Before

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"You sure you're cool with this?"

"Yep."

"I mean..."

"I said I'm fine."

"I know but-"

"Do you want to call him and cancel?"

"Well no."

"Well there you go."

"Alright, if you say so..."

"I do say so."

"Fine."

"Can we just talk about something else?"

"I really like this song?"

"Good. Me too."

"Who is it?"

"...The Beatles?"

"Oh. Really?"

"Yep."

"Huh."

"I thought you were into music?"

"I am. I just... didn't recognize the song."

"But... it's... nevermind."

"Is this really bad? I mean, I should know this..."

"Well yeah. You should."

"Are you sure you're Ok?"

"Jesus Christ on a rubber crutch will you stop asking me that?"

"Ok! Ok! I just... I mean..."

"He hates this song."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Oh..."

"You look good."

"Thanks."

"Have fun tonight."

"Yeah... I will."

Harmony

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It was the drumming.
That constant tap
Tap tap tap
Tapping
He would do on anything.
And I do mean anything.
Guitarist fingers
With Kurt Cobain Callouses
So deep it hurt to hold his hand.
And that humming.
Or whistling.
Or anything.
His very existence had a tonality
A meter and rhythm
That I was never sure if I matched.
In fact
I'm pretty sure I didn't.
No one really did.
But it didn't really matter
I suppose.
Cause no one could quite match mine.
I wasn't made of music,
But he couldn't understand
How I could sit.
So still.
And read from
"that goddamn textbook,
you know I'm
more interesting than anything
that happened way-the-fuck back
then."
I told him about the decadence of Roman Emperors.
Rock Stars before there was Rock.
And he gave me a grin.
One that was just a little
Too goofy for a super-duper-star.
Next week he had a new song.
I was no muse,
But,
It was fun to pretend.

Rant

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Misogyny is a funny thing, when you think about it.
I mean, it's not funny in a Ha Ha sort of way, of course.
It's just...
How many guys see one of their female friends
(See! They aren't misogynists! They have women who are Just Friends!)
Angry and crying and instinctively think
"That Time Of The Month."
How many guys always want to drive because deep down
Deep deep deep deep down
They honestly assume, without cause
That they are better drivers than their woman passengers.
How many guys associate 'feminist'
With hairy-legged angry lesbian with blue hair and an eyebrow piercing?
How many guys assume they need to help
With everything
And I do mean everything
Because it's 'chivalrous.'
Clearly, nothing gets those panties dropping
Like calling a chick incompetent.
If a guy doesn't say 'twat'
But assumes without question every girl wants to have a happily-ever-after marriage
He's still an asshole.
Maybe a bigger one.
Cause 'cunt' 'bitch' 'twat' 'ho'
They're just words.
And words have no real power
Said the writer.
But ideas.
Ideas are where the poison hides.
Latent, shadowed thoughts,
Assumed superiority
These are the men who really make
A feminist's skin crawl.

Make-Believe

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When I was little, I would play pretend where
I was the girlfriend of an old bank robber
Not old-old, but old school.
20's, 30's
(age inappropriate? nah...)
I'd know exactly where the money comes from
and I wouldn't care.
Cause I'd be wrapped up in
fine clothes
champagne
long cigarettes
jewels weighing heavily on my throat.
My man would love me passionately,
and if anyone so much as looked at me...
Snap.
And a bullet between the eyes.
Sometimes he'd get jealous,
but he'd always put up with it
cause he loved to watch me walk in those dresses.
In return -
I'd stay by his side forever.
Sitting in the passenger seat of his fabulous car
except when he was working
of course.
I'd never give him up to the cops.
We'd be famous, rich,
happy,
and in love.
Always in love.

Untitled

On cold days, she thinks about missed opportunities. She'll sit on the bed and listen to playlists called "pity party" and "last love story" with a blanket wrapped up around her chin like fuzzy armor. She also makes tea, which she sometimes doesn't drink, just lets it perfume the air with Chamomile Lullaby or Pan Asia Green.

Today was one of those days, and she was back to that dangerous trap of "what-if" that makes cold days so treacherous. It was this sort of thinking, she would tell herself later, that made it so difficult to move forward, but that warning would always come too late.

Instead she was thinking about him. About car rides out to Lake Michigan in the middle of the night, about inside jokes, and that stupid Christmas present when she joked about ever little girl wanting a pony. She remembered crying on his shoulder when her little sister got into that car accident and he took her to the hospital. He didn't even make a joke about women drivers for once.

And then there was that mixtape. A real, honest-to-goodness mixtape he made her after she dragged him to Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and he insisted that there was no way his girl was going to be swooning over a pussy like Michael Cera. She'd thought it was all stupid bravado until he handed her the CD the next time he came over.

Speaking of... she walked over to the back closet with her rainboots and dog walking coat. Standing on her toes, she pulled out the "vintage" hatbox she'd gotten at Marshall's and stored on the top shelf just in case.

Yep.

There it was.

Without pausing to think, she popped it into her laptop and waited for the first chord of +44's "Make you smile." Listening to it again... it was almost like a month ago. Back before the shouting, the crying, the passive-aggressive Facebook statuses.

But then, as she kept listening, wrapped in her fleece blanket and staring at the steam coming off of her tea that the rest started pouring back. Those little misogynistic digs, that god-awful hoodie, every time he stood her up, the smell of cigarettes in his car. And of course, Her.

The CD had ended, and the only sound left in the room was the whirring of her computer and her breathing. She needed to get up, out of the apartment, but her inner cheerleader was too busy worrying about the mascara smudges she was bound to have under her eyes.

She tapped eject, satisfied with the solid "click" her keyboard made, carefully returned the disk to its case, the case to the hatbox. She then walked over to the closet, pulled out the rainboots, and took that damn hatbox out to the dumpster. It was time.