I was seventeen when I lost my virginity.

I was drunk, and hopeless, and empty inside.

My best friend had died, and nothing took that agony away.

I thought if I wasn't alone,

I wouldn't be lonely.

Big mistake. 

It was fast, and brutal,

Nothing like the stories I'd read about passion or love.

It worked out okay though,

Because it taught me a lesson.

You don't need someone else to be complete.

You are in yourself, a perfect circle.

And so when people ask, I tell them

That the first time doesn't matter.

The love of your life is an overrated concept anyway.

Love thyself.

I never thought I’d lose my virginity to a flute player in band class, but here I was, in Savannah Clapacky’s living room with my dick out. An hour ago, we were in class, glancing at each other during the middle of  "Pomp and Circumstance"—B flat major. But now it was 3pm. After school. Monday. My black skinny jeans were on the rug and my high tops by the front door. I was naked despite my cut-off, denim Dead Kennedy’s vest, which was covered in nails and spikes that impaled the leather couch. On top of me, Savannah closed her eyes and held her hand over her mouth as I slid in. If the synthetic marijuana I had inhaled an hour ago didn’t make me feel like King of the Jungle, this certainly did.

The key entered the lock, but I’m not talking about penetration—penetration deserves a better metaphor.

It was a key entering the front door of Savannah’s house.

“My dad and brother” she screeched.

I had a pretty good reason to shove the nearby fire poker through my neck. I could fade from existence on her floor. But no way was I going to let this euphoric burst of sin and exploration stop without an erotic ending. This dude would have to kill me. The careful, wooing words I had to type via Facebook Chat to get Savannah to like me would not go unrewarded. Plus, I didn’t care about her dad seeing. She told me her dad hated muslims. And I didn’t like that—my muslim friend from science class was pretty cool.

But Savannah pushed herself off of me, putting her ankles into the leg sockets of her yoga pants.

"Through the Kitchen," she said grabbing my wrist. I looked at the gushing stain on the patch of couch between my legs. Rad. I whipped my black skinny jeans over my shoulder and scurried.

But there was a problem: my high tops were by the front door, staring back at me, wondering why I was abandoning them.

"What about my shoes?” I whispered.

“Get new ones,” she said, pushing me towards the glass slider door that lead to the back porch.

Get new ones? New ones? The audacity Savannah had to belittle my anarchy-symbol high tops! They had been my foot’s best friend for three years—I couldn’t just get new ones.

But then Mr. Clapacky and Savannah’s mountain-man brother opened the front door.

Savannah rushed into the living room to distract her dad. Which was a good idea until I realized the slider door was locked, and that I was too high to figure out how to open it.

“Dad, you’re home early.”

My fingers scrambled, twisting and pulling random parts of the door handle. I was baffled by elementary problem solving, tethered to the limitations of a drugged-up consciousness.

“Why are the lights off?” he replied.

Savannah kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her. I could only hear blurry voices swarming around the room. I couldn’t tell if my alarming heart beat was from the rush of teenage lust, or the fact that Savannah’s family was about to see my penis. I panicked. I needed out. How had Houdini escaped chains, and Frank Lee Morris escape Alcatraz, but I could not flick a lock to a goddamn glass door?

Wait. Flick. Yes.

I flicked a small white switch, feeling catharsis from it’s soft snap. If anything was going to make me cum that day, it was that flick. But I had no time to celebrate.

I pulled the slider door open. The sensor lights turn on, shining on my bare ass as I dashed across the splinter-infested porch. There were no stairs. She didn’t mention that there were no stairs. I would need to jump. I hesitate. But it was a matter of escaping or getting my balls put in the kitchen blender. I jump, saying a prayer as I fall through the air, that there will not be an angry German Shepard waiting below, ready to bark and reveal my presence. My presence, which is already likely to be detected after leaving the breadcrumbs of shoes and gush stains.

Mercifully, there was no dog…but there was a wheel barrow. 

My ankles crunched. I fell out of the wheel barrow and onto the grass, feeling the New England dew wet my hairy legs. 

But then I saw the glorious woods beyond the backyard.

Faster than Usain Bolt, I sprinted. I salivated over the pearly gates of heaven ahead, where centaurs were dancing and God was waiting to welcome me into His arms. My ankle bones felt broken, but I was too high to tell, and I had no time to check. Mr. Clapacky probably had his rifle loaded, aiming to shoot me right in the ass.

