The Girl And The Jack Rabbit

She was just a girl. Maybe 3 or 4 in the desert heat. Sand stretching for miles around hir. This was their holiday. Vacation in a lean-to shack that he’d built. Rotting two by fours, a cot, a hot plate, some cabinets. That’s how she remembers it anyway. All wood and close and purposeful isolation.

This nothingness gave them permission to be the trash the always were but pretended not to be. A teenage mother, a smart mouthed little girl and a man who tried so hard to be a man that he couldn’t help but fall short. They shot what they ate, snake and quail, and shit in a hole protected by a few more slabs of wood and a splintered seat to squat on.

Hir hand clasped the rifle tight, like she was grown. Like she’d had years of practice targeting those bottles that smelled like their breath and hir caution. She was calculating, even then. Focus, squeeze, release, shatter, next. Pride. They laughed at how good she was. So small but so steady. He slapped hir on the back with approval and reloaded. She amused them, kept them smiling, kept them occupied. Their idle time had never been good to hir.

The desert was desolate but hopeful. There were good times there. Adventure, and danger that existed only beyond their walls for once. It was an unfamiliar stillness that she clung too. Like maybe there was magic. Because there the night sky was always bright around hir.

She heard the scream before the gun, though it couldn’t have happened that way. Hir mother flew through the door into the drastically cool night, leaving hir on that cot listening to the thud, crack, thud of rifle meeting bone and then silence. He’d seen it running for him in that makeshift outhouse and shot, for fear or sport she’d never know. Either way the prey was a jack rabbit who hadn’t yet learned not to scream when met by him. Hir mother cursed and spat at him for scaring hir baby, like it was the first time, like she was hir protector.

The dead weight of a body stretched the fur gathered in his hand before it fell heavy to the table. There was no meat there. Nothing to salvage. She wished she could cradle some life back into the creature. Collect it in hir arms, give it sweet baby doll kisses and I’m sorrys. But there was nothing to be done. So she showed no signs of sorrow as a knife peeled pelt from muscle, as skin lost it’s owner and found a new one. She ran hir hand over soft fur, pet the pieces she could, and was grateful for something pretty. Something extravagant, like the furs that others draped over their shoulders or let hang in their closets for special occasions. But she knew those people didn’t work for that pretty. They were removed from the reality of it. But she knew. She heard, felt, saw it all.

The feet fit perfectly in hir fists. Good luck charms, like the ones in the kid sized vending machines in the grocery store lobby. Except these weren’t held tight in plastic eggs. They weren’t fuchsia or neon blue or green. They were real. Real right there in hir hands. She’d asked hir mother for them that night in the desert, after the slamming and skinning was done with. When all that was left was mess and amulet. Hir mother had cut and drained and given and they’d become hir treasure. She buried them deep in hir pocket, hands always clutching, stroking, wishing.

They were hir protection. Hir way to keep a piece of that desert magic. That pride. That steady and still. That dare to scream. She clung tight even after she rubbed them raw. Clung past rot, decay, stench. Clung until they came for them as she slept. Peeled back one child finger at a time and emptied hir palms. And in the morning they didn’t say sorry when she cried. They used adult words against hir. Said they knew best. It was for hir own good. But she was just a little girl, holding tight to a little luck.

Secret Borders

Secret. Our secret. Us. We were the secret. No. Not hir. Not really. Just me. I was the secret. Hir secret. To be kept by hir. Held by hir. Seen by only hir.

We used to fuck in cars. Hir run down pickup truck that never seemed to match hir Kenneth Cole, but somehow did. I’d refused. Said the first time she came into me my knees would hug hir back. I deserved a bed. We deserved some romance. But months passed and my desire surpassed my dignity.

I was tired of only coming together when there was a phone line between us. Hir voice hushed so low I could hardly hear hir already faint submission to sex. Studs were meant to be silent after all. And I lay in the cold garage where I slept, trying to will the warmth of hir into my sheets. But instead there was a dank echoing, a distance I longed to close.

So I let hir into me. Without the romance. I let hir pull my need from me. Let it stain the seats. So that maybe we could have something that belonged to the both of us. And my knees spoke the story of us. Folded into not enough. Bruised as they pushed at the dashboard and other borders that would never move.

White Girl

She called me white girl. Still does. Usually she was teasing but sometimes it was meant to sting. Meant to let me know that there was a whole world that I could never understand. That we were different. A reminder of my people vs. hir people. She always won that argument.

After our first date, when I pulled hir to me for a first kiss and snuck my hand under a perfectly tailored shirt, after that she called and said, “Are you sure you’re white? Cause you aint cold like other white womyn. You’ve got passion. Jaja! No, I think you must be Latina…” And I was proud.

I spent days pouring over recipes. Making tamales. Making maduros and gallo pinto. Making an effort. But for who?

I remember the exact angle of hir back that day in the park. When she ran into an old friend and there were big hugs and shrieks of recognition. When I stood there smiling behind hir. Waiting for an introduction that would never come. She spoke quickly and I walked slowly up the hill. After 10 months I knew only distant names.

Only some streets were for hand holding. On others we walked as if we hardly knew each other. There were entire cities where she couldn’t touch me. Not even in hir truck. Sometimes not even behind a locked door. You don’t understand, she’d say. This is Yes on 8 country. It’s not safe. And I wondered what she was so scared of. And I thought I could make hir feel safe enough to love in public. But she was right. I didn’t understand.

