Plagued by Too Much Thought

Excerpt from "In Defense Of Crack: A Love Story"

2012-01-17T13:20:00.000-05:00

For those of you who missed my reading on Sunday at Bluestockings, this is part of what I shared from my novel-in-progress, "In Defense of Crack: A Love Story". I wrote the opening paragraph five years ago in response to a comment made by an acquaintance stating that there was no defending the excusing of crack use in a relationship. I aim to prove him wrong in a novel :)

*****

When Joaquin was a baby, his mother, Helena, let him sleep in the bed with her. Even if he was just going down for a nap, she would lay down next to him on her soft Queen-sized bed, a wedding gift from her father-in-law. His blue and white bassinet she used as a sort of storage basin where she kept his baby blankets, socks and one-piece pajamas. He never laid in it for even a minute.

Helena told me this story when I first met her as I sat in her tiny living room in her tiny Pennsylvania house and thumbed through her family albums. She had volumes of pictures, meticulously documenting Joaquin’s life from the moment he was born. There were photos of him nursing in her arms; Joaquin in the baby swing, in the tub, in mid-crawl on their shag carpeting. Joaquin in the window of his seat on the school bus that took him to kindergarten and in his peewee baseball uniform.

Helena had recorded all of it, she told me, first with an old brownie camera, then a Polaroid, then an old Nikon EM SLR that she pulled off the shelf to photograph me sitting at Joaquin’s bedside on that very same day he brought me to meet her. Now I was to become part of the story of her son’s life. My rite of passage was the photograph.

By the time I’d met Helena on that rainy day in July, I’d been smoking meth for eight months. My looks were still intact and I could still feign a functional life to my family and friends back home in New York. I was able to keep my boss, an eccentric painter who worked from a studio behind his Pittsburgh home, happy, completing all the menial, trivial and occasionally bizarre errands he sent me to accomplish. His work sold all over Manhattan—paintings of juxtaposed disembodied limbs and national landmarks. Their meanings escaped me but the paychecks filled my pipe.

Joaquin, on that same rainy day, had just come down from his first encounter with crack cocaine. Helena thought he had a flu of some sort and tucked him into the same bed he slept in as a baby, with promises of tea and soup when he felt up to it. I had almost expected mother and son to cuddle up together in that bed for the rest of the night, banishing me to the living room with old photographs and vintage cameras and an urge to get high. But after pulling the duvet up to his chin and shutting the drapes, Helena motioned for me to follow her back into the living room. "He needs to rest. Pobrecito."

*****

"I don’t know why you kids don’t protect yourself better from germs at that school,” Helena said to me after she had secured Joaquin in the bed. “And look at you— you’re so skinny! Are you hungry?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Ay, please, call me Helena. Ma’am makes me sound like an old white woman.”

“Okay, Helena. I don’t think I’m well enough to eat. In fact, can I lie down somewhere?”

“Si mi’ja. You can sleep in the old nursery if you don’t mind blue teddy bears on the wall.”

I did mind the creepy little fur balls on the wall but chose to say nothing. In a way I was glad that Joaquin shared his mother’s bed growing up instead of sleeping in this updated walk-in closet. The décor was overdone with cheap wallpaper and carpeting, and it all could have used a deep cleaning. Blue oozed from everywhere—the lamp, the baseboards, the windowsill—as if a pale smurf had exploded into the room and all of its kitchy innards where on display.

Still, the bed was a bed and it would do, even if what I really wanted was to get high and rest my head on Joaquin’s chest in the bed in the next room. Even in withdrawal I knew his mother wouldn’t go for it. I sat on top of the blue duvet, hugging my knees to my chest, watching the bears on the wall closely. “I won’t die by teddy bear,” I told myself until the familiar anxiety lulled me to sleep. “I won’t die by teddy bear in this awful, blue room tonight."

****************

In Defense Of Crack: A Love Story by Raquel I. Penzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Excerpt From "Erasing Cedrick"

2010-12-13T05:13:00.003-05:00

Dedicated to all the greats that inspired this haunting tale: Stephen King, Clive Barker, Joss Whedon and the TV movie "Devil's Food"

---------

“So I just sign on the dotted line?”

“That's what it's there for. Just a few quick strokes of your pen. Two seconds of your time. Really not that much considering. And then the contract will be in effect.” His small, dark eyes glisten as he says this to me, and I can't be sure but I swear I see droplets of saliva escape the sides of his mouth.

“It's such a big decision, though. Can I have a day or two to consider it?” I get that itchy sensation in the palm of my hand that always appears when something is not right. Ever since I was a child I could sense when I was about to fail a test, get in trouble at home or have an accident. As I grew the feelings faded, but when they came they were prominent. It was a warning sign. Something was not right.

“Sweetheart, if you sign on the dotted line right now, you will have an eternity to mull it over.” He sits closer to me, holding up a round mirror with a gloved hand. The pungent smell of the leather attaches itself to my nose hairs as if the gloves were just made and sent overnight from Tangiers. I am brought back to my trip to Morocco, right after high school, something I did to try and find myself. It is a benefit of having parents raised in the Free Love era; carte blanc to piss off the real world responsibilities and extend adolescence for a few more years.

I stayed with the family of a friend I'd made while volunteering at the hospital. Bibiana Fernández was a medical student, and we became fast friends the moment I heard her being summoned by one of the nurses. “You have a beautiful name,” I told her when we had a spare moment in the break room. “Where are you from?”

“Tangiers. Morocco. And my name is not so beautiful; it is a burden.” Bibiana had a most interesting accent that I couldn't place having never before met a Moroccan on the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut. “My parents, they named me after this actress they admire. She is a man.” That revelation hung in the air for a few seconds before she laughed an infectious laugh. “It is a joke! The actress and I have the same name by chance only.”

Bibiana's parents had meager accommodations, nothing like I was used to, but I immediately felt as one of their own. I barely noticed that my bed was uncomfortable, or that the stench of livestock was embedded into the textiles. Mr. Fenandez made leather all day for a couture label, and when he returned home at the end of the day he added many new malodorous layers to the house. Upon returning to Connecticut, I had to launder my clothes three times to rid myself of what my mother called “that dead carcass smell.” I hardly noticed it.

His gloved hand, ever so close to my nose, smells just like the Fernandez's house.

“Have you ever been to Tangiers?” I ask him out of sheer anxiety.

“I've been everywhere,” he responds in a low whisper. “And now I'm here. With you.” I am unsure if his last statement is meant to make me trust him, but it has the opposite effect. My palm itches so much at this point that it's almost painful, as if a small fire is brewing in my hand. “Look at that beautiful, smooth face,” he says, making sure to angle the mirror so that the lesion in front of my left ear is not visible. “You must drive the men wild with your smile, right? I just bet you do!”

