Little Constellation Face

"If I connected the beauty marks on your face, I bet I could make Cassiopeia." Chad stated out of the blue, his words cutting into my ramble about lunch ideas.

"What?" I was having trouble shifting subject gears.

"You have a lot of beauty marks on your face. If I took your eyeliner and connected the dots, I'm pretty sure there's a constellation there."

"I just asked you if you wanted Thai food, where did Cassiopeia come from?" I asked as the questioning lines began to form on the space between my eyebrows. "And I don't have that many beauty marks on my face."

"I'm not saying you have the Big Dipper going on over there. It's more like one of the little ones, where all the stars are mostly clustered together with one out-stretched star, to make a tail of sorts." His index finger trailed across the prominent beauty marks forming a triangle under my eye and the one lonely one below my lip.

I stood silent and hungry, still trying to follow his A.D.D. moment.

"It's adorable. I think I'll call you my little constellation face. Whattya think?"

"Yea uhm... that's cute. So, does this mean that you don't want Thai food?"

The Seven Deadly Virginia Slims

The Seven Deadly Virginia Slims

1.
“He who angers you conquers you.”

~ Elizabeth Kenny ~

I reached for my pack of cigarettes because when someone says, "we need to talk," you know it's going to be rough. Shane Holiday took my hand and dramatically led me out onto his balcony; the clatter of partiers humming inside was shushed by the closing of the sliding glass door. And then he dropped the news as I was inhaling.

"Your boyfriend Tate, is nailing Renee?" He stated bluntly and I coughed a cloud of smoke.

It was early in the party and I didn't want to be dealing with this.

"Renee Mallory? Chad’s ex?" I inquired and my face was getting hot. I could feel the intense rhythm of my heartbeat rattling through my veins and pounding in my chest.

Shane was motioning yes, in slow exaggerated nods.

"That bitch!" I continued. Cigarette still in hand, I turned on my heals and headed straight through the party. My target, Renee.

I abrasively grabbed her arm and jerked her towards me, not hard enough to really move her, but enough to throw her balance off and gain her attention. I unleashed my wrath, like gunfire and her face said she was guilty before her mouth did.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a calming tone, in a way that was more aimed at soothing me rather than out of genuine regret. "-But this isn't the time or place to discuss this. Perhaps we should take this to a more private location."

"I could care less if this conversation is private or not. I can give a fuck if you're embarrassed or not. You're a tramp, everyone knows it so I don't care how this conversation makes you look or feel."

The room fell silent and heads turned.

"Look, I said I was sorry." She repeated.

"Oh, ok... you apologized. Well, I guess that makes it all better then?"

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"I don't want you to say anything." My voice was becoming more intense as the minutes rolled on. "I know you're not sorry and you saying it, just pisses me off more. If you were truly sorry, you wouldn't keep nailing all the guys in our school and fucking up every relationship."

"Stop yelling at me! I'm not your boyfriend, I'm not the one that's committed anything to you, and I don't owe you anything." Her face was red and her words came out in a flustered, face-paced tone, "Why don't you go yell at him?"

Renee gave a smirk and shrugged as if to say, "I can't help it if the men prefer me to their girlfriends." She didn't have to say it; it was all over her face.

"Yea, keep smiling Renee. You think you have one over on every girl, but I know the real deal; you're not good enough to have a guy longer than one night. You are nothing."

She stopped smiling.

I wanted to hurt her as much as she hurt me, so I continued to verbally hit below the belt.

"Keep whoring yourself around to make yourself feel needed, Renee -" and with that she balled up her fist and aimed it right at my face.

I guess being the victim in this situation becomes null and void, when you become the aggressor. When you verbally take an aim-shot at someone's ego and self worth, you shouldn’t be surprised when the fight becomes physical, but I was surprised.

2.

“There are some circles in America

where it seems to be more socially acceptable to carry a hand-gun

than a packet of cigarettes.”

