Bdelygmia

bdelygmia, n.

1. A litany of abuse-- a series of critical epithets, descriptions, or attributes

"From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

-Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

Your pearly white smile broadens and I am reminded of an equine muzzle. I want to stick a carrot in your mouth so that it might match your hair. Those eyes are like vacuums into which souls and intelligence are sucked, never to escape again. But none of this really matters because I don’t know you at all. He, on the other hand, I do know. Or at least I used to. He is blind to your mulish qualities, but rather finds you appealing like a phlegmatic mail-order doll—after all, you share the same purpose. His booming voice dulls the senses of those within earshot; fortunately you were dulled long before his pedestrian existence intertwined with yours. It must be nice for you to have a reason to straighten your hair in the morning and he a reason to pop his teeth back in.

Navy Blue Converse

Her eyes scanned your body as you walked toward her. Those heavily-mascara’ed brown eyes bulged and froze on navy blue converse clad feet.

“What, are you like, Goth now?”

Your early morning smile faded. You felt small and lonely and… Goth? Wait, you thought, what the fuck does she mean? Then you corrected yourself. What the heck does she mean? You are trying not to curse as much. You have had the mouth of a sailor since elementary school, and one time, this same girl and her suburban cronies denied you the opportunity to play dodge ball because, as they said, you had a potty mouth. At the time, you thought, fuck them. Now you are desperate for them to like you. This whole converse thing really throws a kink in your plans.

You want to run back to the front of the school and see if your mom is still in the car-rider line. Maybe she will take you home so you can change shoes, or even better—let you skip school and go eat Mexican food. You quickly realize this is an absurd fantasy. Not too absurd, though, because on a pretty regular basis you do skip school and your mom does take you out for Mexican food. It is suh-weet. The strange part is you don’t really want to run away. You want to tell this little middle-school biotch that she can shove it up her ass. Converse aren’t Goth. You aren’t Goth.

“No, I’m not. And converse aren’t Goth. Goth kids wear combat boots and dog collars and read anime,” you say.

“Oh, okay. I mean, they are just kind of different,” she says.

“Right,” you say.

From that moment on you realize that being a converse-wearing Goth kid would be so much better than being friends with these ass-holes. You stop wanting to be invited to their farms (the term “farm” is applied loosely, it simply refers to a home built outside of a residential neighborhood, though still located thirty-feet from a residential neighborhood and 1 mile from a large suburban sprawl). You stop laughing at their jokes. You stop passing them notes in Algebra. You start thinking about what you like. You start listening to good music, as provided by The O.C. Mix 1 Soundtrack. You start wearing converse.

Dear general malaise and other symptoms,

Please go away.

Sincerely,

Your unwilling host.

Count Our Rings

The Outlet Mall Guru

Teach me to fold the perfect pant and I'll show you how to sell a credit card to a mother of four who makes minimum wage. The mexicans pay in crisp $100 bills, the asians in crumpled coupons, and I pay with my soul.

Thanks, Banana.

Welcome Home

i heard the hills whisper "welcome home"

their voices hung in the air with dragonflies

they swirled around our heads of unkempt hair

sharing with us the songs of man and wind

and we tapped our feet on the same ground

the sun introduced itself to my pale skin

freckles claimed territory on a plot above my heart

for $5 god would leave his handprint on yours

on the porch you sang about the simple things

and i began to notice them

my dress soaked up the river and all the people in it

tightly woven threads trapped the current

so i wrung out the comfort and drove east

i left you standing at the bottom of civilizations slope

locals hung above the water like a barrel of monkeys

away from the boxed merlot and shirtless boys

patriotism shields my eyes from neon signs

but my hair still feels like the river

and my coffee tastes like your cigarettes

so i hug this lamppost hoping it will guide you

it will act as a lighthouse

and i will wait beneath its glow until you arrive

by jennifer robichaux, whose dress is now dry

a spider just crawled across my chest

I am in the bubble now, but until recently I was in a box. The bubble has homemade meals and lazy evenings spent in front of the tube watching crime dramas. Here I don't really have responsibilities (though I am trying to get some) and my room contains no bunk bed or noisy lesbian roommate. I am allowed to poke holes in the wall here and boys can be in my room past midnight. The bubble, round by nature, is able to roll to any desired location. However, by following me-- or rather rolling along with me-- it becomes inescapable and a constant in my life. It could be easily transported to Louisiana where my family plans to vacation this summer, however I would prefer for it to stay in Texas where the suburbs seem to crave its presence. As mentioned above, I have just moved back into the bubble from a box. The box was much more comfortable. It had four solid, distinguishable walls. The floor connected the walls and the top opened up to the usually sunny sky. Picture a cardboard moving box, if you will. Sure, the box kept me contained, but if I really wanted to I could find a way to scale the wall and get to the outside. It took me a while to get used to the idea of living in something with four walls, I was accustomed to more spherical homes. 

Right now, the box is temporarily out of reach.