She’ll stand over you, helplessly, when you’re crouched in a corner, bloodshot eyes, crying madly, ripping apart your masculinity and divine-given headship. She’ll try to caress your beautiful tormented neck and will not understand why, almost violently, you push her arm away. She’ll run to her bed weeping, ring her mom and they’ll together conspire an intervention. She wouldn’t know to let you shiver until your temperature cools, your breathing slows and your face dries and you stand up strong and fortified, ready to take what’s yours. In bed, she’ll lay still on her fat back never understanding what happened.

A trove for outstanding sports shoes, I'm forever beholden to Nike Factory Outlet for stashing the most beautiful, fashionably risky and cushiest pink slash(/) black Air kicks. They hold their footing as my beloved supplier of fancy footwear with cloud like comfort. So much so, that the excitement to cut on asphalt superseded my biomechanical abilities. The 7 miles were deceivingly cake, until early evening when I was standing up from my self-pedicure, pampering such hard-working heels, when my meniscus back stabbed me. Now my new kicks are sitting pretty in the closet, growing antsy from motionlessness. For weeks. Gulp!

When it comes to saxophones and harmonicas, handle with caution. With due deference, I salute the Kenny G's and DMBs(Dave Matthew's Band) out there. Your skill is highly worthy of mention. But there's a reason why angels play harps, so lovely and euphonious. The frequencies output by most brass instruments are shrill … shrill! Lord knows I've tried accepting it, playing with the knobs in my auditory input faculties, but it's not happening. Strings. It's about strummed strings and their diaphanous emissions. Strangly enough, I can enjoy punk harshness. I guess sometimes there's just no rhyme to what we like.

There are days you feel wrong. Then you notice you're wearing you're shirt inside out, validating the wrongness. There's a grossness that persists until dinnertime because you touched a damp rail in the morning, it dried, and you didn't have a chance to wash your hands. Sometimes you experience intense discomfort when you start your lunges set with the left leg and end it on the right. When you play a CD but miss the opening 30 seconds or the turning signal is offbeat. When you know nothing is missing, but it feels missing.

Today…is NOT one of those days.

If I only had a brain. If I only had amphetamines. I feel like the wizard has granted me the wish I've longed for. He's a mastermind alchemist, sage in the art of stabilizing adults who behave like children. This is fantastic, that my eyes don't dwindle to the sides. I'm (shockingly) aware this pill is not a panacea, but what a start! To control my thoughts… to stay still… to multitask effectively.

Momma, look at me! I'm doin it all by maself!

I mean, through the aid of prescribed crack.
Since popping it, I haven't forgotten a single thing!

A form of regression is coming over me. I'm remembering childhood; with much less pain as I felt was experienced. With my predisposition to be emotionally unstable, I didn't have a chance growing up with cultural tyrants and such limited knowledge of an outside world. My life resembled the First Latter Day Saints Church, of course, not as extreme. But we did have annual Disney trips. I had my Playskool, Play-Dough and Mattel toys. I had coloring books, stencils and mock kitchens. We had parks with reserved huts for catered children's parties that served pastelitos that handed out candy baggies.

Mechanically, she inquires my name. The digital recorder is her secretary, coldly dictating my address. She tells me to push her buttons with an alien tone and tin heart. I'm the only human who attributes complex mammal emotions to it. I fume when she reduces my queries into whatever category she finds fitting. I sharply cut off her monotone voice often, frustrated that she can't sense my urgency. Then comes my cursed guilt when I envision her wanting to be a real girl amongst other robo-slaves with headsets, answering the phones with a greasy tear clinking on her metal cheek.

I came across the knowledge of his notoriously large…uhm…codpiece. That’s not what landed him in my rumination rituals. I tasted his tongue, a raw ravaging organ of his savoring mine. Yet that, nor his indecisive hands searching one body part where a handful could settle is what keeps me chewing the thought. The eyes might’ve been of persuasion, but it’s the moment I questioned his ego and dissuaded him from follow-through that keeps me thinking, why didn’t I just say yes? ..

There’s no way I was going to butcher April’s 8th entry without explaining myself . See, I had an ending prepared. Really. It had taken so long for to word an reword and wordplay to get it all within the 100 word constraints. So, I do the needful… Copy. Past. Edit. And whaddaya know? I missed the finale! The answer to my riddle. So hasty! As you see…I make hasty decisions. Usually against my favor.

Without further introduction, I give you….the Conclusion:

Wait! I know! Pick me! Because once I have him, regretfully, I’d subject him to the discarding process.

Left to my own devices, with a creaked opening for some control, adjusted medication, post-its, timers, pens, monitored caffeine and sugar intake and music constantly playing in the background…I am a highly efficient woman. I am meticulous and clean, proud of my ample clutter free spaces and clear kitchen counters with spotless appliances. The evidence of evolutionary adulthood has been in me all this time. I just required time to figure it out: myself. With no one's influence. Even relationships are sturdier when I don't shatter the rules and abide by order. Simply amending them on occasion does the trick.

