Connective Cube

Connecting the hard edges

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Quite memoir, Quite fiction.

  • Tooth brain smack

    What’s that slice in the gum
    The one that shows so definitively when I press hard.

    So soft, the imprint noticeable 3 minutes later, though fading.
    I mean no shade when I say this is another stint

    Of proving my doctor right that I have a high pain tolerance
    By chance, no evidence of it when I wake up before my alarm.

    4 hours earlier. At 2am wondering if I’ll swallow my tooth in my sleep
    LIke the one time I chomped on sticky taffy and my crown fell down my throat.

    That one stubborn crust that went perpendicular on the pink graiin
    But still didn’t penetrate, only the same when I pressed my fingernail

    Into my gooey mouth when I was 10 with calcium bound pearls
    Wondering why my gums are the same color as bubble yum.

  • Tangle tap tap tap

    Tangle tap tap tap

    Let’s face it. I’m forced to use AI at my job, mostly because I have writer in my title. In reality, automation by using Grammarly in the later 2010s helped me get the words right. Grammar doesn’t excite me as much as a flow of language, although, I’ve become a better writer understanding the mechanics of grammar. The other reality is oh YAY another technological change that’s going to change the world and look wow AI can be better than geography based education and honestly just wanting to make all the blue light go away.

    I haven’t published in a minute – this is the one and only time I’ll use AI for an image, and look, the meta narrative of reading a book behind the noveau mirror encapsulates how far I want to go with innovation for innovation sake.

    But handwriting.

    That’s the thing. Me. Mechanics. Hands that knock things over, especially jars with lids that I forget to tighten all the way. Digital excited me, I didn’t have to contend with my right-left confusion and general ability to drop things easily. It only was until last year that I got the difference between the en dash – and —. (I used the Option+Shift+- and not AI to create this em dash). Getting quick with keyboard commands, one day, but I now tend to dream of days where I don’t tap a keyboard.

    I grew up in that awkward time where the kids 2 years older than me and kids 2 years younger than me had either more connection to the analog world or more connection to the emerging digital world. When I was a freshman, someone 2 years older than me recommended I take a typing class. Typing? I was typing when I was 10 and starting to see how I could remedy my ‘Needs improvement’ level handwriting, TYVM. That’s thank you very much, acronyms with no reference are rude. I was surprised they offered a typing class. Didn’t everyone know how to type to play Oregon Trail and write things?

    Now I’m someone who still can’t identify what GOAT in conversations, although it seems positive and having to do with someone being the best at something. Haven’t Googled or ChatGPT’ed it, and was recently thankful I had my sunglasses on while someone referred to GOAT and some very famous artist who thinks she’s an English teacher marrying a gym teacher with optimism an joy. I mean, goat’s are stubborn sweethearts, and I guess she’s a good musician because I’ll listen to a song like ‘Trouble trouble’ but dear lord she’s in a photo with someone with a Nazi sign on their shirt, and to summarize some Reddit headline, I’ve somehow managed to live my adult life and not pose with people wearing Nazi propaganda. Mostly, I listen to other things and find the obsession stangely cultish, and if kindness matters, try not to burst music bubbles – lots of other things worth popping.

    Then there were the kids 2 years younger than me in middle school who seemed more confident than the entire class of 2000, they still didn’t have cell phones en masse in high school, but in general didn’t get the general anxiety of an industrial arts teacher asking to transition to a ‘computer skills’ teacher in the last year of his retirement. Those little ones maybe started with him teaching computers, which meant he sat in the back of the room while everyone else played games. They never got to make a giant paper clip in a woodshop in one of those vests and t-shift combos with a gray bearded man who looked more Appalachain than southern. Why did I have to sit and play video games, I liked the big wood clip far more than the home economics class, even though I’d never say no to baking a brownie or cookies.

    Even in high school, 2 dudes dared to kiss openly who were 2002 grads; I got to sit in advanced literature with baseball bros talking about some meathead on their team using a bat to beat the boys up. I usually avoided anyone who didn’t reed nerd, but mumbled and said that it’s silly it bothers them so much.

    Now, I contend with the creeping 25th anniversary of 9/11, the current 20th anniversary of Katrina and even Columbine my junior year.

  • Exposure zone

    I’ve delayed writing about 9/11 on the 20 year anniversary. When was that. 09/11/21. 20 years, seriously? 3 years later goes so fast, plus another week.

