The Magic Walkman

(I meant to post this last night but forgot)

*phone rings*

ME: Hi, [Insert Porn Store name here]
HIM: Hi, my girlfriend needs something new and I was wondering what the sizes and shapes of your dildos are.
ME:  Um…well we have lots?  Were you looking for something specifically?
HIM:  Yeah, I was wondering if you have hot pink?
ME:  We have lots of pink dildos.
HIM:  What’s the largest one you have?  My girlfriend is looking for something pretty big.
ME:  The largest pink one we have is a 12 inch double dildo.
HIM: Okay, so do you think it would be weird if my girlfriend and I used that together?
ME:  We’re pretty open-minded here, dude.  No, that’s not weird.
HIM:  I mean, if you were me in my situation, would you want to do that?  Would you think it’s weird?
ME:  I’m not fucking you so…
HIM: No I know that but would you think it was weird if I wanted to use that dildo with my girlfriend?
ME:  Is this a prank call?
HIM: No this is a serious question.
ME:  Look, dude, I don’t give a fuck what you do with the stuff you buy here after you leave the store.
HIM:  Okay, now do you have blow up dolls?
ME: Of course.
HIM:  Do you have the Miley Cyrus doll?
ME:  We have it on our website but we don’t carry it in the store anymore.
HIM:  Okay.  Do you have anything in the animal variety?
ME:  No.
HIM:  What about lady blow up dolls?  Do you have any that are black?
ME:  Yes.
HIM: And approximately how large are the breasts?  Could you describe some of them to me?
ME:  Look, man, if you want to shop you’re going to have to come into the store.  I don’t have time to describe all the products in the store for you.
HIM:  Okay what time do you close?
ME:  3 AM.

A couple of notes:  You’d be surprised how often I get those questions “Do you think it’d be weird if…” “Can I put this in my butt?”
DUDE.  Do whatever you want.  I don’t care.  I don’t know you.  I’m pretty open-minded about sexuality but I think it’s strange that you feel you need approval from me, a random stranger.  Plus, like my answer is going to stop you from putting that up your butt anyway??
People also often expect me to describe shit over the phone to them all the time and it took me a while to realize they’re probably jacking off on the other end when I do that.
Lastly, how do you go from asking for the Miley Cyrus blow-up doll to asking if we have ones in “animal variety”?

Getting to that point in my life where I realize I messed EVERYTHING up and I’m like fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

These are all the things women/girls “must” constantly be aware of, when it comes to their appearance:

HAIR-on the head: is it styled, is it frizzy, is it greasy, is it shaped right, is it too dry, is it the right color, if I dyed it do the roots match? eyebrows: do they match my hair, are they plucked, are they too thin, are they too bushy, are they the right style for the shape of my face, also is there noticeable hair on my face, do I have a mustache? do I have hair on my toes? Do I have hair on my legs?  Do I have hair on my armpits?  What about my belly button?  What about my vagina?  Should I shape it? Should I shave it all off? But ow that hurts and causes a rash which is also ugly.
BOOBS- are they too big, are they too small, am I showing too much cleavage in this shirt, can you see my nipples through this shirt, am I wearing the right kind of bra for this shirt/dress, am I wearing the right color bra for this shirt/dress, am I wearing the right size bra?
NAILS: are they shaped„ are they painted, has the paint started chipping, are my toenails okay, also is there hair on my toes?
BODY: is my waist small enough, do i have too many rolls, do my arms look fat, am I fat, am I too skinny, are my curves in proportion to my body, do I look hot, am I too hot to be taken seriously, do people want to fuck me, oh my god I don’t want to fuck you, am I fat, am I fat, am I fat, does this make me look fat, am I fat?

do guys like the way I look? what if black guys think I’m too fat, what then? what did she say about me? about my outfit? this dress makes my hips look weird? what if I have to reach for something and my shirt lifts up and shows everyone my tummy?

ASS: is my ass too big, is my ass too small, i need to wear jeans with pockets on them to make my butt look small, where on my body does my ass start, will my butt crack show if I bend over in these, if I wear a thong people will think I’m slutty, if I wear regular underwear I look like a prude

MAKEUP: how do I make it look like I’m not wearing makeup? do I wear too much? do people think I’m fake? ugh this makeup makes my skin break out, put more makeup on to cover it up, more breakouts, more makeup, more acne, more makeup is this too much makeup?????

