A dodo bird declared "Doom on me." I punched his lights out. There was a nice liquid feeling inside me when his colorful feathers flew out of his fragile body and descended in slow motion. But it was too late. The bird's squawking chant personated and took over me like a thirsty demon. I brought bad luck to black cats and glass mirrors kept their distance from me. Horses wouldn't dare waste their shoes to save my life and where the hell do you buy four leaf clovers? Only my faithful black umbrella blocked the rain from my gray cloud.

Hello Heidi. I read your words and let them swell up in the silent walls of my mind. They trembled with cowardice as the inspiration teased the surface, but they resist to surrender my captive thoughts. I scan through the memories, dreams, and nightmares that you've selectively decided to share with us. Those words ringing through my head force my eyes shut tight. I wonder how many people must break my heart, what kind of consequences I need to suffer, how many lives do I need to die before I can manipulate and control my words the way you do.

Maybe things would've been different for me and you if I would've experienced a deeper suffering in my lifetime.

You never asked me to walk in your shoes, but I knew your fit would be uncomfortable, so I didn't put forth the effort.

I thought it was pointless to see through your eyes because I knew it would blur my vision.

When I heard your heart flatline, my tears were frozen. I wish I would've let them melt for you.

If you would let me see you again, I promise to pierce my own heart and try again for us.

"Do you have chamomile?." She was an attentive cashier. Sweet.

"If we have….?" She leaned in politely when I didn't enunciate. I swear I need speech therapy anyway.

"CHAM-MO-MILE!." I noticed my fists were clenched, my legs were tense. I tried to give in to the plinkety-plankety music playing, focused on the stillness of the franchise café.

"Our ‘Calm' tea contains chamomile."

"Give it to me! Anything without caffeine!" I almost bit her head off, but such a kind girl, she understood.

"No sugar? Honey?", she asked as I sped away after paying.



Obviously, I need some kind of sweetener…..

Two broken hearts and counting. Nine cat lives wasted down to seven. Seven signifying perfection. Is the next encounter the final one? Or will they all drown and lose their place in the sands of my hourglass. Will I have to sell my soul to the devil if my time ends? Can he remedy my empty heart if it desires to act at all by the time I've bled out? Time is ticking, my patience is steady, emotions suspended in air. My lady legs are crossed and my interlaced fingers rest on my knees. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

Once I believed spontaneous combustion was but mere legend. Abominable Snowman, Lochness Monster, Elvis Lives. But lately when you enter my mind, it pricks my rage, sending my blood into a fierce boil. You toil and trouble me. I can visualize it burbling and bubbling. My skin feels it's being slowly cauterized. Oh! The trepidation you cause upon me, because the day we face-off, I will flash boil with the fires from hell. It'll light me up to be the death of me. I hope I make you feel the same way so you can burst before I do. I believe.

The beautiful blond bimbette in the red flowing dress undressed my man with her eyes from head to toe as we walked passed her. I twisted my upper-body and glared an imprecation directly at her with a devilish hiss and showed her my animal-like fangs. If looks could kill…this one would have decapitated the slut like a pitiful boar while it defecated.

My faithful and patient mate slid one arm behind me back encouraging me to continue walking.
"You've already pissed on me this morning, you've marked your territory…let it go."
I smiled at him and purred with utter gratification.

It's her quiet and modest way of yelling at the top of her lungs for attention. Attiring her personality in black and claiming she does it to look good is a tactic she uses to discreetly strain her despondency through her sheer smile.

We've tried digging deep, asking, "What's wrong, baby?." And she'll offer a transparent smile and say, "nothing". So we'll tell her, "You should wear brighter colors…pastels. They flatter you."

We'll paint the surface of her life and give her rainbows. But it's useless.
She's color blind and her world is monochrome. At most, a shadowy gray shade.

My thumb was throbbing from turning the damn knobs on the manual can opener. How I regret saying electric openers are for wussies. Still turning and struggling, damning the company who didn't invest on a focus group to consider pop-up seals, I'd plenty of time to consider that I need a shrink.

Not even halfway….

My dependency on caffeine was the reason I was going to need a tetanus shot to survive the serrated edges : I used my bleeding fingers to finish prying off the cover. I wasted 15 minutes of my virginal life opening a can of coffee.

I'm afraid of writing about myself excessively. Tis why I've been careful not to begin my entries with "I". (except one). I still do it. If I read between the lines of my own words, I'm afraid I will find insipid babble, unintentional transparency or secrets I didn't know I possessed. The mind is a dangerous thing once explored, and mine is a dormant battlefield. I get carried away and instead of practicing caution I run through the mines. I fear the day I'm to be unfolded, revealed and traduced, it will be by my own careless freedom of speech.

