Dry Spell

I'm working my summer job cooking at camp and trying super hard to get Grad schools strait. Yeah, hard stuff.

Barbara--an essay for perpich kids

There were two teachers at the arts high school who taught theatre. As an in coming junior you’d first meat Barbara Morin, and then alternate by semester between her, and Tory Peterson. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be in constant contact with eleventh and twelfth graders, they could both certainly tell you- Theatre classes often run late into the night when Dress rehearsals roll around. Spending eight hours strait with our class was not uncommon—doing multiple run throughs and additional blocking or scene rehearsals. Barbara was always very motherly with our class. I guess it was silly of me to ask her if she remembered our class,
“Oh yes we loved your theatre class so much, some people still ask about your class. One of the student’s just the other week asked me if we liked their class better than the juniors, and of course you can’t answer that. I just said, ‘we like your class very much’ and she asked ‘You liked Dani Tope’s class don’t you? Tory liked that class too.’” Barbara paused and laughed. “You guys were so nice to each other, no little divided groups, you were very joyful.” I couldn’t help but think about Dani at this point, she had been my room mate when I first moved into the school’s Delta Dorm. I eventually wrote her a song, it went ‘Little Dani Tope, Little Dani Tope! So itty bitty, little Dani Tope!’ She was very slight, but had quite the prowess about her. I remember the first Halloween in the Dorms I went trick or Treating with another theatre girl named Mallory, while Jenn and Jen took Dani to a visual arts kid’s house, Ryan, and with a few other kids, got her high for the first time. Later I saw a video clip from it, she was wearing large clown shoes, and talking about cannibal babies, eating off breasts instead of breast feeding… or perhaps quite literally breast feeding.
I sat with the cell phone against my ear. How strange, I thought. I’d expected to feel awkward talking to Barbara after so long but, as always, she made me feel incredibly at ease. I couldn’t help but asking the typical question of her, my curiosity was growing like weeds. “Is there anything about Perpich you think people tend to miss? Or not understand… like, a common misconception?
“Not really. I guess Tory says the general Twin Cities’ impression is that kids take a lot of drugs here, but it’s really no different from any other school. Ten years ago I guess there was a dealer dealing in parking lot at the dorms but whoever it was graduated and left. In the last twenty years I’ve been here that’s the only time I can ever think there was a problem, you know, a kid came to school high, another one was hiding under desks. Sometimes people seem to think every one at an art school is funky and strange… but I think it’s more of a projecting onto the school of what people think of artists, or the thoughts that ‘Oh they do really weird theatre there.’ Well, it is off broadway, but it’s been around for 30 40 years, it’s nothing extremely weird, it’s just that most high schools are still doing theatre from the 50s. We have a goal to do plays that make use of the whole ensemble, the whole company; not two leads—everyone is there to learn and grow.” She went on to say that in reality the art high was really full of well behaved, reflective children –very kind to each other. I told her the school was like an incubator, she said it was a womb. I told her about the rowdy crowd at college,
“At Perpich, no one thinks it’s funny to rip up the art on the walls, and no one steals your shit,” I say. She sighs, and says it’s hard to believe that Perpich has its own little world, separate. The truth is, it sort of does—it’s unusually free. The atmosphere of acceptance can be over whelming, and as a female with a female majority I think it helped some insecurities I’d had.
Barbara has the light pattern of wrinkles that make me think she’s lived a full life even with so much time left in front of her. She wears glasses, with slim silver frames, and I can distinctly recall a pair of wide hoop earrings she’s wear against her short blond hair. She wore denim jackets, she wore kakis, she wore rabbit ear hats. She use to be a kid, and still, in most cases, still was. Yet she had the three steps away that every teacher seemed to at the arts high. She barely recalled the hicky wars that four of the girls in our class participated in. Lauren and Jen for sure, and I believe also Dani… But I do remember the purples and reds and fading banana yellows all over their necks, chests, and even legs. I don’t know who won, but I know Barbara finally put a stop to it for the sake of the up and coming performance.
I guess it makes sense, I remember who liked who, who dated who, and what went on behind the curtains… and Barbara remembers the basics of any new Junior class, like, the first month is always awkward, and trying to get to know an entire 15-20 loud eccentric kids in time to get them into a theatre group. She says she’s given up trying to make judgments until after the first two months, “You either need time for them to drop their mask, or time for you to acclimate to their, sort of, strange seeming behavior,” she’d said tentatively. She’s right in saying that Theatre is an entirely different way of interaction. “I wish all of life was like theatre, like making a play. I guess it is, but there’s some thing elevated about the interaction that’s good for every body. It’s a different form any other kind of social interaction. You talk about important things to the human experience, it requires us all to be thoughtful and have fun at the same time. It’s not the typical ragging on about personal problems, and no one tries to over step boundaries because usually every one wants to do well. It’s a really interesting process.”
I myself remember that, not knowing these kids, and being plunged in for better or worse as a group. You can make or break a scene based on one interaction, so despite who does or doesn’t get along, we all hunker together. Despite all likely hood for the average sixteen-year old self-absorbed kid, we all bonded, and succeeded. There were several difficult situations, scenes with a lot of trust involved. Being movement theatre, there were times when we’d lift Jen, or Dani, high over our heads, and carry her about the stage. We were in close tumbling physical contact.. of course, that brings about another issue all together.
It is officially on Barbara’s syllabus, in order to let people know before it happens, that in the performing arts one can’t come to class really… smelly. You must bathe, wear clean clothes, and throw out wear rotten shoes. If one chooses not to follow this rule she will talk to you and the nurse will talk to you until you understand that you really need to be clean—you will not be allowed into the classroom, if you are noticeably odiferous. Similar situations have come up over the year with distractions of women who decide not to wear bras, or men who decide that maybe the gaping hole in the crotch of their pant’s isn’t as noticeable as they think. “You have to remember,” she said to me, sproaching the end of our conversation, “teenagers are extremely self absorbed, though at the arts high it’s a little less, they’re a little more tuned in.”

