27's (for my cousin)

She swallowed the lump in her throat as she moved into the bedroom. For over a year, this room had been sacred. It had been her haven, where regardless the fights or the miscommunication, she could seek refuge; in the blankets, in the bed, in his arms. He was nonchalantly rummaging through a drawer, and in that one moment she could not remember what objects that drawer held. She felt she was made of stone as her throat formed the words.
"We really need to talk."
He turned to face her, mechanically, solemnly. "I need to take a shower."
The words hit her like blows, each one seeming more uncaring and indignant than the last. She tried again.
"We really. Need to talk." Recognition crossed his face, the only saving grace to their life at the moment.
"Can I just get in the shower? I'll feel better when you do this if I can just be in the shower."
Had the moment not been so completely life defining, had she not felt the need to rip out her heart and show him what he had done to it, she may have laughed. Instead she just agreed. They moved into the bathroom.
He undressed. He climbed into the shower, turned on the water.
It was intimate and yet cold. She could hear the water streaming through his hair and on his body. She sank and sat on the toilet. She pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes.
"I can't do this anymore." The words seemed to belong to someone else. Someone else who could muster the kind of courage it took to say the five words that would change her very being.
Her body froze, and yet time did not. She half expected her very world to crumble at its corners as she had made this proclamation, and instead, the water continued to fall and she continued to breathe. It was both hopeful and heartbreaking.
He murmured an agreement. She was shaking. It was slight, and it was subtle, but it was there.
Unsure of what to do, uncertain of how to start the new life she had just entered, she pulled off a layer of clothing and crawled into bed. Their bed. He climbed in after her, and his skin gave off the steam her emotions could not. He fell asleep, and it was too quickly. As she listened to him slumber she became more hurt, and slightly irritated.
As his breaths turned into snores, she threw the sheets off and listened to her mind, to her feelings, to her heart. She edged away, moved to a spot in the bed where she felt for one last time she could be untouchable.

She awoke in the morning, and as she looked at him, she knew it was over. As he continued to sleep she carried herself out of bed. She packed a box. One, lonely box, to serve as a reminder for what she was doing. She carried it to her car. She slid into the drivers seat, and as though it was just a regular day she buckled up and put the car into reverse. She was strong. Stronger than she would ever realize.

She turned on her music and with a steady voice she started to sing. She lit a cigarette and inhaled. It was warm and comforting, in ways the man she had just left never could be. It wasn't until she looked in her rear view mirror that she saw the tears rolling their way down her face. She left them there, unwilling to wipe them away for anyone, much less the boy she had left behind who would never get to see them. These were for her. And as she drove, the tears lightened the load. As she drove, she started a new life.

A letter for honesty

Distractions, in the end, are probably more trouble than they are worth.
"Color my world with the chaos of trouble".

I want to be alone right now. I want to figure out exactly who I am and what I stand for in this life. I can't do that with someone by my side. I make myself a puzzle piece, I make myself mold into the nooks and curves of other people, and in the end I'm left feeling alone, unloved, and unhappy because I'm not me anymore, I'm a copy of a version of me. I don't want that anymore.

When I finally, finally find love again, (and what is this abstract concept anyway? All the love I've ever known and seen flickers and dies) I want to be with someone who is never afraid to read the pages of my life. I want to know who they want to sleep with and what movie stars get them going. I want to know what their worst fear is. I want to be in a relationship with someone who I am completely comfortable with. I want to not feel jealous because we are honest with each other. I want them to think it's cute when I flirt with men and I want to be able to laugh when they hit on women. Because we are not meant to be these monogamous creatures who suddenly turn off our sexual instincts when we settle down. And to live in a life where that is what you think is a lie. I don't want a lie. I want raw, unedited, passionate love that doesn't complete me because I'm already whole.

I want the real deal. I won't settle for less. And that's going to take a lot of effort on my part. I am insecure. I get jealous. I get confused and jumbled in a windswept currant of emotion and I want to be able to be with someone who is my best friend in every sense of the word. Who can come to me and complain about my flaws and I still know it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, they still love me for exactly who I am. I want to know who and what turns them on, I want to know every detail and root for them.

