Of course, there are distinct disadvantages to surviving a scandal:
You lose your friends.          
You lose your trust.
You lost all credibility in what you dearly love.

You begin an intimate, five-day relationship, seducing a slick-barreled gun that sings your name.

But after a while, you unwrap your lips from around the gun. You grab your pen. And you write. Because when it's all said and done, that is what you do.

Write.

I have been held between calloused fingers with
courage caked under the fingernails.

I've watched the tribe of white knuckled girls with the knobby knees
fall off the jungle gym.

Their mothers would sit on the park bench and smoke Virginia Slims.

Must be getting old, the way their skinny fingers combed the better half
of their crinkly silver hair.

They get carried away out there, how they invite themselves into strangers cars, fire up another cig and tell their stories to each other.

And the kids are wild and all footwork, thinned lips the color of roses, questioning whatever confuses them.

I am uncomfortable with their softness, mumbling syllables or whispering fairy tales.
They picked scabs until they bled and their mothers pretended not to notice as they soaked in late night stands and whiskey;
I want to say to the girls on the jungle gym, “you were born to a mother who wore pain like
trees wear their rings, as marks of bravery and battle cries.”

But because I am forever bonded to this earth, I will feed myself with their
feminine giggles carried by the wind

And for now, I will carve myself down to nothing more than water                                                                   and remember that
observation really is a lonely science.

"you tore my chest open to borrow happiness,

and i'm afraid you forgot to give it back."

my friend, he had a camera and he used it against cancer

it was better than any therapy

but in the end, nothing ever survives

When he finally asks what’s wrong, tell him that he’s really just too good for you and you're afraid that one day he’ll wake up and realize that he could sleep with so many better women.
When he leaves the apartment and gets in the back of a taxi cab at two in the morning, don't follow him.
Maybe even though you saw him with another woman, laughing and joking in a smoky bar with their heads held close together, you still think you have a shot with him.
You don’t.

Dress yourself up if for no other reason than making yourself feel good. Put on your tightest, tiniest little black dress and some high heels and have a dance party in your own room with the stereo blasting.
Throw away his photos. Delete his texts, crumple up his notes and slot them into the paper shredder like old credit cards.
Thinking about him is dangerous; do not lie in bed in a quivering heap for days at a time. Do not mope or hit the snooze button simply so you can drift off to sleep and dream about him.
Jump in the shower and wash him out of your hair. Scrub your skin raw until you cannot smell him anymore. Wash your sheets. As you take them out of the dryer, practice saying your first and last name with adding his on.

Wreck your journal. This is the required “fresh start” your best friend told you about on New Years. She is tough and practical. Consider being more like her. Decide against it because having an affair with your husbands best friend is not practical.
Let your thoughts flow into questions that you pose to the world. Tell yourself that this is not an unfortunate habit.
Remind yourself that today in the modern world, if you’re single, that doesn't mean you’re missing “your other half.”  There isn't someone else out there running around with two arms and two legs and one head who used to be attached to one side of your body and will eventually find you again, on the street or in a deli or even at an indie rock concert in the back row; there’s just you. An imperfectly perfect human being who likes coffee or maybe hates it and has said awful, regrettable things to somebody else and is still trying to figure out how this whole life thing works.

When you are on the couch of your living room, do not reach out to squeeze the faces in the smoke you blow; do not think of his face. Reach out and draw the lines in your mothers face. She would have wanted you to.

i told my doctor that  
i've had thoughts of suicide

i told him that sometimes
i press the flesh of my palms against my windpipe
and try to force the good things out of my ***** lungs

i asked him
after the years of erosion,
will my face still be my own?

he said, no
so i clasped my hands around my neck
to keep from breathing

this air that doesn't belong to me
this air i do not deserve
this air that will never be my own

She found two packs of cigarettes hidden between binders in his backpack, and his ashtray full of cigarette butts. The cabinets were empty and the sink was full of dishes.

Her heart dries out, cracks. She can't cry out. She wants him to hold her the way he used to.

