Through the rusty gates Lily and I passed, down the muddy gravel path and through leaf-clotted puddles to leave pennies and a dandelion on Emily Dickinson's grave. The sky stormy black and blue as a bruise, the wind blew Lily's hair and rattled the leaves on the trees.
I spent a thousand hours there alone, scribbling in one of my various secret notebooks or drawing pictures of Lily in my sketchpad, carefully composing poems to her, songs I would never play or sing for her.
I felt the dull thud of my heart against my ribs, the pulse of it in my fingers as I smoked. I squinted my eyes and sucked the smoke down deep, pursed my lips and let out a long thin stream of it that sounded almost like a whistle.
I stood over the tree stump - legs spread over the hole that looked down into darkness. Closing my eyes I listened to the tap tap and flick of her cigarette. Crows screamed as they wheeled in the sky. I raised my arms to the heavens - waiting for all the powers of earth and greyskull to flood between my legs, then - thinking about it I spooked and leapt down.
Creepy, all the people laying beneath our feet. Never to wake up.
Emily - not even a pile of rot now, no mush, just a dust of bones sifting in a box down there.
I raised my eyebrow and gazed up at Lily.
"So, ah, ever have sex in a graveyard?" I asked her, looking away, waving my arms dramatically at the headstones.
"Once, with Jason. It was the worst sex I ever had. He was scared and couldn't stay hard. You?"
"I haven't found anyone I wanted to have sex with yet."
I meant to say I haven't found anyone I wanted to have sex with in a graveyard yet... - but..
"You mean you're a virgin?" she asked, incredulous.
We looked at each other with wide eyes. I inhaled slowly on my cigarette, closed my eyes and pursed my lips, blowing out gently. I looked her in the eye, my mouth curling in a smile. I nodded my head yes.
"Wow. I wish I was a virgin."
Secret Sacred Society of Jason
They said Jason slept in a nest of leaves in his dorm room. He always had leaves in his hair and that was why they called him Leaf Boy.
He had a dark graveyard smell: cold night air, stagnant puddles of rain, fresh turned earth and burning leaves. He was all claws and fangs. His body was long and spindly, like a skeleton. "It's be like fucking death." Lily told me, "like fucking a corpse."
He dressed like a fucked-up Dr. Seuss character - ragged Current 93 t-shirt, stripy tights, combat boots and a black velvet top-hat. His voice sounded like a speed freak who'd just sucked a shit-load of helium and Lily was always going on about how tiny his penis was so we all found that combination to be beyond hilarity.
We first met him at a party. He was wearing this silver ring on a leather cord around his neck that Lily in her drunkenness managed to wrangle away from him and sling about her own neck and continued to wear around campus until it was brought to her attention that it was a cock ring. She promptly returned it. Who knew what stories he was telling everyone.
We thought that he was secretly bi, cause when he'd get really drunk he would always go off on how erotic Nick Cave was.
As a present for Lily's birthday, Jason gave her ten photographs of himself. Lily didn't know what to do with all the pictures so we organized The Secret Sacred Society of Jason. The rules were that members had to hang one of Jason's pictures on their front door and chant his name each time they saw one. We gained members rapidly. Every Thursday night we held a Secret Sacred Society of Jason Soiree. Each Thursday night the hallway outside the door would resound with the clomping of a dozen combat boots on the tile floor in rhythm with the foreboding chant of, JA-SON! JA-SON! JA-SON!
Truth or Dare
The room we held the soiree's in was a nightmare of couches, spray paint graffiti and Christmas lights, alive with our dancing, and Lily jumping up and down on the bed shouting, "Let's take off all our clothes and dance!!"
These soiree's mainly consisted of a drunken mass of bodies writhing in smoky flashes of strobe light, playing obscene games of Truth or Dare, pools of red vomit, hysterical laughing, falling on the floor and running into the walls, tickling fights, and our all-time favorite game the "Water-Condom Hoog Toss": which consisted of making dozens of water-filled condoms to hurtle about the room at unsuspecting people's crotches.
