Crush (For Skydancer)

You are the cutest boy I have ever seen in my life and I told all my friends about you and the ones who live nearby all look at you with me when you walk past in the morning and we hold our breath and our stems very still and I hope so hard that you look back at us. But you never do, because what do boys care about flowers? And if I could I would want say something like, Maybe we can go to the movies sometime? but obviously that's impossible and anyway I don't even know what going to the movies actually means, I know it's just something you guys say, and I also want to say, Call me on my iPhone, and I know what those are, I see people walk by who have them, but obviously I don't have my own iPhone, and those are small reasons that I know we will never be together. The big reasons are that you don't know I even exist because what do boys care about flowers? and also I'm an annual and maybe I'm not supposed to know what that means but I do. I do. So there isn't much hope for us and our time to be together even if there was hope is pretty limited. And that's why I think I just need to confess it and say, Okay, I think I love you? And I want you to love me back but I don't even know how you could, you can't hold me or touch me or obviously pick me up, even though I want you to, I want you to pull me out of the earth and take me with you so I am in your hands until I shrivel up and die, but obviously that isn't going to happen, so maybe you can just give me some water, I would like it if you'd water me, I will drink until I drown.

Call for story ideas

So, I'm working on a few things right now. One is about a boy diagnosed with terminal cactus. Another is about a humanitarian vampire (or cannibal, haven't decided) who only eats blood oranges. But they're turning out to be sort of long. Like multiple paragraphs. I want tiny story ideas. What do you want to read tiny stories about? Maybe I'll want to write those tiny stories.

Gather

Is it the leaf itself that’s lucky? Let us postulate so. Very well: how does the clover know which individual qualifies as the fourth? Simply stated, it cannot. Thus, all leaves must contain some measure of the fate-improving substance in question. Aha! Now we're on to something! A provable theorem: if it holds true, think of the far-reaching impact! Let us test this hypothesis at once! We sprint from the basement, we dash across the field. We squint from the glare off the clover-flocked lake. We start picking. Within moments, our beakers are brimming with trinary specimens. The laboratory smells like wet hay, a frayed and musty springtime. We wait. What’s happening, Professor? All is well. All is well. This is very fortunate indeed.

I expect

You to call when I tell you to. Because everything else listens to me. The lights turn green, the bananas ripen. Even the more improbable: ice cream will halt its melting, stay half-solid indefinitely. Dripping faucets fall silent just for the asking. I have come to expect this acquiescence. What makes you think you're exempt?

To see if it still worked, I deafened the sound on the television, and the newscasters reported technical difficulties. I made it snow, even in August, just a few flakes, just to prove a point. Everything worked normally, but the phone didn't ring. Fine. Fine. You might not know this, but I could cause a flood. I could get melodramatic and there'd be a literal swarm of locusts in your living room. I will not have to resort to any of these theatrics if you'd just call.

I'm waiting. Any minute, the tide will rise, even if it kills me. The television screen is snowy with static. I have never met a man as stubborn as you. I can only wonder why you might be doing this, if you're trying to pick a fight, if this is what you want.

And then you're speaking, directly into my ear. "I can't talk to you when you're being like this," you say. "Enough already. I can hear you."

Real life isn't good unless it's imaginary.

After my first few entries, all I want to write is microfiction, like a fucking hipster. I can't believe this is me. I thought I was going to want to write all about my personal life: my sexy, slightly tragic, heartitchy romances and my vinegar-bitter passive-aggressive rants and a little bit of some other stuff that I hadn't come up with yet but that I was certain would be exciting but actually, I don't. And since I'm the supreme ruler here at Hives of the Heartland, we yield to my iron will. Also, I'm not changing the name of this blog. "Romance" is still accurate. Hives are perennial. Sorry if you feel misled.

Native dentition

It was very dark in that particular forest. It always felt as though it had just rained, even though I never saw any rain fall. The canopy arched overhead, colorless and close. The only other thing I remember is a tree leaning, its splintery mouth wide and silent. I remember that it bit very hard.

A story that is 100% true.

The first time I ran on all fours, I was in a parking garage in Bethesda, Maryland. I had just met a girl who said she could do it, but I hadn’t actually seen it yet. We were barely teenagers, and I was willing to believe anything.

