'taylor i just need to make sure we're on the same page here... i need to know that you're part of this family...' my boss puts her hands in a circle shape as she reiterates the 'family' part. she looks at me almost to through me.. waiting for me to tell her we are on the same page. unfortuntely we are not. i am looking at her seriously.. as though i am lestening to what she's saying and taking it in to remember. but really on the inside i am just thinking about how much we are not on the same page. im thinking about how i just need to pay my rent this month and that then i am out of this place. im thinking about how in 2 weeks i will be handing in my 2 weeks notice. im thinking about how this is a serving job and how i will never be invested in a 'restaurant family'. yeah. she used words like 'invested'. invested in us. she explained to me how she noticed that the other server during the week did things like running the salt shakers through the dishwasher. and how she stayed well after our shifts to help the bartender and to sweep the floor. well yeah... when you put it like that i look like a dick. but here's the deal. i don't give a shit about this restaurant. i dont care if the salt shakers are clean. i dont care if the floors are swept. i get here at 630 every morning. when 2 o'clock gets here i dont care if the crumbs from lunch's pizza are still on the floor. what i care about is that i am going to take this moment and i am going to turn it into an antedote. i am going to use it as fuel. the food..the mess...the serving the biscuits... i dont give a fuck about. my life and my moments have to be bigger than this. they have to be bigger than rolled silverware and clean salt shakers. thats why im searching for this thing.....this thing that is bigger than me. this thing that scares me and terrifies me to the point that i cannot move. thats what i need. i need to be challenged. i need constant stimulation. you used to say that and i thought you were crazy. but the whole time i thought that i was just bored waiting for the next thing that would scare or challenge me. hey biscuits. i dont care about you. and i dont feel bad about it.

she sits in her room with her hoodie on. with her back turned to the door so no one can see. she bites at her skin .. the skin around her nails and sometimes she makes it bleed. and then she feels bad for biting it but its something like a compulsion and sometimes she cant stop it. most times she cant. she forgets that shes a writer sometimes and every few months she forgets that she can write. thats usually the times when she is doing really well at work. when shes making lots of money serving and is thinking of moving. its usually when she gets her finances straight and when she gets drawn back into the 'cycle of human drama'. its those times when she is ok with the world when she forgets who she is.

she types at her desk and her wrists hurt because she put the desk together wrong and the shelf thats supposed to hold the keyboard a little bit lower than the top of the desk is actually the back of the desk. and the back of the desk.. well she cant quite remember where she put that.

her wrists hurt and her eyes are tired and she feels caged because she cant go outside. she spent a day on the couch just watching movies and thinking about caged birds. then she thought about cliches and thoughts became too much so she just sat on the couch and waited for the movie to end. when that one ended she went out to get another movie and then she sat on the couch again and she thought about caged birds. she shut the blinds because it was so bright outside and the white of everything made her eyes hurt. she liked that the blinds shut made everything easier to see.

she stares at the lamp through her periphery and the whole time she is thinking about how she should get up and turn it off. but just like everything else in her life she just stares at the lamp through her periphery and thinks about how she should turn it off.

she saw a picture of where you both used to go and she started to cry and at that exact moment bright eyes said 'dont you weep'. and for a moment she thought about not weeping because the sheer irony of it all but then she cried and he walked in the room and she wiped her tears. she wiped her tears and the makeup smeared and she thought about how you used to tell her you didnt know how to do eye makeup; that you just smeared it until it looked like you had been wiping your eyes for a while. but she always thought you looked pretty and secretly she always wished that her eyes looked a lot more like yours. secretly she always wanted to be a little bit more like you. this open beating heart that was filled with all this blood. just beating and making everything around you beat the same. secretly she envied the way everyone loved you; the way everyone could see that you really were the most beautiful person this life had to offer. secretly she wished she was a lot more like you.

you are her muse.


secretly. shes not going to make it past this.

shes going to drink this wine with her hoodie on and shes going to think about all the ways she loves you. but instead of coming home shes going to think of evey reason not to and shes going to pull the hood over her head and pretend that shes walking away. the problem is shes walking on a treadmill. shes walking in front of a green screen with a repeating background and a snazzy soundtrack. shes not going anywhere but it sure feels like she is.

