Category: 100 Words

Day 67: Bluejean

When I was ten, I practically lived at my best friend’s house. She had an attic bedroom with three big windows, and a blue parakeet in a cage she’d cover at night.

I told my parents I wanted a parakeet, too. We’d had to give away our dog, who’d bite everyone who wasn’t my mom, and cats were out of the question.

My dad said no. He thought I was just copying my friend, which was probably correct. But when I look back, I can so easily see that our house was no place for the innocent energy of animals.

Day 66: Shadow

“Couples costumes are cheesy,” I said. “Let’s go to Touchdowns for burgers instead,” I said. But it’s my girlfriend’s sorority party and I can’t leave her hanging. Apparently, Captain Hook needs eyeliner.

“You’re going to love it,” Kenna says, smudging it with the pad of her finger. Her ginger-minty breath is warm on my cheek.

I’m about to say “Don’t poke my eye out,” but I’m quiet. She’ll be done faster if I stay still.

“All done.”

The mirror shows someone, me, I guess, but. My eyes, usually sad, are … intense, watchful. Dangerous. I stare.

“Holy shit.”

I’m fucking … beautiful.

Day 65: Keepsake

“Want to watch a movie?” I close my algebra book and grab the remote.

“Yeah, I can stay ’til nine.”

He scoots closer, pulling the crocheted blanket my grandma made from the back of the couch. It’s ugly as hell (navy blue with pink flowers) but she died, so my mom can’t get rid of it. He doesn’t mind, I guess, because he spreads it over our laps.

When I lean back, his arm is around me. I wonder what Gram would say if she could see us. If it would bother her that her roses are keeping us warm.

Day 64: High

It’s perfectly normal that she’s on the balcony,
Topless, three floors up,
Quinzième Arrondissement.
She does a back bend over the railing,
Wine-stained smile to the night sky.
“Sincerely,” I say. “Are you listening?”
Of course she isn’t.
I’m not sure she ever did.
In the smoke I am set aside, categorized, dismissed.
The picture I take of this moment
Is developed at a pharmacy, later, back home.
Her breasts in an envelope with
The Bateaux-Mouches and The Bastille.
The landlord is concerned we won’t pay our rent,
But there won’t ever be a drug as potent as her skin.

Day 63: Gaze

It occurs to me that the idea of “The Gaze” is a tricky one, when contemplating artworks and those who view them, because there is at once the Human Gaze, which we as persons experience as a collective, then the Gendered Gaze, where individuals encounter artwork as men, women, non-binary or agender, then the Aged Gaze, which considers the completely arbitrary measuring device of years alive on earth, not to mention the Race Gaze, the Colonized Gaze, and the Marginalized Gaze, all of which happen parallel to the Reflected Gaze, where the (inanimate and unconscious (?)) artwork itself regards the viewer.

Day 62: Lake House

Ellen’s the only one who could get me to jump.

I sit at the edge of the dock, my legs dangling into the brown water. I can’t see my feet, or the bottom of the lake, which Ellen says is at least ten feet below.

She’s a bobbing torso I splash with a cupped hand. “Scaredy-cat!” she calls, laughing, just like she did at the city pool when I froze on the high dive.

The water is her otherworld, opaque and soft, made up of everything I don’t know yet. I stand, the dock slick beneath my toes, and jump.

Day 61: Earring

I rolled over on it, half-asleep, and thought I’d been stabbed
Or stung by a bee somehow resting among the sheets.
It belongs to Helen.
Yellow shirt Helen, Helen whose hands are bigger than mine,
Ringless, fisted.
Helen across the table, who I couldn’t look in the eye.
She’s a throw-her-head-back-when-she-laughs woman,
An I’m-strong-enough-to-hold-you-up woman,
A leave-in-darkness-before-you-wake woman.
I tasted her earlobe, fitting the gold post between my teeth.
It yielded to my tongue, slept in my mouth,
And bit me good morning.

Day 60: Drink

It would be easy. No one would know, or care.

I could walk into the kitchen and open the bottle in the fridge. Is it a pinot grigio? Or a chablis? No matter. I’ll get my favorite glass, a few ice cubes, and give myself a pour that passes for modest.

The oncologist recommends against it. My father’s alcoholism recommends against it. A college friend, who left me a drunk and rambling voicemail, recommends against it.

My face burns, thinking about it. My mouth waters.

I do walk into the kitchen. I fill the kettle, and set it to boil.

Day 59: Cartwheel

The woman is asked if there is a part of her she has lost.

In a moment, it’s defined: a cartwheel.

She’d been a gymnast in her childhood and early teens. She filled every moment with cartwheels, handstands, leaps; there was always some climbing, flipping, or tumbling to be done. She was comfortable upside down. Muscles did what she demanded, and ankles and wrists could be depended upon. Her body had made shapes that felt beautiful.

The woman, who is me, looks down at her calf, her thigh, her shoulder. She traces her skin, recalling the backbend that lived underneath.

Day 57: Braid

We were kids when we crashed our bikes on the playground. You skinned your knee, and I rode you to my house for band-aids and a Coke.

We’re grown up now. I mean, we’re juniors, and you have your license and all. (But we still have curfew, and my mom will be expecting me.)

Your bedroom is a mix of both. You got rid of that pink wallpaper last year, but stuffed animals still crowd your bed.

“Can you braid my hair?” You ask.

You sit between my legs, your wavy hair in my fingers.

I’m going to be late.