Walk of Shame

Momma always told me not to play with fire or I’d get burned. I should have listened to her. Instead, I was standing in the girls’ bathroom, playing with the small book of matches I had nicked from Mr. Johnson’s diner when no one was looking. Peer pressure can make you do stupid things.

Set on proving I was not, in fact, a Pollyanna, I lit the first match. The small tremble in my hands hid behind a flourished pull. The match caught and burst into flame. Everyone stared as I raised my hand up to the smoke detector, but the flame licked my fingers and I dropped the match. I waved my hand to ease the burn.

“See I told you she was too scared to do it,” Sissy Lowell told the crowd.

I was in it now. If I backed down and didn’t try again, I wouldn’t just be a Pollyanna; I’d be ridiculed for chickening out forever. I got myself into position for a second go. What I failed to notice the moment I lit that second match was Sheila Daniels pulling out her hairspray, applying yet another layer of lacquer.

There was a sudden flash and whoosh. I turned around to discover the carnage before me. There was Sheila with her perfectly manicured hair singed beyond repair. The acrid smell clung to my nose and I knew I was going to die. Without waiting for a reaction, I bolted out of the bathroom just as the first shriek pierced the air. I ran down the hall and all the way to class, plastering my butt to my desk and waited for my doom.

It didn’t come. Not that hour and not the next. By 4th period, I was a wreck. I only half listened to Mrs. Swaranski as she droned on about the innards of the frog we were about to dissect and I completely failed to send Craig Peters any admiring glances. Every time the loudspeaker crackled I flinched, but my name never rang out. No one came to collect me with a summons to Mr. Phinney’s office either.

I ran from class to class expecting Sheila or one of her friends to grab me in the hall and give me hell. I was so preoccupied with trying to avoid the popular girls that I managed to miss my bus home. I stood out on the sidewalk kicking at the grass as I watched the busses pull out onto the road. This must be my penance. I hitched my backpack and started the very long walk home.

Half a mile later, a car pulled off the road in front of me. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sun, but I knew the color of that car. Craig Peters got out and my heart dropped into my stomach.

“Hey There. Need a lift?”

I couldn’t seem to get any words out so I nodded instead. Craig Peters was giving me a ride home! Maybe this day wasn’t so bad. After all, I was a real rebel. A regular rule breaker.

“You’re in my Biology class right?”

I nodded again. Then swallowed hard. “That’s right. Thanks for the ride. I live off Old Preacher’s road. You can just drop me off at the corner store.”

“Sure. No problem.” He gunned the engine and spun off leaving a spray of dirt behind us.

I watched as he passed the turn off to my road. “Um.”

“Mind if I show you a secret spot I found first?”

“Ok.” My heart leapt, Craig Peters wanted to show me something!

About six miles later, he turned down a dirt track that led into the woods and parked the car. He smiled. “It’s just up the way. You can leave your bag here.”

“Alright.” I got out and followed him down the path toward the sound of water. Just beyond the rise, the path dipped down into a little hollow and there was a bubbling sulfur spring. I could taste the tang in the air.

“Come on.” He said as he pulled off his shirt.

“I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“I didn’t think a girl like you would be scared to go skinny dipping.”

“A girl like me? You don’t even know my name.” He stepped toward me, finger grazing the bottom of my chin. “Take a dip with me Jenny.” I blinked dumbfounded. He did know my name.

He turned his back and stripped off the rest of his clothes. I couldn’t help staring at his butt as he slipped out of his jeans and into the water.

“Well are you coming?” He kept his back to me and I thought “What the hell. I’d already broken one rule today, what was one more.”

“Alright.” I pulled off my clothes, left them in a pile next to his, and got in the steaming water. Craig turned around and grabbed my arms, pulling me to him.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a while,” he said and then he kissed me.

At the very moment, when my world was crashing around me and sending me off flying to the moon, I heard a rustle and opened my eyes to see Sheila and three others jump out of the bushes, grab my clothes, and run off.

Craig jumped out of the water, scooped up his own clothes, and chased after them. I knew I’d been had the minute I heard his car start up. I trudged back down the path to find my backpack, but not my clothes, sitting in the dirt where his car had been.

