Rough Patch by CarieAMcMichael

Rough Patch by Carie McMichael

Rough Patch. Copyright ÂŠ 2014 by Carie McMichael. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Cover art by Carie McMichael 4

This book is dedicated to everyone who picked this book up on a whim

Table of Contents Rough Patch !!

Words ! !

Maybe ! !

Leaves ! !

I’m So Much Cooler Online !

What the Speculum Saw ! !

He Can’t Have Visitors, Can He? !

Janis Joplin: Live in Germany 1968 !

Moldy Brain ! !

The Breasts Are Always Bigger ! !

A Haiku For Every Person I’ve Kissed !

Life’s Menu! !

Still Life !

Malignancy !

Wooden Hearts ! !

Please Come In ! !

Rough Patch!!

Acknowledgements !

About the Author !

Scarlet Claws !

Rough Patch I am just going through a rough patch, I swear, I'm just too full, close to bursting, a swollen balloon, and overflowing with thoughts like a bath running over. They're pouring on me. So much so that I am beaten down like a dirty rug, and I lie there as such in bed in the morning when it's time to rise and conquer the day. I couldn't go to class today because I realized every breath from the moment I rose until the moment I collapsed was accounted for. Every minute, every beat of my heart was scheduled. Class Work Homework. Sleep. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. 7

It's such a feat My energy depletes, and I have no idea where my next fix is coming from. My energy fix, that next thing that keeps me going. I've got coffee in an IV drip to grease the wheels. There's that song on the radio, the one I know all the words to, and it puts a bounce in my step, it makes my steps lighter, but at the end of the day, there is no coffee. There are no songs, only silence, and in the silence, my brain screams. And when I've exhausted myself, my every thought, I black out. I sleep. I ride the great time machine to the next day. The next breath. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Words Words, words, words. Every single solitary syllable tumbling, spilling tripping over another arranging themselves in a neat little row like soldiers at attention like convicts in a lineup. They are conceived in your mind and are born in your belly, churning and tumbling. Before you know it theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve made a great leap into your throat, choking you. You cough into your fist which is clenched tight. You spray, you spatter, but there are no words. Your mouth runs dry Your breath stops and the words are gone.

Maybe Remember that time I fucked a girl to make you stay? It all seems like a distant day, between homecoming and prom. We were Mom and Apple Pie, America’s sweethearts and such. We had each other, though no other thought we would ever amount to much. Forget together forever, I was constantly worried about now. and how am I going to keep the love I won’t live without? She smelled like soap, and tasted like lemon Starburst. And the whole time, I wasn’t sure where I ended and she began but we were a whole new being. And I forgot you were even there. The feelings that shook my body made me forget I was using her. When it was over you stayed, but I still though of her often. 10

Now sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got a baby, and debt and a lot on her plate, but maybe she forgot.

Leaves I am glad I photographed you in spring because by winter, we had withered. Sprawled upon the Examinerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s slab We are scrutinized at every slice to find the malicious malignancy. Our cells, once a singular biology lie separated and shriveled in petri dishes. In an empty bed, I hear the wind howl, and see the fire flicker out in the cold. In April it was a tiny ember. The branches were barely dry from springâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dissolving breath so the flint struck itself against a rock. We thrived under the thick of June, we wore it like a fur coat. We have unfurled with strong stems and swelled with green under the sun. We ripened into beautiful winged things bursting with reds and golds. Our strength could not reinforce us as the bitter wind made us brittle. We fell rolling and swirling to a frozen country. It must have been the wind that swept you away. Snow falls as ash from a dead sky. I lick the flakes from my lips and taste yesterday.

Scarlet Claws I paint my nails like red like the side of the barn, because I saw a vixen in a movie with scarlet claws. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m always trying to elongate my fingers, because I wish my hands were someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands, the kind that you see in those high exposure photographs. I want my hands to hang in a gallery, but I am often hanging the framed pieces with my short finger and gnawed-upon nails. Under a microscope, nails actually look like the shingles on the barn, layers and pieces, the chip and flake away, until the bloody nail beds are just as raw and tingling as my fluttering, insecure heart.

