xoxo, nico

my rock star brother’s flavor of the week rescued a puppy about a month ago and she randomly named it nico. i met her and i actually liked her because she doesn’t give a shit if i do or not so we got along. when we were kids mango and me used to fight like cats and dogs. supposedly i chased him around the house with a butcher knife one time while i was babysitting but i don’t remember this so it obviously did not happen. one time he threw a pencil at me from across the room and i was convinced he gave me lead poisoning because it stuck in my chest like an arrow head. the point of it is still under the surface of my skin but no matter what we’ve ever done i am the luckiest person because i get to share blood with him.

this picture was taken at the beginning of our quarter life crisis. i was living in boston and i rented a car to meet her at laguardia. at this point we’ve known each other for thirteen years, i love her dearly and she’s still as weird as she was when we went through our teen years. i could count on one hand all the people i kept in touch with from high school and no matter what state we’re living in we always manage to come visit. ironically on the day i flew home to surprise my mum i got an invitation to go a party at the home of my first love and an accomplice of ours.

once upon a time sweet caroline came over to spend the night on a school night. my parents were in las vegas so in order to get around my grandma we had to sneak out the laundry room window. the first time we tried it we got caught. when we knew she was asleep i turned off the alarm and we walked out the door, down the block to my first love’s piece of shit car with no muffler. hours later carrie’s dealer boyfriend gets a page from her mom. by the time dawn came we decided we were going to skip the first half of the day and go in at lunch but that turned into camping out in barns and showers together for the next three. everyone thought we ran away. the cops were searching for us within the first twelve hours, the principle tracking down work sites, questioning friends, and my parents caught the next flight out of sin city. we had to escape out the back door of a house and hop over fences and graves to get in the backseat of our accomplice’s mustang because carrie’s dad had staked out the place. he saw us flea and we ended up in a high speed chase down dirt roads but he couldn’t keep up because our driver believed he was speed racer.

now back at home the driver and my first love are living happily never after ironically sharing an apartment together. a few years ago the doctor’s told carrie that she would never have children so she said fuck birth control and being careful. she was always the one who wanted to have a bunch of babies. one night we went to mcdonalds after vicodin cocktails and she dumped her diet coke out the passenger window so she’d have something to throw up in before we even left the drive thu. two days later she called and said she had a bun in the oven. eighteen months ago she gave birth to a beautiful boy named evan and i flew to manhattan.

i took a trip and my pops dropped me off with a souvenir to smuggle through security. the duke and i split the stem and the cap and ate it with raspberry stoli then went to pete’s candy store where we secluded ourselves in a dark corner. we didn’t take alot and i originally anticipated the magic not to be so strong but it wasn’t long before my legs started to weigh me down. the duke looked at me with his palms on the table dead serious and said he’s peaking. i’m like bullshit just wait these are creepers.

the clerks behind the counter at the corner store must have thought we were freaks. i asked for a large coffee cup and one of them said they would cost me twenty five cents each so the duke demanded to see the merchandise. we inspected the product and made sure they came with lids and straws to conceal the contents before we made the purchase. this brilliant idea came to us while we were hiding in the matchless photo booth because we wanted to take our drinks with us in to-go cups. this was the point in the evening when i realized we should not be around the general public let alone run into anyone we know. my pupils now look like black holes. the plan was to walk around brooklyn after we picked up ice and liquor from his apartment but instead we ended up sitting at his bar drinking from the paper cups and straws we bought for hours.

i think we all need to food poison ourselves more often.

making out with girls is fun. i went through a phase when i was in la where we’d play strip poker with a pot of kisses instead of chips and body parts as the blinds. their lips are softer and they know just how to touch because they’re familiar with our secret spots. last night when i came home i tripped over shoes in the living room. princess had company in her bed and i swear i thought when i saw him he would be naked and dead. she obviously didn’t hear me come in even though the walls in this apartment are paper thin. this guy was so loud and he sounded so into the position i imagined them in. it got quiet all of a sudden then a few minutes later the front door slammed. even i needed a cigarette after that one. on the stoop sat princess next to the man she murdered. they were not alone and he was very much alive with a perma-grin sitting in the middle of her and a pretty girl i just met. princess introduced her as a friend and i didn’t think anything of it when she slept over twice last week. that little shit was going to try and keep it a secret. the random guy she had a one night stand with was not who got her off in forty-five seconds. no fucking way that totally had to have been lady love.