So just remember that this what society has imposed upon us the next time you judge a woman for her looks.

I was gonna write a post about monogamy but FUCK THAT

Saturday, March 17th, 2012, 6:51 PM.

I log into YouTube.  I see a message in my inbox with the inviting subject line, “hey”.  I think, could this be someone I knew from college?  Could it be a fan of my short films who would like me to be the subject of her Feminists in Film essay?  Could it be a family member, just wanting to tell me how proud they are of me?

My fingers pulsing with the excitement of the unknown, I click the message open to read:

“Just wanted to let you know that all your videos suck and you are fat and ugly.  Bye!”

Strangely enough, I was actually logging into my YouTube account for the first time in months with the sole intention of deleting it.  I haven’t posted new videos since college—because I haven’t created any movies since college, which in itself is humiliating.  I have no progress to show.

I justhadto check my inbox one last time.

I had been much heavier when I made those videos, and I have never considered myself attractive.  My looks have never attracted any attention, I always had to make up for it with an outspoken personality and the intelligence to back it up.  People can insult me in any way they see fit, and I feel untouched—but when it comes to my looks I fall apart.

I wish I could say it was the first time that someone has described me as fat and ugly together.  In fact, when I was eight, at daycare, getting ready to watch The Lion King, I was about to enjoy a cupcake when a little boy ran up to me and said, “Hey, you’re short, fat and ugly!” and ran back to a group of giggling boys.I don’t remember if I still ate the cupcake. 

You know, now that I think about it, people have always thought it was so strange that I don’t particularly like cake.  I think I’ve found the root of this aversion.

The truth is, I always was overweight until about two years ago.  And it was only about a year ago I finally learned how to dress myself in flattering ways.  And it’s only in the past few months that I’ve begun to receive attention for my looks.  Part of me is paranoid that every time someone hits on me it’s all a big elaborate prank, perhaps tied to another traumatic memory from 8th grade involving a boy named Derek Knauss, but let’s not get into that. 

Since I have realized that I am … dare I say… “attractive, question mark, question mark” I find myself constantly looking in the mirror, fixing my hair, spending hours picking out the perfect outfit.  When I was still “fat and ugly,” I never gave a shit.  Fuck, I didn’t even used to comb my hair before I left the house. 

But now that I’ve received some minor attention, it’s a constant obsession with a perfectionism that only furthers to deplete my self esteem.  Sure I’m prettier, but not pretty enough.  Sure I’m thinner, but I’m still not thin.  I’m never satisfied.  When I’m looking in the mirror and no one’s around, I look with disgust.  Perhaps that’s why I thrive on the attention of others who find me attractive, because it’s my sole source of confidence.

My Twitter is my alter ego—she is perverted, confident and ruthless to those who insult her.  I wish I could send her into the world sometimes.

I make jokes about a lot of things on Twitter—some of which I have regretted and subsequently deleted—but you will rarely, if ever, see me making a joke at the expense of someone’s looks.  I tend to not star them either.  To me, making fun of someone’s looks is pathetic, showing you have no ammo except to shoot at someone’s weak spot, at something they have absolutely no control over.  I have no shield to such insults for myself, and I would never hurl them at another.

Perhaps I just need to lighten up.  I wish I could say I just rolled my eyes, and deleted my account and moved on.  I wish I wouldn’t admit that I did cry about it.  I wish I had a positive message in all of this, but I don’t.  I feel the world will always determine us by our state of attractiveness, and I will always be a 6 in a world catering to 10s.

i always thought it’d be hot to be on top of a love triangle…
but i’m too unstable a mathematician
i lack the digestion for these geometrics
i long to be a singular line/infinite and undefined/unable to be confined to any shape.

so i’ve tried to erase the phrase you traced to lead me out my maze
and back into your cage
but
Lover #1
you put it in pen when you said
“No one will ever love you like I do.”

