Panick Attacks

When I feel like reaching out to someone but don't know who.

Cigarette Burn Girl is here.

Hello Stranger

Here's the thing about Hank. I would love to tear off his big plastic ear. I would love to steal his crayons. I stood outside his business meeting to see what type of pastry he likes best. He only drinks coffee. He drinks it with milk.

Lately I have been feeling lonely. Lately I have been wishing I had someone to light my cigarettes for me.

I was thinking about loneliness when a cloaked man with his face buried under a heavy black hat whispered "Hello Stranger". I saw the flash from his gold necklace and smelled his cologne. Then he said, "Get Well Soon." I don't know about these things that come out of nowhere. I usually tell myself they don't count.

Fragments of a Dinner Party Conversation: Linda and Todd

And a stale refrigerator fell from the top story of the apartment building but I only looked once, only for a second, because I was thinking about that time in November after midnight.

“Pass me the matchbox.” She was trying hard not to look at him. Her eyes were dark and warm like spoonfuls of grape jelly. She wore sandals and she studied her toes. She liked to read travel books. There was one open on the coffee table next to the remote. She pretended to be looking at it.

I thought the cigarette would go up in flames and I thought that’s what she wanted to happen. I thought I knew her.

The girl ran one of her fingertips over each knuckle. She took turns with the knuckles, to be fair. She smoked and he stood by the fireplace, watching her. His eyes seemed to rush to no place. In her hand she held the porcelain urn. She held it like it was any object in the room. Inside the ashes made the sound of a child playing in a sandbox. She liked that sound and she liked to read about different kinds of sand in her travel books.

“You’re rushing me. You’ve got your own ideas of how things should be. The heartache comes and you take a Tylenol, you call your mother, you move on. But the kind of heartache this is…” Her voice trailed into the kitchen. The tile was outdated but she liked the colors. The little geometric red and yellow squares reminded her of college.

Jealousy and guilt seemed to go hand and hand ever since Junior High. Spending all night thinking about a girl. Going to school the next day. Seeing her stare at Johnny Turner. Staring at Johnny Turner with a pencil in her mouth. I raise my hand and say I have to go to the bathroom. When I come back the war has already started. The television is on and the whole world gathers around it and forgets everything else. Melissa McBrady tells me three people died while I was peeing. My eyes landed on Johnny Turner on the way to the television. It’s the same thing now, with your dead ex-boyfriend.

She couldn’t read his expression. She didn’t want to try. She wanted to think about the dark purple constellation of plants on the mother’s tablecloth. They were plants that did not exist, they were mysteries. She thought about the woman and her too-tight shoes. Crying on the tablecloth. Then she was lost in it, the web of memories. He cut his arm with the broken wine glass but she didn’t look once because she was thinking about that afternoon in July and her ex-boyfriend’s gray-black pick-up.

She knew it was love. She knew it wouldn’t last.

Popcorn Shrimp?

Today a pelican arrived on my doorstep! I opened the door and he looked very angry so I threw my grilled cheese sandwich at him, but it turns out he wasn't angry, his face just permanently looks like that, and then I looked at it longer and decided he was cute. He dropped an envelope for me and said thank you and made a good boy bow. I said Thanks but I don't think he could hear me because his wings were flapping too hard in his ears. I imagine this is very loud. The letter said this:

COME TO MY HOUSE FOR DINNER TONIGHT OR DIE TOMORROW

-HANK

What does he want for me? And is it wrong for me to be making pro/con lists about this option? I wonder what he's having for dinner?

Come down off your high horse, Robert!

I have a trojan horse on my computer. I have always dreamed of having a horse but not like this. Not a malicious horse that is impossible to delete and constantly downloads new spyware and adware programs to my computer. I'm infected, Robert! I'm infected! I wanted to tell my Dad life makes me feel like a zombie but I didn't think he'd believe me, and i'm not a zombie but I AM infected. Anyway, if I don't write in a while, it's because the horse tied one end of a rope to my neck and the other to his leg and took off. Neigh! Snort!

