i'll say it if i want

HATE

just rolls off the tongue.

HHAATTEE

I'd eat it for breakfast and breathe fire all day. I'd feel the satisfying burn until dusk.

yum, delicious.

then I'd burp a red ring of smoke that will linger like fog
confident,
unscathed by good intentions.

i love you, hate.
my hate.

love letter

Dearest father,

I hate you. I've hated you since I was fourteen, and now you should know.

I've fantasized about your demise, smiling inside. Sometimes I've thought of doing it myself. Something brutal. Something slow. I want to watch your regret. And I'd watch you try to be sorry.

But you never are. Never.
And you have no regrets, selfish man.

What do you care about? You've memorized the tv guide. Your computers always on. You have tons of shit. Useless shit.

You have two kids. You have a wife.

And you are useless.

Where is your love? What is your love?

I dreamt about it once, what it could be. Maybe you'd come home with my favorite mexican food and ask to have dinner with me. Maybe you'd wish me goodnight. Maybe you'd say you're proud. You love me. You want me. I'm beautiful, and you're so grateful.

Maybe you'd even care about something, anything, other than yourself.

But I awake everyday to the devastating reality of you. Your lazy saunter. Your permanent scowl. The unmitigated disappointment you've caused me.

You stay here; I must go now. I will not turn back.

I'm not sorry.

But neither are you, I think.

most successful recipe

I feel the slow, hot burn of unremitting rage.

I am a furnace of anger; I slow cook my insides on high heat until they roast.

Boil.

Then ignite.

I am enveloped in the agonizing pincushion of hate. and it's for you. Please accept my offering, darling.
I've wrapped it in red. Mad red. I hope you don't mind? It's all I have. And it's for you.

You go ahead and take it. Suffer with it. Suffer with me.
Hate me back.
Do it.
I DARE you.

And then you will cook. You will Sizzle and prickle. I hope you are pan-fried alive from the inside.

Do you feel it yet?

wilted

It seems like the uphill battle of ugly winds forever upward.

The mirror is UNkind; it's depiction of reality is at odds with the sweet, romantic saga I've tried to delude myself with for my day to day existence. Though even my delusion is a gossamer shadow--it is exposed in a soft breeze.

I have always been he quintessential ugly duckling. I spent the greater part of my childhood hiding behind gigantic plastic glasses and at least thirty extra pounds. I have never fully recovered from the cruel playground torment I was subjected to in my early years. I am still that girl alone on the swings; dateless on prom night.

I've done what I can. The glasses are long gone, for one. Mascara and lipstick are godsends. But even as I type, I am distracted by what I am convinced are unusually portly sausage fingers and less than desirable thighs. I have a laundry list of hates to match my catalog of wishes and a bottomless cauldron in which I can stir them.

My truth and my beauty seem to live at opposite ends of the same vessel, yet never seem to cross paths. I want harmony in both--to live in a song.

I want to set ablaze these unforgiving notions; to burn a trail through memory.

I want to be the swan.

And, please, to believe it.

Stuck

I am going nowhere at full speed. Here I am sitting still in a fetid pit of insurmountable frustration while everyone speeds away.

And here I sit. Stuck at a wall too tall to climb, so I kick it. I punch it and curse it, while my dilemma seems to worsen.

So here I sit. Too tired to speak, too sore to move, bleeding, and nowhere.

sentimental

I never used to cry at things. Anything, really, save for the occasional wound, a broken arm, or the vicious retribution of my brother.

I saw "Gone With the Wind" when I was eleven, and sat in relative ambivalence to Scarlett's tribulations. When I looked over, my mom wore a red-eyed, puffy faced expression of grief at which I snickered.

My mom has always been the quintessential crier. Movies, beauty, love, songs, trees. She cries. It is not a woeful cry, or a longing, but rather a tribute to God. A thank you; this is all I have.

Silly mom, I always thought with a twinge of guilt. Wait... Should I be doing that?

And then I did.

It started when I was eighteen. It was not a particularly special occasion that prompted my graceful tears of quiet awe. Just nothing and everything.

And now I, too, am a crier. Like my mom, my tears are prompted by the smallest details of day to day life. The things that do not demand my attention, but wait patiently to be noticed. The things that hint at a bigger picture.

I don't hide my tears like I used to. I've been embarrassed. I've been laughed at. But what can I do but say, "thank you. this is all I have."

Parasite

Get off my back, monkey. I do not want you: screechy, scratching, annoying, cloying little thing.

Get off and go.

You do not keep me warm. You do not offer me comfort. I'm tired of your drainage, your sly ways, your slick tricks, and your leeching. You make me itch, you make me twitch, and when you're gone I'll switch to the snug comfort self-assurance. And I will envelop myself in the ease of trust.

I will not miss your vexing nags. Things will be peaceful when you're gone, and while I stand up straighter, I will happily live here and now.