It’s just like this, she said, her domesticated yip echoing around the concrete pillars. You just fall forward, and run. She put her backpack down and knelt to untie her Sketchers. And then she took off running, her red tongue lolling from her lupine jaws, her toenails skittering on the cement.

She returned, pedigreed and bipedal, and stood at my side. Now you try, she said. It won’t hurt. You just fall forward. And you run.

Why I hate to take pictures

Because it never looks the way it felt. And that's the only reason I'd ever take a picture, really. So that later on I could hold that feeling in my hand and I could show it to you and say, "Do you see what it was like?" And you would see. And I'd say, "Do you feel what it was like?" And you would feel. You would.

If you take good pictures you can give people a feeling. I think, that if you take good pictures, that you can give people the same feeling you had. And that's the most valuable thing of all. There aren't any words for that.

If you don't take very good pictures, though, then people may get a feeling, but it probably isn't the same one you had. Or they may not get any feeling at all. They may just yawn and be like, "Oh, a runway, some swaying palm trees, rows of red lights, a bird in silhouette." They won't understand that it was windy, and terribly cold for the tropics. They won't understand that just out of the frame was someone you loved walking away. They won't know how it felt to be the one leaving, how the lights were like a phalanx of asking eyes.

A list of dealbreakers, continued.

I forget what number I was up to in the last entry and I'm certainly not going to look, because what we do here at this blog is FORGE AHEAD UNDAUNTED. We also MANIFEST DESTINY, and while we're at it, EXCELSIOR! As such, all items are going to be lettered in this installment.

a) You have gum disease. I am of the impression that gum disease is preventable. If gum disease is not preventable, then I guess I'm going to hell for categorically disliking all you hapless gum disease sufferers: sorry. But so long as I won't see you there-- you with your bleedy, beatified smiles, you of the flosslessness and inflamed gingiva-- I think I will be okay.

b) You smoke pot. This is a conditional dealbreaker. If you smoke pot and I don't know about it at first and then find out after I decide I like you, I can be flexible. However, if I discover your smoking habit in tandem with your lifelong subscription to High Times, your extensive and well-used bong collection, and your 700-photo Picasa album of your trip to Amsterdam, and IF, when I encounter this information, you cite a less-than-credible source stating that getting baked lowers your almost certainly elevated intraocular pressure because dude there's a history of glaucoma in your family, and also George Washington smoked pot when he crossed the fucking Delaware, and also the cotton lobby in America is conspiring to keep marijuana illegal, and also, getting stoned makes you less tense which is really important because 2 years ago you backed your Saturn into a fencepost but since you've been smoking every day you haven't hit anything at all which obviously means that you drive better when you're high, it's over.

c) You give me a hard time about how I don't buy a lot of shit. Look, I like to shop only about 70% as much as the average girl. I like some new things, such as shirts and shampoo, but other new things stress me right the fuck out, like phones. Why is my phone so shitty? Because the alternative of getting a new phone that I have to figure out is far shittier. Don't worry: I replace my underwear when it falls apart, purchase new cat litter when the batch I last bought has been pooped in to capacity, and buy new cheese when mine grows green fuzz. This is the extent of new shit with which I'm comfortable. You don't like this? Go gloat over your iPhone somewhere else.

d) You're in a band. Sorry. This one isn't fair: it's totally me and not you at all. I hope you have a really good time with your band and that you meet a girl who likes you just the way you are. But that girl will not be me because I think bands are dumb.

And that's all I've got for now: 4 measly bits of vitriol. Am I losing my edge? Stay tuned.

A list of dealbreakers.

Before we begin: I meant to write a disclaimer in my first entry. I wanted to say something like, Hey, just so we're clear, this isn't going to be all true. This is going to be mostly true. Accurate, but with blurry edges. The soft truth. You know how when you tell someone, Oh My God, I Was Waiting At My Dentist's Office For Like 10 Hours? This is all going to be true the way your 10 hour wait to get your teeth cleaned is true. The idea is there, and the intention isn't to mislead. I'm just trying to tell the best story is all.

Let's move on.

