Backstory: A Memoir

For Vicki

By AT

5

While I was downstairs, folding laundry in the basement, I heard my sister Vicki stomping upstairs to the room that used to be mine, slamming the door, and locking it shut.

I was a ****** older brother. And Vicki learned that action from me.
Then, I heard more footsteps. Louder stomping. And I knew, with certainty, it was Mom coming after her.

I'm not an omniscient narrator, so I don't know what Vicki does when the door is locked.

But I do imagine she is reading. Vicki’s been using her Kindle that Mom got her for Christmas. She adores Gillian Flynn and Suzanne Collins. She's starting to get into Philip Pullman which is swagger. I remember reading His Dark Materials when I was in elementary school.

The Golden Compass ***** you into that world, like during June when you're hitting a bowl for the first time and you're 17, late at night on Bethany beach with your childhood best friend, and the surf is curling against your toes, and the smoke is trailing away from the cherry, and you begin to realize that life isn't all about living in NOVA forever, because the world is more than NOVA, because life is bigger than this hole, that to some people believe is whole, and that's fine, that's fine because many of our parents came here from other small towns, and they wanted to do what we wanted to do, which is to pack up our stuff into the trunk of our presumably Asian branded car, and drive, drive, until they reach a destination that doesn't remind them of the good memories and the bad memories, until memory is mixed in with nostalgia, and nostalgia is mixed in with the past.

Maybe I'm dwelling on backstory, maybe you don't need to hear the backstory.

But I think you do.

Life isn't an eternity,
what I'm telling you is already known, known since there was a spider crawling up the staircase and your dad took the heel of his black dress shoe and dug his heel into that bug. And maybe I'm buggin’, but that bugged me, and now I'm trying to be healthier eating carrots like Bugs. Kale, red onions, and quinoa, as well. Because I want to be there for my sister, Vicki my sister. All we got is a wrapped up box made from God, Mohammad, and Buddha.

Soon, I heard Vicki’s door handle being cranked down and up, up and down.

Mom raised her voice from a quiet storm to a deafening concerto.  
Then, there was silence, followed by a door slamming shut.

Welcome to our life.
Later on that night, Vicki sped out of our cul-de-sac in her silver Honda Accord—a gift from Mom to keep her rooted in Nova—and even from the front porch of my house, I felt a distance from her that was deep and immovable.

I sank deeper into my lawn chair and lit a jack, but instead of inhaling like I usually did, I held it out in front of me and watched the smoke billow out from the cherry.

I always smoked jacks when she was not there, because I didn’t want her to see me knowingly do this to myself, even as I was making huge changes to my life. It’s the one vice I have left, and it’s terrible for me, but I don’t know if she understands that I know both things. Maybe instead of caring about what jacks do to my body, I should care about what she thinks about what I’m doing to myself. This should be obvious to me, but sometimes things aren’t that obvious.

4

As we grew older Vicki and I forged a dialogue, an understanding. She confided in me and I confided in her, sharing secrets, details about our lives that were personal and private, as if we were two CIA agents working together to defeat a totalitarian government—our tiger mom.

But seriously our mom was and still is swagger as ****—rocks Michael Kors and flannel Pajama pants (If I told you that last article of clothing she'd probably pinch my cheek and call me a chipmunk. Don't worry I'm fine with a moderation of self-deprecation).

The other day Mom talked to me about Vicki and explained that she was upset and irritated with Vicki because of her attitude. I thought that was interesting, because I used to have the same exact attitude when I was my sister’s age and I got away with a lot more ****, being that I'm a guy and the first-born. I understood why she would shut the front door, exit our red brick bungalow, and speed away in her Honda Accord, going towards Clarendon, or Adams Morgan, spending her time with her extensive circle of friends on the weekdays and weekends.

Because being inside our house, life could get suffocating and depressing.
Our Grandparents live with us. Grandpa had a stroke and is trying to recover. Grandma has Alzheimer’s and agitates my mom for rides to a Vietnamese Church. Besides the caretakers, Mom, Dad, Vicki, and I are the only ones taking care of my grandparents.

Mom told me that she believes that Vicki uses the house as a hotel. Mom didn't remind me of a landlord, and I believe that Vicki doesn’t see her as that either.

I didn't believe Vicki was doing anything necessarily wrong.

She had her own life.

I had my own life.

Dad had his own life.

Mom had her own life.