Come Out Come Out here Ever You Are--a prose poem

Like the click or a clack of a train changing tracks. My bones, you’re in my bones. They pop and they creak in the morning, the crack and they gravel all day. You’re churning rocks like butter in my joins. You, who threw me to one side when my knee gave out, sipping my marrow like cider from my femur straw. And I took vitamins and drank milk. I rode bike and ate well: I knew I would forget you and your teeth and your skin, under my skin between my fleshes and I buried you down into my bones—come out come out! Eeyaki! Olli olli oxen free. So, you’re free. Now please let me go on my way.

Girl Crush-an essay

I have a girl crush, it’s big and fat and as high as the moon! She’s as high as the moon too, full moon bike rides and beautiful. Her hair is brown and her skin tans- bike riders tan, and her zig zag sandal feet delight me. She has a fire, a spark, a flame, a desire… and I have a cliché, but it’s true: She’s fierce in there. She once told me, “I think I would have made a better boy” and I think she’s lovely and I think she’d still be lovely… as a boy.
I was calm the last time we met, her and I. There was cider and cookies and I met some of her old friends. I wanted to sneak her away, all giggles, and ask her to tell me anything. She’d been gone on what I imagine to be a ride chased by autumn across the state, and her headband was pink riding back against the wind. Bemidji is her home she says, and I wonder why she’d settle for such a small thing when she’s so huge inside, at least, to me. But the town does grown on you, and she’s seen more than I have. I think her roots are much deeper than any I’ve ever had. I wonder how warm the soil gets down there, and if she would keep me warm too, if I stayed long enough to plant myself down.
But she disappeared while she was gone, unclouded my head and I realized I wouldn’t be in Bemidji long; two more years, maybe. I knew that any emotional manifestation would never leave my heart to reach her hands. It was quite the laugh of a though to bubble over my lips as I kissed my boyfriend, and vaguely I thought of her kissing hers. I wondered once if she would be my boyfriend. I wondered twice if she would let me take her out for milkshakes. Well, I lied, I thought about the milkshake one more than just twice. I wanted to sit her down across the booth, share her thoughts, have her laughing around her straw, tearing at her napkin. I bet she’d get vanilla… if they made it non diary, and non soy. No, no, I’d told myself then, I can’t ask her to go out, maybe I could ask her in? Now that I don’t have my own home that is. I was a renter, with a dining room table, and a bountiful kitchen—now loving in a cramped dormitory room—the community kitchen smells and has no windows. I could never ask her here, in with the smells and clutter. I feel cluttered! I have too many strings attached to each of my parts to try to give her my heart, my hand, much less a second glance… but I do! I do! I look, and I like and I smitten away.
I have no such right to be captivated! I am not her love, her light! I am just a girl still. Were I not, I would write about her mouth, or her eyes, or the way she breathes. I would love to write about even one of these things in accuracy. But, we are not close. I’m too panicked when I look in her eyes… I think they’re brown, but all I really know is my face is red—after all, maybe when she wears green, they pin prick hazel. Maybe they’re deep enough to blacken on grey nights when she’s sitting and sighing. I’ve never been close and quite enough to hear an individual breath—separate and resting. I’d like to sit with her, quiet and resting. Tonight however, none of the details come to me! For I know I’ve stared at her mouth but I’m certain I was not concentrating on aesthetics! Were her lips thin? I think so, but why can’t I be sure? I’m certain her boyfriend is sure… I’ll even bet her other friends know. I wish I were an other friend.
I want to pup this fizz, shake the can and release. Drop this pressure to the ground where I can laugh over it in later days. I doubt she cares my heart beast fast for her. I doubt she knows the drop in my stomach every time she winks at me—a habit I find so charming and undeniable that I wish I could pick it up. Or maybe she does know, because I get far too loud around her… or I backfire and become too shy. She’s just got this spice, like a strait cinnamon zing, and all I’ve got is a big fat girl crush.
I am a big fat girl crush, over the moon, head over heels, and she doesn’t even wear heels! But the secret I keep down in myself, out of even my heart, is that if I could quicken her pulse too, if she wanted each wink to hit me so hard, then I don’t know what I would do. I know we’re no perfect for each other, that we have different paths. I don’t know what she would ask of me, or if there’s anything I could even give her, but I would write her stories, and read her books. I’d learn to cook her favorites, and I’d listen to her music, make her listen to mine. I would jus love to exist with her from time to time, laying around just a little bit lazy… I would love to be her pillow.