There it comes, that wonderful friendly numbness in your toes. Friday! If counting down to this one pleasurable moment makes me an alcoholic, then… "Hello, my name is Elena." From the burn on the lips, to the trickling down the throat…enter paradise on a golden chariot. As war brews in the middle-east, …I sit in my own Utopia with the people who know how to embrace the goood times. (By the way, suddenly, they all glow like angels.) Back to my point, if this it what it takes to make it to Monday, pour me another one. Let it burn!

To speak or not speak? That is the question! They say, "Think before you speak." So I do, and then they complain that I'm shy and reserved. So I speak. They get offended saying, "You should've kept your mouth shut." I resort to filling up my comments with mundane verbosity that everyone can accept as neutral grounds. I trap my words, hence the phrase ‘shut your trap'. Paper has become my faithful ear. It accepts audacity, imagination, open-minds, dreams, opinions. When I find a man that parallel's this paper, I will fold him up and keep him in my pocket.

Time to desist my stubborn resistance and allow mother nature to take her rightful course. She can grotesquely spread her legs open and spit me out again. This time I come clean and pure, but armed with the worldly knowledge that I had to die a thousand times to attain. When the forked road appears, I'll turn my heel and walk the red carpet instead. I'm going to take my second chance and run with it. It's my turn now. And no one will piss on me. I'll break the fingers that point at me. I shall not be misled anymore.

Cuban boy, take me to Havana, your native land! Speak to me only in Spanish. I envy the sultry sun than kisses your warm caramel skin and the wind that blows through your dark hair. Show me your barrio. Introduce me to your mother. I'll let her dress me up in a flowy dancing skirt. Wear your white guayabera. Bailaremos una salsa suave. Twirl me. Swirl me. One hand on my back, you know how to control a woman. Papi, I'll kill Fidel so we can be together. Me vuelves loca. (and somehow I know I shall marry a Caucasian).

Nobody knows when she started talking to shoes. One day, they were just haphazardly wandering the mall and realized they lost one of their people. They looked behind and they're she was, at the high-heel sandal and leather stiletto boot displays. Yup! She was introducing herself in a soft cuddly coo to the inanimate objects as they sat …inert. Ever so lightly she would lift the left shoe up, turn it upside down and read their green label price sticker, shudder violently while holding them dear, put them back down as if it were antique china, then forever part ways.

For a woman of attention deficit disorder, she sure loves details.
They'll ask her…, "Ok. So what was he wearing? What color were his eyes? What was his middle name?"
She'll stare at the wall as she painfully scans her memory files to answer the question.
Finally, she'll look up with a little girl's grin, "I don't know, but I'm still gonna marry him!."
They've given up on her, but she knows next time they cross path's she will look for his battle scars, notice if he is right handed, and remember his middle name.
Because she loved his details.

It was okay if they're skin would softly brush against mine. But any prolonged touch, as a child, I sternly believed would allow them to enter my mind. Physical contact opened a mystic portal to link that person to my deepest darkest secrets. The branches of my childhood imagination were wild and unspeakable, so I avoided touching, hugging, e.t.c. Years later, the man of my dreams said we weren't compatible because he was, and I quote, "touchy-feely". Needless to say I shut that ridiculous portal out of business right away. But time works precisely against me. It was too late.

Somewhere in the Land of Dwell I stand bemused and dumbfounded, blankly staring at the "you are here" map. The City of Lost it reads. This is not a place where I can take you. Only I reign in my past, but as you see…I don't understand why or when it happened. The convoluted mechanisms circumvent in an inexistent doubt of what-if, pulsating and vibrating to disturb my insane sense of reason. The dials and knobs that reverse what's already been written in time are resulting recusant. They've never worked. Nevertheless, I'll always revisit this state of my heedless qualms.

A deluge of liquor tears streamed down her face as she rambled, "Don't ever, EVER, let a man touch you."

"I won't, I promise," I pulled back her hair and passed my hand over her forehead.

She didn't want another sip, but my roommate insisted.

"I love my little boy, I do. But now loneliness consumes me." She gulped more of the coconut rum. I took it away from her hands.

"I'm here for you until your Prince Charming arrives."

"Prince Charming doesn't want a single mother and a baby." She snatched the glass from me and downed the drink.

"Would you sit like a lady?".

Her knees were as far apart as humanly possible. Her slouch was messy. With a light tap on her knee, he indicated she close her legs. A pat on her back kindly asked her to sit up.

"What makes you think I'm a lady?" She stood up and noisily stomped down the hall.

"Can you at least make the effort when you meet my mom?" He watched her, shaking his head. This is what he fell in love with.

"Okay. I'll start practicing." Mouth open wide, she prepared a belch for a thunderous take off.

Those were the days. Days when pets where immortal. Time passed and was spent, but still our fish, our birds and hamsters wouldn't age. Our parents would find them lifeless is their creature homes, rush to the store, purchase a new best friend identical to the last, mark their bodies and fur where we branded them as ours, and place them back where we knew they belonged. Ignorance is bliss. My fish died yesterday. I have the mind to flush it, buy a similar one, plop it in the same bowl and pretend I never saw him floating upside down.

