she's mesmerizing and strangely perfect, but i
love her |
She likes to sit and melt crayons on the rusted yellow radiator. Its funny too, because she'll just wait patiently and watch them sear till they crackle like a spitfire and then start running off the edge of the radiator, covering the rust and memories of the coldest nights in December. She just sits calmly, wrapping her pallid face in the folds of her dark sable hair and the creases of the radiator streams that drifts upwards. And when the river starts to flow, she'll stick her left pinkie finger in the exact center of the puddle and watch the waxy stream drip drip drip into the delta made from the vintage brown linoleum. “Otherwise it'll get angry...” She expends all of her energy making queer colored pins out of the cooled wax and when they're done she just throws them away, or gives them to me as what she likes to call “not much gifts.” Its the only real attention she pays me, and I relish in every second of it... No matter how hard I try, I can never make any sense of her. I should've listened to my mother in second grade and stayed away from “kids like her,” but she's mesmerizing and strangely perfect. She brushes her teeth four times a day, but refuses to brush her hair for weeks. She never smiles but for some reason I always think she is laughing at me behind my back, to my face. And she has this annoying habit of always knowing what I am thinking, saying what I am going to say. And yet the worst part about her is the fact that she is a horrible liar. When we were younger she claimed that her mother had once been part of English royalty, trying to prove her theory with an antiqued dime-store broach wrapped in wads of toilet paper. When I pointed out that imprinted on the back were the words “Made in China,” she merely flicked her head back and said “Oh, maybe...” She never really makes any rational sense, but maybe that's a good thing. Still, for all the things she can't do, she makes up for each one of them with her voice. Sometimes when I keep quiet for long enough and she thinks I am asleep she'll sing German arias by Schubert and Handel or hum some cheesy Sesame Street songs. Even when she forgets the words, as she usually does, they are each so beautiful with her shaky vibrato, forced breathing patterns and incredible passion of high tension and soft sounds. Sometimes she'll call me in the middle of the night just to warn me that the sun is coming up at 5:47 or that she saw a really good movie last week at some Portuguese film festival. “I was the only Caucasian there! Everyone was staring at me, I think...” “Maybe its because you had pink hair that week?” “No, it was definitely not the hair, must've been my accent. My Portuguese isn't so good.” “You don't know Portuguese.” “I know, so it cant be very good.” I keep thinking that I should change my number and not tell her, but in some way, I think I'd miss her. She's the only one who can take me away from myself, make me see things under their skin, above the surface of the cliché. She takes away the familiar faces of everything I know and love and turns them into contorted Picasso portraits. She forces me to see the new beauty in a cracked light bulb in the alley way or the buzzing flies around the dumpster in the back of the school. She makes me see something more than nothing and everything and appreciate their dangerous slants and curves. She is dangerous. Always creeping around in the folds of my mind, pinching and jabbing at the memories that I've tried to block out, so as to keep from laughing in the middle of conversations and to keep me from crying at the thought of their recollection. See its not the memories that scare me, just the realization that they're over. I feel like its a crime to love her. She's trouble, I swear it! She never pays for anything, except for caffeine pills and cigarettes. And even then she'll only pay for one pack and then steal the other. The same conversation usually occurs between approximately 2:39 and 2:46 on Tuesdays on our routine run to the local Wal-Mart. “Ya know those aren't good for you.” “I know.” She'll say as she flicks her Parliament Menthol cigarette nonchalantly to the pavement. “Well, if you know then why do you--” She'll usually cut me off there and look at me with her big greenish-brown eyes. Her eyes are amazing. She has this power over me, every time she stares at me with a helpless look, she knows it kills me, and I can't help but smile. “Plus, if they weren't so bad, I wouldn't waste my time. You know that...” She knows me too well, and yet never lets me think so. At times, when she's tired of breathing, she'll rest her head on my chest and listen to my heartbeat, tapping the rhythm on her thigh. She never says a word, I wish I knew what she was thinking. It must be hard to feel without feeling, but not for her. Maybe she doesn't know that the weight of her being is breaking my heart. Sometimes I feel her under my skin, that's the only way I know for sure that she is real. Sometimes I'll imagine her lips speaking “i love you” and yet I know its only my reflection wishing I could hear her whisper my name like I whisper hers. But her only whispers are disguised in volume and she deafens me with her voice. I never, ever understand a goddamn word she says,not one goddamned word, but I just love her! I can't help it. The vodka to my innocent tonic. She's absolutely insane, but she's mine. I hate that I love her. Her breasts are far too big for her tiny frame and she's always twirling her fingers through her hair. I've never kissed her and I really dont want to. I'd rather love her from a distance and wear her melted crayon pins. |