Long Distance

We are tied together by the modern teenage phenomenon of texting. Hide your head, cover your face, deny it all you want, but we are undeniably and inexcusably
dependent upon it.

We smile at each other through emoticons and laugh together with LOLs. We give up romantic weekends out for late night video chats. You can't kiss me goodnight at my doorstep, so you call me, instead. For what we believed to be the most integral parts of a relationship,we have managed to find substitutes.

I hesitate to tell you, but I do wonder. I wonder what it would be like to not feel this way. To not wonder how much longer I can hold my heart together as it s t r e t c h e s the hundred miles to you.To go on double dates and show you off with more than just a picture. To know you're here when I need you. To see you without busses and trains and planning. To have you.

I am afraid, because I forget. I forget the way your neck smells when I burry my head into you. I forget the scratchy, tickley feeling of your beard when you rub your chin on my cheek. I forget the roughness of your palms when you take my hand. I forget the softness of your lips and how they fit over mineand the slight sigh
you make when we kiss.

But as much as I wonder and as afraid as I may be there is no other way, there is no other choice, there is no other life for us, anymore. My heart has wandered blindly, somehow making its way to you, and I don't think that it can ever find it's way back, without you.

I will smile with emoticons, if you will be the one smiling back. I will lower myself to LOLs, as long as it means that you are laughing. I will skip romantic weekends out, if you will be on the other side of the video. I will give up goodnight kisses, if you will be the one to call, because I know that at some point, no matter how long it may be, these things will come, and I will have you for more than a weekend, for more than a phone call, for more than a text. I will have you.

This Is Me.

          I get it, okay? I’m not meant to be in photographs or on TV, and, honestly, the idea of it freaks me out so I have no problem with this. I get it. I do. I’m tall and freckly and have thick, dark, tangled, curly hair. I’m big boned with big muscles, a narrow waist but flaring hips, thick stubby fingers and inflexible joints that crack when I move. I’m no delicate beauty. I’m no model or prom queen. I’m the too-tall 5^th grade girl in the back row forced to stand with all the boys in the class picture. I’m the only white third grader with an afro, because Mom didn't know what to do with the curly mess. I’m the first to start her period, and the last to start shaving her legs. I’m the nonathletic, uncoordinated, nerd. And I love it.

I love my wild mane of hair. I love that I freckle in the sun. I love that while other girls whine about getting boob jobs, I struggle to find a bikini top that covers. I love that I look like a woman. I’m curvy and sexy, and I’m not ashamed to say that, but having some hips mean having stretch marks from the growth spurt that caused them. Full, thick legs come with dimply, ripples of cellulite. Delicate looking porcelain skin means a sickly complexion, when summer starts, and does about as much good as plastic wrap when it comes to hiding spider veins.

I know that I’m healthy. I know that I push my body. I know that I’m strong. I know that being curvy doesn't mean being fat. I know what I can do. I know, that to have this beautiful shape that I love, I have to be willing to take the whole package, but you don’t. You assume I just don’t run quite fast enough, that I put the weights down too early, that I’m too stubborn to take your advice and change my ways, that one indulgence means I’m a quitter, and that the reason I'm not an Olympian, is because I'm lazy… like it’s actually possible for one person to be flawless, to be idolized in every way, by everyone. I could work myself to death to lose every inch of fat and have smooth, straight legs and an impossibly thin belly, which would more than likely also entitle me to a flat chest, no ass, and the overall shape of a twelve-year-old boy. No thanks.

Everything I do, the decisions I make, how I chose to look, I do it for me. I don’t do it to look like you or your idea of who I’m supposed to be. I don’t do it to win anything or anyone. I do it because I want to. So continue to tell me what I should be doing differently to look more like you, and I’ll tell you that I’m not you, I never will be you, and I have no interest in being you. For every flaw you see in me, I can show you five more things that you wish you had. Criticize all you want, but this is me... every crease, dimple, and bump, and I’d rather be stuck with those last five pounds forever, than to look like anyone but me.

He Loves Me

I snuggle my head into his shoulder,

Feeling his muscles flex

As he pulls me closer to him.

He smells of aftershave and cooking grease

Familiarity

I breathe it in deeply

Memorizing.

