Queen Juicy J

I’m in the shower, the hot water pouring down my hair and over my skin. I’ve turned the lights off because my head is full and I need to let some of the thoughts tumble from my eyes and slide down the drain. It’s quiet here. I stepped out of my heels when I walked in the door, and the weight of it settled in around me. It’s comfortable, but I’d never noticed how fully it engulfs me until recently. I walked the familiar steps from my closet to the shower, dropping clothing as I go. My hair tumbles down out of the messy ponytail when I rake my nails through it, my make up smears and then fades with each stroke of the cloth. When I look up into my reflection, I appear tired and wan. There are dark circles at the corners of my eyes and foundation has hidden the paleness of my cheeks. Gone is the flawless facade, here now is the reality. Only my eyes seem unchanged. For years when I’ve felt this way I’ve given myself over to a good cry and then lay myself at the altar of Venus. I feel...

“Who’s all going?” “You, me, S, all three kids.” The kids are going to the wedding! I may just have to teach them the Wipe Out dance. Cromwell family tradition. *** I’m 24, and it’s a cool fall night. The air smells like autumn and high octane gasoline, and the guy I’ve just hustled out of two grand is storming across the parking lot toward me, cursing up a storm. He’s in my face, accusing me of lying and being a deceptive bitch. He doesn’t know the roll of cash I showed him is just a bunch of ones with a 100 dollar bill wrapped around it to make it look like more money. That way if it gets stolen I’m only out around 150 instead of the 2000 in the lock box under my seat. It’s the roll I flash to entice them into racing me. He’s red faced, angry and yelling, telling me the bet is off because I lied. It takes a friend of his to grab his shoulder and get him to chill. I won, and just because he bought my act doesn’t mean the bet was off. He thought I was an easy mark, and I crushed ...

He’s holding my hand and I’m tracing my thumb over the back of his fingers. I can feel the muscles, and admire the way his hands look. I imagine them holding my face, I imagine them gliding a pen across paper, I imagine the way they caress. I could spend hours running my hands over him the way I do with a new car, exploring and memorizing, making patterns in the freckles on his shoulders. It’s been three months. We’re sitting to dinner and I’m lost in his gaze. “How has it only been three months?” We’ve done a lot. We’ve experienced a lot. Concerts, camping, parties, lazy Sundays... none seems to feel exhausting, but added up it’s a lot. I’m looking at him now, remembering all we’ve done in a short time. All we still plan to do before the year is out. He took that chance on me. I crashed through the ceiling of his life and stuck the superhero landing, guns blazing and all ass-kicking and demanded his attention. No one would have blamed him for turning it down. No one would have fau...

We’re driving down the road on a glum, overcast day. My dad has snapped off the radio so it’s quiet, just the two of us on an errand. These are my last hours here, and like watching sand slip through an hourglass, I can feel them ebbing away from me faster than I can enjoy them. That’s always the case. Endings for me always come subtlety, and steal pieces of my joy until only the memories remain. “It’s been a quiet week this year,” he observes from the driver seat. We haven’t pulled out the kayaks or driven the back roads looking for deer. We’ve been caught up in catching up on a year’s worth of tasks that we haven’t gotten to just be here. That means when we are present, we just want to sit and not do anything. A vicious trade. I watch the scenery passing by. Cottages, houses, little wooden bears and firemen waving from empty flower beds. It’s fall here, the leaves are changing and it’s a rainy September day. Another year gone, another season over. How many times did I drive this ...

I’m a kid. As far as I can remember there’s been one car or another parked in the barn half covered in a heavy canvas tarp. Endless summer days were spent learning how to tool on an engine, change a tire, swap spark plugs. This time though, I’m around 8 years old and I’ve wandered out to the barn to see what sort of help I can be today. Today it’s bleeding brake lines and changing rotors. My dad is infinitely more patient when teaching than when he’s just doing it himself. We spend a few hours crawling on the dirt floor under the car, and I’ve got grease and dust smeared on my face. My dad finds this amusing. We’re standing back, admiring our hard work when he lifts me up to sit on the tailgate of his truck. He rummages in the cab and comes out with two glass bottles of Coke and two packs of M&Ms. He must have known I’d come help or he saves them there for days like this. We sit in mostly silence, sharing a treat. He’s the toughest human being I know. I’ve watched this man walk...

Once more there are three little heads in my rear view mirror. This time they’re all girls and two I’ve only just met today. My Brit is riding in the passenger seat, both of us rocking aviators and messy buns. I’m cruising, and I love it, but I can’t wait to see them again. I’m caught in the memory of Z’s face getting to ride to the camp in the truck and it nearly makes me gasp. How can I miss them this much already? *** I’ve spent the weekend as a celebrity. Fire department chiefs shake my hand, praise me for my support, and offer station tours next year. I’ve jumped from two to five and possibly more. The lighted truck contest saw my friends return to defend their champion status. Of course Scott, the owner of said truck, swears he won’t win. Of course I tell him he will. There’s trash talk, there’s cockiness. Men ask me what they’ll get when I lose. I tell them I’ll accept their groveling when he wins. He wins the truck division, thanks to my screaming and coercing men aroun...

It’s 2008. We’ve spent a brutal year in a court room fighting for everything we have. It wasn’t enough and to make matters worse, it’s fractured my mother’s mind. It’s 3am and I’ve walked down to the farm kitchen where I find her standing in front of the stove. The burner is lit with a towel dangerously close to it, and there’s a teapot in the open microwave. She’s mumbling to herself and when I quietly say her name she looks at me, but she doesn’t see me. Her eyes are vacant. She’s sleeping, and in her sleep decided to make tea. She’s nearly burned the house down, and when I touch her face to wake her, she starts to cry and asks me why we can’t stay here. We’re being evicted. I don’t have answers. So I turn the burner off and help her back to bed. She is never the same woman again. It’s 2011. They couldn’t come to the wedding. My dad nearly had the widow-maker, and his heart surgery took too much out of him. My mother, always the strong leader, has withered. She cannot drive any l...

