So I had my first writing critique today.

It was actually kind of amazing, because it gave me hope on my future as a writer.

It also helped me a lot when it comes to editing.

So I thought about it, and I will probably post "Inanimate Eyes: the edited version" soon.

So then this site will be much more than just a site where I post early drafts.

It will be a site where I post final drafts... of things already posted.

You know, to show progress.

Anniversary

It was a good day

The Clouds were hiding

And the Sun was smiling

But as Day left

Things began to fall apart

You wouldn’t smile

I was sorry I told you

You wouldn’t speak

I was sorry I spoke

Then you screamed

Crash

All I can remember was leaving

Then waking up

In a car which was destroyed

I could not find you

But I saw people

So much noise

I tried to move

But I was paralyzed

Funeral

They would not let me see you

They said it would be better

If I remembered you the way you were

The way you were

Shy,

But loud

Short,

And thin

Mine,

But not

The last thing I said to you

“I love you”

Lacy Ribbons

I usually hated funerals, but there was something soothing about seeing her soulless face in that floral coffin. Probably because all her life that was where she wanted to be: soulless, dead, and in a coffin. It was what she lived for. Ever since we were little girls, she had it all planned out.

“I am going to die the day before I turn nineteen,” she said. “I want to be eighteen forever. Doesn’t eighteen seem like it would be a great age to die?” She always asked, and I always replied with a yes. Though I was not sure, but I still agreed and I still listened. “But I have to do everything before I die, but I will never have kids. I hate kids,” she would say. “But we are kids,” I would reply. “Yeah, and I hate us too.” Lacy seemed to hate everything and everyone, but at the same time she loved the world. She was the kind of person that hung around in gardens reading. “I have to read one-thousand books before the day I die,” she once said. And she did end up reading one-thousand books. The first one being Tuck Everlasting, which soon after became her favorite book. The 1000th book was The Virgin Suicides, which was the book she was on the floor when they found her hanging. It was ironic, but not the humorous kind of irony, the kind that made you think. It was beautiful irony.

As we grew up she only became more obsessed with the idea of death. She spoke about it the way most kids would talk about Disneyland. “I only have three thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-four days before the day I die.” As she got older she became adventurous and she always had to bring me along. I was her side-kick and she was my hero. She had always been a fast bloomer. By ten she already had a figure, but by then she had already read thirty-five hundred books, kissed twelve boys, and had seen twenty R rated movies. When she was thirteen and I twelve, she had decided we were going to sneak out, and go to the city. Of course we were only twelve and thirteen, so we had no money nor did we know how to get there. So she used her many skills to make me bribe my fifteen year old brother to help us sneak out. Though it was not a bribe, because all I had to do was ask, and he said yes, but he had to tag along. She was in charge of getting the money. Though my brother had offered to help, but she had already had a plan. She always had a plan.

The night of the great sneak out, my brother told my parents he was going to take me to go watch a movie. Obviously, they allowed it. She had told us to meet her in the garden. She only liked one garden, so we knew where to go. When we got there she was reading Catcher in the Rye by a bleeping blue light. She had a red hat on, a fit hounds tooth jacket, jeans, and saddle shoes. Right next to her there was large laced bag with her name written in lace. “Hey, what’s in the bag?” I asked. “Three thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-four dollars,” she said with her eyes on the book. “How did you get all of that?” My brother inquired. “By doing something I had to before I died anyway,” this time she looked up, but she did not look at me, only at him. “Which is?” he asked. “I stole,” she smirked and then focused her eyes back to the page. “I am almost done, just give me a minute.” Minutes later she shut her book. “Change of plans,” she preached. “Tonight we shall scrub the ‘fuck yous’ off the walls.” I did not understand, so I asked, “What’s a ‘fuck you?’”

We ended up never even leaving the garden. She told me I had to sit on the bench, read the book, and not get up until I knew what she meant. She took my brother’s hand, the heavy bag, and told me they would be back when I understood. I finally got what she meant by sunrise, and then they emerged from the bushes. They looked as though they had rolled around on a freshly painted Monet. Later that day she told me that she lost her v-card, but then I didn’t comprehend.