Love shouldn't be...love isn't supposed to be clean. It isn't supposed to be I want you and no one but you because that is laughably untrue.

I want to grow. And know myself back to front and know exactly where I draw the line and what I stand for. I want honesty. Unburdened, true to its core honesty. Without it we sell ourselves short.


I won't find this, for quite some time, because the partner I would want my partner to be with doesn't exist quite yet. She's a concept. But I feel it's future me. That's what I deserve.

I have my flaws and my quirks. My pro's and my con's. But at the end of the day I want happiness for everyone and that includes myself.

I want an adventure that's dirty and irrevocably satisfying.
I want this. I'll have this.
But not now.

I'm not even close yet.

For my Father

The sky was full of grey’s and blues as the sun hid inside the clouds. Amidst the many decorations in the backyard, sat two people, one wizened and grayed, with the hint of a smile that crinkled out from the corners of his blue eyes. The other, a girl, sat cross legged in an armchair, similar blue eyes concentrated on the smoke that escaped the mans cigar and exhales. The smell reminded her of her childhood and she leaned back and smiled haphazardly.
“They told me it would never float,” He started, as he talked with his cigar in between his teeth. It bobbed up and down, as if waving to the girl in the chair. “And I told them they had no other choice but to make it float.” He stopped then and withdrew the cigar. Smiling, he continued. “All I wanted, was a two story lodge that floated in the water. Now really, was that so much to ask?” With a chuckle he shook his head. The girl felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. She knew the man to be tough and temperamental when he needed to be. It was a quality the confrontation fearing girl had always admired. She re-crossed her legs and looked up at the sky.
“I don’t know when the dream occurred to me, but once I knew what I wanted it was a power that I didn’t want to stop. To look back now and see how much I lost and gained during those years gives me an insight I don’t expect you to understand until you’re much older.
‘Once I started to envision this lodge, this sanctuary, where people could go to be close with their families and do something that was once in a lifetime, it’s all I wanted. I dreamt about it during conference calls with my clients, and marinated over it when I was knee deep in paperwork. Do you remember those days? Do you remember how long I stayed cramped up in that office?”
The girl only nodded, from the look on her face it appeared that the days of being cooped up in an office had long since past, and had done so when she had been too young to understand what sacrifice meant. She invited him to keep telling his story. He straightened his legs and slid down his chair a little, as the cigar in his hand lightly gave off its smoky aroma.
“I feel like the day I finally found where I wanted to put that lodge was the day I lost your mother.” He shifted almost painfully as the memory swam across the periphery of his vision. “You know I’ll always love your mother right? Well of course you do. I wish her nothing but the best. If things could have been different…” He lost himself in thought for a moment, but with a shake of the head corrected himself. “Things weren’t different, things never are, that’s the way life just happens to work out. You start down a new path of life and the old path becomes covered in thorns and shrubbery. The point is that your mother and I fell apart when almost everything with that lodge had fallen together. And then all my dreams, my planning, my blueprints…they told me they could never build a two story lodge because it wouldn’t float.”
His eyes grew misty and he laughed a small laugh, a note of understanding that life is an unfair and cruel mistress at times. “The anger in my voice that day could have brought a small town onto their knees. I don’t know how else I ever could have even gotten that crew to try. But they eventually broke down and they did try, and I’ll be damned if it hasn’t floated now for 7 years. They had never seen anything like that before, and since then they still haven’t. Since then my lodge is still the only one in the inlet with a top deck. It was a step into that dream that could have shot down anything, but I kept envisioning it the way I wanted it to be, and it eventually shifted into place.”
“Starting that lodge up was a nightmare. It was blissful and exhilarating while at the same time being the worst thing I had ever tried doing. Those first two years I was up for almost 20 hours straight a day, sometimes more. Those opening years taught me things about myself I didn’t even think I’d ever learn. But I got through it, and that lodge is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. It calmed me, restored my soul, brought me sanity through years I wasn’t sure I would get through. And I’ll tell you one thing, if that damn rig had sank in the water I would have sank too. I don’t know what I would do without that lodge.”
And of course the girl understood. The lodge, though hated at first for stealing her father away from her, from her first days of school and unsuccessful dates, had long ago been redeemed. At nineteen, she had escaped to the lodge when she could no longer bear the life she had spiraled herself into, and it had been working at that very lodge that had also saved her sanity and her control of her life. Her story had come before this one, and the father and daughter exchanged a knowing look that not many else in this world would understand. The struggle it takes for dreams to come true, the disappointment associated in letting yourself down, and the weight of the world falling off your back as everything fits into place. The acceptance of growing and not only recognizing and mourning your regrets, but letting them go so you can be a present part of the world, of your life.
The sun slid away from the clouds and cast a bright light over the two in the backyard. They both looked up and saw the same thing: a Canadian sky.
The girl spoke. “Dad, when the weather is like this and the sun looks like that it reminds me of days…” Cut off by the man leaning forward and putting a hand on her knee, she smiled.
“I know.” He said.
A bond unbreakable by the fast paced world and the moments that are taken for granted they both sat, looking up at the sky. A lifetime, a summer, a country had seemed to pass in just a few minutes. Her eyes had begun to water, and whether from tears or sunlight the girl was unsure. But as she spoke, her words were steady.
“I love you, Dad.”