~ Katharine Whitehorn ~

It happened so fast that I couldn't remember the details. The next thing I remembered was sitting in the bathroom with Shane holding a bag of frozen vegetables over one eye and Rude Boy, dressing a cigarette burn on my forehead.

"Honey, you really should learn to keep the cigarettes away from your face when someone’s about to punch you." Shane suggested.

"I forgot I even had the damned thing in my hand and I didn't know that bitch was going to start swinging."

"She knocked you out in one punch, ran through the party and started whaling on Tate. I guess she thought he was the one that told you. She was so bent out about you confronting her in front of... well, damned near the whole school. Three people had to pull her off of him. It was the best fight I've seen since those two cheerleaders went at it a year ago."

Chad stopped talking to let his mind replay that cheerleader visual for a minute and then focused his attention back onto me.

"Lets go get something to take the edge off, something a little stronger than the Miller Lite they have here." And when Chad says "something a little stronger," he means whiskey.

"Hey!" Shane scoffed, body stance switching flamboyantly to the I'm a little Tea Pot, position. "And what's wrong with Miller Lite Mister?"

"Nothing Shane, Miller is fuckin' fabulous." Chad scoffed shaking his head.

"Ok that sounds great, Mr. Jobless, but I'm low on the cash flow and can't afford stronger, right now."

"I've got it covered." Chad assured.

"What does that mean?"

"Lets just say that people don't pay attention to their purses when fists are being thrown, especially if they're the ones throwing them. Some greedy little fucker helped himself to something that wasn't his." He said, pulling a wad of money out of his pocket and then reached back in his back pocket for more, "And whattya' know, she also smokes Virginia Slims." He continued, waiving the slender box of cigarettes.

"You're bad... but far be it from me to judge others for their wrong doings. Besides, that cow nailed my boyfriend and made me burn my face, she owes me a drink." I finished, lighting up one of Renee's cigarettes.

"Hey," Shane grabbed the lit cigarette out of my mouth and flicked it into the toilet. "No smoking in my bathroom!"

3.
“The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.”
~William Penn ~

We surfaced out of the bathroom and walked through the party, in search of the stealthiest exit. My gaze lingered across the room and caught a glimpse of Renee, being calmed by a crowd of men. Even though she was my target for the evening, I wasn't as mad at her as I was at Tate.

She was right, she didn't owe me anything; she wasn't the one in the relationship with me. I was more envious than anything. Jealous that she seems to get the attention from men, that I wished I could have. Jealous of the fact that she could break through the bond that I thought Tate and I had, even if it was just on a physical level instead of a mental level. I guess boys aren't really capable of such connections, especially when being presented with such tempting, lustful offers.

4.
“Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.”
~ George Santayana ~

The next morning I awoke with anxiety already consuming me. And it wasn't just because of the news, it was everything; my public display of hate and humiliation, my gluttonous consumption of cigarettes and whiskey, my regrets.

By the time Chad pealed himself off of the spot where he had passed out (the kitchen floor), I had reached the lowest point. I was slothfully sitting Indian style in the middle of the living room, crying with an unlit cigarette dangling between my lips. Not just any cry, the kind you had when you were a child. Deep heavy sobs that causes your body to jerk back when you inhale and every now and again, you choke on your own spit. The kind that reduces your ability to talk down to a broken one - word - per - deep - breath type of speech.

Unsure of what to do with me, Chad stepped lightly, sat quietly next to me, pat me on my back and eventually gave me a confused "there, there, now."

I sucked up my tears and swallowed my sorrows away, enough to try and hold a conversation. No one wants an audience to their pity-party.

"I just feel heavy and regretful." I slurred through deep breaths as Chad removed the soggy cigarette that had set up camp between my lips. He reached for a new one from the pack and scrambled around for a lighter.

"You've just reached Dante's fifth circle, girl. You're under water."

"Drowning." and when I finally composed myself, I continued. "I can do the math. Shouldn't Karma have kept me from getting my ass handed to me by that heifer?"

