flower - liz phair.

not going to get in the habit of this, the whole posting other's writings, but this song is very reflective of my christmas night. also, it's a fucking good song.

everytime i see your face
i get all wet between my legs.
everytime you pass me by,
i heave a sigh of pain.

everytime i see your face
i think of things unpure, unchaste
i want to fuck you like a dog
i'll take you home and make you like it
everything you've ever wanted,
everything you ever thought of, is
everything i'll do to you
i'll fuck you and your minions too
your face reminds me of a flower,
kinda like you're underwater
hair's too long and in your eyes
your dick's a perfect suck me size
you act like you're fourteen years old.
everything you say is so
obnoxious, funny, true and mean
i want to be your blowjob queen
you're probably shy and introspective
that's not part of my objective
i just want your fresh, young jimmy
jamming, slamming, ramming in me
everything i see your face
i think of things not pure, not chaste
i want to fuck you like a dog
i'll take you home and make you like it
everything you ever wanted
everything you ever thought of, is
everything i'll do to you
i'll fuck you till your dick is blue

-

merry fucking christmas, kids.

natalie catherine

young boys.

i sense the space where your dick was inside me.
like a chew toy,
gnaw gnaw.

you are twelve years old.

there's a difference between being passed and thrown around.
you like to think your hardcore.

tonight i bow my head with shame,
not for something i did
but for the girl you thought i'd became

we all need someone to get us out of trouble.

but i don't need no one.
how's that?
maybe trouble is where i like it.

breaking news.

i'll use you and you can't use me.
i can't stand myself.
because you don't know.
promise, i don't mean no harm.
one day i hope you share your story with the national inquirer.
i'm not your savior. don't think that for a SECOND.
it's better this way.
one day, i'm sure you'll tell your story for a million.
let's pretend i'm worth that much.

all i want you to know.

i bruise easy because i fall down alot. this is because i'm clumsy, not because i'm self destructive.

if i'm using unnecessary amounts of consonants in our online conversations, i want you to think everything is okay.

i love myself exactly how i am. i'm okay that my 'crazy life' serves as entertainment for you. i'll always be okay.

this is my natural hair color.

i don't have a problem. it's not become a habit. i'm fine without it.

i don't view you as lesser than me. you don't hurt me either.

everyone is expendable. even you. trust me.

that's cool.

my pinkie finger is aching and imobile.
my nose, bloody, and swollen twice it's size.
which was a pretty fucking big size to begin with.
no love, no glory.
the boy i love loves me no longer,
the men i chase beat me to the ground now.
i am half an inch from giving up.
my friend says, no please don't never!
he waves at me through the mcd's parking lot

everyone is an image of who we want to see
sometimes we just don't like the quality of the screen.

'the list' master copy

made this with a friend while drinking wine tonight. the fucking things i'll put on the internet...

--

The List

1. w - waste of 1/4 of a decade
2. j - virgins & stairwells
3. d - secretly gay
4. t - overrated and a caveman
5. j - hot junkie with a pencil dick
6. k - ex-methhead neighbour
7. a - friend incest
8. a - still sucks. PERIOD.
9. j - sloppy tenths
10. d - neighbour of EW
11. k - gross vag
11 1/2. j - 37, british, adorable!
12. ? - fuck
13. ? - YOU!
14. m - 1st groupie experience
15. j - had porn on his wall... classay
16. z - 19th bday... 'jesus'?
17. m - ginger poser cokehead, waste of enough months
18. s - HOT counter guy, score for me!
19.m - landlord babymama drama
20. 'd' - schizophrenic lesbian
21. a - mildly attractive emo
22. c - fake 'aboriginal', but real good
23. j - needed someone to fuck on xmas. all my friend's are jealous. all his friends are lame.
24. j - we did, and still do hate each other's fucking guts. the power of 3 bottles of wine, i guess. i want my pants back from his house.
25. 'f' aka m - friend i never thought i'd fuck. had a surprisingly big dick and i got a sweet sweater out of it. thank god it's not awkward now.
26. s - crackhead with a kid going to jail. what can i say, i like free drugs.
27. j - been on my to do list for a while, i had a hunch the sex would be hot, i was right. now, if only i could stop thinking about him
28. j - the previous boy's loser thirty something roommate; a rockstar in his own mind. raped me when i was passed out on his couch on st. patrick's day, how charming.
29. m - fucking hot ex-junkie punk in an open relationship i met at some party.
30. l - his girlfriend. we look pretty much exactly the same, it was like fucking my long lost twin.
31. r - their 16 year old russian friend, she was a cutie.
32. l - some random dude i met on an ill advised night out. not even that attractive, i let him believe we were in a relationship (after less than three hours of knowing me, i mean like what are you a chick?) cause i needed some place to sleep. class act.

new blog, food fixation

ptashkabones.blogspot.com - my let's lose 10 pounds in a month blog.