I let out a chuckle despite myself, even though I am very aware of the chill that runs up my spine. I'd never met a man that repelled and attracted me at the same time before. “You have to say that.”

“Don't be coy with me, Lillian. It's not becoming. You know you are a stunningly beautiful woman. I mean, even I was taken aback when you walked in!” The combination of reprehension and admiration in his tone confuses me. I try to turn my face to the right, to see the thing that ruins my reflection, but he keeps my head still. “No, Lillian. No.” He sits even closer, and his full lips are pulled taut as he exhales hot breath on my neck. “Don't you want to keep this beautiful, smooth, young face the way it is?”

“Yes, but...”

He pulls away from me taking the mirror with him. “But what? I've written everything you asked for into the contract. What's there to think about?” He was soap opera handsome. The kind of man, if you could call him a man, that probably knows his way around a woman's body. His dark hair was perfectly coiffed to look carelessly tousled, and his eyes, his eyes were my favorite. They don't look at me, they look into me. It was the first thing I noticed when I walked in and faced the man behind the voice on the phone. They were cold eyes and yet, I didn't want them to stop looking at me.

“Forever. It's such a long time, I guess. It might be more than I bargained for, you know?”

He furrows his brow at my hesitation and I can tell his patience is waning. My chilled spine and burning palm send sensory alarms to my brain that all seem to yell run! But I cannot. Or, more accurately, will not. Part of me still wants to be here and sign the contract. It was me, after all, that sought him out. “Forever, my dear, is everything it promises to be and more.”

I take the hand mirror that he now slides over to me and hold it up in front of me. I do like my face. Very symmetrical, a painter on the streets of Manhattan told me once. After Tangiers I went to New York City to visit the son of a diplomat I met while staying in the Fernandez house. David. He was attending film school and invited me to crash with him before the term began. One night after a large seafood dinner in Little Italy, a middle-aged man stopped us as we turned onto Spring Street and he fixed his eyes on my face. He was carrying an over-sized blank canvas and an art case in one hand, and a computer bag in the other. His features were soft but dark, and I remember that it occurred to me David could be this man's son. He was what David might look like at age 50.

“Young lady, you’re beautiful!” he said. “Your face…it’s very symmetrical. Your fella is very lucky.” And just like that kept walking along Spring Street.

“That was odd,” David muttered.

“What? Don’t you think I’m beautiful?”

“Oh no, I’m not falling for that classic trap.”

“No look at me. Am I beautiful?” I made him stop walking and look at me like the middle-aged man looked at me.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I want to know.”

“If I were casting a movie, honestly, you'd get the role of the best friend and confidant.”

“Are you for real right now?”

“What? That's not a bad thing! Sometimes we just want the girl next door. The one that's more accessible. The leading lady has too many suitors, you know? It's easier to go after her friend. The chances are better.”

I nodded after every sentence, quietly constructing a to-do list in my head of everything I needed to repack once we got back to his apartment. David took my hand and smiled, gently pulling me in the direction of his building. “Are we good?”

“Yeah. We're fine.” I thought it easier to leave in the morning after we'd had sex one more time and he'd gone to register for classes. I didn't bother to leave a note.

****************

Erasing Cedrick by Raquel I. Penzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Saturday @ the Cinema: Latinbeat 2010

2010-09-15T15:23:00.002-04:00

Yes, I spent the whole day in a movie theater, watching movies, like the junkie I am!

Saturday @ the Cinema: Latinbeat 2010

Latinbeat 2010 Opens with Argentine Blockbuster

2010-09-15T15:11:00.001-04:00

Film review for XI Magazine:

Latinbeat 2010 Opens with Argentine Blockbuster

Santana, Davis and Friends Rock Your Socks Off in New CD

2010-09-15T14:56:00.002-04:00

A review of "Guitar Heaven" for XI Magazine:

Santana, Davis and Friends Rock Your Socks Off in New CD

Who's Got Next: Jerzy Jung

2010-08-27T10:03:00.001-04:00

via XI Magazine online...

Click HERE to read the article.

I'm BACK, baby!!

Excerpt From "Fighting Insomnia; A Relationship In Snippets"

2010-05-05T00:01:00.001-04:00

*dedicated to Dan Tres Omi who, with the simple sentence "I'm sure you have a lot to say" got me to pick up my pen again to finish this three-year-old story.

-----------

Bad Nights

It all felt so real: his hands on my legs, caressing me from ankle to thigh; his whispers in my ear- soft, beautiful words; and kisses, delicate ones, all over me. But it was just another vivid dream jolting me awake. 3am again. Like clockwork.

It all felt like love, too, like the feeling one gets at the movies when the star-crossed lovers kiss and the butterflies flutter about and the music crescendos.

Everything, every spoken word, every gesture of kindness, it all felt like real love. Even after only a couple of weeks of knowing each other. And especially now that it was gone.

I fought myself for another couple of minutes before I opened my eyes to the moon that peeked in through the bedroom window sometimes.

I sat up, ignoring the mess of clothes, broken glass, empty beer cans and plates of rotting food that decorated my bedroom, definitely not something that Martha Stewart would ever feature in her magazine. Depression chic, I called it.

Now that it was just me in the California King that we’d picked out together, tossing about in my sleep every night, and fighting his ghost at every turn, I decided it would be my last night in the room.

I grabbed my pillow and blanket and headed to the couch. I pushed aside the cushions we had once used in a playful pillow fight, and arranged a cozy, makeshift bed. 4am; the light from my neighbor’s window across the alley shone in my face. She was up already, making breakfast and lunch for her husband. The curtains on my window were dangling from the bent curtain rod I had thrown a boot at last week. Each day they slipped further down off the rod, and I guessed it had maybe two days before it fell in a heap on the floor.

That curtain was me, two weeks ago, on the phone with him.

“Nicholas? I’ve been calling you all week! What’s going on?”

“I know, Carmen, I’m sorry, I meant to call you before.” I could tell from the tone in his voice. I already knew what was coming next.

“Are you avoiding me?” I asked.

“I just…I’ve been thinking. We’re moving so fast.”

The Backslide

There was no mistaking those deep brown eyes, even if the hairline was farther back than I remembered. He was once the love of my life and now there he was- a face in the crowd waiting in line for the free concert at the park. And he notices me right away.

Although we give each other genuine smiles, the hug is stiff and awkward. The memory of the last time we saw each other was evidently still fresh in both our minds. I steal a quick glance at his hand, making sure he sees mine holds no ring as well.

The “what ifs” come racing back after so many years apart but I don’t let on. I do, however, fill up on his familiar scent. How can he still smell like that after all these years?

“What are you doing these days? Are you still in Brooklyn?” he asks, and his use of the word still makes me feel stagnant.