it’s true that if it came down to love
there could never be another
but i don’t believe in love, baby, i believe in lovers

which
Lover #2
you accuse i use as an excuse not to loosen the noose that seduced you
so i’ve produced a truce that abuses the truth of the ruthless plot i got us caught in, god,

like i’ve evolved from a film noir
not the starlet/but the harlot/the femme fatale who corrals the downfall of hero and heroine
so i don’t gotta condone the drones of monogamy
just the dichotomy of my psychology that allows me to be in two beds within one sunset

and why don’t i feel the sting of regret yet?

cause i don’t believe in love, i believe in lovers
i don’t believe in love, i believe in lovers
i don’t believe in love i believe in lovers
idontbelieveinloveibelieveinlovers

i gotta keep in on repeat/cause i’ve been manically upbeat/but i can see a disease coming to defeat me/to unleash the beast that can’t be appeased until i release the two lines i’ve intertwined with/cause i’m too frightened to admit

maybe i do believe in love,
but i don’t trust it.

not enough to let it cut the metal sheet i keep between me and any he or she that believes they need me

it’s not a fair favor to ask me to be someone’s savior
my behavior is less christ-like/more like
a robot whose only function is reluctance to any interruption to my own self destruction
i’m not programmed to give a damn
for any damage i hand to someone dumb enough to fall in love with me

i mean
i’ve been called
Kaylee Harles the Heartless Harlot
cause my charm is just a revolver that i’ll use to play russian roulette with both of your heads
and with that one bullet
i wouldn’t consider my own death/for even a moment
but put you neck to neck and shoot you both instead

so it’s best just to forget me
i’m not meant to be part of a triangle
i’m just a sad little line going on a downward spiral
and since you can’t stop me
i don’t want you to watch me/become an insignificant dot/lost in an apocalypse/on the outskirts of the universe/
cause i was never worth
being loved by anyone on earth.

Originally posted December 25th, 2011 at florameighan.wordpress.com

I’m proud to say I cried when Amy Winehouse died.
and when we lost Steve Jobs…
i had to ask who the fuck Steve Jobs was. and then scoffed at the thought of sobbing over his cross.
and maybe it’s cause I could never afford an iPod
maybe it’s cause I thought Amy an icon strong enough to carry her burdens without delivering some bull shit sermons
maybe it’s cause

she never said goodbye with words, i’ve died a hundred times, you all laugh at her, and i go back to, i go back to…

Blacked out nights I barely survived as I clung for dear life the edge of my toilet, soiled with the spoils of my vomited sonnets concocted from the bottomless deposits of this Bubonic Plague of a self-loathing rage I keep contained in the stained glass jar of my heart,

too far for anyone to touch it,
too far for anyone to fuck with it,

and I let it fill up
and I let it fill up
and I let it fill up

until it’s too much and combusts  into dust on the microphone
as i cut open these wounds of truth i refuse to induce in the presence of my closest friends
and instead let them suspend over the heads of total strangers
who strangle me until i breathe some peace to the thesis
that no one blinked when Amy Winehouse died
cause she served as a sacrifice to those who entice themselves to think their lives are of greater price than one who couldn’t control her vices.

So we lynch her as another rich bitch crack addict who’d slit her wrists to get a fix so we don’t have to admit we are just as complicit to the conditions of our addictions
especially the victims to materialism who had an aneurysm over Steve Jobs,
King of Mac and God of Man
cause he compacted the Internet to fit in the palm of our hands
so we’ll no longer have to demand the human touch
we’ll just have the world streamed to us through wires and plugs
Me, I’d rather hear sung through the drunken funds of Amy’s lungs.

But she no longer breathes. which leads me to concede it’s gonna be me someday, Back to Black in a body bag, and someone will have to explain to my mother and father I never bothered to go to rehab cause drugs and alcohol didn’t make me sad but were the only weapons i had against the pages upon pages of self-hatred i articulated on these stages.

So when I die like Amy, don’t placate me like you could have saved me.

You sing that tune us Amys of the world find too familiar…

I defeated myself, like I knew I would…
I told ya, I’m no elitist genius (like Steve fucking Jobs)
I’m just a poet who knows that I’m no good.

Originally posted on October 26, 2011 at florameighan.wordpress.com (with minor editing)

I always thought that song was overrated.  Cause I’m a Rocket Man.

Wait what?  Rocket Man?  How can you not like “Rocket Man,” man?