'Why I'm So Easy' essay coming soon, when I stop drinking and fucking so much.

girls

all us broken girls.
all us beat down, shrunken girls.
all of us, smiling, biting our lips in half.
you leave us behind. you expect us to lead.
we raise our heads up, ask 'so are you gonna take me to prom now, huh?'
maybe i never wanted to go
maybe you never knew anything about me
maybe you didn't care, and preferred to believe the lie
we sob beneath the makeup, the painted face, can't you hear me wailing?
i'm looking for myself
i want to hold you so hard that you can't breathe
i want to put you in my pocket, and take you back with me
i will never be a mother
but i will be your home

why don't you scootch over a little closer, sugar?

i think i'm gonna start typing in here some more.

currently drinking some wine, waiting for julie to pick me up.
going to a work party? as her fake girlfriend. or just drinking with drew.
idk/idc.
i just need to get out of this suffocating house.
conundrum: hamilton house leaves me bereft and lonely
parental oakville house leaves me suffocated and skittish.
i've burned so, so many bridges.
met so many people.
many i don't care to meet again.
my head is poorly shaved today but at least my eyes look nice.
maybe i'll write again tomorrow?

you don't.

well, you just don't know anything about me.

my eating problems.
how i paint this face on to cake what's writhing underneath.
my blatant promiscuity.
passable drug addiction (which i don't believe, everyone just trying to hammer it into me).
massacre of the unborn, maybe for a second time.
my federal felony, well no one does.
no one in a position of power, anyways.
failure of at least one class.
ambiguous sexual identity.
what's the point, when i haven't met a girl half worth bringing home?
you didn't know about the rape.
and when i told you, you didn't seem to care much.
so what, exactly
is the point in enlightening you about the rest of this mess?

everyone draws their own conclusions anyways.
objectivity is a myth.

on nights like these, i hate myself a little bit

I hate myself for stealing money from my mother when she's done so much for me.
I hate myself for not being able to have a good time when I'm sober, and I hate everyone else for knowing it.
I hate myself for missing a day of birth control.
I hate myself for getting all caught up in a boy when I was adamant about staying completely single and being a charter member of 'The Box'.
I hate myself for eating too many carbs today, and skipping the gym, just asking for my old body to come back.
I hate myself.

How was your evening?

French Adventures or, why I'm probably not your new best friend

For the past couple of days I've been taking a break from my routine of drinking, smoking, passing out in a stranger's bed and not remembering any of it the next day to battle what my friends lovingly call swine flu. In reality, it's just a really bad cold that I made worse by missing two nights of sleep, walking around the weed march in the rain and then missioning it to Hamilton to partake in my regular schedule of see above. Watching countless Two and a Half Men reruns and drinking pot after pot of green tea might seem relaxing, but I have never been one to handle downtime well. I get restless. And when I get restless, I get to overthinking (that is, more than usual, which is already quite alot) which inevitably leads me right back to my past.

Lately, I've been thinking about men, and my ridiculously flawed relationship with the male gender. I've never been one of "those girls"; the best friend types who laugh and joke with their male friends and then high five over hockey or whatever. I'd like to be, minus the organized sports part, but the fact is unless I'm wasted I feel slightly awkward around almost every dude I hang out with. I can think of a couple reasons why; the fact that I was discouraged from making friends with boys at a young age, the unhealthy relationship I have with my father, how I was treated as a sex object by grown men before I'd even reached puberty. But like always, knowing why doesn't bring me any closer to fixing things. Maybe writing about it will.

I'm toying with the idea of writing a novel, or if I'm honest more of a memoir, about a promiscuous young girl and her strange relationships with alcohol and men. It's going to be called Conversations With Men in Bars, and I'm not nearly ready to start working on it, but I thought I might try to tell a few of my stories, I can't really deal with keeping them in my head any longer.

