Sinister: how did you survive all these fires and floods?

[lindsey baker]

hello sinister.

sometimes, i wonder why i do it, why i go somewhere outside, and expect 
everything to compact upon itself and fall into my lap in a neat little 
bundle of happiness, chocolate-coated so that i may eat it and find all the 
happiness in the world suddenly inside my stomach, miraculously traveling my 
veins.

tonight i stood on a balcony, watching a band perform below, looking at all 
the bobbing heads of the kids in the crowd and finding only one face down 
there worthy of my rapt attention. and he didn't look up at me when i was 
looking down, and the sheer fact of the height and distance and absence of 
meeting eyes was probably symbolic of something both tangible and 
intangible.

he asked me once what color i told people my eyes were, when they weren't 
being pink. i told him grey, and he said good.

i was five feet away from the boy who brought everything down three months 
ago, everything down to the most basic instincts of desire and nature. that 
one, who was drunk as the day is long and flaunting his new unattachment in 
my peripheral vision, was not the one i wanted to be close to any more. the 
thread between us was finally severed, and replaced with an invisible chain 
of smoke rings and abandoned booze.

i tried to feel liberated.

and from behind, as always, the one below me came up to my level, surprised 
me, stood there. he goes to shows like a true emo kid, standing stock still 
in the center of the audience, refusing whatever urge it was that gripped 
the rest of the usually subdued fans in a sweaty grip of upheaval. i could 
feel the venue shaking, pounding, and i felt as though i was dancing without 
moving my clumsy feet at all.

i asked the one if he wanted to meet the other, and he looked at me and 
flatly said no. i wonder what would have happened should i have introduced 
them, the one knowing the hysteria breeded by the other. i was quivering 
between them, owning neither. and probably not owning myself, either.

at some point during the show, i held a small with filter in my fingertips, 
the end still glowing. my friends didn't think i would actually do it, but i 
did, to a glorious roar of approval and disbelief. time slowed as i situated 
the cylinder between my fingers, paused, and let it arc over the people. the 
orange end hit someone's head as it fell from the balcony. cheers. glares. i 
laughed, and the sound rang out, harsh and moving.

the walk back to my car was a solitary one, me with a square poster in one 
hand, the other wrapped around the strap of my bag. i walked uphill, 
carefully avoiding the now useless crust of ice-melting pebbles coating the 
pavement, mindful not to dirty my white shoes too badly. i heeded the quiet 
crunch beneath my feet, and gave the sound the respect it deserved. i 
crunched the hell out of that hill, and gave up the sound of real music for 
artificial answers when the cd player turned over and told me i was a modern 
girl.

the road stretched out again, and i traversed it again, my feet in omaha and 
my head in lincoln. two opposing poles, with my heart somewhere in between, 
beating in echoed time to some as yet undeclared rhythm, waiting and waiting 
and waiting.

i am still waiting. and waiting. and waiting.


...it must be nice to finish when you're dead...and they say california is a 
recipe for a black hole. and i say i've got my best shoes on. i'm ready to 
go...



xxx, lou

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