I really liked Lily much much more when she was drunk. And she liked to drink. A lot. She'd suddenly throw her arms around you, kiss you all over, throw you down and give you a hickey. She'd curl up in the bed beside you and stroke your hair and giggle. I felt sorta guilty for letting her - no - encouraging - her constant drunkenness because I did it for two reasons - one - to loose my own inhibitions - damn them, and the second and far far worse: because it was under the spell of the wine that she wove her web so tightly around me - with words and looks and touches and kisses.
"Lily, I dare you to go down on anyone who is willing." Jason said.
"I would have to be really emaciated to do that!"
"Emaciated? You mean inebriated?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, I always get those two confused."
A single blue light bulb glowed - black plastic covered the walls and ceiling and glow in the dark stars too swirled along the walls and ceiling.
"Hey let's turn on the strobe," Lily cried. "Make Lake's hair move for me baby...like snakes, like jewel-encrusted snakes... "
"I want to have sex with a woman," Lily proclaimed. This seemed to be her favorite phrase lately, a teaser.
"So I've gathered."
I leapt off the bed and joined the masses writhing in the strobe light. We spun about in the flashing light of the strobe, careening off the walls.
First Kiss
I was smearing my lips with my new Razberry kissing potion and Lily called out, "I'm a good kisser" and I yelled back "Yeah, well come over here and show me!" and she came bounding across the room,
A long sweet kiss, her lips slow on mine, the honeyed tongue, sweet and pink as candy, and the hands, like silk, drawing me in.
I wore a candy choker around my neck. "Hey little girl, want some candy?" I asked Lily, lowering my eyes and smiling up at her.
"Sure!" Lily replied, reaching her hands toward my candy necklace.
I shrank back and gave Lily a stern look. "No. If you want some you have to come get it! You can't use your hands!"
Lily shrugged and bent in close to my neck and bit.
I Vant To Drrrink Your Blaahhd
"I want wine. I want the blood. I want to drink the blood of virgins." Lily said. "Let's cut each other and suck each other's blood! Then we'll be married!" she cried.
I opened my eyes and gazed at her, transfixed.
I stood and bowed at her feet, "I vant to drrrink your blaahhd," I said in my best Transylvanian accent, rolling my R's just like Bela used to.
Lily staggered away from the couch and stomped about the room searching for a razor blade.
Jason put on this cd of Ravi Shankar and some opera chick - it was just the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard - the sound of it was an orgasm - how the soprano and the notes of the music mingled into a sound like the voice of an angel must sound - how it rose and rose spiraling up into the night on and on forever - rising and rising and rising and rising until you almost couldn't stand it anymore - It was like taking flight.
Lily found a razorblade finally, climbed back onto the couch and rolled up her sleeve, her head tilted down, mouth pursed with concentration, the razor's edge drawing a long cross in the flesh of her wrist.
The lines bloomed red pearls.
Everybody stood at the foot of the bed lip sinking the music and waving their arms about dramatically and Lily and I were lying on the bed looking at each other - I felt like they were directing us - we were music and they were the conductors - she would sip out of her wine glass and look up at me through her long dark lashes - over the wine glass, peering up at me and smiling that Mona Lisa smile.
I touched the inside of her wrist, coating my fingers with the blood.
And Lily and I cut each other and smeared each other's blood on our Blow Pop's and painted our lips with it.
She leaned in toward me, staring up at me with shining eyes and lifted her wrist to my mouth.
My lips brushed the wound, tender and tentative.
I took her hand in mine and drew her closer, clutching her to me, my other hand snaking up her back and slowly stroking the curve of her neck, tangling in her hair.
I tasted wine spice flowers and felt her thighs touch mine, pressing.
I wanted to kiss her again and as I pulled her to me the fire alarm began to wail like a siren.
Everyone evacuated the room. Everyone but us. Lily and I tangled on the bed our hands linked, touching fingers tracing and I touched her thighs her hair her face.
Alone at last, we curled together on the bed in the dark. The fire alarm screamed its drunken vibrato as I stroked her thighs, slowly, my fingertips lightly grazing her skin from knees to hips and back again, following the rhythmic wail of the alarm. She bent closer to me, breasts crushed against me. We curled together beneath the blankets, our hands entwining, her fingers moving in and out of my cupped palms. I twirled her hair between my fingers, kissing the ends, longing to drown beneath its waves. Her hair was cool against my skin. The back of her neck smelled of autumn leaves.
