Distance

The world is breathing. I can feel the inhale of change just as well as the exhale of familiarity with every gust of wind that proceeds the last. She shrivels up at the thought of peace and instead prefers the absolute consistency of chaos that can only come from insanity. When I first saw Earth it was from a space so far off that it could only be surrounded by darkness. The kind where nothing is known and nothing is considered. Behind its eyes there was a blank state of contentment that followed on the heels of time, but lagged the persistence of passion. 

Who are you? 

Earth.

And in her name alone she held a sense of self so strange that I could only barely hear her. The colors were magnificent and the swirls of difference came to me at a pace I wasn't ready to accept. Surely she can't be that fast. 

Why do you spin?

I am out of control. There is nothing in infinity that can slow me down and if it tries it will fail time and time again.

But isn't that something consistent?

Failure?

The concept was new to me. What was trying if trying was unhappiness? To move from one state to the next was foreign and in its cotton poly blend of substantial information, I shrunk away, holding fast to the idea of sameness. I will never find peace on a planet that twirls. Yet still she spins with a motion of grace that could only be kept up by a ballerina. One of those little Russian ones with pointed feet, she must tap lightly on absolutely nothing. The clouds are like scarves and they cover only parts of her, the rest I can see and I know that piece by piece I'll be able to see her whole. Just never at one time. 

The concept is lost. 

Minced Words

"Are you Mad?" Joy asks in a voice as loud as her outfit. She has come dressed in impossibly high heels which leaves her overgrown body to teeter and sway in the holiday lights. Her hair is teased to the four corners of the party and her dress is made entirely of little green sequins to match her little green shoes. Her face glows with the intensity of a living room fire. She is soft and warm. 

"Good heavens, no. I'm merely Interested." His voice is distinctly Northern. Two different socks rest below his ankles before his substantially short pants cover the rest. Although he is of average weight, he puffs himself up with a rosy jacket full of feathers. "I hear the steps creaking louder, though. I can only imagine what he's got going on now. "

"Is he always loud?"

"Always. What do you want to talk to him for?" 

"I've got to talk to him."

"Got to is a mean circumstance."

"I had a Misunderstanding with his cousin and ever since then we haven't spoken."

"Ah," Interested says. "What about the Misunderstanding?"

"Oh, he's just annoyed."

Words with Enemies

Lugubrious sits slouched along the windowsill in the corner of the room. His dark shirt and oversized pants make him feel like an invisible child lost in the glow of left over Christmas lights. His face is gaunt with the pale realization of a stark New Years Eve. As if suddenly the night was naked itself, he turns and looks out the window. Would this year be any different? Ordinarily he would have sauntered up to the mini bar and debated this sad fact over another cocktail, except for one thing that held him back. 

Flamboyance was always too stunning to approach. She stands decorated in a red sequined gown that has a high slit up the side and sparkling red shoes to match. Her hair is like a dark ocean carrying out the rest of the party. Flamboyance surely would have made conversation with him. Perhaps she would have asked him how his year had been, and why was it, she had yet to see him at any of the other holiday parties? Instead of throwing his Occupied friend under the bus, he would have to instead look for another scapegoat. One that wasn't rushing around the room talking about how there is never enough time. 

"My goodness it's hard to believe it's already been a year," Maudlin shakes her head at Flamboyance. From afar she looks to be in her forties, but up close her skin is a mosaic of lines and texture. 

"Yes," Lugubrious nods. "I certainly hope the next one has Joy."

the complex

The rain falls sideways hitting the window horizontally. It's as if the wind has turned sideways in all its decision making and what was once a clear cut plan has now gone astray. Big wet drops slam against the glass and I can hear them pounding on the windows opposite this apartment. I'm sitting on the windowsill staring across the small courtyard with the over turned picnic table and the four by four slot of trampled grass. The Mexican children in the apartment next door are running around, soaking their crisp white Sunday shirts. A woman stands in the doorway of her stoop yelling in Spanish at them. I can see her push a strand of dark curly hair out of her eye. 

Where are the rest of the children? There used to be so many shrieking foreign languages that I wondered if this was where the melting pot started. Chinese kids, Indian kids, Spanish kids, Pakistani kids. They all played together with black barbie dolls with kinky hair and second hand bikes that had different parts sometimes glued on. A neon pink seat attached to a dark green body rolled safely down the block. Now these kids were mostly gone. 

Instead tall, dark, men in their twenties stood hunched over, spilling off their stoops and into the sidewalk. They smoked cigarettes and played rap music until three, sometimes four in the morning. Last night I heard a fight. Two guys and a girl were yelling at each other from the courtyard.

"I told you I DON'T have it," A girl protested.

"What you mean you DON'T have it? I gave it to you, right?"

"I know. I lost it."

"What you say you lost it for? You took it."

"I ain't taken shit!"

"Oh yeah? You think it just fell out your pocket? Real smart."

Then another man's voice.

"What the fuck man. I gave it to you and you gave it to this bitch? What'd you think she'd do? Give it back?"

"I'm NOT no bitch."

A piece of glass smashed against the sidewalk and everyone grew quiet. From somewhere off in the distance I heard sirens. They couldn't have gotten there so fast, yet the twenty somethings scattered, never to be heard from again.