By fourteen her and my brother were dating. She would end up always sleeping over my house. We told everyone we were having sleepovers, though she stopped sleeping in my room after the first night. I would sometimes try to hear what they were doing, but I never stayed too long. I always was afraid I would get caught. I was always afraid she would stop being my friend. So I began to hate my brother. She kept telling me she had to do everything, and one of those everythings was falling in love, but like always she had a plan. She told me she was going to break up with him on her 18th birthday, because she wanted him to stop loving her before she died. At this time she had a Bob, and twenties inspired clothing. Her favorite book of the year had been The Great Gatsby. She even inspired me to get a Bob, but it looked strange on my still formless body. I thought I was hideous, but she told me otherwise. “You’re just a late bloomer,” she would say while I glared at my ugly reflection. This was the year I went into a deep depression, and began to write crappy poetry. Most of them were about her, and I how I wished my brother was gay. She soon found them, and began to hang out with me once again. She was my reason to be happy, and I was her only friend.

When she was fifteen we began to sneak out to the garden nightly. She was still with my brother, but he had moved out. He was now in college, and I now had my friend back. He visited monthly, pretending he came to see the family, but he only came for her. We began to experiment with narcotics. First it was cigarettes, then alcohol, weed, E, and some harder things I never had the guts to try. The garden became our escape. At this time she was reading books like Go Ask Alice, Cut, Girl Interrupted, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I began to realize that the books she read inspired her to do even more things before she died. She kept telling me we needed to go to parties, and that I needed to get a boyfriend. But because we were such social outcasts we had no parties to go to nor were there any guys that would ever like me.

She got a job at a ribbon store when she was sixteen. It as a tedious job filled of fake hellos and lying smiles, but that was the point. It was another one of those things she had to do before her last breath. In a way the job was perfect for her. She loved lace, ribbons, and floral print. She actually had gotten the job because of her name, and the outfit she wore that day; which just happened to be a floral dress. She liked the job, because she was allowed an unlimited amount of ribbon, and, since there were not many customers, she could just read. At this time she had begun reading more classical books. Mostly anything by Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Two other people worked with Lacy: Mrs. Rose, the owner, and Aaron, her son. Mrs. Rose was a nice pudgy lady with curly red hair, who created beautiful children. The first time I saw Aaron was the week Lacy got the job. She made me go visit, because she told me she had something amazing to show me. That “something amazing” just happened to be Aaron. Gladly, by this time I had already begun blooming. I was no longer that ugly duckling, but I still felt like it. After that first week I never stopped visiting. I would hang out with them during their shifts and breaks. We no longer were just two.

Lacy was still working at the ribbon store when she turned seventeen. She kept telling me that Aaron liked me, but I never believed her. Until the day he asked me out. She told me she would help me prepare. I kept asking why? She answered, “Because I don’t want to you be alone when I am gone.” This was when it clicked: She was actually going to do it. She pulled the hair out of my face, “Your eyes are too nice to hide them. It’s one of the things I liked about you and your brother so much. Since when I look in those big dark eyes, I feel closer to death.”

The next two years passed quickly. Aaron and I got together, and we even went on a double date with Lacy and my brother. Which was one of the most awkward nights of my life. We later went to a college party. We even went to a ribbon party. On her 18th birthday we went to Disneyland. She broke up with my brother on the Tower of Terror, just before the first drop. She obviously did not know that there was more than one drop. After that my brother stopped visiting, and Lacy began to become more distant and melancholic. She was obsessing over Edgar Allen Poe, Chuck Palahniuk, and depressing foreign writers. I was almost off to college, and she was almost off to the afterlife. But that last summer was worth it. Aaron flied the three of us to Europe. Lacy and I asked how he got the money, and all he said was “Ribbons.” After that trip, she rarely hung out with me anymore. She even stopped going to work. I always thought her last year would be her happiest, but all she wanted was for it to end. She often sat, in the garden, reading. I would visit, but she wasn’t really there. Sometimes she came over, but she only got more distant.