Snakes Between Her Legs
The fire alarm ended and I got up to lock the door and put on a new cd.
Lily and I lay back on the bed, watching the candle flame shudder in time with the Cocteau Twins: stars in my eyes...stars at my feet... Each waiting for the other to make the first move, for some sort of signal.
The candle smelled of flowers.
Lily blew on the flame and it leapt and danced.
Lily held my hand and whispered her fear of snakes slithering between her legs and through her secret lips; how - in the night she dreamt of serpents and my head between her thighs, and in the dream I looked up at her, my tongue lashed out, long, black and shining, forked at the tip.
I grasped her hand, touching the inside of her wrist with my fingertip.
We sat together on the bed in the dark, legs folded, in front of one another.
We stared up at the constellations of stars whirling across the ceiling.
I turned onto my side, and there, Lily's eyes wide and gleaming in the dark, just inches from my own.
I stroked the side of her throat, then her face, slowly, tracing her features.
She lay her head in my lap and I stroked her hair.
Her shirt fell open when she shifted in my arms to look up at me: a gleam of tattooed flesh and bare white shoulders that seemed to glow in the dim of the room, then the white curve of her breast, heavy against my thigh, blue veins clearly visible.
The wine splashed onto her breasts and trickled down into her gown.
Her mouth fell open, her lips shone and she laughed her giddy, high-pitched, little girl's laugh. I wanted to kiss the wine away.
I watched her fingers play across my thighs. I wanted to grab her hands and hold them close to my face, to feel my own breath cast back onto my lips, hot and scented with her flesh.
I kissed her shoulder. I kissed her lips softly. Her kiss stung like a flame and tasted of spice. My lips ached, I could feel her own pulse throbbing in them. Lily smiled.
Through the torn lace, the fullness of her breasts, I wanted to put my mouth there. I imagined fingers lightly stroking hips and belly, flickering over skin, brushing the delicate hairs. I wanted her hands around me then, caressing, her breasts crushed against me, the whole crush of her against me, our legs wound together, drawing me down.
I imagined her thighs opening for me. How I longed to stroke the dark hair between her legs, drenched, imagining the silk of her flesh unfolding as her legs wound around me, tensing. I dreamt of her thighs clenched, drawing me closer, pulling me tighter, drawing me in. She would taste bittersweet - a tang of lemons, rosewater, and salty tears. I could almost feel her trembling, fingers clenching then unfolding.
The Drag Ball
Banging on the door brought me out of my reverie, punctuated with the drunken shouts of our friends that we'd better get a wiggle on if we wanted to get any dancing done at the drag ball. We dragged ourselves away from the bed and out into the bright light of the hall.
"We must go through the bowels!" I yelled.
Lily and I arm in arm, we all tromped down the stairs to the bowels, skipped and sang and shrieked at the top of our lungs through the long hallway and out the other side which lets out next to Food Palace.
The bowels were the cavernous basement tunnels of the dorms - one long dim hallway with tiled floor and concrete walls. In some places the walls were painted with murals and graffiti. The Bowels smelled of damp and mildew, burnt food and laundry detergent; every sound amplified and echoed.
In the quad in front of Food Palace people painted each others faces and others mulled around on the steps smoking and yabbering.
Lily asked some guy in black if he liked Bauhaus and he was really rude and obnoxious and sneered at her and was like, "Noooo, not since I was ten!" and advised her to grow up and get a life or something to that effect and Lily got all upset and wouldn't shut up about it for about three hours.
The chick at the door wore a sheer pink leotard with silver foil stars over her nipples. In the back room topless lesbians danced on the tables. Jason was running around in his black leather g-string with half of my whip in his hand. We never found the other half. Bauhaus Guy went in a sock - actually he was supposed to be Adam and went naked but the people at the door told him to go home and put a sock on it so he was Adam with a sock.
Lily flitted about as usual, rarely dancing but rushing into embraces and chattering with her friends. Over the roar and throb of the music I couldn't even make out what most people were saying by reading their lips. I saw people's mouths moving and the music screaming in my ears - I mimicked their facial expressions - smirks and grimaces, looks of surprise and grins - so that they'd think I was listening - hanging on their every word in fact -, all the while I actually was just staring at the whites of their eyes and teeth - how they glowed purple under the black light and occasionally picked at the newly visible constellations of lint on my cape.
