failing economy

You say that I worry too much. You take another drag of your cigarette... I just hold mine uncomfortably.

You are probably right, it's true, I'm a nervous wreck. And the cigarettes only make it worse.

I start wondering about all the caffeine in my system: 3 cups of coffee, 60 ounces of diet coke, 2 glasses of tea. My teeth probably don't appreciate the abuse, and neither does my stomach. But is this something to worry about? Something to change? Addictions are dangerous; anything in excess kills, and the stress of worrying is killing me right now.

"Relax," you say in your soothing, parental voice.

But, honestly, how can one relax during an economic crisis?

There is madness on the streets. Revolution, or something like it. The noises reverberate through the walls in my room, the distant cheers, resounding screams. These are the sounds of long-anticipated victory.

Outside my window, there is a large group of girls, and because of the darkness, it is difficult to discern who they are, but they are hugging. There is some sort of connection. They may be very old friends, or they may have just met one another at the pub, but tonight, tonight it doesn't matter... tonight.

For a moment, I want to be out there, running around, screaming like a lunatic, and yet.. I am too sober, too serious, and maybe even too cynical. Sipping my tea quietly, I wonder about false revolutions. I worry about false messiahs.

What does it feel like to let go, for even a minute? To be carefree and spontaneous? It must be a whole different world out there, beyond this apartment.

Maybe I'm the only one who's worried.

I'm worried about the upcoming election, about false hope and unfulfilled promises, about the continuation of status quo and the possible assassination attempts. I'm worried about the ozone layer eroding, about gas prices rising, and the economy failing. And laugh all you want, mock me for my stupidity, but I am worried about the quickly approaching 2012, about the apocalypse.

I take another drag of my cigarette. But I'm asthmatic, and so I worry about my lung damage, or about having another attack. I never go out without an inhaler too far out of reach. Then again, if the apocalypse is approaching (and I can almost feel that it is), an asthma attack is probably the least of my worries.

"I haven't really been thinking about it at all, I hope the thought hasn't been keeping you up at night," you say.

"I'm an insomniac. No specific thought keeps me up at night," I answer, with a false sort of cleverness. But secretly, I'm disappointed. Yes, I've been thinking about it, at least on and off.

"Really, don't worry about it." You won't refer to what you'd done directly, and I wonder if that's part of the denial, part of the ability to stop worrying.

Humans are phenomenally resilient creatures. The fact that one person can hurt another so deeply, and then just forget about it, shake it off and move on... that kind of resilience is too pragmatic, too unfeeling. My mind goes into hypermode, I start making grand generalizations to rapists and serial murderers and their ability to shrug life off. All I can say is, "Well you have nerves of steel, I guess."

"I haven't really been worried about it," you repeat. "I hope you haven't been either."

Just shrug it off. Move on. Go to sleep, and wake up as though it never happened. Forget about it, and never bring it up again. Is that how people do it?

Meanwhile, I worry. About the cigarette, the presidential election, the ozone layer, and people who live but never feel. They say that stress kills. I wonder if I'll even live to see the apocalypse.

My half-torn, sickly-green diary never really got thrown out, the first and only paper journal I'd ever kept. To this day, it's still on my bookshelf at my parents' house, festering in its embarrassing, awkward teenage glory. Filled with ugly penmarks and expletives, it is a piece of the person I was then and, as difficult as it is to swallow, a piece of the woman I am today.

Almost every entry is about John, John the first boy I ever "like liked" (actually seen in context). The motherfucking asshole, as I described him, whom I wanted to kiss so badly... a bony-legged boy I couldn't stop thinking about.

Yes, we were friends, but we weren't very good ones. Sometimes I'd come over to his house, and he'd lock me in his bathroom, until I begged, pleading to be let out. But freedom was never free: no matter how much I pounded on that door, sniffled, stared at the cold white sink, he would not let me go until I told him secrets, so many secrets were revealed, whispered through that bathroom door. Secrets that he had promised not to tell... I should have known better.

In groups of three or four, we all played Truth or Dare. He'd turn to me and say, I dare you to:

flash me

pretend that you're humping this pole

kiss me

pretend that you're humping this sleeping bag

lick this sink

I did all these and more. But he never liked me, he smirked when I naively followed his commands, all the while he tossed pens and paperclips in my face. He told me, over and over, that I was fat, that my chest was too big, and that I would be "the worst person to have sex with, ever."