I’m So Much Cooler Online I’m so much cooler online. Online, my hair is not frizzy and is just the right shade of red. I have only one chin, but I have hundreds of friends, and we have parties every week. My street cred is always on the up and up and I don’t have to prove myself because everyone can see that I am well-read and well-intentioned while still being the most fly bitch on the web. The web, the dot com, cyberspace where I can be who I want to be and no one can argue with me because what do they know about what it’s like to be me? I’m so much cooler online. People only see what I want them to see. I can’t crack my hide and expose my insides. What’s raw and red is not supposed to be said. My avatar smiles, even when I don’t. It’s the perfect cover for me to smother my imperfect heart when it doesn’t know where to start. I’m so much cooler online.

What the Speculum Saw Oh what I have seen inside four white sterile walls, under blue cotton gowns; The kind that do not close, even when they pull them shut, white-knuckled and embarrassed. I’ve developed night-vision to cope with the darkness when I take t he breathless plunge. With gleaming iron jaws, I pry open the floodgates to that sacred highway while the cold-handed ones do what they do best. Oh what I have seen. Truth is, between the spongy embraces and the sterile wipe-downs, you don’t just take see womanhood and the darkness of the drawer. You see the pubescent girls, too nervous to keep their knees apart, or the frightened coeds who may have just made a mistake, or the ladies your mother’s age with weathered hope in their eyes. From fresh, dewey landscapes 15

to shrapnel-torn war zones, I know what works and what doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. Muted but wrenching, I am cold to the touch like the words that fall from the mouths of learned doctors, I see the devastated faces. Oh what I have seen.

He Can’t Have Visitors, Can He? Jordan doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not. And they won’t let him go until he does. Shut out the world while they sort out the mess, the rummage sale that is his beautiful mind. He can’t have visitors, can he? Empathizing with this labyrinth he cannot find himself in, I want to pluck him out. I have fumbled with the caps on orange bottles just to get through the day, but those bottles are Jordan-proof. “The pills are poison! Poison in your veins!” he rants. And now he sleeps in restraints, while he rages and pants. While I fry my own emotional fish, I can’t help but think of his plight. 17

I worry it’s a glimpse through the looking-glass. Maybe I’ve already lost this fight.

Janis Joplin: Live in Germany, 1968 I am in the thick of a frothy heat that fizzes up from the pavement like oil on a griddle. I thrash and thrive, I always wanted this: to inhale the music with the clouds of cannabis. If mother could see me now. I catch my flared pant leg on a nail on the stage, and fall into a stranger with a joint in his teeth. He passes it over, I burn it supernova style, and watch the wailing woman throw back her frizzy mane. She strangles the mic to contain the soul so it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t shatter her ribs to break free. She spat passion over us and we danced in the rain, convinced we would never, ever die. If mother could see me now. 19

We sang along, often off-key, we rode high notes into oblivion. I turn to the stranger and ask him to lift me onto his broad shoulders up to the heavens so I could have just a little piece of her heart. For a brief moment, I was in the museâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s orb, and basked in immortality. And in only three seconds, I lived vastly, intensely, when I held the joint to the wailing womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lips. If mother could see me now.

Moldy Brain The mirror seems so far away, it shows too much of me. I wonder what I would say to the person in the reflection. I’m not ready to face today. My eyes are a moldy green like the fuzz on the fruit in my fridge. The glass is more of a screen I can’t break or penetrate. It’s a macabre, obscure scene. I dragged my feet, down the hall to the bedroom, slowly because I can’t pick my feet up at all. and the sunlight it bouncing off the glass of frames on the wall. The glint is covering half a little girl’s face. But I see the half that smiles. There is no way, no place, I remember being that giddy. She’s in the thick of a chase. Rex is bounding through the yard with her in hot pursuit. Freckled cheeks, knees are scarred. Her hockey-player mouth is a grin. 21

She has no qualms or guard. What pretty eyes for a little girl, I thought, twinkling and jade. Wonderful pinched golden curls. None of itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a show. None of itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an act. She only has the world. This life was as green as this backyard, as full of life as that dog. It was as if it had sent me a postcard to the gray place where I stood. And my brain is just a shard.