Soldier

The air was cold and the sky was black. Two men sat outside a tent, squatting in the dirt as they held their rifles in their hands. As they exhaled a puff of smoke came from their lungs, the sign of a cold night.
The recruit checked his watch. It was 11:56 pm. With a grunt he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. It was freezing and he could softly hear the snores from the men inside the tent behind him. It was a small torture, to hear the slumber of those just out of reach, and yet not be one of them himself.

Beast week was supposed to make you or break you, was supposed to show you how to be a man of the military. In the weeks he had been there he had learned to disassemble and reassemble an M16 in 33 seconds, learned to no longer feel emotion when someone screamed in his face, had learned to disassociate himself from happy memories of full nights of sleep and meals that lasted longer than three minutes. All this training, and he still couldn't fight off the fucking cold. He set down his rifle and rubbed his hands together. His right hand slipped over his left wrist as he went to check the time again. 11:58 pm. His heart thudded loudly against his chest for a moment while he took a deep breath and gathered his rifle back into his hands. He looked over at the man next to him, a complete stranger, and yet on a night like this his only friend. His knees started to cramp from crouching and he rolled his neck up towards the sky. What he wouldn't kill for a cigarette. For a bar. For a set of warm arms to crawl into.

They told him on his first day of training that he would constantly question why he was there for the first few days, but that afterward it would start to feel like home. A dry laugh came from his throat as he realized that weeks had already flown by and he still felt lost and unsure. A smile tugged at his lips and he laughed again as he shook his head.

The man next to him raised an eyebrow in the dark and looked over at his companion. "The hell are you laughing for?"

The recruit looked at his watch again. It showed 12:01 am. He smiled sadly.
"I just turned 24."
The man next to him, at a loss of what to say, shook his head and replied; "Congratulations."

And after that, it was gone. Suddenly, it was just another morning.

Here's to truth

To you.

I think I was in denial for a long time about where you went, who you are, how this unfolded. You told me yesterday how happy you are, and I want to be happy for you, but it feels like a knife in my side. All I wanted to do when we were together was make you happy, and I failed over and over and over again. I could go on about how unfair all this is, that you could treat me so badly and cheat on me, and just move on to leave me with the pieces.

But all is fair in love and war.

I may be broken, but I'm getting stronger in the weaker places. A lot of guys have wanted to be with me since we've broken up, and I just care too much to settle for any of them. I'm not just latching on to whatever comes my way. I'm done settling.

