Friendships

1. You guys missed a spot in my back. Grind the knife hard and deep, okay? I enjoy the pain.
2. After all these years, I guess I don't merit even one sorry.
3. I really, really, really miss you.
4. My God, you are shallow.
5. In retrospect, you did a real number on my psyche. No wonder I have commitment issues.
   
6. One of these days, I'm probably going to irritate you too.
7. For all the defending I do, I wish someone would for once stand up and stick up for me. Which is an entirely wrong mindset, because hey, independence and courage and inner strength and all that jazz, but Lord, I wish someone would say I'm worth fighting for, and worth being a true friend to.
8. Stop making me cry, dammit. I get the worst case of sniffles.
   

T.I.I.S.

(There's supposed to be a picture with this, but hell, I'm far too lazy. And my sister has my Tablet. Oh well. Let the neurotic bitterness commence!)

Wedding dress

Because your sister had her prom night, your mother placed a bridal magazine on the dinner table. Because it was there, you read it. And because you read it, you now find yourself obsessed with the topic, scrutinizing brightly-colored saris, frantically searching for the Labyrinth gown in the dream sequence, sighing over Grace Kelly’s lacy profile as she wed her literal prince.
This is rapidly becoming alarming.

Text message

You’re happy for her, of course. After roughly two years of declaiming and cursing lovelives—lack thereof—you’re glad at least one of you will finally no longer be TIIS.
Then again…

Bitter

Upon reflection, you conclude. Mr. Darcy is an elitist ass, Heathcliff an obsessive sociopath, and Crisostomo Ibarra (cough, cough) a misogynistic playboy who is obviously a vehicle for the desires of his creator. You blame Byron—the cad—for your weakness to pretty antisocial bastards in books and television and movies, and rightfully scorn true love as nothing more than a construct devised by Western, he-man-as-hero-woman-as-weaker-vessel, hegemony on society.
The conspicuous stack of curly-scripted books below your bed says otherwise.

Virgin goddess

Sometimes, in your (not so) brief moments of delusion, you wonder if you’ll stay in this state forever. Constrained by your chaste upbringing and paranoia of anything remotely approaching commitment, you’d like to run forever, like Artemis illuminated by the moon, or as Athenaeternally wrap yourself up in books and justice.
Your namesake, you also note, is the Maiden of Celtic mythology, the proclaimed queen of the fairies.
Since high school, your friends have been calling you Immaculate Mother, for reasons best left unexplained.
It appears you’re stuck in the tower.

Dream

When all is said and done, however, you still fall to pieces upon waking.
Your lips still tingle from the imaginary kiss.

Text message

You stare at the glowing screen in shock.

A ear-piercing scream echoes through the house a nano-second later.

Hours later, all your back-up plans have gone to hell, and you're not quite sure how to feel about that (there goes the job abroad, the skills laboriously honed in four painstaking years, the sheer freedom from academia).

Still, seeing your name in that list, you can almost see your future writ large.

You've made your father quite proud.

Twilight: A Review

(A post rather, rather tardy.)

Poster
His pale, lives-in-a-basement skin. His sinister leer, topped with sanguine lips. Her frightened, deer-in-headlights eyes. their unnatural postures.
Your first impression upon seeing the giant billboard is that it is a PSA on child predators. It does not bode well for giggling prepubescents the world over.

Baseball
So far, your quiet quips and your friend’s heckling has gone unnoticed in the hushed, reverent crowd. The giggling of the schoolboys beside you makes your skin crawl, but you refrain from reaching over and socking them with your soda can. You keep mostly to yourself.
Then they bring out the baseballs, and a familiar song oozes out of the movie speakers.
Your scream of indignation echoes in the moviehouse.

Alphabet
The two protagonists—appropriately cardboard and/or smarmy beyond belief—attempt to talk, or what passes for it. You watch in puzzlement as their conversation, composed of hackneyed phrases and hard-sell flirtations, go from Point A to point W and back again to Point J.
“I’m dangerous.”
Seriously. Who talks like that?

Blood
Enter the lamb, see the pussycat.
That first meeting, as the supposed hero (or rather, two-century-something who routinely stalks delicious-smelling girls in their bedrooms) flairs his nostrils and tries his hardest not to prevent an orgasm in the classroom (you call ‘em as you see ‘em), you have a stray thought about menstruation.
Suddenly the direction of your mind takes a turn for the gutter.

Credits
It is the best part of the movie.
The cinematography is wholly different, and the music coolly seductive. No acting is required, therefore the actors posing like 50’s Hollywood stars actually look the part.
It is the best part, however, because it is over.

Because Jam is Racing Against Sunbeams

French-kiss the morning
It is your favorite time of the day.
In those few minutes between slumber and the shower, you feel a faint embrace of the warm dawn air. It lingers as you try to hold on to remnants of your dream, and suddenly bursts as the phone utters a shrill reminder.
As the hours plod forward, your dream wisps into the haziness of your recollection, and you are left with a warm, brilliant smile and eyes aching to protect.

Pray to the god of sex and drums and rock n’ roll
The heavy bass line thrums through your system, undulates and uncoils like a sweet summer wind. It takes a moment for the beat to pick up, and soon you see yourself in a roomful of people, slick sweat and lust redolent in the air. It is not merely a dance; it is the clash and the kismet of a hundred souls, gyrating for lost wishes and unfulfilled dreams and aching, bursting rebirth.
With upraised arms and a shuttered gaze, you join in the fervent ritual.
As the last guitar solo twangs into a yearning silence, you open your eyes and see your bedroom once more.
Few think you’d be the type to bump and grind.

Make the rocking world go round
You thought you could make a difference.
You still might. You’re young, after all. So what if you’re not slaying metaphorical, political dragons, saving damsels and the demographics from the tyranny of antediluvian laws and practices? Heck, some people made their mark past death!
Even as you rationalize, however, the years of youth—and that of hope, and change, and wrinkle-free skin—are slowly slipping away, and you squander them all in mediocrity.

Find a stairway to heaven
You’ve spoken about it a lot. Cried buckets to your unobservant best friend, mentioned Frost and snowy evenings in passing, routinely discussed the best methods.
Still, they think you won’t do it. A cry for attention, some think; spoiled little brat. Others say that your Catholic upbringing has permanently imprinted hellfire and damnation on your skull should you attempt to try. The few who knew you at the edge of seventeen know you won’t do it, if only for the memory of a bright-eyed sylph who faded far too soon.
You just want to be happy.

Fly to the moon and back
You just want to be happy.
Stocking up on impossible hopes and dreams, however, seems to preclude reality, and lead weights of guilt and reason drag you down back into the stratosphere.
Crash-landing seems inevitable.