when we played duck duck goose they stepped on my hands.

at sunset we had to go to bed. I got the bunkbed by the door where the mosquitoes joined in the game to suck my blood. in the morning, sometimes I'd awake my eyelids puffed up and I'd see them look confirmed that I was a mutant. my hands working anyway would reach out spidering bare shelf, no ray-ban sunglasses like all the other girls had.

that was only the first summer.

when it came round to June, there was no discussion -- the sunshine and swimming and the canoeing were the best thing any girl could ask for. now finish your orange juice.

throughout the years, and there were seven, I was soaked with the image of endless fields and how I had to walk through them alone and how sometimes I had to fall down after only a few steps and sob it out. it circles into dreams even now.

I've got a high view of the green fields and it's centuries ago. I'm wearing a white diaphanous dress that someone made me wear and it's got its own arms moving. The windowpane is round and is my only view of green everywhere. it's coming out of the earth and is my only cool. I know it will not last. I can hear the heavy footsteps on the staircase so very down below.

My mom would come in and wake me up for school by throwing iron-pressed outfits on my face, then complain that I wasn't getting up.

My dad, he'd slip in later when I was already sun-drenched with exhaustion and he'd fumble with the open curtains a bit saying, All the world s a stage and you have to dress for the part.

So when my dad asked me, what about this Wane character? Is he another one of your yahoos? I told myself, Now I've managed not to go back to camp since I was fourteen, but think, a summer that doesn't start with summer school or slave jobs either, as I mouthed the words responsible and loving.

Wane and I were driving down the highway behind our shades. the day I told him everything, Wane's eyes were ice cubes trying not melt. He said, We're going to do it anyway and he went out and got a van with a tear-drop window and a tool box.

Wane hadn't slept in nights and was practically keeling over the wheel. Look what you have done to me.

My parents' Happy June kisses farther and farther away.

Trace had given us coffee and cigarette kisses. Coffee kisses to Wane and cigarette kisses to me. Her old words felt like shingles now. She used to tell us, Think of words in terms of being like small treasures like clams and to take words like a word, like just all words, the colour of words, the sounds of words, and how they look on the page, and how they feel in your mouth. It had wind, those chilling nights when we all talked around writing and it sounded like the thing itself was something we couldn't touch but made me write for hours after.

Now I see Wane sitting in all Trace's sofas instead of filling those spaces and his fingerprints blur everything. And then I see Trace eyeing me and I think, Someone please tell her that she smashed our moon cup along with the others and her only phone.

Smashing, she was faltering with her cigarette wand, and it was one of those helpless times where you didn't know what was wrong until she choked up, Ashtray and Wane was right there with one under her hand, Smashing. Then she looked straight at me and said, The best kind of bars on the road will have an ashtray by the pay-phone and think of me then.

Whenever we pulled up to truckstops I asked for sardine sandwiches. This gave Wane a chance to tell me I was disgusting.

-- I'm fish and you're meat. Leave a message and make it sweet.

-- It's Wane, found on moonshine since you haven't been returning my calls, where the FUCK are you???

Let's go over it again. Let's go over it again, Wane reached above and tilted the overhanging light in my face.

I started out slow and told him, Everyday at lunch you walked me to your house and you sucked the thick milkshake up with your straw never taking your eyes off of me.

No tell me more. I really want to understand this.

You're not going to remember how I kept golden waffles stocked in your freezer because that was your favourite. My eyes on his cold kitchen tiles saying this.

Yes I am going to remember that's why I want to know everything.

There's a tower and at noon when the sun is directly overhead you bring me way up on its flat roof and tell me to open the very big book and let you see all the ink marks on the new page and all their curves. The wind helps me, it makes things difficult. The handwriting's spidery anyway, I murmured, but you insist. The ink marks are throbbing off the page.

The sun was still hurting even with the shades. But at least Wane couldn't see my eyes. My Salada eyes. The way he called them that. The way he showed me around the kitchen and consumed all liquids. My Salada eyes. He wanted to milk them and leave them white. My eyes widening on their way.

He closed the very big book with a bang and cast his finger upon me. Do you realize that you could be burned at the stake for having red hair alone in my kingdom. You must relay to me your soul. It is the only way.

There is a place where Wane promised that good friendship is a straight yellow brick road to a successful relationship. It is Wane's kitchen. Me, right on his kitchen table. Him holding me up by the knees. Before I can answer he is sucking back my breath but when it comes around again, I say okay, I believe in giving things a whirl. The sun coming through in slits.