I understood why she wanted to go out and party and hang out with her friends. Maybe she was like me when I was 21 and perceived living at home as a prison, wanting to have autonomy and freedom from Mom because she was attempting to make me conform to her controlled system with restraints. But as Vicki and I both grow older I believe that we see Mom not as an authority figure; but, just as Mom.

Vicky and Mom clash and clash and clash with each other, more than the Archer Queens of The Hero Troops clash with the witches of the Dark Elixir Troops.

They act like they were from different clans, but they're both on the same side in reality.

The apple does not fall far from the tree. And in this case the tree wants to hang onto the apple on the tip of its rough, and yet leafy bough.
Because the tree is rooted in experience and has been around for much longer than the apple.

But the apple is looking for more water than the tree can give it. So the apple dreams about a summer rain-shower that will give it a chance to have its own experience. A similar, but different one, to the darker apple that hangs from a higher bough, an apple that has been spoiled from having too much sun and water.

3

During Winter Break, Vicki scored me tickets to a game between the Wizards and the Bucks. From court side to the nosebleeds, the audience at the Verizon Center was chanting in cacophony and in tempo. Wall was injured. But Gortat crashed the boards, Nene' drained mid-range shots, and Beal drove up the lane like Ginsberg reading Howl.

Vicki and I both tried to talk to each other as much as we could; unfortunately, Voldemort—my ex-gf—sat in between us and was gossiping about the latest scoop with the Kardashians.

Nevertheless, Vicki and I still managed to drink and have an outstanding time. But I should have given her more attention and spent less time on my smartphone. I was spending bread on Papa John's Pizza and chain-smoking jacks during half-time, and even when there were time outs. When I would come back and sink into my plastic chair, I'd feel bloated and dizzy.
And I'd look over at Vicki and either she was talking to Voldemort, or typing away on her smartphone. I didn't mind it at the time, but now I wished I had been less of a concessions barbarian/used-car salesman chain-smoker, and more of an older brother. I should have asked her about her day and her friends and her interests.

But I didn't.

Because I was so concerned about indulging in my vices like eating slices of pepperoni pizza and drinking overpriced beer. There's nothing wrong with pizza or beer. But as we all know the old saying goes, everything is about moderation.

Vicki scrunched her nose and squinted her eyes when I would lean forward and try to maneuver around Voldemort, trying to talk to her about the game and the players in it. I imagine that when she smelled the cigarette smoke leaking away from my lips, that she believed I was inconsiderate and not self-aware.

After the game, we went to a bar across the street from the Verizon Center, and bought mixed drinks. Voldemort was D.D., so Vicki and I drank until our Asian faces got redder than women and men who go up on stage for public speaking for the first time.

I remember this older Asian guy was trying to hit on her.
I took in short breaths. Inhaled. Exhaled. I cracked my shoulder blades to push my chest forward.  

And then, I patted him on the back and grinned. The Asian guy got the message. You don’t **** with the bodyguard.

Vicki had and still has a great boyfriend named Matt.

I guided Vicki back to our table and laughed about the awkward situation with her.

The Asian guy craned his head toward me and did a short wave. And then he bought us coronas. Either, you’re still hitting on my sister, or it’s a kind gesture. She and I better not get... Or am I overthinking it?

But seriously, I wished I had been the one to spend money on her first—she had bought the first round of drinks. Because at the time, my job was challenging and low-paying. Or maybe I just wasn't being frugal enough and partying way too often.

I still remember the picture that a cool rando took of us, drinking the Coronas, and how I was happy to be a part of her life again. Our eyes were so Asian. I had my lanky arm around her small shoulders, like a proud Father. She had her cheek propped up by her fist, her smile, gigantic and beaming, as though she had just won Wimbledon for the first time.
I was wearing a white and blue Oxford shirt that she had gotten me for Christmas with a D.C. Rising hat. She had on a cotton scarf that resembles a tan striped tail of a powerful cat.

My face was chubby from the pizza. Her face was just right like the one house in Goldilocks. The limes in the Coronas were sitting just below the throat of the bottles, like old memories resurfacing the brain, to make the self recall, to make the self remember how to treat his family.
Or maybe this is just a brand new Corona ad geared towards the rising second-generation Asian American demographic? I'm playing around.
But end of commercial break.