The Breasts Are Always Bigger I hear it all the time. “I wish I had big tits.” Petite girls with handfuls really do not get it. The grass is always greener. The breasts are always smaller. They stand aside and look up to me like a boy who wants to be taller. I’ll trade the crippling back pain for fewer stares and gropes and the reminder of my cup size when life pins me against the ropes. Like I need to be reminded! I watched my breasts blow up, from age ten at a solid A to an impressive DD cup. The fetish sites in cyberspace have perfect balloons on display. Mine are raked with stretch marks. Tiger stripes won’t fade. Just realize, girls, what I’m asking you to see, 23

the breasts are always bigger. Not what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re cracked up to be.

A Haiku for Every Person Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Kissed I. You were the first boy In a pool, underwater Then I swam away II. The very first boyfriend The hallway after the dance I wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget it. III. You were a creeper The first one I did not want I try to forget IV. You were the first girl You said I was aggressive Did it on a dare

V. Had a crush on you Since elementary school You never noticed

VI. You slobbered on me I was like a piece of meat Good riddance to you

VII. I thought I loved you Sadly you did not love me We could have been great

VIII. My heart was broken And you were there to hold me I needed a friend

VIX. You were my first love She wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even pretty How could you do that? X. I kissed you for him I only aimed to please him And now I feel wrong XI. We used to be close 26

You made horrible choices You broke up a home XII. You held me to you You said you might fall in love I was so naive XIII. It was electric Under cold October sky You melted my heart

Lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Menu I. Chardonnay and Fettucini Alfredo I watched you smile at me through the golden bubbles of the champagne, twenty-one years young. My, you wanted to impress with your pressed suit and expensive tastes, but I fell in love with your laugh. My eyes grew wide because I saw the waiter with our food. While I waited for my pasta, you were beaming at me.

II. Sangria and Chicken Lo-Mein I put the letter from the Deanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Association on the fridge with a pizza delivery magnet. It reminded me of the doodle of the two elephants that you had for so long 28

when we lived in that house on Crawford Street. Or rather, maybe it makes me wish I had kissed you goodbye that morning before you left for work. III. Whiskey and Bagel Bites Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re too hot in the middle and they sit like stones in my cold stomach, but not the worst for a last meal.

Still Life In a stark, sterile chamber, I pull the gown over my knees, trying to trap in my body heat. I need warm blood in my limbs to keep from freezing, but am I shaking from the frigid air, or from the idea of the unknown? Floral wallpaper, horrible wallpaper Every petal mocking me. My backside is bare because the gown wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t close. The flowers snicker at my cellulite. Bastard plants, malicious weeds. Framed counterfeit of fruit covers its unkind sneer. Still life. Full of life, right? Peaches with hides as marbled as my birthmarked skin. Apples with blushing cheeks, bananas healthy and plump. Oranges with pockmarked flesh burning like the sun. Then, before my eyes, time appeared to settle over the framed piece, 30

as though it were antiquing in someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attic. Flies gathered to feast on the forgotten fruit, long after the artist has folded up and moved on to the subject. The skin shriveled like a senior citizen, growing patches of blue and green, and disintegrated into a moldy dust. I could almost reach out and touch it, the age and the time that passed, but when I spread it across my lips, I could taste my fate.

Malignancy My brain is sick, but not the way you would prefer. This is not the sort of disease that compels a Ph.D. to slice it like a Thanksgiving bird and extract the malignancy. Malignancy, that’s rich. I wish I had a malignancy, because if I did, it would be wedged between my cerebellum and cerebral cortex where people can point and say, Look! She has a brain tumor! Perhaps that’s why she cries at the drop of the hat. Perhaps that’s what is causing that. But this is something you cannot see.