Momma always said if you did the crime, you did the time. I picked up my backpack and started home again. The funny thing was. I didn’t feel humiliated. I felt free and oddly alive. Even if I was standing naked as a jaybird in the middle of nowhere. Craig Peters, the cutest boy in school, had kissed me.

What’s in a Genre?

I’m still finding my voice as a writer. I’m still searching for my niche, if I even have a niche. I like to challenge people and make them think outside their comfort zones. I want my readers to questions the everyday things they have come to take for granted. Ideologies that they live by; yet, never bothered to look at or question.

Maybe it’s because I don’t like boxes. I don’t like labels. I like reinventing myself. I do it every time I sit down to write. I slip into my character as if I’m shedding a personality and suddenly I’m this new person. I’m also a kinesthetic writer. I go out and learn to do the things my characters do. I think of it as research. People in my life sometimes think of it as insane.

My favorite thing to explore in writing is the psychological messiness that lives in every one of us. It’s the experiences that leave us scarred and bruised that also give us the most richness to our personalities. I like to play in that soup of conflicting emotions and search for meaning. I also tend to do horrid things to my characters as well.

I also like to write simple pieces that explore the everyday connections people make. The small things that bind us together, or scare us.

In my research, my type of storytelling could fall in several categories. I could be romance, Chick-Lit, Thriller/suspense, or even horror. I certainly have a yen for writing psychological thrillers, and I do like exploring relationships; but the thing that drives me the most, I want my reader to walk away with a strong emotion from my story.

There have been times I’ve written a flash fiction piece with the sole intention of giving my reader PTSD. I’ve also scared myself while writing a suspenseful flash fiction piece late at night. I want to poke at my little lizard brain and make it go AHHHHH!!!!

So what genre does this make me?

Living in the digital fish bowl

I have a serious problem with social media these days. My problem is with other people and their lack of consideration on how their actions impact other people. I have a problem with someone choosing to post images of another person without said person’s permission. Just because the person posting the image thinks it’s harmless, doesn’t mean it is. I know lots of folks who live alternative lifestyles and live it out loud to anyone and everyone, but some of us don’t want to live in that kind of a spotlight.
Some people choose to live their lives with discretion and keep boundaries between their social, personal, and professional lives.

You hear stories about it more and more every day. Someone gets fired over it, or it causes a divorce, used in lawsuits etc… Photos posted on social media sites are not harmless or private, despite what other people claim. How many times have you heard someone say: “But my site is protected, or it’s private.” I have news for you. It isn’t. Once you put it on the internet, it’s no longer private and it can have repercussions no matter how many times you want to cite the first amendment.

Sadly it’s getting to the point where the average person can’t go out in public without ending up having their image and subsequently their personal lives splashed all over the internet. This is when advocates of the first amendment will chime in and scream censorship and how you have no reasonable expectation of privacy while out in public.

Yes you’re right. When I am walking down the street, I have a reasonable expectation that I will be seen. I have a reasonable expectation that while I’m out playing at a park with my kid I will be observed, but I also have a reasonable expectation that the embarrassing thing that just happened will only be momentary and forgotten soon, instead of posted on the internet forever for ridicule and scorn. I should be able to have a reasonable expectation when I am at a private party that I’ve paid to attend, to not have my image used to promote the venue, market the venue, or really just get posted on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, or Flickr. Why, because that is my personal life.

I don’t go into the office and talk about the crazy shenanigans I had over the weekend or bitch about my personal drama to my coworkers. That’s my professional life. I don’t tell my clients who I’m dating or share photos of my girls’ weekend in Vegas. I keep things professional. Professional People! Learn this. When you are at work, no one cares about your after work extracurriculars. You are expected to do your job and act in a way that positively represents the company while you are there.

(The fact that employers are using social media to investigate their employees is a different matter entirely and has its own ethical murkiness.)

The truth is social media changes things. The lines between personal and professional are not as easy to keep clean and they do bleed into each other. The truth is it also has negative impacts. When people were posting on the internet anonymously it was fine, but that is almost impossible to maintain these days. There are always tech savvy people who can and will hack their way into finding out the identity of the anonymous account. (This is closer to actual journalism than paparazzi snapping photos of celebs.)