the snow is hard for her. she reaches out to movies and dreams and wannabes because she doesnt want to go outside. she would rather sleep than wake up and bring people burgers. she would rather dream all day than to put on an apron. she just wants to pick one. she wants to stop dreaming.. she wants to stop living out of her means. but then who is she.. is she just like everyone else.. or is she becoming the grown up her parents have been waiting for her to be.

she sits in her room and she drinks her wine and she counts the money from the night before and she waits for the chorus of the song on pandora. she waits but it never comes because this song isnt like the rest and she is wondering if she is anything like the song on pandora. and she wonders how much she even likes the song without the chorus but she appreciates the change and she welcomes the anticlimax. she thinks about how this song is probably more like life than the ones in the top twenty and she thinks about how ryan seacrest probably doesnt know a thing.

a cross .. a fork in the road.

l.a. or san diego.

you or you

or you.

or me?

which way.

i need a .. yellow sign.

one with an arrow.

im not picky about the direction.

im just a little picky that theres an arrow.

i would really prefer that it be a one-way street

one with an outlet.

i need options

i need an out

i need a .. yellow sign

one with an arrow

perhaps it could add some blinking lights

just maybe so i can find it.

california california

georgia

ex

new

old

new

borrowed

blue

whats more important is old or new

coast or camping

camping on the coast?

you. or you.

or you.

this new thing. me.

school.

hair.

hair school.

tattoos.

pink hair short hair long hair.

locks of love.

bold face

free of locks. .

long locks

natural. organic.

natural. pink. yellow.

you.

you are all yellow.

'just skin. oh yeah youre skin and bones'

birds and bees.

you are a bird.

a nest of bees.

a self-destructive.

emotional.

bird.

'turning into something beautiful

you know i love you so.'

i need a .. yellow sign.

one with an arrow.

tell me where to go.

'i jumped across for you.'

none of us are so good.

she.. stares into space. she.. looks out of her window and she looks for those bunnies. every night she stares out of her window and she looks for those bunnies. its only been two times that shes found them. she just stared at them too. but this time she had a smile. this time she clapped her hands just a little. this time she stared at them playing in the snow. in the dark. they just frolicked. like the snow was fun. she knew better. the snow was awful. but she still watched those bunnies. and something about those bunnies made her want to play in the snow too. to think the snow was fun. but she never did. she just stared at the snow from her window and she just thought about how awful it was. how much she hated it. and she stayed inside and she laid in her bed until the snow cleared. all winter she just left life she just quit it. she just laid in bed and didnt eat much. didnt work much. didnt write much. she just stared and thought. stared at the walls and thought about the bunnies. and one time when she did go out she went to the comic book store and she bought the only book she saw with a bunny on the cover. she liked that book.

sometimes when she went out she tried to draw. she wasn't so good at that. but she brought colored pencils everywhere. she sat in corners and she colored things. and sometimes something nice would come out. sometimes she would be proud of what she drew and sometimes she would want to show everyone. most times she didnt show it to anyone for fear they might not like it. sometimes she cared a little too much what people thought. sometimes she just felt like people were staring at her. she felt like they hated her and they didnt even know her. that they were judging her. they were staring at her and they were judging her and she was just trying to draw. draw because she didnt know how and she liked to learn things. she considered talking to these people but most times she didnt for fear they might not like her. 'but who are they' she thought. 'who are they not to like me. bastards.' she started to develop an unhealthy dislike for every person she met. for every person she even saw. but its funny because she only wanted to do volunteer work. she only wanted to spend her time helping people. even though most people she didnt like. she considered just helping animals but it seemed a little selfish it seemed a little naive. cuz we're all animals. we're all just trying to survive. some of us just take a little more to survive she guessed.

what she couldnt figure out was what the hell her cause was. what she felt like was being a savior. what she felt like was being a rebel. what she felt like.. was bored most of the time.