“I jut moved back a few years ago,” I say a little too defensively. I want to say, I DID move on, you know! I hardly think of you ever! but clench my jaw instead. “I finally opened my event planning company. You?”

“I’m actually up in Soundview now; found a place close to work. I’m still teaching up on the Hill.” He uses still again, I notice, but this time he made it sound permanent and consistent and responsible. Typical of him.

I don’t miss my chance to chide him, though. “Just teaching? Not department head? Or dean?”

He doesn’t miss a beat, either. “I’m head coach on the tennis team. It doesn’t leave too much time for anything other than a few classes a day. We’ve been city champs since I’ve been there, you know.” Checkmate.

“Yes, I remember.” Just like that, just seconds after I had held his cologne in my nose hairs for later use, he reminds me why we weren’t together anymore. Why I gave him back his ring. “So I didn’t know you were a fan of reggae music. What brings you back to the ‘hood?”

“My girlfriend is Jamaican; she’s been waiting for this concert all summer.”

Girlfriend. Girlfriend. He uses the G word in my face and doesn’t even flinch. I hope he doesn’t notice my stifled grimace. There really isn’t a way to come back from that so I don’t attempt it. “Well I hear they put on a great show so you’re both in for a treat. Enjoy it,” I say, walking away and waving at the man that was almost my husband, almost the father of my children. The man who held my hand at my dad’s funeral and helped me bail my sister out of jail. The man who encouraged me to go into business for myself long before I had amassed the courage to do it. I wave at him as if he wasn’t the one who gave me some of the most deliciously orgasmic nights of my entire adult life, as if he was an old co-worker that I’d run into while waiting in line for a concert. It was the only bit of ammunition I had left in my arsenal: indifference.

Two weeks later, he is in my bed. Naked. Sweaty. Burying his face between my thighs as if we’d never been apart. Jamaican girlfriend? What girlfriend? She didn’t exist in these sheets. He is in my bed, in my folds, in my arms, in my mouth.

“You still have the Santa Barbara I got for you in Venezuela?” I followed his gaze towards the tiny statuette of the famed saint on the night stand. She had dust particles caught in the crevices of her eyes, nose and mouth and it occurred to me that I hadn’t given her an offering since Nicholas was last here.

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. Everything else of mine is gone, I guess I just figured she’d be gone, too.”

“It’s not Santa Barbara’s fault you’re an asshole. It wouldn’t have been fair to throw her away.”

We laid in silence for a few minutes long enough for me to construct a small poem to the rhythm of his heart:

We always
Meet here
In bed
In silence
And fuck
All night
Til morning
Then leave

“Why are you here?” I break the silence after my own heart-poem upsets me.

“What do you mean?” He answered my question with a question. Again. My number one pet peeve.

“I hate when you do that! You know what I mean. Why are you here?”

“I thought you wanted…”

“What? Your dick? Because that’s all you’ve offered me so far. In fact, that’s all you’ve ever offered me!” I find myself picking this fight for no other reason than me being upset about forgetting to offer tribute to Santa Barbara and that being Nicholas' fault somehow.

He lets go of me and slides over. I suppose it is rather stupid to continue spooning with someone who calls you emotionally unavailable.

“Are we really going to do this again?” His tone said it all. We were right back where we were three years ago when he left. Nothing had changed and I’d been too blind to see it.

“Get out!” I say, more angry at myself than at him. He was the same Nicholas he
always was and I was the same idiot I always was, who’d refused to see it.

“Carmen, you’re being…”

I put my hand up to interrupt him. “Nicholas I swear to god if you finish that sentence I’m going to smack the shit out of you. Just get out! Leave! Isn’t that what you do best anyway?”

His confused face angered me more than Santa Barbara’s dusty eyes. All I could think was, Why couldn’t he get it? “Yeah, you’re right,” he says, putting on his clothes, “but only because your specialty is pushing me away!” Nicholas stops to look me square in the face. “You think it was easy for me to walk away from us? You did that. You ended us. You threw my ring in my face.”

I slap him in that infuriatingly gorgeous face of his and waited for the sting of his retaliation to pulse through my own cheek. It didn’t.

“Fine,” he says, my hand print very visible across his jaw. “But this is the last time, Carmen. I mean it.” And I could tell by his tone…he meant it.

****************

Fighting Insomnia; A Relationship in Snippets by Raquel I. Penzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

House Keeping

2009-09-13T17:11:00.002-04:00

we were a tangle of limbs the
morning you left
echoes of screeching tires sang
along the parkway below our window
and last night’s fried platanos were still on the table, forgotten.
you stole a kiss from me that morning. as I
stared at the sword encased above your desk
you mumbled, “What are you thinking about?”
“Montauk,” I whispered. “The waves at Ditch Plains.
And the roach spray we bought at that 99-cent store
in Miami. Remember?”
you planted another kiss on my face to hide
your lapse in memory. You didn’t remember any of it.
still, my face found a temporary comfort in the curve of your neck,
your cologne still lingering with our last trip together,
and we both let sighs escape from our lips.
we were a beautiful mess that morning: me the girl from Brooklyn with
too many memories and you the boy from Yugoslavia with none,
waiting to be tidied up.

-------------
this is the first of works produced as a result of attending the Acentos Writing Workshop at Hostos Community College... in this assignment we had to create a poem using ten words that were written on the board (seen here in bold).

Suicide Attempt #2

2009-07-14T19:16:00.004-04:00

"There's never been an endeavor so strange as trying to slow the blood in my veins..." -ani difranco, Studying Stones

We all get to that point. You know the one, where we perceive everything in our lives to be going to shit, that we're doing everything wrong, that there's hardly a reason to even get out of bed and breathe.

There's always that point. That crushing, suffocating point where you cannot see the forest for the trees, and the only solution that seems logical is to not be. To disappear and pray you're reincarnated as something that does not have feelings or rent or breasts.

I was there very recently.

Every solution I thought up to my myriad of problems seemed stupid and un-doable. Life became this super-gigantic chore that I hardly had the energy for. I laid on my couch listening to my stomach grumbling and refused to feed it. I had to pee, felt the pain of my bladder & kidneys SCREAMING for relief and I refused them. My lips were dry from thirst and I only eyed my water bottle with disdain.

I wanted to refuse my body every request it made of me, no matter how dire or necessary that request became, because I wanted it to stop feeling, stop doing, stop BEING.

Almost an entire day I spent like that, fighting natural instincts the human body had developed over centuries of evolution, hoping against hope (because I'm a closet scientist and I know for a fact this wasn't going to work) that I'd just die.

My head was throbbing, I was dizzy; my vertigo was kicking in big time for lack of food and water and relief and even the slightest movement was really at my own risk. Eventually I really felt as if I'd gone mad, and in only a few hours, too. I really began convincing myself that this was going to work, that I just wouldn't eat or drink or use the bathroom and before sunset it would all be over.