When I was 12, I stayed the night with my friend Lanette at her dad’s house. It was pretty normal sleepover procedure, time in the pool, time sunning, and watching old movies. We slept in her finished basement and around 7am the next morning I woke up to my mum hovering over me, nudging me awake. My older sister was in labor, and we were going to witness the birth of my niece. Today I was going to become an aunt. Later, in the hospital room, I got the incredibly uncomfortable honor to view my sister’s body and the tiny crowning head. I am one of the first humans to see her in the flesh, to hear her first breath, and to bear witness to her first moments. And now here she is, almost 25, descending the stairs of the airport and into my waiting arms. The closest thing I have to a daughter and she’s more like a sister. I love her as fiercely as my younger sister Jen, more deeply than almost all of my family. We are close, and she’s come to take this trip with me. *** I’ve given her ...

He’s pure fire to be with. Each lover I’ve ever had has had a flavor, a feeling, and a color. Muted greens, soft pinks, sweet notes. He is Helios, overpoweringly golden with a deep flavor. Like molten sunlight. I can feel him long after we’ve parted. He stays where others have faded. And he is looking into my soul this night. My skin reacts to every touch, every tease when he leans in to kiss and then exhales and his breath caresses my face. He’s intoxicating me and I’m completely drunk. My pride is in ruins on the floor. My shameless need for him sits brazenly on my face. *** “I’ve never seen you like this.” My husband is sitting on the couch near me and I have been gazing off over my front lawn, lost in recent memories. His voice brings me back to the present. “I never saw you through our initial phases, we lived so far apart.” I can’t even get my brain to tell my mouth to speak for a moment and he chuckles. “This one really is different.” How fucking lucky am I to be loved...

GET UP, J. IT'S MORNING AND YOU ONLY HAVE A COUPLE OF DAYS LEFT BEFORE YOUR TRIP NORTH. I'm up, I'm up. He hasn't written yet this morning, should I say something? YOU HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO THAN TO BE CHECKING THIS FIRST THING. I know, I still have to pack and I have to make a couple of work phone calls, and then I have to consider going to trivia tonight. But.. QUIT IT. YOU'RE 38, YOU'RE NOT A SCHOOL GIRL ANYMORE. HE WENT TO BOWLING JUST FINE WITHOUT YOU, YOU CAN DO YOUR STUFF AND FOCUS ON YOUR WORLD A LITTLE. IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN. I sent him a "good morning". I CAN'T EYEROLL HARD ENOUGH. WILL YOU PLEASE FOCUS? IT'S ALREADY BEEN FIFTEEN MINUTES AND YOU'RE STILL LAYING HERE LIKE A FANGIRL WITHOUT AN OUNCE OF SENSE IN YOUR HEAD. That's hardly fair, I really like this one. Arguably more than almost any other, and I won't be seeing him for a while. What if he stops-- NOPE. NO. WE A...

Dawn is breaking through the blinds in my room. I can smell coffee brewing downstairs, hear the creak of floorboards and the whispers of those already awake. There's a stillness and calmness like the stage just before the play begins. I am nine, seventeen, twenty five and whatever current age all at the same time. It's the only thread of consistency this life has given me. No matter how old, no matter how changed I am outside these walls, here I am ageless. Here I am still the same girl unbound by rules and expectations. I am not wife or daughter, I am not friend or foe. For the first few minutes as I blink my eyes open, I am just me. This is the cabin, this is the power it's had since I was a single cell inside my mother inside her mother's womb. I am timeless here, and time does not run the same way here. Since I was a child I believed this was heaven. That in the cold winter months it's home to my ancestors. That this is what my afterlife will really look like....

"Thank you... bread." *** They're half fish and half woman, two things that don't mesh. In fact you can see the line in almost all of them where the woman ends and the fish begins. A creature of neither sea or land but capable of living in both worlds. An existence born of myth and belonging outside the realm of normal. Sometimes they are depicted as cartoonishly cute. Sometimes as devils to haunt dreams. And for a long time they've been the strongest representation of my life. Born in the sea, living on land, a stranger on strange tides. Too progressive to go home, not progressive enough to find comfort in the alien city world. Caught in between, suspended, in limbo. There are nice things about both, but nothing I'd say fits me as I am. Information made me a better person, but it also locked doors behind me and left me to forge new paths. The Mitt is full of memories, of my past and of the places that built me. My church, my farm, the intersections th...

 Hahaha inside jokes!

The light is muted through the curtain in their living room. There are ducks on the shelves and everywhere there are knick knacks, and echoes. I'm sure if I asked, almost all of them have a story. They're elderly, and time is evident in spades. The element that makes them stare in wonder at their great grandchildren growing so tall is the same element that has robbed the pigment from hair, the sight from eyes, the sound from ears. *** It's been a two week process to get the house ready, and in my gut I feel the same mix of excitement and anxiety since I was a child. People! Oh god, people. The only ones to confirm fully are from Matt's university. Mine will try to be there but with me currently off work they're hit even harder. I've already told them it's not a crime to not show up of the day has been too hard. And so I am pacing the floors, considering taking an old toothbrush to the edges of the sink just to give myself busy work when he arrives. It...