I’m not in love with the boy next door. He sings the blues to his dog, mumbling over a cigarette that occasionally falls.
“AH FUCK,” it fell again.
He won’t work the courage up, but that’s alright. Maybe I’ll drop by, but he’ll just be singing the blues 10 o’clock sharp.
Is that him on the bus?
I saw him looking through the hedge while I was washing the dishes.
Have you seen my preteen stalker?
He repeats this line over and over, “Need I say my love’s misspent.” I hear him thumping his guitar, but he’s not singing anymore.

It's Christmas in the common. At night the naked canopies of trees seem to float with twinkling lights, buoyed by the darkness -- like a fairy tale come down to earthy-knuckled Boston.

We're at Zim's, at a table by the windows, mid-morning, the fairies are asleep. El just sat down. She has a red scrape decorating a cheekbone, an early present from her boyfriend, Frank.

We've been best friends since we were ten. She looks at me, then looks out the window and across the street, to empty benches in the snow.

"Ask me about something else," she finally says. "Please."

20091218 15:29 Fri (100 words)

Tags: theme: ask me about

Ask me about one of my closest friends who committed suicide five years ago tomorrow. Ask me how beautiful, intelligent, kind, cheerful and talented she was. Ask me how the sound of her laughter was. Ask me how her brown eyes would read me like an open book. Ask me about that fateful morning when I learnt about her death on the phone. Ask me how when sleep eludes me even today, I close my eyes and hear her sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Tell me what to do to get rid of this guilt that submerges me each time.

Tags: theme: ask me about
Feeling: crushed
Listening to: I will remember you by Sarah Mclachlan

There is room beneath your bed for me.

Fingers twisted together, tight enough to break. Your breath is warm, your thoughts aren't your own. They ruined you, telling you to wait, to be careful, don't love. Keep that part of you to yourself, it's not for sharing.

You tell me with your head against my knees, the air between us keeping a secret of the most fragile words you've ever trusted someone with. We're hidden between blankets, tiled floor making my toes numb.

But we'll stay here forever, bodies pressed together. Watching people's feet as they pass by. Breathing again.

ask me about that girl i used to know. i fucking dare you, ask me.

ask me about how i’ve wasted everything, how i’m so lost and stupid and so, so, always so stupid.

ask me about my melodramatics and my patheticness. ask me about her, why i bother, what i think about, when.

ask me about every last goddamn detail, about every moment, every day of my last six years. fucking ask. and stop making me feel so ashamed for falling in love and falling apart.

ask me about how i feel about seeing her tomorrow. just ask me.

Tags: theme: ask me about
Listening to: travelling, swallowing, dramamine

Ask me about my sex change! Who are we kidding, you definitely want to know! There's nothing you can say that would offend me and nothing I haven't been asked before!

Ask me about my politics and my gender and my family.

Ask me about how long it took, how expensive it was, and ask me about shaving your face!

Ask me about my hair growth and my clit growth and my voice change, ask me about the expensive doctor who stuck a knife into my chest.

Ask me about my sex change—ask me something I've never been asked before.

Tags: theme: ask me about
Feeling: accomplished

Ask me about my life and where I’ll be next Summer, leave nothing to chance I’ll tell you all. Ask me why I re-trace my steps home every night and what waits for me there. Ask me about my music taste and why it’s not important to our story. Ask me why I like movies that leave me blank and I’ll show you one. Ask me why I want to draw for the rest of my life; I’ll paint you a picture. I’ll show you things you would never wish to see. Tell me about yourself for once, go on.

Tags: theme: ask me about

Ask me about my bad taste in music; maybe you'll learn about a band you never knew existed.

Ask me about my taste in off-beat vacations; maybe you'll find a great new get-away or island paradise.

Ask me about my reading strategies; maybe you'll find a new way to parse the library.

Ask me about my scarves; maybe you'll be inspired to go buy one.

Ask me about my sexual exploits; maybe you'll be inspired to try something new, if you know what I mean.

Ask me about my relationship with God; maybe you'll find a new dimension in an old relationship.

Tags: theme: ask me about

Ask me about my son. Please? No one mentions him anymore. Christmas Day will be three months since he was stillborn. But he was, you know. Still. Born.

Ask me about loss and grief and postpartum depression. Ask me about the starfish urn on our dining room buffet. Ask me about comforting a ten year old who should be an older brother.

Ask me about preterm labor. I will tell you about both my sons; the signs I ignored. I will tell you that I want to be 39 weeks and done being pregnant. What I have now is despair.

Tags: theme: ask me about

Ask me about the trajectory of real bullets and invisible guns.

Ask me about literature, books so highlighted they become mere modern art to anyone beyond the owner.

Ask me about geshes who love me down to my ignorant core and yet love me equally with the pond scum of the earth.

Ask me about the moments spent on balconies, crying over bowls of rice and dal or through cigarette smoke; ask me about laughter and girl-talk in the rain.

But don't ask me about myself. I am an assemblage of parts. I will never fully disassemble, and that's okay.

Tags: theme: ask me about