I had everyone doing the twist to The Cure and was having great fun but I had to leave the dance floor when I accidentally pogoed into some chick during the "Don't you fuckin' look at me song" cuz I felt really dumb.
As usual it was hot and there were sweaty half-naked people greasing up against my velvets and I hated that.
I had to go outside for air.
As I pulled back the door I heard Jason helium-voice call out of the darkness, "Ah, give him a few years, he'll throw on some heels."
I stepped outside to the quad for a smoke to find that quite a few of the Addams Family were playing kissing tag and vampire bites in the snow - but Lily was inside - and I didn't want to kiss or bite any of these people so I hightailed it back inside before any of them saw me...
A few minutes before they flicked the lights back on and the music clicked off we rushed out the doors into the night. Some chick came staggering out behind us, tossing her blue hair with a snake-rattle of bracelets, and wailed, "Who the FUCK stole my fucking cloves out of my fucking LUNCH BOX? It's my fucking BIRTHDAY!" We all doubled over with laughter.
The rest of the Addams Family decided it would be great fun to go over to Dakin House and crash the drug-free safe space for all the people who didn't want to be around all the tripping people and were watching movies. It was put on by the christians on campus - of which there were about five - but by the time they graduated they were all cured.
The Fun House
Lily, Jason and I wanted to check out the fun house we'd heard they were putting on over in some basement in Prescott (one of the mods we called "the ghetto" for its dark alleys and rusty fire-escapes).
Then this junkie chick was on her hands and knees puking into the flowerbed and Lily was backed up against the side of the building giggling hysterically and all the people coming out of Food Palace were whispering and staring at Lily and giving her nasty looks as she was being completely obnoxious laughing at this person vomiting in the gutter - really ill and strung out, I had this eerie feeling like it should be me puking or giggling, so I gathered her up and dragged her away from the scene and the streetlamps turned the cobblestone paths gold so I started singing, Follow the yellow brick road so we screamed that all the way back to the dorms. But on the way - weird wonder of wonders - a group of Christians in sweat suits jogged pass carrying a huge cardboard arch emblazoned with the single word "Oz".
The basement was an olfactory horror of mold and old garbage and smelly laundry. In a cage without any visible lock - a girl in a silk flowery sundress slumped on the cement floor, her legs spread before her, ankles crossed, beer cans upturned, blinking at a television on a crate at her feet, flickering with static and colored horizontal bars flipping.
Behind me a figure lurched from a wall of liquid quicksilver, face pressed outwards - towards me, arms outspread.
I saw other cages, open, beckoning.
I knew these people, each face I recognized. This was that face I saw in store windows, puddles, the windows of passing cars. This was my face, reflected back into my eyes. Each of these people was me.
I had a very very strong urge to get in a cage.
The Tripping Fields
Next I took the kids over to the Art Barn - whenever I tripped - in the middle of the night I liked to trek over to the Art Barn - cause it's left open at night for the artist peoples to go in and do there work. The advanced level students each had their own private stall where they kept all their art stuff and I would go in to their private stall and sit on the floor and stare at all their works-in-progress and write in my notebook all the inspirations they would give me and occasionally I would leave cryptic little notes...
I noticed in every stall were paintings of the forest surrounding the college - but the trees were like a fence - a cage - no one at the school could escape from. Later I realized it was most likely an assignment in some art class.
Then we snuck into the music and dance building and futzed with the pianos and crept back to the dance rooms - when tripping alone I loved to go in there - take my shoes off and dance in the huge airy room - golden wood floors - one whole huge wall of mirror and the wall of glass behind me - looking out onto snow drifts windy trees and winter sky glowing with dawn - I flew around the room and melted all over the floor.