I woke up this morning, and finally realized that you're gone, and I don't love you anymore. The person I loved was taken from me by alcohol and an egotistic attitude that is cold to the touch and the heart. I don't know you.

I don't.

And I'm not going to let that shake my foundation anymore. You taught me something. You taught me to keep my eyes open. The second I see someone is unhappy, or not treating me well, it's done. It's going to be over. You taught me that people change, and it's deceptive and subtle. That people can change in really awful ways.

I'm stronger than I used to be. My stomach can take more. I laugh louder, without your drunken obscenities around to bring me down. I'm a better person when I don't have to take care of you.

I live with three people who love me unconditionally, which is how I love. They love me no matter what I do, no matter what I say, we are a team here. I love this house, I love this life.

Sometimes I wish that the old you were around, so I could lay in his arms and tell him all about my life, and we could laugh and dance together. That's when you hear from me. When I delude myself into thinking that you're still around.

And then I hear back from the new you, and it completely breaks me apart.

Not because I bear romantic feelings, but because it is a slap in the face reminder that you aren't here anymore. Some asshole is masquerading around with your face on and he does a horrible job at pretending he's you. He's harsh and cold. He bears no signs of regret or empathy. He is selfish and unkind.

He's nothing like the one I knew and loved.

In a way it's almost like losing you. I did lose you. We lost each other.
And I don't think I'll ever find you again.

So for now a note will have to do. Know that wherever you are (and maybe you're trapped deep inside that monster)
I think of you. I think of you and I remember. And I smile.
And I wish you were around to see it.

Always,
Mallory

Fables

I am running
Backwards
Paper cut by the pages of my history
That whip past me as I
Run against
The grain.

Photographic memories
That lead me to the same
Places
I’ve been before
The captured scenes of
Salty tears that collide with

Mascara,
Black streaks imprinted on
My face
The smudges are everywhere.

I have to slow
Down
I have to catch
My breath as his lies slide down
My throat and wait
Patiently.
(I’m suffocating)

There are these
words
dedicated to parts
That are too tender (too painful)
They are verbose and
Exaggerated
An effort to show that the scars that linger on my

Skin
Are just flesh wounds
Just scrapes that lie shallow and
Dormant
(Can you tell they’re so deep?)

I slowly learned we were on separate
Pages
I did not realize we were in different
Books
Me in the joy of monogamy
You in the pleasures of adultery.

I read you my
Story
And you slammed it shut in my
Face. And if I don’t keep
Moving
I will skitter over the spine
That holds it all together
I will destroy this novel of mine
Of ours.

…And perhaps that would not be
Such a bad thing
I clutch my chest and

Stop.

