Here we are. About a mile from home, just before dark. The summer months seem to make the woods less dangerous until later at night. It is warm out, and you and I are sitting together leaning at the base of a great tree. A Douglas fir. Donna's and my favorite. When I look up, it is like the tree is cradling me.
I think I'll smoke that cigarette. I brought a soda just so I could put the ashes and the butt in the can so as not to set the whole town of T.P. on fire. We call Twin Peaks T.P. in school sometimes. The world wipes its butt with T.P. Bobby Briggs says that the most. Then he pulls all the girls' hair and makes burping noises in our faces. He likes us all, of course. I was in the Double R. one day after school and he came in just after me and tugged on my hair super hard.
Norma winked at me and asked if we had set the date for the wedding yet. She's off her rocker if she thinks I go near him. Any boy I go near won't be pulling on my hair like that. . . . I think he'd pull on my hair the way they do in my fantasies. With their whole hand, slowly making a fist at the back of my head, and pulling me close for a tongue kiss.
I wonder if all penises look the way Dad's does. I can still see Mom trying to cover it with the sheet that night. It sort of reminded me of something raw. Something that might be okay in a while, or was okay a while ago, before someone pulled all of the skin off it and got it looking all pink and weird. Maybe I'll see a nicer one someday. God, I hope I do. I won't lie there like Mom did. Just like a fish on the dock, trying to learn how to breathe out of water. Little tiny huffs and puffs, but nothing else. If I can find the right man, maybe I'll be comfortable enough to act just the way I think girls should when they are with someone. Half in control and half . . . I don't know the word. Maybe I'm getting too nasty. I would just die if anyone saw what I've written.
The owls have started hooting. One of them is just above me in the tree. . . . Something about him is strange. I know it is a boy owl, and I feel like he's watching me. Each time I look up at him his head moves like he is quickly turning away from me. I wonder if he knows what I've been writing. God, I had better start being a very good girl. Right away. Perhaps he is a bird like in that story I read. This big bird could swoop down and rest on someone's shoulder, acting very sweet, but would then read the person's mind. If the person was thinking bad thoughts, the bird would peck away at the person's eyes and ears so that there would only be questions of sound and sight in the person's head, instead of bad and nasty thoughts.
I dream of flying sometimes. I wonder if birds dream of going to school or to work sometimes. Having suits and dresses instead of the feathers we dream of. I would fly right over Twin Peaks and out over the land beyond it. I'd never come back if I didn't have to.
I'll write a poem, then head back home.
Inside me there is something
Never be who I should if I ever reveal
I cannot tell if it is real
And of small tiny voices in the woods.
I have to go home. Now. It is too dark. This is not a nice place to me right now.
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