A little more than a year ago, I was packing my bags to head to Quebec for my very last March Break before graduating high school. It was a trip my family took every year, but I'd been looking forward to it for two reasons; one: for the first time I got to bring a friend, two: instead of hanging out with my alcoholic uncle and playboy grandfather in their small town of Baie d'Urfe my friend Val and I had been given the use of our very own hotel room in downtown Montreal. The room, my parents specified, was to be No Smoking but we would figure a way to get around that. Val and I usually did; even the drinking age, which I was about a month shy of, didn't worry us. This was before the fake id crackdown occurred and you could basically glue a picture of your face on a piece of cardboard and get served.

It ended up not even being an issue. After we checked in, Val and I immediately asked the concierge where we could find the nearest LCBO. Blank stare. Apparently, French Canadians felt the need to distance themselves even further from the rest of the country by changing the name of their liquor stores as well. Whatever. We headed down to the VQO or something that sounded similar and had our first in a long line of experiences of not being carded in Montreal. We went back to the room, Val fucked around with the window until it was wide open despite us being on the 15th floor and we proceeded to get very, very drunk. It was around 4pm. At some point we decided that getting ready to go out would be preferable to passing out in a wine and room service induced haze because it was after all, Saturday night and Val was pumped to check out the Montreal club scene.

I have to add something here. I will never, ever be comfortable going to a club. Not then as a nervous and over eager 17 year old and not now as a wizened 19 year old crone will I say to myself, hey, let's go dancing tonight! The fact is, I can't. I really, really can't dance. I have no rythym, I can't get down in the club, whatever. I will always be the girl sitting at the bar downing my seventh rum and coke and beckoning you with a come hither (read: hey, wasted chick right over hurr!) glance. That being said, we were both newly single, and I wanted to make sure Val had a good time seeing as she had saved me from spending my vacation with my family. She did me the favour of taking us to a bar to pre drink beforehand. Three beers later, Val was deep in conversation with a preppy type who didn't strike my fancy at all and I was ready to leave. I told prep boy we had to go meet our husbands or something equally ridiculous, and dragged Val across the street to a club that looked appropriately "bumpin"

It turned out that I didn't even have to worry about the social anxiety nightmare that is dancing because the second we entered the club Val and I were accosted by a group of loud, drunken British men in togas. My liquor addled brain did a silent tally: I liked guys with accents, I liked drunk people, and hey, togas were pretty awesome too! I decided they were going to be our best friends/drink purchaser's for the rest of the night and immediately latched myself onto a lanky blonde guy that was a little fucked up looking, just how I liked them. Well, it turned out he was 37 but at the time I didn't have a problem with that at all, I just looked at it as an interesting story I'd get to tell one day (and hey, was I wrong?). I still have no idea why a bunch of 30 something British dudes were having a batchelor party in Montreal but I didn't particularly care as long as the drinks kept coming.

Eventually Jason (I am 95 percent sure that this was his name) and I decided it would be a really good idea to head back to the suite he was sharing with his about to be married friend. At this point, I can see you asking yourself: really, Natalie? You're going to go by yourself to a hotel room with some dude you just met who doesn't seem to care about the fact that you're wasted, and uh, underage? Yeah, really. The fact is, at 17 I didn't care about much except for want, get, have and it wouldn't be for a couple more months that I took a breath, looked back and said what the fuck?! to my whole lifestyle. Maybe I deserved what would be coming to me soon. Maybe I was asking for it. Fucking questions like these are what make it so hard for me to move on. But back to Jason; he was sweet, and considerate. Wouldn't fuck without a condom. Had considerably less skill than I expected from a man in his late 30's, but he kissed me outside my hotel room the next day, gave me his card and told me to keep in touch (I never did, but it's the gesture that matters right?). "You're beautiful" he said, and you know, I felt it for real but it was time for him to go back to his adult life of weddings and international flights and time for me to go back to getting wasted.

Val and I decided to grab lunch first. Her night, while not as eventful as mine, had been fun and we did the whole girly morning after gossip thing over hot wings and pints. It was Easter Sunday, and the city was near dead. Yeah, it was Easter; Jesus Day, and I'm laughing to myself now because I just remembered this. I'm laughing because it has to be fucking funny. We went back to the hotel, smoked some pot, had a nap, I don't exactly remember. And then we began the whole getting ready process once again. The second night didn't progress as obviously. We went back to the club we'd been at the night before, but it was dead, so we hopped in a cab and scoured the city for something to do. The only promising place had a mile long lineup of hipsters in skinny jeans and was, as the doorman informed us in clipped tones, a club for 21+. Our ids said we were 19. Slightly irritated and out 20 dollars, we headed back to the original club. It had gotten busier, if only by a few people, but we decided to go inside anyways.