Lacy Ribbons had chosen her fate long ago. She knew what she had to do. If she didn’t her life would have been a lie, and Lacy never lied. She lived her life in the reality of books. Aaron and I tried to hang out with her those last few weeks, but we were starting college. She told us she was happy that it was almost her birthday. She even told us that she was almost done reading her 1000th book, and that she had done everything she could ever imagine. She was happy she knew us. Then the day finally came: The three thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-fourth day.

When they found her hanging in her room, all her books, but one, were in boxes labeled “To my best friend.” Her long hair was covering a smile, she was wearing a lace dress, and The Virgin Suicides was on the floor. She had hung herself with floral ribbon.

Banana Split in Two

So here I am.

Alone.

Yet, I am on my first date.

I am 18.

In a crappy dinner.

The same dinner where I met this date.

The same dinner where I used to spend hours dreaming about meeting someone.

Then a week ago that dream came true.

While sitting in my corner bar seat, someone actually sat next to me.

And for the first time this person did not ignore me, was not hideous or female, and actually sat there for a purpose.

The purpose being the lonely long faced girl drinking coffee by her self.

Yes that was me.

I had never been anyone’s purpose before this.

I found it creepy.

He sat next to me and ordered a Banana Split.

It was 8am.

He smiled at me.

He being a stranger at the time.

A stranger with a Velvet Underground shirt, Buddy Holly glasses, dirty jeans, and slippers.

I can admit I found him interesting.

He had innocence in his eyes.

I had melancholy in mine.

When the lady, I always called her “the lady”, gave him his Banana Split I mumbled something.

Something I would have hoped no one heard.

Something no one would have heard if it was a normal day and I alone in that corner.

But this something was heard by the Banana Split ordering smile wearing boy who sat uncomfortably next to me.

He asked me what I had mumbled.

He asked this with a smile.

I just looked at the bar.

I was blushing and then I spoke.

I told him that I mumbled how I used to know someone who used to eat that same thing for breakfast.

He asked who it was.

I told him it used to be me.

This little fact would not let him leave me alone.

But I really did not want him to leave me.

I hated being alone.

He asked what changed.

I told him everything.

“But what was everything”, he inquired.

I told him that everything was too long to talk about in only one day.

“So let’s talk about it over a night.”

That is how I got here.

One week and 10 hours later.

And I am early or he is late.

Maybe it’s vice versa.

But for the first time in a long while I am not sitting in my corner.

But I am alone.

But I am alone waiting to not be alone.

That does sound like me.

I was worried.

What if he forgot?

What if a crazy clown attacked him on his way over and now he was being murdered in a really small colorful car?

What if he stood me up?

Did I say that this was my first date?

And I made sure that I was not confused.

I asked if it was a date.

And he smiled and said yes.

It was a date.

As I sat there thinking of the worst possible reasons why he was not smiling in my direction.

I did not think of the most obvious.

Which was: He was late.

Or well what really happened was something else.

He was late because he was washing his only pair of pants.

And because it was the first time he had ever done this on his own, he assumed that it would take only a few minutes.

Of course he was wrong.

But worried that he would leave the melancholic girl, which was me, in a worse mood he left the laundry mat with partly wet pants.

Moments later he would rush into the Dinner.

Freak out because he could not find me.

Finally see me, sit down, say sorry multiple times, and then tell me what I just told you.

When was finally seated and comfortable he told me he liked my shirt.

Mine being of Lou Reed the lead singer of what was once The Velvet Underground.

I told him I must have put it on subconsciously.

I lied.

I did it on purpose.

I even wore my thick glasses.

But I also a lot more make than I usually wore.

I felt kind of hot, but also a bit trampy.

And this came from someone who wearing pants.

Of course skinny jeans, but then I also wearing a granny sweater.

I looked like a hot granny.

I bet there is some hot grannies out there.

I just the kind with a never been opened vagina.

And never been kissed lips.

And my god I sad excuse of a girl.

A shut in until I met him.

This night he was wearing the same dirty pants that were now wet, the same Buddy Holly glasses, but a different shirt.

A vintage polo shirt.

And different shoes.

Grandpa shoes.

It made me smile.

He was my grandpa and I his grandma, but that just sounds wrong written down.