People have forgotten that those boundaries were in place for a reason. They erroneously think that if it’s not on company time then it’s personal and therefore private, but in this day and age since an employee’s actions can negatively impact the image of a company, what you do online is no longer considered purely personal and it sure isn’t private when you are posting for every stranger around the world to see.

So stop posting images that aren’t of you, or that you don’t have the individual’s permission to post. Stop posting other people’s embarrassing moments, and for the sake of your future employment desires stop posting your own bad behavior for the whole world to see.

I do; therfore, I am

I have always wanted to be a writer. I started young writing poetry and even had poems published when I was in high school. I thought I would go to college and learn how, but once I was in college I failed to be able to produce anything. My creative side yearned for it, but practically I just hadn’t lived enough to have anything to say and I didn’t understand the mechanics and technical side of creating a story. So I went out and lived. I’ve lived a full, rich, and often complex life.

Now here I am in my 30’s picking up this long held dream. I’m still a fledgling at it and I have a ton to learn about the whole process, but I finally feel like I can. I’m learning how to tackle deadlines and plots. I’m piecing my way through pacing and finding a voice. I still need to work on creating impactful settings, but I’ve gotten good at the psychological interplay between characters and understanding their motivations.

I recently read a post from a person who was very critical of anyone identifying themselves as a writer when they made grammatical errors and it made me sit and ponder the identity of being a writer.

Is it really about grammar and the technical aspects of crafting words into meanings? Until you do that perfectly does that mean you aren’t a writer?

What about the soul of a writer?

If you have ever just had to sketch a scene in your head, or craft a backstory about strangers in the grocery store, then you know what I mean here. There is an obsessive quality that takes over and you just have to write. Good. Bad. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that is real is this need to write. The only truth you know is you have to take words and wrap them into a vision and express something that is intangible and often ephemeral.

I scoff at the grammar Nazis. I find them to be small minds who criticize because they lack a creative soul, or they are just insecure people who need to put other people around them down to make themselves feel less threatened.

Technical skill can be learned by anyone, but the creative soul of an artist to instill emotion and life into those same technical skills is not something that can be taught. You either do or you don’t. Like any skill in life, no one starts out doing it perfectly. It takes practice and work to hone and polish the skill and the more you use it the more you begin to level up in said skill.
So yeah, I’m not perfect. I make mistakes and I have a ton to learn about the technical skills of writing and crafting stories. That doesn’t mean I’m not still a writer.

I am a writer.

As Rilke wrote in his book Letters to a young artist: ““Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

I am a writer because I have to write.

I wither and die without it.

One day I hope to become a good writer, and then a great one. Until that day comes though, I will continue to work and practice my skills. I will continue to share what I have written and seek out feedback and notes that will help me get better. I will continue to seek out greater illumination on what doesn’t work, what does, and the why.

"Blind"

Pony up the ante boys...
This filly
don't
come cheap.


Your golden tongue
is useless,
On the dusty path
you're treading.


The grit
obscures
your vision
Shuffling along,
a path of indecision.


You can't see
the devastation
in front of you.


You're too busy
Focused,
on the sparkling
motes,
dancing around you.


Careful man...

Or you might lose it all.

When the dust settles
and the bags are packed,
The only thing
You find you want...

Will not be
The one left
Standing.

"The Unquiet Heart"

It’s cold and wet here, but then it’s always cold and damp in this place where love is a barren dream. When love comes with an x factor that is immutable and intangible; and yet, still impacts everything it touches. You were a sweet dream that blew in on a storm, churning the emotional waters of a still lake that bled depth into the choppy sea, breathing life and passion into me. Why then do I still feel the wake of your passing now that you are long gone? Maybe it’s a desperate plea for you to return. A vain hope, that is a cruel mistress, who taunts me, making me believe that someday I’ll open the door and find you there waiting. Waiting with that patient half smile you always watched me with; I was a lab animal and you were my beautiful scientist cataloguing my habits.

You were always the free spirit, laughing in the wind and chasing the madness with a smile. The world came alive around you and sent tendrils into everyone you met. You walked into a room, and sent out sparks that charged the skin, and sought out life with a fervor itching to be consumed. The air fairly crackled around you and that passion pierced the shadows around my heart.

