I saw him see me.

“Hello, ma’am? Miss? Hi, can I give you a free sample?”

**** ****

“Uh.”
Cue winning smile.

I had reflexively glanced at the store name, Bee & Co.
Bee is my daughter.
All Bees are my Bee.

“A sample. Sure, thanks.”

“Can I show you another sample? Just in here. I know you’ll love it, I promise you.”

No.

“Sure!”

****! Betrayal. I follow him in.

The space is unnecessarily large and aesthetically devoid of personality. White walls, glass shelves, side lighting. Small clusters of bottles and jars arranged on a table here, a shelf there. It’s giving Everything Must Go; it’s giving White Woman Influencer; It’s giving American ******.

“I’m so excited for you, you’re going to just die.”

I am trapped, and we’re off to the races.

“Have a seat.”

He’s good looking, sort of wolfish, this salesman. Early-to-mid 30s. Well-groomed, brown skin, black hair, gay. Pale and underslept in that giddy way that comes with overcorrection. Coffee? Adderall? *******? It’s that look, that hungry look. His accent is warming spices and hard liquor, and boy is he talking.

Words like

collagen
-medical-
<penetrating>

as he enthusiastically smears a glob of something under my eye,
“This one because it has the darker circle.”

His dark circles pool under his eyes and he intently explains the same thing over and over again.

Anti-aging,
lifting and tightening,
fine line reducing.

It’s a needy pitch,
Too thirsty.

Well what if I like my fine lines, I don’t say.
Crafted,
as riverbeds are,
as canyons;
Emblazoned, each. Earned.
Emblematic of my many lives.

(A door opens at the back; another man steps out. We make eye contact.)

The serum dries like Elmer’s glue on my delicate under eye skin.
It settles in strange places,
Pulls and distorts.
Discolors and cracks.

“I look older,” tapping it with my fingers.

“STOP TOUCHING IT!”

I stop touching it.

The mall is so close. Nothing is stopping me from leaving.

                                           (I don’t even want it).

We can’t afford it.
There. I said it.
                                                        (I don’t leave)
-aghast-
“You can’t afford it?!”
Pearls clutched.
“You, what? Are you serious?”
                                              (Why can’t I leave?)
Uh. Well. I have a family.

Brick.
I wanna smack him as hard as I can
Step.
I wanna be young and beautiful again
Brick.
I wanna burn this ****** to the ground.
Step.
I wanna apologize for being broke, for having bills, for ******* around.
Brick.
I don’t like this. I can get up and leave.
Step.
I absolutely have to make him like me.

But he’s irritated,
“We might as well even you out,”
As he slaps the goop under my other eye,
Still talking,
Talking a lot, a whole lot actually.
Too much.

Okay this is reaching a fever pitch and I was not prepared for the hard sell today.
His voice edges with desperation,
Shame on you for getting in your own way.

(I’m holding onto the tow line
The boat is unmanned
Reality has become unmoored
We are, none of us, truly in control)

“It will last forever, it will give you what you’re missing, it will patch up all your empty holes with collagen and kisses.
You can’t put a price on confidence
But I can tell you honest
I’ll price it half of where it’s at
To help you with the cost.”

I gotta get out of here.

“Uh.” Winning smile.

He gives me his card
                                                     (I don’t want it)
- His name “BEN” and an email address printed on receipt paper -

And with him is a torn box.
Something and something about something.

(What is reality anyway but a deeply subjective personal construct, tenuous at best, unknown and unknowable but for the rare fleeting glimpse between the gaps in the seams of the fabric of the universe?)

75% off. Because of the box.

The mirror is still on the table.

“Look look, it works, you look great”

                                                     (I don’t want it)

****.

****.

The mirror lies to me in a thousand languages as the glue shifts beneath my skin.

If you listen closely, I say, you can hear me shatter into a million pieces.

clink. clink. clink.

Ben and I skip hand in hand through the middle of the empty room to the checkout counter,
pirouette, arabesque, plie,
celebrating the space.
celebrating my face.

I am exhausted.

Ben’s hands are shaking at the counter. The WiFi isn’t working on the credit card machine. His hands. Are shaking.

“Uh.” Winning smile. “I’m really excited to start using this. Thanks for your help.”

He visibly relaxes. Has he breathed even once since I’ve been here? More employees arrive, they smile toward us. All men. All men.

I can tell Ben likes me now. He’s pleased, thank god. My whole being recoils at the thought of disappointing him, and I uncoil intentionally.

(Don’t think too hard about it.
You can’t put a price on confidence.)

I hope we never see each other again.

“How old are you?” He actually asks me.
A lady never tells.
“I’m 40.”
I’m 39 but getting the feel for it.
Forty. 40. I’m forty. I’m four hundred and forty.

I am ageless as time and vast as consciousness.

He feigns surprise.
I tell him he looks young.
He calls me cute and gives me a hug.
I turn to dust and blow away.

“Can I show you something? I think you’ll appreciate it.”

