Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  YOU are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not NEED you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust ME. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not NEED you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. You disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Fuck you. I hate you. YOU disgust me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. I am better than you. I do not need you. I despise you. I detest you. You make me sick. You are vile.  You are filthy. You are a waste. Pay attention to me. See me. Want me. Need.

Who am I writing to? Why am I writing this? Is this good writing? Do you see yourself in this? Where? What part? Are you shocked? Surprised? Moved to tears or rage? Are you completely indifferent? Do you love me? Do you hate me? Do you care? Just tell me. Won’t ya?

When I was 10, a neighbor knocked on our door. She sat in my mother’s kitchen all polyester grief. She told my mother about a broken down car that was at the shop. A broke down car is and is not a metaphor. She clearly wanted a ride to the market, but was afraid to ask. I watched the way she moved her mouth like a hint. It made me furious. Why didn’t she just come right out and tell my mother directly what she wanted? I left the room disgusted at how a person could be so weak. A half hour later, I smiled a greedy smile at the slope of my neighbor’s back as she walked down the street to her own home. I crept down the stairs and watched my mother quietly humming, washing out the dirty tea cups in the sink. I thought my mother the most beautiful thing.

My mother used to tell a story about my brother and I growing up at Christmas time. She liked to explain how my brother never asked for anything. Brian always believed in working hard for every thing he got. My mother would extol with obvious pride. I do not fault her in her storytelling. It is true. My brother is this very sort of amazing. Always has been. Enter the foil. Apparently, I was the opposite. I would sit with the Christmas catalogue and circle entire pages. I want this, and this, and this. The other children on the block called me Princess. When I hear my mother tell these stories, I marvel at how I could have been that little girl. Sometimes, I miss her.

All grown up, I once followed a homeless man down a street begging for him to get in my car so I could give him a thermos of hot tea and a blueberry muffin. The more he resisted, the more I was desperate to help him. There was something about his stubborn refusal that had me quite convinced that no one in the world could save him but me. Everyone needs. Some of us just need a lot more than others.

I am constantly trying to pin down my own definitions of self, but self is slippery. I grew up manipulated and angry. I grew up with the enormity of love. I spent my teenage years with an indefeasible loneliness and an inability to speak. I am constantly told that as an adult I talk too much. I am a woman surrounded by people. Sometimes all I do is ache to simply be left alone. All definitions are hazy.

Need is this strange thing, isn’t it? Look around and you see it, here, everywhere. Blogging only magnifies it. Sometimes I feel like we are this human circus. The fat lady charging a buck fifty to let the audience marvel in awe and revulsion at our skin. Some of us just smoke and mirrors, bravery like the man who stares down the open mouth of a lion and dares the crush of teeth on the vulnerability of his own head. Only most times the audience is unaware that the ferocious beast has been drugged into submission. Needs get tamed.

I do not know what I need or if I actually need anything at all. I am no longer the little girl who can turn the slick page of a Sears catalogue and have happiness materialize. I’m not a sullen teenager, either. I’ve been thinking a lot about that long ago neighbor. Why was I so angry with her? I think the answer to what I am asking might be found in the washing of dirty dishes and the broken down car that is and is not a metaphor.

Do you still smell like Christmas?

I ask this to an old friend from high school on Facebook the other day. I used to crush on his curly hair. Back when we worked retail together, I used to marvel at the way he could break down a cardboard box in under a minute flat. I used to make excuses to head back into the storeroom in the hopes we would stumble into conversation. Problem was that back then I was so concerned with saying the correct thing, to make a person like me, that I often said nothing.

I like to talk to people I went to high school with, not because I’m harboring secret lust or holding useless grudges, but simply because it reminds me of who I was. I could not appreciate myself then, but looking backwards, I was so painfully awkward that it was tender.

Last night, I went to a writer’s group. I was all anxious bones clattering clumsy against the table I dropped my laptop on. Fill me up. Break me down. Wreck me like a lover. I wanted to fight and fuck and cry all simultaneously. Mostly, I just wanted someone to tell me that the urges all made sense. Let my need and neurosis bloom like flower. Two of the most banal hours later, I was ready to give up. In this most mundane moment, someone dropped an atom bomb.

Have you ever read Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs? Naked Lunch is an explosion. Kerouac described it as, “a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.” Last night, this tall cuban boy with bones that jangled worse then mine, wearing a bowler hat and carrying a stutter in his pants pocket, blew his own face off in prose. I was witness to this death, and it was beautiful.

An 18-year old undiscovered genius drew me a secret map of words. As I read my short story, he was head down immersed in sketch. There were the lines of my body intertwined with every other body. All the words of the world stacked in sacred prayer, in curious orgy. It was everything we are not allowed to be in the routine of never-ending Mondays. He passed it shyly across the table when I was done reading, and all I could do was nod. How exquisite any given place can be when we give ourselves over to it. I wish that you had been there. I know you would have felt it.

Back at home, my children wear my husband’s socks and jump reckless on the bed. They barely register my arrival so caught up in the business of being children. I would stand forever inside of doorways just to watch them.

I want a banana. NOW!

My daughter suddenly explodes, a thundering stallion of need. She stamps her feet. She throws back her head to expose the soft tender of her neck. She is so beautiful. Inside of her desire, my daughter blooms. We do not have any bananas in the house. I tell her this. I offer her an apple. She shrugs her shoulders and walks away. Climbs back on the bed to resume her jumping.
It is not always the object that we desire. Sometimes it is simply the expression. I want. I feel. I need. I write it down and send it to you. In that moment, I recognize who I am.