Here's to Sandy

Drudging through the boat graveyard, my rain speckled glasses are smeared with dirt -- but necessary, for I am covering up my unwashed face, hoping to devoid notices of my unkempt hair knotted atop my head and the over-sized sweater I am wearing, belonging to my boyfriend's laundry basket -- watching my green eyes stamper through the sludge, carrying my bag and his bags of safety items -- what we threw together during the low tide -- I am eyeing the Russian Standard I know he is concealing, imagining the cool rim of the bottle as it reaches my lips, with just enough liquid left to burn my aching throat. I also know there is a new, full bottle of Absolut, just waiting for someone to crack the seal, so my excuses build to finish the other as merely a means of consolidation purposes.

My green eyes is yards ahead, bypassing the families who want to impress their Facebook friends with photos of sailboats and motorboats washed upon land. Some are wedged into the tall grass, the bow immersed in earth while the other half remains vulnerable on the road, naked for pictures. Others have collided, stopping the neighboring boat from wiping down the street. A particularly nice sailboat has leaned itself against a metal rod, stuck in the center of the road. It looks like it had a nice time cruising with the hurricane winds until it discovered the ocean was taken from under her. Her-- boats are women you know.

With his safety around him, my green eyes confidently stomps ahead, worrying his home, his lifeline, is damaged. Meanwhile, I have no clue how my home is. If everything I own is okay. If my blanket and laptop, previously bruised by my roommate, is in fact still in my room and in my condition. Home has different meanings for everyone but when it is tossed in your face so many times, it's a burden. Why aren't I in Brooklyn? If that is indeed my home. If we broke up right now, he would have a home albeit the weather or leaks or power; I would be lost.

My lifeline is here, is him. I have known this boy for one month and there was no question in my mind I would stay with him during the hurricane. If he could not leave his boat than neither could I. If he switched to the cheap hotel with complimentary pastries, bought booze and frozen meals, then I am there with him, too. My questions weren't limitless, rather, limiting. My love, I go where you go. I am where you are.

But cooped up together for four days has created a tension I was unaware of, brought out an insecurity I hid. The two of us, sick with a cold and deep-chested cough. My eyes water, and throat closes up, whenever he smokes his Newports. The liquor fogs my fevered head and with each temperature rising, my body is cranky from the lack of nutrients I am feeding it.

It is true, the ninja adventures in my mind, the romantic holding-each-other-through-the-storm did not occur. My notions of sailing together, of saving each other, were more from a movie than from reality. His love for a fellow sailor is, maybe, more real than his love for any girl. And my love for him is an admiration the silly girl has the older, much cooler boy. I feel like the gum stuck to his flip flop as he tries to make it home. I am only with him 'cause he is stuck with me. Home is all that matters.

I feel like an idiot. The one home I have I abandoned so it wouldn't be fair to call it such. Vodka is a home of types. It's my reliable, standby no matter what the weather or who I am with -- so call me a poet, a drunk, an emotional being -- why is that worse than a logical neurotic?

And here I sit, adorned in my boyfriend's dirty t-shirt and sweater, clean boxers and socks, eating a thawed out Broccoli and Cheese Hot Pocket, taking comfort in the tiny but real cubes of cheddar cheese embedded in the mushy crust. Eating one cold yet pliable, makes it apparent these frozen munchies are not as processed as originally believed. Or perhaps, dwelling in a sailboat in the boat grave yard, sloppy and sick, makes eating a thawed out Hot Pocket not so extreme and there is no comfort after all.

Writing about Writer's Block

Writer's get a reputation for being hermits -- which we sort of are -- or at least I sort of am.

If I am not hiding indoors like a vampire, I am dwelling in my head with my nose in a book. Or I am sitting at a bar, preoccupied with my martini and writing on a notepad (or bar napkin).

When I am ready to open up I spend hours staring at a blank computer screen. My fingers gracefully run over the keyboard but fail to formulate any sentences.

Now unemployed, in a new city, my friends and funds are lacking. During my long days and nights I want to write but all I think about is having a pity party. All that I write is crap.

He Told Me to Write Fiction.

"Why wait for those movie-like moments? Why not create one?"

He asks me while we lay on my roof, side-by-side staring at the sky, mistaking stars for satellites. We were convinced the blinking lights high above were moving -- not us -- not until we outstretched our hands into a diamond in front of our faces and realized we were not the center of the universe. But it felt like we were.

"I can't get out of my own head."

"...So you're depressed?"

"Yeah... How about you?"

"Yeah."

While an actor, his front falls for me. Despite our opposing images, there is a quiet understanding. A rare friendship that breeds and begs me to...

It would've been nice to hold his hand then. Maybe, make out. Feel the graveness of his desire flood through me.

But we're just friends. There was comfort just to lay, without expectations. To have someone to be lonely with.

Making My Move

May Day hit me with a bang: snuggling into my sheets while snoozing I checked my email on my smartphone, thinking perhaps it was from the boss. It was from my landlord notifying me I had 30 days, more or less, to leave my apartment.

31 days later I am packing up the last three years of my life. I originally moved in with my brother and a gay Indian. I was scared, confused, not sure what my plan was as I was still adjusting to a life not in school and stuck in the tough economy.

Later, my roommates changed but I stayed. Some furniture differed but my small room was always growing with pictures and words sprawled on my walls. The growing art became my sanctuary, my comfort.

Even my apartment acquired a nickname, monikered the "party house." Despite my plethora of friends from the steakhouse I was always lonely. Felt different. Apart from the typical Hoboken breed.

As I leave Hoboken and head to Brooklyn I worry. Did I accomplish what I wanted? Did I make my mark?

Now, in Brooklyn, my mind questions why I left all my friends behind. And the bubble of 'boken where I knew the best places to eat, the cheap bars... Am I too Jersey for Brooklyn? Not bohemian enough to dub myself a writer, an artist?

Added to my worries, I have left the magazine I have written for the last ten months. Not knowing where my next paycheck will come from I did something I have not turned to in four years. I wrote a poem.

Plagiarize This

A blankness was

felt when a man accused

me of faking it--

my writing.

A numbing anger

washed over me,

hearing, I’m a Sham. A Fake.

Call me a slut. A bitch.

Anything else.

My greatest fear called out.

A lucid hurt

enveloped my heart,

labeled a Phony. A Copier.

But what’s to come of pages

sprawled with my guts--

a Trademark?

(June 2012)