Vicki pats me on the back and we clink bottles together. Voldemort is lurking in the background, as if she's about to photobomb the next picture. Sometimes I don't know if there's going to be a next picture.
Either we live in these moments, or make memories of them with our phones. And like sheep following an untrustworthy shepherd, we went back to our phones. She made emails and texts. I went on twitter in search of the latest news story.

2

Before Vicki and I opened each other's presents, I remember I blew up at Mom and Dad, and criticized everyone in the family room including Vicki. It was over something stupid and trivial, but it was also something that made me feel insecure and small. I was the black sheep and she was the sheep-dog.

I screamed. Vicki took in a deep breath and looked away from my glare, looked away to a spot on the hardwood floor that was filled with a fine blanket of dust and lint. I chattered. She rubbed her fingers around the lens of her black camera and shook her head in a manner that suggested annoyance and disappointment. I scoffed. She set the camera down on the coffee table and pressed the flat of her hand against her cheek, and glanced out the window into the backyard that was blanketed with slush and snow.
Drops of snow were plunging from the branches of the evergreen trees and plopping onto the patches of the ground, plunging, as though they were little toddlers cannonballing off of a high-dive.

She turned back and looked at me straight in the eye, so straight I thought she was searching for the answer to my own stupidity.

I cleared my throat and said, “I need a breath of fresh air.”

Vicki bit her bottom lip, sat down, and put her arms on her knees, a deep, contemplative look appearing on her face.

I stormed into the narrow hallway, slammed the front door back against its rusty hinges, and trundled down my front driveway, the cold from the ice and the snow dampening the soles of my tarnished boots. I lit a jack at the far end of the cul-de-sac and counted to ten. I watched the cigarette smoke rise, as the ashes fell on the snow, blemishing its purity and calmness. I inhaled. I exhaled. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach that Vicki knew I was having a jack to reduce my stress, stress that I had cause all by myself. I ground the jack against the snowy concrete, feeling the cold begin to numb my fingers that were shaking from the nicotine, shaking from the winter that had wrapped itself around me and my sister.

When I came back inside of the house, I told Mom and Dad I was being an idiot and that I didn’t mean to be such an *******. I turned to Vicki and put my hand on her shoulder, squeezed it, and smiled weakly, telling her that I didn’t mean to upset her.

She nodded and said, “It’s okay bro.”

But her soft and icy tone made me feel skeptical; she didn’t believe me. I didn’t know if I believed my apology. Minutes later, I gave my present to her.

Her face brightened up with a smile. It was a gradual and cautious smile, a little too gradual and a little too cautious. She hugged me tightly, as though my earlier outburst hadn’t happened.

She opened the bank envelope and inside was a fat stack of cleanly, pressed bills that totaled a hundred. Being an arrogant, noob car salesman at the time, I thought it was going to be a pretty clever present. I could have given her a Benjamin, but I thought this would make her happier, because it showed my creative side in a different form.

I remember seeing her spread the dollar bills out, as if the bills were a Japanese Paper fan. Vicki told me not to post the picture I had taken on insta or Facebook. I smiled faintly and nodded, stuffing my smartphone back into my sweatpants pocket. I understood what she wanted, and I listened to her, respecting her wishes. But I also wasn't sure if she was embarrassed and ashamed of me. And maybe I was overthinking it. But again, maybe I wasn’t overthinking it. Social Media, whether we like it or not, is a part of life. And in that moment, I actually wanted social media to display this a single story in our lives. I wanted to show people that Vicki was the most important person—besides my parents—in my life. Because I was so concerned with how people viewed me and because I lacked confidence, lacked security, and lacked respect for myself

Vicki's present to me was a sleek and blue tie, a box set of mini colognes, and refreezable-ice-cubes. I think she called it the car salesperson kit. But I knew and still know she was trying to turn me into an honest and non-sketchy car salesman. And you know what, I was genuine, but I also couldn't retain any information about the cars features—to reiterate my Grandma has Alzheimer's, my mom writes down constant notes to remember everything, and I forget my journal almost every time I leave the house.

After Christmas I wore the tie to work a few times, but the mini colognes and ice-cubes never got used by me. They stayed in the trunk of my Toyota Avalon. I should have used the colognes and the ice-cubes, but I was too careless, too self-involved, and too ungrateful.

