If this year has been anything to me,
It has been the development of my ability
To lull
To deceive into certainty
Only to then pull the rug out,
Leaving my opponents flailing
Sadly searching over their mistakes
Trying to find where they went wrong,
As if viewing a caper montage
Near the end of a long, confusing film.

It's been the development
Of my latent ability
To suppress the thought
That my opponents care about anything
Except for winning
And the realization,
In my own victories,
That winning is not everything to me.

It has been the cycle
Of decontextualization,
Dehumanization,
And reimplementation
Of Others and Otherness,
Of Selfhood and Such.

I have learned
To distrust loops
As repetition is a deadly lie
And to make my moves with discretion,
Pushing for the progress
That one says one deserves.

A careful innocence
Is now tainted
With the ability
To aggressively pursue
And consequently conquer,
To activate
A dangerous edge in me
If need be
As the edge is a necessity.

A hunger for invincibility
Is actualized with certainty
In the self alone,
And only then.

My wheels slid out from beneath me.
I landed with a slide and thud.
Bruises and swelling.
Scuffed new clothes.
No blood, though.
I considered myself lucky and continued with bent handlebars.
I'd lost my name tag, and it didn't matter.
I came back later and found it in the gutter.

After work, I played cards.
And a vintage goth approached me.
There was an immediate attraction.
Her son was my age,
And I felt a reckoning with my past.

But she spoke of healing practices,
As a genetic biologist,
Discussing the importance of Calcium
To balance the Barium
That so brutally saturates this area.
And she hissed against potatoes
For their Solanine and Chaconine
That apparently prolong pain.

And then she spoke of vampires
Saying that she frequented clubs
When she lived in Brazil
For the vampire crowd
And that she has fangs,
Custom-made,
With which she can bite,
But was quick to say that she doesn't.

And I didn't believe her.
And she mentioned "the goddess" whenever possible.
"13 is the goddess' number, that's why it's demonized."
I felt compelled to roll my eyes.
It's not the knowledge, but the sense
That I've been here before.

And I was very aware
That the me eight years ago
Would have been in love.
But Wicca is boring,
And vampires are behind me.
I no longer wish to live forever,
Or to be beautiful and seductive to all.
If anything, I've become more guarded than ever.
Reinforcing a wall once broken,
And waging wars with long-distance weapons.

And still there was something very honest
In this small encounter
That made me pause and consider
The possibilities involved.
And the rings in her ears
Swung with every movement.
And she spoke of the multicolored hair
She used to have
Before her colleagues told her to be more professional.
And she gave me a shot of ginseng
That looked like a bottle of insulin
To be treated like a Capri Sun.
And a raw food energy bar,
A flavor of which I hadn't had before.

If I had met this person 10 years ago
I would have fetishized her existence.
And the idea of it made me feel old
While I was aware I made her feel young.
And the old vampiric feelings came creeping back,
Despite my intentions.

She kept telling me that I look tired
Because she saw my fragility.
And I told her I was just sore
And, yes, a little tired.
Instead of depressed and alone.
While she was potentially the only person
I encountered that day
That perhaps wanted to hear that from me
To use it as an opportunity
To leap over my apprehensive walls,
I had lied.

And then there was a nap.
And then a call.
Then a drive.
And finally a bonfire.
Surrounded by card players
Young punks
And vagabonds
Getting drunk, having fun.
I stood alone as a friend made his move
On a girl in one of his classes.
And I watched a boy
Who'd just grabbed my tits
Wrestle a girl to the ground.
And forget my existence.

I stared into those flames and reminisced
On all occasions during which I had stared into flames
And felt lonely, but ready.
For what, I don't know.
And then a girl approached me from behind
With glasses and a very serious expression
Only to state her name.
I responded apprehensively with mine
And as the last letter rolled off of my tongue
She asked if I was lonely.

I stared, then shrugged.
"No, not really..."
"Well, you look really lonely."
And I lied again, and again.
And suddenly she left.

And I only felt tired and old.

Return to greatness.

I have plugged in my guitar.
I have handed in the two-week notice.
I have applied and reapplied.
I have paid to have it fixed.

Progress is coming.
Progress always does.

A humbling continuance.

