sex in dirty water

This is Florida and the heat gets to you. In the summer, the humidity sticks to your skin, it chokes you so you can hardly breathe. Growing up, my parents rarely turned on the A\C. When my Mom couldn't stand it any longer my Dad would argue, curse and complain and then give in. Look how much these kids are costing him was what he'd say. He would flick the switch on the thermostat and then the rattle and hum from the side of the house. Under my window. But still, it never dropped to any real comfortable level.

I spent nights, hot, laying on top of my sheets. Ceiling fan turning fast above my head. It made this terrible sound as if it was would drop down from the sky at any moment. I was afraid to sleep. Afraid I'd wake up in the morning with a missing arm or leg. dismemberment seemed worse than being hot. So I turned it off. I think that's when my insomnia started.

I liked summer vacations. I couldn't wait for school to end. We took a family trip every summer. I didn't care where. I just wanted to get away and be someplace else. new people, new things to see, smell and taste.
hotels. I liked them- especially. I was allowed to turn the a\c down as low as I wanted. Jump on the bed, swim all day in the pool.
I'd get back from swimming and open the door, that rush of cold air in my face, all over my body. My parents left a note saying they were out site-seeing. I got into my bed and under the covers. My skin burned from the sun, still wet and smelling of chlorine. Everything seemed so perfect. 2 months off before school started again. The t.v. was on. I liked the sound of the air conditioner mixed with the voices on the T.V. It was peaceful. I pulled the covers over my head. touching myself. I thought about girls, cars, halloween, the fourth of july and what we might have for dinner. *


I make no
apologies
for how I choose
to repair
what you
broke

Her room. It was fragrant: somebody else's house. It reminded me of coming home from vacation and walking in the door of my own house, and smelling it as if i was a stranger entering for the first time. I felt like a ghost who had come back, not to haunt, but merely to remember the world as it once was.

credits:

art by: art and ghosts

photo 3: lefthandedsweat

Soft as snow but warm on the inside

I meant to tell you nothing. Instead I told her the story about how when I was little I stayed up nights terrified of the migration of the Killer bees. Earlier in the evening I watched IN SEARCH OF... on T.V.. And scientists predicted they would reach the United States in 4 or 6 years.

Then there were horrible dreams of swarms of bees attacking me and my dog and my friends and our school bus. My Mom said I "think to much" and that just like the space ships that we all were supposed to be flying around in by the year 2000. "Don't count on it." Think good thoughts she told me.


So I had nightmares about tornadoes and witches and no place like home. I wondered what happened after we died. A little kid with all these big people problems. My teddy bear, CoCo talked me down from scary dreams. From the darkness. Coco, he told me to think about Wendy the girl next-door. Her pink Huffy bike and riding to the Little General store to get cherry cola slurpees together. Her pink girly bike with the playing cards shoved through the spokes so that it was loud as thunder rolling down the street. We were thunder and lightning and she wore pink bunny barrettes in her hair.


Sometimes I wish it would snow and never stop. I wish it were Winter all year long. So i could love you again and there would never be any killer bees to sting us. Scientists say they can't stand the cold. Scientists say don't worry. It's nothing. I don't believe in nothing. Everything is something. WE are something. Only today: Nothing.