I dived into the darkness, tumbling over sharp sticks and dirty leaves. A jagged rock scraped across my ass, but I ignored the blood and put my jeans on. I had no compass, but my heart told me to run east. I knew if I ran far enough, I would soon reach the emergency helipad where my Toyota Corolla waited. I may have been dumb enough to have sex in a Savannah’s living room, but I was not dumb enough to park my car in front of her house.

I didn’t know if it had been minutes, hours, or six months before I navigated through those woods to my precious vehicle—losing my virginity on drugs really fucked with my head.

In my car I shoved the aux cable from my stereo into the glory hole that is my iPod socket. Blaring “Holiday in Cambodia,” I peel out onto the street, shooting nitrous out of my imaginary chrome pipes.

Savannah’s dad will never forget the day he almost caught Jack Sparrow.

I laughed. I shouted the F word out the window. I lit a cigarette and drove faster than I had in my entire life. But the thrill stopped when I noticed my bare feet on the gas pedal. The texture felt unfamiliar. I didn’t just lose my virginity, I lost my favorite shoes.

And to think I didn’t even cum.

Was I ready?

I didn't know for sure. I was tired of carrying the label. Virgin.

It weighed me down, I felt unwanted. Still a virgin at 19. There must have been something wrong with me. I only had one boy friend, if you could call it that. We held hands, kissed once or maybe twice, watched a lot of movies. I still don't think it counts.

There had been no exciting make-out sessions in high school, no giggling behind the bleachers or holding hands down the halls. I was the quiet kid, just average enough for no one to pay attention to. I was there, but no one really noticed.

College was going to be better, I told myself, college was where I could be the "cool" kid. I could reinvent myself. I could be someone worth knowing.

Freshman year blew by, nothing notable happened.

Destined to be that average kid who was still a virgin. Every party I went to I was sure everyone could tell. It was as if I had a huge sign in glowing letters, "VIRGIN, VIRGIN, VIRGIN."

Virgin.

I didn't want to be that girl anymore. I didn't want to carry with weight anymore. So I started drinking.

Realised that drinking made me braver, more confident, more flirty.

I liked who I was when I was drunk. So that meant others would too.

Sophomore year came, still had the V label. But I was off campus, living in a house with my two best friends, who were far more experience than I, far prettier, cooler. If I was drunk enough, I could be fun enough, at least by drunken college frat boy standards. It made me feel wanted, when they touch my hands, held my waist and pulled me in close. I knew it was because they were drunk and horny, but I felt needed.

It hadn't been a plan. I hadn't purposely planned for it to happen. It just did.

I was drunk. We were all drunk. Twelve dollar jugs of wine and cheap vodka will get you pretty quick. I was wearing jeans, tight, neon sneakers, some kind of shirt, probably loose because I hated the way I looked.

The shoes were most important. They were Nikes. Boys made comments about them, made me feel cool, made me feel wanted. I wanted to be wanted. Wanted to be the center of attention for once, wanted to be that girl. The one who gets drunk and is the life of the party.

That night I was.

Two boys started calling me Nikes. I only remember one of their names; he’s married now, kid on the way. I liked the way his hands felt needy around my waist, how his lips moved close to mine, how his voice sounded, rough and low and wanting.

I liked feeling his hips grind into mine, liked how he was trying to keep the other boys away, liked the way his hands felt. I liked when he squeezed my ass and pulled me even closer.

There was a part of me resisting, some part of me was saying no, that this wasn’t how I wanted to lose the big sign over my head. So I drank some more, told that part of me to fuck off, and drank a little more. The room was blurry, my thoughts were slow and fuzzy, but the boy still wanted me.

People were leaving; the party was dying down, slowing. Girls and boys moving slowly, words slurred. The dingy smell of cigarettes and spilled beer and sweaty bodies and college youth and need filled the room.

I went to my room.

Recently moved in, boxes were everywhere, half the walls were painted, half filled paint cans and brushes scattered the floor. He followed me in.

Eased me down on the bed.

Drunken, smoked filled, vodka-tasting tongue pressed against mine. Hands fumbled with my jeans, stripped them off.

Was this what I wanted?

Should I say no?

No.

No?

I wasn’t sure. So I said nothing.

And it happened.

I felt nothing. No surge of becoming a woman, no special feeling that I had dropped the virgin title.

It was done and over with.

He left the next morning. Kissed my forehead.

I felt wanted.

I felt used and maybe a little dirty.

Should I have felt something else? Should I have felt elation or excitement? I’m not sure.

Should I have said no?

The sign crumbled and fell among the boxes that held my belongings. My life.

My illuminated VIRGIN sign was gone.