The glass is scattered on the far left hand side of the courtyard next to number 14B's apartment. They have the ground floor one and I wonder when they look out the window if all they see is the dark brown glass glistening against the street. Maybe they don't see it at all. Maybe it's become like the rain and somehow the glistening is more like a clinking annoyance of something heading in the wrong direction. 

tinsel

Scintillation. Def: Rapid variation in the light of a celestial body caused by turbulence in Earth's atmosphere; a twinkling.

I've got scintillation on the brain. Perhaps in it as well. 

closeness

"He hit me," I said. I didn't mean to say it. The words just slipped out of my mouth and as soon as they were there, I felt as if they almost became me.

"What?" Sarah stared at the purple bruises on my forehead. Her blond hair hung down in a permanent preppy flip of a pony tail onto her shoulders. Her eyes were like saucers and I could make out each individual eye lash drowned in mascara. 

"He hit me." I repeated. My eyes were solid white which must have seemed strange to her. If Derek was going to hit someone wouldn't he hit them in the eye? Did this look too much like I had fallen down the stairs to band practice? I raised my hand to my eye instinctively. "At least he didn't get my eye."

"What happened??" Sarah instantly pulled up a chair. I hadn't seen her since last years family picnic and she had hardly spoken to me. Instead she was busy talking to aunt Lucy about her grades at B.U. which were of course exclusively A's. I wondered what she would have done if she hadn't gotten the job teaching English at a private school. Her innocent blue eyes would have rolled right into the back of her head.

"We got into a fight," I said. "We were arguing about this guy I know, Jimmy. I guess he doesn't like Jimmy much."

She pushed the few stray strands of her perfect pony tail back into place.  "And he just punched you?"

I shook my head as if I were ashamed. The more I talked about it, the more real it became. Who knew if Derek hit me or not? I hadn't seen my mother in over a year and Sarah was the only sister I had and I rarely talked to her. I remembered the conversations we had over the phone when I had overdosed on Adderal in the 10th grade. She had patiently talked to me about my troubles with Mom and how she knew it would be all okay once I was older. I never knew what that meant for Sarah, but we never talked much about it afterward. I wrote her long letters about school and my first boyfriend, a gamer named Matt. When she never wrote back, I imagined her with her never ending circle of friends, making frozen waffles and watching Melrose Place.

"You know that's really bad, right?" She reached out to touch the bruise but I stepped back.  A few years ago when I broke my arm skiing she had sent me a card with fifty dollars in it telling me to go out and have a good time and fuck having an arm. I laughed and went to see the movie Fargo. It seemed like the kind of film that she would appreciate with her friends once it came out on DVD. 

"I know." I nodded enthusiastically. "It's just that he loves me so much."

"But don't you know that lots of people love you so much?" Her eyes were so wide I could feel the lids splitting in half as they tried to meet her eye brows. They would never cross paths. Each one in their own way would be too exaggerated to ever meet the other.

"Thanks," I smiled. And for a minute I forgot that Derek was a made up name in a made up story.  

At the least

"Oh my God, girl! I haven't seen you in soooo long," she swings her gigantic brown tribal designed purse down onto the seat beside the girl in blue.  She could be carrying the entire world in that purse. Bulges with corners sticking straight out mash with curves of soft leather. Her cell phone is in her hand, so I know there has to be more room for jewelry, extra clothes, vegan health bars, and cosmo magazines stuffed in the sides.

"I know! I can't believe Kelly's getting married," she whispers the last part. I wish they would whisper the whole conversation, but no such luck.

The two girls could be sisters they look so much alike. They are both tall, average weight with mousy brown hair that hangs past their shoulders. They wear bulky scarves that look like 30 dollars at Urban Outfitters. They are definitely in their late twenties, early thirties.

"So do you like Charles?" Blue girl looks at Miss Enthusiastic with dead eyes.
"Honestly?"
"Of course."
Miss Enthusiastic turns sullen. She sticks her entire arm into the tribal purse and pretends to be looking for something unobtainable. "He's..."
"Horrid." The girl in blue finishes for her.
"Why are they getting married?"
"I don't know."
"Did she get pregnant?" Miss Enthusiastic pulls her arm out of the purse. Empty handed.
"I don't think so, but now that you mention it she has been wearing a lot of baby doll shirts."
"We should have kept better in touch with her."
"I think she's working at the mall," Blue girl says. "But you know, in that fancy boutiquey place. What's it called?"
Enthusiastic girl nods without answering. "Boutiques are so cute. I got this amazing little gypsy dress at one just the other day. Actually it might still be in my purse," she instinctively grabs the leather strap.
"Yeah. Only... I wouldn't want to work there."
"Oh I know." There's a giant silence as all of us watch a large woman in her sixties waddle into the coffee shop wearing a shawl with little gray and red roses sewn onto it. The dress goes all the way up to her collar bone.
"I mean, at least she's getting married." Blue girl leans across the table.
"Yeah," Enthusiastic girl is stuck staring at the little cotton roses. "And really? Who cares if he doesn't like her going out without him?"
"There's nowhere to go anyway."
"Exactly." Miss enthusiastic swings the purse over her shoulder and stares out the window.  "God I'm so glad I don't live here anymore."