tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84406737046041667062023-11-15T09:57:48.128-08:00people places thingsfiction in a flashbethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-52898608076657142772012-06-01T12:06:00.000-07:002012-07-08T10:43:11.569-07:00piles of ash, drifts of snowpiles of ash, drifts of snow, things come, things go. where are you
tonight? where is the light? where did the light go? I miss you. I miss
knowing if you miss me too. too much distance has grown like a dense and
humid jungle between our hearts. who will travel from one end to the
other, knowing what pain awaits? a journey like that, who has the
courage? I do, but I don't know if you'll welcome me at the other end. I
don't know if the scorpion bites will be met with a healing touch. will
you welcome me, heart-heavy-body-bruised-jungle-weary? will you take my
hand? or will you turn to walk down to the beach, cold beer bottle in
one hand drip drip dripping, tit of a bouncy blonde babe in another drip
drip dripping. it's all of no consequence to you babe, you bask in your
glory. so busy basking in your glory. the glory comes and goes babe,
like waves on the sand. your fire may burn bright babe, but eventually
anything that burns turns to ash. piles of ash, drifts of snow, things
come, things go.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-40714867592762009042011-11-22T20:11:00.001-08:002013-10-29T11:34:12.576-07:00she just wanted a hand to holdshe just wanted a hand to hold. she was consumed by that wanting. she would stuff things into her mitts, anything she could find, to fill the hole of the non-holding. her hands would wrap around the neck of a beer, the sleeve of an ice cream sandwich, the skin of a dingdong's dick she didn't want to touch. she would put anything she could find in her hands and hold tight, hoping to feel the feeling she hadn't felt for what was starting to feel like far too long. she squeezed pillows and rolled joints and spread peanut butter on anything edible, even things that one perhaps should not eat. she would caress the keys of her computer hoping the world wide web would wrap around her a feeling of belonging, ushering in a long awaited end to the longing.<br />
<br />
her hands grasped at any manner of thing-- bar stools, remote controls, doughnut holes, cigarettes, adult toys, stranger's pets. but whatever it was, the wanting remained. she just wanted a hand to hold. and then, one night, full and wasted from a day of clinging to hope, she took her right hand in her left and held her own holding. and she felt it, the feeling, desire met with the simple truth of love, never outside, but always infinitely and endlessly within. the hand she was holding belonged to someone who loved her with everything she had, and that was and always is, enough.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-86351903926070346952009-09-03T14:20:00.000-07:002009-09-04T09:37:05.677-07:00make me believe in makebelievehe picked her up at 8. she had been ready since 1996. longing like lipstick painted on her lips. a fullness that needed to be kissed. he put his hand on the small of her back and led her through the door. she thought about the expanse of the universe and how little Ptolemy had known, and how all this time later, we knew little more. he drove a fast car. she wished they were riding on the backs of turtles taking their time, drawing out the night. he took her to dinner. he ate bloody steak while she picked at a salad, ashamed of her cliché. he showed her a magic trick. she looked for hidden cameras.<div><br /></div><div>again they were in the fast car. he yelled over the rushing wind that love was like santa claus--you believe in it until some adult tells you it's not real. she wanted to yell back, <i>santa clause isn't real?</i> he took her for a drink. she welcomed the ease with which they could speak. dimly lit eyes shining bright. he took her hand and touched her back and said,<i> I know you a little more now</i>. she considered telling him she wanted to have his babies. she refrained.</div><div><br /></div><div>he drove her home. again with the windows down, night air tickling the hairs on her arm. she touched his imperfect head. he held her vibrating thigh. she didn't want the road to end. she wanted to keep going down it with him, to see where it would take them. they pulled up to her house. he walked her to the door, making it halfway, his hand taking her elbow and spinning her around. mouth finding mouth as wanting mouths always do. <i>yes</i>. that was all she could think. <i>yes</i>. and then he said goodnight. and as he walked down the few steps they had climbed moments before, she knew santa clause was real. </div>bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-84108255447372489342008-11-18T09:07:00.000-08:002013-10-29T11:40:18.798-07:00Sliver (revised)It was only a sliver, but it hurt something fierce. It was a tiny crack in his bedroom wall that he could look through to gaze at her thigh. He knew it was her thigh, the opal quality of her skin, the lone freckle that shone like the one visible star in a city sky. He knew it was her thigh and his heart started its audible beating and his hands started opening and closing like they always did at the sight of her.<br />
<br />
He stood there in his room, held up by his palms against the wall. His right eye shut tight and his left eye wide open, not blinking enough, drying out from not wanting to miss a thing. He watched her hand trace invisible I love you's on her skin. The heat of his breath bouncing off the wall and condensing on the cool of his cheeks. He shivered. But then a hand not hers and not his own entered into view and traced a line from the freckle to something out of frame. She sang a low note. The hand was square and ungraceful. His hands were long and thin and longing - they started making fists, white to red, white to red. And then, he couldn't look any longer.<br />
<br />