There was the first time I gave myself to someone—on the old Chippendale couch, its imperfect upholstery hidden under an old floral bed sheet, with an imperfect young man exploring my body in ways I only welcomed from myself until then.

But before that, there was the time I lost my virginity.

I was too young to understand his touch, his misguided affections. He had me lay down in the bed he shared with my mother, slowly pulled my Lambchop panties down to my mosquito-bitten ankles.

Then he slipped the pink floral nightgown up to my skinny, suntanned shoulders—my flat chest devoid of sexuality exposed to his hungry eyes.

I remember the way the pillows smelled like laundry detergent. I remember staring at the ceiling and thinking about that time we went to the zoo and he bought me Roman candy, and how my mom let me eat an entire stick of the strawberry flavored one. My mind wandered so much that, when I recollect my first moments of intimacy, the memory plays out in my head like a dream—like I'm standing in the room watching it all happen to me.

He never kissed me, only pushed my scabby knees apart and whispered the first sweet nothing that ever penetrated my ears—

Don't tell your momma about this...

And I didn't. Not for a long time.

Crisp, off-white sheets illuminated by bright sunlight hurt his eyes as they fluttered open.

For a split second, he wondered where he was.

Squinting, he could make out the silhouette of a body. Down past the edge of the bed, it sat in a chair with its elbows resting on its legs. There was a small television stuffed into the top left corner of the room, playing some kind of game show. Beside it, there was a window with curtains colored the same off-white as the sheets.

At the sight of him awakening, the shadow rose off the chair and moved quickly toward him.

"Elijah?"

He mumbled an almost incoherent reply. It was mostly a grunt but the shadow broke down into tears.

Shit.

Memories came flooding back like a boiling torrent of seawater. And it tasted just as bitter.

Him- curled up in a bathtub, knees to chest. A bloody blade and slit wrists- swallowing pills, then some more, then some more.

Shit.

As if to confirm his thoughts, he looked down at his arms and saw them wrapped in bandages. Tubes were slipping in and out from under them.

Beside Elijah, the crying shadow took his hand. He could tell now that it was his husband.

"Listen honey. We don't have to talk about this right now. I'm just happy you're here." He paused, his thumb caressing his hand. "I'm just happy you're here."

Elijah sat at the kitchen table, watching the dust particles dancing in the sun rays shining in through the window. He could smell the bananas that they had bought on their way home from the hospital and remembered how they had once been ripe. Now, they were brown and beginning to rot, needing to be thrown out.

With a clink, Cameron sat a plate of breakfast in front of him and an empty glass.

"What'd you like to drink?"

Elijah twirled his fried potatoes around with his fork but didn't reply.

"You have to eat sometime," Cameron said as he put his hands on his hips, letting the fridge door swing shut.

"I'm not hungry."

"Then drink something."

"I don't want to."

"I just cooked you breakfast."

"And I appreciate it."

He sat down and began to eat his food. "You have a funny way of showing it." After a while, he spoke up again. "You have to try."

"I know."

"I don't think you do."

"God dammit, Cameron. It hasn't even been a month."

He stayed silent after that.

"I think we should go to the park today." His husband said, rolling over and putting his hand on his chest. "It'd do you some good to get out of the house."

"I don't know, maybe."

He sat up. "We're going."

"Okay."

An hour later, Elijah crawled into the passenger seat of their car. Cameron popped the keys into the ignition and reversed out the driveway.

"It looks like a nice day." He acknowledged.

"It does."

"Just you wait and see. I bet you'll enjoy the sun on your skin."

Elijah picked at a string hanging from his athletic shorts. "Maybe."

They drove in silence.

He didn't even notice when they pulled into the parking lot. "Let's go." Cameron said once they were parked.

"I don't want to."

"Get out of the car."

"I said I don't want to."

Cameron jumped out of the car and stomped over to Elijah's door, flinging it open. "Get. Out."

"God dammit Cameron."

Cameron grabbed his arm and pulled, making him fall out onto the ground. A young couple stared as they walked by.

Elijah picked himself up. "Cameron, stop it."

"No! We're going."

"I just fucking said I didn't want to."

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU JUST SAID."

"I do."

Cameron shoved him into the car door. "Don't you dare turn this back on me!"

Elijah stared at him in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? I'm talking about all those looks you give me- all those times you act like I don't care about you, because I do. And you acting like I don't is a terrible feeling."

"Excuse me? I never said you didn't care about me!"

"Oh yeah?" He chuckled coolly. "Then why did you try to kill yourself?"

Elijah opened the car door. "We're not talking about this."

Cameron rushed forward and slammed the door shut again then pinned him against the car. "Like shit we aren't." He narrowed his eyes. "Why would you?"