maybe you’re not aware of the fact that good things come in little blue packages or that i tied bells to my shoe laces so when i walk away it rings like your ears do when i talk about you. sometimes i think you can hear me whispering but thats impossible because you’re miles away from where ever i should be. so i wait until the coast is clear and i sit still until i can’t stand the same position. the same old thing over and over again like the alarm clock waking me up when all i want to do is slip underneath my pinstripe sheets and stay there for days not thinking about breathing.

so its not you. its just me and i’m all by myself in the dark wondering why i’m not there and how you are everywhere. maybe its the first impression you make or how you got blinded by the smile you saw on my face. kind of like it hit you the way sun gets the top of puddles after it rains. maybe one day i’ll meet the person who can touch me kind of like that shine but i probably had never even noticed him on the street. perhaps our paths will cross and we’ll meet again the way they did in kodachrome movies or he could be sleeping right next to me facing the other way while i stay quiet pretending i can hear his heart beat. serenfuckingdipitydodah i gotta stop trying to connect all these dots, crossing hearts and rolling the die because i’ve learned its always the snake who stares you strait in the eyes. i’m exhausted but i don’t want to sleep so please i’d rather not then all of a sudden my subconscious stops and one thing leads to no question between why or why not. talent lies in whether or not i get caught.

this morning i left my keys in my apartment. i forgot them when i decided that i needed a cigarette. as soon as the door slammed on my ass i realized i had to go back in for my lighter. i was barefoot with no keys. sweet. i get to walk to the store with bed head and ignore the sign that reads no shirt no shoes no service and went in wearing just panties with an ex boyfriend’s old wife beater. the clerk knows me but can’t see my feet and i asked if i could use the phone before i realized that i don’t have my cell so i have no numbers. its a little before noon so my roommates are’t even due home until this evening. when i buzzed all the doors it made my landlords dog bark but that was the only response i got. fuck. i’m going to have to climb over ten foot gate to get into the backyard for the ladder so i can hopefully scale the siding so i can crawl in my window that might be unlocked only if i can pop the screen out. the cops happen to be patrolling the street and saw me hanging from the iron bars as i was trying to swing my leg over so they stopped, interrogated me for breaking and entering, then made me call a locksmith so it ended up costing me sixty bucks. lovely.

sometimes i get so wasted i need to be carried home. i swear i don’t do it on purpose. it just kind of happens.

as it turns out i found there’s nothing i could have done about it. i wish i would have thought faster but i don’t have magic powers and i can’t recite a spell that turns clocks back or makes everyone believe that time is just figment of our imagination. even though my watch is broken its still right one time when its light and twelve hours later in the middle of the night. in a perfect world there would be no such thing as what happens when we sleep. we all have secret dreams and the most important thing is for them to stay quiet in front of the people we pretend to trust. you can’t hide your skeletons from the ones your love because those are the ones who are supposed to love you because you possess them. i can love you unconditionally under one condition and that is only if you have the heart to show me what you may be feeling.

i was never a good girl nor was i ever a strait a student. i got b’s and c’s and was voted biggest skipper in the senior mock elections. i thought it was a joke so i didn’t even show up to the yearbook photo. my life fell apart during my last year of highschool. all my friends were older and had already graduated and left me behind to rot in the halls with all the assholes i had to sit through class with. i’d leave at lunch went to smoke blunts, eat acid or sprinkle shroom dust on pizza. maybe it had something to do with the drugs but i had the biggest attitude and i purposefully broke rules knowing that it would would suck to get caught even though most of the time i got away with it. i just didn’t give a fuck. i cheated and lied and i was the most ungrateful spoiled little shit you could ever imagine up until my baby sister grew up. i envy my parents for their forgiveness and i wish i would have listened when they tried to teach me how not to hold grudges.