Mood: Determined
Drinking: The Usual
No.
Can’t eat yet.
Can’t call my sister back.
Can’t finish checking email.
Can’t move can’t blink can’t breathe
until I get this down.
Until I get it out.
Get it aaaaall out.
Until I drag the
scantily-clad secrets, the
cats trapped in bags, the
brittle breaking skeletons
until I drag them all screaming
from the closet
and dash them to dust
here on the sidewalk
here on the street
here on the internet
out in the open
where everyone can see
just how deep the deception goes
just how much they really don’t know.
(They thought I was satisfied.)
***
I found her today.
And she’s better than me.
She’s LaDonna 3.0.
She has everything that I’ve got
but she’s added nifty new features
new buttons and bows.
And once you see her,
you’ll be begging for an upgrade.
She’s got accolades
and book deals. She’s got titles
and teaching certificates. She’s got
dreadlocks and baby bangs. She “writes
in the dark with an
exacto blade.”
I write by electric light.
I write with a black ink pen.
I am so soft core.
I am off the rack.
I’m the kind of drug
that requires no prescription.
I am midwestern.
I am milquetoast.
I’m the $6 matinee
with the conventional happy ending.
The one where the girl always gets
her guy.
That’s why they still call me sweetheart
no matter how cold my shoulder gets.
***
And I want to be one of the dark girls
one of the tough girls one of
the girls with the history and
the mystery and the dirty dirty laundry.
But I use too much bleach and salvation.
I want the heroin friends and
the industrial tour bus. I want the fan
girls and the band aids. I want
the suicide scars and the razorblade
haircut. I want the rollercoaster ride
after hours. I want the cigarette voice and
the whiskey fingers. I want some goddamn street cred.
I want to see her. I want
to be her.
No.
I want to be better
than she ever was.
-Lo, who has dreams of cultivating a cult fan base in Germany.
LaDonnaWitmer 