"Why would I what?"

"Don't you dare play stupid."

Elijah paused. "I'm not happy."

"Okay, besides the obvious."

"I'M NOT FUCKING HAPPY." He pushed Cameron in the chest. "DON'T YOU GET IT? OR ARE YOU TOO SELFISH TO SEE PAST YOUR OWN PROBLEMS? I HAVEN'T BEEN HAPPY FOR A LONG TIME. AND I SURE DIDN'T TRY TO DIE BECAUSE OF YOU. Don't give yourself that satisfaction- you don't deserve it."

"How dare you call me selfish when you're acting like you're the only one that hurts? There are more things going on than just you and maybe if you would have realized that you wouldn't have tried to commit suicide!" A flock of birds flew off from the surrounding trees. "And don't tell me that I was happy to see you suffer."

"You don't think I realize there are things bigger than me? More important than me? Ever since-"

"Ever since what? Ever since Derek? I'm so tired of hearing about Derek. Derek seems to be the only one you care about in this relationship."

Elijah stared, horrified. "Are you kidding me? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? He hit me, Cameron. He hit me! Excuse me for not forgetting about all of that."

"I don't expect you to forget about him. God, I don't even expect you to ever get over it. But I did expect you to care about us more and to move out of the past."

"If it was that easy don't you think I would have done it? Come on, don't tell me you actually thought I would stay in that mindset anymore than I'd have to? You must be pretty damn stupid if you think otherwise." It was Elijah's turn to chuckle in frustration. "But of course I should have just gotten past it, right? So that you," he jabbed a finger into Cameron's chest, "could be at peace with yourself. As long as you had someone to fuck at night, you were fine. Happy even. But I wasn't. Instead, I was left alone with the nightmares you had promised to fight off. I couldn't stand living in my own skin and the entire time you only wanted me for sex."

"I-"

Elijah cut him off. "No, Cameron. I'm done, I'm done." He took the keys from Cameron's hand and went to the drivers seat. "I'm leaving."

"Where are you going?"

He shut the car door and started the car. "I don't know- maybe to Derek's, since you seem to think I'm so infatuated with him."

Elijah didn't even feel the blood running from his knees as he drove away.

What a hot, dry gargantuan summer!

Aliya sat in the back of the bus, her veil forming a line of perspiration at the lining of her forehead. A sweat mustache had already decorated her upper lip and she contemplated whether to wipe it with her fingers and risk smudging her foundation or wait for it to dry on its own.

The man sitting next to her gave her dirty looks. It must be the veil, she thought miserably as she tightened her grip on her backpack. She was on her way to visit her mother at the north east part of the city, a manicured, upper state avenue where she could easily separate the smell of roses from geraniums. Her visit was expected to not take more than one hour, despite wishing she could stay longer. Her father lingered at the other end of the world; in the darkest alley of a forgotten neighborhood. They lived in a trailer park, a ghetto of sorts, where the less fortunate races segregate to stir away trouble and to avoid making contact with the upper-class citizens. Somehow, the thought made her feel more like a side dish than a human.

“This damn weather is killin’ me.”

Aliya glanced at the fancy woman who wore mismatching clothing items and kept fanning herself. She wondered why a woman with pearl earrings would be taking the bus just like normal people.

“Fake pearls,”

Aliya stared right at the creepy ass hater who had been eyeing her all day in wonder. Did he just talk to her?

“Replicas of originals. It’s all ceramic in that dogeared end of hers! Not more than a few cents.”

Aliya didn’t know how to react to this sudden invasion of privacy. She nodded at the guy and watched as the bus stopped to engulf more passengers.

That’s when she saw the ice-cream man.

He was the last to enter and the only one who didn’t find a place to sit. His hair was a mass of mahogany and gold. A tattoo of a grizzly bear in action was embroidered on the right side of his neck. As he licked his way through an ice-cream cone –of some bizarre flavor, it seemed, unless they make beige and black flavors these days- she imagined his slippery tongue working its way down her throat.

“His what?!! How could I even…”

Aliya was a Muslim, and a devout one at that. She prayed five times a day. Never missed a prayer no matter how that cost her in terms of getting teased at school or leaving the soup to brew longer than it should. To her, praying had been more than reciting verses from the Koran. It was an escape. Some people escaped by reading books or watching reality TV. For Aliya, it was praying. 