I never got it.  I always thought it was a joke.  Not literally.  But I thought it was popular in an ironic sort of way.  Like people “love” that “Friday” song.  But then, I slowly realized that they legitimately love Rocket Man.

You really just compared Elton John to that “Friday” song?

Man, no, no.  Rocket Man.  I compared Rocket Man to that Friday song.  Not Elton John.  I don’t know, doesn’t Rocket Man just seem…cheesy?  You know?

I guess.

Did I really just convince you that easily?

I don’t know you could convince me of anything lately.

What?

I’m under your spell.

Under my spell.

Under your spell.

I want to be under you.

Really?

No.

Why are you so cruel?

Why are you suddenly talking like we’re in a dramatic play?

Aren’t we?

No.  We’re on my couch.

Why?

We bent our knees…

Let’s go somewhere.

What?

Fuck this ugly smelly old couch.  Let’s go somewhere.

It’s cold outside man.

So what.  We live in Minnesota.  It’s cold nine months out of the year.  You think Eskimos just stay inside their igloo all day?

Why don’t we just move to Florida?

What? —  Why.  Why  Why do we have to have this conversation.

Think about how miserable winter is for you.  I don’t mind it.  I never minded it until you met me.  Then your hatred for it makes you so miserable it makes me miserable.

Why would you say that to me?

I’m sorry.

You can’t be.  You said it.  You’ve been thinking it so much you said it out loud so you must be somewhat relieved.

Why don’t you just move to Florida?

Fuck you.

No, seriously.  You’d be happier there.  And thus, I’d be happier without you.  Because I know you would be somewhere else happier without me.

But I don’t ever want to be without you.

You think that, you think that now, but once we’re apart for a long enough time, you’ll feel the relief, the loss of tension, the acquisition of freedom. How would you ever know that feeling or know you’d never feel it if we’re constantly together?

Because I know I would never feel happy without you.

How could you possibly know that.

Because I love you.

I love you too but love isn’t enough to hold us together.  That Beatles song was bull shit.  You need so much more than love.  I want to be the Rocket Man.

You can’t want to be the Rocket Man.  You said he was cheesy.

I get it now.

After 29 years of life, you NOW “get” Rocket Man?

Don’t question my logic.  I have none.

That’s not true.

You’re the emotional one and I’m the logical one.

You’re a fucking robot.

You want to move to Florida?

….Yeah, but…

But, I won’t be there.

Yeah.

But if you’re so certain you can’t be without me, that we belong together, then I’ll always be around to take you back when you’re ready.  You only have so much time to explore and do what you want to do.  I don’t think I can let you stay here again just for me.

Someone will snatch you up while I’m gone.

Someone could snatch me up–or you.  But I’m trusting in us that we could never love anyone else the way we love each other, that I’ll never find someone as special as you while we’re apart.  Sure, we’ll find companionship while we’re apart, but they’re temporary.

Why are you breaking up with me?

I’m not.

Sounds like it.

I just want you think, REALLY hard, what you want to do.  What would you do if I wasn’t at all a factor in your decision. What your heart is calling for.  It already called for me, it has me.  So find some other to fill your heart and bring all that love and fulfillment and happiness back to me.  If you discover that’s what you want.  If you really really truly want to stay in Minnesota, I will accept you with open arms.  I just don’t want those arms to cling too tightly.

Cause you’re a Rocket Man.

A rocket man…

Originally posted on October 14, 2011 at florameighan.wordpress.com

It suddenly hits me as I look at our mess of a room, that now, I must separate the stuff.  I start with a laundry basket full of clothes.  I make two piles at first: yours and mine.  But then there forms a questionable pile.  Like that shirt I gave you because it didn’t fit my boobs right?  Or that pair of purple pants you accidentally got in a short length?  What about those?  I arrange the three piles of yours, mine and questionable content on the bed.  No wait, that’s your bed.  Oh my god.  I sold my bed.  I don’t own a bed.  I have an air mattress.  Wait didn’t we split that?  (Questionable content.)  I pick up a sweater and underneath lies the cell phone charger.  No wait, that’s your cell phone charger.  I don’t even have a cell phone charger.  I lost mine and we’re so in sync our phones have the same charger, so I never bothered to get a new one.  (Your pile.)  I smell the sweater to see if it’s clean and, my god, it smells like you, and I cling it to my face and try to memorize it.  How could I live without that smell?  (My pile.)

