saturday sprawl

This is America. Saturday night in a grey cinderblock basement. Bright yellow plastic cup and I smell like saffron risotto because I’ve come to the party after slaving for the man (my wallet is full of tips about to go straight to the Citgo)

the band is loud loud and shaking the bumpy walls right up to the lightbulb dangling precariously from a wire over the bass player. I tongue my cranberry juice and bob.

God I’ve known these people forever and that’s the good thing about being the one to leave, you can find the stability where you want it and when

The boys do an encore though no one calls for it. The frantic drumbeat fills the tiny room and people wander in and out from the backyard, kissing and talking and nodding to the girl in the blue dress and curls. And a light glares in from the door and the music cuts off. An officer with a southern accent thick as my ankles says

‘we need to get those cars out of the road
you’ve already got the weed going, lets clear it out’ and everyone heads for the door

on the way home its 75 miles per hour and my speakers tell me to go to vision and wake up with a stranger. I turn the radio to hip hop. because I can. and I fall asleep alone to the last five minutes of saturday night live.

past

whoever said
you can't
go back
to the past
was certainly not from a small southern town

but he was
most definitely
optimistic.

berlin

we made love in berlin on the his-and-hers down comforters, your dimples bigger than ever (like my smile)
i imagined bilingual children running through heidelberg
i was hurting in more ways than one
(i could tell you could sense it, the tension in my hips)
but yourfingers felt it all out
and when i left you for paris i

didn't

give myself to anyone, still lost in the dream of you
and those fucking dimples

god- those dimples, how that boy smiles...
when he smiles...

i'm sorry to say the bruises are still missing
my skin feels better when its blue

the sexiest boarding pass ever

L’île de la Réunion

Goodbye my little island.

Goodbye bohemia.

my tummy is full of rum and love and foreign tongues.

(I hate airports)

peshee-eh man-eh

Shila joon
you are my rhythm and blues
in your red cowboy boots
and goddess eyes
from lola leigh to lola laa
make it up pick it up

where’s your passport?

my Atlanta lemur
only one
remember when we drank habibis in the bathtub?
(that was the best night of my life)
i’m lowering the rent in my shoulder blade,wanna

have a look?

Oh Story, you’re a story

and the only one with more identities than me.
I’ll always be your Persian party trick
you make it happen—
there’s magic in your flase eyelashes.

i'll never be jack kerouac

i'll never be jack kerouac
no matter how
much cheap wine i drink but

i think he would agree
that the red port fills the void
but can never fill the empty.

le weekend // flash (non?)fiction

So its sunday morning and I am getting back into 'bed' with a cup of peach mango tea in front of a badly-dubbed lifetime movie about another bulimic middle-class white girl, when I look up to see Nachos in his boxers on the terrace, surveying the scene.

I say 'bed' because these days I've been sleeping on the couch. My room is on the mountain side of the apartment and when the sun starts to rise (4:30 island time) the rays slither through every slit of my shutters and slowly heat up the room like an unsuspecting cattle ant under an 8-year-olds magnifying glass in early August. By 7 AM my skin in covered in sweat and I'm in a cold shower by 9.

So I'm sleeping like a scorned husband in the salon nowadays, which led me to witness, as I said, Nachos -boxer clad- on the terrace. The famous Nachos is a friend of Rapheal (AKA meathead). He is so-named because both me and Anna agree that he vaguely reminds us of movie theater nachos, in the way that they are sinful and irresitible but also a little repulsive. I thought I had seen the last of him seeing as a week before, Raphael, in a bout of guilt or responsibility, told me that we could be friends but not sleep together anymore, in a move I can only imagine was inspired and initiated by his girlfriend- this being a week after he was in my bed lecturing me on 'la révolution sexuelle'. Where's the sexual revolution now?

I guess I should have known better than to believe him because Saturday night around midnight thirty he called me. Apparently it was his birthday and he wanted to invite me to join him, Nachos, and any number of their rugby-playing, massage-giving meathead friends for a night out. He asked about his birthday present, which he was certain was waiting for him chez moi. I declined seeing as I was already sleeping because the night before, friday, there had been a Spanish party down the street.