While praying, her mind could drift off to all the good things that used to be in her life; her mother’s chicken enchilada, her Dad’s genuine smile, the day Deena –their neighbor back in the days when her parents were still together- smiled at her and planted a cold, damp kiss on the tip of her chin. She knew that what Deena did was wrong by her code of ethics, but she didn’t mind. She tried to analyze it on the basis of sisterly love or strengthening bonds of humanity. Prayer also made it seem right, so right.

While praying, sometimes Aliya skipped the regular verses and mumbled random stuff to Allah. She knew He would be listening at that particular moment, especially if it was Dawn prayer or Twilight prayer, so she would tell Him how she hated Jason, who always pulled her veil and called it a turban or how she wished she could have Melissa Janssen’s body without having to cut down on her daily pasta intake. Sometimes she would question why He made her mother turn her back on her Dad, but one look at his drunk, sorry ass and she knew. Aliya didn’t need a god to tell her what a loser her dad was and her mother wasn’t meant for a life in Loserville.

Ice-cream man sat down when the Lady with Fake Beautiful Pearls left. He was still licking his way through the ice-cream and Aliya felt her throat dry out like a pile of wood ready to be thrown into a gaping wide furnace. Ice-cream man must’ve sensed it because he smiled and offered her a taste.

“Try it, unless you’re a germophobe,” he said with a wink.

Aliya was amazed by his stricken voice. It was not a child’s yet not really a man’s voice. It could be anybody’s voice. Hell, it could even be her cousin Khadija’s voice. She was never icky when she had to drink after a friend or take a bite after her Dad devoured half off a sandwich then threw away the rest in favor of a bottle of liquor. She brought the scoop to her mouth. The cone felt warm and sticky from where Ice-cream man’s hand imprint had been. She closed her mouth on the top of the scoop, imitating a scene she once saw in a porn movie that one of her male cousins sneaked into a sleepover back in the good days. She remembered a woman circling a dick with her tongue then closing her mouth around it, sealing it with her breath. She remembered running from the room while her cousins –on her mother’s side of the family- went hysterical. She barraged in while her mother had tea with the ladies and cried into her lap.

“I don’t want to sleep at Aunt Roberta’s house again, Mama.”

“Why, dumpling?”

“Cuz Angel is showing us a film where a woman is eating a man out!”

Aliya blinked away dense, nostalgic tears and concentrated on the task at hand.

The taste of the ice-cream struck her as odd. She shook her head and looked at mahogany hair, helplessly.

“Licorice and malt. Just go through with it and you’re gonna fall in love. It’s a fucking addiction!”

“Why did you choose the bear on your neck?” she asked -her mouth numb from the bizarreness of taste.

“Why are you covering your head?” He leaned into her and she looked down, blushing. The ice-cream thickened as it made its way down her throat.

“You go first,” he said.

She looked up, puzzled. But as she saw the eager expression on his face she realized he was as curious as she had been.

“It’s a religious thing.”

“What does it symbolize?”

“Chastity. Virtue.”

“These are good things?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

She pointed at the snarling bear again and asked, “What about you? What do you symbolize?”

“Oh, it’s just my spirit animal. It’s supposed to refer to a lot of crappy qualities that I happen to acquire none of but as far as I know, this animal knows something about me that I ought to figure out.”

“How?”

“You know the Sierra Nevada? They say if you hike up Mount Tallac on your own, you would meet your spirit animal on a moonlit night.”

“That’s a good thing?”

“Depends on how you see covering your head when it’s 104 outside.”

She raised an eyebrow. The way he said it didn’t make her feel bad, even though she had had enough stones thrown at her because of her veil in this life.

“Don’t you think it could be a sign of faith?”

“I don’t really think it’s a sign of anything,” he said as he narrowed his eyes at her.

“Same goes for your tattoo. All that crap about spirit animals.”

“If you touch the bear,” he said, and leaned sideways with the gnarling bear facing her, the ink so black and glossy that it almost broke free of his skin, “it might come to life.”

She rolled her eyes and lifted up her fingers. She ran her fingertips on his skin. He was radiating with heat. His hair smelled like fulgurites. One moment she was touching his tattoo and the other she was sniffing his mass of hair and tattooed neck, burying her nose in the raw smell, unable to bypass the moment.

When she came to her senses, everybody in the bus was watching her. Their looks ranged from pure hostile to downright disdainful. She felt the heat stemming from ice-cream man’s body encapsulating her, throwing her in the middle of a drought in Sahara. It was not that her temperature rose in shame. She was just humiliated by the thousand and so eyes that slowly sucked whatever energy she had left.

His reaction, however, was more bemused than shocked.

“I’m Mason, by the way.”

She stood up and went to the exit door. She held into one of the bus-straps feeling hot, sharp tears rushing to her eyes.