You don’t know me.

Winning smile.

“What’s that?”

He takes off his sweatshirt - “don’t worry” - and rolls up his sleeve.

A tattoo. Just above the crook of his elbow. He beams triumphantly.

                   TRUST THE PROCESS

squelched between bodies spiralling into escalators,
my trained eye couldn't help hovering a little left

right there, coming into view at the watch store,
though never caught dead anywhere near M·A·C

but neither should my stares, blatant without restraint,
fixed on a trio chattering like keys jangling

to the beat of a million other stolen glances,
only for them to slip away for some froyo.

rather than melt into a fruity confection myself,
I steel my eyes back into the spiralling masses

blocking out three gym bags marked 'WATER POLO',
my untrained heart pulses still for their suntan

and the bleachers of yesterday, the sight and sweat,
jocks jangling for position in glistening waters —

only then did I dare scream my lungs out,
safe in the crowds of a high school roar.

Want to know why I did not die?
Because I did write.
Want to know why I survived?
Easy - because I write!

I was 13 - I was lost
and I wanted to **** myself
I wrote a letter to, but instead
I had a story to be told
my own...though I did not know...
a brain to arrange - my feels,
my thoughts
Art up, broken child!
Bleed onto the page and go drain the pain!
Do something! Make sense!

The night was threatening and I could not sleep
Everything so sharply and hurtfully real
I touched life and oh, ****** blisters
all over me
Opposites coming close
I am the mixture of them all

And my soul was shabby and in ruins
I could not tell what was me and what wasn't true,
so many times
Nothing was clear but the soreness
I felt, yet that was the proof I was there, too.
Art up, broken child! Do not lick the wound,
stitch it with a few rhymes!

And there were faint rays
of what could be
The kiss I never got these days
The dreams I had that got delayed

Later, the flow got stopped - because I got clogged
All pain, all emptiness, all doubt
Frozen inside, fetters outside - caught up
I decided to retreat because I could not be
yet I thought I was striving to be freed
Had no certainties at all, so my mouth I shut
so my power I shunned - I was blocked

So I can never shut up
without shutting down
And my words came back at me
as soon as I entered again the scene
I am here because my pen never sleeps
Therapy can be expensive but notebooks
are cheap

Yet now sometimes I feel so full
My pen is bloated in it too.
And we lie happy, satisfied,
just seeing things go by,
just wanting to be by your side...

something big
goes on when I don't write

Mama,

I'm just a little girl.

You make me happier than anything else

With the books that you read me

The smiles you give me

The warmth of your body

As I sit on your lap

My downy blonde head

Rested, listening to the heartbeat

That lulled me to sleep

In your womb.

You tell me,

"Madison,

You are my sunshine."

You're mine, too

So I bring you

Pictures I drew

Purple weeds that I picked from the yard

Smiles

Flashing love, optimism

With my crooked baby teeth.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm not a little girl.

I like boys

And have opinions

And bleed

Just about every month now.

I roll my eyes

And speak my mind

And disagree.

I want to read those few books

You don't think that I'm ready to read.

I make you cry now

Almost as often as I make you laugh.

I remind you of the sharp, dangerous bits

Of your own adolescence

With all the added danger

Of my Daddy's set ways.

I'm sorry, Mama

I am.

I can only become a woman

In the ways that you teach me.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

You know I'm your girl.

I might have Daddy's face and sense of humor

But it's you and I

Talking about our respective friends

As we work in the kitchen

You on the main course

Me on dessert.

We laugh

And sing along to Courtney Love's mad howls

No matter how much everyone else winces in response.

Let me tell you a secret, Mama:

I don't want to grow up anymore.

I feel safe here

Always at home

As long as I'm with you.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm still just a little girl.

It scares me to death

To see you hurt

When there's nothing I can do

To ease your pain.

Part of me wants to do

What you did for me:

Tuck you into bed

With a hug

A kiss

A ginger ale.

"Sleep tight

Night-night

Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Sweet dreams

Love you

See you tomorrow."

I want to **** this ******* cancer

Eradicate it

From you

And every man, woman, and child

Who's ever fallen

Into its hideous grip.

I don't want to ever have to leave your side, Mama,

Wouldn't do it

For anything in this world.

I'm sorry

For any nasty thing

I could have ever said to you.

I'm sorry

If the stresses

Of a single moment

Or years' worth of them

Ever stole a little bit of joy

From you and I.  

I love you, Mama

I always will.


I'll do anything

If it means we can take each other's hands

And kick this thing's ***.

I try to be strong in action and words  every day
Every morning I open my Bible and start to I pray
Whispers of imagined blessings  in the starts
Positivity, I have learned that, is a farce

I try to hold up ideals that I have broken before
In the hope that I can redeem myself the next time
The distant bell chimes calling out my death
I ignore the knell in an immortal hope sublime

I follow distant shadows on indistinct walls
My insecurities grace the surface and slither and crawls
I scoff at the reptilian camouflage of self-sufficiency
Knowing it is the pain carrying me on.