Listening to his heartbeat was still an unbearable silence after his long absence. I turned to face him. His fingers slid out of my hair.

Let's go for a swim, "Ask me something…anything goes?"

He thought about it. He doesn't like deep waters. "What's your favorite song on the radio currently?"

It's obvious I wanted to submerse him until suffocation. I blurted any answer. He sensed my irritation.

After agonizing in thought again, he tried diving deeper. "Do you like watching football?"

I watched him struggle as he drowned. I dropped my ear back on his heart and listened harder.

What a picture perfect family! Parents and three for offspring. Beautiful, talented, wealthy, passionate, original. Something's wrong with them. I casually backed away from the chatter atmosphere in their monster of a house and suspiciously roamed around…opening closet doors. No skeletons! Not even their eyes hint of a questionable past. What was I thinking? People with impeccable success, they'll not leave their secrets in the house. Whatever they may be, I want in. Next visit, I'll bring a shovel and dig their backyard. If I find nothing, I'll lay myself down in the pit I dug and become their bones.

Vivacious 6 year-old child. She wore a pink sweater with white crazy fuzz on it's hood, a yellow flowery summer dress, thick bright yellow socks up to her knees, see-through sandals, and as always…her long unkempt wild hair. Her sweater hung askew, exposing her little shoulder in the freezing night. Her careless giggles permeate the air. She trips, falls, then stands right up only to bonk herself at the wall. Her sensory perception is indifferent to pain. She emits contagious laughter when she bangs herself against something. The innocence in her playfulness draws me. I wish I had birthed her.

You came knocking at my door again, didn't ya? Everyone thought I closed it. I said I did. And it is. But the window of opportunity is open. I trapped your fingers as I slammed it shut and laughed my ass off when I saw you yelp in pain. That's when it struck me. Infused in those tears of laughter were tears of relief. Relief that your pitiful act of desperation brought me comfort and safety. But you watch yourself now! Because it you fuck up again, I'm going to stuff you out the doggie door with a merciless beating.

He smiles when he sees her eyelashes tremble in place as she feigns deep sleep. He observes her profile intently as he waits for those eyes to flutter open.

"How long have I been asleep?," She innocently asks.

"Oh..about….forever. Go back to sleep." With his fingertips hovered over her eyelids, she closes them for a few seconds. Then opens them again.

"Forever is a long time. I'm going to miss you if I go to sleep again." She sits up with concern.

His arms gently lay her down. He goes down with her. "Then we'll fall asleep together, for eternity."

It's starting to get cold out there. The chilly nights are descending earlier. Cold and dark. No one can escape it. It chases us into our homes. Wherever and whoever home may be. The cold and dark could be a lonely time and place to think, to scrutinize, to what-if, he said she said, I should have, to loom and weave inside the past. Some are brave enough to withstand the gradual change, but some gradually succumb to it. I grew up where only summer resides, now I live the four seasons. I've endured winter twice, 3rd time's a charm.

Silence is not really golden. I wish it could be felt instead of heard. It's much too loud to listen to. I imagine it feels cool, damp, and dewy as it reacts to skin, creating the tingles up your spine as it does when in solitude you encounter silence. It's more of a heavy, foggy haze with a hint of the sun's sparkle. A bittersweet taste of confusion. You desire it. You don't desire it. It's tangible as white noise. You can intentionally step in and out of that place. Yes, I pick white noise to ease the silent pandemonium.

It's a subconscious action of mine. Upon initiating conversation or randomly observing strangers, I search for the sadness in their eyes. My perception receives their smiles as attempted bluffs. I see their lives in shades of blue and gray. If their sorrow isn't outwardly advertised, I go for depth and look harder. That's when it hits me, and I realize I'm not satisfied until I understand the tears they've once shed. But in my persistent need to discover them, I know I'll be betrayed. I fear the light left in their eyes will reflect the sullen girl I've always denied.

Some linger on the ledge and decide to back away in cowardice. The others jump…commit suicide. I wonder…what does it take, what goes convinces the mind to go for the final plunge and let go? We're leaning in, looking down at our possible fate. It might be easier if our destination was up instead of headed for a splat. But I'm not gonna stand here long. I will not pull you with me. I'll suggest we do it together. Make the effort. But you??? Commit? You'd rather keep looking and wondering. At least those miserable souls can commit to something.

She comes across a word unknown in her memory bank. She lightly puts the book down and picks up the electronic portable dictionary. Her synthetic nails delay her look-up as she strategically maneuvers the push down on the rubbery buttons. She impatiently waits 4 seconds before the contraption defines the word. Her mind holds the definition and applies it to the novel she has been reading for 2 months. If it weren't for the hole in the back of her head, she would've glided through the book in 3 days. But her thirst for new words and definitions is insatiable.