“I know what your spirit animal is.”

Aliya turned. Mason was standing right behind her. She could feel his charwood breath blazing through the cottony material of her pale blue headscarf. His weird, burnt breath would have otherwise made her recoil, but somehow it made him more alluring. Like he was all fire and clay, freshly manufactured by Allah, and hasn’t been carried through the regular canals of uterine fluids, semen and blood.

“Please let me go.”

Why did she desperately want to leave? Was it the fact that she was beginning to feel the time lag and the more she spent on the way to her mother, the less time she had to spend with her? Or was it the fact that he was so beautiful and she swore to Allah not to do anything that hasn’t been Koran-approved? Her mother told her it’s okay to have feelings for other boys –just boys, her mother had assured her with a nervous smile- and try to find out where her feelings would lead her to. Her mother, the devout Upper Eastside Catholic, had been in love with her father, the ragtag Muslim from the ghettos. She ran away to marry him –and was disowned from her family all through the 11 years of marriage- yet left him 10 years later when she had had enough of his downward spiraling life. The burden fell upon Aliya’s shoulders. 

She had to pay the bills and clean the U-Haul van as best as she could even though she didn’t even have proper cleaning tools. She could still remember bitterly going to a friend’s slumber party and watching the other morning in fascination as the maid used a vacuum cleaner to make the Persian carpets spotless, the air pump swallowing away the bread crumbs, dirty napkins and dust bunnies into its vacant vortex. She cried all night at home and the next day, her father got her a semi-used one from a garage sale. That was the best day of her life. Even better than the day she wore the veil.

“I just want to buy you dinner,”

She looked at him. He was still so close and she couldn’t lift her eyes off him. She accepted his invitation because she was hungry and because at her mother’s –actually the family mansion where her grandmother stopped saying hi to her ever since she wore the “rag on her head”- she was offered nothing but cookies and milk.

At the cozy Mexican restaurant that Mason suggested, they ate and ate. Aliya was reveling in the smell of hot tamales, cheesy enchilada casserole and fish taco pizza. Mason tossed it all back with mango margaritas while she told the waiter, “Just mangoes.”

At the end of the meal, she was too full to function. She couldn’t even talk or think straight.

“How did you end up with a head covering?”

She wondered why he was so obsessed with her veil. She calmly told him that she willingly chose to cover her hair out of love and respect for God. She didn’t want to be a temptation to men and chose the path of virtue and decency. Immodesty is the route of all evil, she said as she sipped quietly on her frozen mango smoothie.

“But you are still a temptation. Apparently!”

His comment caught her off guard. She placed the glass of smoothie on the aluminum table top. She never thought anybody could see her as “sexy”, especially someone who was in fact sexy. It’s not because she wasn’t sexy. She was, really. It just wasn’t that obvious, not with her sense of style, anyway. At least that’s why she wore the veil. Now she was released from the daily fretting of whether she would look good in a year-and-a-half old pair of shoes. If she was anything like her friend Shahira, who wore a veil under pressure from her parents, she would walk with naked arms all day. Shahira’s bra size hadn’t changed a bit over the years, neither did her butt circumference. One Eid, all the girls hung out together at Mama Rabiya’s house; an old, two-story mansion that once resembled a luxurious villa. They played a game of measuring each and every girl’s butt circumference. Hers came second after Tanisha. And oh what a victory it was to be right after her holiness Tanisha.

“Thank you,” she smiled at Mason.

His expression didn’t change. He leaned towards her and offered her his last tamale, “Don’t thank me for something that’s yours.”

“You gave me confidence. I never saw myself pretty,”

She wanted to say it. But she held her tongue at the end. She knew she should be smarter than opening up to boys, especially mahogany-haired, tattooed boys like Mason. That would give them the upper hand in the relationship.

“Now you’re using the r-word again!”

She excused herself and went quietly to the restroom. There, she took off the veil and watched herself in the large, frameless mirror.

Her hair was a tiny bun at the top of her head. When she was younger she would have it in short dreadlocks as her hair never grew further than the tip of her shoulders. Now all she had to do was pull it up high and secure with a colorless hair band, then wrap the veil around her head. It felt so much easier and depressing all the same. She looked back at the semi-locked restroom door. Even here she could smell the fresh tamales being made, the margarita shots clinking and the frying sound making the atmosphere more perfect than it actually was; even with the intense heat seeping deeper and deeper into her bones.