I’m warm and sleepy

With him wrapped around me

And the rhythm of his breathing

Next to my ear begins to sound

Like a lullaby, soothing me to sleep,

But I know that I can only fight sleep for so long.

The bed creaks, as the pressure

Of my weight is released,

But he begs me

Not to leave tonight.

I stand, but feel his arms

Around my waist,

Pulling me back down to him.

He presses his palms into my thighs,

Pushing them up into my hips

Digging them into my waist

Cupping them around my breasts,

Pressing his weight

Onto my chest, and

I gasp for air, but try

To camouflage my innocence

Because he knows

Where to go 
And how to get there,

And naivety will get me left behind

So I follow.

He loosens his grip and moves delicately

To the back of my neck,

Lifting my face towards his.

Eyes closed

Lips open

Distracting me, while he inches

His way back down

To my hips, maneuvering through

The obstacle course of

Belt, button, and zipper

Like the expert that he is.

His fingers snake their way

Into the waist of my jeans.

I think that I’m supposed to say something

Alluring or do something

Sexy but I don’t know

And I’m afraid

I grab his wrist to stop him

To tell him ‘no’ but

 I need time to think and

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

He doesn’t give 
me time to think before

I feel him in me

And I close my eyes

And I turn my head

And I wait

And listen as he says

That it’s okay

Because he loves me.

No Walls

my brother used to sit

outside on the roof at night

to live freely

with no walls

confining him

breaking

loose of authority and rules

his escape

he used to wait
until we were asleep

and creep

onto the ledge 

outside of his window
climbing up
the red brick walls
onto the steep ledge

of the roof

I would hear him drop

rocks down

onto the driveway

watching them crack 
open and I would

listen to his 
footsteps slipping

into sleep.

Lullaby

(best speech assignment for FI 112)

            My father is the typical manly man, who considers “good reading” to be Dick’s Sporting Goods catalogs and NRA magazines and watches the Ultimate Fighting Championship religiously. He would rather spend a day hiking in the mountains than a week relaxing at the beach. He is popular among my friends for the enormous gun safe in our living room, the two Boa Constrictors that take up residence next to our television, as a sideshow of sorts, and biceps that are much too large for a 55 year old man who has lost the majority of his hair, not to mention a noticeable portion of his hearing. My childhood was spent wrestling on the front lawn and practicing martial arts on judo mats in the living room.

This being said, my father and I have profoundly different tastes. He watches westerns, while I prefer tragic romances. He takes three-minute showers while I indulge myself with thirty-minute soaks, taking four times as long to get dressed. His opinions are finite, while I avoid decisions as a general rule. He is strongly Republican, while I chose to be labeled an “independent.” To him, spontaneity is a dangerous lack of organized thought, while I am a firm believer of fate leading the way. He prefers the concrete. I prefer the abstract. If you were to create my father’s opposite, you would get me. As overly analytical and dangerously emotional as I am, he is just as lost for words when it comes to the sensitive and touchy-feely. This is where the problems occur.

My father would have been satisfied with a daughter who wanted to discuss politics and fishing or go hunting, which involves no talking at all. Instead, he received a feminized version of a chattering teeth toy. I am forever seeking approval for my continuous trains of thought, all of which are, simultaneously, my number one priority- a collision of explosive emotion that is beyond overwhelming for my father. We learned, many years ago, that the safest tactic to avoid our daily civil war was to just skim the surface. Don’t ask, don’t tell, and, if you must tell, do so in such a way that completely annihilates all possibility for disagreement. Stick with light jokes and previously approved topics. I was convinced that my father hated me. He argued against my reasoning for every thought I had, so I rejected any attempt he made for a truce. Eventually, we both stopped trying.

My father works the evening shift, and does not come home until after midnight, each night. Being a man whose habits die hard, even in my adolescent years, he would peak into my room to check on me when he came home, as he did when I was a child. One night, when I heard his key turn in our front door, for no obvious reason, I buried my face in my pillows and pulled the blankets tightly around my neck, feigning sleep. I saw a sliver of light sneak its way from my doorway onto my bed, as my father peeked into my room. Surprisingly, he fell for the act and inched the door open, carefully stepping into my blackened room. Once, he had maneuvered through the dark, successfully reaching my bedside, his hand reached out and blindly made its way to the side of my head.