Then my eye caught sight of Grandma's picture, tacked to my bulletin board, looking back at me. All of a sudden I felt so ashamed and embarrassed that I would sully her name by leaving behind a messy house. Stupid, right? So I got up to clean but I was so dizzy I fell on my ass right back on the couch. The impact triggered my strong urge to urinate but I didn't want to ruin my sofa... my beloved sofa that I'd paid for with my own money. So I ran to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I let loose such a stream with an uncontrollable sigh of relief escaping from my lips.

And as I washed my hands afterward, nothing looked so inviting as the water pouring from my faucets. I wanted that water so bad that if I had to, I would have killed for it. So I drank it until I was gorged on tap water and some had threatened to come back up through my nose.

When I looked up into the mirror, my face... god my face was so sad. Just the saddest eyes and mouth I'd ever seen on another human being ever. I cried right there on the floor in front of the sink at this sad, sad girl I'd become. I didn't know this girl. This wasn't who I set out to be yet here I was: depressed & suicidal.

There were no pills in my cabinet and I dared not draw my own blood. My apartment is only on the second floor and traffic by me was not the kind one can get killed in. I wasn't even successful at death.

What was there to look forward to? More days like this? Unable to even take my own life? Failure upon failure upon failure?

But as my mind wandered, as my mind is wont to do, Sean Paul came on my iTunes and I thought, "I wonder if he'll sing song this at Wingate this summer?"

Isn't that always the way? Just a simple question that demands an answer... sometimes that's all it takes. That's all it took to get me off the floor and in front of a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and a tall glass of milk.

****************

Suicide Attempt #2 by Raquel I. Penzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Excerpt From "Enfermos"

2009-02-23T00:01:00.004-05:00

I fumble with my keys, looking behind me in terror. I’ve practiced this terrified look in the bathroom mirror many times. C’mon, c’mon, I whisper. The jingling of my keys will give me away if I don’t get this door…OPEN! I’ve used the wrong key, and the lock refuses to turn. I can feel Pop, the creepy guy from next door, peeping through the door at me. “You okay?” he says through the door. This heightens my anxiety. I have to get out of the stairwell. Pop may be one of the bad guys. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken those caramels from him last week?

This is Day 3 of practicing my serial-killer-victim, mad-dash-to-the-door. The keys are new. Yesterday, I banged on the door screaming, “Let me in, let me in,” but Nana didn’t appreciate it. “Niña,” she yelled. “¿Estas loca?” She had sweat dripping from her brow from the heat of the stove, and a crazed look in her eye. She hadn’t had time to put on her shades. Her brown eye glared at me in frustration. The green, bruised one was confused.

“Sorry, I was just playing,” I mumbled to myself.

“Play-ing?” she asked in her broken English, mocking me. “This no funny! Entra, ya, before they call police!” she whispered while pointing to Pop’s door.

So today I choose the classic horror movie key fumble. I thought for sure no one would hear, but I forgot about our nosy neighbors - they hear and see everything we do.

I finally get the door open, slam it behind me and lock it. I brace myself against the door taking quick victory breaths. Made it! “¡Niña, por Dios! ¡No estrayes la puerta! ¿Que te pasa?” She’s getting fed up with my entrances. Tonight she will tell my mother. I feel it.

I walk down the hallway toward her, head down, whispering, “Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m just acting.” She puts her hand up to stop me.

“Oye, Yadira ees esleeping here, okay? So callate la boca.”

“What’s she doing here?” On a Thursday? Didn’t she go to school today?

“Esta enferma.”

I nod at my grandmother and tip-toe into the den. Yadira is laying on the full-sized bed, the one that used to be Elenita’s, the one that used to be in Nana’s bedroom before the bunkbeds took its place. She is on her stomach, her face buried in the pillow. Her orange-red hair is spread out across her back, just reaching her naked upper thigh.

Yadira is wearing Elenita’s “Ice Cream is Brain Food” night shirt. I recognize the lavender trim on the cap sleeves. This is going to be a problem later, for sure. If I know my cousin, she’s gonna catch a fit that Nana allowed Yadira to wear her clothes.

I follow Nana into the kitchen, putting my book bag on the little brown school-chair that is also Elenita’s. It occurs to me, suddenly, that nothing here is mine. “What’s wrong with her?” I whisper to my grandmother as she stirs the beans with one hand, and adds flour-coated eggplant slices to a pan of hot oil with the other.

“No te preocupes. Go do you homework,” she instructs.

This smells of a scandal. Whenever I “shouldn’t worry myself” over something, it means the grown-ups will discuss it later. I hear Nana curse under her breath in Spanish, something about ginger.

“Agarra aqui,” she says, calling me back and handing me the spatula. I despised fried eggplant, and now she wanted me to help her cook it? Nana wipes her brow on her housecoat, the white one with the blue flowers and the missing buttons. A few stray salt-n-pepper strands of her soft hair remain pasted to her forehead. “I go to the store” she declares, and leaves me in the kitchen.

“Going,” I call after her. “I’m going to the store.” She sucks her teeth, walking through the long hallway towards her bedroom to get dressed and go.

When she is gone, I transfer the eggplant to a plate covered with layers of paper towels and turn off the flame. The rice, beans and London Broil smell done, and I turn them off, too. Quietly, I inch over to the entryway of the den. Yadira is now lying on her side. Sections of redness have fallen over the side of the bed. I notice that she’s blinking, staring at the white molded ceiling of Nana and Papi’s third floor walk-up. Even her eyelashes are orange, seeming almost like they are not there. She is covered in red freckles all over her pink skin.

Yadira is curvy, with large breasts for her age. The first of us girl cousins to grow up. She is fifteen now, but had been this voluptuous for three years. Voluptuous. I learned that word last week. I liked the way it rolled off my tongue. I long to personify the definition. Personify was yesterday’s word. Elenita and I are still in training bras.

“Are you awake?” I ask her quietly. Wherever Nana is, her senses are telling her that I have awakened her patient.

“Yeah.” I walk over to the bed and sit next to her hair, gently running my hand over it. It feels rough, like straw.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“You’re too young to know,” Yadira doesn’t look at me. She stays fixed on the moldings. A tiny roach crawls up the wall next to the bed and we both follow it on its path up to the ceiling with our eyes. “Goddam this fucking house and the fucking roaches!” she complains. She covers her face with a pillow and sobs.

“Don’t cry, Nana will make you feel better. I think she went to get ginger for your tea.” It was her cure-all: ginger tea with orange peels.

“What the fuck do you know?” Yadira stops crying and grabs my arm. “You’re just a stupid kid with no problems!” She lets go of me and I yank at her hair.

“Well then fuck you, too” I yell. That is going to cost me three Hail Mary’s tomorrow. “And I’m not stupid, you are.”