We took off for the library because sometimes at night they would leave the doors unlocked. We snuck into the dark library all shadowy and echoey with the post office locked up and a great wind blowing out the slots - the flyers waving like kelp underwater - the post office a wind tunnel - the art gallery silent and all the shadowy ponderous sculptures and paintings hiding in the dark - nobody in there - complete silence but for our creeping feet and the wind blowing round the mailboxes the paper flyers flapping and rustling. The library had this old-vacuum-cleaner-who's-bag-hasn't-been-changed-for-a-long-time-and-you-just-swept-the-floor-with-it smell and the windows were all taped with black cut-outs of construction paper birds in flight to stop birds from slamming into the glass. We walked down the stairs where two glowing machines flanked the bathrooms - a pop machine and a candy machine - and we stuffed our pockets with candy and flicked open a Jolt and slurped it down and checked out the graffiti stall in the peach tiled bathroom - adding our own two cents to whatever current discussion was unfurling across the metal stall walls.
Once outside we began walking down this long gravelly road that's lined on one side with trees and on the other side were emerald fields of golf-course smooth grass dotted with dandelions that were great to play universe in - which we proceeded to do.
(Universe is when you had a great big green field with nothing in it but grass and air - and you ran and ran and skipped and jumped and laughed and sang and danced as fast as you could and spun around and around and around and around and around and then fell down to the ground and you became one with everything that you saw and smelled and heard and tasted and touched - you became one with the sky - the stars - one with the grass - the air - the dirt - the earth beneath you and everything around you.)
We went out into the forest behind Greenwich out past the tennis courts where you could hear the hippies doing their rituals - dancing and chanting naked around great bonfires. We went out to the cornfield and sat in a circle in the dust and our heads bowed into our black cloaks and the tripping hippies came out and ran round and round us chanting and occasionally poking one of us with a stick to see if we were alive or if we really were the burnt stumps we were pretending to be until suddenly I leapt up and I pointed my finger at one of them and screamed at the top of my lungs "You didn't obey the blessing plan!" The hippies fled screaming back into the forest.
I led them to all of my secret places, the clearings and groves where I went to be alone. But each place I brought them to had changed. The bubbly stream, where the birds flapped and screeched and the frogs screamed all night was dry and barren, the soil cracked, the rushes like brittle hair; and then, my favorite, the steel lookout tower where I hoisted myself high in the air, swinging my feet into the shimmering fire of autumn leaves bare branches twisted like clawed hands.
On the look-out tower, Lily dragged her wrists along the railings. The blade left only scars of rust. "Too dull," she said.
Cathedral Road
We walked down a dirt path that wound out of the forest and onto Cathedral Road - where the trees converged overhead - so you had walls and roof of trees and tree limbs - and through the black limbs you saw shards of sky and the glitter of stars and when you're tripping you started to see this grid pattern - a grid of light over everything - that looked like the grid of the Holodeck on Star Trek when they turn off the program. The ground was covered with little gold leaves that looked like little holes in the ground issuing light and the burnt stumps on the sides of the road looked like gargoyles waiting to jump out at us.
Only my pale hands emerged from the shadows, beckoning them down the road into the tunnel of darkness before us.
We sat on the damp gravel on Cathedral Road. I waved my arms in the air like I was drowning. Lily lay back, watching the trees above me breathe. Their inhalations and exhalations synchronized with the movement of my arms.
"Everything moves with you." Lily said.
Lily pounded a galloping rhythm on the ground with her hands, as though she were trying to evoke spirits, her eyes rolled back in her head and the white shone like moon crescents. She let out a sudden piercing cry.
Jason tried to grab her hands but she fought back, "Don't try to stop me!!"
"Stop holding her back! Let her go!" I yelled over Lily's wail, yanking his hands away.
His fingers were red as though caked with dried blood and earth. They seemed unusually large against mine, huge and porous, a mass of stiff black hairs curling over the knuckles like pubic hair.
Lily's hands galloped faster with their summons, beating against the air like wings, flinging her screams into the darkness like some howling angel of death. I screamed too.
Jason wielded a lighter, laughing hysterically. He thrust his arm out at Lily, pointing the thing like a gun. A flash of fire illuminated our faces. The flame twitched. Our heads appeared severed, hovering eerily against the black.
Lily's face was blue, a pale mask shining with tears, the wind rippling through it. Her smile grew larger and her voice was low, guttural, "It throbs and pulses."
Jason torched fallen leaves with the flame, staring wide-eyed as they dissolved into fiery skeletons in his hands. Burning embers and ashes rained over him. Jason looked up from his carnage and leered at us, "Everything is aflame. It burns."
