Hong Kong gave us hope- pages 1-2

Aye-Aye’s weren’t native to Africa. They were native to one of the islands off the coast
of Africa. They were native to Madagascar, but I had seen several near my home in Tanzania. I
wondered if they jumped ship and somehow ended over here with the local cargo. I could hear
them at night, but had never seen them.
I was told never to wander out into the brush at night. I had listened when I was a young
child of five, but I refused to listen anymore. The night life, in general, was so different from
some of the creatures of the light. I had heard of Aye-Ayes, bush babies, hyenas and the like. I
had heard that some of the day creatures were more active at night. I would find out as soon as
my parent’s fell fast asleep.
I waited until the moon was so bright, it shined into my room like a night light that
refused to shut off. I gently tossed the covers off of my bed and tiptoed through the hut. My
older brother heard and caught me. He promised not to squeal if I took him with me. I obliged.
The door creaked as I slowly opened it. “Shh,” I told it and just like that the door stopped its
incessant chattering, the owl outside the house stopped hooting and the crickets crooned their last
melody for the night.
We lived in the deserts of Africa. The night life looked, smelled and tasted different.
That’s right, tasted different. I picked up a rock that lay near the side of the river. Salty. My
brother caught a firefly.
“Tastes like wild boar,” he said.
“Everything tastes like wild boar,” I replied. “That’s not normal you know?”
We were sneaking around outside. I don’t know why. I was afraid to scare the wildlife
off. My brother was afraid of waking the elders. Ironic for the guy who caught me sneaking out
in the first place.
Nestled on one of the tree branches was an Aye-Aye. I knew of them, but had never seen
one and it was right in my own backyard. Its long fingernails jutted into the prickled tree,
piercing the Boabab tree’s insides to find its nightly feast of peel bugs and worms. I called it the
“upside down tree,” because the branches looked like the roots, but many natives called it the
“monkey-bread tree,” because the dry fruit on its branches were edible. Maybe that’s why the
Aye-Aye sat on the Boabab tree instead. They loved eating fruit. It wasn’t sitting on the branches
of an Acacia tree. It, too, had edible seeds, but then again maybe its branches were too potent.
My mother burned the Acacia wood to make perfume for herself and the other local woman. She
sold it in her beauty parlor. It traded quite well.
I held my guts in pain for the tree. It couldn’t fight back but if it could, I knew it would. I
wanted to scare the Aye-Aye, but didn’t. I had never seen one and this might be my only
glimpse at it. I crept closer. It smelled like wet monkey and its eyes were vivid and huge like a
child who had just seen real food for the first time.
My brother and I didn’t stare at the Aye-Aye for too long. The lights on the neighbor’s
house had turned on. Mr. Yambi came outside with a large piece of wood in his hands. We ran in
the darkness of night. Huffing and panting all the way home. We opened the door which politely
did not creak and fell back into our beds thinking about the night we saw the world’s ugliest and
most endangered primate. I was growing up right before everyone’s eyes. Soon I would be five,
and parties were tradition.

The Outcast torn girl- work in progress

I once saw this girl wearing a Power Puff girls T-shirt. No doubt a little girl at heart, still torn between reality and fantasy. She was sitting by herself near a clock at school, no doubt eavesdropping and spying on other girls, normal girls. Not weird girls like herself.

I often watched her. She would watch girls talking to one another and on the cell phone at the same time. She often wondered how real girls could carry on multiple conversations.

"Well, so you don't."

"So I can't either."

"So don't yell at me."

"Cool."

She told me she never understood those cell phone conversations and never would. The ot her girl was clapping in a fit of laughter and excitement obviously over the guys taking their shirts off near the quad.

"Hey baby, woo, woo. I see you. I see you #2."

"Number 2, #3 is the cute one."

"Whatever."

Those jerseys had to be numbered. How would she know he was a two.

The girls began tilting their heads looking at the other person who was obviously chomping on his gum the way those dumb cows, brainless really, chomped on grass. Mouth wide open, disgusting.

The MTV generation, generation X disgusted her. These people could not think for themselves., the computers, cell phones and cars thought for them.

The girl seemed less than amused with his caveman ways for the glare in her eyes indicated otherwise. You know the grunting, the chewing, never really talking. So she decided to watch one of the dancers, while twirling her hair and crossing her legs at the ankles. No doubt, trying to get one of the guy's attentions. Obviously holding her feelings for him inside, never letting go of that moment, that moment of pure ecstasy.

And this is why I am an outsider, Katrina once told me.

I never understood them, nor will I.

Power Puff girls are for me. Just me and my fantasy. Understanding is for girls; girly girls. Understand this, she said to me while pointing fingers and got up and disappeared.

Oh, I understand completely, I thought to myself.

I understand.

Pop, pop, flip, flip, woo, woo. Yeah I understand more than you will ever know.

"Girl, I know."

"I know."