In a lot of ways, I am really openminded when it comes to dating. I do not care if you are tall or devastatingly handsome. I do not care what kind of car you have or if your watch is expensive. It does not matter to me how much money you make so long as you can support yourself. It's preferable, of course, that you're not in crippling debt, but since I have no way of knowing this right off the bat, I don't really think about it right away. It's nice if you have an education, but I understand that college isn't for everyone, and lots of people without a college education have perfectly respectable jobs. It's nice if you have a good relationship with your family, but again, I understand that this isn't always feasible. And so the list of Things About Which I Can Be Very Understanding continues, but I won't bore you with an exhaustive catalog because we'd be here all day since that is the kind of Extremely Openminded Person I am.

Except.

There are a number of things that will make me totally change my mind about liking you. Like, 180 goddamned degrees. Hero to zero. Hot to cold. And so on. It won't matter if you are tall or devastatingly handsome, or if your car is a [insert name of nice car here, I don't know a thing about cars], or if your watch costs like a trillion billion dollars.

Some of these utter dealbreakers, in no particular order, are as follows.

1. You compare things to Hitler. This is never a funny or original comment, nor is it an apt comparison. Your boss is not like Hitler. Your boss is maybe kind of condescending and inclined toward micromanagement. You know who was like Hitler? Other world leaders responsible for genocide. And you know who isn't like Hitler at all? Everyone else.

2. You consider yourself a "pick up artist," a "PUA," or you have books at your house/ websites bookmarked on your computer that have to do with being the aforementioned. If you fit this description, fuck you. Those who aren't familiar with the phenomenon of "pick up artistry" may perform a Google search. I won't even link to anything having to do with the "PUA" community because that's how much fuck you I feel toward them.

3. You describe yourself as "a Renaissance man," "the creative type," or anything of the sort. Actual creative people produce work that speaks for the creator's creativity. Everyone else can stop with the self-aggrandization.

4. You say negative things about the state of women's postpartum vaginas. Look, I work in medicine, obliquely. I understand that time isn't kind to the human form, and that childbirth may impart some changes upon the mother's body. I get this. But there is something so distasteful about insulting the vagina of a woman who has given birth to a child. Furthermore, I don't have any children. So this means that if you're talking about how "loose [a woman's postpartum] pussy" is, you're telling me this for no reason other than to insult other women.

5. You talk shit about sex workers. This includes insulting sex workers, but it also includes stating that you think it's cool to go to strip clubs and not tip. This is only one example of many, and none of it is cool. I don't have to go into why. You know it isn't cool, and if you do it anyway, fuck you.

6. You lie about things regarding which I can easily find out the truth. If you say, "I live on a boat!" and then I'm like, "Let's go to your place, I'm so interested in seeing what it's like to live on a boat!" and you're like, "Okay, technically I live in an apartment, but my mom in Port Charlotte has a boat," then you can go fuck yourself.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Hives of the heart

It comes when the small scratchy seedling of love begins to inch its thistley littleness into the echoey chambers of your gray hollow heart. It takes root, fed by the thready pulse of hopeful. It flowers, brambley with bated breath. And so it's pulled, abrupt, with callused fingers, by the same fickle hand that sowed the seed. In those hours you lie awake, scratching, those hours alone with your itching skin and unringing phone, you tease out the splinters and examine each one. Maybe it happened in an instant, a storm on no one's radar, a flash flood you couldn't have foreseen. Maybe it crept slowly, a winter descending, a graduation into frost. But all you have now is an itch where it once grew, a rash where it lefts its thorny remnants in your pulpiest of places. A rash where you expected love. Hives of the heart.

But you move on. Why not move on? You have everything in the world going for you. You're a pretty girl, smart, slightly funny. You will be fine. You will meet someone else who will appreciate you for you, who will keep their hands and horticulture off of where they don't belong. So you meet your friends for drinks, get a new haircut. You extend your metaphors until you feel appropriately smug with melodrama. And you can start looking again: why not? Your heart's not broken, not even aching. It just itches. It itches. You scratch almost constantly. But that never hurt anyone, no one that you know. It itches, but whoever died of hives?


My name is Tache and this is my blog, even though blogs might be for dorks. I am part white-collar professional and part wild animal. I am still kinda young and still kinda pretty, but not too much of either. You can reach me at hivesoftheheart@gmailcom.