Mid-way

"So, if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive,
Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?" - Incubus

My thighs don't like me, they've been used to me being very lazy this summer, the run took them for a surprise. Lewiston has been great in showing me how I never want to be in a city like Lewiston again. I get whistled and honked at, guys making inappropriate comments on a near daily basis as though I were a hoochie from a rap video-- more class and respect would perhaps bring the city back to what it once was. Living here is settling for what life is instead of what life can be-- my lack of passion makes me feel asexual.

The Cowan Mill connecting Lewiston to Auburn burned to ashes last week by arson. The atmosphere at the journal was indescribable while it was happening, like any big breaking news story, we were scrambling to it, trying to get an edge, trying to get photos and shoot video.
It's only in the aftermath that we realize, that part of history, the home to thousands of workers during the era where mills made up the industry to a then, up-an-coming town, that driving past the remains of something so historic becomes heartbreaking.
There's also a park surrounding it with a plaque before it with the words, "In Honor of Those Who Served," embedded on the marble. An illustration of five young men donning an outfit from each military unit: army, navy, coast guard, marines, and air force; stood above those words, welcoming people to the twin cities; and now the mill behind them- beside the river and bridge, is no longer.
-Maybe I'm just old school.

On another note, the following was written Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning.

12:52 a.m. July 22

I saw a caterpillar creeping up the badly painted structure of a cheap building. Although with all of its efforts, it still fell into the heater. It gave me a chill. That's what seven weeks of un-vacuumed carpeting brings, what shoes, dead skin and crumbs attract. I watch the bug fall hoping only that it doesn't find its way between my breasts tonight. I find it to be like the white man's adage, the more terrifying, the more intriguing. As we run away from the fire, jokes Chris Rock, they run toward it and the biggest fire attracts the biggest crowd... of white people.

Silly thoughts keep me up tonight, like why didn't I finish writing my story, to why I didn't run, to where this surge of anxiety has suddenly come from.

The story is on the broken desktop and can't be transferred over. It is about a girl stuck in a world of loving three men, three different ways. Conflicted between her goals and the need of her working class, single parent household. A baby of a war vet, the story takes place in the early 90s. I haven't written the middle, I'm dabbling with story lines as I so often do - but somehow my heart tells me that this character, as strong and objective of Ayn Rand character as she is, will end up leaving everyone.

And unlike Rand, I don't know if that'll necessarily help her find herself.

Each of these boys and these girls who I write in the voice of are part of me of course. It would be un-genuine to make them too much stronger, fiercer, wiser.

Begs the question, if I were me, how would I write my life? So I always stop mid-way.

I would never write it with badly painted white walls screeching the sound of silence. Or with each flick of the pencil, and a tissue, another smudge, another detail bring self-portraits to life so I can make Nas' eyes penetrate his thoughts more than my words can penetrate my companion's mind.

And so I stop the story mid-way because fear is a curious and dangerous thing only the white man chases- and my characters cannot be dull as a white wall, as dead as an artist living in her fantasy world.
--------

He has shaken me with fear so I stopped
My voice recordings of interviews on sex and knives;
on hearts and homelessness
are a recording of a 10-year-old child.
My voice is younger, softer, quieter than I imagine.

He has shaken me with fear so I stopped
Because the prick from unforgiving high heel shoes
leave marks on my soft feet
and makes my back scream in agony

He has shaken me with fear so I stopped
It is all I can do
Approach and it cracks like a bullet racing through a glass window.
Fall back and my hands are up, knees bent down, in a submissive position
with the barrel staring straight at me.

He has shaken me with fear so I stopped.
I'm up at 1:30 a.m., daydreaming.