One brief moment

Day bleeds into night,
night gurgles through the back of my throat,
choking, hyperventilating, can't breathe, can't eat,
can't sleep, the dark mahogany booths call my name,
"Come here, rest your head awhile. I won't bite...much."
The cushions fold into one another. Head spins round and round,
stumble, fall; "wait, where am I? God is that you?"
"If that's what you want to call me then 'yes.'"Body trembling, sweating...Oh no, wait, No! Oh God, no, No!
Silver satin sheets tussled on the floor and I sit here
in the midnight's light hoping for just one miracle,
one minute, one moment to take back;
just one.

Lost in her Wonderland

It's Thursday and my day feels green. It's the only day I don't have to work and work and work; my catch-up day, my day. School and work, work and school, that's all I ever do. I'm poor and spend all my money on frivolous things like manuscripts, movies, plays, music and lots of things.

My favorite is makeup, Stila to be exact. The library is where I put it on, never to be seen again; lost in my own world, my own time, my own space. That makeup led me into the world, the imaginary world. And near the bookshelves I see this tall, dark and handsome man glancing my way. We decide to start playing a little game of peek-a-boo with the bookshelves. I walk with my lipstick in one hand and free the other to pull the books from the shelves. We play a game of peek-a-boo, but I am always one step ahead of my Latin tango lover. He pulls a book off of shelf B and I off of C. He catches on though and slowly he sees one eye and then the other. He sees sparkly blue diamonds in the sky and I see green grass from the meadow down the street.

My tango lover reaches the end of the row and grabs my hand pulling me closer, the lights dim and the music blares. Our hips start moving in sync with one another's movements. Oh my tango lover. Oh no, damn it, my lipstick is gone. My imaginary world is gone; my lover is gone.

I sit back down at the sandy tan colored table and sift through my Coach purse. Oh good. My favorite is Stila #16 lip liner and Nicole lip color. I pull out Nicole and begin to place it upon my top and then bottom lips and my dream starts over again.

My makeup, my music, my world, lost in insanity, lost in me. Just like Alice was lost in her Wonderland and the Muppets took Manhattan, I became my own character, freelancing my work; work of lost worlds, dinosaurs, apes and kitties. Worlds of unknown. Yearning to be free, to be my own person, not someone else's model of perfection. Green with envy, with jealousy, with sadness, with no real model of perfection. Life changes constantly we should never look back, dwell on the past, only dwell on the future and never look back.

Moonlight

Blinding white, halo-like
men claim to have landed on you,
Martians seems to live inside you
shooting stars beam around you,
but I am different. I fear you;
breathe you in. Love you, hate you,
can't live without you. Many nights I lie awake sleepless
staring up at you. I envy you. I want to be you.
Alive for thousands, maybe millions of years, but
alas I bleed red not dust like you.
The air doesn't make me alive. It slowly kills me.
Werewolves change form around you.
Vampires worship you.
My enemy is your friend.
But I am moral basking in your light.
Tonight whether dream or nightmare you will be there,
and I will be waiting.

The truth?

Too much downtime will cause a person to go insane. We think of ways to distract our time, it doesn't work. We think of ways to kill ourselves and we quickly stop those thoughts. We sit in silence hoping someone will speak to us...someone will care. The silence is deafening and the whirring of the air conditioning drives us mental. It takes us to a sleepy state; droll, drab, boring. We open our mouths and blasphemy spews from every crevice. Speak! You're too silent. But I couldn't. The truth would hurt. Fibbing seems the way to go, at the time.

The What If's

What if there was no music, no laughter. Where would we be today? No smiles. No nothing. Just sadness and depression. Where would we go? What would we do? How could we look for love if we have no sense of humor or no music to sleep to? There would be no music to soothe the soul and calm the heart. Where would our soldiers be if they did not have those SOS girls to sing life back into them? How could they live, breath, survive? No one knows.
No more Saturday Night Live. How could they? Honestly. I mean really. Where would half of America or the world for that matter be on Saturday nights without Madtv or Saturday Night Live? Then there would be no more comedies at the movies like There’s Something about Mary, Jack Black or Rush Hour. No more comedy category at any of the award ceremonies and many people would be out of a great job, a rewarding job. One that requires a sense of humor. No fear, not afraid to make fools out of themselves.
Then, what about the jesters in medieval times? How would the King and Queen be entertained? Who would bring the Queen out of her rage of tears to pure happiness? No one else.
And, where would Batman be without the Joker? He was the true evil villain and that laugh of his proved everyone’s point. But, how could you really hate a man that made you laugh? You cannot. It’s impossible.
Oh and the use of makeup would cease to exist. Sorry, MAC, Aveda, Lancome, Benefit, Estee Lauder and Stila, you’re out of a couple of billion dollars. Sorry. Please come again. I mean how could a woman buy makeup anyways when everytime she cried her face would become blush, her mascara would run down the sides of her cheeks and she would look like a sad faced clown doll or crying porcelain doll, who we all can look at, but not touch. If they only made actual waterproof mascara that worked and not some cheap imitation crap like Wet and Wild or Bonne Bell, oh well. Cest le Vie. That’s life. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.