"I think your attack negates due Karma."

Just as Chad found a lighter to light the cigarette with, we were interrupted by the sound of a car rolling up to the front of our house. Chad and I glanced at each other and simultaneously stood up to view the world outside of the living room window. That car looked familiar. It looked like the real confrontation was about to happen and an inevitable end of a relationship.

"I guess it's time for the talk, whether I'm ready for it or not" I stated to Chad with a sigh as I watched Tate's car door swing open.

"Hey," Chad called my attention back as he popped the cigarette in his mouth. He lit his and tossed me the pack and the lighter. "Don't take his shit, you don't need him. You're better than both of them, remember that."

Chad drew an imaginary heart in the air with his index fingers, framing my face in it.

I smiled a weak smile and nodded.

5.
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
~ Anaïs Nin ~

Out on the front porch, I told it like it was. There was no buying of his bullshit, no acceptance of his apologies, no taking him back.

"I just want to explain. I don't think you realize how much you mean to me. It was a mistake and the situation is not like you think it is -" Tate tried to explain, words stumbling over his thoughts. I can only presume that he was hoping to talk his way out of this one.

"You hooked up with some other girl while I was wearing your promise ring. The situation is exactly like I think it is. That's all the details I need to know. There's nothing more to explain and there's nothing that you can say that will make this ok."

"I just want to, uhm -" There was an eternity of silence as I stood and watched him struggle to find some other words to rectify the situation. " I'm sorry."

"You are sorry. Sorry and stupid." I removed his ring and tossed it on the ground in front of him. "You'll be even more sorry when you realize that you just fucked up the best thing you'll ever have."

And with that I turned, lit my last cigarette from the pack and walked back into the house. Even though I didn't fully believe it myself, I didn't want him to leave thinking that he got the better of me. It was the only piece of pride I had left.

Dogism

Rude Boy says so much cool shit and so much bullshit, that sometimes it's hard to decipher between the two. Oh, and he's a clever one with all his ism's and quips but now, right now the snarkiness in his tone was quickly modified into sullen seriousness.

"I've given up on trying to win her back." He said, throwing down the PlayStation controller.

"What?" I was only halfway listening. He was distracted, so I used this moment to put his Soul Calibur character into a head-lock position.

This was about seven months after his split from Renee Mallory, "the one," and the realization that he couldn't charm her back into his life had just sunk in. Frankly, every one to him was "the one," until he got bored with them. In my opinion, his efforts were intensified with Renee because she was smart and she bailed on him before he could say they were done.

"I'm winning." I stated, as his character's health bar reached it's end.

"I don't care. I'm talking about Renee," he explained, "I've given up on trying to date her again."

"Oh?"

"My new plan is to ruin her life."

"That's your new pan? Revenge?" I said, finally pausing the game and turning my gaze away from the TV screen.

"Yes."

"You've put in over a half of a year worth of effort, trying to get her back and now you're just giving up?"

"It's not giving up, it's simply revising my plan. I can't win with her. We were kinda' hooking up even though she dropped me and believe me, I was cool with that set up, but now all of a sudden she has an issue with that. She's not really returning my phone calls. She doesn't want anything to do with me."

"It sounds like she found someone else." I could tell that he didn't want to hear that, but I continued talking as I took the game from its unpaused state. "So, instead of finding a new girl and moving on, like you should do, you'd rather waste more time with Renee just so you could try to make her feel bad?"

"Yes. Dogism." He picked his controller back up and re-affixed his attention onto his flailing computerized ninja.

"Dogism? I'm not familiar with this one, please explain."

"If you can't eat it or fuck it . . . piss all over it. That's Dogism."

Rude Boy

The first time I met Chadwick Nieson Rude, we didn't quite fall into the rapport that we have now.