“That’s right, you’re the smartest thing alive, no? You want to know what’s wrong, smarty pants? I just got kicked out of my house.”

“Why? What happened?” My anger for her leaves. What would cause Tia Frida to throw her only daughter out of the house?

“Because Sammy got me pregnant, and I got an abortion. There. Now you know everything.” She throws her face back into the pillow. “Now go get your brainiac dictionary and look it up. You know you want to.”

There is a thick pause between us. Instantly, I no longer crave her curves. I suddenly want nothing to do with breasts and hips and vaginas with pubic hair. I want voluptuous out of my memory bank. “I don’t have to, I know what it means.” I stare at my hands. Planned Parenthood ladies had already visited my fourth grade class to talk about our changing bodies and the consequences of those changes. The nuns added their own piece on treating our bodies as temples for Jesus. “You know you can go to hell for that, right?”

“Fuck you and your fucking priests! You think I believe in that shit?”

“It’s not shit!” Damn! Three more Hail Mary’s! I am letting her get me in trouble. Where is Nana already?

I turn away from Yadira towards the hallway to the living room. I don’t have to take this.

“Wait. I’m sorry Muñequita.” She looks up at me with puffy red eyes that almost match her hair. “Please sit with me till Nana gets back?” I sit at the edge of the bed and stares out the window at the head of the bed, while Yadira returns to her moldings. “I know I’m going to hell. You think I don’t know? I been going to hell. This abortion ain’t gonna make no bigger difference.” We sit in silence some more, neither one looking at the other, until she decides to change the subject and lighten the mood. “How’s the acting going? Elenita told me you got in trouble for dirtying your uniform?”

“Yeah. I’m practicing being chased by a killer. Day before last my throat was cut on the steps before I could even reach the door to bang on it. I had to crawl the rest of the way, gurgling for help.” She laughs at my recounting of Day 1 with this new study. “I managed to tap weakly on the bottom of the door, and then Nana opens it and says '¡Ay Dios Mio!' I do my best impression of my grandmother, throwing my hands up in the air, sending Yadira into full-on laughter. "'You’re getting all dirty!'" I use my best Nana-English, and Yadira is in hysterics. “Then she made me wash my uniform in the bathroom sink, by hand: jumper, knee socks, vest and shirt- the whole thing! Nana doesn’t understand modern cinema.”

“She understands, but you know that your mother would have beat your ass if your uniform had come home dirty on a Tuesday.” Yadira pauses to wipe tears of laughter from her eyes and stares at the ceiling again. “Nana understands a lot.”

“Yeah, I guess. She never told on me.” I look back out the window. For a second I think I see a shadow pass by the window across the alley from us, the window of the third floor of the abandoned building. I hate that window. “What does it feel like?”

“Sex? Or the abortion?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re too smart to end up like me. You’ll probably marry some great Catholic guy and it will be painless and perfect.”

“It hurts?”

“When you’re a girl, everything hurts.”

“Oh,” I said. I peek up at the moldings for a minute. I try to find what Yadira is looking for, help her out in the spirit of Jesus. Save her soul. Then I hear Nana’s heavy footsteps on the stairs, her key in the lock, her breathing in the doorway. I lean over the side of the bed and say “hey” to her as she shuffles towards the den. Her scowl sends me upright.

“You in trouble?”

“Yep. I better go do my homework.” I get up, grab my book bag from the chair in the kitchen and begin walking towards the living room, again. I keep my head down to avoid Nana’s glare.

“Muñequa,” Yadira calls after me as I pass the bathroom. “What’s your word today?”

“Ubiquitous.”

“Jesus Christ! What the hell does that mean?”

I walk back towards the den. “It’s an adjective. It means ‘being present everywhere at once’. Like God, you know, omnipresent.”

“You’re nuts! When are you ever going to use that word?”

I sit at the edge of the bed again, thinking. “I don’t know.”

Yadira laughs her hearty laugh that draws me into her. “Go do your homework.”

**********

When Papi walks in it is exactly 4:30, just like everyday. He is wearing his navy blue work pants with the black sneakers he bought last week on Bushwick Avenue. I run to him, as usual, and jump in his arms. “Bendicion,” I say, kissing his cheek. I am almost as tall as he is. I wonder if I will pass him.

“Dios te bendiga, Muñequita,” He kisses my forehead. I hug him, placing my head on his chest. He smells of Old Spice, and his beard is prickly with the day’s growth.

“Yadira is here,” I whisper to him. “Tía Frida kicked her out.”

“Quien dijo?” he asks me, frowning. Papi dislikes gossip. “Yadira vino porque esta enferma.” He scowls. She must have come last night-he already knows.

We walk the hallway together into the den, arms linked. I notice he’s holding a red and white striped paper bag, stapled shut. “What’s that?”

“Ees fo Nana.”

“What is it?” We enter the den, where Yadira is sitting up in the bed now, watching TV and finishing up her tea.

“Her medicine,” she replies. Papi sucks his teeth and rolls his eyes at Yadira. This is something I’m not supposed to know. “What? You think you can hide stuff from this one?” she points to me. “You might as well tell her.”

I look from Papi to Yadira and back. He also is covered in freckles, but his are brown, like a pinto bean. His hat is still secured to his head, but his jacket is now on the back of a chair. Yadira begins to stare out the window, shaking her head. I feel nervous all of a sudden and walk into the kitchen to look Nana in her face. “Nana, are you sick?” I open my eyes as wide as I can push them. I want to take in her whole figure while I wait for her answer.

“No, no. Son vitaminas.” She doesn’t look at me while she speaks. She busies herself serving Papi’s plate of food: the largest piece of London Broil cooked in tomato sauce with chunks of potatoes, a heaping mound of white rice, roman beans, and three hefty slices of the fried eggplant.

“She has diabetes,” Yadira yells from the den. I hear Nana say “coño” under her breath. “Go look it up, Muñequa.”

Diabetes. I don’t know it. I’ve heard about it, but I don’t think I really paid attention. Something to do with sugar and needles. Needles. I look at Nana, and she looks the same as always. It’s something inside her body. I walk out of the kitchen quickly, avoiding eye contact with my grandparents and cousin. “No vas a comer?” Nana yells after me.

“I’m not hungry.”

In the living room, I grab my dictionary from on top of the mantle, stopping only to stare at the large mirror attached to the wall. My hair is in two French braids today. I do my own hair now that I’ve learned how to braid and my mom is too busy with the new babies. My shirt is not as white as it was on Monday. Tomorrow after school I will be made to scrub it clean by hand, just like I do every Friday. The eyes looking back at me wink. “Leave us alone!” I yell at it. “Just leave us alone!” The shadow behind the winking eyes does not retreat, so I do and sit on the plastic-covered couch.

