(Unabsorbed waves of blood reflect

Off my retinas as I stare

At a hopeful rose climbing the lattice)

Red is the romance of soft petals,

And the hostility of thorns;

Red is the uniform of deployed lovers,

And the wound from that war.

Out of a retractable Sharpie

This contrast boldly pours:

A puddle of striking crimson

Climbing the lattice no more.

As my days die, my writing stretches, yawns, and tumbles out of bed, barely balancing on her feet. I can’t force her to stand up. I can’t meet deadlines. I can’t make decisions. And that’s what’s new.

I now present to you, for your viewing pleasure: frugalmarketing’s “Top Ten Questions to Ask Yourself”

Q1: If you could do anything you want to tomorrow, what would it be?

A: (In no particular order, minus those with time-of-day constraints)..Wake up and watch the sunrise over a cup of hot vanilla chai. Sit in the kitchen with my family, lounging and listening to thought-provoking conversations. Make out. Play soccer. Drive to nisbet and go the speed limit on River Road, blaring the radio. Photograph a punk-rock model with soft edges. Curl up under a fuzzy blanket. Fall asleep in Alden’s arms. Make someone’s life better, even by the smallest fraction imaginable.

Q2: What are your top five core values?

A: (In no particular order) Relationship with God (faith), honesty, appreciation for life, love, understanding.

Q3: What are your special talents?

A: My uncanny ability to be myself, Soccer

Q4: What do you do better than most people you know?

A: Play right back

Q5: What were your dreams as a child?

A: Become a vartist (vetrinarian artist), attend Yale, be an actress/singer, rule the world

Q6: What is the thing you are most proud of accomplishing in your life so far?

A: My newfound positive perspective on life, my “love revolution,” my individuality

Q7: What will you regret not doing in your life if you continue it as you are now?

A: There really isn’t a problem with how I live my life…besides the whole paranoid socialphobic thing. But that is getting better all the time.

Q8: What do you want people to say about you after you are no longer living? What is your legacy?

A: My legacy: Love Revolutionary, Dynamite Soccer Player, Writer (although you will never know it–pseudonymns people, pseudonyms)

Q9: What do you want to do when you retire?

A: If writing is my profession, I never want to retire.

Q10: Outside of parents, who influenced your life more than anyone else; who had an impact on your life and what was it about that person that meant something to you?

A: Outside of parents: my siblings. including faults I know of and those I do not, they reamin to me the most well-rounded, intelligent individuals with arrays of interest and talents. they are beautiful people. and that’s that. secondly, alden: he is the most genuine person I know. he is beautiful, too. It’s kind of simple: the overwhelming beauty of these people influences me to be beautiful, too.

And that’s that !

I feel small. This is not revolutionary, this bite-sized brunette clutching a chocolate-colored teddy bear, enveloped in self-pity. She is pathetic. Chasing independance scrapes her little heart, but she has never felt the wounds. It seems nothing will change this—she holds tighter to faux fur, squeezing the bear close to her heart, hoping. But hope is small.

Damn it feels good to be a gangster senior

Tim walked in to Regis shortly after Kate and I. He sported medium to dark brown hair in a cut reminiscent of a bowl turned upsidedown. I liked Tim’s shy uncertainty, his big doe eyes. He was a trooper to immerse himself in this world of women—a pioneer for higher standards of male appearance. I admired this brave undertaking and inside I was intrigued by quiet Tim as he plopped into the open chair beside me. His moderately tight pants and colorful Nikes read into a skater image. I started to play out innocent stories as to why Tim trekked in to the salon today: a vicious break up, a secret desire to be accepted, an angry mother, a willingness to change the coveted locks that hung in front of his eyes so that maybe she would notice. More than likely Tim just needed a haircut. I do not know why I was so inclined to catch his attention, why I wanted to feel his doe eyes pondering about my status while checking out my frame. But I had to. I was coy about it while he got his hair cut, staring at him from underneath an opaque shelf until he realized, then glimpsing away with a small smile of perfectly-acted embarrassment. For I did not care what Tim thought about me. I had no interest in Tim and his skateboard tricks and his high score on Tony Hawk’s latest video game. I have you, and you are cooler than Tim. I don’t have to get Tim’s number to know that. I don’t have to text him or have late-night phone conversations with him to figure out this fact. Tim isn’t you, and that’s that. But I am pretty sure I won him over. I am pretty sure I could have had him if I would have let our eyes lock. But then the fun would be over, then the game would end. Reality would take hold and after sheepish Tim swallowed his gum and prayed his breath wasn’t too bad I would have to tell him that I had a boyfriend, and I truly was not by any means available, but, you know, maybe we could be friends. Poor Tim’s ego would crash a split second before it had the chance to land. The point of a haircut is to land that fickle plane on a positive-outlook runway. I could not ruin that for Tim. After all, I had his best interest in mind.