My father stroked my hair gently, like he was touching a china doll, afraid to leave even a scratch, and tucked a curl behind my ear. “I love you, Mary,” he whispered. “You are smart and funny and pretty, and I am proud of you. You are a good girl, and I am proud to be your daddy.” Leaning forward, he kissed me on the side of my face and walked out of the room as silently as he had entered.

It took years for me to grow out of my self-righteous teenage state, and at least as long for my dad to begin to understand it, and, even then, agreeing was uncommon, but from that night onwards, I would wait. I would stay up late and wait for him, so that I could pretend to be asleep and listen to his tuneless lullaby, just to have some kind of verification of the feelings we both knew to be true but had not, yet, learned to express. We have taught each other and learned from each other, growing up together. I don't live in that house, anymore. I don't need to be checked on or tucked in. Phone calls suffice for communication, during the times that I am away. When I do come home, my dad will still come in to check on me, like he used to, and sometimes, I still pretend to be asleep… just in case.

Facebook

 UNIV 112 assignment about giving up technology for a day

I will not use Facebook. I will not use Facebook. It doesn’t matter if he commented on my status or if she likes my picture. Anything they post on my wall, they can tell me in person. I will not use Facebook. If they’re in a relationship today, they’ll be in one tomorrow… well, probably.  I will not use Facebook. No need to poke back until tomorrow. I can comment twice in the morning, if I need to. The videos will still be up, and if I didn’t know them well enough to know it was their birthday already, they probably won’t notice if I comment a day late. I will not use Facebook. If they’re going to chat me, they have my number. If they don’t have my number, they don’t matter that much anyway. I will not use Facebook. They won’t withdraw the friend-request if I take a day to respond. Maybe, I’ll seem busy and more interesting, if I wait. I will not use Facebook. The events won't be over. The groups will still exist. My inbox won't erase and my notifications won't disappear. Status update:   
Mary Searls "will not use Facebook."............ oops.

People Watching at the Gas Station

 Realized the extent of my people watching. Decided to document one. Possible inspiration.

White female.

Age difficult to determine due to excessive of plastic surgery: Mission accomplished.
Approximately 50 years?

Thinning blonde hair, dried from dye, needs to be washed.

Thin and frail, yellowed fingernails (probably a smoker) that need to be cut.
Metric ton of mascara.
Painted on eyebrows.

Purchase:18 lottery tickets.
Desperation.

White male.
Approximately 35 years.

Short. Boney.

Thinning blonde hair.

Leathery skin. Wrinkled. Darkened.
Smells of smoke.

Worn jeans, stained white t-shirt.

Purchase: Looks at the cashier and holds up 4 fingers, then ten.
Pump 4, 10 dollars worth of gas.
Mute.

Black female.
Approximately 25 years.

Short, thick stature.

No makeup, messy braided hair.

Loud, low voice.

Loose gray t-shirt tucked into “mom jeans.”

Determined to joke about the service with every person in line.

Purchase:1 mini pack of fig newtons, 6 pack of cheap beer, 1 cigar, 1 gallon of water.
Recipe for one lonely night in.

Until My Dying Day

           We sat in the giant purple love seat in my living room, and he kissed me, finally, during the closing credits. He could play the songs from the soundtrack, beautifully, on his black and white, pinstriped guitar. Sometimes, I would attempt to follow along, my fingers stumbling over the piano keys of the ancient, out-of-tune piano in his living room, but, usually, I would just listen, curling up next to him, snuggling into his shoulder and breathing in his scent of aftershave and cooking grease. We quoted the lines and knew every lyric.

We were in his little blue Scion, driving back from dinner at Bottom’s Up Pizza, listening to the radio. I knew he was going to play our song, when he clicked on the CD player in his car, giving me that look that I knew so well- narrowing his eyes a little, focusing in on me, the right corner of his mouth turning up in a slight smile. Track 7. “Never knew I could feel like this,” he began.

“Come what may

             Come what may

             I will love you,

             until my dying day.”