Originally posted on October 14, 2011 at florameighan.wordpress.com

     I hate the way she’s smoking that cigarette.  As if it’s too hot for her lips.
A smile from her in my direction.  It’s pretty.  So is she.  I’m interested.  I just hate the way she smokes that cigarette.
“That tattoo mean anything?”
For a moment, I forget I have one.
“What?”
“That tattoo on your foot.”
“Oh yeah.  It means exactly what you think it means.”
“What’s that?”
“That it’s stupid to tattoo some one’s name onto your foot.”  She laughs.  ”That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?
“I don’t have any tattoos.”
“On your foot?”
“Anywhere.”
“Would you get one?”
“Maybe if I met the right person I’d tattoo their name on my forehead.”
She’s being elusive.  Using ‘their’ instead of ‘his’ or ‘her,’ so I don’t know for sure.  Maybe she doesn’t know for sure.  Maybe she just chooses to use incorrect grammar to annoy me.
I take a sip of my wine to explain the silence.  She smiles at me again.  She’s playing games.  I can tell.
I take another sip of wine to avoid having to fake confidence.  It doesn’t seem right or logical considering I still don’t know what ‘their’ meant.
I’m starting to see why the straight men I know drink so much:  due to a woman constantly being in their lives, or never owning one to play with at their leisure in their dollhouses.  I can’t stand those dolls, Helena specifically.  (The one whose name is tattooed on my foot.)  How I ended up hating her, I’m not really sure.  How I still love her, I’m indefinitely unsure of.  She repulses me, yet strangles me with her clinging, while forcing me to strangle her with my need for distance.
“So, who’s Helena, anyway?  Your ex-girlfriend or something?”
“No, it’ my mom.”
“That’s sweet.”
“No it’s not, I hate my mom.”
“Oh.”
“And her name is Bridget.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Oh…”  She laughs awkwardly.  I am making her uncomfortable.  I have to save this conversation if I still have a chance to sleep with her.  “Sorry,” I say.
“Sorry?”
“For being weird.  It’s a weird night.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know.  Do you really want to hear the explanation or are you just being polite?”
…
I wiggle my foot.  “I’m gonna cover this thing up soon.”
“What are you going to cover it with?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”  She stares intently at my foot, as though she can see it in another dimension, in another segment of time ahead of us.  For a moment I swear psychic ability is reflecting from her eyes.  “What do you think?”
“Me?  Oh god, who am I to decide what gets permanently dyed into your skin?”
“Well obviously, I’m not good at making these decisions myself.”
She shrugs, and all fortune telling skills evaporate from her face as she does. Maybe she never saw my future foot.  Maybe she jsut zoned out.  Maybe she was just wondering where I got my glitter nail polish and how much it cost and if she could get it in a different color for a cheaper price at Amazon.com.
“How am I supposed to know what you should tattoo over a tattoo when I don’t even know what the first tattoo means?”
“What if I don’t even know what it means.”
“Come on.  Who is Helena?  It’s an ex-girlfriend, isn’t it?”  She still hasn’t finished that damn cigarette.
“That doesn’t matter.  What matters is what my new tattoo is going to be and I believe that’s why I was fated to meet you tonight.”
Now I’m the one playing games.  Fuck.  I take another sip of my wine.  As I take a moment to detest how daintily she smokes that god damn cigarette, (my god what’s wrong with her?  Isn’t she addicted?) I realize I am sipping my wine the same way.  What a lie.  I am disgusted with myself for feigning independence from alcohol like Hot Lips is doing to that poor cigarette.  It must feel so unwanted.  I swallow the rest of my wine in one gulp so it doesn’t feel neglected.
“I’m going to the bathroom.  You think about my tattoo while I’m gone.  I expect a detailed sketch by the time I get back.”
“Yes ma’am.”
As I stand up, the room seems to suddenly shift its weight.  My legs pull me into the bathroom without actually knowing its location.
Someone appears to be waiting in line, but they lack confidence.  So do I, but the wine doesn’t.  I push myself inside the door just as some girl with red eyes and a rasta colored hat exits.