She held the veil within her hand. To wear or not to wear. She imagined Mason. His smile as he greeted the real her, the one without a head covering. Yet she imagined Allah like she drew Him as a child –a tremendous cloud, staring at her either happily or grumpily, depending on how she had been behaving.

“Just for today, ya Allah. For the love of the prophet,” she heard herself whispering, veil clutched in her hands, steam covering the surface of the mirror. The cloud of mist kept spreading and spreading, until the only reflection she could see was the muggy outline of her small self.

That was all she needed to make up her mind. And go!

My grandmother bathed us

in Holy Water.

She kept a vial in every room

of the tiny ranch house

where she raised seven children.

Most visits,

it was the normal stuff

from the local church.

On special occasions,

she pulled out the bottle

she had mail ordered

from Lourdes, France.

She would bless our foreheads

and our bodies.

“Lord give Annie strength.

Give her a stronger back than I have.

Bless her so she does not have this pain

when she is an old woman.”

One year,

my cousin had an abscess

on his big toe.

She took him into the kitchen

and prayed over his foot.

She doused the toe

with her Holy Water.

The abscess ruptured

into a puddle of blood and pus

on the floor.

It is now a family legend.

She passed away nine years ago.

She smoked until

her lungs filled with tumors.

She wouldn’t let them treat her.

She wanted to sit in her chair

and puff until she died.

“I’m an old woman.

The Lord will take me

when he is ready.”

When she became bedridden,

she made a request of me.

“Annie, keep the family together.

Keep your mother and her sisters

from fighting with each other.

You are the one who can do it.”

She and I were the peacemakers.

Kindred spirits.

Aside from dark hair,

I look nothing like her.

She was short and slender.

I can remember her telling me

that her waist was seventeen inches

when she got married.

I am 5‘9“ and broad.

I can remember being about

eight years old,

and realizing that I was

already bigger than her.

But it didn’t matter.

Even when I was a teenager

and fully grown,

she would scoot over

in her little armchair

and make room for me.

She would rub my back

and touch my hair.

She would tell me

about her life.

How she wanted to join

the diving team,

so she taught herself to swim

in the river

even though she could see

the raw sewage floating past.

Pittsburgh was dirty in those days.

We would watch

Billy Graham and

Little House on the Prairie.

She would pray The Rosary.

She is the person

who taught me to be tender.

We would have tea parties

at the tiny, round

dining room table.

Lipton tea with

spoons full of sugar

and Cremora.

I would sneak into her kitchen

and sink my fingers

into the loaves of dough

rising under dishtowels

on the stove.

In the Summer,

she would send me outside

with the dog.

She didn’t think it was strange

that I would rather lie face down

on the picnic table bench

and search for four leaf clovers

or smush berries from the

front hedges into the sidewalk

to make designs

than find the other kids

on the street to play with.

At lunch time

she would make me sandwiches.

Peanut butter and apricot preserves.

I will always associate apricot with her.

On rainy afternoons,

I would sit with her

and she would

make me memorize

the 23rd Psalm.

She always said,

“If you are afraid,

say Jesus’ name three times

and he will come to save you.”

She also had more practical advice.

“The best finger for picking your nose

is actually your pinkie.”

And I remember the way she would laugh.

How she would gag if she kept

her dentures in for too long.

The day she told me how she wished

she had bought sandals

for her son Joey.

He drowned on a family outing

the summer he turned seven.

He had asked her that year

for a pair of leather sandals.

She had said no,

thinking they would

make him seem too girly.

Decades later,

she was still thinking about

how he never got his sandals.

Now, I wonder what she would think of me.

Thirty and never married.

Most of my relationships with women.

Nonreligious and covered in tattoos.

One of them for her.

The hummingbird over my heart.

Each Mother’s Day we bought her a fuchsia.

She would hang it in the front window

and watch the hummingbirds

eat from the flowers.

I miss her.

In my adult life,

I have tried to embody

the good she taught me.

To love people.

Show affection.

Be a peacemaker.

To outweigh my flaws with beauty.

When Ms. Schneider received her first eviction notice she chose not to ignore it. Her rebellious streak was far stronger than that. Instead, she walked outside, stuck that little pink slip on a pole, and lit it on fire. It was such a tiny display and left just a bit of ash, but it caused a stir. In a town with a population of three hundred everything caused a stir.

Nobody wanted to evict Ms. Schneider. She was something of a local icon. Everyone was fairly sure she'd been around longer than Bradenburry was, even though Bradenburry was two hundred years old. There were always stories about the old woman, only made more infamous by her constant finger-wagging every time someone passed over her yard. Nobody knew why she wanted everyone off her grass. It was just as shriveled and brown as she was.

