Rather Than Hurt You

She learned what guitar means this morning. "Tar" means string, "gui" means how many. That's why there's also things like sitars and seetars. Guess bass guitar's a misnomer, she thought.

Then tonight her guitar died, or rather her connection to it. She cries at its base as it leans against the wall and listens to the out-of-tunes noises it makes when she picks it up to hold it. Wood and electronics aren't cuddly. Why doesn't it have a name? She at least loved it that much.

No more lessons. There's just one chip in the varnish. She never would have been good, but now she never will. Perhaps she could fight it. More likely she'll give up. The instrument's already become part of the wall.

It's betrayed her because she betrayed it. She hasn't played since the night before the morning she answered the phone. "Hey, Anna, this is ------. I don't want to tell you this, but I know you'd rather hear it from me." Why does that moment have to surface now? she wonders. She wants it to drown forever, to wither in the morning light until it's bleached away entirely. He and she belonged to the night.

Do you remember, Alex? This is the song I said that you would wish you had written. Find another feather for your fedora, because you did.

And all the memories of the fights and nights
Under blue lights and all the kites
We flew together
Love thought they'll fly forever
- The Libertines, "Music When The Lights Go Out"

Four Sculptures

Pose One
The bread tastes like heat, dense and warm as it stings her fingertips and smears melted margerine on her palms. It burns just behind her top teeth, the sensitive flesh that delights in being kissed. She misses that, the feeling of having just made out. The clock read "10:00", straight across, in green. Now her plate is empty and she's feeling predictable as she tries to find out what it is about "Ziggy Stardust" that makes her feel she's heard it a hundred thousand times before.



Pose Two
She's getting altogether too tempermental. She doesn't meet her own standards. Sometimes she's above them, feeling fabulously, famously improbable with her friends under the skyscrapers, trying to meet the eyes of the Sears Tower. She cranes her neck as she walks, until the building beats her and she looks away, dizzy. It's not altogether unlike the screaming jet planes, one of a few soaring moments she can crawl inside of precisely, entrace herself with, any time.



Pose Three
More often she's less than she expects of herself. Just now, writing without forming a single letter. She should be grateful she has nowhere to go and no songs to sing - after all, she has work to do. It didn't used to be this way. She knows just what, just who, changed her standards. Now she's lonely at the poolhouse, lost in the gallery, alone with her newspaper. As for what it looks like, she's not even sure. It's forgettable.


Pose Four
She can see the magic in the beautiful people who scare her when they catch her eye, and in the line of maple helicopters she drops in the river. At her flamboyant, outgoing peak she's Drama, confident on kitten heels, but at home she's Tragedy, tearfully fighting the losing battle and retiring to keen on the floor. She'll never speak to the beauties, and no one will ever see her filmy floating leaves.

You look like David Bowie
But you've nothing new to show me
Start another fire, and watch it slowly die
- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "Over And Over Again (Lost & Found)"

I Don't Care If You Don't

There's a motto. I don't care if you don't. Say something cruel, say something behind my back. I'll know you don't care about me. And since you don't care, I don't care either.

People with strong wills take it that way. I sleep when I should shower, eat when I shouldn't, drag when it's to my pride to run. Maybe you stay away from me for iffy reasons. Maybe they boil down to poison. Maybe you embrace that, bottle up the colors and shelve them in your diary, you heartless thing, you.

Maybe I feel just the same way. Maybe your vitriol is in my veins. Maybe we're explosive. Maybe I have a tonic for every way you treat me.

Then again, maybe I'm still water to your oil. Maybe I'll always love you regardless. Maybe you don't want us ever to mix, but I don't care. Maybe you don't want me around, but I don't care. I'm in love. And I don't care if you don't.

I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't care

I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't care

I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't care

I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't care
- Green Day, "I Don't Care"