blow

this summer
is all
rain (hard and soft)
and
hookah smoke,
perfumed.

October Break

I drank too much at the wedding. Like I had too much to drink the weekend before, and the weekend before that. Surrounded by the celebration and long banquet tables, I downed glass after glass after glass of champagne and danced under the moonlit trees, because at one time that made me happy.  One more glass to happiness.

I remember leaving the wedding but I don't remember getting to your place across town. The in-between was a blur of highway lights and your hip hop on the radio. I knew you were angry. But you wouldn't say so. You never said so. You would just look at me so heartbroken, so let down, as if I was the greatest disappointment. I believe you thought this was kind; but I wanted instead to feel the sting of your words, like I wanted to feel the sting of your hand against my thighs. But you, in your infinite gentleness, would never give me either.

I awoke in your bed in the earliest of morning hours, my deep purple bridesmaid dress crumpled on the floor, bobby pins scattered amok. The red wine stain on the sheet was a messy reminder that I was still searching for that liquid exuberance when we got home. I put my hand to my aching forehead and grasped behind me to the nightstand for a glass of water. After a year and a half in that bed I didn't need to turn the light on. I knew every foot of your studio, like I knew every inch of your body. Every centimeter of your soft lips. I don't remember if I had you that night. I probably did. I probably wanted to feel that closeness from you that only came from your body and not your mind.

You rustled from my movement and faced me. I could see your long dark eyelashes unobscured by your glasses. My face flushed and my eyes welled up with salty tears.

I thought about how scared I was that I was turning 30, and how terrified I was of being back in my hometown, and how devastated I was in my myriad of disappointments. At the time I thought you could make all that better. I thought if I loved you enough I would love myself again. I could not have loved you more, yet I was still covered in layers of heavy worry.

I cried harder, sobbing, burying my head in the blankets.
Then I made you say it. I made you give me those hard, merciless, necessary words.

 "Tell me you don't love me. Tell me you don't want to be with me anymore," I pleaded.

So you did. You said it. It was over. Of course you said you did love me but I could, perhaps for the first time, hear the ting of emptiness in those words.  I cried until I fell asleep from exhaustion, and when I awoke again a few hours later I kissed your beautiful face for the last time, held your solid, tall body in my arms for a last embrace, then walked out of your apartment and your life.

why I turn my phone off at night

alternate title:

that was 6 years ago how did you get this number?

Pretty sure it is XI. He was only brave when drunk.

silly silly silly boys. 

diving bell

in
silence of
July in the morning

I'm awake in
my
white empty sheets

feeling as
the diving bell spider -

what a life
so complicated:
the gift of the sea,

but the beach
excitedly shouts
surrender?

What Happened To Paris, prologue

If you have been so kind to read my writing with any sort of regularity over the past years you may have noticed that I spent a long time traveling back and forth to Paris, which abruptly stopped the last time I left France in March of 2011. I have decided that it has been long enough that I can write up what happened there, and why I may never be able to go back there. I do this for posterity, to clarify how I feel about it, and perhaps as a personal reference. For a long time I wouldn't talk about leaving Paris and why and how, because the sadness weighed so heavy on me the only option was to block it out of my mind and crawl into bed (or someone else's bed). Even some of my closest friends new only the vague details.

I realize based on that paragraph it may sound that something awful and dramatic happened in Paris, and while I suffered many little tragedies that is not the case. But if failure and disappointment could hold a weight I never would have been able to check my luggage coming back home. 

Since I was a little girl I dreamed of moving to France and living life as an expat there. I thought I had planned my life in such a way that it was inevitable. But life often has other plans for us. 

I have started writing the piece and I think it will be three parts, so perhaps another mini series. It may take a bit to finish putting it together but I will try to post it as I complete it. I'll put a link in the sidebar as well. 

I hope you read it and enjoy it, so that at least something good can come out of this, the most difficult time in my life. 

As usual thanks for following this little blog, even though my writing has dropped off significantly these past few years. Perhaps starting with this will inspire me to write more like I used to. 

