something like that

all i want is a new warm jacket. if i had one my whole world would be like - bam! you know, like on. like stepping out the front door and like ready to hit it. pret-a-porter and all that shit. but i couldn't find the right one at any of those dung heaps in union square. i mean dung heap city baby. but where's all the dung beetles to take that shit away?? instead there's only tourists. the stores seem almost empty except for a few rich-looking tourists. and then my broke, but credit-infused, ass ready to throw down. lay down. roll around. smoke grass. and get back on that bus! but first some coffee in that underground cafe that puts me right to sleep. i haven't done anything today and it's really a weight on my shoulders. i still have to stop at trader joe's. frozen berries, cabbage, red peppers, multi-grain bread, two cans of cuban black beans, lavender dryer bags, vanilla soy milk. i still don't have anything to eat. i make grits instead.

rituals

There is a point in the seventh grade when I think about suicide. I get all after-school special-y about it. This is something that teenagers go through. I ask Tara if she ever thinks about. I'm trying to stand out amongst the rednecks and hillbillies with my depression - suicide is so urban and sophisticated. Being alone inside the house after school before my father comes home, I can process the horrors of the day. After escaping the last possible opportunity for harassment for the day, getting off the school bus, now I'm ready for my breakdown. I take out the serrated kitchen knife and run it across my wrists. It's the isolation, I can't breathe. I know I won't do it, but take comfort in the option. And as long as I have the option I can keep going. I know my existence doesn't have to be like this, but I'm trapped for now. I take a few sips of my father's vodka to be dramatic. I was never into getting drunk even back then, but apparently I am into wallowing in my misery. It's the fear, never being able to relax, never feeling safe. Sitting on linoleum floor in the kitchen, leaning against wooden cabinets, wanting to hide, to disappear, I put the knife down. The insanity of being harassed and never fighting back, hiding it, being ashamed of it, never talking about it to anyone is hurting me. I'm living two lives now, both bleak. There's no help, no hope, not even a glimmer. Sometimes I pray before I go to sleep that when I woke up in the morning everything that I have known to be my life will actually have been just a dream. TV helps. I watch Oprah everyday after school. I put a frozen burrito in the microwave before the show starts. I eat a Little Debbie snack cake while I wait for my burrito to be done. I drink nothing but coca-cola, day after day. I take my burrito to the living room and eat it in a blur of gagging despair while I watch Oprah.

deadpan

At Springville Middle School, circa 1991, in Coushatta, Louisiana, I was named "king" of my seventh grade class. Or king of the white children anyway. On your knees, hillbillies, the bitch is back. The black children elected their own kings and queens. I suppose they had to do it that way to keep white children happy. No white king or queen would have ever won otherwise, Springville Middle School being a mostly black, public school. The white children will have equality! Welcome to every horrible stereotype of the South. It was the worst of my school years in a lot of ways. The most harassment, the worst alienation, and realizing that yes I did want to suck cock and I was okay with that, but having no access to cocks to suck. But I guess I still had hope, or I hadn't totally shut down anyway. There must have only been about ten white boys in the seventh grade and I don't think any of them would have been up to feminizing prospect of competing for the title of king. The irony: sometimes it takes a queen to run for king. And I can say with some confidence that I was the obvious choice for the job. How did the nominations work? I think the election "officials" came into class and asked for nominations and then students raised their hands to vote. Since there were so few white boys I was bound to be nominated. I didn't want to be king, the limelight would be too intense. The culminating experience, well, really the only experience for the kings and queens was a crowning ceremony and dance. oH and there was a parade through town. This sounds like Homecoming? But I don't remember homecoming or any football themes. When I was nominated, I suddenly did want the title, badly. I guess there was a run-off, but I'm sure the other contestants had no interest in competing. And this is the funny part, in order to win I didn't have to get the most votes, I just had to raise the most money for the school. When I told my father this part of the process he was troubled by the ethical standards of this election and decided not to help me. I started crying. Why couldn't he ever help me? I realized the absurdity of it too, but still I wanted it. Finally he conceded to help me raise money in order to become king. I went to my grandparents and they rolled up all their pennies for me. I was pissed. Can't you write me a check, Nanny? Now I know where her son gets his cheapness from. Other contestants had more creative ways of getting money. Wendy Wilson who was competing for eighth grade white queen put a donation jar at Fausto's Fried Chicken. It was good chicken, but not my scene. I continued to bamboozle family members for donations. Wendy lost and I won, but then again she was a legend of sexual promiscuity in our school, so she was already a queen in my eyes. Maybe I thought being King would change things for me. Or maybe I just wanted to go to a party or just be a part of something. To be, well, yes, validated.

scrap metal

reading sarah schulman's work makes me think about my relationship with my mother. and then i get angry when i'm thinking about my mother. i go into a rage, really, thinking about all the things i could say to her but never do. all the things that would put her in bed for two weeks straight with guilt and sadness. like your life totally excludes me but yet you imply that you want me in your life, but then i'm the one who has to make the effort to be in your life. why do i have to make the effort? why do i have to travel to you when i have no money and you live in a place that makes me uncomfortable, surrounded by people who make me uncomfortable? when i visit, it's like i haven't changed at all. especially when the others are around like step-dad and uncles and cousins. i'm still the silent, sad, mute. god they make me so uncomfortable, but they're so comfortable. they've never questioned themselves and i'm sure they have no idea that i hate them or that i would have any reason, too. part of me wants to go visit. in some ways, i'm most comfortable around my mom and my sister, but only when the others aren't around. and my mom and my sister are so into the others. they're successful and fun and normal and totally fucked up. like scary TV fucked up. plastic, superficial, god-friendly, racist, suburban, hillbilly, redneck, all that bad stuff. my sister tells my niece that i'm weird and then my niece repeats it like a mantra to me the whole time i visit. i say if you're normal honey, count me out. she doesn't get it. sometimes i think if i did actually speak around the others, portraying some sense of my true self they would think i was really crazy. i can't imagine them getting my humor or simply understanding anything that i say. mouths would be agape. but maybe i'm wrong. how would it be if i was just myself the whole time, all the time. they might think i'm crazy but i would be happier.