old maid (drafty draft draft of a draft)

My first boyfriend
was in fifth grade
and he'd tell me I was
oh so pretty and call me
every night despite
the mean things kids would
say he'd call, he'd always call
we had a song, it was by Winger
and everything was awesome
until he cheated on me
with that slutty little
foster girl who used to
ride in the church van
with me in the summer

I read romance books the kind I bought from Kmart with the pretty teen girl on the cover the ones about the nerdy, quiet girl on vacation who met the cute lifeguard who she at first thought was way out of her league but he saw something in her and then they'd end up kissing by the water and her life would change, her life would change for the better and they always had the best of happiest endings.

My second boyfriend was
in the seventh grade
but he made me pretend he
didn't know me because they
picked on us so bad. he'd never
even kissed me on my cheek
but they said I'd crush him
if we had sex and I'd cry
he'd call me everything night yes
despite pretending he hated me during
the day he'd call me at night until
he decided to date my cousin instead.
he didn't call her fatass in study
hall then sweetheart on the phone
I bite my lips red.

I used to read those YA horror novels where the girl in question was pretty but unsupposing and you spend one hundred and twenty pages wondering if she chose the right brother maybe the nice one who says he loves her is really the one who strangled Jennie on the pier and perhaps it's his mysterious dark-eyed brother that appears in shadows at odd times who is the one who wants to save her. She always makes it out alive. And with the right guy. Crying and wrapped up in his arms, safe and secure.

I watched the girls in junior
high get asked to dance in the
cafeteria and I always sat in the
corner or took the time to get
a soda from the machine or blot
my thick black eyeshadow in the
bathroom in preparation for the tears
I'd cry while locked in the stall
at the end of the night when
just like in gym class twice a week
just like in schoolyard kickball games
I am the last girl left sitting
the last girl picked for the team.

I wrote a book about a girl who left her highschool sweetheart but he still carries a torch for her despite the bad decisions she's made in her life including dating the bad boy who hits her and then falling in love with a vampire. He loves her and even sacrifices his life for her and she always takes him for granted. What a luxury to have love to spare, to wipe your ass with, to cast aside like soiled paper towels.

I'm on the committee that chose
the blue and green crepe paper
to decorate the gym with and I spent
hours blowing up balloons and crafting the
river of dreams across the half court line
I sold candy bars and magazine subscriptions
the day past to buy tickets to the prom
I never expected to be queen
but I never thought I wouldn't be asked to go
I watch the pairs form and realize that
even my guy friends don't want to ask me
in hopes they can do better and on the night
I leave my dress in my closet and cut
myself to sleep.

I wrote a movie about a girl that is so desperate for love that she does anything she can to manipulate her boyfriend not to leave. She threatens to kill herself she pretends to be a whole other person she dyes her hair and bends and contorts to fit in his human tetris grooves but still it's not enough and he leaves and she falls apart. She always falls apart. No one loves girls that fall apart. Too many pieces to pick up. Too much work. So not worth it.

Other girls in my dorm go on dates
with real-life men and i sit in Vickie's
room typing and pretending on Yahoo chat
and when i do meet him in real life he says
I'm too fat but takes my virginity
even thought he says I'm ugly because
after all it is my birthday and I deserve a gift
he leaves me to rot, to bleed
he returns to ether
A soiled paper towel, i throw myself away.

I wrote a short story about a girl that decides to take charge of her life and shrug off this society-imposed misconception that she is anything without a man. She falls in and out of love easily and finds meaning in everything and never loses perspective and never had to take medication to be normal and she is bright and cheery and independent and never worries she will die depressed and alone in an empty house with only cats to claim and clean her bones.

I turn thirty in the bathroom of a french restaurant
My ovaries celebrate twenty-two years of failed
attempts to make me a mother
I consider the returned engagement ring of my early 20's
and the endless tampax thoughtlessly flushed
but I return to my red wine and good friends
and try not to say my fears out loud
for fear that the men will hear and run and hide
forever

I write this blog that no one knows about where I bitch about all the things I can't talk to people about in real life like this sick, dark feeling I get whenever someone breathlessly announces they're engaged/pregnant/closing on their fabulous brand new house. It's a dark green and black sensation much like gangrene or cancer that seeps into my pores and I can't tell anyone that I've lost the ability to be happy for anyone else with their brand new loves, rings, and fetuses.

I've always been years ahead
or years behind
I've always been the wrong
size the wrong chemical composition
the wrong color the wrong shape
the wrong girl the damaged one
the watcher, the waiter, the fear
of the hesitator.

A thirty year screech
a thirty year ravine
filled with thirty years of tears
and sweat and blood
that spills and careens
and just won't go in the right
direction I am alien and outside
and I don't think another
thirty years is going to
fix a goddamn thing.

This is what it is
to run out of time.