both stem and petal

Everything is such a sacrifice.  I am forever kneeling before the shrine of greatness on top of which my big Other torments and insults me. I seek partnership in things that look littler than me. Women opt for motherhood when the only other choice is blowing their brains out. I am too stupid to draw my own path. Too ashamed of my parents' failures. Too white. I am a generation too late. I should be a government w***e, or without an iPhone at least. I have the cheap lingerie to match.

I cannot tell if my sister is crying or coming. We hide in our bedrooms after dinner most days.

Drinking is the easiest thing in the world (she must be coming, too much banging). I should fly through books but I am vain and lazy and just write in my diary instead. This waiting game gets boring after a while. I stink of nostalgia. I miss times I don't even know about. Cowboys, the desert. Dry times of tragedy, 7-day long beer hauls over mountains. Girls dropping dead at your feet, not quite the way you imagined it. I have not matured since age five in terms of my professional aspirations. Pirate cowboy. How cheesy. Instead I'm all mold.

I wonder where my desire to be Jesus started. Probably the stations of the cross in grade school. No one even thought it was weird when they picked me to play Jesus, what with my bird legs and my tendency to allow my own crucifixion. That was age 11 when I was both stem and petal. Me and Annie on a sleepover touching each other in the lilac glow of a recursive DVD title screen, the same stanza of a bad rock song tumbling over itself and our tickling fingers. I did not care that she was a girl*, it was an honor to be close to someone in the dark. Touch takes death away. I used to pray to live infinitely but I have a better sense of humor nowadays. I cook, I say I'll be a lawyer.

*she was a coconut Girl Scout Cookie of a child.