Everything's Dead Here
Above the crest of trees, the moon broke free of the clouds and was like a bare bulb being clicked on.
"Oh my god, look at my hands," Lily said, staring at her outstretched fingers with horror, "They're grotesque, like an old woman's hands, clawed and rotting."
I looked at her, then down at her hands. "They're beautiful...fucking beautiful!"
Hearing the static screech of a walkie-talkie, Lily shrank into the shadows, spying two security-guards marching up the dark path. She ran toward them, face radiant with exaltation, long white arm's outstretched. "Everything's dead here!"
They looked at her, raising their eyebrows, "You want us to call that in?" they asked.
For the remainder of our night's roaming, Lily seemed to feel she had embarked on some great prophetic mission. A Vision of Truth had descended upon her: a Vision she felt impelled to reveal to all who stumbled across her path.
She accosted strangers in the dark, bellowing in their startled faces, "Everything's dead here! You're dead! You're already dead!!"
They scuttled away, peering back at her over their shoulders.
"Don't talk to the natives," I warned her.
Hurry Up Before I Die
Lily rushed on into the night, hesitating every few feet to wheel around, shove her hair out of her face and yell back at us, "Hurry up before I die!"
Finally, we trudged back to my room and crouched in the dark, listening to Cranes.
Lily pressed her cheek against the window as the strobe light flickered against the black glass, into the night outside, "This is the most gothic experience I've ever had! I'm going to orgasm and puke at the same time!!"
Lily pounced upon Jason then, clawing at his hands. Her eyes glittered, huge and luminous. "Let's go to your room and get your knife!"
I thought I would never see either of them again as they stole out my door, but they soon returned, the knife glinting in Lily's hand.
Jason slouched in a corner. Lily sprawled on her stomach before the strobe light.
I stared at the knife glinting in her hand. She lowered her head and slid the blade across her wrist, then lifted it, wincing at the cut and looking over at Jason.
The candles shuddered in the dark.
The ash of my cigarette fell.
Brittle leaves tapped against the windowpanes.
I shrank back against the wall, numbly watching the knife rise and fall again and again, moving deeper into her wrist, looking from Lily's beautiful tear-drenched face to her bony wrist streaming scarlet onto the floor.
Each time the knife broke her flesh, a terrible crunch resounded. Like bones, I thought.
I strained forward, my body tensing, my fingers trembling in a sweaty grip around a tuft of the rug.
The veins in my hands pulsed with ragged beats; my eyes twitched but I refused to blink.
I bent towards Lily, holding my breath, inching my face closer and closer to Lily's wrist.
"Everything's dead here. Everything's dead." a voice whispered in the back of my mind.
Lily, Flower Of Death
I bolted from the floor and stumbled to the door.
"Let me out of here," I said, my face emotionless. I flipped on the light switch, kicked the strobe on its head, and pulled the stereo plug out of its socket.
All was quiet. Lily's face was ice-white, wet with tears as she turned her head to look up at me with those glittering spook house eyes huge and ringed in kohl - her tiny little blood red mouth hanging open.
I flung open the door and lurched in a daze down the hallway.
I tried to light a cigarette, but it fell from my fingers as I staggered toward my room. What could I do? Who could I call?
I spun around and ran back down to the room.
"Give me the knife," I demanded.
Lily just stared, tears still streaming down her cheeks.
Jason jumped up from the floor and glared at me. He lifted a half-eaten apple to his lips and the bone crunch shuddered through me again.
"Let's go outside." I said, taking the knife from her hand.
"I won't go without my knife," said Jason, holding out his arms to block the door.
I reluctantly returned it to him. Lily dashed past him, toward her room. I followed, but she was already on the phone with someone, crying hysterically, "I'm bleeding, I slit my wrist."
I put my arm around her and led her down the stairs and outside. I turned to see Jason meandering along behind us, hesitating to rest his head on the door as though he was tired or bored. I gave him one quick, contemptuous look then told Lily to sit against the wall. "This is where I come to write." I said. I thought we would be safer outside in the courtyard. They couldn't hurt themselves here, not with all the people roaming about.
Lily curled beside me, knees pressed against her chest. She rocked back and forth against the brick wall, sobbing.