He covered the sliver of light with the picture he had painted of her through the crack. The painting hung solitary, lit by a small bedside lamp . In it, a glowing sliver of her back cut through the darkness - so much darkness. He had run out of umber in the middle of painting it and had hurried through the streets praying he would make it back before she turned off her light. He stood there looking at it now, running his finger along the wooden frame he had made with the tools his grandfather had given him. As he traced the lines of his imperfect work, one fine splinter of pine stuck into the pad of his index finger. He winced and grabbed his hand at the wrist. He examined his fingertip and marveled at the invisibility of so much pain. He squeezed it against his thumb to intensify the ache. He continued squeezing and thinking of how strange it was when something unseen could hurt so much.<br />
<br />
As he slouched down the wall to sit in defeat he thought of his grandfather's hands - the color of earth and the texture of stone - impenetrable to such pain. And now, alone in this city made up of dreams lost in the tangle of steel, he thought of them - floating heads on the fading photograph he had taken with his mind the day he left. Noses had shifted, mouths had changed, curly hair had straightened and heights had been adjusted. But the eyes, the details were complete. The length of lashes and the depth of green, mirror images of his own. All of their eyes shimmering in the farewell sun. He remembered them perfectly. He had wondered if they would forget? He had been confused by their wailing. Why they would cry when they were the ones who told him he should go? Complications he would start to understand as he became a man, first flailing in the sea wishing for land and then landing and longing for sea. The constant need to want for things. They said their goodbyes and let him be their hope for receiving. And now, at a distance too far to measure with anything other than love, he surrendered to being what they couldn't have.<br />
<br />
Through the wall, he heard her door open then close and down through the stairway, the sound of a clumsy retreat. Then it was quiet. He crawled in bed and pulled the worn blanket up to his chin. Slowly in the stillness he became aware of the rhythmic sound of her breathing. He closed his eyes. He put together all the fragments he had secretly collected of her. He matched his breath to her's and as her breathing deepened into sleep, his own followed. Together they slept alone.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-27566308682232204022008-11-18T08:41:00.000-08:002008-11-18T09:00:18.610-08:00self. help.it was a gift she gave him. a kick in the chest. a test. what will you do with this bleeding heart?<br /><br />he laid there thinking about it. the question it begged. what now?<br /><br />two ways to go. the choice he had read about in a book his friend had loaned him. "trust me," the friend had said, hand on his shoulder, "this book will change your life."<br /><br />the book hadn't changed his life, but he had read it anyway. he kept waiting for it. the change. wondering what it would feel like. would you no longer look the same? would the people you greet look at you in confusion, "do I know you?"<br /><br />"no, you don't, I've changed. it was the book."<br /><br />but that didn't happen. everyone said, "hey, how's it goin?" he didn't know the answer.<br /><br />a book had changed his friend's life. what was going to change his? this perhaps.<br /><br />perhaps.<br /><br />or perhaps he needed to find the right book.<br /><br />he went to the bookstore.<br /><br />he looked at the covers and he flipped through the pages. he shut his eyes and reached out his hand, expecting fate to metalize the book and magnetize his hand. nope. empty handed.<br /><br />boo hoo. poor me. he sang to no one in particular.<br /><br />he left the bookstore. still the same.<br /><br />he went to the donut shop. he ordered a plain glazed and a cup of black coffee. he pulled the change from his pocket. just enough for the bitter sweet.<br /><br />he sat by the window watching the day change. a dog lifted its leg. a woman adjusted her bra strap. a boy kicked a cone. he chewed and he sipped and he watched. he forgot to feel sad. he was just busy watching the light fade through the day, the leaves acknowledge the breeze. everything seemed fine. and then he wondered, is someone watching me? he liked the thought of being a part of someone else's observation. to them he probably seemed fine. no devastation. no end of the world. just a guy having a cup of coffee. and he was, wasn't he? sure he was the poor pathetic dude who had been dumped a few months back. but wasn't he also the guy sitting in the butter yellow booth, wearing a hunter's cap, holding a styrofoam cup? wasn't he the guy who seemed to be having a perfectly lovely day?<br /><br />yes. he was.<br /><br />and there it was. no book necessary.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-19269715191860016742008-06-21T14:34:00.000-07:002009-03-08T03:17:32.269-07:00three timesjessica's mom was doing that thing she did. that thing with the rag in the sink. rinsing and wringing. rinsing and wringing. rinsing and wringing. three times. everything, three times. grandma did the same thing. but not jessica, she only did everything twice and if everything went according to plan, her children would turn out normal - they'd only count everything once.<br /><br />jessica watched her mother folding the towels. one fold, two fold, three. and then they were neatly put away on the shelf, nine towels in three stacks of three. jessica's brother came upstairs for an afternoon snack of easy cheese straight to the mouth. to her, his oblivion was a miracle. his big stupid bowls of cereal and milk. their mother folding his big stupid underwear. three times. even his cheese was easy. he just looked at her and smiled, orange squishing out the corners of his big stupid mouth. he didn't count anything.