She and Me

She likes to sit and melt crayons on the rusted
yellow radiator. Its funny too, because she'll
just wait patiently and watch them sear till they
crackle like a spitfire and then start running off
the edge of the radiator, covering the rust and
memories of the coldest nights in December. She
just sits calmly, wrapping her pallid face in the
folds of her dark sable hair and the creases of
the radiator streams that drifts upwards. And
when the river starts to flow, she'll stick her
left pinkie finger in the exact center of the
puddle and watch the waxy stream drip drip drip
into the delta made from the vintage brown
linoleum. “Otherwise it'll get angry...” She
expends all of her energy making queer colored
pins out of the cooled wax and when they're done
she just throws them away, or gives them to me as
what she likes to call “not much gifts.” Its the
only real attention she pays me, and I relish in
every second of it...
No matter how hard I try, I can never make any
sense of her. I should've listened to my mother
in second grade and stayed away from “kids like
her,” but she's mesmerizing and strangely perfect.
She brushes her teeth four times a day, but
refuses to brush her hair for weeks. She never
smiles but for some reason I always think she is
laughing at me behind my back, to my face. And
she has this annoying habit of always knowing what
I am thinking, saying what I am going to say. And
yet the worst part about her is the fact that she
is a horrible liar. When we were younger she
claimed that her mother had once been part of
English royalty, trying to prove her theory with
an antiqued dime-store broach wrapped in wads of
toilet paper. When I pointed out that imprinted
on the back were the words “Made in China,” she
merely flicked her head back and said “Oh,
maybe...” She never really makes any rational
sense, but maybe that's a good thing.
Still, for all the things she can't do, she makes
up for each one of them with her voice. Sometimes
when I keep quiet for long enough and she thinks I
am asleep she'll sing German arias by Schubert and
Handel or hum some cheesy Sesame Street songs.
Even when she forgets the words, as she usually
does, they are each so beautiful with her shaky
vibrato, forced breathing patterns and incredible
passion of high tension and soft sounds.
Sometimes she'll call me in the middle of the
night just to warn me that the sun is coming up at
5:47 or that she saw a really good movie last week
at some Portuguese film festival.
“I was the only Caucasian there! Everyone was
staring at me, I think...”
“Maybe its because you had pink hair that week?”
“No, it was definitely not the hair, must've been
my accent. My Portuguese isn't so good.”
“You don't know Portuguese.”
“I know, so it cant be very good.”
I keep thinking that I should change my number and
not tell her, but in some way, I think I'd miss
her.
She's the only one who can take me away from
myself, make me see things under their skin, above
the surface of the cliché. She takes away the
familiar faces of everything I know and love and
turns them into contorted Picasso portraits. She
forces me to see the new beauty in a cracked light
bulb in the alley way or the buzzing flies around
the dumpster in the back of the school. She makes
me see something more than nothing and everything
and appreciate their dangerous slants and curves.
She is dangerous. Always creeping around in the
folds of my mind, pinching and jabbing at the
memories that I've tried to block out, so as to
keep from laughing in the middle of conversations
and to keep me from crying at the thought of their
recollection. See its not the memories that scare
me, just the realization that they're over. I
feel like its a crime to love her.
She's trouble, I swear it! She never pays for
anything, except for caffeine pills and
cigarettes. And even then she'll only pay for one
pack and then steal the other. The same
conversation usually occurs between approximately
2:39 and 2:46 on Tuesdays on our routine run to
the local Wal-Mart.
“Ya know those aren't good for you.”
“I know.” She'll say as she flicks her
Parliament Menthol cigarette nonchalantly to the
pavement.
“Well, if you know then why do you--” She'll
usually cut me off there and look at me with her
big greenish-brown eyes. Her eyes are amazing.
She has this power over me, every time she stares
at me with a helpless look, she knows it kills me,
and I can't help but smile.
“Plus, if they weren't so bad, I wouldn't waste
my time. You know that...”
She knows me too well, and yet never lets me
think so. At times, when she's tired of
breathing, she'll rest her head on my chest and
listen to my heartbeat, tapping the rhythm on her
thigh. She never says a word, I wish I knew what
she was thinking. It must be hard to feel without
feeling, but not for her. Maybe she doesn't know
that the weight of her being is breaking my heart.
Sometimes I feel her under my skin, that's the
only way I know for sure that she is real.
Sometimes I'll imagine her lips speaking “i love
you” and yet I know its only my reflection wishing
I could hear her whisper my name like I whisper
hers. But her only whispers are disguised in
volume and she deafens me with her voice.
I never, ever understand a goddamn word she
says,not one goddamned word, but I just love her!
I can't help it. The vodka to my innocent tonic.
She's absolutely insane, but she's mine. I hate
that I love her. Her breasts are far too big for
her tiny frame and she's always twirling her
fingers through her hair. I've never kissed her
and I really dont want to. I'd rather love her
from a distance and wear her melted crayon pins.