I see some nail polish on the counter.  It’s the same color Helena painted my nails that Fourth of July weekend.  We were too sick to go out and I always hated fireworks anyway.  Even during childhood.  It’s just loud noises accompanied by overrated patterns of light.  There have only been two exceptional occasions when I enjoyed fireworks: both involved drugs and the element of surprise.  A true Aquarius, I am destined to be unimpressed by anything expected.
Which is why I have come to detest my relationship with Helena.  Which is why I’m flirting with…with…shit.  Did I ever get her name?  As I pull my underwear down and sit on the toilet to piss, I search every wire in my brain for the memory of that girl’s name.  Or if she even told it to me.  If I fucked her, would I even remember it in the morning?  Perhaps I’ll just call her Hot Lips.
If I still make it home to sleep in the same bed as Helena and black out fucking Hot Lips, maybe it won’t count as cheating.  I’ll wake up, thinking I had been the good girl and gone home to sleep with my devoted girlfriend.
Someone pounds on the door.
“Come on!”  Booms the voice of a cave man on the other side.
“Yeah, yeah.  Wait up dude.”
I grope my underwear back up my legs.  As I wash my hands, I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror.  I see past the swirl of my displacement and there’s an ugly face staring back at me.  If I drink enough, maybe I can just blur the face completely and deny its existence entirely.
Pounding on the door again.  “What’s taking so long?”
Apparently he doesn’t understand the importance of hygiene.  Probably doesn’t wash his hands after pissing.  As I open the door, the caveman muttering on the other side appears before me, truly a vision to behold.  He wears a pink polo with popped collars and clearly has invested his parents’ money in cologne and hairspray instead of the Proactive solution he desperately needs.  His mouth is permanently jarred open, as though he’s constantly waiting to be fed because he never learned how to properly use silverware.
“God, you have your period or something?”  Fellow cave men laugh.
Suddenly, spit swings from my mouth to his face.  A high pitched yelp leaps from his mouth in defense.  Perhaps he’s not a caveman after all.  A cave man would not understand the social meaning of my saliva on his face.  “You fucking bitch, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”
The room suddenly becomes quiet–except the pulsing of the music.  Or is that the pulse of the alcohol in my stomach trying to pump its way up my esophagus?
Still yelping, the cave man goes to rinse his face off in the sink.  I think he might be crying.
I should probably go.
“Itssss fynne whill go,” I seem to say.  But that must not have been what came out because everyone still seems to be staring at me in a state of horrid confusion.  Did I say that?  Maybe it was more like “Fuck you.  And you.  I don’t know you, I don’t give a fuck.”
That hardly seems like me.  I’m so gentle and kind.  Maybe I didn’t say that either.  Maybe I didn’t even spit on the cave man.  Maybe their look of horrid confusion was directed at him for making a sexist comment to humiliate someone who was in the already vulnerable state of exiting a bathroom at a crowded party.
While trying to process the order/occurrence/reason of events I find myself standing in front of an open fridge, trying to find what remains of my wine.  I can’t find it.  Just beer and left over Chinese food.  I go back to the couch where Hot Lips is supposed to be sketching my tattoo.
Hot Lips isn’t on the couch.  I slump in to it.  Someone comes up to me holding my purse.  It’s someone I know. Since I feel comforted by his presence, I conclude it must be my friend.  I think his name is John.
“C’mon, I’ll take you home,” John says.
“What?  I just sat down.”
“Seriously, you should probably just go home and go to bed.”
“Why?  I don’t have to work in the morning.”
John looks down awkwardly at his shoes.
I should make a graceful exit now while I still can.  I take one last glance around the room to confirm that everyone wants me to go (they do) and perhaps to stop the spinning long enough to find Hot Lips.
Fuck it.
All the confidence I mustered to try and fuck her washed down the sink in front of that bathroom mirror anyway.
“It’s fine, I’ll walk home.”  I say to John without looking at him.  Unable to put my shoes back on, I stumble onto the sidewalk’s concrete, barefoot, hoping to walk that tattoo right off my foot.

