constance

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I never said I'd take this lying down...

"What is this shit?" she grunted, eyeing first her student and then the ratty CD player he had been hiding away so he could listen to this particular band.

She says c'mon c'mon, baby...

"Taking Back Sunday," as if that helped Constance at all, but she listened regardless. Unamused or disinterested couldn't be seen in the flatlined lips and half-lidded eyes.

I still know everything...

"Why do you have it in my class?" she asked with a low groan, sitting forward to peer at him over her desk, "You know you aren't allowed to have them in school."

Then what's the point...

"I had to listen to it."

"But why?"

I'm at the corner of your bed...

He shrugged his response and eyed her through the thick brimmed glasses with a frown, nervously rubbing his hands together. The next song started up, a different song, a different band.

"I'm keeping it until the end of the day."

"You're a bitch!" He stormed from her room, mumbling curses toward the witch-woman he had for a teacher.

"AND A DETENTION!" her voice dropped low after her catcall into the hallway, "little son of a bitch," she grunted. It wasn't the first, wouldn't be the last time she got cursed by a student.

<font color="#6633FF " size="1">[ September 19, 2006 01:17 PM: Message edited by: vodka slurs ]</font>

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<center>how we waste our precious time,
marching in the picket line,
that surround those striking hearts,
and the time is never now,
and we know who we should love,
but we're never certain how.</center>

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she left the comfort of her sweat ridden sheets and tangle of lucian's limbs to prowl the streets. insomnia and anxiety had gotten the best of constance and her body ached for movement. she stalked the shadows of the spiderweb tangle of streets and back alleys that made up the city. it was all familiar, each crack in the pavement and brick laid into the buildings. like her own expanse of flesh and bones, each intricate tattoo that reminded her so much of the city. the earthbound madonna walked the streets amongst the hookers and drug dealers, without fear. they were one and the same, but neither knew it. they were all searching for something to save them, but none of them knew where to look.

<center>this empty chest.
this hollow throbbing.
this empty shell will help you sleep.
and your name will come in time.
for now take a number.
</center>

she walked like she was weighed down. she carried the burden of time on her shoulders like a cross, and a liar's crown of thorns, woven from guilt on her head. a halo of pain and sorrow. her body ached from the years she hadn't lived yet, the years she doubted she would ever see. her legs begged for rest, but she kept on walking with nowhere to go and no one to see. she just had to keep on keeping on like nothing was wrong.

<center>this is a surrender skin
this is hanging on
sing the high notes, touch his hand.
this is giving up
faces on! faces on!

we are pretty when we are faking.
i am such a liar when i smile</center>

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ September 27, 2006 06:28 PM: Message edited by: vodka slurs ]</font>

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all chrome and cherry red gloss, the sixty-seven catalina didn't seem to fit with the stark stretch of street. miles of asphalt and gutter glass, it sat idling like a temple to the back alley gods and goddesses. it was here she sat, swallowed whole by the leather seats. dressed in red, dressed to kill; the bag of bones painted up with colorful flesh. her life was painted out from her shoulders to her hips and wrists to neck. tattoos that were as intricate as the city she dwelled within. her head tilted to the side, dissipating her halo of smoke into nothing more than blots on an invisible painter's canvas. her eyes were on the sky, the stretch of black expanse dotted with diamonds. "fuck man," she groaned, her cigarette bobbling and spilling ash across the red dress (which oddly enough matched the pontiac). inked fingers curled and knuckles dug into closed eyes, smearing dark liner dramatically. a tragic beauty. "i'm so fuckin' lost," she snarled, plucking the cigarette from its perch between her lips. proverbially lost, because she knew right where she was. this city was nothing foreign to the carcrash queen. she swore she knew every spiderweb crack of the pavement and mislaid brick in the wall.

