The sad girlfriend feels a feeling in her stomach. She sits very still. There are no other girls in her car. She folds her arms across her boobs. She makes an unattractive face. There is a big shit in my stomach and it won’t come out my butt. The subway car halts to a stop. The analyst floats into Starbucks, “Why do you think this is?” I think it’s scared. The passengers keep their faces straight. If the sad girlfriend lets her eyes linger too long on any one man, the man might later log on to Craigslist and post a missed connections entry.
The sad girlfriend searches for a small child to keep her faith in. During subway halts, she finds it helpful to focus her fear and hope onto a small child. There are none in sight. The lights cut out. The subway car waits in the anxious dark. Probably, terrorists have killed the subway driver. The analyst pinches her fingers on the thin half-hairs of the split end. It will either be gas that knocks everyone in comas or they’ll come in with knifes, bullets, flames. The terrorists keep going after New York cause it’s the big American pinball machine. Its skyline stands like bottles in a row, waiting to be knocked down saloon-style. There is no announcement from the subway conductor. The analyst pulls to see how far up the split end will split. The girlfriend searches again for a child.
In this year of early ’00s, anxiety is indoors. It’s being surrounded by still objects, walls too white and too smooth. Outside, the trees swish, the birds chatter, an ant will crawl over your leg and include you. But inside the only sound to accompany the air-conditioner is the metallic whine of a miss-programmed wake up alarm. M4w, E train 3 am: You were the sad girl wearing a blue t-shirt and white/light grey shorts. Me, tan khakis, black shirt w/white logo, black glasses, bob marley was playing on my iPod shuffle. You had wavy hair tied back, then you let it down. You have an amazing natural beauty.
The sad girlfriend rubs her Metrocard on her face. The ink has stained her nose. Is it ever worth wearing a dress? In the day it can feel relaxing, but by night it’s just a flag waving to the rapists. The sad girlfriend realizes her eyes have been resting in someone else’s eyes. The someone else smiles. You sat by the door. I stole a few glances, didn't stare, but totally wanted to. You were breathtaking. If you happen to read this and are available/interested send me a email.
Sometimes landing a boyfriend feels like being drafted in the NBA. Well, I’ve always wanted to play, ever since I was little watching games. I think I can really help this ballclub out of its recent difficulties. Which thought will be the last to sulk around her brain understood? Her family feels as far away as a wallet-sized photograph. Her tombstone will stand straight while Brad Pitt’s life continues its wayward path.
Above the subway, the world is living its noisy way. A.M. eyes are dizzy from Craigslist. Bulky guys flash little lights over driver’s licenses. Why were buildings built over our sky? It’s only occasionally when we see the moon, but it’s supposed to be the main thing up there. You take the train from Astoria to Manhattan. You're about 5'6", petite, really cute short dark hair, always dress casually; tee shirt, cargo pants, etc. I think you're greek. You never smile. You are so unbelievably sexy and rarely look up from your sudoku.
The world has already ended. It ended when Chris Columbus peed on land. When Jesus died and everyone got obsessed with him. In 2000 when everything was going to fuck up and then nothing fucked up at all. The whole next millennium lay open, its ten centuries available, its decades in rows. No one is watching us lay toilet paper on wet public toilet seats. We carry our water in cups, draw sunglasses on our sun. I should've said something but couldn't think of anything unlame to say. You looked so tired, slouching in your tank top. Let me take care of you. I see you most every working day. We enter the train thru the same set of doors and exit at Penn. You have dark shoulder length hair, which is sometimes still wet in the morning. I am too shy to say hi. I was amazed by your beauty and was in awe and I am never in awe of anyone or anything. Eventually I'll have to say something to you, maybe when I see you walking down 22nd to the stop, flip-flops pattering out the beats of my heart. You sat with me until i got off at times sq. the conductor said be careful to the 59th st. stop and i said careful of what? we looked at each other and you similed.
The girlfriend may die a terrible death of terrorists. There will be no children to watch with honest eyes. The analyst will be so upset. The sad girlfriend had tried to watch the world news, but the stories lacked the details needed to engage her. Brad Pitt fell for a girl who doesn’t wear shoes when she doesn’t want to. To have a boyfriend is to play in the privileged center of a story. To be sad is to hang low, matching mind to gravity, to feel the indoors and outdoors so hard it makes your head ring. This is being written to the angel who shared her bottle of water with a homeless person during the heat wave. You were wearing a beige see-through outfit. You had a beautiful golden complexion. I believe you are Italian. I hope that you are out there.
INFECTIONS
William sat by the dry reflecting pool and ate his bagel without Justin. Here they would sit on a Sunday, after a long night of blowjobs and iTunes. William poked extra cream cheese out the bagel’s hole, letting it fall to the concrete. Like all city parks, Rittenhouse Square idealizes the nature everyone is missing out on, William would say to Justin. It’s a biblical fantasy. Parks make trees a fetish thing. But Justin’s thoughts would be lost in the refection pool, then full, approving how his eyes and nose and mouth made aesthetic sense together, while the faces of other park-goers seemed genetically slapped together, mutated into adult finality.
In Anatomy, William and his group were given a dead body. The hardest part to saw apart was the teeth. William let the girls do that part. It was an old woman’s body and having never seen one in real life, he was unprepared for the intricacy of a vagina. The skin is divided into folds, lying between the legs like a lizard in the sun, William wrote in his notebook. It feels as though the lizard hasn’t moved in hours, but might at any second slowly shift its weight. William nudged closer for a better look. He pushed his rubber-gloved finger against the vagina. The other boy in the group raised his eyebrows at William, implying. William informed him that he was gay. The boy looked at him. William said something in a gay-sounding voice that made the girls smile. Then the boy moved closer to William and the vagina. “Well, usually this part is way more pink, and it’s sort of wet over here, like with an oil or shine or something.” The girls squirmed as he described this.
At Woody’s, the dance floor was crowded with muscle-flexers, as usual. William danced near a cute boy with glasses. An older unattractive man danced towards William. In a series of moves, William escaped from the unattractive man. He danced up to the cute boy with glasses, but the cute boy danced into the center of the floor. William’s dancing slowed as muscle-flexers filled the spot abandoned by the cute boy.
Drunk leaving Woody’s, he tripped on the pavement. Blood ran up to the surface of his scraped knees. William knew that in humans, oxygenated blood was bright red. He knew that deoxygenated blood was a darker shade of red. Also, there was a rare condition, sulfhemoglobinemia, that resulted in green blood, blah blah blah. He knew all about it. He looked at the blood on his knee and felt privileged to have his body. He didn’t bother cleaning the dirt from the cuts.