1

Back in the 90’s, when we were around 3 and 6 years old, Vicki and I shared the same room on the far left end of the hallway in our house. She had a small bed, and I had a bigger bed, obviously, because at 6 foot 1, I was a genetic freak for a Vietnamese guy. I read Harry Potter and Redwall like crazy growing up, and I would try to invent my own stories to entertain her. Every night she would listen to me tell my yarn, and it made me feel that my voice was significant and strong, even though many times I felt my voice was weak and soft, lacking in inflection, or intonation.

I had a speech impediment and I had to take classes at Canterbury Woods to fix my perceived problem. I wanted to fit in, blend in, and have friends.
Back then Vicki was not only my sister, but my best friend. She used to have short, black bangs; chubby cheeks, and a dot-sized nose—don't worry she didn't get ****** into the grocery tabloids and get rhinoplasty. She wore her red pajamas with a tank top over it, so she looked like a mini-red ranger, and her slippers

With those acid wash jeans
With that full sleeve of twirling black ink
With the drapes of long hair
I thought that we could leave the xplosion-club
After the confection of colognes
After the South African red wine
After the pounding music all night
Something **** about
A statue that can move
It's eyes
Something **** about
A man that thinks
Openly

We took the subway back to my apartment
You picked up a pebble and tossed it
I was quieter now
Would I let him inside? I have to at this point it seems
A charming prince
is a charming prince

I open the door.
Nothing bad happens, as I expect
I am a little paranoid I don't know why
(The club flashes back)
The door closes without its usual creek,
And we're inside.
Me and the charmer; I wonder, was he once a frog?
I have a funny feeling that I think came from the wine
Am I trashed or
Does he have horns?
Slimy toadskin, red eyes, 1000 inches of claws
Suddenly
Are upon me, Oh my God!
I tell it to leave mE ALONE,
It doesn't listen to me.

Every time I try to slip out of it's grip
I slide into a claw
Gushing this stuff from the movies,
It covered the bed and then the floor,
It probably leaked out from under the apartment door.

My cellphone rings in my pants pocket
I can't reach it because by then this grendel thing had broken me
Into two legs, a torso, two arms
And a decapitated head
While it eats my right lung, my left hand tries to desperately crawl away
He pokes it with a great fork; no escaping crums
The awful amphibian finishes and leaves forever.
He's never coming back
A winner-and-loser kind of ***, I guess.

“The rest is silence.”"-A. Crowley

I

I will know you only because
you are known to me deep down
beneath the subtle shadows carved
permanently upon your deceivingly
angelic face
sculpted by an artist
nameless to none but the heavy slab of stone
he used to create an ache
I’ve come to want to know as you
whose soft and silent rolling voice
where from there springs the torrents
of a turmoil melting like wax
in the mixed up chasm
of your mind
the destroyer of your smile
the reminder of bad times
that causes me to know you and from where you come
riding in bare-back
jet-black hair flying on
the hated molten roaring
riveted steel furnace
of inner anguish
again
and again
you beautiful deadly diamond black jewelry rose
of unworldly charm and perfected pain.

II

This is how I know you
in the steamy swelter of the nightfall’s
stifling bluish pall
you and I alone somewhere
anywhere
but probably nowhere
between the silken smooth heavenly legs of
here and there inside
the broken smoked crystal chandelier
of an ancient chamber room illuminated by
the flicker of more than fifty slowly disappearing
jutting candle-flames
I know you
because you make yourself known
to me
on the black-satin wrinkled bed-sheets that
we lie
writhing around upon like two
dying dancing angels
being swallowed by the suffocating oil
of a shame we bother created
just like gods
or dancing dancers dancing slowly
dying
in the pallid ***** fuming fog
…dancing with the gods.


you are as I know you
silhouetted in the silence of our
ecstatic shattered sighs
as we fly through lust’s futile passions where
we lie, we lie
we lie…

III

You are crawling across
the one-thousand mile mattress
stalking towards me
starvation’s fire fuels
your steely-sharp brown eyes
leopard-like your lithe,
tiny olive-brown body poised
ready to pounce
ready to strike
arrayed in skin-tight crimson lace
deadliness flashing on your face
your ******* dark and pointy ******* feel
fit for me to fed the song—
I smile—
then with healthy, stealthy fury
you leap
and pin me down
trapping
me between these shiny sheets of coal
and your sweeping feline glowing
perfumed-prison hair
polished glossy ruby fingernails
dig deep
into my massive arms
ivory razor-baring teeth
bite my hips
my neck
my chest
my thighs
you stop just in time
to devour me
delightfully
rocking, reeling in the sounds of us around
the intoxicating scent of your
flaming fountain-***
colognes my livid throbbing burning *****
I yell
I try to scream
I want to cry
…but instead, drift off to dream.