<div><br /></div><div>jessica's braids were too tight, always pulling her in a direction she didn't want to go. they had ended up here at grandma's, where grandma was <span class="Apple-style-span" style="">always</span> placing judement like sad little trophies around the tidy house, forcing jessica to consider <span style="font-style: italic;">everything </span><span style="">before she left the safety of her small room</span>. jessica would stand, neatly dressed with her hand on the doorknob.<br /><br />eyes closed. remembering her dreams.<br /><br />they started every day with the struggle of grandma's angry comb and jessica's tender scalp. pulling and braiding. pulling and braiding. pulling and braiding. her thoughts dulled by too much pain, any dust of her nighttime dreaming, thoroughly combed out. she would sit there white knuckling the edge of the hard kitchen chair. she would watch her mother, counting out the eggs. one egg, two eggs, three. she saw her mother wince when she winced - as if her hair was her hair, their scalps one aching plane they shared. but her mother never said a word. and jessica would sit there watching her mother's eyes escape out the kitchen window. and as grandma's hands squeezed the life out of everything, jessica wondered why her mother couldn't have counted everything twice?</div>bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-44354991799377980592008-06-21T11:06:00.000-07:002008-09-12T21:56:42.852-07:00sliverit was only a sliver. but it hurt something fierce. it had only been a tiny crack that he had looked through to gaze at her thigh. he knew it was her thigh, the opal quality of her skin, the lone freckle that shone like the one visible star in a city sky. he knew it was her thigh, and his heart started its audible beating and his hands started opening and closing like they always did at the sight of her.<br /><br />he stood there in his room, held up by his palms against the wall. his right eye was shut tight and his left eye wide open, not blinking enough, drying out from not wanting to miss a thing. he watched her hand trace invisible I love you's on her skin. he shivered despite the heat of his breath bouncing off the wall and condensing on his face. but then, a hand, not hers and not his own, was tracing a line from the freckle to something out of frame. the hand was square and ungraceful. his hands were long and thin and longing. they started making fists, white to red white to red. and then, he couldn't look any longer.<br /><br />he covered the sliver of light with the picture he had painted of her through the crack. it was a sliver of her back framed by black. he ran his finger along the wooden frame he had made with the tools his grandfather had left him. and as he ran his finger along his imperfect work, one fine sliver of pine stuck into the pad of his index finger. he winced and grabbed his hand at the wrist. he examined his fingertip and marveled at the invisibility of so much pain. he squeezed it against his thumb to intensify the ache. he continued squeezing and thinking of how strange it was when something so small and unseen could hurt so much.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-80280980817965643092008-06-18T10:36:00.000-07:002013-05-26T03:52:45.814-07:00pizza pie<div class="western" id="qzz4" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
He was eating a pizza. She was holding a pie.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz42" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I made you a pie,” she said.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz45" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I hate pie,” he said.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz48" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“But I made it for you.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz411" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“But I hate pie.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz414" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Silence spread over the late morning kitchen slow like cold syrup. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz417" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“But I made it for you,” she continued.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz420" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
He looked up at her, the stiff cold pizza folding in his hands.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz423" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“And what shall I do with this pie that you have for made me? Eat it despite the fact that I don’t enjoy it?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz426" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“But I wanted to make you something. This is the only thing I know how to make. I really wanted to make you something.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz429" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“But I’ve never liked pie.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz432" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“But it’s the only thing I know how to make.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz435" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Have you ever considered learning how to make other things? You’re bright. I bet you could learn to make anything. You could learn to make me a pizza. I <i id="ttai">love</i> pizza. I mean, you made <i id="qzz436">pie</i>, that’s not easy. If you can make pie, you could definitely make pizza.” <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz439" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Pizza?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz442" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yeah, pizza. You know, dough, sauce, cheese, toppings – I like sausage, and olives and mushrooms and, I mean, I like all kinds of toppings, all toppings really – and then you know, you bake it in an oven and then you slice it and then, well then I would eat it, I’d even slice it myself if you didn’t want to do that part.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz445" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Why don’t you like pie?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz448" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