Spanish parties are infititely cooler than French parties in that the food and music are better and Spanish boys are adorable. The night was too long, however, ending in a sangria-drugged tryst with Vincent from Catalonia, who is writing his masters thesis on some spanish literature hullabaloo. Not to mention that the little sleep we actually achieved was in the bedroom, where, as I mentioned, people from the Sahara come in the summertime to get a little sun.

After the midnight phone call I slept sound in the salon until, with tea in hand and dressed only in my pink polka-dot underwear and matching tanktop, Nachos waltzes in from the balcony, giving me a sly smile with one eyebrow barely raised and grumbles a 'bonjour' on the way to my bathroom where I am sure he used my towel. By this time I am thoroughly confused, knowing that Anna, just as tired as I was, had also fallen asleep after the birthday call.

Minutes later Anna appears from her bedroom, and after dropping Nachos off at Raphael's house, later relays to me that he had called her at 7 AM. Apparently he had fallen asleep at a club in St Pierre and in the meantime meathead and co. all left him there. Finding himself alone and drunk under the rising sun, he figured it would be a good idea to call Anna, finding the temptation of a combination of a ride and possibly sex too good to pass up. So Anna found him in the supermarket parking lot around 8:00 and brought him to the apartment.

She said, 'you should have seen him wandering around the parking lot. He looked just like a lost puppy.'

You can't make this stuff up.

23 is the year of trench coats and berets and shaking hips in seamed stockings, miss mohito says hello and how are the kids? (22 is so apocalyptic)

tu peux m’appeler ta Clara Bow
et je peux t’appeler mon Fred Astaire
si tu porte ton tuxedo,
je commencerai à fumer
(mais dans une façon très féminine)
nous pouvons se disputer comme des américains
tant que nous nous embrassons comme les français.
j’ai envie de mettre les mains sur ton ventre….
enfin, ici, tu veux me montre ?
avec mon accent, c’est un peu difficile de comprendre,
en plus
autour des mecs très charmants,
je deviens nerveuse, mais c’est évident,
non ?
danse !.
je peux pas non plus,
j’ai mal aux pieds, trop d’années en pointe
si tu m’appelle Grace -- je reste
ici, notre royaume, mais danse ,
je t’attend, nue,
enfin, tu….
tu peux… répéter s’il te plaît ?—plaît plaît
désolée,
je suis pas très forte en langues étrangères.
(mais les mensonges, c’est une autre histoire)

..lilla..

Lilla hates the kind of humor that is dredged in misogyny and violence, those kind of jokes that are too ‘cool’ to not find funny. Nazis-gangbanging-a-nun type humor, it’s obligatory to laugh otherwise you seem uptight and too politically correct. “Aren’t we already desensitized enough?” she tries to explain.

She saw a volcano when she was 15. The dried lava flows looked like elephant skin, piled up together, with Lorax trees randomly dispersed. She likes to think the world used to look like that. She dyed her hair black the next year so that people would take her seriously.

Lilla lost her virginity to Tony the same summer that she saw the volcano. He was 19, and she didn’t realize it at the time but seeming attractive to a 15-year-old was scores easier than getting laid in his own age bracket. They were under the boardwalk and Lilla had half a bottle of peach schnapps. She was trying to tell him about elephant skin, and an elephant skin world, but he wasn’t interested.

She thought a lot about elephant skin and Tony’s skin and after a while the two became one memory, especially after he skipped town to do some illegal work in New Mexico. She wanted to show him her black hair, and ask him what to do about the baby; one was just as difficult as the other. Later she thought he wasn’t even that cute.

She moved to New York and always keeps the shutters all closed. Marc, the latest, eats too many boiled eggs and never dusts, but he has nice arms and a nice apartment. He tells racist jokes- she never thinks they are funny.

our place; or- affairs in st pierre

“you are beautiful” he says, Mathieu is his name

i am in the club where i first met you

“are you german?”

you had asked if I wanted a drink, even though I had been checking out your friend

“American” I say

I took a vodka and coke and left christophe to fend for himself

“I can’t believe my eyes” he said.

I can see the chair that we sat on.

“My horoscope today said I would fall in love with a foreigner.”

there is where I first looked into your eyes, your sunken cheeks, your crooked smile.

“How old are you?” I asked. “21” he said.

I told you I teach at the university. you asked what I was studying.

“I don’t believe you” I said. “you can’t be a day over 19.”

I said it again, I don’t take classes, I give classes.

“Horoscopes aren’t always right” I said.