For the first time that trip we bought our own drinks, and slid into a booth, already planning to get the hell out of there and find a better place to party. The night had different plans for us. Only a few minutes later, three men slid into our booth. They were well dressed, but in a greasy Euro way, and their accents identified them as natives of Quebec even if they looked like they came from somewhere more exotic. They introduced themselves; their names elude me. I was bored, and a little skeezed out by our new 'friends' so I decided to head onto the balcony for a smoke. Two of the guys decided to join me, whatever, maybe they'd toss me a smoke.

They led the way, and it took me awhile to realize, longer than it should have, that we were going downstairs, to the exit. I asked why, and got back a vague reply about the balcony being too crowded. Okay, said Natalie's drunk brain, that makes sense, continue on. We ended up outside the club. And then in one of the guy's cars. I was getting pretty confused now, but the guys weren't offerring any explanation. They just lit their smokes and continued chatting like everything was as it should be. A thought swam languidly into my drunk brain; maybe you should, you know, get out. But we were already driving away. I didn't know where we were going. I couldn't focus. It's kind of hard to when you're trying to unlock a door, tell some dudes to take you back to the club, and fend off four hands that suddenly wanted to get all up on you. We parked in some dingy back street. Classy. Had I invited this? By dressing the way I did, getting drunk, going out for a cigarette with strange men? By the way I was telling them to fuck off and trying so hard to get up from under and undo those goddamned locked doors I would say no, but the question fucking haunts me. It was disgusting, dirty, and not in a hot way, like really, really bad. Being force fucked by two strange foreign guys usually is, so maybe I need to stop stating the obvious. At one point I think I just said to myself "forget it Natalie, you're fighting as hard you can to get away and they're hurting you for it so maybe you should just turn off your brain and they can get it over with" So that's what I did. At one point I think they started filming me which was just too much to handle, so I lashed out. Why they honored my request not to be videotaped but they couldn't do the same when I asked not to be raped I will never know. Sometimes I wish they'd put it on the internet or something, because I'm pretty sure they didn't know I was underage. That way I could sue their asses for child pornography and maybe feel some semblance of vengeance.

It ended eventually. Everything does. They drove me back to the club and didn't say a word. Finally I could open those goddamn doors and get the fuck away, which I did, sprinting back into the club and shoving my id in the bouncers face. He pulled back, looked at me. Asked me "are you okay?" What made me say "yes", I'm not sure. I just knew I wanted to get Val, and get the hell out of there. Natalie's night was over. Val was exactly where I left her, chatting to the third guy, the non-rapist. It looked like he'd bought her a couple of drinks. They were having a lovely time. I wanted to go home. Val didn't see why, "Natalie, it's so early, come on, stay out! We can go to another club" She couldn't be persuaded, and I don't blame her. I couldn't even form my lips around the words needed to tell her what had happened, I just wanted out of there. So I left her. I left her, drunk, at the bar with my rapists. You know, that's the part that hurts me the most? Months later, I told her everything and I was so sure she'd be angry at me for not warning her, for not being there but all she wanted was to know that I was okay. She's a better friend than I'll ever be, and I'm still sorry.

It was raining by then I think, and somehow, despite my horrible sense of direction, I found my way back to the hotel. I put on pajamas, ordered room service, and stared at French TV for a bit. I tried to sleep, but it wouldn't come. After a bit the phone rang. It was Val, asking me how to get back to the hotel. We talked for a bit, before one of the French guys grabbed the phone. He said something about how I should come back out with them and no, Val didn't want to come home. I wasn't having any of that shit, and let him know, which led him to promptly hang up on me. Awesome. There was no way I was letting this happen. I kept calling her, slamming the phone down on her voicemail. Eventually it stopped ringing altogether. Instant voicemail, her phone was off. I think I might have gotten sick. I paced the room, smoked countless cigarettes, pondered calling my parents in their separate hotel but what exactly was I supposed to say? It was unfathomable. Eventually I did what I thought was the logical thing and headed down to the front desk.

Imagine this: a crazed looking girl in pajamas races into your lobby incoherently babbling some story about how her friend went off with three guys, no she doesn't know their names, no she doesn't know where they went, and could you please find her? Yeah, it wasn't going to happen. The front desk clerk seemed concerned, but pretty much helpless. Heading back to the elevators, I almost directly collided with a group of three guys and a girl. The look on my face must have been seriously freaked out, because they immediately asked me what was wrong. Like the emotional sieve that I am, I let out with the whole story (minus the rape) and it was decided that I should go with them to their hotel room and they would help me find her. It sounded like as good of a plan as any.