People walked by us, engaged in conversations, excitedly hurrying on to parties elsewhere. We sat only a few feet from the sidewalk and yet none of these people even looked our way. We were invisible to them. They ignored the girl rocking against the brick and sobbing, blood streaming from her wrist.
"Let me see," I said softly, reaching my hand toward Lily. She offered her bloody wrist like a guilty child. I stared at the wrist she exhibited. The cut was just a thread-thin scratch grazing the surface of her skin. A strand of garnet rosary beads wound round and round her wrist. I looked up into her eyes, bewildered.
Jason sneered at me. "I hate people who can't handle their acid." he said.
Water Condom Hoog-Toss
Lily soon forgot her death scene as she became engrossed seeing the smoke of her breath in front of her from the cold, but soon bored with this she demanded we go to her room and I begrudgingly agreed.
In Lily's room we played a little water-condom hoog toss and poured ourselves a glass of wine and stretched out on the floor, listening to music and rubbing each others heads because Lily wanted to have a big hair orgy. Jason and Lily soon migrated to the bed.
I curled up in the corner by the door, staring across the room. Through the darkness, lit sporadically by the flash of the Christmas lights strung across the walls I watched. Lily and Jason, locked in an embrace, sitting upright, Lily's arms and legs wrapped around him like a spider, their kisses hidden by her hair. I could not hear their breathing for the Ministry screaming from the stereo, like fists slamming again and again against the wall, against my ribcage. I stood abruptly and opened the door to the hall.
On my way out I throw a wet broken condom at them.
Out in the hall I threw an unbroken water condom against the wall and it just bounced off. I threw it again as hard as I could onto the floor. It bounced twice then sat there jiggling. I stomped on it with my boot. It jiggled some more.
I left it jiggling outside his door and stomped out of the building and back to my room. Alone in the dark night - hearing her laughter in the distance.
I knew he'd end up spending the night in Lily's room, in Lily's arms, between Lily's legs...
Release The Bats!
I sat in my room and smoked cloves in the dark. The night was a blur of broken glass, wine and smoke and tears. At last dawn was shining through the curtains and I put on Birthday Party's "Release the Bats" and turned it all the way up.
I went out into the hall and ran up the stairs to watch the sun come up through the cage on the rooftop of the dorm - because this was the only place on campus from which you could see the sun come up over the mountains.
Snow had fallen in the night. My heart pounded wildly. The cold metal of the chain link bit into my hands. The smell of donuts drifted through the apple orchard from Atkin's Farm and smoke rose from the chimney over at Food Palace.
The sky was the most gorgeous shade of sapphire. And looking up at it through chain-link was like looking at stained glass. Six a.m. blue - my favorite color in the world.
I Thought She Was Making Snow Angels
The chain-link roof and walls of the cage were put up years before I ever came to Hampshire because of a girl who committed suicide jumping off the roof.
Her girlfriend found her in the morning, just after dawn, face down in the snow. She recognized the black velvet of the cloak she always wore, lying in the gleaming winter snow - and her dark hair glittering with new fallen flakes, her arms flung out at her sides. She knelt beside her, saw the bluish tinge of her skin, the scarlet sheen of blood staining her lips, her hair. "I thought she was making snow angels." she said.
I imagined it, falling through the dark air, my blood a brilliant crimson staining the snow.
Garbage Bag Angels In The 6 AM Blue
"Fuck that," I whispered under my breath and I raced down the stairs and out into the cold winter dawn with a black garbage bag in my hands.
I ran up the hill behind the dorms. The snow shone in the air and glittered like shattered diamonds underfoot. The streetlamps turned the snow to gold.
I sat on the garbage bag and - swoosh - slid down the hill. I held the garbage bag behind me at my shoulders and ran around with the bag flapping in the wind behind me like wings and I was a garbage bag angel in the six a.m. blue snow.
Oh, the blue blue sky, the black of my trenchcoat against the snow, my boots crunching, the branches creaking, my tearstained face, my tears turning to ice on my cheeks, pretending to be an angel, snow angel.
1994
by Lake e. Lou
Comments
2 comments by pd_writer Oh, how sad! did this really happen?!
by Salem OH MY GOSH....... Publish a book so I can keep all of these! I think I'm in love with you!!!