It was much cuter in my head.

He told me it was nice to see me smile.

I did not even notice I was smiling.

I never smiled anymore.

Then he asked me why did I ever stop smiling, and was it the same reason I stopped eating Banana Splits?

I nodded and lost my smile.

I stopped because I lost more than my smile.

I lost a friend.

This friend was my best friend.

She was my first friend and my only friend.

She was also a bit of a dare devil.

She was the reason for any excitement in my usually dull life.

She was flirt and not afraid to reach for what she wanted.

She was everything I was not.

And that was exactly what I needed.

But with excitement comes risks.

One sad dumb day she chose go on a date.

I usually go with as a third but on this day she wanted to go alone.

The risks name was Diablo.

Not his real name.

His real name was Tim, but he wanted something more “hardcore.”

Simple minded Tim.

But his name did suit him, because underneath that simple mindedness was a killer.

Well just an idiot, which though it was romantic to leave your date on train tracks, while you left to get her a present.

She was blind folded and listening to her ipod.

The present was a banana split.

That was why I no longer ate Banana Splits.

Too much excitement for me.

He told me he was sorry.

I told him he had no reason to sorry.

He was neither an idiot nor a Tim.

Then I asked him if his name was Tim.

Just for precautions.

No, he said, his name was Joseph.

Not Joe.

Not Joey.

Joseph.

Good, I told him, because I could never date a Tim.

Nor a Banana Split.

That is just not right.

The boy named Joseph smiled.

He told me he though I was funny.

He also said he understood how it felt to lose someone, because he had recently lost someone himself.

This was the reason he moved away from home and the reason his pants were wet.

His mother died.

Not because of risks but because she had none.

She was a shut in who was home one night alone.

Her husband had left years before and all she had was a son.

But he chose to actually have a life that night.

A really bad night to choose to start living.

That was the night a stranger came to visit his house.

The stranger knocked and his mother kindly opened the door.

She was always too kind.

Long story short when he got home the house was surrounded by flashing lights.

He left town with only his and a trunk full of stuff after the funeral.

I told I him I was sorry.

He told I did not have to be.

I told him we should probably eat something.

How about a Banana Split?

I told him if he thought I should split.

He thought something dirty.

He told me later that night.

But instead he was sorry and that that was insensitive.

Thank was all said and asked if would rather just split to my apartment.

He said he would quite like that, because he was tired of being alone.

I was tired of that too.

We grabbed our stuff and walked out the front door.

Then to his car.

Which was a old Volkswagen bus.

A hippy car.

On the inside it was filled of home.

It was odd that fully loaded car there was no jeans.

I checked.

I gave him the directions to my apartment.

We listened to The Velvet Underground.

He parked in my garage.

Next to my white Vespa.

We walked up to my apartment and I opened the white door with the number 32 on it.

For the first time I acted on my impulsions and kissed him.

I was not alone anymore.

We were not alone anymore.

We now had excitement.

But with excitement comes risks.

This is now my writing blog.

Since I hate that my tumblr is being clouded by pictures. So because of that I feel like people are only following me for the pictures, and that no one cares about my writing.

At all.

But now, if they do care... they can go here.

Inanimate Eyes

Once again I had to reenter the billion year old house where my Grandmother hides from everything. It is a crypt filled of lost belongings which are surrounded by a grim smell. The smell of death and ancient dust. My Grandmother slowly crawls out of her room, fixing the curtains as she passes. I say hello and kiss her soft falling cheek. In Spanish, she tells me how I should smile more. I pet her cloudy white hair. The same hair my Mother has, but always paints. Then I give a fake smile and drift away. I sit in the wooden frame that is embedded in pillows. My Mother sits with my Grandmother in the lace dining area. There’s a room in the corner where my mother says she was born, and in the walls there are rumors of forgotten caskets. They start to talk about family and gossip. I begin to slowly fall into tedium.