It turned out the guys were part of a ska band from Ontario that was touring Canada and the girl was their local friend (or groupie I guess, now that I think about it). I don't remember the name of the band now, but I remember looking them up on myspace when I got home and deciding they were pretty shitty. They passed me a beer, asked for Val's number, and tried to call her from their phone. No luck. I was pretty freaked out by now. Eventually though, they managed to calm me down or at the very least distract me from the drama with more beer and stories from the road.

A couple of hours later and it was 3am. Someone had the idea that we should head up to my room just in case Val showed up there looking for me and we all decided that this of course, was brilliant. Two guys from the band and the girl came up with me. It took all of about three minutes for one of the guys, the better looking one, to lead me into the bathroom. No discussion, let's just do it. I knocked over a beer bottle and it shattered on the bathroom tile. I was picking glass out of my knees for hours. Why do we do the things we do? It's not like it was out of character for me at that point in my life, but the fact is I think I've only told one person this final part of the story. I think I'm afraid of the reaction I'll get. How screwed up of a girl do you have to be to be fucking some band dude against a sink only a few hours after you were raped, by two guys? To be honest, at that point I just didn't care. I thought maybe it would all go away. I liked how I didn't give a fuck, and I didn't have to deal with any of the aftermath, at least not by that point. But, just like every other time I embark on a weeklong, or monthlong, or yearlong alcohol fueled slutfest I eventually did have to step back and take a look at my scars.

Val showed up at around 8:30 in the morning, exactly 15 minutes before my parents were scheduled to pick us up and head back to Oakville. It turned out that her phone had died, she was perfectly okay, and she'd just gone to one of the guys apartments to drink more and then crash. Had she, you know, hooked up with anyone? No, she hadn't, even though one guy kept trying. Eventually the other guy (the one I'd left behind in the club, I wish he'd been there for me) told his friend to fuck off and that was that. I said I was glad she was okay. We hugged or something. I didn't speak about what happened for a couple months but she was the first one I told. And now I'm telling you. Because I'm sick of all my fucking baggage.

End of story.

she doesn't live here anymore, pt. four

Rabbit Season

That night, so still, and the clouds became whisper wisps, rising up and out of this horizon; they blended with the sky, blurred our vision. Walking home our voices fell harsh against the deserted landscape and I began to understand the meaning of 'breaking the silence'; you see, it was a solid thing.

The streets unfolded for Jen and I just like a pop-up book, each turn of the corner a surprise. Oakville was a too smooth fairytale, almost a movie set with each car and lamp post appearing unreal to us, too sharp, colours unnaturally bright for suburbia. I kept stealing glances at Jen in her white hoodie, marvelling at how it gleamed stark bright, like her teeth, like my hair. I swear in that moment we might have been perfect.

We rounded the corner as I check my cellphone- no missed calls. 12:17 and I gave my parents another fourteen minutes before they dialed my number, the looming uproar over barely missed curfews already stinging my years. Fourteen minutes. We could make it. But still, I quickened my step, an action unconciously copied by Jen. Mirror mirror, we had known each other too long. I mimicked her movements back, obvious enough to let her know I was in on it, I knew how to play.

Jen spoke and I realized just how easily my mind stretched time; thirty seconds of silence and it felt like I'd been lost in my head for an hour.

"Don't you just get the feeling that we're the only two people on the Earth right now?"

"Yeah!" I agreed, feeling it for real. "It's like the day after a zombie attack, or a nitrogen bomb. Ghost town."

I closed my arms around me now, vice grip in the sudden chill. The wind was picking up, or maybe my goosebumps were self inflicted, a product of my mind. Goosebumps; interesting. Like I was covered in one hundred colourless pimples.

"That's like, almost two weeks that we've stuck to 'the pattern'" Jen mused dreamily, her voice sounding so unlike her usual crisp, matter of fact speech and I thanked her silently for derailing my disturbing train of thought.

It was true. The summer, only a few weeks old, had already settled into a comfortable pattern. Days by my pool, out for lunch, wasting our money. Mornings passed by hazy, conversations lost in air thick like wool, the sun bright enough to whiten my hair to a truly impressive level. After some time spent at home (or more often than not in Erin's case, at my home) an hour or two to let our parents remember wht we looked like, we drew together as the sun dipped low. We'd meet at the school, linger by a dip in the grass deemed 'chill hill', hoping to run into someone we deemed interesting enough to spark a conversation with.

