Oh, Boo Hoo

Why use a knife when the truth will do?

I've been feeling awful, cursed and hard

like a sinking stone

tied to my heart

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Nearing midnight in late October, I waited for Halloween with a glass of Cabernet. I am doomed if I ever run out of this stuff; it gives me something to do with my pursed lips.

I woke up this morning and saw flashes of my troubled mind: I dreamt of chainsaws through a flower garden and handfuls of my hair torn out in my hands.

Once upon a time many Halloweens ago I sat in a friend's seaside apartment where the dirty-salt scent of Long Island Sound mixed with oily factory fumes. Restaurants down the row puffed fryer exhaust into the sky, giving us a taste of a beer battered, overcooked night.

What should we listen to?

Hey, what about Nick Cave's Murder Ballads? I asked. Nick just kills at will and sings with glee about the blood on his hands. I like Halloween. I like its monsters and demons. Some days they are closer closer closer than others. Sometimes they say beautiful things that I crave, and sometimes I am afraid.

As my dryer cranks a warm, cottony scent into the night my fingers wrap around a wine glass.

The days and nights at home are tough lately, but sincere. What can I do with feelings in my hands like marbles of blown glass?

What I want most in the world is to sit in a corner alone and feel relief, sometimes. Isn't that kind of abandoning everyone and everything?

A psychologist told me years ago that I just don't cope. Kendra, you have no coping skills, she said.

Well, isn't that the perfect way around everything? I thought.