Mirror--a prose poem

Mirror. Why, mirror, are you in here? To tease me out of my clothes. You’re feasting on me, aren’t you? You’re reflecting eye on my dappled thighs and you can’t resist me. Do you? Shall I? Coy little square, my… what sharp corners you have—the better to reflect you my dear. And the lights are turned low to hide what I can and I frame myself sleek silver shines lined with the parts I do not care for. You minx, you wall dwelling vixen. You are, exclusively mine, until someone walks behind me.

Fruit and Vegitable Baby--a dream

I had a dream. I was in a bath tub with my lover. “I’ve just given birth, so you have to be nice to me!” I told our visitor in the bathroom. I stood for the bathroom stall, where blood was expelled, and emerged. I walked down the Hagg-Saur hall, bright with sun light and held the melon head, green stripped and heavy. The orange of the pelvis and the orange of the torso would not stay together, “He’s dying!” I realized I’d forgotten to peel the oranges, how could I expect him to stay together with the peels in the way? I was terrified my lover, now husband would find out I was letting our child die. I began to peel, and the other parts loosened, the carrot fingers, corn cob legs… I had to peel faster. I peeled away too much though, and the abdomen couldn’t heal. I cried and realized the suffering. I was putting it in pain, for my self. I was selfish. I’d put it out of its misery; I tossed it into a trashcan, suddenly just dead fruit. I had failed, I couldn’t make it live… I didn’t know it would be so hard. My love would be too upset… so I fetched his mother. I found my own mother too, then my dead aunt, and my dear sister came with. We found some bushes in the court yard. I sat them all down and joined their warm circle. I looked at them all and said, “Okay, how do you keep your children from falling apart?”

Soldier--a poem

We had an apartment-
We only existed outside of those walls for classes
Or to be the cold breathes outside
Of the country kitchen
The gas station
Wal-Mart.
“Whaley Whale” You called yourself…
I was the Star-Fishy-Fishy.

You used to scoop me up so tall and spin our love in the kitchen.
Me so high on your chest, “Touch the light!” you’d say, and I would, and we’d kiss.
Was it really you there? Twirling and laughing?
I was so happy to
Forget
Who you could be
When the light in your eyes went
Out.

The night you found his car,
The night you found me stripped,
I had already said I wasn’t yours
But you hadn’t let go--
We didn’t see eye to eye.
I thought he would die by your hands.
I told him to run, drive-
But in his car
I’d lost your ring
And forgotten my shoes.
I walked into lake Bemidji
I though I might have drowned.

I never knew until the end
About the cigarillos—
Never even knew you smoked
We’d been together an entire year and
I never knew until last night
how much you, lie,
and it was your new ex-girlfriend’s lips, that let it slip.

You didn’t believe in whom I could be on my own
But I still have both of my feet
Underneath me
and shoed.
You told me I needed you
But I am stronger than that.
I am

It’s been almost one year
Since that night, and the lake, and the
Tears—ashamed that they were mine.
You’ve given up Da Vinci
You’ve abandoned your brushes, those precise pens
And thick pencils.
I remember when you’d bought them
They were new
You were excited.

Your inky hands are too white
Now, too clean
Your two faces will never look the same
Without your long hair or
without your hair at all.

Now,
You’ve spent so many months hating me,
Loving her.
She was, for a time,
your new Captor.
But she left you too—
When you shaved your head
Took away her CDs and told her
“You’re moving on base,
I’m joining the military.”
And you joined the military
Just like Kurt
Who hits your mother
Just like Kurt
Who pushed you around
Just like Kurt, the man
You swore you always hated.
And anything left of the good I knew is
Now very,
Very gone.