ctrlaltdelrey

I discovered the writer, Leo Tolstoy, in a muddy ditch that held more blood than rain. One of the soldiers loved his words – and then, so did I.

“All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.”

That was so many years ago.

But words on a page didn’t teach me that lesson. I learned it on my own.

I learned it in trenches with bullets flying overhead; pressed back to back with grizzled starving men who would have laid down their lives for mine. I learned it from a ribbon tied around my ring finger. I learned it from a kick inside my belly. I learned it from death, and hardship and brief acts of inexplicable kindness. I learned love from sacrifice.

I learned love from living.

Title: Find The Girls On The Negatives (Dockweiler Beach, CA, USA) Photographer: Unknown (Found By Meagan Irene Abell)

At thirteen, the boys started whistling us out of our bedroom windows. We didn’t ask our mothers

before shaving our legs. We bloodied the shower curtain and left it for them to clean.

We learned that replacing vodka with water only worked if you didn’t freeze it –

how easy it was to lie.

My first real boyfriend was a college guy who drove five hours downstate to be there for me

and my first blowjob.

I didn’t have a bedroom to bring him to. Mine was still pink with shame. An audience of dolls.

My mother would try to pay him, assuming he was my math tutor.

We drove a while, looking for a spot to park. Finally – the vacant lot of my elementary school. The seats in the back of his van

already shoved down.

Nothing to say, no flavour left in my gum,

I spidered my mouth along his stomach, hairy, like my father’s,

and tried to remember locker room advice, magazine tips, the blocked channels, but they never told me that

he’d be a tutor. He’d help.

The carriage driver and the prince. Me – his horse. My hair – his reins.

When he kissed my forehead after, I knew I’d passed. I knew it was silly to have been so afraid.

I asked him not to drive me home, but to let me out there. And I wandered my old playground, slid down my old slide. Swung my old swings

oh honey honey I’m telling you – a woman’s work is never done. why that guy who gave me the once-over twice pumping his hands under his overcoat – well, his eyes don’t open so well since I sprayed him in the face with my Miss Lady Aerosol Pump Superhold Formula Hairspray

and then that guy who felt me up on the subway, well – blame it on my Lady Eve Press-on Manicure Nails in Sin Red and something about that kind of fruit, why that adam’s apple just fell right out ripe and red into my hand

and that guy on the corner calling me everyday with his hey baby baby doncha wanna baby baby doncha wanna piece of me and I said yeah baby baby yeah I wanna piece of you and took off a one-inch slab of his tongue with my Non-slip Grip Lady Schick

and oh those guys who tried to jump me on the way home oh don’t you know these things always end in tears I was so sorry to lose my favorite pair of Foxy Lady Five-inch Patent Leather Spike Heels – it’s going to be a while before I get over that one

but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do and don’t even start me on what happened the night that guy broke into my sanitary pad it took me hours to clean off my Curling Iron, my Nail File, my Tweezers, my Just-For-Me Sandal Toe Queen Size Control Tops are still hanging out to dry

and what with all the screaming I’m lucky I didn’t get caught red- handed with my Pink Comfort-Tip Scented Double-Barrel Super-Plus Sawed- Off Tampax but Thank God for feminine protection.