I hold the dictionary tight to my chest with my eyes shut. Most of the words in it are underlined or highlighted, words that I’ve looked up and forced into my vocabulary. Diabetes, such a simple-sounding word, is not one of them. I find the word, but the definition means nothing to me: inadequate secretion or utilization of insulin. I need a medical book, like the one I saw at the bookstore on Flatbush Avenue last week. Or answers.

Sweat accumulates on my back. With my stomach grumbling quietly, I get up and walk back to the den. Nana, Papi and Yadira are eating and watching the news on Channel 47. There are men in army attire holding large guns and running all over the street. Costa Rica, I think. Maybe Columbia. They’re always fighting over there.

“Quieres comer?”

“I can get my plate.” I look at Nana. “Are you okay?”

“Ay, si, m’ija. Ees jus my shooga. Estoy bien.”

I nod in agreement, as if I understand and go to the kitchen to get some dinner.

Justhersugarjusthersugarjusthersugarjusthersugar

I sit with them at the table. Nobody is talking, just watching the news. We are all waiting for the eight o'clock novelas to come on. Even the shadows from across the alley, from the window I hate, are still.

****************

Enfermos by Raquel I. Penzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

10.01.97

2008-10-28T13:29:00.000-04:00

behind my lids
images of dancing tree limbs
and tumbling leaves
flow through like silent movies of
Autumn

i watch, serenely, smelling
the breeze, feeling the scents
on my cheeks, waiting for the intermission
trying to remember
where the concessions were being sold

Something About--

2008-10-28T13:25:00.000-04:00

--your stance, your presence
holding grinding melodic tones
infusing me with rhythm

your sweat dripping, dangling
off the ends of each curl

your fingers dancing over
chords; their swiftness a
grandeur before me

I wait for that gust of wind
to expose your face, deep
into the riffs and progressions
I close my eyes and I can see it

Your music..
You...

are those your bedroom eyes?

do your lips taste sweet behind
that cloud of smoke, with ashes
clinging to the filter?

do you sway that way
when the lights go out?
if it were just us in a room
with no eyes?

just another cool cat in a top hat?
with something about him?

what would our song be?

Spring Poem

2008-10-28T13:20:00.000-04:00

a warmth in my room woke me to the
delicious fear of a bright yellow
something, something so radiantly loud
that my face sought refuge from the glare

silently, peeking through my fingers,
i saw the drapes were open,
leaving me bare...exposed...weak
desperately shielding my eyes

helpless, I tossed my pillow
at that blasted window, scaring
away the chipper singers who had
begun to compete with the alarm clock

and like an angered Zeus who’d
lost his thunder, I sprung out of bed
still dizzy from sleep,
frantically wondering:

What happened to the snow?

What A Conversation We Had

2008-10-28T12:59:00.000-04:00

We shared a stolen glance;

In a ball gown and black tie room,
a crowd of diamonds and stilettos
and champagne,
our eyes found each other
and smiles followed
yours with slight dimples and creases
mine with sharp edges and adoration.

Silky whispers caressed our ears
a meshed chatter fluttering by
nodded at, ignored

Only your laugh lines hold on to me;
their aged wisdom traveling from
lip to chin, across your brow-
and your smile, I fall into it
like Alice down the rabbit hole

I follow your smile
floating and weightless;
I am airborne in your presence
I can be anywhere, anything
transformed and reinvented

The air kisses my cheeks
chilling the curves of my skin
ruffling the layers of my gown
and when I touch ground it’s
your smile that envelopes me
holds me like a warm blanket
at Christmas, plush and comforting
and soft—I wrap myself in it each
subsequent night

And I am on the Sears Tower
looking down at you waiting for
your smile to catch me
I want to fall again
I want to stay in your glance

Across a ball gown and black tie
room, with champagne glasses
and stiletto steps
our eyes found each other and
smiles followed.

And you noticed me.

I Used To Only Be Dominican

2008-10-15T17:14:00.000-04:00

As a first-generation Dominican-American, I can recall many encounters with non-Latinos that really set off “light bulbs” in my head. However, one in particular still resonates with me today.

Before I started kindergarten, my world only consisted of my family. We didn’t play outside and there was no such thing as pre-school; we stayed with Grandma until the New York City Department of Education said it was time we went to school. Naturally, this meant I did not speak English and everything I knew was 100% attached to who my grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles were. My only connection with the outside world was the time I spent people watching from the window of our third floor walk-up.

Even the television shows we watched were in Spanish. I was American-born for sure, but was kept within the walls of Grandma’s railroad apartment in Brooklyn. I was Dominican and nothing else.

Fast forward to my predominately African-American kindergarten classroom in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; I’m surrounded by children and adults who don’t look like me and don’t speak like me. Of course, kids being kids, even though I was the odd man out, I made friends right away.

One day, as I was playing “house” in the classroom kitchen with my new best friend Yolanda, she started cooking things that were foreign to me: collard greens, okra, catfish. I looked at her as if she were an alien.

“No, we’re cooking bistec with rice and beans and tostones and salad.” She quickly looked at me as if I were the alien.

“What’s that?” she asked me.

Huh? I remember thinking to myself. Is this girl crazy?

That was my first realization that not everyone ran their homes the way we ran our home.

Yolanda did not go home to find a tall glass of FrescAvena waiting for her. More than likely is was just juice or Kool-Aid or plain old milk.

Nor did she rush through her homework so that she could watch Las Amazonas on Channel 41. Perhaps she was busy watching any number of TV sitcoms that were popular at the time.

And I’m almost sure her Papi didn’t show up with stalks of sugar cane on Fridays as a pre-weekend treat. Maybe she got candy or chips or take-out.

All of this made me look at the people outside my window differently. Every time someone walked by, I wondered what shows they watched, if they lived for beisbol like we did. Did their Grandma add beets to the potato salad, and float pieces of real fruit in the fruit punch? Did they eat spaghetti with rice? Mangu with fried cheese? Sancocho?

It awakened a curiosity in me that has yet to be quelled.

This curiosity is probably what led me to a love of writing and literature and the life of a pseudo-journalist: I’ve always wanted to know about everything that was happening outside of my four walls, outside my window. I wanted the passersby to stop and tell me their stories. I wanted to eat catfish and okra and watch American shows and know what everybody was talking about when they spoke of what happened on TV the night before.

I wanted to know what it was about rap music that captivated my uncle more than merengue and salsa, while it repulsed my great-grandmother to no end. Why didn’t all the other little girls wear rolos and sit under the dryer for 2 hours every Sunday like I did? And how did they get their braids stuck to their scalps like that?!?!

Needless to say, I immersed myself in this “new world” I discovered (much like Columbus before me). My classroom was like a living breathing anthropological study I was thrown into, and it wasn’t long before my English was perfected and accent-less, I was more engrossed in The Facts of Life than I was in Channel 41, and my music collection began to include Prince and Michael Jackson instead of Fernandito and Celia Cruz.