IV

You lie awake
aiting watching and waiting allowing
your imagination and your hands
on a journey to your ever-lingering
flaming fury far beyond the heights of hunger’s call
just as we have done no doubt
without each other
for a long time
in the cold
in and out
up and down
back and forth
body arches
thighs uptight
muscular calves quivering
toenails clenching like an eagle’s talons
on the bed
--lift high your sweet holy offering to the air!

Hands wet and warm fly from the glistening
magic perfect patch of forever music
that makes me want to weep
you scream
I awake
we breathe deep
we go back.
Repeat the scene.

V

Pre-dawn purple painted brush-strokes streak the sky
framed by the window where I know I will find you
in nothing more than a gown of sleek vermillion
light-chamois
that displays the room glow striking at your body’s faint
outline
your slender legs
your precious girlish hips
that golden chain around your waist
Divine
your blushing tearless chiseled cheeks
I arise
and walk behind you
run my trembling fingers up your spine
I still don’t really know you as your sighs compete with
mine
you reach around and lead me away
behind a peeling splintered door
warped and withered with
dismay
where you will teach me how to paint
by spilling your blood in
splatters
upon the floor
in said consequence I
calmly take the blade from
your tiny talking hands
pull your slashed and sliced torn wrists
to my tongue
and slowly lick
with a lingering criminal kiss
the dripping cuts that begin to fade
and go away forever in the day
now that the wounds have disappeared
becoming scarless
bloodless
sere
I can but heal your beaten lost youthful body
although I cannot convince you that
I care.
Daylight here.

VI

I know now that I know now
that I know you
and in the ****
with suntanned bodies wind kiss-hissing
through our hair
we walk side by side
on the blistering shoreline sand
avoiding bits of broken glass bottles
one by one
if we can
slowly strolling to the edge of the
abysmal eternal
emerald omniscient ocean-waves
breaking
ttundering
blanketing our feet
spraying its mist upon
our hands
I stop
you sprint
on diving headlong at the deep
the foamy water roars
and roars
you emerge and approach the shore
standing straight along
beside me
to stare
at a pair of grayish seagulls circling
in the air
squawking songs about themselves
when before the breathing of a minute
one
bird drops dying dead to feed
the never-ending belly
of the sea
the other screeches viciously
mourning
you look
at me
and then I come to know now how to know you
now that you have at last known me
as your part your pink and precious lips
for the first time
we will ever kiss
as you finally cry for
our
reality.

That is not sand left clinging to your cheeks
Just the salty tears we need
To set us free.

Now you can bury you and me.


(Threnody means “funeral chant.”)

My old boyfriend
used to wear a very
particular
(yet very commonplace)
aftershave.

Now and again
I'll catch a molecule
of it in the air -
in a club
or a lift
or a supermarket,
and it doesn't comfort me
at all.

No, no,
it doesn't comfort me
at all.

It’s like crossing paths with a ghost.

I found it so jarring
that it
inspired me to swap
my usual cologne
for a lesser known one,
which I mix with
another
uncommon fragrance
to create
my own
blend.

Girly?
Indeed.

But if I die
no-one will ever
be startled
by my ghost.

(Not unless
they know
which colognes
to mix.)

Despite all my efforts:
of scrubbing off the oils
settling on my skin,
of dousing heavy colognes
to cover away the perfume,
of covering in ice water
to mask away the warmth,
and persistent use of alcohol
to sanitize germs left behind,
through every physical method
practical and possible,
I could not easily erase
the trace of your hand.

I remember all things good and bad you left before shivering cold in a cell like all lost children beaten down by this life. This life that brought you joy and sleep, a sleep you have become petrified of and never can  rest here.  A smile that burns like gasoline into the minds of all men or women with a watchful eye. The laugh you hear in a bar and remember years later. This life brought you horrible crimes that you may, or may not have committed. Standing in front of humanity with one eye shut and the other pointed away, away from all that disgust in society as you were shown. Not all things bad, in fact many things here are good, you know that. The ever frothing lips of the hangmen, he to shall hang in the stomachs of all mankind and all love. The coming of night that brings hopeful chances of bar beauties or highs. One night the three of us were fortunate enough to each **** the night with some women we had found in Hampton. Trains pass by everyday with imaginative faces propped up against the windows, imitating their longing to have unique minds and ideas. You pass by on trains with out a glance, you can not **** a dead man, you never noticed the excitement from your ideas.