            As he sang the last two lines, holding my left hand in his right, steadying the steering wheel against his knee, he squeezed my fingers three times. I- love- you. I understood. From then on, it didn’t matter where we were, who we were with, if we could speak out loud or not- three small touches were all we needed. I love you, “until my dying day.” It fixed everything- every fight about his neediness or my lack of appreciation, my over-emotional temperament or his lack thereof. Three touches, three words, and all was forgotten.

At seventeen, it was easy to fall in love, easy to promise to give our lives to each other, easy to ignore reality and foresee only a happily-ever-after. It was easy to keep counting the days of our togetherness- three weeks, two months, four months and a week and three days, or some other obscenely insignificant number that made us feel the need to celebrate, as if we were surprised that things that worked out for long. As if we were waiting for things to fall apart.

Running Shoes

 Observation of a women in the salon. I was intrigued. Hope to put more emphasis on the shoes and their significance?

She wears white, Nike running shoes and sits up straight and tall, as best as she can, despite the rounded contour of her back, with her hands folded politely in her lap.

She wears no jewelry at all, except a thick, golden, diamond-studded band on the third finger of her left hand, which is a little too loose. I imagine it fitting perfectly on plump, youthful fingers fourty or so years earlier, when it first found its way to her. Although that ring is the only ornament she wears, her earlobes hang down heavily, proof of too many decorated evenings out, now in her past.

Her hair is thinning, and the color is fading into a pure white, dusted lightly with speckles of salt and pepper. Her part is a perfect line, extending from her forehead to the middle of her crown, separating her hair into two exact sections, each brushed down carefully and tucked neatly behind her ears, ending just at the nape of her neck.

There are bags under her eyes, puffy and wrinkled. The crevices in her skin trail down to her cheeks and lips, thin and pink, and finally to her neck, which disappears into a blue, cotton blouse, paired with white cotton Capri’s, matching perfectly with the blue and white running shoes she wears, out of which I can see just a glimpse of paper-thin skin covering two bony, fragile legs.

The running shoes are what intrigue me the most- so white and clean, obviously never used for their intended purpose. As she makes her way to the register, to pay for her haircut, she takes shaky, careful steps, each foot deliberately placed. Heel- toe. Heel- toe. She looks at her shoes, wiggling her toes in them every now and then, admiring them, as her ankles tremble under the stress of standing. Occasionally, she reaches down to retie the laces or straighten out the tongue just so, so conscious and protective of her running shoes, which, I am sure, were never bought to run in.

Tupelo Honey

It was the late shift, at the hospital where my mother was working. Ideal, if you want to get out of doing work, but the most boring shift of the day, with all the patients sleeping, all the visitors gone for the day. The nurses sat around with little to do.  They began to draw labs from each other, honing their skills, they may have convinced themselves, but merely fighting boredom is closer to the truth. Each lab came back negative for this and that, as expected.

One of the nurses handed my mother the results to her test. They all looked at each other in disbelief. The labs were for fun only; just to keep their hands busy and their minds entertained with impossible ideas. This is why my mother could not believe that she was pregnant.

“You’re joking,” she said over and over. Having only been married for a year, she hadn’t planned for anything like this, until things had settled down and there was enough time, not to mention money, to bring another life into the mix. “You’re joking.”

My mother signed out of the hospital, terrified and trembling as she walked across the parking lot to her car. She unlocked the car, opened the door, and sat staring at the steering wheel. It took a few minutes to get her head, to begin to comprehend the immenseness of what had just taken place, before she turned on the ignition. As soon as she turned the key, the radio clicked on and “Tupelo Honey,” by Van Morrison, began to play. “She’s as sweet as tupelo honey,” he sang to her, reassuringly. She says that this was the moment that my name was spoken to her, “by an angel,” she tells me

When my mother would put me to sleep at night, or when I would crawl into her lap crying, she would sing the lyrics to me. Even now, as I live away from her in my own world, living my own life, she reminds me every now and then:

“You can take all the tea in China

Put it in a brown bag for me

Sail right around all the seven oceans

Drop it straight into the deep blue sea

She’s as sweet as tupelo honey

She’s an angel of the first degree

She’s as sweet, she’s as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like honey, baby, from the bee”