I felt it that first moment my eyes swept across yours in a sea of people. The hot sticky Georgia summer pulsed around us, thick as soup that lay heavy in our lungs as we breathed in the night air. There was a magnetism that drew me to you; and in an unaccustomed moment of abandon, I asked you to dance. You laughed, tipping your head back and the throaty noise slipped around me, ensnaring me.

“You’re cute sugar,” You replied with your husky voice that felt like scotch burning its way into my belly and leaving a smoldering fire of yearning in its wake. “I don’t dance.”

And then you sauntered off, giving me a careless wink as you left. My world came crashing down around me that night. That one wink and I knew I had to possess you. Knew you had to be mine; but it was you who possessed me, you who claimed me, and I was lost in a sea of want.

I was a knave. I knew nothing of love, nothing of that soul stirring passion that turns you into a mad thing possessed and tormented by demons. I used to argue that love was a myth. An imaginary land created in our youth that crumbled under the onslaught of time. I never could understand my peers launching into wailing epitaphs over a lost love, only to recover the next weekend and be back together, or find someone new. This constant newness, the ever changing landscape of love landing on unsuspecting bystanders, seemed insane.

It was my first lover, I argued with over this very detail. The very nature of desire and obsession obscured our young minds, and we would debate for hours over the merits of love, only to end up falling on each other in carnal need, oblivious to any thought of love in the moment. I would quote French philosophers at him. He would roll his eyes, telling me I was having an existential crisis and to come back to bed.
It was from this first encounter, I embraced the notion that love was a fruitless obsession, a dream that stole lives. He was a layover and I was a confused traveler unsure of my destination.

I’m still confused.

What is it about love that leaves you lost without a compass or map? You were my compass once and I spent eternity mapping your body, every soft curve: that little mole on the underside of your breast, the scar on your hip from a misjudged leap over a fence. I licked my way across that scar as you told me the story. You thirteen and fierce to prove the boys wrong; you had a fire in your spirit even then, and I longed to have seen you. Hair blowing in the wind, that wild mess of mane that still refuses to be tamed, you ran. Hands pushing yourself up and vaulting the fence, I can see the smug smile on your face now. I’ve seen it a thousand times already. You didn’t vault quite high enough, and the sharp metal spike tore through your hip, adding another ragged tear in those shorts you loved. A pair of thrift store jeans two sizes too big, faded into a pale blue, that you cut the legs off and replaced with ribbons. You were a gypsy even then. You landed clean though and held your head high claiming your success.

Forget travelling I just want to find home again.

Simple and uncomplicated, home used to mean a place of refuge. A place to strip off the masks we wear and relax. Even the food is simple. Apple, carrots, tea with toast, at home we eat so we don’t starve. It’s not the feast of flavors you go out seeking. It’s plain and comforting, only I can’t find comfort here anymore. I’m awake now and this stark expanse of simplicity is devoid of any color. Its limbo and I’m being punished for having not lived hard enough.

There were times I lived hard, or maybe it was just a fantasy. A dream I clung to in my vision of you. We met again after that night of the party. You were wearing a bohemian skirt and crocheted top that barely contained your breasts. I itched to touch you, to breathe you in. I was never a good catholic, but I almost sank to my knees and confessed my sinful thoughts to you right then. You smiled, as if you knew what I was thinking, and instead you asked if I read poetry.

“Sure. I love poetry.” Came my over eager response. I would have said anything to get you to spend more time with me, to continue looking at me with your soulful brown eyes. They held such mystery, and you seemed to see right through me. I did like poetry too, so it wasn’t a lie. I just hadn’t read any since Scott.

My second lover was even more unconventional than my first. It could be said that this state of being was the reason for my lack of love. He thrived on Rimbaud and Baudelaire, and introduced me to such passionate writers as Winterson and Coehlo.
I was still naïve and innocent, he was older and more sure.

I embraced this surety like a life preserver. He claimed to love me and proved it in this poetry. This haunting and tortured poetry, so I thought surely love meant suffering, and so I suffered. I dove into the drug filled madness with him and sipped absinthe in front of the fire. I wrote pale imitations of poetry, extoling all the hopelessness and pain I felt. Only it was all empty. It was a diversion to pass the time. He said I just hadn’t lived enough to really understand and feel it. Maybe he was right.

