My grandmother was a bitch.

A fussy old bigot, she
loved to add vodka to her Sprite.
Or was it the other way around…

She never gave my grandfather a break,
there was always something.
And, when he started to lose his mind,
she complained to everyone,
right in front of him,
how he was no longer a man.

I knew the stories from my father,
how he grew up hard;
the Depression cost him brothers, sisters,
his mother.
His stepmother–
another crazy bitch
–chased him with an axe,
tried to kill him.
So he went off and started life.

He never complained.

I heard from my mother
how he gave up the chance to play in big bands
to marry my grandmother–
gave up the chance to travel,
to see the country,
maybe even see the world.

Still, he saw what he wanted to see.
He traveled the country with his family,
taking them all over
in a truck he made into a camper,
before they returned home
to the house he built for them.

I never knew if my grandmother gave anything up
to be with him.
If there was anything she had seen
or wanted to see.
These stories,
if they existed,
never got told.
I only knew that she used to be a great cook,
before she decided that she didn’t care anymore.
I knew that everything she made came with
a thick layer of grease on the surface,
like some kind of protest.
And that she made time every day to feed the stray cats
that she swore were nuisances.
Constantly ordering from catalogues,
so she’d always have something to look forward to.

Bitches,
martyrs,
we all get to see what we want to see.

Why don’t you think you were able to write anything?

it just didn’t happen.  i looked at the screen- on my phone, on my computer – and i couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Does this happen often to you when you write?

no.  usually i just start writing.  although i usually don’t necessarily sit down and force myself to write about such a specific thing.  usually, if i don’t have an idea, i’ll just start doing something else, and then i figure out what i want to talk about once i start writing.

And you couldn’t do that this time?

well, you wanted me to talk to ‘myself’ after the spelling bee when i was like nine or ten.  it’s a pretty specific goal.

Did you try to write about something else?  To get yourself going?

yes, actually.  although, it doesn’t work like that.  usually, if i start writing something, it leads me to a different place.  i don’t necessarily try to control where i go with it, so it wouldn’t have helped, necessarily to try to talk about something else as a way to get back to this thing i was supposed to write about.  but, yeah, i did write something else.  i wrote a couple dialogues between you and i.  first, about you asking me to write a dialogue between myself now and myself then, and then also one where we talked about how i wasn’t able to do it.  lol.

How very meta.

“dialogue dialogue dialogue.”

What did we say during this conversation?

it was just exactly like this, actually.  except your breasts were bigger.

What was my reaction to your ‘failure’?

they were just like pow!

I understand.  You’re doing the thing where you avoid answering my question, though.

you asked me why i wasn’t able to talk to myself and be supportive in the same way i can for xoxo or my students.

What did you say?

i left it hanging at that moment, just ended it with one of these dumbass galaxy images i like to use.  like i’m deep or something.

I know you’re trying to be cute, “ironically” joking about my breasts, but it isn’t cute or clever.  It’s not cool at all, and I know you know that.  It’s immature and disrespectful, and you wouldn’t even think of saying that to me in real life.

i know.

Pow.