The Aberration of Youth

  

We liked to pretend we were dying. 

It felt invigorating to keep death close. 

Dying assured us we were, in fact, real 

to begin with and was sure to invoke 

sympathy by pairing all that we loved 

with the inevitability of its passing. 

  

We liked to play dead by the sides of the roads. 

One time we went as far as to 

squirt ketchup on our white t-shirts

hoping a car would stop to help us. 

We fantasized being picked up and 

nestled in the back seat of a Buick 

by unfamiliar, yet caring arms. 

  

We perfected falling down the stairs 

when our parents had company over. 

We liked to make memorable entrances, 

then spring up and take funny bows,

desperate for the acknowledgement 

that our very existences were in danger. 

  

We enjoyed pretending we were retarded 

by garbling our speech and ramming it 

through mishappened mouths, 

our faces a rictus of helplessness 

readily excusing us from all expectations 

and instantly surrounding us with 

the unconditional sympathy we craved. 

  

After watching The Miracle Worker 

on the late show, for days 

we went around wildly 

waving our outstretched arms 

as we bumped into furniture 

feeling our way through 

our own make-believe darknesses. 

Perhaps if we were blind 

we’d have been loved. 

  

We were fond of screaming 

in the neighbors back yards. 

We excelled at faking vomiting

by vibrating our fingers 

down the back of each other’s heads 

as if puke were slowly sliding down 

the hair onto the napes of the necks. 

  

Sometimes we froze like mannequins 

in the aisles of the local Pennies 

to spook old ladies and of course 

shock the shit out of strangers. 

At 10 we began running away from our homes

twice a week, staying away 

just long enough to spark guilt in someone. 

  

We were a pathetic ruse. 

  

We liked to walk down streets 

smoking fake cigarettes, 

blowing clouds of dental powder 

through straws with tin foil ends 

dipped in red ink. 

We lived to make tongues wag. 

  

At 14 we pretended we were witches 

by learning rituals and performing spells. 

We told friends we cleaned our rooms with magic. 

We’d point dead oak tree branches 

toward the sky, repeating rhymes 

with the intention of flying away. 

  

One time we made bombs

out of scraped off sparklers 

and gutted firecrackers, then buried 

them in cigar boxes in our backyards 

with fuses poking out of the ground. 

We lived to light those wicks

and blow up the whole lonely world. 

  

At 15 we drew hair under our armpits 

with our mother’s eyeliner pencils

then flirted with older men 

we saw in the apartment buildings 

across the way. 

Couldn’t they see we were now

young and old enough to be valued

for our bodies alone?

  

We kept wigs in our underwear drawers. 

We were known for staining our underpants 

with our nocturnal emissions. 

Our mother pinned them to 

the drapes when she hosted 

her bridge clubs in an attempt 

to shame and humiliate us. 

So we got even by humping our pillows

in the dark. 

  

We changed our rooms around weekly, 

once begging our mother to buy 

us a leopard skin bedspread. 

We were always plotting our escape. 

We fell in love with strangers so easily. 

We used to walk up to unfamiliar houses 

and ask to use the bathrooms 

longing for a taste of other lives. 

  

We drew freckles on our faces 

with red ink pens. 

We touched the end of thermometers

to hot light bulbs

to prove we had fevers. 

We died like Garbos in black and white. 

Our illnesses solely invented for 

staying home from things. 

  

We wore outlandish paisley bell bottoms 

our mother had sewn for us. 

We crawled through neighbor’s windows 

to jack their teenage sons off at night. 

We liked squishing marshmallows 

between our fingers to make taffy 

adding cocoa powder or Tang for pizazz. 

At night we’d make prank phone calls 

under the cum-stained sheets of our beds. 

  

We fantasized being institutionalized 

so that we might be taken care of 

for the rest of our lives. In band classes 

we pretended to play our instruments 

puffing our cheeks in and out to the music. 

We danced and sang to records 

alone in the subconscious of our basements. 

  

Though we grieved from day one, 

what had ever been there to make us sad?