Before I know it I am dreaming. Imagining I am back home. Seeing my loud little black dog, barking and hopping in excitement. I tell her to shut up. All I want is my soft bed. All I want is to be surrounded by my books once again. Then I get to my bed. I lay down, and then the books begin to multiply. Before I know it the books are surrounding me. Then all of the sudden they disappear, my room becomes pitch black, and a Mexican priest comes out of the shadows. He is telling me to become a believer once again. To rejoice in God’s name and allow his love to surround me like the books that took his place. I start to smell menudo and soon I realize that it was a dream.

I wake up; notice my Grandmother turned on the television. It never shifts from the religious channel. Today there is a Mexican priest speaking about believing. I don’t believe him. I slowly sit myself back up, but my butt is asleep and I have a stomach ache. I need to pee, and the smell of menudo has woken up Hunger. He had only fallen a sleep a few hours ago. I decide to go to the restroom, not realizing how much danger this would put me in. I wait for my butt to join Hunger and wake up. And then I stand up on my tired feet. I was wearing Doc Martens, though it was too hot for boots. It’s always to hot for boots in Mexico. But I knew I was coming to this house, and this house always has a chill. I move one boot in front of the other. Watching the cracked floor as I move, but they catch me: The dolls, the old photos, the saints and gods, and even the eyeless stuffed animals. I move faster; ignoring them. I can’t look up. I just can’t. If I look at them I will be sure to panic. Those ancient dolls with their red eyes. Those vintage photos with their dead eyes. Then the saints and gods with their believing eyes. And even the stuffed animals that no have no eyes.

They will all look at me the moment I look up. They know everything about me. What I do at night, and how I’ve started smoking. They probably even know about that one time I wore that revealing shirt, went to that ugly place, and did that one thing I will never do again. They know everything, because they have been following me ever since the first day I entered that house. Ever since I was less than a year old.

These dolls are the reason for my, indescribable, fear of all inanimate things that have or should have eyes. Well it is describable. But, because I am panicking about my, quite describable, fear of inanimate things that have or should have eyes, I run into the metal bathroom door. My Mother screams at me asking what happened. I tell her the bathroom doors ran into me, and then I open those cruel doors. While there I do what people usually do in the bathroom, but, unlike usual people, I have to sit on my Grandmother’s old lady toilet seat. I pretend I am levitating. I do the rest, you know, empty my bladder, and then wash my hands in the small pink sink. The weak water barely can fight off the little amount of soap that I’ve put on my hands. .

When I exited, I remembered not to look up, but I did not go back to that pillowed wood. Instead I take a right turn into my uncle’s room. The room where I have spent multiple nights in as a kid. In that bed, with red old sheets, I had attempted to sleep as the world outside the window screamed at me. Some years, when my uncle would visit; he and his son would take that same room. In that bed his son had very moist dreams. Mischievous dreams that loved emptying his bladder. And those came again and again until he was 16, but that is only because he stopped visiting when he was 16. I sit on that same bed, still not looking up. I remembered that one year I fell asleep when I arrived from the airport. When I woke up there was a dead rat next to my face. On that bed, with the same red old sheets, I became an insomniac. Finally, I look up, and there was the only photo I could never be afraid of. It was the photo of my late Aunt, a woman everyone said I looked like. She was my Mother’s best friend. She had died before I was born. In the same crash that took my Grandfather. Two people I would have loved to meet, but also the same two people I will never meet. My Mother has always talked so fondly about them. Telling me stories that are always changing.

As I look at that picture, she smiles at me, like she always does, and I smile back. At that moment, I forget about everything. I forget about the red sheeted bed that once was moist and that made me an insomniac. I forget about the bathroom and the levitating toilet. I forget about running into the door and the walking on the cracked floor. I forget why I ever wore those boots. I forget the priest telling me too believe and the books once surrounding me. I forget my dog and her repetitive barks. I forget my Grandmother’s old soft skin and how one day she was sure to disappear. I forget my Mother who always gossiped, and how she has my Grandmother’s curly hair. I forget I fell asleep. I forget the dusty smell of death that I kept inhaling. I forget all the gossip and the rumors that echoed inside these walls. I forget that one day I might just be a photo on those walls. And most importantly, I even forget my fear of all inanimate things that have or should have eyes.

For that moment, all those inanimate eyes were off me.