In exactly seven days an incision will be made in my right foot. My young, hyperactive doctor will remove the bone fragment that has been camping there, then will proceed to rid the area of the fragment’s leftover trash (the bears aren’t that hungry). After the first job, Doc will thread an over-sized suture through my first metatarsal and into my second; he will secure it with metal, pulling the bones back together. I will sleep soundly with an IV tucked into one of my veins for the duration. I will not have a clue as to how funny Doc looks in his cliche green scrubs and mask. Forty-five minutes later, however, it is planned that I will wake up (God, I hope I wake up). Out comes Mr. Ivy, (get it?), and in goes Mr. Shot-To-The-Back-Of-The-Knee (I think he is German). Mr. STTBOTK will numb my foot (and possibly my whole leg?) for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours (thirty-six, please). The job should be over and I will go home as long as the anesthesia does not pick a battle I cannot win. Then the real journey begins, then the true test of my determination takes place—every step going thump, thump, thump on crutches.

Tomorrow I will be shuffled to another hospital filled with blank walls, nurses in obnoxiously colored scrubs, and white-coated professionals. Tomorrow a doctor will expose me to radiation, again, as usual, and won’t be concerned that this is my fourth x-ray within two months, and maybe, just maybe, I do not want my foot to glow in the dark.

In my hand I clutch a yellow-ed, smudged receipt from South Williamsport Antiques. Today you and I ventured there and perused the facilities. We shuffled through rows of old dining wear, kitchen tools, playboy magazines, and fantastic jewelry which mesmerized me. The store’s musk played with my notion that everything there was an artifact—a secret remnant of the past with its own personal history. Maybe this ring I pushed on my finger was found in a backyard and then sold at a flea market as part of a four piece set; this one an old engagement ring stolen from the oblivious guest of honor at a funeral. The magic of an antique store is just that. Items there are unique in their experiences: the rings and necklaces draped on tables were not manufactured for large-scale sales (they were actually crafted back then, not processed by chemical-bleeding machines). You doubted my “artifacts” were authentic as you followed my parade to the cash register. You can be too much of a realist. Maybe little Bobby did not really know the exact value of the dirty silver he presented to his mother for sale at her stand; maybe Cousin Kevin, who we all know has been arrested on several accounts of theft, did yank Great Gram’s ruby off of her embalmed finger and did not regret it, even for a millisecond.

Maybe.

(8:20) Today is a typical Monday for an employee of Susquehanna Health MRI; unfamiliar patients pass in and out of the glass doors and take their seats in horribly uncomfortable maroon chairs while Good Morning, America! blurs into Regis and Kelly Live.

(8:35) “I’m so sorry, you were supposed to be on the table at 8:30.”

(somewhere between 8:35 and 9:07) A gray table and crisp white pillows await me. I arrange myself in a morbid position: hands politely folded on chest, coffin style.

“Just some advice…don’t move while you’re in there. It will take about forty minutes.”

The giant machine swallows my feet and calves through its mouth cavity—an illuminated tunnel, sealed shut. Don’t move.

“Would you like to listen to something like KISS FM; you know, 102.7?”

Retro headphones securely fastened, I shut my eyes tight. Don’t move.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

“The machine makes some weird noises, don’t worry about it.”

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

I am alone. I look around. A curved, off-white contraption labeled PHILIPS towers over me, some sort of tropical mural is painted too far out of view to my right. The charcoal floor sparkles and reflects on to signs warning of the high magnetization. Somewhere in a sound proof radio booth Mr. 102.7 and friends are chatting about something slightly inaudible to me due to the machine’s persistent gab. Mr. 102.7 reminds us that it is 9:07 and KISS FM supplies weather updates every ten minutes.

(sometime after 9:07) My feet tingle as the Hydrogen molecules in my body become magnetized for the last time.

“Abbigail? We’re all done here.”

Thank God. I hope my insides smiled pretty for the camera.