Shadow sleeps at the base of a chair, curled up beneath the coffee table, waiting for my next movement so that she might carefully track me should I decide to visit the kitchen. She is a scavenger, keeping distance and hiding in the shadows, staying true to her name. She uses telepathy to beg. It's quite effective.

I have been on the same page of a job application for almost three hours because this application asked me to describe my volunteer experience. I usually only mention what I did during college, but lately I've been feeling the need to connect with the greatness of the distant pass as opposed to only ever mentioning what I've been doing for the past few years.

A couple weeks ago, after a long day at both jobs, I ended up at The Brass Rail to visit my friend who works as the doorman for every event. The conversations at hand were mostly about relationships, as usual. It was within that mindset that I was suddenly grabbed by a tall stranger, who wrapped his arms around me as quickly as he'd entered. I realized that both he and the two people he'd walked in with were old, old classmates of mine. I hadn't seen two of them since high school, and the other since the fifth grade. One of the first questions they asked me was if I still draw. I scoffed, saying that I didn't. They looked shocked, then asked if I still sculpt. My reaction was similar to the first.

Then I realized that that was something I had abandoned. A skill set that I felt I had moved away from. Physical art production. I suddenly remembered that they had all thought that I was going to become a famous sculptor. A famous illustrator. I remembered their awe. I remembered my last formal art class, taught by a woman who created boring art and sought to change every idea I produced, who either denied or threatened to deny the A+ I rightly earned during each project. I remembered the sudden feeling that emerged in high school that I would never perfect those skills, and that there was no use in following them if I didn't intend to make a career out of it. I remembered the panic-stricken deadline-chasing and last-minute instructor-pleasing in my high school journalism classes that turned me off to the pursuit of journalism. Then I remembered how easy college felt by comparison. I wondered if it felt easier because I was so much more confident in my skills and purpose, or if it was because it really was much easier, and had lulled me into the state of forgetting my obsessive pursuit of perfection.

In the middle of attempting to answer the question about my volunteer experience, I felt compelled to go upstairs and find my senior yearbook, as I couldn't remember that Key Club was called Key Club. I read the list next to my photo aloud to myself:

Rifle Team 9, 10, 11, 12 (Captain 11, 12); Newspaper 10, 11, 12 (Editor-in-Chief 12); Yearbook 10, 11, 12; Key Club 11, 12; National Honor Society 10, 11, 12; World Culture Club 12; Tutoring 12; Mentoring 12; Speech 10, 11; Academic Super Bowl 11, 12; Band 9, 10, 11.

On the next page, in the center of the senior superlatives layout, I contemplated the implications of having been voted "Most Unique," and thought of other ways I might have attempted to pose for that photo. I had worn devil horns over my cascading long hair, shown in a rare down state and enclosing my frame to the waist, wearing a Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness shirt, strapped with my Ibanez Artist guitar and throwing up the sign for metal, my tongue stuck out and obscuring my chin. I was visibly cocky, but I knew that I deserved that superlative. That photo had found me at the point of comfortable seniority. A point at which I was beginning to accept that I was special, that I had earned acknowledgement and entitlement. Next to me, in a separate photo, was the boy they had also voted as Most Unique, contradicting the title in his very presence, and sporting a nondescript "emo" appearance that was appropriately popular at the time.

Here I sit, once again attempting to describe myself. Once again, noting changes, or expanding upon preexisting definitions. All in the hope that someone will find me worthy enough of occupying a position that would still not produce a yearly income above the poverty line. A yearly income that would be double my current.

I've been aware that I have been significantly humbled in the past year by the hiring process. I only realized tonight how drastically more humble I have become since high school.

Shadow is six years old now. I'm almost 18 years older than Shadow.

I still spend quite a lot of time watching documentaries.

The only difference is that now I don't have anyone to talk to about what I'm learning.

I was right. I was so, so right.

I usually am, though.

Cock Tales.

I remembered, this evening,
When you asked me out for cocktails
In front of everyone,
Two years ago,
And we all blushed in response.
I stared, dumbfounded,
As you gazed back casually.
I said "why not?"

So, instead of going back to Pride,
Where we'd just finished tabling,
We went to Farm,
And drank expensive booze,
And talked about women.
Almost 20 years my senior,
A seasoned queer woman from Chicago,
And I was never more flattered,
And never more regretful of the horrified look I gave them
As we walked out of Boxcar and into the night.