I am a ******* that would rather feel than be distant
I feel without expression when all I should do is cope
But instead what I do is hopelessly hope
My obsession with dreams makes me repentant.

Sometimes, on lonely nights, I can't be strong anymore
I reach out for a strong shoulder to cradle my sobs
But they often melt away in my tears and shape my fears
I shiver in my feigned self-sufficiency that calls out to emptiness

Maybe I let my imaginations run wild, wild horses fraying into the night
Maybe I need to let go of impossibilities and accept the practicalities
But I would rather lose myself in eyes I have never peered in
My paradise lurking beneath unseen memories.

(c) Anavah 2018

When I saw her for the first time it wasn't admiration
It was awe mixed with a twinge of jealousy
Her perfection and her confidence intimidated me

When I first befriended her it wasn't just adoration
It was an obsession and a fixation
To be like her in thought and action
Till I learnt to be better than her without being enough
That was when the insecurity started
'Will I ever be enough?'

I wasn't enough at home, not fair enough or smart enough
I wasn't witty or flirtatious enough
I lacked guts and I lacked the temperament
Of a proper twelve-year-old.
I was a doormat and a pushover
Already coming undone at my seams
Trying to emulate perfection through blinded eyes
Every day I scoffed and surrendered to my picture of admiration
Trying to secure her own admission
'Will I ever be enough?'

Then she left me battling my own wars
Hers was to conquer new turfs.
I waited for a while, finally realizing
I was a ship without a captain, left to wander evermore.
I caught a new captain in a bystander who counted his lucky stars
I admired him for being there for me when I never was.
I tried to hold on to an unconsolidated bond of friendship
With a raging doubt piercing through my heart
'Will I ever be enough?'

Many came telling me my worth.
Many left ravaging my already battered heart
Many drank my colourless lifeless blood
Many left a wretched bluish mark
I shrivelled from the inside out
Bloating in the nausea of my being
Every day trying to put me together
Every day losing instead of winning.
One day finally I reached out
Knowing my salvation lies
I put everything behind me and cried out
Only to be put on the side.

That day I realized my worth
When she was hurt by my rejection
When she refused to give me a chance
When I had never received any ever.
My insecurities still lingered
But they were a part of me now
And I did not know how to do without.
I picked up the pieces that meant something to me
Even though she was no more there to see
Yet I knew that she was never enough
Never my horizon, never my turf
I had wings to reach farther
And my flight has thus
Now begun without her.

(c) Anavah 2018

Listening rain plashes
upon crystal spring waters
It hears the trailing distance
disguised in the silent gravity
chasing it down the sky;
refreshingly sprinkling
          stillness
where spotless fawns
drink from mirror pond
green and peacefulness

     A man falls from
a distance he knows by heart;
dropping like a wind broke tree ...
Breaking all the silence hidden
within the deepest places
          of his soul
Hitting the ground hard
to see if he still feels —
laying there broken
feeling the raindrops
     soothe the hurt

Certain when he’s able
     to get back up,
hearing a distant calling
to the fountains of his soul —
he may fall down again
     bearing the weight
     of broken dreams
     But he’s seen it all
for long enough to know:
he’s no candle in the wind

Awakening in an unfinished life,
coming back from the dead,
     still feeling each
     feral breath enough —
     to keep on trying
to chase down the wind ...


     harlon rivers                                                           ­                          .

He’s been on the road
coming home
from
Arizona flagstaff
wearing his
jury rigged knapsack
with plastic
and cloth bags
strapped together
by an orange cord.

Sixty something,
tan skinned,
and missing teeth,
I find him
on the off ramp
as I head out
to work.

Sign says Springfield
but he is trying to
get back to
Chicago.
I almost pass him by,
but I remember
a younger guy,
the good man
I used to be.
He asks me to be
kind again.

I tell him
I’ll drop him
halfway there,
but he offers
a traveler’s perspective
and excellent conversation
so, I take him as far as I am going.

We roll in
just in time
for him to miss
the storm coming,
and part with
a handshake
and goodwill,
I forgot how good
that feels.

It was a
suicidal game
of self-destruction,
as I walked slowly
on the white winter ground.

Four or more
sleep deprived nights
because of some
drug a doctor prescribed
that nearly fried
my already fragile mind.

For the first time in my life
I decided to give cigarettes a try.
Cancer be ******
because I had already been
******* condemned.
So, I smoked them.

Pushed to the edge,
I punished myself
with cold indifference
popping the last bits
of this sick prescription.

Earlier,
I asked the doctor
if I could take these
before I went to bed.
I guess he didn’t
listen to a word I said.
Was it his ignorance
or merely negligence
that nearly did me in?

On the fourth night,
I watched my best friend
collapse from his asthma
because he was
running to call the cops
to come and save me.

His efforts made me laugh,
as I indifferently considered
just finding a place to hide
while I waited to wither and die.