<3 Your Friend Cigarette Burn Girl

Louise

Here is the story on my friend Louise. I need some ideas on how to help her.
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Louise walked around with a spoon in her head like it was something to show off. The hair on the back of her head was bloody. Mothers snapped their daughters’ barrettes and wrapped their fingers hard around the wire of their shopping carts as they passed. Louise dressed dinner with a white tablecloth and the memory of a child that would have stared at his reflection in the empty white plate. She lit her candle and noticed the ruffle on her dress was stained.

It was unfortunate, the spoon getting stuck there so many years ago. Aunts and Uncles were crying with each other back then, hospital rooms were cleared back then. Louise used her brain to turn on the stove back at home and blow up the place. The words “It’s stuck” make some people want to drop their eyeballs into little pots. Louise remembered a yellow blanket wrapped around her head screaming “this life”, and then said to her sister “it gets worse”. Her sister remembered to curl her hair this morning.

Babies would grab onto the spoon handle now. The tranquilizers kept the cat from pawing. Soup was to be eaten alternative ways. She missed sleeping on her back. She missed looking in the mirror and seeing all of her. Babies would point to her head and say “spoon” now. Journalists would strain their necks to see the back of her.

When Louise wanted to sit on the grass, the mother ducks would take their babies far away from her. Mostly it was loneliness and not the spoon that hurt her; eventually she thought about it over a glass of lemonade with her niece; eventually she decided the spoon was irrelevant. She wished she would find someone she didn’t have to explain herself to.

Every day she would sit on her bed and try to get courage. She would fold back the covers over her heart and imagine God reaching her. The doctor said one day. ONE DAY the spoon will have to come out. She tried to remember what it felt like to grip the spoon handle; she tried not to think about taking spoonfuls of brain matter from the place that stung her. Her only hope was that one day someone would hate her enough to yank it out with the worst of intentions.

So she couldn’t help but notice the man with the fork in his heart. Yes, she thought, well yes, well I think these things happen. I guess these kinds of things happen to people. Then she cried for the things that kept on happening.

When the spoon came out finally it was in one swoop of the hand. It embarrassed her how anticlimactic it all was; she pressed the towel to her head hoping for more blood, but there was only a small red circle to prove the five years; she wanted to bleed from every pore just then. It was very unfortunate that she didn’t, she thought that night at dinner, the white plate glaring at her in disgust. She didn’t want to show herself off anymore. The ducks in the park approached her and approached her…she shooed them away away away away

Feeling Stupid

I may be a superhero but I get embarassed very easily. At times I wish my bed was right next to me so I can crawl under the covers and yell at myself for hours. I like the song that says "I can stop punching my own face because of you."

Things that make me feel stupid:
1. When I drop one of my cigarettes by accident
2. When I wake up and look really ugly
3. When I spill something that smells bad on my shirt
4. When I tell a joke that no one gets
5. When I think about the night before and can't remember what I said
6. When I go to sleep after a day when nothing happened
7. When I buy things off ebay without thinking
8. When someone forgets about me
9. When I forget to return something before the thirty days
10. When I see a picture of someone who left me without a word
11. When I see a picture of myself and I look stupid
12. When I start talking too loudly and then forget what I am saying
13. When I am wrong about someone
14. When I can't figure out why I'm in a bad mood and I can't cheer up
15. When I stumble, stutter, trip, or knock over something valuable
16. When Hank punches me in the neck and I still love him afterwards.

I wonder if Hank ever feels stupid, too. Do you ever feel stupid?

Loneliness

leave a comment if you know what I mean

Whose side am I on

I saw Hank today at his office job. They keep him in a room by himself since he's not a human being. I caught him crying over a papercut. He cut his finger on an important document. Afterwards it took all his strength to file the document in its appropriate location. I happened to be passing by his window and I saw it all happen. Then all I wanted to do is give him a big kiss on his ugly plastic cheek.

...maybe I'm not cut out for this job.