I have to get out of this place, your taste is still in my throat.

[*label maker*]

the label maker in my hand I attacked the fridge.
sour cream: bad
apple: good
water: good
cheese: bad
diet coke: bad but good
yogurt: I’ll get back to you on that one

I spread to the sink. taptaptap print.
sink: clean me
tap: don’t drink from me
coffee cup: happy mornings
tea bag: one use only

the hallway said walk on me
my doorway said knock please
the television screams distraction
billy Collins and rilke stacked together say uh-huh

this labeling is getting out of hand.

on the balcony I put ‘mosquitoes stay away!’
then again in french
and creole, so the mosquitoes understand
anna’s door says ‘roommate’ and ‘hellohello!’ and ‘I love you’ just for reaffirmation
my flip flop says go to the beach
the toothbrush says I’m Lonely

my shoulder heavy/ my fingers stretch/ my forehead YES AND THEN>?
the words aren’t coming quick enough so
on the bathtub I just put brackets [[[[]]]]]] and on the mirror a percentage sign%

my cell phone says briiiiiiingggg which can be momentarily confusing
car says kitchen table; kitchen table says car; cartchen table says the toaster

alarm clock: Wednesday
candle: Martha
picture frame: I have a right to a trial!

anna comes home and wonders why all the popsicles say Take That.
maybe she won’t notice the quote marks on my earlobes.

bath water

the bath water is black and
my knee is bloody like a
little boy fresh off his bicycle
another failed adventure

[iamnotsleepinganymorewithmenwhohavegirlfriends]

his friend (the cute one)
tried to kiss me on the beach
he asked
what is the difference between French and American men?
I told him that
the lies sound prettier
in French.

valentine

everyone knows that the opposite of love is indifference.
last year it was my philosopher lover, and how he drove me crazycrazycrazy; wanting his kisses and wanting his want. now its Raphael, the Parisian masseuse, and he’s got a girl (wants a little on the side). he’s got ten years on me – his ten years on me [just call me miss midlife crisis] he pretends his friends don’t know but he parades me in front of them, right up the stairs.

I tell him I need a massage therapist; I have a hurting in my heart, to which he just kisses my forehead and says ‘tu mélange tout.’ but I’m not mixed up, I know exactly where this is going- straight to hell in a handbasket as the southern girl in me would say.

les étoiles sur mon nez

we

can watch the southern stars and you

can count them

(my freckles too)

boob tube

i was never allowed to watch talk shows
which made them endlessly appealing to me

I would stay home sick from school with diet cherry seven up, liptons chicken soup and paperdolls, all I needed spread out on the coffee table and the princess bride in the tape player
but as soon as my mother left the house I would flip on the television,
scan through the channels,

the screen would glow bright with
longlegged lolitas, ball-breaking jailbirds, incestuous cousins,
I would stare wide-eyed as oversized drag queens paraded across the box
shaking what god didn’t give them
the aphrodites would raise from the audience, born in the waves of excitement, screaming ‘how can you live like this? you are a disgrace’
Aphrodite the hermaphrodite
which garnered responses of hiss and blur from the pink and turquoise stage.

girls in short sequined skirts would dance on imaginary poles, shouting, can you believe I was a geek in high school? a thousand pound woman would brag about her lovers
or a punk rock goth boi would be made under into mr republican 1993

the phone would ring, and I would answer, exaggerating the weakness in my voice ‘yes mommy I feel ok, but I wouldn’t say I feel good.’
‘are you watching television? what are you watching?’ she would ask
‘just price is right, mommy.’ it wasn’t any use, she always knew the truth, even if she didn’t hear the audience screaming ‘it’s a man! no it’s a chick!’ in the background. ‘they are talking about a blender’ I would say. ’12 dollars!!! $12.50!’ I would add for affect.

she could tell I was eating up the 12 year old Mexican runaway, the Saturday night latex model/ Sunday school teacher. my eyes devoured the salacious titles,
‘I was fat but now I’m all that!’
‘my man will stay and you will pay!’
‘don’t be crazy, you know its your baby!’

I learned the terminology of daytime tv, like ‘cross dressing’ and ‘paternity test’, ‘three way’ and the perfect way to drag my words when saying
‘that just ain’t right.’
and it just wasn’t right. but it was perfect
it was the world outside of my cul-de-sac, a world bathed in neon lights and techno beats, where everyone has an opinion, an identity,
and a rhyming juxtapositional slogan.
some of those men were the women I wanted to be.