I was a small town bred girl stepping onto big city grounds for the first time and was nervous as hell. Poor little me, unusually dressed up in a lacy yellow sun-dress smothered in 70's style flower prints and white lined tights. I was dressed for the part, but a delicate young lady I was not. I had put up the biggest fight a third grade tom-boy of a girl could give with her mother, but lost.

The mood had already been set for the day, so after a brief but negative interaction with Rude Boy, as the school kids called him, I popped-off at the mouth. He then brought it upon himself to introduce his fist to my face. I was a mouthy little one, but had managed to never end up throwing blows, until now. They handled things a little differently out here in the city.

I was walking across the school yard, looking confused and fidgeting with my dress when Chad walked up to me. Politely, I said "excuse me" and tried to walk around him, but he side stepped in front of me again. I tried moving around him a couple of times, but when my movement was returned with him blocking me every time, I became frustrated.

"Move the fuck out of my way!" I barked. My father swore like a sailor when he drank, and he drank like a sailor drowning. Drowning in his own private vast ocean of whiskey. I picked up on some of his habits early.

The swearing, I mean. I wasn't a third grade alcoholic.

My verbal demands were met with a push, so I pushed back even harder and then that's when he swung at my face sending me off balance. Within seconds of me landing butt first in the gravel, I bounced back up and squared off face-to-face with Rude Boy, little hands puckered into fists.

As Rude Boy's expression changed from a smirk to mocking laughter, my balled up white-knuckled fists swung into action.

Right fist.

Left fist.

My anger fueled fists collided with his jaw and that was all it took to send him to the ground. Crying, I pounced on him like a threatened wild animal and unleashed my fury.

Was it extreme force, or was it catching him off guard that sent his stalky fourth grade frame into a backward cement dive? To this day I still don't know and Chad never put it into question.

As all good schoolyard fights go, I was pulled into the office by the yard duty officer who only happened to see the later half of the incident. That would be the part where I viciously attacked Chad. I was granted suspension on my first day of third grade without a question as to why. The office labeled me a troublemaker, both threatened and promised to keep an eye on me upon my return and Chad walked away with only a sore jaw and a bruised ego.

The second encounter with Chad was the very next time I set foot on school grounds. I had just finished getting the index-finger-in-the-face type of lecture by my mother, as I shifted uncomfortably on the plastic blue station-wagon seat.

I remember that it was a hot day and I was experiencing a whole new, very uncomfortable sensation from the seat that I had never felt before. Through all of her yelling, I had remained emotionless and somehow that bothered her. Was it that I had become numb to all of her yelling or could it have been that I was preoccupied with the strange sticking and peeling phenomenon that was happening between the faux-leather seat and the skin on the back of my legs? Perhaps, a bit of both.

"You're a horrible child," she barked and then came the WHOLE name.

It wasn't until Jr. High that I had teachers at role call and students refer to me as Bailey. I was embarrassed by my full name and this was due, in large part, to a comment made by some boy that I had a sweaty palm kind of crush on.

I believe his words were, "who's the girl with the unfortunate name?" Ouch, that hurt and I'm reminded of that every time I see or hear my name at length.

"... Bailson Zucker Sky Shabbari, I'm SO disappointed in you." Bailson is my grandmothers maiden name, Zucker is my mothers maiden name and Sky was the middle name of my fathers godmother. Confusing, I know. Lucky me, they promised everyone in our family with the oddest names that they'd honor them by naming their children after them. I'm not even going to get into my sisters name.

You know, one can really zone out in moments like these, when the parents are laying into you like a house pet that just diddled on the rug. Rub my face in my problems.

She continued her lament as I stuck and peeled myself off of the passenger side seat for the last time of the morning, with thoughts of less aggravating chairs on the horizon.

At that point her words traveled completely off-path into her usual detour of a verbal dirt-road ramble, saying "...where did I go wrong? I try so hard with you and your sister, but it's not easy seeing as how your father left me all alone..."

My father, as if I had the choice in who she wanted to marry. Leaving just her all alone, as if my sister and I were not affected by his abandonment.