Hank

I met my nemesis today for the first time. Since I am an antihero I wasn't sure I had one, but as it turns out he is much bigger than me and his skin is plastic. His face looks like a happy family that got run over by a drunk driver. When he drools he apologizes, but then he punches you in the neck with his giant paw, which makes an uncomfortable plastic sound like sitting on a new mattress. And it hurts like being called a name. I tried to burn holes in him but it smelled disgusting and the fumes made my belly ache! I was yelling for Mom and reaching for the gun I never had! But I guess I should have known this would happen sooner or later.

I need a sidekick now more than ever! I'm still taking applications!

cigaretteburngirl@gmail.com

Some Poems About Wounds

Wound Explanation #2

The octopus in the park was different.

It was pink as a sucked thumb

And it was no good.

In the park the octopus was inevitable.

It stretched out and gave up.

I tapped its shoulder, I called its name.

I screamed “ugly” and it was still.

I was also no good.

But the octopus in the park was different.

I dropped my book on its back and left it

There forever.

Picture Diary

I Never Thought My Chest... These Things Happen

Another letter.

Dear Cigarette Burn Girl,

Today I lost almost all of my blood. It seemed like that. I looked under my shirt and the blood was waiting, and when it came out i thought it was the end of everything. My belly button had a red bubble on it! I thought someone was playing a trick on me but then the blood would not stop. I came back with the bleach later but i am afraid the bathroom will never look the same. In the ambulance I laughed a lot. But what if it happens again?

Help me forever,
Lindsay

p.s. over and over and over

Prayers

Today I received a letter from a woman named Cecille Carter and it said the following:

Dear Cigarette Burn Girl,

I bruise so easily now, someone tapped me on the shoulder in line today, and it left a purple circle, how was i to explain? Just yesterday my husband dipped a sleeve of his favorite pink sweater in the mud. Our son was caught swallowing helium out of balloons at his sister's wedding! She married the wrong one, he killed a man for the car he drives, though i must admit that riding in it is the only time I am not thinking about drinking a poisonous fluid. The dog has an itch that won't go away. I have been waiting for a cigarette burn to explain it all. Where are you?

Best Wishes,
Cecille

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Attn

The person who wrote the poem below needs your help! Apply to become my sidekick or i'll flatten you!

You can go to www.mommytalk.com to avoid making making the same mistakes

A Poem

Peonies and Checks!

I’ve been unreasonably reupholstering

Everywhere terror in everyday chairs

I fast limp with open scissors screaming

“I am a bad mother”

She limps out of the wastebasket drooling

Throw the avocado down like a victim

Her skin was woven out of me so she cuts it

“Where are you whore mother”

The oven and the iron are both on high

I try to play with my daughter’s hair

But she rips out all of mine

She calls her friends on the phone to tell them

If I do not get the right fabric

Help Wanted!

I just got an email from Christy with a subject line "duck". Who is Christy and what does she want from me? Just last week I got one from Susan with a subject line "indifferent". I can not possibly help all of these people. It is difficult to make these kinds of choices when you are a superhero. There are certain people that need my help more than others. Lloyd sent me an email that said "device", and poor Morgan with "cautious dachshund", but it is difficult to pay attention to them when Susannah sent me "Notoriously Rag Doll" not two days ago. I don't have time for this! I called my mother on the telephone and told her I was feeling ill. She said to hire a sidekick, doesn't every superhero have one?
If you want to apply to be my sidekick email me at cigaretteburngirl@gmail.com. and tell me what makes you think you're so great and why I should even consider being in the same room with you.

Pig Adventure

This morning I woke up very early and the window was open. I heard two men talking. One of them said, "I wish you wouldn't talk to me." Then my telephone rang. I answered and a voice said "My life is over!" That's when I knew I needed to put on my red suit and go out to save the day.

I saw a bunch of pigs crossing the street. One of them was grunting. Another one was holding a flag that said "Help us". The cars honked their horns. The ice cream truck could not get through. Finally they crossed the street but just at the last minute, one of the pigs ran back into the street and stood on his hind legs. He made a pig sound just before a truck hit him. I threw my cigarette at the scene.