It won't stop raining. The city tries to overpower the sound of the kitchen clock ticking, but the paper walls and cellophane doors seem to amplify the incense of mother natures smoke still lingering in the air.

Chain-smoking cigarettes like a machine, he doesn't spare her a glance. There were bombs going off inside her chest, her ever-dormant chest, and she wonders if he's noticed yet. And she still hopes her words send telegrams to the farthest corners of his admiration.

She wants to be the cigarette that is ever present in his slim fine hands, and the smoke that fills, coils in his lungs.

Now whiskey goes down like fire,

and they went down

like buildings.

thick jutting bones, enclosed shoulder blades and
rooted collarbones, she couldn't find
the words to say,

*i need help

Their sea foam apartment has soaked up the ashes that have hit their bedroom carpet, as well as the remnants of silent conversations passed between quiet lips. She found him in his Victorian chair that he had acquired from last year's flea market.

But staring. As if he wanted to mold into the inanimate walls, so that glares became passing glances, thoughts and feelings would strip into the air. The very fabrics of his mind would form to nothing - nothing significant. He mumbled heavy words towards the window, his view of family distorted under his parent's clumsy hands. She knew his hatred pulsed behind every memory of "family".

She thought, "but they grew older and so did we".

His eyes had never looked so dull. The reluctance in his face reminded her that she was tired. Not tired of her bed. But of this- blanket of clouded emotions. She herself collapsed next to him, freeing her dismantled wonders and collected pool of what used to be.

In a circle-the-drain sort of way, he said that it's killing him.

Killing you? I think killing both of us.
Hesitating, her voice broke the silence.

"Maybe that's our tragic flaw; we think too alike. If you're tired my love, then I feel the same."

There was that night when he heard the anxiety spiking her voice.

He watched her chest flutter, the shallow breath, the wide-eyed panic.

Hours of crying turning her waterlogged.

And all he can offer is; "your eyes look pretty when you cry".

He was always marveling at tears.

But god, they glitter like stars.

He wants her to leave him; sometimes he begs her.

His new medication is not working, it makes him feel like ****,

he wakes up in the morning and can’t get out of bed,

the only side of the moon visible to him is the dark side,

he feels worthless, hopeless, a body full of puddles

and foreign dialect broken into choppy English.

He is finding that love is exhausting, almost physically draining,

like teetering on the edge of recovery after being home sick for two weeks.

On the nights when it gets so bad that he stands on the edge

of the roof and watches the city lights below call him home,

she stands behind him.

Not touching him, not holding on to his arm.

Not pulling him back from the edge.

Just standing there, her presence like a ghost,

the kind that haunts its owner gently, almost lovingly,

as if to let the haunted know they’ll never truly be alone.

He used his last breath.

She realized now;
no others had sensed how vulnerable he was.

If there is anything beautiful
it's boring winter nights.

When she misses the warmth, slowly,
she would sigh.
Her words slowed down.

Her words stopped and she would be content

Space may not need you-

I won't let go or let the pain lessen; it's there for a reason.

A gap where our hearts learned separate languages.

There's enough room for both of us.

Take my arms and breathe the pain; enjoy this feeling.

So wrap your tiny, innocent, untainted hands
in my own bloodied, worn out, unpure ones
and let me protect you from
those to come

You’re beautiful but you’re dying, he told her.

I know, she said quite simply. And she knew.

~

She saw him in her mind's eye saying, "You are too sick for words," and then he would push a button and she would disappear into thin air.

"You’re transparent."

And she cried, "Yes, I know! But I don’t know how to fill up all these extra spaces.  I don’t want to be seen! I don’t want you to see inside me but I don’t know how to cover up these bones!"

I tried to stop thinking.

Maybe I was losing my identity; maybe what I ought to worry about, I decided, was where I was heading. What did I want to be, and who did I want to be with?

Both questions began to depress me.

The trouble is, I wonder if I really feel something, or if I imagine that I feel something. And if I really feel things, why am I always wondering if this is the way things really feel?