I hadn’t really lived. Not like in the movies, or as it appeared the people around me did.

It was with a short lived affair with a married woman that taught me the error of this. She was a realist, and scoffed at my notions that anything should look like it did in the movies. She said I had the right of it after all. That love was a chemical imbalance that fooled you into spitting out babies for the continuation of the species. Her bleak outlook made a refuge out of me.

“Come sit and read me some poetry then.” Your simple command had me trailing after you like a lost puppy. I followed you across the park until you came to a tree. A bent and wizened thing, it was garish amongst all the pretty oaks and willow trees. You hugged the tree and I was charmed. How could I not be, by the sweetness of your gesture, the oddness of it? I mean who hugs trees? But there you were, hugging this gnarled monstrosity and introduced it as grandmother tree.

“There is wisdom in this tree and it’s where I come to sit and listen.” You educated me before curling up under its branches and snuggling into its trunk. You pat the ground next to you imploring me to join you. I was helpless.

You were right you know. That tree was wise. The twisting of its trunk held the landscape of life. It gave way to cradle the body and made a nest of us. I pressed up next to you while you rested your head against my arm. You handed me a book. A red worn journal with gold designs on the outside, it looked too fragile to handle, and like you, was magnetically beautiful.

I opened the pages to find a Hodge podge of work, a veritable scrapbook of you. If you were a collage, this would be it, a kaleidoscope of riotous color and randomness. Like you, the images were limitless and filled with the unending possibilities of life. The pictures glued haphazardly inside the pages and over the pictures were words. Poems etched into life, some with names attributing the author, others just words floating anonymously on the page.

I read. There were simple haikus and sonnets. You opened my world to the romantic poets that day, and the sparse purity of Japanese poets. You laughed at the darker poets, whose poisoned words, reminded you to never let them win. You smiled and nodded, as my voice sang of virtues, I didn’t feel and had never known. In that sun dappled moment, I fell. I split open and bled my bitterness into the wind. That tree soaking into me and infusing me with steadiness and you melting into my body, feeding me hope.

“That was lovely. Thank you,” You said and kissed me on the cheek. A single touch, which was over too soon, save for the lingering trace of your finger, as it traveled down my cheek.

Jacques Lacan wrote: “What is real is narcissistic. What is imaginary binds.”
I became narcissus that day in the park. The person I was -reflected back at me from the shining depth of your eyes- was beautiful. I would gladly turn into a flower, if only, to just become the vision you saw me as. Here you were tangible in my arms, warm flesh and soft skin, but I was paralyzed to do anything about it. Instead I sat there mute as you stood up and smiled down at me, the wake of your kiss burning a question mark into my cheek.

What is it about unanswered questions that obsessively linger?

I have so many with you. Questions, I doubt, I’ll ever have the courage to ask.
There’s no point is there? You’re gone and I’m just a hollowed out husk that you left behind. All those words were just meaningless. Lies, that sound good in the moment to get you what you want. The air is filled with platitudes, that lay there flat like petrified pieces of shit, filling the air with the fetid stench of nothingness. Those too are meaningless in the absence; when love kicks you in the teeth, and reminds you why you never went looking for it in the first place.

There is a meanness inside me now where there wasn’t before. An anger so rich it seeps poison onto anyone who gets too close. I’d like to blame it all on you. Wrap it up in a pretty package, and leave the responsibility of it, on your doorstep, but I can’t. I want to go back to the beginning with you, but I can’t do that either.
Love is an impossible journey.

I didn’t see you again after that day in the park for months. I looked for you. I wandered around, searching out parties and cafes, hoping I would run into you. I had given up ever seeing you again, when you snuck up on me at the bookstore. I was elated. My vision blurred and I held my breath, afraid you would just disappear. You introduced me to your girlfriend and we chatted a bit before you left. I eased my heartbreak with Ben.

Beautiful, flawed Ben.

"Love hopes in Vain"

A package of gilt in loneliness weeps.

High atop a bower waits.

For love’s sweet call to awaken thee.


Who will brave the castle walls

And fight the dragons that guard the gates?

To claim the treasure that hopes in vain.