He looked at the smiling crust he was holding in his hands. His breathing became visible in his chest. He turned the crust upside down.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz449" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div class="western" id="qzz450" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Don’t you even want to know what kind it is?” She said ignoring his frowning crust.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz453" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Is it still a pie?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz456" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It’s a lemon meringue pie. Aunt Anita’s recipe, perfected over the years. It’s not easy to make meringue, most people I know don’t know the first thing about making meringue. But look at my meringue, I can make it look just like the picture in this book. I bet you've never seen meringue like this before.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz459" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It’s beautiful.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz462" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“So eat it.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz465" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I don't like pie!”</div>
<br />
"But I <i id="of_e0">made</i> it for you!" <br />
<br />
<div class="western" id="qzz471" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"So you would want me to eat something I didn't enjoy simply because you made it for me? I mean hearing that said out loud, as a statement, does it make sense to you? You would have me eat something <i id="kzo6">knowing</i> I didn't like it, because you made it for me? I mean, what if I made you a hat, one of those floppy hats, the kind that hangs like a sadness on silly peoples heads, what if I made you one of those floppy hats, out of, out of, denim! No denim print, not actual denim but that fabric that has the look of denim to it, but not the quality. And what if I made this floppy faux denim hat and I, I puffy painted your name in rainbow colors along the side, only I misspelled your name and I made the hat a little too small for your head so it squeezed just enough to give you a headache about 30 minutes into wearing it? What if I made you a hat like that? And then, said I want you to wear this stupid looking hat that makes you look stupid when you wear it, and that is uncomfortable and mean, I want you to wear this hat because <i id="c8m6">I</i> <i id="c8m60">made</i> it for you - would you wear it?!"</div>
<br />
A long pause hung quiet like the faint morning moon.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" id="qzz468" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"Yes. Yes I would." She replied.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz468" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
He didn't know what to say, and more than that, he didn't want to try and find something to say.</div>
<div class="western" id="qzz468" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
She looked at him, searching. And then after too much space, she said,<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" id="qzz468" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I want you to like pie so much. Can’t you just like pie, for <i id="qzz469">me</i>? I made it for <i id="qzz470">you</i>.”</div>
<br />
As he looked directly in her eyes, he shoved the last piece of pizza in his mouth, saucing his face, filling his cheeks. He got up, picked up the greasy box and left holding the empty cardboard.<br />
<br />
She sat down with her fluffy white pie and ate while tears fell like acid, eating holes in the meringue. the truth was, she hated pie too, but it's all she knew how to make.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-6768773241888953992008-06-12T19:35:00.000-07:002008-06-24T01:37:39.439-07:00georgiatopless trees bent over in the bright light too dry to sweat in the heat. it was 103 degrees. georgia was cursing the air conditioner, long since dead and indifferent to her complaints. charlie looked at her and smiled, a drip of sweat pooling in the dent of his thin top lip. she was not impressed.<br /><br />georgia was a peach just as long as it was nice out, but anything over 84 or under 63 degrees and she was not easy to be around. she'd make boiling statements like, "you're lucky I haven't left." or "it must be nice being too dumb to realize that the world is shit." and after too much inclement weather, the people around her would prepare their bags for leaving. they couldn't stay in the home that had once been their own, everything smelled of her carolina rose perfume. so they'd lay awake on the stiff couch blinking at the static that played in the dark, restlessly folding their brains around the idea of no more georgia.<br /><br />but then in the morning, when the sun was all happy and the sky was all blue and the breeze kept everything at a gorgeous 73 degrees, georgia would stroll into the kitchen wearing the thin blue t-shirt that brushed against her thin tan thighs. she'd start making her famous peanut butter apology pancakes. and she'd squeeze the tangerines from her tree and make fresh juice oh so tart but just sweet enough for the drinking. delicious. so they'd stay, unfolding the newspaper in the smooth morning light to see that the week ahead would be a series of 70 degree days. they'd chew on the sticky situation of peanut butter batter and decide they could wait until the next heat wave. until then, georgia was just too comfortable to leave.