Not to say that these were thrown by the wayside- it is impossible to grow up in my family and completely distance yourself from the Dominican-ness of it all, but, as a result of that very first conversation with Yolanda, I slowly became Dominican-American, as opposed to just Dominican.

And sometimes I wonder what Yolanda eats for dinner now, if she ever tried the tostones and bistec and the rice and beans…

At Night...

2008-09-29T12:30:00.000-04:00

...is when I notice you're not here

I reach out for you
from the corners of my room
only to have the memory of you slip through my fingers

I stumble around in the dark
trying to follow your scent
only to find myself up against these four walls

At night is when I am aware
of all the silence outside my window
and the noise inside my head

And that neither one will tell me
where you are

Excerpt From "Fresh Bruises"

2008-07-25T11:11:00.000-04:00

“Que pasó?”

Papi sits across from me at the living room table with his hands folded tight. This was the first time I’ve ever gotten in trouble with him and I don’t know what he is going to do. Usually when any of us kids gets in any trouble we get Nana’s slipper across our butts, or thrown at us if we try to run. Or sometimes my mom will actually try to be a mom and uses her belt. But Papi has never beat us.

“She started it!” I tell him, just so that he knows it wasn’t my fault.

“Eso no fue lo que te pregunte. Tell me what happened before Nana comes home.” And spanks you. That’s what he wants to say; I know it. “Why were you and Amanda fighting?” I suppose I can tell him the truth. Amanda is way on the other side of the apartment, our older cousin Yadira, visiting from Florida, keeping her quiet until it’s her turn to sit in front of Papi. Probably telling her lies about me. I just bet!

“I’m waiting…” said Papi, tapping on the table with his cigarette lighter.

---------------------------------------

The Talent

As soon as we walked through the door, Amanda grabbed the stereo. She didn’t even ask me if I wanted to tape today, she just grabbed it and said we were taping. I told her I wanted to eat first and she rolled her eyes at me. I know you say we shouldn’t fight, we’re sisters and it’s wrong to fight, and all that, but you don’t know how mean she is. She's worse than Trujillo! One day I'm gonna wake up and find some creepy guys with guns forcing me to wake up just to record another one of her stupid songs. No, she's worse than Trujillo--she's like, like Mommy Dearest meets the Exorcist!

Okay, well maybe not that bad, but she’s mean. I had to scarf down my food because she was rushing me. I didn’t even get to finish my chuleta before she grabbed the plate and said, “Okay, let’s go.” Sometimes I wonder why I bother playing with her. Things never go my way. I’m like her puppet! “Livvy sing this way,” or “Livvy this is today’s topic,” never “Livvy, what do you want to do today?” She thinks she’s the boss of me because she’s older and bigger, but she’s only older by 20 minutes!

And that damn contract I signed. What was I thinking? Oh you didn’t know about that, huh? She made me sign a contract- that I’d record a bunch of songs with her and only her and not try to record on my own. She's in total control and I get to be her lapdog, and you and Nana don’t even see it.

I was not in the mood for singing tonight and she knew it. I wish we could have just stayed home. If mamí had just gotten off her butt and cooked dinner…sorry. But she's another one that's no help. I know she knows what's going on with Amanda and me, but she doesn’t say anything to her.

And you know what? I don't always get all the credit I deserve, but without me, this show would be nothing. I do all the real work, not Amanda. All she does is sit on her fat butt and press a few buttons. No one pays to see a button-pusher. If we were in Hollywood, people would love me. They’d want to be me. Boys would want to marry me and girls would try to look like me.

Other shows wouldn’t be able to compete with my ratings. And it would all be because of me, because of my star power. My show would be seen and heard all over the world. My albums would sell millions of copies. I would get crazy money to keep me in limos and mansions. I’d only date movie stars and famous guitar players, and I can’t even count how many magazine covers I’d been on. I’d be the biggest thing since Elvis, for heaven’s sake! But does she even see that? No.

So here I am, still in this rotten living room doing this stupid show with Amanda. She should get down on her knees and thank me for all the good stuff I've brought her. I bet, if we tried to get into the Palladium she’d only get in because she’d be with me? No way a bouncer would let her in- just look at her. She's like 200 pounds, easy; she can't dress and always looks like she's ready to fight somebody.

Who wants to dance with someone like that?

And still she gets me in this living room whenever she says and acts like it her right to tell me what to do. Who does she think she is?

Plain and simple-she’s jealous. And why not? Can you blame her? I mean- look at me and look at her. She can't even carry a tune. I’ll be on top, and she can join the rest of the world and lick my rhinestone-studded boots.

Okay, so then she gave me the "ten-minutes-to-show-time, hurry-up-and-finish-eating" wave. Can't I have a minute of peace? Is digestion not in my contract? I just knew I had to sing that stupid theme song again. God, shoot me for ever saying I would do this. I should break out on my own. Get a new manager. Sign a bigger contract. Get out of this crappy studio once and for all. I could be Anita in West Side Story, or Rizzo in Grease. Maybe I'll let her be my limo driver. That'll take her down a notch.

I went into my dressing room, you know, the bathroom? And she just came right in. So I said, “Ever hear of knocking, Lardo?” I snapped. It was just too much! I mean, knocking- it’s not a new concept! She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Who you callin’ Lardo, stupid bitch?” Yeah. She called me a bitch, Papi, I swear to god.

Then she said, “Hurry up so we can tape the new song,” and I said “Why don’t you go choke on your new song; I'll be a big star one day, without you, thank you very much,” and that’s when she hit me. See, right here on my arm where it’s all black and blue? That’s where she hit me first.

---------------------------------

I can see Papi is listening to everything I say, and I know he’s making mental notes so he’ll know what to tell my mom when she comes to get us. A few times he made this horrified look on his face, so I know he can sympathize with what I have to put up with.

Finally, someone understands what I deal with everyday. He sees that this wasn’t my fault, that she pushed me. She started it. She always wants things her way. If I let her push me around forever, I’ll never be the star I know I can be. Maybe they’ll send her away to military school in Santo Domingo and I’ll never have to see her again.

****************

Fresh Bruises by Raquel I. Penzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

I'm Afraid To Love

2008-07-25T11:01:00.000-04:00

because love, for me
has always been fleeting

painful

love, for me, has always taken with it

tiny pieces of my soul

what will be left of me
if love comes again?

and then goes?

I Fill This Void

2008-07-18T00:36:00.000-04:00

with food.

So much food that it rises up into my esophagus
Teetering at the back of my throat
Threatening to spill out of my mouth

I fill that void
with sex.