[Fragment]

"I'm scared because I'm angry and I'm angry because I'm scared."

He looked at me and his eyes filled with tears. "Does that make any sense?"

"Perfect sense."

I was convinced that boys- all loose shoes and leather palms- don't care for fragile girls.
The kind that etched lotuses onto weedy waists, lost in the tangle of fine bones and became a brush fire of flowing sentences.
Boys want to drive themselves into flesh and wide hips that swing in circles like a pendulum.
-
See, us fragile girls, we grew thick skin before permanent teeth.
Our skin bubbles with the mind-numbing cocktail of anger and sadness and guilt.
-

He took all my razors

and buried them in the loaf of raisin bread

that sat in the very back of the freezer,

because he knew I hated raisins.



Once we even

watered our lawn with coffee instead.

If it makes you feel better, he says, then do it.



Tonight, when I turn out the lights,

I kiss him like a talisman.

Instead of pulling my shirt over my head

like he normally does, he hands me

a flower. He makes me tear off each petal,

one by one, but instead of repeating

He loves me, he loves me not, he makes me say

I will not **** myself, I will not **** myself

over and over again for every petal,

until all that's left

is a stem as thin as the lifelines on my hips.

I've come to the conclusion that

the scar on your left knuckle

and the string of bruises you wear on your wrist like a bracelet

is connected to the crush of your father's fist

against your mothers chin when he's drunk.



The map of  your neighborhood

was already circled in red for all the places

you could possibly go to avoid

slurred phone calls in the middle of work

full of stuttering apologies.



You overheard your mother talking with your brother once

when you were eight. How do I get out? she asked.

I don’t know, he replied. How does anyone?

But there are over seventy shades of blue in the world,

and not a single one of them matches the sound of your fathers voice

when he murmurs I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.

She turned on her side and brushed the strands of curls that fell into his face with the swipe of her thumb.

Though he hated it, she loved his hair.

He used to complain and tell her it had a mind of its own, but she enjoyed its thoughts, and the stories it whispered in her ears while her head rested on the pillow next to his. When he slept, she'd take a lock between her calloused fingers and study each strand. That one ringlet that would slip out of line and gently graze his forehead, was her favorite. When he realized it's presence, he'd roll his eyes and push it away. But it would always sneak back out, and him, sighing, would always give up the battle. Each time, she was glad he did.

Her eyes were still full of sleep and her hair still disheveled as she played with his hair, admiring his long lashes. Her voice still woven with sleep, she chuckled lightly at her own silly admiration. Slowly, his eyes flickered open and she smiled. "Did you sleep alright?" She asked softly. She did not want to appear bothersome - she was only concerned. His motions slow and slumber some, he nodded slightly. Her smile grew knowing he was not awake enough to fully respond. Gently, he exhaled slowly and breathed the word darling into her concave collarbone. As he stirred, she held her gaze out the window, not wanting to bear the heaviness of his words. She rolled over to face away from him. In one brisk motion, he wrapped an arm around her waist and she tucked her body into his in response. His nimble fingers drew small circles on her thighs. "Why did you do it", he whispered. His fingers chased the scars that ran up her thighs and up her hips. She gnawed on her lip, thinking up an answer. "Doesn't matter", she said. "Hey. Look at me." He said. She rolled over to meet his gaze.

"I love you." He said.

His eyes were as brown as the soil a loved one lies beneath for eternity; the smooth rich coffee beans whose scent when crushed is overpowering for a caffeine addict.

He put on every winter coat that he's owned since ‘98 and every midnight sees the countdown to another awful day.

No longer does he practice writing his suicide note in both print and cursive.

There are times when he listens to the telephone ring and that is enough effort for one day. On rare occasions when he likes to leave his bed, he will pick up the phone and pretend to be the operator on a suicide hotline.

He thinks of unrequited love in colors that don't exist, and shapes and letters that have yet to define the word, "Arizona"; the simplest word of all is also the most difficult to say.