Val and Sam, who has separate friends of their own, wouldn't joinn us every night but we all knew what the arrival of Sam's pixie cut, light freckles and Val, small and curly haired meant. We'd smoked weed before-- after a disasterous introduction the summer before we'd gotten high a handful of times in our grade ten year but by that summer we could truly call ourselves 'stoners', and we did often, loving how delicious and dangerous it sounded on our lips.

We'd fallen into an accidental pattern, it came so naturally that it was awhile before we realized that we were getting high exactly every other day. Jen and I loved this discovery, relished in it, eventually sucking Heather, a self proclaimed hippie, into our enthusiasm. We'd smoke ourselves into the dim non-light of summer nights, Sam's little blue pipe a constant, anticipated precense. Darkness set us wandering aimlessly around Oakville, a single entity clounded by laughter and the nervous energy that radiated from girls who knew the world was finally theirs, but didn't know yet what to do with it.

Every once in a while our wandering delivered us to intruiging people; older boys with bottles of beer for us, Sam and Val's druggie friends who I could tell excited and repulsed my girls at the same time (me, I looked to them as icons almost, what I could become, if I dared) Those nights stood solitary, revered, a reason to go out when our couches and computers beckoned to us. Bush parties at Windrush Park, car rides so fast we could feel our souls lifting up out of us. Most nights though, we ended up at Kari's: eating, drinking on the rare occasion we were brave enough to steal some alcohol, being girls.

It was a year of rabbits, who fucked in some secluded space and produced the bunny babies who popped up on sidewalks, always surprising us, breaking the too-perfect movie set landscape on our walks home. It was an anomaly, this sudden surge in rabbit population, and a marker of the time we found ourselves in. Our season. Too strange and too perfect to last, we knew it, but walking home every night, surrounded by our rabbits, we just laughed and made plans for the next day.

Jen and I were skipping now, an odd step jump step dance that brought us home faster and sent the bunnies scrrying back to their suburban wilderness. If we'd been a different kind of girls we would've linked arms; instead we spread them out, spun until the colours blurred. At 12:28 we waved goodbye and I walked in the door, perfectly on time. I still didn't dare break the curfew set for me at the beginning of the summer and I sensed that this nod to obedience was what tethered me to my girls, to the clean pristine image I'd cultivated so carefully since grade school. Not forever though. In little snips and hair cracks I was severing my bungee cord.

Free fall.

she doesn't live here anymore, pt. three

Working Girl

"You need a job and you have until July to get one!" my father barked, returning to his basement office when he was sure that I'd heard him.

July fifth found me stretched out next to the pool, desperately trying to coax a tan out of hiding. I lay there, eyes closed, thinking about where my friends were at that exact second. Peach Berserk? Urban Outfitters? Maybe Friendly Stranger, but that was doubtful if Val and Sam didn't come with them to Toronto. I was broke, Reel Big Fish having cleaned me out and slowly realizing that sulking alone in my backyard was the price for the "freedom" of being unemployed. My father's words had haunted my ears for the past few days and I was minutes away from admitting that just maybe he had been right.

My father, well-meaning but misguided, felt as if it was his duty to advise me on everything from money management to clothing choice, and to do so repeatedly. He exasperated me, drove me to do things I otherwise wouldn't, proving to him that I had to make my own mistakes. He would scream and rage until I submitted; at that point in life his powers as the rule-maker were still strong enough to hold me down, to 'put me in my place'.

Sipping Diet Coke, I had to admit that he knew what he'd been talking about. I needed a job to afford the alcohol, clothes and hair dye that were necessary for the perfect summer, the gateway to a newer me. It wasn't as if it was hard to find a job; all I had to do was mention my status as a private school girl, product of Appleby College, and I was handed a uniform and a work schedule. The only excuse for my unemployment was laziness and the faint hope that I could afford my summer lifestyle on an 150 dollar monthly allowance. Clearly it wasn't working out for me.

Swinging my leg over my bike seat that afternoon I promised myself I wouldn't come home until I was finally, blessedly employed. My white hair pulled back into a baby ponytail that stuck straight out I wore my least ripped pair of jeans, a crocheted tanktop that did it's best to hide my cleavage and my favorite, cheapest white shrug. Hardly professional, but far better than my father's suggestion to wear my school uniform.

