I went to the movies with Michael, who I have a HUGE crush on. He bought the tickets and popcorn so I KNEW it was a date even though he didn't say it was. His walk is so cute.

I didn't even think about what movie we were seeing. It was rated R but we got in when the person taking tickets yelled at kids drinking liquid butter from the counter. Michael led me to two seats in the back and he even pushed down the butt-flap for me. The popcorn was in his lap.

Michael started making out with me when the MGM lion roared. Then he put his hand in my shirt when I heard the Jerry Bruckheimer lightning bolt hitting the tree. And when the THX thing--the big swell that's cool to do with my friends--came, I came too. I fell asleep for a lot of the movie. I remember opening my eyes and seeing Michael's face under my skirt, but I didn't care, the movie was so boring.

>White line angled against the center-most metacarpals of right hand: ~/: with Rudy on my back, I drove a scooter into the jungle while scooting across the island of Cozumel. Cut my hand while lifting the scooter off of Rudy. Paid $40 for damage to fender.

>Dark brown blotch with a center of raised white skin on left wrist, beneath thumb: riding a bicycle just as my parents drove past me. We raced home and I crashed.

>Small white crescent on the back of right hand, beneath the pointer finger: c: caught on barbed wire while sneaking into an abandoned loading dock. Interior of dock burned into memory.

>Two light dots just above left nipple: odd pickings.

>Pink line just under chin: can't remember.

>Bald trench on right side of parietal, about 5" from ear: ( : can't remember, parents won't say.

The most beautiful girl I've ever kissed is on a balcony 40-some ft. away from me, and I'm sitting across a table from my girlfriend :Situation.

And the stupid, primitive itch to break away from the girl that truly loves me for the sake of chasing my fancies is making my eyes twitch-- twitch so that I always seem to focus on the gutter punk that was sweet when serving my coffee and looked at me as if expecting some offering, waiting for me to expose my(self) attraction. The red lipstick that walked into my workplace did the same, as did a blonde that complimented my shoes, and the rarity of these pretty moments, these pretties, is a suffocating, petty frustration.

Domains of freedom only provide so much movement, depending on the domain. I keep glancing to the balcony, finding the softest girl I've ever kissed sitting across this table from me to be inadequate despite her fulfilling the most desperate wish for unconditional love, warmth, and beauty in pain. I cause her pain (being the first pain also makes the freedom harder to break from) and yet she remains loving.

*I look up--she's gone.

Now back in my apartment, one of my roommates is having sex right now. I can hear them even though he placed clothing in the dryer and set the timer. His partner is gorgeous, and I'm a little jealous that his charm and warmth outstrip mine. The potential for heartache that accompanies a new partner...that's what I miss. Danger, flirting, new gasps, novel moans, scratch marks as funny as fingerprints.

Can't ignore the pettiness, though.

"Wake up, maggots!"

Jeffery is dazed and stares at the ceiling, which looks friendly.

"Breakfast today is--you guessed it--SLOP!"

The door to Jeffery's cell slides to the right before he can put on the orange jumpsuit folded neatly by the toilet. An officer steps inside. Jeffery, still on his cot, is punched in the groin.

"Up, up, up, maggot!"

Of America

The table of Girl Scouts outside the place I work was guarded by one woman. Such a long day I'd had, don't you know, and I wanted a cigarette like death wants a cigarette. After lighting, I decided to retrieve cash from my car just a block away that I might buy some Tagalongs©, feminist that I am.

Down the brick steps, catty-corner at the intersection, along some petunias, behind the troop of girls, and across one last street was my course. Approaching point 4, I smiled at the woman with her brood, who smiled to me but turned away when I came near. My cigarette, delicious thing, was in my right hand when I quietly sneezed--do you smell blood already? No, I did not burn a little girl with a cigarette, but I did convulse and backhand someone's ass. I still don't know whose.

In that moment I met the eyes of a 40-tired-something. My apology came a second too late as I was slapped with enough force to stagger me, with my cigarette in hand, burning the little brunette at my waist.

To that I had no words. I let my cigarette fall as I knelt to the cement, trying to show the crying scout my own tears. Her friend jumped me.

My elbow itched to crack outward, but I held down the fort, exhibiting great integrity and resistance to the scratching, shrieking girls. Babies, really. I let them assault me for a few seconds because I thought I could teach them something about having the capacity to stick up for themselves, to walk over someone, to be the beater, to help them earn their New World Order badges. My next impulse was to lift my upper body out of their reach, standing and holding them back to do so, but the woman swung her purse onto my back. I felt a box of, I think, Samoas, by the rattling of coconut shavings against the plastic wrapping.

I rose despite this. The brunette's feet tangled with my own as I received a final punch to the nose from the woman, who had become strong by hauling the table, cookies, Hello Kitty© stereo, and little girls around the city.

Falling and in an instant laughing, I let myself be strewn across the petunias, satisfied that I had done a good job.

Thanks for listening,

Mauricio

This Mole

I'm picking a mole from my arm because I don't like it. Its placement, its color, shape, its unconformity, its threat, all bad. But on my other arm I have an arrow pointing to another mole, which I like for its rich brown, its discreetness, it flatness, the value I've given it as a corporeal encapsulation of the darkness beneath my darkness (golden olive) and the point in time in which I am always immersed. I need to reconcile the two.