eat a cookie but I said to myself, "diabetes, diabetes, diabetes."

I have decided that I am sad.

Sometimes I want to look like a *****.

When I grew up my mom would cut coupons and scrounge for change in the sofa to buy me a chicken nugget happy meal McDonalds. She would cut coupons and would only buy nectarines if they were on sale. I grew up eating bologna sandwiches with kraft cheese slices and potato chips.

I think your mom had different priorities.

The man at Starbucks, told me that opposites attract and I think that is why were together. He told me a Intuitive Innovative Feeler. Does that mean that you are oblivious and emotionless ***? I don't think so?

Lately I have been whining a lot. Whining about where we live, what we do, what we don't do, how you act, how you don't act, about how your mom wants us to water the brussels sprouts that no one likes and clean the toilets no one uses.

Sometimes I say things to hurt your feelings. Sometimes I mean it. I word them so that they are as hurtful as can be and you never react. Is it bad to want to make you cry? You test my sanity everyday, you break me every day, and here I am still trying to chip away at the facade, the make up you cover up with.

I think living in the mountains has taught me about all the things that I don't want to be. I don't want to be cut off, I don't want to be nice, I don't want to be liberal, I don't want to be conservative, I don't want to see the same people everyday, and I definitely don't want to spend eleven dollars on heirloom tomatoes.

My mom had me when she was nineteen years old, but I wasn't an accident.

My mom had surgery the day before yesterday and I wasn't there to kiss her before she went in. She called me before and she left me a voicemail when she got out. She said she loved me and she missed me. I miss her too.

My mom hates washing more dishes than she has to, but she refuses to use the dish washer. We eat on paper plates and we have three sets of salad tongs that we got for free from Dion's Pizza. My mom goes to Sam's Club to buy Charmin and generic paper towels, she likes the hot dogs at Target, and she gets her iced non-fat mochas at McDonalds.

My mom is tiny. She weighs a hundred and ten pounds and is 5 feet 3 inches. She has fake *****, and long black hair down to her waist. She makes me feel safe.

My mom works two jobs, on top of taking care of three kids plus me. She makes Mama Mia mac and cheese, and Mama Mia meatloaf and Mama Mia fajitas, basically she makes food and calls it Mama Mia because she made it.

My mom is beautiful.

This morning we drove to work and argued. You were wearing your Starbucks shirt that you washed last night and I was in my oversized sunglasses and my green pants. The Prius go-karted through the trees and the mud puddles but you sat still and moped while I listened to my favorite music.

The mountains around us jammed out with me. They knew the words coming out of Stevie's mouth before I did, landslide was written about them.

I have decided that you have no desire to stand out or enjoy yourself. That you would rather go through life without ever being embarrassed, too afraid of rejection to put yourself out there, to roll the windows down and listen to your music as loud as you want. Someone might see you, maybe the mountains wouldn't approve?

well, WHO ******* CARES?

I think you think that the world would explode if you didn't go through your day exactly the same as you did yesterday. That if you didn't put lotion on in the morning your legs would spontaneously combust or maybe if you made toast in the toaster instead of on a pan the house would catch on fire.

My cigarette tastes like uncertainty and now my plain croissant is seeping my black coffee onto my plate.

Was it too much to ask for something simple? Life isn't as complicated as people make it. Right?

Now I sit here, with coffee spilt on myself and my shirt.

Annoyed.

Or Annoying?

Is it my fault that **** is falling apart? Am I the problem that is ruining something so pure by pouring black liquid all over and complicating something I was so sure about?

Am so sure about.

My croissant was perfect until I spilt **** all over it. Now I have a soggy croissant and a crooked cigarette that still tastes like uncertainty.