My Astrologer, ‘*** and Love’ horoscope, for Halloween, is grim and on-trend for me.
(Libra) “Get ready to take some chill-time - give yourself the space to recover. People pleasing is out, boundaries are in!” Yeah, I’m like Texas, I have unsecure boundaries.

Sure, I KNOW horoscopes are horoscopes but while other signs get unicorns & puppies:
Aries: “Use your deepest desires to please yourself, step into your power.”
Gemini: “Your curious and bubbly nature shines, shoot your shot for that special someone!”
Cancer: “Be at home in your feels, your needs & emotional expressions are valued, go deeper.”

I’m getting “**** it up buttercup,” thanks universe - what did I ever do to you?

We’ve been scanning the teen magazine fall looks, “We’re living in a bold era, a time of expression!” They declare, which means dramatic-metallic eyeliners, goth grunge, bold reds and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance silvers.” Luckily, Yale’s pretty low fashion environment, because seasonal changes are a lot to keep up with.

I love Autumn, with its colorful leaves, pumpkin lattes and colder nights, but coming from the south (in ‘21), I had no idea how badly heated air could dry out my skin and hair (freshie year, my thumb literally started to crack, like a plastic Barbie). In the spirit of fall fashion and maintenance, my entire crew made an Ulta store run this morning for hair masks, detox tonics and skin moisturizers - we’re ready, bring on the cold.

The best smelling places on earth are Ulta and Yankee Candle stores. In my religion, heaven smells like Starbucks in the morning, Chick-fil-A around noon and Ulta stores as the sun goes down and things turn dreamy and romantic.

Ever since I can remember, Barbara has been coming to our home
With her poofy hair and her powdered cheeks, all in a cloud of pink perfume.
She would speak in the fragile, broken voice of a woman well beyond her years,
And Mother would beckon her cheerfully to sit at the table in our dining room.

With whatever coffee was in the *** and whatever Danish found,  
Mother would prepare the table and invite my older sister and I to gather round.
From noon to three they’d gab and chat and flip through the catalogues
That Barbara the Avon Lady had brought.

My sister and I would thumb through glossy, vibrant pages
Of blushes and eye shadows, eyeliners and mascaras.
But I, I would thumb quickly and tire even faster
At the conversation of the table that awaited me, inevitably, after.

With feigned interest, I would sit there a bit
And watch as my older sister would, more patiently, fake it.

I’d grab a cookie and then leave
Mother with her checkbook and her bitter black coffee,
Barbara with her perfume cloud and cheeks all porcelain powdery,
And my sister, with her blonde hair, which was just like mine,
But which tried, much harder to grow much faster.
Yes I would flounce away with my neck-length locks,
And go play with my younger brother.

I have had to watch you walk on by as I bare witness to your *** stained ******* found under my mattress.  I smell your blonde hair and sometimes weep alone as I know you **** him hard along the roadside. It does me no kindness to aerosol the hallways but it helps me function as I break your black eyeliners and grind away @ mirrors that I otherwise would have smashed.
I am to you as dead as the night as air is to a lifeless corpse.

"You're Lost Little Girl" was playing on the background.
She had been dancing for the last couple of minutes completely naked.
Red lips, Red eyes and a glimmer of a long lost shine in her eyes.
She never faced me while I was sitting on the corner of the room.
Her dance was slow, a magical kind of grace.
- Did You know that he die in Paris?
- Yes - I answered her.
- You know why? - I didnt answer this one.There was no need. There are questions that only need time.
- Because dying in LA would make him a rockstar.
- And so dying in Paris makes him what?
She took a while.
- A poet I guess.
The room was an empty room, with little books that I guess she never read and with too much whisky bottles that I guess she never shared.
You could smell the filthy life that made her dance in such a sad way.
I remember looking to the clock and no hour was shown. She had ripped off the clockwise and used them as chopsticks for her three days old chinese food.
When the song came to the end, she sat on the ground and lighted a cigarette which she had kept on the back of her ear.
She looked at me for a while and I looked at her.
I could see her eyeliners going down her face, then she stood and walked over a mirror that there was next to the door and looked at the reflection for a while ...
Then...
Then I saw myself crying.

Her vanity ;

Used eyeliners
Polished golden rings
diamond watches still ticking
Her favorite oud scents still preserved in their boxes
Pocket sized pictures of us as kids framing the mirror ,


Her vanity
Doesn't know

I can't live like this. Everything is fake.
My life is a blur and I don't know how much more I can take. If you want, you can take what you want to, salvage this heart, and drive a spike into the X. You created an X where you killed me.
I can't live like this. The eyeliners gone and my tears can't be seen. The mask of black mascara and lines on my body from long time mistakes remain.
I can't live like this. The words that come out aren't supposed to and they're turned into screams.
I want this all to be a dream, and if you can, I ask you one thing - SAVE ME! WAKE ME! TELL ME IT WILL BE ALRIGHT!.. I'm going home soon. Suicide will be my ride. A blade at my side or an empty bottle. STOP THE PAIN! "Can you make it go away!?!?" "Can you mend a broken heart? Can you mend a shattered soul and revive me from death all at once?!!!???"
Save me from the dark, cause I can't live like this.

Try and see through me, save me from myself. Try to live like this. Lie through your breath! Try not to **** YOURSELF when you think of it!! TRY NOT TO BLEED AS A CRY OF RELEASE! When a razor blade is glued to your hand... Try not to starve as you lose pounds off your body, and try not to cry as you're doing all of this!!!!!!
This is my life and no one can do it alone. You need to see how torn from the bone, skin can look. How scars can form, and how you can hook a *** appeal when you're "innocent" and UGLY!? ***** about how much it hurts and complain to a mom that's not there and try to live like me and be alive at the same time: you think you can LIVE LIKE THIS?!?!?

She covered her skin,
But she still feel naked.
Head wrapped with a shawl,
Everyone can see her hair.
She was an open book,
Every move she makes in every page.
They know her curves-
They know her lines.
From eyeliners-
To shoe size.
It was all noted down-
All recorded.

Do they really know her?

Do they know she cries herself to sleep?
How much time on the mirror for the right make up?
How many texts blowing her phone about objectifying her body?
How many insults on how how she portrays to be?
How many hours she spent thinking what's missing from her?
How many hurtful comments on how she would never understand just because she's beautiful?

She will always turns head,
But she only need to turn one heart.

The one that makes all those expensive care seems worth it,
One that could make look forward to the next day,
One that could make her feel good on her fashion efforts,
That accepts her regardless of what mood she is in.


-HIY

haunt empty mirrors
Pastel fingertips trace lipless smiles
eyeliners and mascaras circumscribe vacancies
These women do not suckle babies
They do not write books or poetry
They never read the editorial pages

Their husbands never get hard-ons
except when they *******
The women are glad
Their hair won't be rumpled
and the sheets won't be stained
They rise early in the morning
apply honeysuckle or springbreeze vaginal sprays
and polish their mirrors

When the windows of their houses melt
they turn up the air conditioning
When their men leave them
they shore up sagging *******
reclaim their virginity by its loss
practice pouts and pirouettes to perfection

The moon is their enemy
Another presidential election means
more wrinkles, more grey hairs
means nothing on TV
and they have to fold up
into themselves, a lonely
place where the mirror is the mind