I leaned my whole body into closing the door and in my distorted regression, it's remembered to be as big as a house door, creaking in it's agony as I struggled it to a close. I waved as she quickly pulled out from the curb, leaving me in a cloud of old station wagon exhaust and tire dust.

No longer than a minute afterward, I was pulled into an empty walkway offside some unused portable buildings. Chad was staring me dead in the face and asked me what I had to say for myself. The only thing I could think of was my mother's words to my father as he was heading for the front door for the last time.

"Kiss my ass!" I said, just like that, without hesitation.

Chad put his hands on either side of my face and pressed his lips to mine. It was my first kiss and I didn't know whether to be flattered or furious. He first punches me in the face and then kisses me after being told to press his lips to my backside.

My sister, Darrison, who's knowledge exceeded mine by three years, explained with a straight and serious face, "When you tell a boy to kiss your ass, you need to point at what part of the body that is." She twisted her hip and pointed to her butt cheek, finishing her thought she said, "...'cause, sometimes they just don't know."

In retrospect, this his how schoolyard love etiquette goes. The more you like someone, the more you taunt, tease, pull their hair and knock them down. So, in lieu of this theory, it must have been love at first sight for Chad to send my tiny third grade body skidding across the cement like I were on a slip-N-slide. For me, it was his persistence that eventually wore me down to friendship. Well, that and the candy out of his lunchbox.

Asking For It

I was heartbroken and almost accidentally drove off a cliff. I had a good friend sitting shotgun and scared as hell. Thelma and Louise ain't got nothing on me. The band Hole was spinning in the CD player, but was coming in low like a whisper in the back seat of my car. Turned down by my companion, Melissa, who urged me to concentrate.

Let me back up a bit. It was the beginning of summer and the day after being dropped by my first love. I was better off; he was an asshole who couldn't keep his eyes from wandering and his hands from traveling. The only problem was, I couldn't get my heart to follow my minds lead. I didn't feel better off. And my friend sitting shot gun, Mel? She had just nailed half of the guys in our circle of friends, trying to screw her memory-slate clean of the love she left back home, many states away. Apparently it wasn't working.

"I feel fine for a while and then all of a sudden, I get anxious and depressed for a full hour. One whole hour of feeling completely jacked up." Mel confesses.

"The hour of Jacked!" I repeated, feeling the twinges of anxiety myself.

"Let's just go for a drive and see where it takes us?" And that's how it began. One suggestion, followed by a winding road up through the back hills of San Juan Bautista, with angry chick music blaring from the car stereo. Two wayward travelers, trying to out-drive our thoughts.

Depression makes you adventurous and somewhat careless with your life. Not purposefully, the risks are just another means to distract yourself from your mind. So, when the opportunity to veer off the main road onto a graveled side road appeared, we took it. It was seemingly the road to a better view of the city lights.

We got halfway up the dirt road when I realized that the road was but merely a path and it narrowed the farther up we went. With the incline, at some point I couldn't see the road at all, just the front hood of my car. That's when the music got turned down. This was serious. I couldn't go forward anymore, because I couldn't even see if there was a forward, and the dust cloud I caused behind us made backing up a bit difficult.

"Ummm... I think I'm going to back-up. At least I'm positive that there's road there." I said, in a wavering, unsure tone.

"Take your time. I'll be here. . . pissing my pants."

Backing up when you can't see what your backing up on is tricky and straight is subjective, when you're on a winding dirt trail. When my back tire lost contact with the ground, I stopped short.

"Ok, new plan! I'm going forward..."

"Uh-huh." Mel's voice was seemingly calm, but her presence was panicked. She gripped onto the 'oh shit,' handle above the passenger side door and sat stiffly as the car began to roll forward.

