mirror

Dense fog rolled into my nights.
Dreams dissipated into white noise.
Gone, too, are the little sparks in my eyes.

[diary] 080506

"Take an emotional risk and meet me half way," he wrote. I scoffed and deleted his email. In response to my silence, he wrote me one last time to call me "human igloo."

I could easily be in a relationship right this minute--for all the wrong reasons. But I don't believe in bad start transforming into something good as Hollywood loves to have us fantasize. I'm a skeptic--I've been married before.

Severe cramps had me handicapped all evening. I could not find acetaminophen in my medicine box so I opened a bottle of Glenfiddich instead. It turns out, Scotch works better than Vicodin.

The Scarlet Woman

Fenton Johnson (1888-1958)

Once I was good like the Virgin Mary and the Minister's wife.
My father worked for Mr. Pullman and white people's tips; but he died two days after his insurance expired.
I had nothing, so I had to go to work.
All the stock I had was a white girl's education and a face that enchanted the men of both races.
Starvation danced with me.
So when Big Lizzie, who kept a house for white men, came to me with tales of fortune that I could reap from the sale of my virtue I bowed my head to Vice.
Now I can drink more gin than any man for miles around.
Gin is better than all the water in Lethe.

* * * * *

Since reading this poem for the first time, I often--too often--recite the last verse of this poem to myself. Work is my gin. But I'm growing tired of drinking my gin.

[diary] 080503

Deja vu.

I woke up to my usual morning alarm. 6:30AM, set for every morning. My body ached and eyes felt dry. I undraped the fleece blanket off of me and got up from the sofa. Stumbling toward the bedroom I turned off the kitchen lights and let myself flop on the bed before silencing the alarm. Dark silence enveloped my consciousness again.

I was awakened a couple hours later. I lay there staring at the ceiling. This routine has become too familiar, too often repeated.

Deja vu.

The word hung over my head stubbornly.

[diary] 080501

My rosemary is dead. Negligence, I find, is a superb talent of mine.