despite her exit, the car continued to run and music continued to play. her movements and thoughts were soundtracked by houston calls. a shitty band on a shitty cd that a student made for her, that she listened to only because she adored her students. the moon shines bright for them. "this is fuckin' disgusting, who writes this shit, man?" she didn't feel as stupid talking to herself when the pitbull stuck his head out the window. "moshe, who does that kinda shit happen to, anyway?" she canted her head to the side, dropping the dog a glance expectantly. the pooch groaned and grunted, flopping back inside to sprawl in the passenger seat. "yeah, i dunno either. fuckin' love isn't about moons shinin' for'em and streetlights flickerin'." she snorted her retort to the song, forcing disgust to surface on her face despite having cried to the song not an hour before. "ugh!" her hands were thrown up in defeat as she slithered her way back into the car where she slumped into the leather seat. her window was rolled up, despite the cigarette she continued to smoke. evened out only because the passenger side's window was down, moshe needed fresh air. constance, however, was content to breathe the polluted air. only slightly more contaminated by rat poisons and tar than the air she breathed elsewhere and not behind a thin filter.

"i'm just so fuckin' lost."

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<center>let's laugh in the mirrors and try
to figure out what our smiles mean</center>

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ September 29, 2006 11:37 AM: Message edited by: vodka slurs ]</font>

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the phone just kept ringing and ringing. "what the fuck?" six in the morning was no time to be calling the cellist, it led to her being fairly unhappy and rude when answering the phone.

"who the fuck is calling me?" she snarled into the phone, practically yanking the phone cord from the reciever.

"constance?"

"um yes."

"it's mom."

she felt the muscles in her body constrict and her jaw lock, forbidding any words to come out.

"are you there?"

"mmhm." was the most she could get out over the fury that etched itself into her face. her lips parted and threatened to drip words of hatred, nut she knew this was no time for voices of violence. lucian was still sleeping and she didn't want to wake him up.

"did you hear me? it's mom."

"i don't have a mom." the phone clicked off and left to idle of the floor. her footsteps were soundtracked to the buzz of the dial tone. she'd sleep away the ghosts.

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she teetered on the brink of insanity and genius on a daily basis. today was no different. she sat perched on an old, rickety stool behind the face of her cello. fingers depressed strings while the horsehair bow made them scream to her: please give us meaning. despite years of playing, calloused fingers split and bled red ribbons down the strings. five hours of nothing but playing, never once moving from her wooden stool perch. all her feelings were poured into the instrument. words were lost to the heavy thrum of the strings. it was all building up in her chest. letters were lost to notes and she could only speak and think in sheet music.

she wondered if he could hear her playing for him.

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<center></center>

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"miss duke?"

she'd been sprawled on a stretcher in the hospital's hallway for five hours. though it hardly seemed as long through her lapses in consciousness. the constant influx of pain killers clouded her mind and worse yet, loosened her tongue.

"miss duke?" the nurse was trying her best to remain patient with the tattooed woman.

"hm?"

"do you have someone we can call?" she repeated for a fourth or fifth time, constance couldn't recall anymore.

"um," she took more than a moment to think before she replied somewhat coherently. "well, i have a boyfriend, but i think he's at work so don't bother him..." she rolled over on the stretcher and pulled the paperthin sheet over her head.

"he might want to know why you're here, miss duke."

"that is no one's business!" she barked back, sinking further into the stretcher.


if only it would swallow her whole.

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the nurses' whispers travelled like a grim lullaby, carried on the wings of hospital sheets and magnified by the constant influx of drugs that ravaged her body. beneath the skin and behind the drip, drip, drip, of i.v. fluids the pain dwelled, rearing an ugly head when she dared to move.

"miss duke..." hesitant to speak for fear that the tattooed bag of bones would spit venom.

"yes?"

"i called your boyfriend."

constance laid in silence, wanting to slap the woman and hug her all at once. mummified in sheets in the dim room (one she had waited seven hours for), watching her i.v. drip to make sure the bag didn't empty.

"thank you," she finally managed to murmur, "i want him here."