         Now I see oceans of faces screaming in decay, they're screaming the songs of victory, victory over this life. The rhythm of ten thousand slaves walking in harmony to the grave with no sympathy. Well past midnight hours you wait for heavenly Valerie to walk past your door and weep, and wearing nothing but her love for you around her neck shouting for you to come, shouting your name. Long before this you lay face down boiling saliva out from around your lips onto the carpet, dying for the chance to return to a  warm afternoon in march or may. You were revived and back home soon after. The cancer in all our eyes, the pain we all felt must stay a burden, never relief from this calamity. Ah yes success and pleasure were not for you then.
    
         I sat writing stories to no avail, never starting with a plot only developing one later. This was how life was written. No reason to expect anything else here, boredom brings excitement then to catastrophe. You held me through most, continuing your amphetamines I only wait for your thundering red heart to give up, give in. Then there will be many nights spent sobbing with regret, explanations to your mother and family and lovers long past. The idea that youth dies before the body should never be, should never be mourning for your ignorance, I spent most of this night writing, not so much of you but to you. I spent all of my money gambling and smoked most of my cigarettes. I went to the door and took in a breath of fresh air, I went to my bed and laid uncomfortable unable to sleep or dream of years before when I slept easy.

                  A pain through your aching legs went forth into the ground. Not all is bad and the continuance of random women in your bed, powders dissolved into your blood, smoke drawn down into your lungs, gas pedals pushed to the floor, alcohol soaking your liver, and memories of a lonely sidewalk in Florida will keep you in this life as a hero of my words.

    Part 2


A compass you laid in my hand, to help me home, always concerned with your friends. I see you now, drinking water from streams in wilderness untouched but by you to survive. Whiskey dried up around the curve of your chin, ***** to ease the days and nights of this life. You have survived 5 stepfathers and one father, a family even you can no longer come to terms with. No heavenly Jenny to tend to your wounds anymore. Fatigued and weary you lay on my doorstep, no sleep with out angelic drink to bring you back down. The clouds above your head never really rain or bring forth storm, not in my stories. The stench of your body as you sleep on the floor laid out like blankets by a mother to her child. A small cut on your wrist filed with ink, a reminder of long past agony that always returns before you can escape it. The sweetness you have left between many a girls thighs, the pain you carry alone, I know, I know.
              
               You thumbed to southern states to make a new home, what home have you made that keeps you in comfort and ease? This goes deeper than alcohol that your liver is always at war with. More so than your mouth that has betrayed your mind and spit out  words you can never take back so you say them again and again. White linen, clean sheets and a clean shave, perfumes and colognes, what are these things? The answer is in your fingers, you have overcome a typical drunk or ***, you may drink all day, you may never find a home but you can not and will not be these things. You are your home, its in the depths of your stomach. West called you but you never came, you never followed a single thing, you went alone and not scared of the fate we all will suffer, not concerned with the poisons or lie or the war in which we all fight just on a simple walk to the store, or to buy a pack of cigarettes. Victorious, lay on my floor! Sleep on my steps! **** for your dinner and lay your seed in her! The most immortal sin you could create would be to leave us with out some kin to look after when you go on that long walk you never come back from. The heights by which we stand while standing next to you, the current we fight swimming through rivers, this all goes back to you! I take my jacket off and put a shot of makers to my mouth, my throat warms and my legs weaken, This life, this pain, this woman, this death, it all grows distant now. You stand while roots of it grow around your feet clinging to your legs to climb closer to your chest and forever take you into its grasp. Just burning any feeling, any memory away, you just keep creating memories for the world who may never take notice of its children like you who make laughter from tears and adventure from stale nights.

          Benjamin, let fall your impression on this sand, let yourself become ash to soon, let not us down but going and going to the end of all this minced horrific times, let not night keep a shadow on your face, let not the world forget these things you did.


Part 3.