thats why her new venture was deciding that she wanted to be a vampire. that she wanted to be a vigilante with a hit list. that she wanted to take out every pig-headed bastard that ran the country. every asshole that exploited women. every dickhead that decided dog-fighting was cool. every piece of shit that thought they had the right to abuse something else. so thats why she made the list. thats why she got a journal and she made that list. a hit list. it was numbered from one to twenty. some numbers included more than one person like number one.. that was pimps. she figured that list would be enough to feed her for at least a few years. but really she figured by the time her list ran out that more dickeaded assholes would have spawned and she could just make a new list. so she could save the world and she could be a cool sexy vampire at the same time. a lady of the night. a monster of the night. a monster that fed on evil. a monster that desired to destroy evil things but in turn relied on their existence.. in order to exist. the maddening circle. the maddening cycle that a hero gets caught in. like a bodhisattva. come back come back come back .. help everyone else reach nirvana. and then when that happens then what do they do. they are reliant on the shortcomings of the people they are trying to save. so whats the beauty of saving anyway.

but she couldnt think about that right now. she had people to save.

she had a mohawk to get. she had a mission. she had to find a vampire to bite her.



what she thought about one night was talking to those bunnies. those little honeys she only saw at night. she saw them once when she visited chicago too. one was just staring at her in the middle of the sidewalk. 'its night little bunnies. its the middle of the city little bunnies' she said. but again she clapped her hands a little. and she smiled. and she stared at them. so what she did was she waited by her window for a few nights. she waited until it snowed a little less when they would come out. she waited until late when those little bunnies would come and they would frolic and they would think no one was watching. when they would run in and out of the little fence behind her apartment with a secret. they would run like had a little secret to bury. like they had one to take back with them. so she just waited. she just waited until that night when she saw them. what she did was she put on some slippers and she creaked down her stairs like some sort of creep and she didnt notice she forgot a jacket until the door closed behind her. she felt the cold air whipping into her pajamas and the chill bumps made the hair on her arms stand up and the hair on her legs grow back.


the hair on her legs grew back from earlier in the day when she shaved them. its not like she had a date or anything so she wasn’t too upset about the lack of smoothness her legs possessed. so she stood on the stoop and she stood still. she just looked at them and she wondered ‘what the hell did I just walk down here for. seriously.’ one of the bunnies stopped its frolicking and it looked her directly in the eyes. she looked directly back. then the bunnys companion, the other bunny, turned and looked her back directly in the eye. it was like a staring contest ‘cept no one was winning cuz no one was looking away. guess that meant no one was losing either.

the dialogue went something like this.. the dialogue went something like her walking into the snow and something like her walking over to the bunnies. something like her being near the fence. something like her talking to the bunnies and something like her waking up in her bed with a red mark on her neck.

something like.

she woke up. she looked around her room. everything felt empty and most things felt bright. she just laid in her bed and she stared at walls. it was like before except this time everything was brighter. this time she felt hungry. and this time oatmeal wouldn’t do. cereal wouldn’t do steak wouldn’t do chocolate wouldn’t do.. nothing would do. there was nothing doing. she needed craved something red. something dark. something breathing.what she did was she got up. she got out of her bed and she walked outside. this time she didn’t notice the hair growing back on her legs. she didn’t notice the chill. she just walked and she kept walking. she walked past that fence with the bunnies and she walked past the street. she walked right into the trees. she walked right into them like she was going somewhere. like there was somewhere she needed to be. she walked through the trees and she walked in the snow and her bare feet sunk the three inches to the ground. she never felt that.

she never felt. she was numb. inside and out and she just sat. she just sat in the clearing between the trees. in the middle of all the trees and she stared up. past the trees and the sky and she just stared up. the snow was melting into the shape of her body around her and her legs were turning blue but she never knew. her hands had no feeling but she didn’t know cuz she couldn’t feel them anyway. when her head weighed too much she laid back making a snow angel. but she never moved so it never had wings. nothing ached and nothing bled. she stared up and her eyes were glassy they were frozen and there was a very clear smile on her face. she had peace. she had fangs. she stared up and she noticed the rumble in her tummy. rushing through her like what used to be her blood. dragging her. pulling her. controlling her. she felt high. she felt powerful. nothing held her anymore. she was lying in the snow and she was smirking. she was laughing. she could do anything she wanted. she could control anyone.

she laid there writhing in the snow with her gown tossed beside her. she felt beautiful. she felt the ground on every part of her and she laughed. she grabbed the hit list out of the pocket in her gown and she shredded it and she laughed.