Expletives and inkstains. I wrote my frustrations out in the ragged green journal, but never told him in person.

Close to the end of out friendship, we were at his house, and he suddenly grabbed a cold, wet towel with his skinny arms. He slapped it across my bare legs, leaving a red mark. I didn't budge. He slapped me again. I twitched but didn't yell out, didn't move. And another slap, and another, until my legs were covered up and down in bright red marks. I stood, bravely, holding tears back. "Jesus," he gasped, staring at me from behind his spectacles, "It's almost like you have no feelings. It's almost like you're not really human."

So I lie and tell myself that this was eight years ago, before Bush was even president, that I am a completely different woman, sophisticated, confident, mature (or at least pretending to be), and yet... unrequited love hasn't really changed.

It's still full of tears, empty words, and messy inkstains. And my legs still feel shaky, unstable... as if they've been whipped nonstop all these years.

Reading inadvertently.

I trace my fingers over your body. The stretch marks, purple, around your stomach, the white, rippled, almost invisible scars around your wrists. Coarse patterns under my fingers. Your skin doesn't lie.

What has he done to you? Your gray, brooding eyes, thin lips that have forgotten how to smile, but are finally learning to again. What has he done to you? Your skin, it tells a candid story.

But this is like Braille, a foreign language to me. I am ignorant of even the letters, never mind words, sentences. The meanings don’t register. I am blind, illiterate, a goddamn fool.

And you become an accidental storyteller. Unspoken words, so forthright, that no words said out loud could match their honesty.

Silent sentences, more honest than those I craft painstakingly. As honest as scarred skin.

I hear a voice in my mind. Taunting me, testing me, testing my limits, pushing me, face-forward.
And it's so easy, it's always been too easy for me. No skills necessary, no risk-taking involved. So simple. Eat 3 small, spaced out meals, drink water endlessly, rinse, repeat.

Or hop on an elliptical machine for the next two hours, till the warm droplets of sweat drip down, in the crevice between your breasts, down your flexing thighs. All at once, the endorphins hit: a numbing, pleasant high. Rinse, repeat.

Almond shaped, mascara-laden eyes wink at me, tempting me like the forlorn songs of Sirens. Come, come join us. The models, the beauty icons of our society, how can anyone doubt their lecherous power? So tempting with their beauty. Tempting me to drown.

It's too easy to dive in, and theres's such incredible power in choice, in the ability to mold, control yourself, close your eyes and leap.

But once you slip into that cool, salty water, and you feel your torso grabbed by warm, slimy hands, there's no turning back. Siren songs cease, and give way to blood-curling screams. I feel my legs twisted by the seaweed. Seaweed in my eyes, my hair, and their fingers, their gooey fingers grabbing hold so tightly.

Take a deep breath, and let the salty water burn into your lungs, and as your consciousness fades, pray silently that your loved ones will someday find your skeleton, washed ashore.

When my child tears through my flesh and forces his way into this world, he will be shocked by the coldness of the air, the inhospitable environment that he will be forced to live in for the rest of his life.

Do you truly believe you are ready to be a father?

You yourself are worse than an infant, prone to uncontrollable bouts of cruelty, destruction. Then suddenly, tears burst from your eyes. You apologize, you know you shouldn't have and you wish you hadn't...

My son, you see him not as a child, but as a structural adhesive, a splotch of glue that will keep us intact. To you, he is not a human; he is a piece of genetic tape, gluing our DNA together.

You wonder how you can make it up to me, for the furniture you smashed, and for everything else... You claim to worry about "the three of us," but I know that in actuality, you worry most about yourself.

"What can I do to make it up to you, to all of us?" you wonder. But the bruises on my skin are still dark and fresh. This is not the kind of boo-boo that you can put a bright band-aid on, kiss and make better.

And he is a human. Not a toy, not a tool for childish games or manipulation. He is my son, not our son. My ultrasound, that imagine of my unborn life in black and white, you will never see it. When he tears through my flesh, emerges in the red flood, you will not be there to see his head coming through, you will not be able to hold him in your arms. He is my son. And mine alone.