You miss your mother! The picture waits right next to your bed. The fire you started with nothing but a bottle of cough syrup and a few dollars is burning my mind and hands till they all blister and come back as a scar that feels ******* to the touch. Driving 94 miles an hour from New Jersey  on interstate 95 over heaves and cracks till they broke the suspension, no care must get home must get home to safe bed with espestis floor and many cigarette burns on the sheets. The shower is running, the heat is barely working. This is no poverty or lack of responsibility its just home. Paint my picture a thousand times and hand it to me from your window with a pipe , its getting warmer the longer we speak. Why not, why not anymore road in America or late night convenience store hang out to pick up women and fresh air. Lay down your guard, leave your problems in that bed and come run through the wicker with us.

Think about this - a holiday that needs no funky dresses.
A holiday so creative, there is no need for red lipsticks, no need for nail clippers, no need for pungent scent of over-powering colognes.
A holiday so relaxing, a massage is as unimportant as a torch light near the sun.
All we need is just you; and perhaps the ever so annoying presence of me.
All we need is a bountiful of sundresses that you own, and perhaps my flowery sense of humor that matches the colors of the purple lilac prints of your sundress.
I could buy you a hat, but only if you promise me that it will only hide you from the sun, and not you from my eyes.
It could be big so you don't need sunscreen; and big enough to stop you from cringing when the sun hits your eyes but small enough that you still require some Banana Boat applied on your skin.
I'll bring the Banana Boat that has your favorite scent and I will put them on my hands; white cream will round my palm as I merge both hands together to a rub and apply the heat on your back. I will do it with so much passion because I want to ensure that only I can have your body and only I can touch your skin and that the beam of those evil UV lights will have none of you to them.
I want to feel the presence of you next to me, in our cabana, hidden away from the noises of the city, from the trinkets of the toy stores, from the audible annoyances of office politics.
I want to hear you play your favorite Azalea tunes on your iPod and secretly loving it as the song burst out of your earphones – teasing me, tempting me, seducing me with your bouncing head.
I want to hold on to my Mai Tai, cold as always, as the droplets of the cold water from melted ice succumbs to the heat my palms are dismissing.
And I want to have that Mai Tai with you, with two straws, with a pineapple decoration on the brink of the glass; and maybe…just maybe…if you're playful, a little umbrella that is in your favorite color.
Perhaps then we can hear the sound of crashing waves as our bodies crashes with the nuances of knowing that we are good for each other, but never at the same time as each other.
We can then, together, in silence, delve in the truth, the evolution, that we crave for the attention of the other, but we have the unfortunate excuse to not believe in that craving.
As we sip on the Mai Tai, we see the sun set, and the horizon is as beautiful and as composed and as straight as the bangs of your hair.
We refuse to leave that beach. And we refuse in our hearts because no words filled the empty silence but sounds of crickets and the ***** of wings of the swallows that flew by us - back to their homes, back to their nests, back to their hearts.
We know one of us will have to break that silence and it is so quiet that a drop of a 20 cent coin can jolt us, make our hearts beat faster with the expectations that we have of what's to come next.
"Let's go", you said.
And I mustered up my muscles, aching for one last stretch of my forearm to pull yours closer to mine.
But I could not.
Because you have walked away, walked ahead and far from me.
You have passed the stream of sea water that we could have left our footprints on, together, side by side.
I took that as a painful hint.
"Perhaps tonight is not the night. Perhaps we are not what we are.", I thought.
I finished up our drink like how I would finish writing our unending story.
I sipped the warm Mai Tai of depression, sadness, disappointment and anger as it travels through my bloodstream.
This alcohol – it filled my empty heart with the depressed, sad, disappointed and angry poison.
I was certainly not in the mood.
I packed my towels, wrapped it around my secure body and around my insecure soul.
As I walk behind you, following your imprints of footsteps left on the sand, I lit a cigarette. I put on my earphones, blasted the Azalea song that you love so much as I envision what could have been our most memorable night.

I trekked up that slushy hill, double time, because I was wasting minutes being anywhere you weren't. I don't think I've ever opened a door faster than in that moment before smashing my body into yours and breathing you in in one messy, rushed kiss. In French, instead if saying I miss you they say tu me manque, which means you are missing from me. This concept was explained to me, finally, as I was wrapped up in you and one of your many colognes. Lips and tongues and teeth and door frames. I could not feel anything because I was feeling everything. My conciousness extended no further than the tip of my nose and at every point my skin touched yours. It's been a while since I have understood myself in such a simple sense, but it was clear you knew me all along. I could tell from the way you traced me without looking and tickled my collarbone with kisses.
And finally,
your mouth moved from me and into
Hello