Little Cuts: Stories in the Present Tense

I was a weird kid who preferred sitting and writing things at my over sized desk, in the cool sanctity of our air-conditioned rentals, to playing outside. I avoided the outdoors so fervently as a child that I have never been stung by bee or wasp and still run to shelter with arms flailing and screams that rival anything Jamie Lee Curtis could ever muster at the sight of any bug. I was not only pale and prone to sunburn but a wheezing asthmatic little thing that was allergic to dust, dander, air and any furry creature that most children pet and roll about with.

I’ve been beating myself up for days. Mumbling snide remarks under my breath and flinging noxious looks at my reflection on shiny surfaces. This happens to me every once in a while. I feel listless, heavy and useless for weeks and then one day I wake up strong and smooth like a tarantula after a good old molting phase: minus the fasting, unlike my fury counterpart I eat when I’m fixing to shed some dead skin.

It all comes down to one thing: writing. I love it when it’s over and I can step away from a piece I’ve written and marvel at its shapes and colors. But at this point, today, I feel like everything is a beginning and there is no end in sight. Sure, I can write short anecdotes about my childhood all day but the real stuff, the stuff that will sell in book form and surly be adapted to a screen play, hurts to even think about.

I started a draft today, gently scrapping and excavating the petrified fossils in my chest and nearly threw my laptop across the room. See, I can’t get through the words without crying and when I withdraw and simply write facts it all sounds robotic and calculated. I either need to go to therapy or start drinking heavily because this is getting ridiculous. For the time being I'll just retreat to the safety of the now and less painful: this blog.

I wish I could just blog everyday but when I write, no matter what it is, I get caught up in what feels like a sandstorm of blinding emotional turmoil. When the words finally decide to settle in nicely and stop sounding like meat hooks grating against my brain, after I’ve smoked too many cigarettes, sucked down a pot of coffee and realized that’s it’s 2pm and I’m still in my pjs, it hurts to throw that chunk of myself up on to the internet for the world to scan and then move on to something else. I get up from my little red desk and begin to communicate to others and myself via my finger like Danny Torrance from the Shining. But instead of REDRUM it’s READMYBLOG!

When I started writing this I had no idea where I was going or what if anything I wanted to share but now that I look up and see four paragraphs I know I have to publish it because it would be waste not to. I already feel better. Now I’ve got to go at that “stuff in the basement” and beat it to a pulp just like Rocky Balboa because fighters, well, they fight and mostly with themselves.

Some days are like cliffs and I fall off the edges. Stomach in knots, my hair a mess, typing with a mouth full of smoke. The patch of skin, on my back, that has been cut open so many times, drives me crazy with a phantom itch. I look over my words as they shiver and bark up at my face. They are hungry and stuck between periods and question marks. I don’t trust them today and they are angry with me and want out of this mess. This doubt is common, or so I’ve heard. Some days I deem myself brilliant and others I wish I’d chosen to be a nurse or mother. Some people are doing so much more. I’m here hopped up on Diet Coke and cigarettes, cajoling and pleading with stubborn sentences.

Early in the morning, the world silently yawning, you sip your coffee and tip toe around your mind. Caffeine turns your eyes on, wide as a lantern fish. Another cup and the tiptoes will be cha-cha-chas. You make sure to swallow a big gulp of air before it’s tarnished with the angst of bustling commuters. The sky yet to be taken for granted, lights up gradually, in increments, inch by inch, as if operated by a store bought dimmer. Birds, so content in their solitude forget to pick at the ground for treasure. The sun begins to purr and licks at the skyline, smaller than the one you are accustomed to, but just as majestic. Anything can happen and will but this moment is yours. Until the garbage trucks rumble and shake, breaking the spell and the skittish birds fly to their nests, with nothing to show for themselves but ruffled feathers.

I’m in the kitchen frantically looking for a new sponge to replace the one that is now mysteriously caked with mozzarella on its scrubby side. I yank out the drawer next to the sink. In the tiny junkyard of useless things, among the sealed mouse traps, loose batteries, wayward nails and various busted cork screws, I see it lodged between a key less pad lock and a postcard from my dentist’s office that reads “Happy Birthday, time for a cleaning!”