    ———–

    A social media ad that shows the exposure zone on 9/11 below Canal Street in Manhattan

    An Instagram ad in 2024 on my feed.

    9/11 is when I go through some emotional catharsis or epiphany. Okay, that’s many days. What’s different about 9/11 is that I had the pleasure of living in the exposure zone. How does technology know that I lived a few blocks south of Canal? Is that cough something I need to checkout? Is that a persistent itch over my lungs? My fat cells, is something still lingering there from the air?

    I avoided the dust cloud, 2 blocks down by the time we evacuated.

    ———–

    Flit a thought here, flit a thought there, my brain flits like dandelion seeds that tumble around like little dust specks that come from dryer lint.

    I’m a deadline champ. I’m not a deadline champ.

    ———–

    I ran away uptown walk walk walk walk walk walk up Lafayette, then Union Square. I had 3 days of no exposure below Canal. Then another 90 or so.

    ———–

    When I left New York geographically in 2010, I figured the distance would help. I had to leave New York and move on – I was getting too angry at anyone who held their new iPhones to the beaming twin towers. Twitter in general pissed me off, it seemed like popularity contests and brand-as-self that I still feel squeamish about. I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a curated brand that says all the right things on command that’s full of style and substance, don’t go off-brand.

    Organization continued to present itself in new challenges, and I had a second room filled with furniture people gave to me that I had no idea how to arrange properly, at the time. Money was low, but not out, and the recession brought out even more tense tendencies.

    Interviewing for a coffee shop in Red Hook, I spoke to the owner about how gentrification was present in so many places in Brooklyn, and that I was writing about it. I didn’t get hired. Somehow, I realized opening a coffee shop dream would never be about improving a neighborhood that I’m not from.

    ———–

    A year or so ago, I walked by my old dorm on Lafayette after a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge with people I love. The second floor that used to have a balcony overlooking an empty lot now has a large condo building. No more 40s from the deli for the teenagers and post-teenagers.

    Was this ever an exposure zone?

  • Spread smash

    Spread smash

    A stick in the sky,
    shy, I try to pry.

    It stays, firm,
    with a tussle in the leaves
    nothing perceptible falls.

    Hey, smalls!
    no one would ever call me.
    my american thighs
    squish wide on the seat,
    full flat.

    Legs, double the
    hand-drawn sticks
    I try to draw.

    Thicken here, share there,
    look at that line
    so static,
    for now.

  • Sometimes I shiver a river

    Sometimes I shiver a river

    I get goose bumps most times when / the little holes in my eyelids / produce an overflow of liquid

    that my dam eyes fail to contain

    There the micro-hills on my arm feel flattened by / the only warm appendage / my hand that was in my pocket

    and now catches the four raindrops through the cracks

    My soggy arm now beaming heat and chill / the shirt, it’s a stainer as I strain / to see through / the eyeglass condensation

    Big girls don’t cry-yai-yai

    Yai right / boys don’t cry / big girls don’t crai / infantilize the cry baby / hold it back / let it out / cry cry cry / did you forget to cry? / He doesn’t cry often, but when he does / she cries to get attention / it’s not all about you.

    The chill / the hill / the ill I feel now that I have to breath in / breath out / haaaaaaaaa hot air / jaw creaks / water splash / it’s time to say hiiiii-eeee and care / I’m not overthinking , not overthinking right now.

  • Too lia

    Too lia

    Bustle my loves, I’m a friend to all
    Who doesn’t make it about them /

    Disorderly you, how can I help?!
    I ask, as if expecting an answer /

    Stir you nothing, can you speak?
    If I can, YOU can too! /

    Wait no, no, not that tone,
    Stop, although I can’t say why /

    Stay positive, don’t overthink it! I tell you,
    It’s your one goal to make others laugh, that’s it /

    No, no, not like that, be more uplifting!
    Your stories make others feel worried /

    I can’t say why, just remember your childhood,
    don’t we all have good stories from then? /

    If you want to be cherished like me, change,
    Be more like me, people like me, they clap /

    Wait, why is you face so blank,
    Have you any emotion, like me?