Sweating slightly on the way over, sixtie's sunglasses perched hugely on my nose, I almost ran right into Jonah, breaks squeaking obviously as I just missed him.

"Hey Natalie, what's going on?"

Of course he talked to me, how could he not after the almost collision? But still, still I was thrilled that he remembered my name. Jonah was one fourth of a group of slow speaking stoner boys at Abbey Park High School who Jen and Kaitlin worshipped. He looked almost exactly like Sid Vicious. Years later, after Jonah traded in his safety pin earrings and stone washed jeans for flannel button downs and ski hats and we became friends I would laugh at pictures of him from that summer, at the fact that we believed him to be punk, but for now I was completely in lust with him. And he had remembered my name. Clearly Kaitlin and Jen's efforts to become friends with the stoner quartet were paying off.

"Oh hey Jonah, I'm just on my way to find a job... for me. For the summer. What're you saying?" I finished weakly, inwardly cringing at my use of the Oakville slang that I hated, at how I tried to fit in.

If Jonah noticed, he didn't let on. Instead he just gave me a slow summer smile, drawled "Well, I'll see you around, peace" and then he turned to go. I watched him, my metallic bike helmet glinting in the sun, basket hanging over my bike as I began to peddle away and the chasm between us gaped before me so huge in that moment that it seemed impossible to bridge. Yet I was determined to; become like him, close the gap, grow a little bit. Slip sliding, clumsy feet, I was falling.

Pharmasave hired me on the spot. I scanned the store, the makeup aisle, ancient cash register, the deserted aisles and rightly assumed I'd be spending my days reading Cosmo, finding the perfect shade of pink lipstick and eating free candy. Apparently undeterred by my white hair and flipflops Mahar, the cashew skinned pharmacist, wrote my name on the schedule, asking about Appleby College the entire time.

she doesn't live here anymore, pt. two

i'm going to be posting everything i've written of my memoir over the course of tonight, it only amounts to a few chapters, here's the first one.

-

SUMMER
"...just the smell of summer can make me fall in love"

Wake Up, Wake Up

Breathe. Don't stop. Move faster, hit harder. Realize my lip is split and dribbling blood like a faulty tap. Keep moving anyways, head down, arms up.

"Hey little girl, you're bleeding, did you know that?"

It was the boy who'd been following me all night, weaving in and out of thrashing bodies and always ending up beside me, behind me. We met at the beginning, before Reel Big Fish took the stage, while the lights still exposed us for what we were: Kaitlin, Jen and I, three girls slouched low on the dusty walls, eyes darting around, praying to find someone we knew.

Instead we found Delilah, Blondie, and Andrew, the boy who later became my shadow. They sat beside us, drinking and talking easily, their voices carrying to us like dandelion seeds. Kaitlin turned, looked them over, and I could tell Blondie held her gaze. Right then, I knew were she'd be at the end of the night. It didn't matter that I wanted him, would probably be the first to break ranks and start a conversation, maybe make him laugh a little. Kaitlin hunted with precision, reeling in boys easy, so easy it made me worry that I just didn't know how to do it like she did. My charm, my eccentric start-stop conversation brought me phone numbers and sidelong glances, never fifteen minutes in the boy's room, a ripped tee-shirt. My intense fear of rejection kept me from making that first move every time.

Kaitlin took a swig from her water bottle, skipped the chase like it was nothing, and turned to face him.

"Hey," she said, her voice rising slightly at the end, everything a question, an invitation. "Hey you, Blondie" she tilted the bottle towards him "Vodka, Jack and bit of Peach Schnapps... I call in a Virgin Suicide, you want?"

We had their attention now and they opened their circle, scanning us.

"No, I'm good thanks, straight-edge actually" He made a fist and pointed at it; three Sharpied X's branded his skin.

"My friends wouldn't mind some though, they'll share" Blondie added as an afterthought and made room beside him for Kaitlin, Jen and I squeezing between the girl with dreaded hair like honey and my shadowfriend, who introduced himself as Andrew. I took the spot easily, like surrender, not minding how Blondie draped his arm on Kaitlin's skinny leg; the second he said he was straight-edge I lost all interest- I liked my boys loose and reckless, not pumped full of self righteous ideals. Jen started a conversation with the girl, found out her name was Delilah and that she only went to shows on weekends there was nothing else to do, and by the unimpressed look on Jen's face I could see she felt the same. We were so out of there.