Her house was falling apart. Coming undone at the seams really. The moulding had taken on an unintended meaning in its name. Half of the building was sagging steadily into the earth like a gimping veteran who'd lived through too many wars. To top it all off, there was this aged sycamore tree leaning nearby that had been killed off by beetles. It was an axe over a chopping block and Ms. Schneider's old hovel was right smack in the way should it decide to fall.

She urinated on the second notice. Thankfully it wasn't in the public eye, so nobody had to go through the unpleasantness of arresting her for indecency. No, she was content to do it privately, put it back in an envelope, and let the mailman deal with the odiferous present. Witnesses said he turned green.

By the third notice the ordeal had become a joke. It had to be a joke. Otherwise it was too undignified to think about. At the end of the day we were still trying to kick an old widow out of her house. That it was for her own good was only a passing comfort.

I was chosen to make the house call. My name was drawn out of the neighborhood hat, along with a lot of nervous laughter and shifty glances. It was probably rigged. I was the newest blood in Bradenburry, a whole two years young, and had the least weight. I didn't argue. I was curious enough to want to know more about the old woman, something beyond the he said she saids.

The nervous laughter followed me out the door as I headed towards her street.

I was stunned to find her on her front porch. Before it aged it was probably quite lovely and impressive. Now it drooped on both ends, the shoulders of a retired blue-collar worker. Ms. Schneider rocked back and forth, her feet in slippers and tapping the creaking wood as she went.

I was careful to keep on the sidewalk and off the dead grass. She didn't look at me, but she talked.

"We had this old tradition in my family, this old-time thing. Marriage was a big deal back in my day. None of this splittin' up swill over the living room furniture."

I paused on the steps, staring and silent.

"We'd plant a tree, see. Me and my husband. He was a big strong kinda man. A real man. Wanted to raise him a family up good and right. So we stuck that big sycamore down and its roots was our roots. We planted it on our ground and set to buildin' our lives all around it."

She grew quiet. Her eyes were rheumy, and they still weren't looking at me. Somehow I just knew I wasn't supposed to talk so I didn't.

"When it was time to go t'war, well, he went. Had to protect his country, see. There was a real evil in the world, not like there'd ever been before. Men all want t'be heroes. He died like one, too. He planted a little seed up inside me and then scattered to th'wind when he threw hisself on a grenade."

I winced. I hadn't been prepared for this. Still I wasn't sure what to say, so I continued to say nothing.

"My baby boy, he was a sweet boy, let me tell you. He was just like his daddy. Hard workin' thing. He and I kept this place runnin', leastways t'suit our needs good enough. He was sharp as a whip. Got hisself a scholarship and a full ride. He was on his way."

A tear trickled down her cheek. I looked away.

"A drunk driver took him. He was nineteen. He was engaged t'be married, ready to give me some grandbabies."

"I'm sorry," I murmured.

"Words," she replied. It wasn't harsh, just blunt. "Them's just words we say to make ourselves feel better. I started thinkin' maybe I was some kinda Job. You know Job. The devil was given leave t'make his life hell just t'see if he'd stay loyal. And I said Lord, Lord Almighty, if you're testin' me take it all from me. Lord, take it all."

Her eyes were finally on me, boring into me. I couldn't meet them. I stared at that dead sycamore tree, full of holes, brown and rotting as it stood. Her words came spat past her teeth.

"What I wanted was for him t'take me, too. I was tellin' him t'take me. I praaaaayed and I praaaaayed. I prayed for it like a dyin' man prays for life. I wanted him t'stop my beatin' heart, because it felt like it shoulda long ago. But he never did. I'm ninety seven, and I think that's the cruelest thing of it all. Ninety seven and nobody wants me, and I got nothin' left but bitter bones."

The rocking resumed, creaking back and forth steadily.

"I ain't no Job, boy. Job weathered through them storms. I let 'em eat me. If there is a God up there waitin', he'll hear no praise from my bitten tongue."

Ms. Schneider raised her hand and pointed it at me accusingly.

"Now you get out of my yard."

And I did.

I write how I think

90% feeling

10% logic

Correct me if you'd like

but there is a 100% chance I won't listen

I put it down as it comes out

you read the parts of me I choose to share

Which in tells a dish of terrible spelling with a side of askew grammar

I'm in love with my incorrect me

What has happened to you?

Ever expanding

Screaming

Consume

More and more

Spending money

You do not have

On things unneeded

Ungrateful

The thought

No longer counts

Must have item

Trample

Push

Gotta have it

Merriment no longer present

Only Scrooges

Bah humbug