Challenge 5

Dizzy Li,

I don't need to hear about who what where.

The city you are in is a living breathing art form.

Respond, in any form (except for #4), about:

1) one particular shop that caught your attention
2) the shape of a dish/meal and the mood it represents
3) sidewalks
4) anything you want, in a single picture.

The aftermath of the party:

It is a promise, she assured me, tucked inside her rainbow colored sleeping bag, a cocoon of contentedness and dignity, like last night's party where everybody skinny dipped in the pool, and the fireworks Chase brought leaped out from the bushes like secret surprises, where her reaction to the chaotic madness was nothing but calm - but not during midnight, our first kiss, her nuclear reaction to it, the heat from our bodies, no dialogue needed.

exhibit 9

"This is my youngest on the swing and she is in intense concentration trying to go as high as she can"

dear model-inspired-by-vargas #3

if I didn't turn your next page
I would free-fall into the sea;

death was the smallest frame for my picture
of how nervous I was around you.

I guess little things have happened since.
When the cliffs discovered sinking,

I decided to label it falling in love
it felt faster, had a kick to it

and riding that high; 62,342 photos of you in
the sweetest almost to my nothing

revealing all your shutter speeds
I arched my back, and for a moment we were still

together. and then not. la petit mort.
and the rush of playing dead with you.

but who else was on that cliff? my classmates? neighbours? are you
arching your back in jail cells? were you ever ripped apart

by angry mothers, and the only cure you deserved
was some leftover cellophane tape?

we never made it to the sea. Our horizon took
a wrong turn and expired at the feet of real woman #1

she had more than a moan
she had laughter

6-words for Dizzy Dearest

Overdue:

• laughter
• dead
• nervous
• cellophane
• frame
• cells

Exhibit 8

she cries her life is like some movies in black and white

Dear dizzy,

you are sad.

I used to know someone who is sad. She was a huge inspiration to me. She told us during field hockey practice of the time when her father came home drunk and her mom yelled at her and her sister to, "close the doors! The sliding doors!" and as yer younger sister, then 6, was locking the sliding door, their father banged his fist against it so hard the glass knocked her sister smack on the face and she fell backwards, headfirst.

I remember when we were at Alia's grandma's house in Singapore, you said that you had to grow up really fast because you found your mom crying on her bed in her room. I grew up with all the subscribed package of a typical spoiled adolescent. I thought my parents were nerds.

you had to watch your mother cry.

That was the first admission of a history you went through that I could not imagine. You were always one big fireball of fun. You have the widest, biggest smile. Your 60 miles per second chatter reflects someone who wakes up bathed by the sunshine.

but it's ok-
you don't have to be ok all the time.
strength is only beautiful when it is marred by sorrow.

even if this breaks you.
because you are stronger than anything.

from your biggest fan and number one reader,
rocket

"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."
— Sigmund Freud

rocket, darling, where are my six words?

here are yours:

• pool
• cocoon
• dialogue
• assured
• nuclear
• promise

living space.

the end of something ugly is the start of something beautiful.

my ex boyfriend left me for someone with money. we both cried in the bathroom when he came over to say goodbye. and picked up his things. like his clarinese and the actifast pills that helped him sleep. he wrapped the ends of my hair around his fingers when we hugged goodbye, teasing me, making me feel sad.

i watched snoopy on the television after he left. I burned his pillows; they still smell of his skin. he called from the car, on the way to her house. i hope you'll always remember me, said he, like a cheesy advertisement.

the new guy came three days after i put the rent notice up. he had boxes of things, like racecars and martial arts paraphernalia. he had hairy toes. and his hipbones poked out hello to me as I stared at them, feeling nervous because he was so cute and I was just sorry and sad. he asked me if I wanted dinner, because he got some pizzas in the box.

we ate pizza in the small kitchen. the apartment now smelled of the new guy.