At the top of the hill we both leaned forward and stretched our upper bodies in hopes of being able to see past the hood. There was a universe of dust surrounding my car now and the front headlights were superfluous. I hit the gas and my car thrust forward, back tires kicking up gravel, both of us clenching and cursing under breath. The car tipped and began rolling, then sliding downhill. With the headlights, highlighting the blanket of darkness in front of us and the speed at which my car jolted forward, it was hard to tell if we were still on a path or just going off the cliff side. I slammed on the brakes, gripped the steering wheel tight and my butt puckered, anticipating the worse. All of a sudden, the dust cleared and we were sitting on a rounded clearing of dirt, just off the main road. The car had made it to the other side.

We both exhaled deeply and when I turned to look at her, she had two cigarettes in her mouth and was rummaging around her purse for a lighter.

"Cut the engine for a minute." She suggested, in a mumble, cigarettes bobbing between her lips as she spoke. I turned the engine off, but left a bit of power running, so the low tunes could still be heard. She turned to me with a lit cigarette and I took it, I needed it.

We rolled the windows down and turned up the stereo to hear "Asking for it," coming in clear. Courtney Love was off-key and singing, " . . . if you live through this with me, I swear that I will die for you and if you live through this with me, I swear that I will die for you . . . "

"Ready to go -" I said, cutting Courtney off. The song following the situation made everything seem too surreal.

"More than ready." Mel was in agreement. "Somehow, I don't feel so jacked anymore."

"I would assume that near-death can do that to you." I mused.

"So, what do you want to do tomorrow?"

Get It Together, Girl

If you want to know what life was like without you,
it felt very drunk.

I spent a lot of mornings apologizing for the night before.
I'm still sorry for the mess I made on that car, in that house,
and the one I made of my life.

Life felt like an empty room in a very big house
like a churning stomach and a sleepless night,
like someone feeling very uncomfortable in her own skin.
The pain was cutting and the scars are deep.
Deep in my heart, in my memory, on my flesh.
I could still see the scars but when the pain was starting to fade,
it was a false recovery that I didn't realize, until now.

This all was due largely to the destructive distraction,
the boy I thought I was trying to save, but didn't need or want my saving.
How can I clean up someone elses mess,
when my very own mess was causing my head to spin.
Together we made one fantastic mess,
two people united by one subconscious downward spiral.

We were reckless . . .
no, wait, he was reckless and I went along for the ride.

He was a car crash into a train wreck
and I walked into his self-destructive behavior, like a bird aimlessly gliding into glass.

All I saw was clear skies -never the impending impact.

Tell me stories,
make promises out of lies,
feed me pills and fill me with false hope,
I was begging for it.

Please, save me from myself.

Sugary sweet hours of blissful zoning,
gave way for me to escape this world, myself,
my wreckless companion
and you.
Enough to make me think I was getting over you,
not just distracting myself from the hurt.

If you want to know what life was like without you,
it felt cheep and abusive.
It felt like I was looking for anyone to hurt me,
because I was tired of hurting myself.

It felt like bottom-shelf whiskey,
a dive-bar jukebox,
stripper dust and filth.
That dive of a place,
was starting to feel like home,
and the hazy drunkenness . . . comfortable,
as comfortable as a Pink Floyd song.
I wasn't thinking about you any more.
I didn't need you anymore, in that place.

If you want to know what life was like without you,
it felt like abandonment.
it felt like my distraction found solace
in the arms of someone with a warm bed and kind eyes.
It felt like alone would feel,
when your friends are tired of your drunken behavior.
It felt like a girl who wasn't even good enough
for a boy who's life is like a car crash into a train wreck.

Life felt like an empty room in a very big house
like a churning stomach and a sleepless night,
like someone feeling very uncomfortable in her own skin.
like a dive bar stool and 2am promises,
like tears in the bottom of a shot glass, crying "get it together girl."
get it together.
Get it together, girl.

If you want to know what life is like without you,
it feels like a cut of the flesh finally healing
and a sober morning.
It feels like a garage sale,
like the purging of all of your things.
It feels like an out of state move and a new apartment.
It feels like a new job and a fresh start.
Like a mess of a girl finally getting it together.