In your house I was out of my element. Maybe yet, I'm creating a new compound and I still don't know the structure of my formula. Being the prettiest girl was definitely a booster, but declining the spirits inhibited a more naturally gregarious demeanor; that superego humor that persuades large smiles, eyes on moi and side glances from distracted men who speak jovially of political things. I must admit that diplomacy suits me. Much better than my slurring days or disastrous tongue slips. It'll just have to bare patience while mastering confidence in my new persona. Welcome to adulthood.

There is a difference in the warm breeze circulating here on land, independent from the ocean's wind. Then there are unmistakable gusts that blow in with authority from the bay. They have a way of letting you know. It's especially impressive when the clouds stretch over the still skies, closer toward inland, dark grey consuming light blue. Seagulls seem to pull the fraying edges as they collide with the peaceful cumulus clouds, declaring battle. Looking up, you witness the turmoil taking place. No matter your standing coordinates, you feel like you're in the middle of a war where everyone wins.

Beautiful. I feel soooo beautiful. I don't mean my appearance fits the Golden Ratio. I mean inside my feelings are so wonderfully indescribable It's bigger than life. I'm deliberating a fascinated endeavor to figure out what exactly causes this level of euphoria that is not chemical at all, its au natural. There is no crash landing from this elevation. I'm going catapult into such ecstasy that only pure exhaustion can reduce the tingles and goosebumps. Direly do I want to learn the broken down scientific process encompassing the nervous system which sends these divine messages to my bones. But why? It should feel this, not know it.

Why I won't tell you how I'm doing

You immediately get twitchy and uncomfortably surprised I'm replying truthfully.
You are suddenly burdened and dread helplessness.
You assume it upon yourself to fix it.

So you start with your blah-blah-blah-isms:

"Time heals all wounds."

"What 'I' did was…."

"Have you talked to a psychiatrist about upping meds"

The worse mother of them…

"Hang in there."

I glare at you, inwardly shit-faced. I begin to plan your murder.

"Nevermind", I say and start the weather and local news gab.

Your shoulders relax and you tell me how cute your dog's poop is.

Once again, I'm considering becoming a baby momma. These baby factory whores are getting thousands back in tax returns, while my moral chasteness is practically being mocked by the measly hundreds I'm getting from my e-file. I can't afford any of the colonoscopy and enema procedures I need. And if I can't poop, I can't think... Well, no I'm not constipated. I'm just being exaggerated because I fucking can. I've earned it, because these bean munchers are getting all the urgency care and x-rays for free, while my insurance drains my account and pharmacies won't even sell me generic alprazolam!!!

Individually wrapped 100 calorie cakes and oreo 'crisps'. They know we're not buying it, the fact that it can satisfy cravings. What kind of emotional eating involves self-control? Yet we place it in our carts next to the lettuce leafs we'll be chomping on aftermath day. They prey on our conscientious weakness, the assumption, that we'd rather devour toward our demise no matter the consequence and will tell ourselves whatever we want to hear to feel better about shameless surrender. And yes, the cardboard and cellophane packaging is a quite nice palate cleanser after we've ferociously devoured the artificial chocolate.

I just want to see him again. Walk on the beachside in his presence. Sure, I'll be distracted every time I become aware our hands are unattached and our lips aren't latched. But that's not really what I wanted from him. It was the impressive desire to continue talking without needing physical passion, although of course it would've been preferable. I think it's too much to ask though.

I'll settle writing him a letter I'll never send. I'll even stamp it if the urge becomes irresistible. Then I'll put it away until I meet someone else I want to see.

He told me to relax. I walk in with excruciating pain. My cheeks frozen, prohibiting the slightest smile. Blinding clusterfuck headaches infused with dulled eardrums. Aside from equilibrium loss, it sounded like a clanging machine press that requires government regulated hearing protection, rather than the usual clicking of a mandible being lodged and dislodged like a mini pendulum. The dentist's wise advise was – courtesy of college educating frat partying he's still paying - "you just need to relax. Rid your problems". I still don't know how or why I didn't swing that damn dental lamp above me into his skull.

Last night, in very vivid detail, I dreamt I was drowning. The circumstance itself remains unknown. All I know is my wakefulness versus sleep wires we're crossed and somehow the situation was real. Eventually I awoke but the thoughts awakened were different than I ever imagined. When you're dying of asphyxiation, you're not thinking "Oh My God! I'm going to die! I love you Mom! I never told him I loved him! I'm sorry God! Am I groomed down there for the paramedics?" All that my brain processed was "Breathe, dammit, breathe!" A little stuck phlegm was so insightful.

I believed you gave me energy where there had been dead static. You protected me from fear of delirium and never had it felt so good to lose control and retrieve it at summoned will. Abounding stimulation of life in shaper color we were. Futures were suddenly possible. Eventually you stepped away in imperceptible degrees until it was clear my vision faded to monochrome. Now it's all white noise, but you planted in me everlasting confidence that I can be turned on again. Your electric charged served me a purpose. You taught me it was inside me, the initiating source.