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-76306871806677544002008-06-03T15:04:00.000-07:002008-08-13T20:08:21.614-07:00sweet sherrythe dude abides. she rolled her eyes. of all the t-shirts in all the world in all the stores, he had to buy this one and then of all the days in all the weeks he had to pick this day to pick this one off of the floor with all the other t-shirts stretching out their shortened arms. he picked this one. on this day. why oh why had he picked this one? "what the fuck?!" she said. "what?" he said. "nothing," she said.<br /><br />was this a set up, she wondered? of all the men in all the world and all the profiles on all the dating sites she had waded through like the hot molasses of desire, against better judgement, against her own wishes, her hand taking over, holding the mouse, searching in the dark. she had picked this one? this dude wearing the dumb shirt? what is it with these guys? she used to like these guys. but that was before. now she drank sherry. had he ever tried sherry? she wondered looking at his hand holding the neck of a beer. too tightly. no. impossible. he had definitely never held the sweet complication of sherry in his mouth. one does not return from the experience of drinking sherry without aging a bit, like the moscatel grapes themselves.<br /><br />she remembered the first time she had tried it, at a party for the new firm. those were the days when she would have rolled her eyes at sherry. but this was her attempt at another life. a new life. one that involved boring parties. the atmosphere was stale and unnerving and she had needed the calm of a glass in her hand. she had been handed a glass of sweet sherry. at first she was sure there had been a mistake. the pruney assault on her tongue, the liquified raisins rotting in her mouth. was this a set up? she had wondered. but she kept sipping anyway because it was a welcome task keeping her mouth entertained while the rest of her went numb.<br /><br />this was but the first of many such compromises she would make.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-85076493852504293592008-05-29T23:11:00.000-07:002009-03-08T03:22:36.270-07:00punching cupcakesit was the only thing tessa could do to keep from getting in her chevy luv pickup truck and driving through the night. he had gone to boston. she had never been to boston but she knew she didn't like it. she had met too many guys in bars from boston to think otherwise. he had met one guy in a bar from boston and with that, he left, leaving behind more confusion than she knew how to deal with. so here she was in her kitchen, punching cupcakes.<br /><br />it had been wendy's suggestion. wendy was good at coming up with absurd yet effective means for dealing with "the heavy," as she liked to call it. when wendy had run over her neighbor's teacup pomeranian by accident and subsequently wound up in the midst of a dead doggy lawsuit, she dealt with the stress and the legal fees by learning how to knit. then she started up an online doggy sweater store and eventually quit her job at "the trap," as she liked to call it. despite all the drama, she never seemed to lose her perspective. this, among other reasons, was why tess had wendy as #1 on her speed dial.<br /><br />so the night he left her while she was baking his birthday cupcakes, she pushed the "1" with her frosted finger and said "he left." wendy was over by tessa's 5th cupcake. she felt sick. wendy took tess by the messy hand and said "look, I always knew he was a giant douchepopsicle. I must confess I'm not surprised. the only thing you can do now is head out into the world laughing at one more joke life has told you." and with that she picked up a pink sprinkled cake and threw it up in the air, and as it began its arching decent, she punched it, hard.<br /><br />anyone, no matter how low, would be lifted by the sight of an exploding cupcake. tess laughed and grabbed one herself and did the same. it was amazing - with each cupcake she smashed she felt better, lighter, more hopeful. that night they punched all 48 (minus the 5 she had already eaten). they cleaned the kitchen until it was morning and then they laughed together cupping mugs of coffee. wendy went home to sleep and tess started making more cupcakes. wendy was right and tess was fine despite her disaster. tess knew she would eventually forget all about boston and the man she once thought she knew.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-4282803432517114982008-05-28T08:02:00.000-07:002008-05-28T08:02:02.778-07:00maria has such soft lips<span style="font-style: italic;">if it were that easy, we'd all be doing it</span>. be doing what? monty wondered as he held the crumpled paper. what did it mean? who's sloppy hand had written this cryptic note? he needed to find out. he needed to know what wasn't easy and then do it. he had found the note lying in a ball behind the bleachers during recess which he most often spent alone. he liked hanging out back there because that is also where maria matthews made out with her boyfriend cody. maria developed breasts in the 4th grade and cody had his left lobe pierced. it made sense to the 7th graders. but what didn't make sense to monty was why maria would want to kiss someone with such a pathetic mustache? cody's mustache wasn't anything like uncle leonard's. sure, from far away it looked like a proper enough mustache to pass - but up close it looked like dried chocolate milk. rancid. I mean, he understood why aunt linda liked leonard's stache - it was thick and wild and mean and monty could totally comprehend the desire to shade one's lips under it. but cody's? it was lame. it looked like a lazy caterpillar with no intention of ever becoming a butterfly.