I could love hir. In my heart, my mind, in my bed. And she could love me too. We could love each other. But could I ever really know hir? Or would this white girl have always been too far from hir? Too far to touch and hold and grasp.

I read and listen. I taste and watch. But I’ll never know.

My Father and My Gut

(from a few weeks ago)

I can write about what I’ve already survived. That’s not the hard part. There is a pride in obstacles overcome. The hard part is the uncertainty, no worse- vulnerability, in the right now.

A few weeks ago I decided I was going to meet my biological father for the first time. In the past he has made sudden appearances in my life (via the internet) espousing great tales of fatherly love and desperate searching. But there was never any action to back up that emotion. And, needless to say, trust didn’t come easily. Still I’ve wanted to meet him and I’ve always been afraid he would die before I got the chance. I’d planned a road trip with a friend and it seemed the perfect opportunity. We could swing by to meet him in Vegas, I had a friend I trusted who could go with me, a car I could leave in and he would have no information about where I live. It was decided.

Now 5 months in Al-Anon has shone some light on my instinct to do hard things in isolation. So this time I let people know what I was up to. I asked Morgan to come with me. I waited to talk to my therapist and worked out a safety plan with hir for while I was away. I was taking care of myself.

In the next few days I emailed him. Then called. Twice. Asked him and his family to meet me for dinner on Monday night, 10 days away. And when I left for my road trip I still hadn’t heard from him. I checked my email compulsively. There was nothing. After all his grand statements, and wish-it-coulda’s, after feeling shamed about not being able to move forward and have a relationship with him. After thinking, shit, maybe it really was me…he didn’t even call back. I had told all these people I was going to meet him and he didn’t even call back. I was humiliated.

But I was determined to have fun on my trip. Determined to shove it aside and jump waves in the ocean, eat roadside Taco Bell and explore the desert. And I did all those things. I loved my life, I laughed with friends. But my disappointment, my hurt, was too deep to be articulated. And when I tried it was always with a steady, firm, voice that tried to evoke some illusion of control over the situation while tears slid silently over my face.

Eating had become more difficult but I chalked it up to bad travel food and the desert heat. My appetite had slimed and eventually it got to the point where I could feel my stomach opening and an intensely dull ache would tare through my entire body. It would wind through my ribs and up my back and leave me momentarily immobile.

And then there was the email, 10:20pm Sunday night: “Hi Blyth. Been really ill and just got out of the hospital Saturday. I would enjoy seeing you. Josh my 14 year old has a baseball playoff game at 7:30 on Monday. It's on the northwest side of town. Perhaps you could stop by the field and say hello. Everyone should be there. Let me know. Josh's team won the 14 and under division. Great to hear from you”.

There were tears and no words. I had resigned myself to not hearing from him. Earlier that day Morgan and I had booked a hotel outside Sedona. And then there he was. In the final hour. My thought process went something like this: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! Fuck him. Fuck me for trying. I should have seen this coming. I can’t believe this. What was I thinking? A baseball game?! What if he’s really sick? What if he’s dying? What if this is my last chance to meet him? Maybe I should cancel the hotel. Maybe I need to go. What would Morgan say? I shouldn’t let him change my plans like that. He hasn’t done anything to deserve that sort of accommodation. A baseball game?! It’s not worth it. I deserve better. I’m not going.

The next day I talk about it a little and can no longer consume anything without pain. A few bites at both lunch and dinner and I burst into tears.

Sedona was really beautiful. The rocks were red, air was cool and it almost distracted me from thoughts of my father and the fact I could no longer eat normally. Morgan and I splurged, got a hotel and the promise of a free breakfast in the morning. 6:45am and we walked into a room with a counter full of cereal, toast, bagels, juice, waffles. I splurged on juice. Apple and orange. I slid into a plastic covered booth, took a sip and lost my breath as the ache pushed through me. And I sobbed. For my body. For my lack of control.

Last Saturday I ate my first full meal in over two weeks. The diagnoses: a not quite ulcer that will take at least a month to heal and was brought on by too much stress and Aleeve. And shame. Shame at not being better at this yet. These hard knocks and disappointments. Shame at not taking better care of myself. Shame at realizing that, at least subconsciously, someone else has control over my body. Anger for being here again. For not being able to nourish myself. Shame that it’s all so public. This disappointment, this illness, this failure. My failure and my fathers. It’s embarrassing. I am reminded of it every second. My body is singing it. Screaming it rather. And while it is getting better, I have not yet survived this. And that is terrifying.

The First Time

The first time I had sex with a girl there was 180 proof vodka, three other womyn in the room and a boyfriend that stormed out the door. Hir boyfriend. My door. She’d leaned over him to kiss my neck. A neck that hadn’t been kissed in months, years really if we’re only counting the times it was done right.

She leaned farther and found my lips. Lips that had grown accustomed to being dry or conciliatory. Lips that had lost their pleasure long ago in a dark room with a best friend turned harsh before them. There was no moisture after that.

I sat stiff, uncertain, as she stretched for me. And then she was there, on my lap. My hand wound through hir curls, the other holding firmly the small of hir back. She was there – like she had always been – like maybe she always would be.

A door slammed and he was gone. And I was glad. And she was undone. I laid hir down, soft, sure, certain. Hands fumbled around us. Messy, drunk, frantic. Pausing only occasionally to stare at our stillness, our intention. Like when my nipples stroked hir stomach as hir breath became steam and moans and sex and yes. Or the sweet resurrection of my tongue as it found hir clit and hir back arched, became my steeple, and I followed. I followed the wet, the slick scent of hir, and it brought me back.