Even as an impressionable child, I always knew the Count was a benign soul. Anyone who counts in peanut butter jelly sandwiches gets a gold star on my chart. I sometimes have the desire to plop myself, Indian style, in front of the television and catch up with Big Bird, Bert & Ernie, and my favorite: Cookie Monster. I never cared for Elmo or Grover. The Grouch was bomb diggity. I would, if the show wasn't so annoyingly politically correct. Can you believe they protested their projects targeted demographic, with the black man and Spanish Maria? Hell! They be down!

A spiel was in place about my readiness to face an attacker. Scratch that. Sundown darkened the last two miles of trail. The park was night, woods and wildlife. My knees had given out about mile six. My senses heightened, increasing danger awareness. Yet… I peeked over my shoulder and caught an innocent runner gaining on me. I screamed bloody murder, scaring the bloke. Add to that, I felt totally comfortable with his companionship that I superseded human barriers by way of adrenaline override systems, increased to his speed, which in context, it's the same as Stockholm Syndrome. I failed.

The grey cotton jersey tee with bone embroidery didn’t press his shirt long enough to transfer his scent. He doesn't wear cologne. I like that, because I can smell his skin. But at the least, my clothing soaked up ocean salts that drift and float about his front porch and manicured lawn. We cancelled the brief trip to the coast, but it turned out well. The chill breeze would've contracted my toes in tension, rather than relax in the sand. And in the house he was better illuminated and I want to remember his face. I want to remember everything.

Her cheeks and lips were swollen and red as they get when a girl cries. I kept telling myself, stay calm. This is her time, not mine. It's unfair to cry when she's suffering the injustice. If I absorbed her pain right then, that'd be selfish, suddenly needing consolation myself. No, this was her moment. Her right to hate the world, her right to be angry at humanity, her turn to breakdown. I breathed deep and seized control of the tremble in my sympathetic words. But the tremble came back with burning vengeance when I found out what he did.

The detail involved. I didn't realize the extent of cleaning for house guests you must impress. Scrub bleach in between the grimy tile to restore its natural white. Hide the meds and secret beauty products in the garage. Trash the ratty cotton underwear (just in case they go snooping). Wash all the sheets and comforters in case they have a UV light. Ionize the air and freshen thereafter with Ocean Breeze to kill the smell of lightning. Put up the chairs when mopping the floor. And what's the point if I want them to get to know the real me?

It's become so painfully clear I can't imbibe a lick of alcohol. For a while there, I thought a nice dry red accompanying dinner was harmless. It's not so much an alcoholic drink as it is a compliment to explode the taste of a spicy Italian dish. But my throat swelled up at midnight after two glasses. Two days later, I was trapped in a chemical depression completely out of my control. Kicking the bed frame until I bruised to avoid ripping off my hair (literally), is not in any way my nature. Actually, it's some disturbed character on Oprah.

Intuition kindly warned me that the diagnosis wouldn't be deadly. However, Mortality came knocking at my door, reminding me that sooner, rather than later, Death would be coming over for a stay. Every time I think of "high risk", I see it in my head just like that. With quotations and everything. The lower case letters are of some consolation. A red glow surrounds the phrase. I see it right along side "I did it to myself". Half of the Virtues gloated at me, "Told you so". The second portion invited me for tea and said, "There there. Now now."

Something is missing. I'm not sure what it is and if I'm liable for making change. Life is boring at some point. But all the time? It's not lack of culture, history, activities. It's not a population deficiency in which I can relate to. I'm managing a job, living quarters, I don't need money for happiness, I know my purpose and carry a handful of people I love. Yet, I don't have constant interaction from my mind to the world. I need to make new friends, get a fulfilling career and work off a random schedule. How can I balance chaos when I've been taught spiritual order?

For musical breakfast I had some Impromptu, Opus 90. It's what I do when words and images don't satiate my mental cravings. It's for days that I need details and complexities, because my brain waves are firing madly. Brain food. By evening, I'm more sedate and I ease the electrical activity into the soft synthesized beats of The Postal Service. What if Schubert suddenly resurrected? Would he frown upon such emotionally devoid instruments, or would he appreciate that music comes from anywhere? I think the novelty would take him aback, but a musician cannot deny emotion when he hears it.

Arrange the cups and cheese trays in OCD order. The hummus and pita chips on the same table. Dessert bites on another. Soft drinks on the counter. All regular and two diet, decaffeinated. Uncork the wine bottles. Turn up the carefully select music. Set the lighting. Go back to the kitchen and realign the symmetry of the napkins. Knock out a few push ups and squats. Reposition my hair. Straighten my outfit. Pop back a pill. Chug some hydration. Recollect on the couch for a minute. Wipe the nervous face, bring a dazzling teethy smile and swing the door open.