<br /><br />maria has such soft lips - the exact color of his number 2 eraser tip he had noticed one day in english class while writing a thinly-veiled poem about maria titled "mary's lips". monty did not have a mustache or an earring or a razor carver kick scooter with trucks. what monty did have was a burning desire to be monty and nobody else. if only maria was into short honest boys with curly hair who wouldn't reach their full physical potential until age 28. couldn't she stick it out with him hand in hand? it would be worth the wait. that much he could promise. as for the rest? monty was confident he would figure it out in due time. he wouldn't grow a mustache until it was a proper one like uncle leonard's. that much he knew for sure.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-31039212363649484992008-05-28T07:14:00.000-07:002008-05-29T16:22:07.135-07:00manami's handsas she left her apartment, manami touched the smooth wooden railing like it was the back of a lover. and as she ate her lunch in the park, she ran her hand through the cool grass like it was the head of a child she was hoping to bear. she stopped in a perfume shop along the way to smell the fragrant mouth of a bottle as if it were on the nape of another's neck. she walked home in silence, her hands in front of her waving at strangers while her eyes studied her feet. she didn't want to fall. she had fallen when she was 9 and broken her jaw - her hands failing to protect her. it took so long to heal. and when she was 13 and he touched her in places that were not ready, her hands hid by her side. she never forgave them for that. and now, too old to crawl on obochan's lap, she curled up in her bed searching for warmth. she studied her hands holding them up to the light squinting at the transparency of illuminated skin. she did not trust them. and as she traced the years of her empty palm she realized how tired she had grown of this battle. "why?" manami whispered to her sashiko quilt. "can't my eyes look where my fingers are pointing? can't my head hear my heart? can't my breath breathe its beating? can't I wave and say 'hello! I want to love you with these hands and everything else that is me'? I am ready," manami said to her hands. "I am ready to fall."bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-62111934102247927382008-05-28T06:12:00.000-07:002008-05-28T16:23:56.753-07:00electric blue motorbikeshe has set her gaze on a quiet boy who rides an electric blue motorbike. always she has looked haphazardly at the world of men, dabbling here, drowning there. she has made her share of mistakes and she has shared her share of sloppy kisses. but it has only been now that she is taking aim with the purest of intentions. she wants to ride on that bike. she watches him, a new sense of calm she is only now learning to appreciate. it's simple really, good things usually are. she wants the wind in his hair to tickle her face. she wants to steady herself with the pressure of her thighs on his. she wants a life that has been going ever so slowly ever so safely to jump on the back of that fast moving motorbike. she is hoping he will pop a wheely. she asks him for a ride. he hands her a helmet. she shakes her head no. she is going to give trusting a try.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-58711353779157665272008-05-27T12:12:00.000-07:002008-05-28T16:29:12.549-07:00bernicia burnsit was late at night when people are sleeping. she was wide awake. she was thinking about pablo picasso. picasso was pablo's mother's maiden name. pablo thought picasso sounded so much better than ruiz. she agreed. she was thinking about using her mother's maiden name instead of the one <span style="font-style: italic;">he</span> had given her. flores was so much better than burns. bernicia flores--would that sell books? would that write books? maybe if she changed her name, she would be able to start writing. maybe it was all the centuries of patriarchal oppression that was stifling her voice? yes. first thing in the morning, she would walk the 37 blocks to have her name legally changed to bernicia flores. but then she thought, I could have it changed to anything. and then suddenly, bernicia burns missed her mother very much.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-52968856782140146962008-05-27T07:42:00.000-07:002008-05-27T10:37:16.603-07:00dear inspector gadgetdear inspector gadget,<br /><br />do you have a gadget that will make my mother talk less? it's not that I don't love my mother, because I do love her very very much. it's not even that I don't like a lot of the things she's saying, because I do, she has a great many things to say. it's just that she says so much, too much I say. as if some button needs to be pushed but is broken. perhaps the best gadget would be a word filter of sorts that she could talk through. like a knowing net it would catch all the excess. let's say an average of 61.3% of the words that tumble out would be caught in this filter. the rest, all things I want to hear. words of wisdom, encouragement and love. all of the worry and guilt and mumbo gumbo cut off like fat from the meat of the matter. my mother, she just says so very many words and I don't think she needs to say nearly so many. what gadget could you recommend?<br /><br />your #1 fan,<br /><br />stan francisbethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-50930900190232792732008-05-27T05:46:00.000-07:002008-05-27T05:46:01.476-07:00christinawe own her we think as we walk west down wilshire towards the tar. I step in gum. they keep walking. christina has no idea we are coming. I yell to my forward moving posse in their matching outfits, I'm stuck. they return to me to scrape and ponder the inconsideration. and on we move again, my left heel sticking slightly as I walk. we are getting close and I am formulating my sentence - my sentence will join the ranks of great sentences. I am hoping together we will deliver something weighty and wise. we are walking in silence and I wonder what they are thinking? I am thinking I need this and that should be all that is needed for the getting and I should get this because it is mine for the taking. christina has promised for how many summers that we could meet her famous father? it's time, we've waited too long. we're not getting any younger. we will be freshman next year.