Not so sweet - November

I didn’t want to be your Sweet November.

The other day, I saw a house for sale. I saw the price tag was 600,000 dollars beyond my budget and to be honest I am not in the market for buying, but still I sashayed up the drive way. I pressed my face against the windows and saw the living rooms and the bedrooms. I imagined myself living there. My bed against that wall. My clothes thrown about the floor. My artwork on the walls. And then I walked away. My shoulders a bit more slouched. My smile padded with an index card for a what never could have been. I sit in the neighbors yard and file my nails.

I rode my bike home today. It was grey and almost dark at 4.40. I kept missing the green light. A conversation that should have been over coffee or a walk to the park half happened at a street corner observing blonde girls running towards Hannah Montana at the new light soaked Nokia center. I pedaled hard.

94.7 the wa-a-ave plays smooth jazz on the radio… “love love love” and commercials advertisements.

My heart is wood block. I have given up a splinter. And it hurts. But I don’t want the splinter back. It would not fit anymore. The wound where it was cut out is a bit swollen, tender and distracted.

I usually want things to mean more than they do. I want there to be a grand grand reason for why I worked in a grey cubicle for the last two years. I wanted symbolism in the fact that September 29, 2007 was a Friday and my brother’s birthday.

Am I made up a finite number of splinters? What does it feel like to fall whole? A bag of potatoes plunges to the ground. Asparagus. Tomoates. Onions. Bell Peppers. A rainbow of vegetables.

I bought a pack of cigarettes smoked a few and gave away the rest. It cost the same to get money out at the convenience store when buying a pack of cigarettes as using the non-my-bank-ATM. And the homeless people like cigarettes more than leftover food.

On the Metro yesterday a man rubbed up against my lower back when I was seated. I moved away on the pretense of being closer to my friends. I needed no pretense. I was upset by him. He kept trying to smile at me. Gawking like an awkward or drunk child. I am angry that things like that happen. I was having a fine night. And for the record I had a fine night. But I also wanted to throw up. There is always the question of what I did wrong to bring that kind of sleazy attention.

The Friday before. I smiled at boy over a pile of papers we had to sort. He proceeded to ask me out. It was sweet like Jello. I wish I had grace like a ballet dancer. I wish I could pirouette out of any situation. Point my toes, stretch my arm like a swan in a sparkly tutu and plie my way out of there.

There are no uses for hard and fast rules in certain situation. I gave up vows of the unhealthy kind. I wonder if there is hope for me.

“You are the sunshine in my life… you are the apple of my eye…” the speakers sing to me from the ceiling.