Wooden Hearts My heart is made of wood. Strong as the earth, with roots in old things as well as growing towards the skies, making room for everything new. But it’s not an anchor, nor a strongbox. As fragile as a child’s toy blocks, being stacked up with expectation, only to be knocked down and built again. Our hearts are made of wood. Billions of people have lived and died and they have all carried within them a hundred wooden hearts; ignited, from tinder to cinders and new ones grew in their places. I have loved as fiercely as any; the hearth of my heart never cold. Rather the embers of my September love smolder to last the winter. But even as I enjoy my heart’s earthly summer, I see you. You, who set fire to my old wooden heart, and I struck a flint against yours. 33

We danced around the flames, and sang Zeppelin off-key together. I’ve regrown and burned half a dozen times, but to see you in ashes makes a phantom of my wooden heart. Like an amputee feels a ghostly tickle where his shin used to be, my wooden heart goes crack at the sight of you in misery. That ingrown heart of mine is gone, the one that kept vigil for you, but the healthy cells that blossomed, ache with a heartbreak I didn’t know I could still feel. The fire that once warmed your heart now scorches your flesh and fries your brain and consumes your life and I am powerless to put you out. She was a super nova, this torch of yours. She charred your wooden heart and left, but you can still see her light. Now she’s another fizzing bulb in another flash of Friday night lights. Do not wither trying to cling to her vapor. What’s now a puff of smoke, 34

your poor wooden heart, can sprout a Phoenixâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wings.

Please Come In Oh, hello! I was not expecting you Please excuse my mess as I pick up pieces of other lives, shoving them into the hall closets of my mind An old sweatshirt here, a stuffed animal there, a ticket stub from that night when he first reached for my hand. But please, come in. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to lurk in that darkened doorway Go ahead, sit down on my lumpy sofa. Sorry about the stench of cologne. It wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come out of the cushions It has stood the test of a thousand scrubbings like that stain on my coffee table. What brings you here? What brings you out to my dusty country where old pictures curl with age in shoe boxes tucked away 36

along with the love letters yellow with antiquity. Yes, I am listening, but I regret to admit that I am also watching The short films roll on the viewing screen behind my eyes where I can replay them when I need them. But stay tuned for coming attractions Dare I say you look strapping today Is that the scarf I bought you? It really brings out your eyes, dear. They seem to pop like a ball when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dropped in the same way when you smile He used to smile like that But not like that. It is familiar but it is new. It warms my winter. It fights with fire behind my ribs where a thick frost has insulated me. Your summer dissolves my old frames of life. 37

They are waterlogged from misty nights, but only now do they begin to rot away. I’m sorry, I am for imposing on you to be a mule. Carrying my baggage across deep valleys and through rivers with beds so thick with black muck it sucks the shoes from your feet with a cartoonish slurp. So please, don’t hesitate. I encourage you to open your mouth and lay bricks of words on this fresh foundation. Who knows what we could build. For now though, I’m afraid all I have to offer is a couch and a busted ticker. But a couch can be a moment, and although it is fleeting, it is simply us. It is just you and I and it is right here between this coffee table and this musty sofa where my knee almost 38

touches your knee and your hand almost touches my hand because I am trying to reach out

Maybe Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m overdue For a new couch Or a new coffee table because I feel the flutter The familiar flutter. But it is new And it is encouraging And I cannot wait to get started

Rough Patch II Every time life smacks me down, K.O.’s me on the bedroom floor, when I’m lying in the fetal position, I scream, “It’s just a rough patch!” That’s what they say, right? This, too, shall pass? This is not the end? It’s only the end if I make it the end, if I close the book on life, I know there will be no epilogue. What I write in life is only now and there are no sequels, no second chances, so I want this ride to be a pleasant one. When all you have before you is the misery you’ve always known you have to ask yourself, Is this a rough patch? Is there any end in sight?

Acknowledgements Thank you to Professor Elizabeth Whiteacre, and the entire class of ENG 308 for helping to shape and revise these poems for compilation. Thank you to Miss Hailey Earl for posing for the cover art. Thank you to those who inspired this poetry. Thank you to those who spent the time that could have been spent doing homework or watching Netflix reading my poetry.

About the Author

Carie McMichael lives in Muncie, Indiana with her manfriend, Michael and their house cat, Charlie. She is a fervent gamer, crafter, and apartment clutterer. She hopes one day to become a young adult novelist.