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-52396749677089657592008-05-26T12:00:00.000-07:002008-05-28T16:35:02.260-07:00a rabbit and a hathe wished for his pen to run out, but it didn't, so he kept on writing. every sentence embarrassed him. he knew he would read over what he had written once and then destroy it. he didn't want anyone to read it. he didn't want anyone to know how much he liked magic. how much he dreamt of growing a long beard and hitting the road with a rabbit and a hat. his jokes, the ones no one laughed at, why did he keep telling them? and the tricks, weren't they just another pathetic attempt at making up for the lack of real magic in his life? maybe he could perform a trick where he unsawed himself in half, made himself whole? he was so sick of feeling the lack. no amount of practice was going to make her appear. it's just him and the rabbit shitting and pissing all over everything. he wished for his life to stop stinking, but it didn't. wishing by itself is not enough.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-86900001855304442722008-05-26T06:05:00.000-07:002008-05-27T17:21:10.035-07:00more like the treefor the relief of her unbearable urge, she decided to get a snack. to make herself feel better about this caving in she decided she would walk to get the snack thus burning a portion of the calories consumed. she already felt better. she walked past a bush bursting with folding flowers and she looked at the fluff filling the cerulean sky. clouds she found she loved almost as much as snacks (though not quite as much it should be noted). how many calories are in a cloud? she found herself wondering. what does a cloud taste like? what would it feel like to lay in bed with a cloud? catch a movie, eat a pint? would the cloud cuddle you back? she always found herself toying with such thoughts, like, does alphabet soup ever want to spell itself out? and what would it say? "don't eat me!"? as she was thinking of other things the letters might want to arrange, she tripped on a root that had forced itself out of the concrete. "ouch" she said. and then she thought, did that hurt the tree as much as it hurt me? to be safe she said sorry and gave the tree a gentle pat. she noticed how firm it was. she looked at its slender branches. and then she wondered why she couldn't be more like the tree. the tree didn't struggle with wanting too much. why did she?bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-64668031903519457822008-05-26T06:00:00.000-07:002008-05-26T06:00:10.499-07:00ice cream fightthe last argument they had ended in an ice cream fight. not the fun kind where you throw ice cream screaming laughter, dripping sticky, licking bits of dulce de leche off your chin. this ice cream fight was not that kind. this ice cream fight consisted of her screaming and him drowning out the hate with the rich and creamy coldness of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream. he is starting to get fat. every time she starts the yelling, he walks to the kitchen. he muffles her voice with the crunching of chips or the fizzing of soda pop. he hates the stomach aches, but he hates her hateful words more. so much sugar sloshing around in his belly, he's drowning himself with sweetness hoping to escape the sour of a love gone horribly wrong. how did we end up like this? he wonders. me chubby, her breaking things. we used to be so in love.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-40948113503749981392008-05-25T15:12:00.000-07:002008-05-26T12:30:05.868-07:00a tidy messthe one reason elizabeth didn't mind the rain was because it made her hair look good. most days it just sat lazily on her head, indecisive about its curly or straight intention. but on wet grey days like this her hair's inclination towards gentle curls was encouraged by the moisture. while her face frowned at its reflection against the weeping window, her hair happily made of itself soft curves looping around invisible fingers. maybe it had been left as an unknown impression from reading too much about tin men and wicked witches as a child, but she almost felt as if walking out in such conditions would destroy her just the same. she stayed inside feeling sorry for herself and feeling guilty for feeling sorry and feeling disgusted at feeling guilty for feeling anything. she always ran this pointless race through the maze of her mind, frantically searching for a bit of cheese. elizabeth was severely lactose intolerant.<br /><br />elizabeth's stomach hurt all the time, not as a casual statement but as a fact. her stomach hurt all the time as if it were a needed reminder to her that she was still alive. the pain in her stomach was as old as her first memory. the one companion she had allowed herself to count on, all the others somehow disappointing her. grade school playmates and high school prom dates had grown fuzzy, their names and hair colors uncertain. but the nature of her stomach and its varying degrees of pain in each interaction was something she could recount with alarming clarity. pain seemed to take up most of the space in her memories.<br /><br />new people she would meet, whether at church or the grocery store, didn't have names but health problems. never candice, but rather the woman with a hiatal hernia. not murray, but the man with the newly diagnosed fibromyalgia. she took comfort in things that could keep a person from smiling. of course she felt guilty for feeling this way and correspondently disgusted with herself for feeling guilty.<br /><br />elizabeth was a mess. a tidy mess.