Originally posted on October 8, 2011 on florameighan.wordpress.com

Anthony Burgess once said that he always began a novel by drafting sixty pages of dialogue– no “he-saids-she-saids” or other tags, no narrative, no description, just the words said.
Try this: Do a directed free write with a kitchen timer set for fifteen minutes. Start with some words of conversation you have overheard or participated in. They can be totally ordinary, even boring. But keep writing, and adding more dialogue, maybe more speakers, more drama. But keep them just talking for the full fifteen minutes.

Example:

I’m so depressed.

What have you done?

I don’t know. Nothing. I’m not going anywhere.

That’s so cliché, man.

That’s so cliché man. Shut up.

What’s your problem?

I’m…depressed.

Yeah I know that but why?

I hate that question. Why are you depressed? As though your depression is only valid if you have a concrete reason behind it. If not, you’re just a fucking asshole.

You are a fucking asshole.

I know. I know. I’m just an asshole.

I wish I could do something for you.

Yeah right. It’s building.

What is?

Your hatred for me.

…

It is. You tell yourself now that you love me, that I’m just going through a dark phase. You even still feel sympathy for me. You can. I see it in your eyes. You still are understanding, forgiving, caring about me and hoping I’ll get better, that things will get better. Actually, you don’t even hope at this point, you just ‘know’ they will. You think to yourself–

–stop it–

–that I’m going to rise above this, that you’ll help me–

–stop talking like a–

–that we’ll blast off into space, two superheroes escaping from the treacheries of planet earth, never having to face the human race again except each other, and we won’t need oxygen there.

Why are you talking like that?

It’s outer space, Pat, we don’t need oxygen there, we’ll just live off of poetry and sex and Italian films from the 50s and 60s

That would be nice…

Wouldn’t it? We’d just fuck in space, we’d be without gravity, without pressure, without credit cards and desks and writer’s block

Who wants writer’s block?

I certainly don’t.

I don’t want you to have writer’s block.

But I am, Pat. I am. I’m going to get writer’s block, and I’m going to be depressed like this. There will be phases when I’m happy, when I’m not soaked in the plethora of shit which i incarcerate myself into, times when I’ll be smiling and laughing and say things like “you know, i’m just learning to enjoy the small things in life” or “i’ve been writing again, I’m onto this really good story, and I want to write about you and how happy you make me”

And then what?

And then it falls on me again,

What.

The ceiling will break and the shit will storm on me again and I’ll feel shitty and write shit about all the shit I hate about you but repress and I’ll want to do drugs or drink or start smoking again because I’m so so so miserable and you’ll say “why Carla why” and I won’t be able to answer you, I’ll have shit for answers and you’ll hate how sad we always have to be because I’m always miserable and you’ll meet someone who’s happy, though you don’t have to, it’s not a necessary part of the equation because you’re going to leave regardless.

Why do you think that?

Because you’ll have to. To survive and I won’t blame you.

You won’t?

No. because i’m fucking miserable. And i wouldn’t be able to bear the idea of trapping you inside my cocoon of shit.

Do you have to keep using the word shit?

No.

…

You’re the one thing that makes me joyful. That scares me. It’s not fair. There are times you make me depressed, but alongside that, you make me joyful and no one and nothing else has that power.

Except for writing.

Well, there’s always that.

There is, and there will always be me and there will always be people, because we have to stay here, right where we are, because there will always be oxygen on earth and we will always need air—

to live.

Yes

What a beautiful way to commit suicide, to drift off into space. The suffocation would be torturous and slow, but you’d die not looking at the stars and the planets but being in them, floating and orbiting with them, laughing in the face of gravity and oxygen and petty human luxury, because we know nothing of the universe, and you’d die experiencing what no one else has truly experienced, breathing the air of eternity.

Are you going to kill yourself?

I don’t know. That’s my point, is I might some day and you’d finally let go of this loving me bull shit–sorry of this loving me…fabrication–and realize you’d wasted your life trying to make someone happy who will always be miserable, maybe you’ll already have left at that point, maybe I’ll kill myself because you leave me.

Do you want to kill yourself now?

No.

Do feel depressed and miserable now?

No, I’m in one of my short-lived hopeful cycles right now. I know it won’t last long.

Well let’s ride it out then.

Ok.

Ok.

Originally posted on florameighan.wordpress.com on October 7th, 2011