Sinister: i just remembered what made me think of all this.

[lindsey baker]

"and all the books you've read have been read by other people. and all the 
songs you've loved have been heard by other people. and that girl that's 
pretty to you is pretty to other people. and you know that if you looked at 
all these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are 
describing 'unity.'"



hello sinister.

tonight i wondered what it looked like to be me, what the people walking 
past my little table of light at the coffee shop saw. a girl, reading, 
wearing a pink shirt that read 'lindsey' across her chest. smoking 
occasionally, drinking some kind of urine-colored tea.

i wondered if they saw the name of my book.

i wondered if they knew the name of my tea.

it didn't seem right that they shouldn't, having been able to, with one 
wavering glace at my chest, know the name of the girl in the t-shirt.

the people who already knew, knew without reading, came, one by one, and sat 
in the empty chair across from me for a while. paused, like a comma, to talk 
with me about something or other.

the boy who tried to help me love and failed beckoned me to the spot. i 
lamented, and he nodded.

a girl with the same name as mine came first, with her journal and
juice and copy of the queen of the damned. and we talked, and i realized how 
beautiful she was. how lucky i was to share a name and a moment with her, 
filling a space at a table and requiring no other chairs to be filled.

we lamented, together, nodding.

another girl with another disease stopped, standing, to remind me that i was 
wearing pink. people who wear pink shouldn't be sad. not so much, anyway.

and then the boy, and music and borrowed cigarettes. and then nothing 
mattered but things already gone by, numbers and lists and tracks on eps. a 
radio station and phone calls, a meeting on the sidewalk or a record shop 
and a letter about wanting.

there were others. the one who takes pictures. and the one who quietly talks 
of science and math, logic and purity and the essences of perfection.

he told me he loved bows and arrows, and that the tightening of the string 
on a bow was like anything else: if impure, the target is missed.


maybe it was because i was reading. maybe it was because i was almost as emo 
as someone else. maybe it was because i wanted to write for an audience, had 
a vision of me wearing great stockings and great shoes and great jewelry 
moving my hand horizontally through the air, talking about art.

talking about visions.

***

i ran out of cigarettes.

later, i bought a single roll of cloves for a quarter, lit up outside the 
smoke shop and memorized the name of downtown after the bars.

i wated while someone made a phone call, sat on a green laquered bench on 
the side of the street and looked over the broken swells of people leaving 
somewhere to go somewhere else.

i heard a sound, a holler in my direction, and i looked up and across, to 
see a car. a piece of notebook paper with the word 'exit' in black marker 
was taped to the inside of the back window, and leaning out of the 
driver's-side window was a boy, staring at me, tongue lolling and one 
glorious finger pointing toward the sky.

i watched him, expressionless, saying nothing but what i had been saying 
silently all day long.




yes, darling, fuck you, too.


love, lou
xxx

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