Beauty

It was finally happening. I was going to be a sixth grader. My stomach was twisted into knots, my heart pitter pattering against my chest to an unknown tempo. For the first time in my life, I was allowed to shave my legs, and I did so with pride and excitement. I had my outfit picked out for the following day and my mind raced as I laid down to sleep.
    I awoke the next morning to jittery movements as I got myself ready for the first day of the rest of my life. I was allowed to wear lipstick, and I smacked it on with exuberance. I parted my long hair down the middle and pulled on my Birkenstocks and shorts, my green tee shirt and a smile. As I slipped on my Jansport backpack I knew: this was going to be the best day I’d ever had.
    Feeling nauseous but anticipating a whole new world, I hopped out of my mom’s van and waved goodbye, feeling the breeze against my pale chubby cheeks as I started to walk towards an entirely different school, a brand new life. My smooth legs rubbed up against each other and for the first time in my life I felt like a woman. As I heard a warning bell ring I took a deep breath and hustled to class.
    Our assigned seats were given to us and we took our desks, gleaming wood that reflected the shadows of those around us. Role call started as my homeroom teacher looked at all of us to try to get to know us. My name was called.
“Mallory Heath?” I flung my hand in the air.
    “Here!” I blustered, overly excited. I heard a snicker behind me. I heard someone murmur the name Mallory Calorie. And I felt my eyes well up with tears. As my heart dropped into my stomach, my legs no longer felt smooth and sexy, but dimpled and fat. My cheeks burned as red as my lipstick as I pretended I didn’t hear what had been said.
What was supposed to be the best day of my new found life turned out to be one of the worst, and middle school turned out to be a slew of memories that I would much rather block out than remember.
    Children are creative and cruel. The rumors and names we all call each other get twisted around our insecurities until they are screaming in our faces. I vowed that day that I wouldn’t always be ugly. I vowed that day that I would work hard to make other people think I was pretty, that I would make other people see that I was a good person. I made myself believe that unless I looked good, I wasn’t worth loving. My insecurities began to take control over me, and the relentless teasing from Aprende Middle School did not help ease my over analytical mind.
    I struggled through 8th grade promotion and found myself flung into high school, where suddenly boys wanted girls, but I never felt like they wanted me. I stopped eating and I dyed my hair blonde, and after a few pounds of my weight, my sanity, my pride melted away I was suddenly in the eyesight of boys. Boys that could see the trapped scared chubby brunette behind the eyes of the skinny blue eyed blonde.
    I started dating a boy who seemed to be as broken as I was. But through the on going months the façade dropped, and though he was broken, it was not in the way I was. I found out he had been cheating on me after we had been together for two months. I found out a week after he had told me, (yes me) that he loved me. It put an ache in my heart that drove a wedge through my imperfections, that strengthened my insecurities. And instead of breaking up with him, I ended up believing this was the type of treatment I deserved. When I looked in the mirror, I still saw that shy and timid little brunette, who just wanted to be loved. Months turned into years, and pain turned into fear. I told him once I was going to leave him. He pulled a knife on himself. I told him to take me home once and he fishtailed the car until we almost slammed into a row of mailboxes. I told him to love me, and he told me he was the only one that ever would.
    Eventually, when my love, my heart, my mind, had given out, I limped away from our relationship. And that little brunette girl inside of me curled up around my heart and cried. She wailed for years, afraid that he was right, that no one would ever or could ever love her. The blonde started giving her body away to anyone who wanted it, for a month, for a week, for an hour. All she wanted was to feel pretty, to live up to the vow she had promised herself, and instead all she did was strip away the brunettes innocence.
Somewhere along the way people had started telling me I was pretty, but I knew they were lying. I knew they were trying to soothe the two girls inside of me. To reassure me that I hadn’t failed.
    And then I met him. I met Frank. I was drowning, and he pulled me out of the water. He took the brunettes hands from over her eyes and placed them on his heart. And he was good to her, and he showed me that I was worthy of loving. And what we had was sweet, and tender. Joyful and innocent. And I started to learn to love myself. I started to see myself slowly, carefully, the way other people did. I dyed my hair back to brown.
    And then one day he turned away from me, away from us. Slowly he started to become someone I didn’t recognize. He started disappearing at night and coming home drunk, with nothing to offer me but excuses.
    This time, I didn’t break. Instead, I remembered everything I had worked for. I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes, and I could feel the blonde girl who resided in me. All she wanted was redemption. In that moment I realized, I no longer needed to regret my mistakes because they had allowed me to grow. I looked at myself for the first time and realized I deserved better. I made us move out of our little apartment, and I made myself choose the better road. And now we are over, and for the first time I don’t need a boy to tell me I’m beautiful.
    For the first time, I can hug the chubby brunette inside of me and tell her that the vows she made were the wrong ones. I can stroke her cheek and tell her that she is beautiful just the way she is. I can tell her that the vow she should have made all those years ago, was that she needed to feel beautiful for herself.
    Finally being able to tell myself that I was beautiful was a war. I did not win every battle, and I certainly have a fair amount of scars that reside inside me, but it is a victory I am constantly thankful for. Being able to accept and love myself exactly the way I am is a fight I am glad I fought. And that is who I was, and this is who I am. I am strong, and confident, and although the little brunette girl inside of me still gets scared at times, I hold her hand and we keep moving forward.