Transitorily Honest

I consider myself to be an honest person. Most of the time. I cheated on a test, once, in college. It was my second term at community college and I was figuring out the ropes of how to juggle the grief of my father's death with the academic rigor of a twelve credit term. I took night classes and kept my mouth closed. I pulled A's for the first time in my life. I don't know what I did during the days besides sleep and ignore the pounding hangovers my insomniac brain demanded.

Is that even honest? Honesty is a mistress of opportunity, she ages well and if not provoked to rage will offer lessons in reality. At that time, I was as honest with myself as I possibly could be. The trappings of truth I invented kept me safe from too much self harm and away from desperation. Now, I look back and with the clarity of time can see a different truth, the truth of the broken spirit that needed spring to come with warmth and flow blood up through my veins and into my heart. The heat of those March days crept into the ice and thawed out my bones, steam rose from my feet as they touched the ground, and that is lucky for if we spend too long frozen our souls will be trapped under ice and may forget to surface. That is what happens with time, the pain, while no less tangible becomes less visceral and safe to look at, to inspect the shards of ice beneath a microscope to learn that ice is teaming with microbial life.

With frozen veins I made way in and out of class rooms. I showed up physically into rooms full of strangers and sat in hard chairs under florescent lights which hummed inside my ears. The sound pulled me out of my body where I would wait for a chink in my thawing veins and reenter my body disoriented and unsure of my surroundings. I fell in and out of my body. Time moved forward without me. I cheated on a test. Time was so slow and my body so light that I hovered above the room looking at answers, marking my sheet correctly. It was terrible to do so well as the professor wrote out our rankings on the board. "And, one of you," he said his voice full of pointed accusation, "Received one hundred percent." That was me, I shrank into my chair. I am not supposed to be seen and now all the eyes in the room shift focus on to me and I am visible as their eyes cast disbelief in my direction.

I had to study so hard after that. To ensure a repeat performance when one cannot rely on out of body experiences to succeed, one must take notes and study notes and spend hours examining them from every angle.

Dishonesty took more work and even if no one knew, I did, and it was wretched. I proved nothing only that I had to overcome more isolation as the space between me and my peers grew ever wider. So I studied and read and sat on the earth warming my legs and felt the breath of summer on my neck and melted into the body of flesh.

Gravel

Leggings as pants are wretched, we all know that, right. So tell me, how does the girl packing an extra 35 pounds not know that?

More than leggings I despair when I am faced with the thought that I may not have enough creativity to manage getting through this month with my tongue as I am growing sick from biting it. The inside of my cheek is welted from my incisors; it is the holding of thoughts that drives my teeth into my tender flesh. That sounds morbid and it is not entirely untrue.

More than the taste of pennies, I hate when I am a coward. I am a coward now because I am biting my tongue instead of speaking up and saying what I believe to the few people who need to hear it. It is an adult decision not to call someone out, ask them to sit down and have a conversation. I suppose that I could write a letter I never send, or I could burn an effigy, or, like a normal person, drink too much.

Until I realized why I was so damned angry. I was mad because I felt my power stripped away. By being 'let go' from my not so reliable, horribly underpaid, working almost for fucking free for a year without so much as a thank you very much, I felt myself adrift on the wind of chance and it scared the living shit out of me. When change is forced upon me, I tend to spiral.

What an opportunity to recognize that no one has the ability to dictate my response. What a chance to realize that I am now more in control. In the odd twist of fate the awakening to the fact that I do have a choice even while my options are being limited. It is not that I am no longer angry, but I recognize that I am not beholden.

Also, for the record, I think that people tell all kinds of stories to make themselves okay. Self reflection is not a quality for those weak of stomach and tender of bone.

And finally, I dreamed I had cloudy vision as if my dreams were out of focus.

Rock's Bottom Line

Braiding twigs, straw, smoke and mirrors together I made a life. I thought that I could run a little faster than my shadow, but as we all know shadows are tricky and have a way of leaping from behind bushes, scaring horses, exposing a chinked chimera fastened with duck-tape and putty. Now exposed my shadow feels better and is doing a great job making me work harder to have less.

I convinced myself that I need a truck—a big fat fuel monster to haul horses to expensive events where their coats would glisten in the sun and my boots would be polished mirrors—with some hesitation my bank said okay, I with no hesitation said yes. I told them, hey no problem, I've got this and I pretended that it would. But now, oh now the pain of a beast with no hope for resolve, gulping fuel I can little afford. It is my own little budget ceiling and I have hit it.

The plan is simple--sell the beastly truck for pennies on the dollar--take the hit of a poorly invested venture and add in the depreciation and I'm talking thousands of dollars lost. But, that's what it is now, people everywhere have lost thousands of dollars, I am not alone on the Titanic.

But no one wants a truck a big beastly truck. Especially now and especially not from a young lady who can barley put boots on. No it's not that, what it really is is that it's not no one who buys trucks. Men buy trucks and my flitzing floating voice over the digital wires throw them into a state of shattered world view and no one with a shattered world view spends money on a truck.

So now, what now? Maybe I'll start advertising, 'this rig is being sold by a lady,' or as my brother kindly suggested pose in a camo bikini on the hood of the truck, or maybe just put my husbands phone number on the add, because at this point the sexism is not the point of the bottom line.

Fine.

I was what, seventeen, sixteen? who knows now, riding shotgun while my mom drove five miles under the speed limit, "Chaya, how are you?"

The ubiquitous 'fine,' seemed less than satisfying to my mother who replied, "I don't remember what the eFF stands for, but Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional."

Well, now I know, Fucked Up completes the acronym and am happy to say that I am far from fine, I am dandy.