[the rainy season]

one day crawls the sky with black
and following are Mississippi summers, but that is quite long
by me,
only me bollywood and the girls

all in the same place all
who we are in the same place,

no where
all being.

Petra is and in
a londonite train small and clearly delicious

the Catherine
that smoldering scot which wins each French man
with his spirit
and a soft accent

the bottle precisely does disappear and not a responsibility
not No not a step No
required : the need the whole

how a bad joke is born

i was waiting to be xrayed as part of my green card process.

my head was heavy because my boy hadn’t called in four days and I was convinced his car was wrecked in a ravine.

I went in the little room and the woman told me to take my shirt off and stand against the wall

“Are you pregnant?” she asked me.

I looked at her, paused, looked some more. I was a few days late, I suppose.

“Do you speak French? Are you pregnant?” she asked again.

I had understood what she said, and at most any other time in my life it would have been an easy reply. “No” I said, though it came out as more of a question than a response.

“the procedure is dangerous for the fetus” she explained. “are you sure you’re not pregnant?”

getting an appointment at this place had taken three months. “I’m not pregnant!” I said to her, with a stronger and more certain tone.

she carried on with the process, xraying my chest and then sending me back out to the waiting room. I was all white.

“whats wrong?” anna asked. “what happened in there?”

“well, I think I am pregnant and I just deformed my child who’s father hasn’t called me in four days.” I replied.

And that was how Lou Deformo was born.

la fille des baobabs

Our second day in Morondova we decided to drive out to the Allée des Baobabs. It was sticky hot and my flip flops made sand cake on the back of my legs. The trees were larger than I had imagined them to be. Thousands of years were in their trunks. White and strong and thick, with the leaves brushing the clouds in spurts on the tops.

I walked along the sand path and almost immediately a little girl approached me, with the greeting I had become accustomed to, “Salaama Vozaha!” basically, hello white person. Her voice was sweet and high and matched her pretty face. She was wearing a dirty skirt that hung to her knees, and no shirt covering her little girl body.

“Salaama” I said, looking down at her.

“Comment tu t’appelle tu?” she asked, inquiring about my name.

“Je m’appelle Lola” I said to her.

“Lola” she mouthed. “Lola.”

She had asked so casually, as if we had been seated next to each other at a dinner party or were rubbing elbows at a bridal shower. She wasn’t afraid of me and wasn’t off-putting in her boldness. She reached her hand out in order to put it in mine, as opposed to the thin, bony fingers always reaching towards me, palm upturned, sad begging eyes saying more than the meager “Madame??” coming from tight lips.

I took her hand and we walked along the allée. I told her there were no baobabs where I live. She giggled and skipped, and I wondered if she even understood what I had said. Her short life had all been lived under these trees, these monsters. They were as natural to her as daisies or pines.

We passed by her village. A little boy ran up to me and proudly pulled the wings off of an unsuspecting butterfly, lifting the carcass up for my approval. The little girl brushed him away, she was possessive, I was her vozaha. Then she started singing.

The song was like little bells ringing. It was a French children’s song, and the way she sang it with her soft Malagasy accent made the notes dance in my ears. “Will you teach it to me?” I said. She did, and we sang it together as we walked back down the allée. I got back to the car and looked down on her big brown eyes. “I have to go now, ma petite. I’m sorry.”

I cupped her face in both of my hands and just looked, just looked at her. She was so beautiful. I had seen so many beautiful women, bent over in rice fields, two babies tied to their backs. Beautiful women had sent their children out to me on the streets. “Un petit peu Madame? pour partager?”

She lifted her hands back up to me but she was too small to reach my face. She looked at me with pure love and acceptance. I wanted to give her everything.

I wanted to tell her to be good and study hard in school. I wanted to tell her to be strong. She pursed her lips and waited. I bent over and kissed her. “Au revoir, ma cherie.” I said. “Valoom.”

hiatus

Dear Readers

I have spent the last several weeks clearing my mind and my bank account in the hills of Madagascar. Thank you for your sweet comments. I will reply when I have shaved and slept and drank tap water.

Réunion has never felt so refreshing. Madagascar is a strange, beautiful beast.

xxxb