The opener struck up and we threw ourselves into the pit, leaving Kaitlin with Blondie and his dusty, nothingspecial friends. Ska was god and the pit was our communion. We skanked faster, hit harder, bobbing alongside boys twice our size and it felt like home. Bloody lip, bruised arms from the gorilla in the plaid shirt who pulled me, spun me like a top and I knew, this was where I was supposed to be. Lost in a tangle of bodies and anger and blood and the truth that comes when someone will punch you in the face, not stab you in the back, I was free, free.

Back home in bed, my hair matted with a hundred different kinds of sweat I lay awake, my heart still speeding with the strength of ten caffiene pills. Eyes wide, I was looking at my future, the whole summer laid bare in front of me, waiting for me to scream, to claw and maybe, just maybe, make sense of it all.

she doesn't live here anymore, pt. one

just found the memoir that i was writing last year about my grade eleven experience. it's kind of rough, but has potential. here's the prologue.

Bled White.

Graduation day I bleached my hair shock white. The fumes rose from the tiles, swore it smelt like genocide, and lingered in the for weeks, an accidental brush with a stranger. Summer crept into Heather's blue and white seashell motif bathroom as my hair fried. I has just traded in my kilt and tie for flannel, sunwashed jeans, candy coloured flipflops. I was rising to the surface for that last gulp of air before the inevitable return plunge into two more years of private education. Three months. Three months to pretend I existed in the world of my best girls who wore whatever the fuck they wanted to the public high school down the street and didn't have to hurry to make it to morning chapel on time.

I wanted a summer of change like only a girl who had seen them in movies could. I wanted to be Weetzie Bat, Thisbe Newton, my own coming of age heroine. 5'7 and a bit I was inexperienced but not naive. Been kissed, but never been fucked. Done shots, but never done crack. An undamaged girl. I was young, pristine sixteen, but mostly, I was waiting. Waiting for my life to start, ready to experience all that I could, the thought that it could hurt me, laughable; met with a shrug and the flick of a cherished cigarette.

I leaned against the sink, watched my hair turn from mousy brown to wedding band to anthrax, I steadied myself against that smell and the peroxide war being waged against my scalp. That first time bleaching my hair I saw the chemical burn as almost a virgin sacrifice. Like the Salem Witch Trials, I strung myself up and let the fire burn away my hangups, pretensions, my moral obligations until there was nothing left but raw energy.

Nightly prayer.

Heaven help me not to be,
some douchebag who thinks they're Charles Bukowski

i can't stop moving.

is this how you go crazy? i think it might be how it starts. i don't know what to do with myself. i don't know what to do. with myself. the thought of everything is unbearable; eating, i can't bear feeling heavy, reading, sitting in this cold bed. the only thing i want to do is sleep. and drink. even sleep is just a compulsion, not an actual desire.

something's wrong, it's gotta be. i'm being pulled under, see? into this scary, bright place where nothing is too much, or too far. where you don't have to think, just feel. mindless. i love it. the only problem is, no one wants to come with me, and it's a scary place to head to alone, especially your first time going there. everyone wants to keep me grounded, or mostly they don't care either war (i'm beginning to despise those who do). they're caught up in their own shit, in lives i thnk would suffocate me. i've tried to be 'the good girl' for so fucking long. maybe i should start facing reality; that's not me, it can't be. i hunger. i just want, and i want too much. i kind of want to set myself on fire, because my skin itches, it itches too much. see now, that's the kind of crazy i'm talking about.

i knew a girl who swallowed enough pills to put herself to sleep forever. another girl, before her, threw herself in front of a moving train. i've always had more compassion for that one, i dont know why, i'd never even met her. maybe it's because i can relate; to the rush, not the suicide (how could i die, when that would mean the end of talking about myself?) or maybe i'm just a little bit envious. what fucking guts that takes, what planning. it exposes us all as weak and afraid. cowards; yeah, i hate that. she's probably laughing at us all right now, and you know, i wouldn't blame her in the least.

i'm still in my bed, freezing, waiting on a night that probably won't happen, but this is setting me straight a little bit. i think i'm going to do it. let go of this ridiculous pretense of "adulthood", "functionality", whatever. who am i even fooling? i'm still a little girl and it's my turn on the swingset.

you can't believe how relieving it is to start something that you know is going to end badly. pray for me.

i am so lazy.

pretentious pretentious pretentious

sometimes i hate myself for not driving a tractor.