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-81070153432946587952008-05-25T11:38:00.000-07:002008-05-25T11:39:11.513-07:00thirstywhen she was 22 and bone-dry from bar-tending, lulu gave into the commodity of a beautiful face. she modeled briefly until she realized that there is no room emptier than a room filled with models. at first she tried to connect with the other girls, but soon gave up after reaching the conclusion that the majority of them fed their minds even less than their malnourished bodies. she would take refuge in steinbeck in between shoots and try to brush off the empty conversations that were swirling around her, sticking to her skin like cheap fabric. all she felt at the end of the day was a hunger that no amount of food could replace. she started gaining weight and got her old job back. as much as she hated the bar, she found the company of alcoholics much more desirable than that of anorexics and figured she was more at home among people struggling with excess rather than deprivation.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-50819193724150450742008-05-25T01:18:00.000-07:002008-05-28T17:21:35.956-07:00dinosaurs and shooting starsnothing is forever. dinosaurs and shooting stars are proof of this.<br /><br />she sat nearly falling off her bed, her head weary and weighted. the black truth of her hair sprouting out, pushing the bleached white away from her scalp. she looked up at the melancholy boy framed by her overstuffed closet, its chaotic brightness offsetting the sharp shadows of his poetic face. he seemed to be attempting an escape into the warmth of her sweaters. he backed further away and stumbled over her careless pile of unworn shoes. she picked at her cuticles, not out of annoyance or nervousness, but out of pure and meaningful habit. she was unaware that as a child it was the one sound she could count on hearing from her father. the steady pick-pick of fingernail on hardened skin. she looked at her fingers pink with pain, hot with blood pulsing to escape. she couldn't stop picking, would keep on even as she felt the wetness of blood victorious.<br /><br />"it's you," she said, "not me. shit! I mean..."<br /><br />insert too much space until the next word.<br /><br />whether we intend to or not, one way or another, we always say what we mean.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-80204031493495351002008-05-24T11:38:00.000-07:002008-06-18T10:57:35.794-07:00roserose had large feet, largeness that hinted at height, height she did not reach. as an awkward 11-year-old wearing a pair of sneakers size 11 to match, a doctor informed her she would surely reach great heights of at least 5 feet 11 inches. she imagined herself statuesque and like most girls with a tall future and a beautiful face, she imagined herself gracefully stomping her way across a runway in paris. but then, as if by some act of divine intervention, she stopped short at 5 feet 5 inches and started cursing god for this treachery. her vertical growth had disappointed her so much, she made up for it horizontally. there are no height requirements for a whore. with a bed as her runway and having never been to paris, she imagined the middle of nevada was close enough.<br /><br />prostitution does have its advantages, allowing her a diet more substantial than diet coke and cigarettes, she delighted in fried food freedom. she often had a slight sheen around her mouth from the grease lunch had left behind. she didn't mind the gradual expansion that was taking place because it was the type of weight gain slow enough to be missed. the kind of weight gain that kept you eating only until you knocked a box of photos off the closet shelf to be left standing there in your too-tight-underwear looking down at a glossy image of your thinner happier self. upon seeing such photos, people are often overcome with the consumptive desire to go on a diet, to start attending the gym, to accept the absence of time machines and opt instead for the empty life of caloric control and late night crunches. rose was yet to confront her younger, thinner self and for now she was happy eating chicken wings to erase the taste of a stranger's penis.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8440673704604166706.post-52029352322144333702008-05-24T11:37:00.000-07:002008-05-25T11:38:03.056-07:00apricot jamapricot jam sprawled out, sunning itself on a piece of toast not unlike the color of sand. the sun fought its way into every inch of the room. the room warmed at its touch. lilah sat reading, unaware that she was glowing, making the jam jealous. sam had stopped reading, the room was too bright. he was squinting at her. he reached out and let the flesh of their hands communicate while they sat silently stirring their coffee and drinking the morning. love filled them. they ignored the toast. the apricot jam wept, dripping down the crust, laying down to dirty the plate. lilah stuck her finger in its stickiness and smeared it on the soft terrain of her tongue. she kept reading but noticed the sweetness with every inhale. she felt his eyes. she smiled. sam returned to his book.<br /><br />his eyes had skimmed the surface of a page before he realized he was reading. his mind had been busy writing his own story. more mornings like this. children laughing. bookshelves running out of space. refrigerator magnets and finger paints. paths worn into hardwood floors. hands held and history made. stories never put to paper, but sprawled out, word ribbons tying beautiful bows around his brain. he had found himself writing these stories endlessly since he had found lilah lying in his bed. he woke to watch her sleeping. his head propped up by the right angles of his triangular arm. her steady breathing, the pillow pressing her face into a picasso, revealing the beauty of things rearranged. he had never thought himself a writer until that morning, when suddenly lilah had filled him with words. watching lilah dream, he knew then that all things before had been fodder for the feast of this moment. he couldn't find a pen so he told himself "remember" knowing one day, he would forget.bethany toewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12599457838480023692noreply@blogger.com0