  • Tea time

    I feel like I am in my 40s in all of the right ways. My appreciation for tea is high – it makes me drink water. Some people just seem to know to drink water, like an internal alarm goes off that says ‘drink water’, and it isn’t questioned. Often, I forget to drink water, then realize hours into dehydration that I am utterly thirsty.

    Another factor is I am forgetful, the type who forgets to bring around a reusable water bottle, or a Camel Back for longer hikes. I abhor having to buy plastic water bottles, and will go without water if I know I’ll get to water soon. Even when I buy bottled water, I feel this overwhelming sense of grossness that I only finish the bottle half the time. Not logical behavior, but no one is getting points for logic right now.

    And something about water coming from pipes that have variable levels of care makes me hesitant, at least more recently, to drink what is out of the faucet. The American way, get the cheapest thing built so it can get to done so we can rebuild it again later.

    My dry, desiccated veins just want some dang water, that’s more of the alarm bell.

    It’s been dry this season in Baltimore. Hoping for rain, or some relief to all of the dust in the air. The leaves on the oaks seem less robust this year, and shedding seeds softly, quietly. I will miss this view from the back deck, one that’s perfect for sipping a cup of water and staring at the blobs of surrounding trees.

  • On being too sensitive

    On being too sensitive

    In my youth, I was a crier. A crybaby. Someone who cries frequently at inappropriate times. In class. In the hall. In a teacher’s classroom office. In the family living room. At dinner.

    I got deemed as a sensitive, a particular crime in the pull yourself up by your bootstraps loving suburbs of Atlanta in the 90s. And even a deeper crime to my parents, who both started their careers at one of the first Home Depot stores. My dad in particular wore working long hours as a badge of honor; my mom had more of the attitude that people who want to put in the extra time deserve a boost. It was their first major adult job, a temporary commune that fueled the future hyper-capitalistic machine that is now The De-pot.

    They had me at the dawn of the Reagan years in their mid-20s, both fresh from conservative upbringings and surroundings. My dad became an emancipated minor at 15 after years of abuse, physical and emotional. My mom’s dad died suddenly and tragically when she was 11 – my grandma had to go back to work. Mom all of the sudden had responsibilities to raise her six year old sister.

    Both my parents had incredibly difficult childhoods, and married when they were in their mid-20s. My mom had me at 24. Divorced at 27 with two kids. Kept working until she was 30, then got remarried and had two more kids. By the time she was 35, she had four kids. When I turned 35, I remained committed to remaining childfree.

    So yea, my queerness evoked with my mom the ‘what did I do wrong’. She worried about me having a hard life. Dad, well, he knew cause one of the women he dated called it. He’s never cared, and nor has mom once she got used to the idea.

    But the crying. Oh, the crying. I didn’t even always know why I was crying in my childhood and teenage years, the salt, the red face, the sticky aftermath. My parents probably did cry – especially my mom – and now that I am older, I wonder if they ran out of tears by the time they had me, and just wanted me, well, not to cry.

    The desire to acquire came from a simplicity of wanting more than freezing bedrooms and eviction based moves. And to not live in poverty again.

    ***

    One thing I accepted a long time ago is my parents didn’t know what to do with a sensitive child. Anytime I got into a spell of worry and anxiety, I was entitled, over-emotional, selfish, and many other things. ‘Get over it’ was one of my dad’s favorites. My mom, usually not as immediately callous, but not exactly patient,

    I had two favorite bathroom stalls in high school.

    One by the lunchroom where I could escape and listen to all the other teenage gals chat about boys. If gossip happened, I covered my ears. That bathroom’s dingy grime and narrow gap between the stalls and mirrors didn’t exactly encourage anyone to linger.

  • Wait who? Oh, it’s you.

    Your hair is so long. It didn’t get so long when you were a kid.

    Wait, you lived in DC, right? Are you still a vegetarian?

    It must have been hard to be the older sister of someone more charming.

    What is this big deal about The Alphabet?

    JUST TELL ME

    You were always so sensitive.

  • Freeze Rage

    Poof.

    Aloof I go, again.

    Away from a truth you hold,

    Yeah right,

    I’m not sold.

    I lack the fight to argue on point

    To ace a hole in one,

    To throw the ball in your arms,

    To catch that fly,

    No thanks, I’ll remain shy

    To your charms while you tell me to bear arms

    And offer to teach me to shoot a gun.

    Instead, I run, so far away,

    From wanting your rights.