Bisous partout  -Lucie


PS I am also updating my favorites for the last two years in the favorites list, for easy viewing

The evolution of an online dating relationship

I would have said no to you
but I have a rule
the -yes- rule,
always say yes. Cast a wide net.
In your message you sounded
arrogant,
a little self involved, and condescending.
I hate
older men
being condescending.

But yes I said-
always say yes.

My GPS led me wrongly and I was an hour
late to our date-
I almost canceled-
me: angry on I-75, to a date I didn't want, my little black dress rubbing my thighs--

yet you were so sweet and patient,
didn't even give me grief. I saw you in the light of my favorite restaurant-
you were short and needed a haircut,
a tailor, and a bit of that overconfidence you alluded to
in your short notes. Your eyes went wide and soft.

I liked it.

The next time we went
somewhere
much
too expensive,
and not even worth it-
my oysters were dry and the
chairs were too stuffy.
But when we spoke I felt
happy,
comfortable and
cool.
We went to your house and
you offered me wine,

your hand shook while you passed the glass
of dark red liquid-
'Are you ok?' I asked
'You're just so pretty' you said meekly, and
I was in.

So glad I said yes, I thought.

The next time I saw you
I had been working all day-
my feet and head
ached, and the weariness was
all over my face.
You made me dinner at your home-
the little shotgun house
that whispered New Orleans in my ears.
Was it the steak from the grill? The wine from the rack? Encapsulation of gentrification mixed with graffiti and blackberry bushes?
You told me about your ex-wife, your mother,
your DUI and your writing dreams- your best clients, your worst clients,
and your dog who died two years ago.
You kissed me with your whole body// your whole soul.

I fell into your bed like so many particles of dust.

The next date was a pub,
and you were there in
physical presence only; for two seconds on your couch afterward I had you-
I cuddled your head onto my chest and
chalked it up to
a busy day.

Then came the picnic.
I packed up the cheese, the ruby ripe strawberries,
the carefully crafted sangria, and took my car to
the soft grass of the mountain.
You seemed despondent, distracted- you leaned in to kiss me
goodbye
and I turned my head, automatically, unconsciously: your lips fell on my cheek.
We made a quick date for the next weekend.
I watched your car pull from my driveway with a spinning head-

I sent you one message
"Are you not into this anymore?"
and never heard from you again.

to bed

i had a therapist once
who told me
"so many of life's problems
could be solved
if we would just
go to bed."
how correct she was..

sweet dusk

take your pennies from the bank
down to Missy's Hanky Pank

grab a girl and twist her skirt
taste her like a sweet dessert
marachino's piled high,
any taffeta lullaby:

babe how do you stay alive
when all you do is shuck and jive
only the ocean could have more
fluidity, I know your score

 she says closely, lips to ear-
go whisk her off for cold root beer. 

things I am afraid of

standardized tests

my own body

unnecessary failure

the truth

losing what I never appreciated

being exposed as a fraud

waste

mister

sometimes
i smell popcorn
and wood polish--
i miss my marc
and our shared loneliness,
magnetic zeros and morroccan dinners-
wine and hookah
and the best porch ever.


if only

deferment

lose everything.

Lose the stamps on my passport

my own room to rent,

daily lectures and gossip and bits of chocolate and wine bottles.

I miss everything about my previous life

even all the mistakes and consequences.

Now I have my eyeliner

Gaze through the window,

Smoke pot before work and reckless emails to exes.

Self-destruction is no game for me

and yet, I am so good at this?

I see no reflection,

The body has let me down/my slanderer my body. gives away all my secrets.

Tell a friend about «Somethings must change!»

but FOUR YEARS?

I would like to say that I will try my best-

but I will not.

suburbs

I believe that time- can't be ticking- too late in the suburbs.

My heart, in fusion, in suburbia land .

I like very much Sir please help me to find -

something-mixed-anything

in the suburbs.

o

(why do i do things in the wrong order?)