Anonymous, no strings, fake names sex
Leaving in the dawn in a cab sex
Never call me again ever sex

I fill this void
with whiskey.

Shots lined up at the bar like chorus girls
Kicking their way down
Jazz hands scratching at my liver

I fill that void
with danger.

3AM alone on the platform
Taunting with my indifference, my apathy
Daring someone to come at me

I fill this void

with you.

RE: Staging A Home/Broker's Weekly

2008-06-26T12:50:00.000-04:00

Another piece of genius LOL

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/NYCPhotos/pdf/darren.pdf

Real Estate Piece

2008-06-26T12:28:00.001-04:00

Kelly was a sweetie; I enjoyed interviewing her!

http://www.corcoran.com/news/index.aspx?page=Article&pub_id=7108

if you don't mind...

2008-06-15T10:48:00.001-04:00

i'm gonna bathe in this love you've left behind by the bed
i'm gonna use it to rinse my hair; maybe soak my tired feet
maybe soak my tired soul

i'm gonna carry it in a Tupperware in my purse
feast on it on my lunch break; maybe add some pepper
to taste

i'm gonna sit it next to me on the sofa and watch
our favorite movie with it; i'll pop some popcorn and we'll
eat and laugh and

if you don't mind

i'm not going to tell anyone i still love you

Cover Me

2008-05-05T21:55:00.000-04:00

I don't wanna just feel your hands
on my body
or your kisses on my lips

I want to curl up
in your arms
and know that everything is going to be okay

Sometimes, It's Just A Hug

2008-05-03T23:53:00.000-04:00

the smell of your skin when my nose
is pressed against your chest

the strength of your arms, over my
arms, meeting at the small of my back

the softness of your sweater against
my cheek, muted colors of alpaca wool

the tender kisses you place on my forehead...

sometimes, this is all I need to get
to sleep at night

Latin Pulse Music Feature: DJ Medina

2007-10-29T17:17:00.001-04:00

http://www.latinpulsemusic.com/articles/show/34

Article for Latin Pulse Music

2007-04-25T12:03:00.000-04:00

Band review: La Bola

http://www.latinpulsemusic.com/articles/show/29

Article for clubplanet.com

2007-04-08T13:20:00.000-04:00

Can't get away from fashion even if I tried!

http://www.clubplanet.com/sidekick3dwade/night_ballin/fashion/can_a_tshirt_provoke_social.html

This is what happens when I can't sleep...

2006-12-10T01:36:00.000-05:00

i crave detachment

i want you to swoop in,
take what you need from me
and leave
i don’t want uttered words
or lingering kisses
i want harsh roughness,
the kind that leaves a mark
on my soul

i want you to pick me clean
of feeling and emotion
leave me shaken,
alone in the vacant corners
of the room
with nothing
of comfort or peace
for miles

i want you to rape my mind
and yank tears
from my eyes
i don’t want the shelter
of your arms
or whispered promises
i want lies and betrayal,
the kind from which I won’t
ever recover

i want you to love me fiercely
and then throw me
away
laugh in my face
and tell me I’m nothing,
nothing, nothing
until all I can hear
is the sound of your voice
saying it

Sleeping Dogs Lie

2006-10-21T03:20:00.000-04:00

Movie review recently published at www.nochelatina.com

Enjoy!

http://www.nochelatina.com/film/archives/pel237cula_spotlight_sleeping_dogs_lie.aspx

Words That Pay the Bills

2006-10-06T21:03:00.000-04:00

I'm not ashamed...everyone has to earn a living somehow...

http://celebrity.lovetoknow.com/Bobby_Brown’s_Star_Status_Plummets…Again

http://celebrity.lovetoknow.com/Nick_Carter_Spills_About_Indiscretions

Excerpt From "On A Blue Day"

2006-09-17T20:58:00.000-04:00

She couldn’t remember if the red ones were the uppers or the downers. Only that she wanted one.

Today coffee was not enough.

Today she needed something other-worldly and fast acting to help her forget what she had to do and where she had to go.

Her black Nicole Miller hung on the back of her bedroom door. Fresh from the dry cleaners. The plastic bag thrown casually on the floor.

Maybe the blue ones were the uppers?

In the carved mahogany mirror, her reflection was someone unknown to her.

Oh my God! Is my hair red? Since when?

A stray strand of red curl twirled in the path of the fan on the vanity where she sat. An antique vanity she had flown in from a shop on Melrose Avenue during her last visit to LA. Lifestyle perks of a young, rich widow.

Red--the red ones for sure.

The curl continued its dance across her right (left?) brow. It seemed to plié at her reflection. Its leaps and turns graceful. New York City Ballet graceful. Better even.

The curl held her attention until the door opened and her dress floated out of sight.

“Tea, miss?”

The curl took a bow and froze in place. It became angry at the interruption.

“I said don’t bother ME!” How easily the fan crashed into several plastic chunks, leaving dust on her dress. Maybe now she wouldn’t have to wear it. Instead maybe they’d let her hide out in her room all afternoon. Just her and her pills and her dancing red curl. She’d already been to one funeral that year. Two was just unfair.

But when had she dyed her hair red?

And what day was today, anyway? Tuesday? Her reflection offered no explanations. Why didn’t anybody wake me up? Tell me what was going on?

Maybe it’s Wednesday. Wednesday is definitely a red pill day.

She swallowed three of them, dry.

****************

On A Blue Day by Raquel I. Penzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Prologue

2006-09-16T19:05:00.000-04:00

Once it is in your veins, once you have tasted its taboo sweetness, once you have basked in its afterglow, you are hooked.

In this haze, this pleasurable, orgasmic euphoria, nothing else exists but you and it. There are no bills to pay, no kids to feed, no deadlines to meet. Only a cool buzzing in your ears and a tingling in your limbs; a smile on your lips, a glaze in your eyes.

In this haze your mistakes are erased, the space-time continuum tears open and lets you revise yourself, become more of who you think you should've been had you made different choices.
Out of the haze, you realize, had you made different choices, you might have never known the pleasurable orgasmic euphoria of it. Had the space-time continuum really allowed you to revise yourself, you might not have become the kind of person who succumbs to it. And it's a gamble whether or not it is a better or worse existence.

So you need more, and more, and even more of that sweet taboo. You need it to help you forget the past, avoid the present and postpone the future. You need it because with it you are made new, and part of you really likes the high.

And when you are forced to face your addiction, the stark realization of how much you depended on it, how much of yourself got lost to accommodate it in your life, buries you into a black hole of misery and fabricated memories. You forget what was real and what only appeared because you had it in your blood.

And you struggle to stay off the horse in every minute of every day, which would be easier if you did not live across the street from the barn. All you can do is cross that street and come face to face with it in every minute of every day, and wait for what will happen next.

A buzzing high? Or a passing phase?
Depends on where you've hidden your reins...