x-posted
Maybe it's because I'm lit. Maybe it's because I just so happened to be listening to the Cure. Or maybe it's because it's been entirely too long.
Of all things, myspace.com brought us back to square one. Strange.
I see the little arrow pointing down to the letters spelling out "New Messages!" complete with bright and shining exclamation point. I notice that the same is true of "New Friends Requests." I take neither flashy display to mean much of anything. The questioning friend to be a girl apparently named "alexandra" with a nose I find familiar, the message from the same. At the bottom, the brief poetic note reads "the little ally cat."
Rewind seven years. I have bushy chin length hair, braces, and pimples. I'm awkward and awful as awkwardly awful and awfully awkward can be. Each of my ten fingernails is a different color and I'm wearing a blue camoflauge longsleeve under a blue t-shirt that has elephants on it. The elephants were drawn by a man named Paul Frank who would later make a ridiculous killing off of a monkey named Julius and end up slinging "I ♥ Carbs" t-shirts at Nordstrom for $45 a pop. My baggy jeans reveal only the toes of my skate shoes. Then there's Ally.
Petite in ripped jeans over checkered tights, blue corduroy jackets with collared shirts and ties, bleach blonde Cyndi Lauper bombshell Allycat. We used to wear one earring each for the other; I wore a cat in one ear that was her. She gave me that earring in a bag full of single silver studs, including one we laughed hysterically at time after time for looking like sperm. We'd go to shows on the weekend, she'd always be dating someone older than me who was handsome and talented, and I would go home and write about how awkward and awful it made me feel.
I remember I used to do pencil-sketch drawings of angels with leathery bat wings falling and tumbling through the sky towards earth. I drew one for her mother once. Debra LaRue with the spiderweb tattooed on the right side of her skull. Debra whose license plate read "DRKPOET." Debra who overdosed and lost consciousness just after she set her room on fire. She had me sign my drawing, scanned it and said she'd put it on her website. I was flattered.
One stupid message can bring all the familiar feelings back while stripping away the wisdom from over the years.
And you're awfully awkward all over again.