The Masochist

By now I've worried a line between my eyebrows that fissured so deeply my face has begun to crack.  I noticed the crack in my reflection this afternoon when I tried to reapply makeup, but the area between my eyebrows refused to be concealed.  The crack absorbed the powder entirely leaving that big, black gap down the center of my forehead.  It's my face that takes so much punishment.  My jaw has been horribly sore - in the mornings mostly, after clenching it tightly throughout the night - that I also found my teeth to be crumbling.   Little bits of teeth are breaking off each time I bite down and  I'm left with only raggedy nubs.  The crumbling is more annoying than painful.  I tend to avoid talking and eating. What is physically painful is the stretching of my right arm which is the arm I've used all week to carry my day bag.  While bending over to pick up scraps of tooth this morning I was feeling sort of unbalanced, so I decided to measure my arms.  Sure enough the right was nearly an inch longer than the left.  I believe the shoulder is dislocated, as the bag is weighted heavily with files, gym gear, and derision which causes me to walk a bit tilted.  The strain has also caused my knee to collapse on the opposite side.  With my arm pulled down one way and the opposite knee collapsing, my spine has warped into an embarrassing and unsightly S.   And because I carry the bag with alternating hands each week, the damage was reversed the week before.

The transformation hasn't alarmed me though.  It's not unusual at all.  I might look like some Picasso portrait, but I have utmost confidence in my remedy.  It involves simply reshaping the distortion.  I go to a man who is highly regarded in his profession and is very expensive.  He returns all the parts to their original configuration, and, if any parts are lost or missing, he will replace them for an additional fee.  The teeth this week, I fear, will cost me dearly.  And I must say the procedure is uncomfortable as well, but I am enormously relieved and exhilarated in the end. 

I'll bear this weekly jarring to my body.  Trauma is a necessary result of modern existence.  My concern instead is that I am disappearing - so says my expert.  I thought it might be the case as I'd noticed a fading or haziness to my contours, but with my lousy eyes who can be sure.  I'd read about this disorder in "Self" or "Working Woman".  Apparently it's related to something called 'downtroddeness' whereby an individual loses distinction.  Although this affliction is incurable, my expert tells me that the fading process can be slowed if I attend several more sessions with him at an offensive rate, in which case it seems I'll have to take on an extra job.  Well, so be it.  We must go on.

The Lawnguyland Massacre

Angie and Joan were trying on new scrunchies at the mall. 
Oh my gawd!  Did I tell you about that new guy, Ang?
But Angie seemed preoccupied with the loss of her tease after messing with so many hair thingies.  Angie!!
Angie finally turned around,  What the fuck Joan? Relax.  Whaaat? 
The girls moved on to those big hair jaws clamp things and then to glitter polish - a truly glamour saturated day. 
The guy I went out with last weekend.  You know, that shmoe from bumfuck, like way out in Patchogue or something.  Joe.  Rememba? 
Oh yeah. Shuwa.  So?
Yeah, well he tried to feel me up.  The freakin' pig.  I sweah I did NOT in any way let him think he could do that... The freakin' pig.  
Now Joan's preoccupied.  Fashion is as important to her as her story.  She picks up nailpolish called "black widow".    Oh!  I like this culuh!  You like this culuh, Ang?   Everyone's wearing blue and black and stuff with bellbottoms n shit.  Rememba fuckin' designah jeans n shit?  Oh my gawd. They sucked. Joan cracked herself up. 
But now Angie wanted to hear more about Joe Bumfuck.   So what did you do?
About what?
About Joe you freakin' flake!
Oh. 
Joan checked out her ass in the full-length mirror.   Well, I stawled him 'til he got really wasted.  We had Suthin Comfit in the caw, ya know?  Then
I cut his little prick off. She cracked herself up again.
Noway Joan.  You did not!
I sweah!
What did you cut it with?
Well, I couldn't really cut it all the way.  I kinda left it dangling.  I only had freakin' thinning sheahs and cuticle nippahs!
Noway.  You are such a trip Joan!
I sweah! 

Untitled

I've been in heels all day and
I'm sure this city imports and lays
the world's hardest pavement.
It slams upward
driving my legs into their sockets.
I think I'm shorter at day's end.
Forget cobble stones
all irregular and gapped,
treacherous to the ankles.

But I go in search of beauty
or something profound in New York.
Might as well raise the dead!
You'd think, nearing the grandeur of Central Park,
something might exist to warm my heart.

I look for artistic merit
in black crippled trees,
reaching desperately for the night sky
trying to pass as a horizon.
They never had a chance.
And I listen for some subtle music
in irate horns and squealing brakes.
But sadly only chaos reaches my ears
And sadder still when, once again,
I must hold my breath past another greasy heap of a bum.
It's what I do in case they reek
(I fear possibly inhaling a poverty virus)

We're strolling and I think
WE don't stroll in New York!
It's preposterous.
But something must catch me, Please!
And, yes, something does.

It's yellow lamplight, thank God!
I feared my heart would freeze.
Yellow lamplight and, occasionally, yellow window light.
Amber really, more muted.
Colors of Maxfield Parish lanterns.
The ones with the delicate clown girls.
Yellow like fire might still be burning in them.

I would have loved this place one hundred years ago
with yellow lamplight at each doorstep.
At least I could have smelled horseshit and soot
which I prefer to exhaust fumes.
Days of Boss Tweed and J.P. Morgan.
Crimes were cooler and more dastardly.
Guys called each other "mug"
Thank God for the yellow lamplight.

It's mostly in the mystery
Like, how could guys have drilled into all that rock
to lay miles of subway?
And logically a skyscraper should not be able to stand.

The masses eternally cloaked in gray and black
even appear villainous
looking down, lurking, furtive sideways-glancing.
More mysterious characters
could not have sprung from the mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Gargoyle heads, spires, lion door-knockers.
I know we all walk
with the ghosts of bygone New Yorkers,
not quite all angels, I'm sure.

I walk with the lamplight
and New York of a century ago.

Upon returning the tops of my ears freeze.
I know we're moving slowly
and folks behind us are thinking,
People should move to the side if they're gonna stroll
That's what I would think if I cared.
But I don't
because I've got the yellow lamplight
and we're almost finished walking.

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