He said, you won't regret it. I want to give you everything you want. I ll give you a van. I'll give you the sun. He led me up the curved staircase.

by the first minute, all the girls had rolled out the red-carpeted plans on which guy was whose and how they were going to get them. who was available? take your pick, the guys're all wearing concert T-shirts with SOLD OUT stamped on the back in red ink, such choice. Geal said it didn't matter anyway because she had already been felt up by the movie star Corey Haim before he was famous in their school, Zion Heights. I'd watch them put their fresh layers of make-up on, their only protection from the sun. it only reminded me of how I used sunscreen and still was the one with the pale skin who got burnt. I waited like a diaphanous sheet for them to finish primping. I got, do you have staring problems? a lot. I tried to keep my eyes on the ground.

when they rolled their plans back up it was final.

I m thirsty again, Wane said, pulling up to another truckstop. My feet landed outside the van with the wind picking up any loose objects on the ground. Wane was ahead trying to open the glass door, ringing bells. He was having a hard time, kicking away at the swirling hamburger Styrofoam containers that were going for his legs like Pac-Man. He tried to retaliate by making his curses strong enough to take chunks out of the sidewalk.

Wane was poking around with a paper cup filled with sticky orange juice. Each pulp freshly squeezed. The thought of it burned my empty stomach.

He leaned over and asked me if I wanted anything, his lips crawling on my cheek, his teeth grazing.

Maybe I should fucking go back.

You can't fucking back out of this. He rolled back his tongue.

Then he was buying maps again, cramming them into his clothes, practically tattooing himself with highways.

Wane insisted on driving but was lost on sunset. Wane: How do you get back on the highway? me: I think it was back there, we needed to make a left. Wane: No it's straight ahead. ----- more yellow road pills gobbled later --- gas station attendant: You had to make a left way back there. repeat 1x a day when the sun goes down

when I got back to my bunkbed my stomach was a blender on Ginsu but up against the glass window I'd still get this feeling of suspension. I'd be afraid to move. maybe I'd fall asleep and fall off the bed. sometimes I'd think maybe they can't touch me up here, but then they'd start throwing darts.

verbal charades was the evening activity. Geal got up and said in front of everyone, looking at me, Do you have any friends? I want to know. Someone else followed and asked, I want to know if you have any breasts. they laughed eee eee ee.

darts that would just graze me so that they could see my eyes widen. not darts that would hit me in the stomach, because it was filled with blood and would burst like a water balloon if hit directly, and they would be held responsible. but one dart that would whiz close enough and make me fall off and splatter all over the floor. so I'd sit there with my bag of blood and try to pretend the bunkbed was a treehouse and wish and wait and wish and wait for someone to climb up.

One time we got Lucky. She was hitchhiking to the next city. Wane had just been grumping again, We should have gotten a smaller car. What a crazy idea, a van for just the two of us. There's way too much room. Too bulky.

When she got in the van it was hard to pinpoint exactly what Wane was going to showcase this time, but it was bound to surface. Lucky was bubbly immediately and pointed to the snapshots we drove by. Like a bike in a tree. Go Lucky. Wane saying, Yeah I m a photographer too. When he finally looked over at me, it was in revulsion for my hangdog reactions.

Trace: Are you rucked? (Trace's word for stood up.)
Wane: Not now I'm not.

Wane: Most people go by the nail in wood. A love partner like a nail so deeply wedged in wood can only be removed by driving in another nail on top.
Trace: But then love is a coffin, love is a coffin, love is a coffin.

All I had was this one photograph, the fingerprints kept to the edges only. It is Trace's apartment. Trace jammed the wobbly extra square table into the corner. But in one swoop this guy came in and dragged it out like a dead body -- the noises on the floor -- onto the balcony and wiped it down with the edge of his shirt. We go back in for chairs and Trace tells me that his name is Liner and that she is leaving. And then I remember chairs unfolding on either side of the table like wings. He saying holy shit. Me saying no fucking way. The flopping table-top moving our hands together.

When I came back from hanging out by myself by the road again, Wane and Lucky were dusting themselves off but I could feel they were still thirsty. Lucky said, pointing my way, I can tell to keep you away from the frying pan. You're on your own laid-back time, girl. You d get everything burnt. Wane going, Don't I know it. Don't I know it. Then they were scurrying through the back of the van for some kind of breakfast they could pour a lot of syrup on. My laid-back self tried to sleep to stay away.

I was sleeping from my top corner bunkbed like a night owl. they were stirring their spaghetti-from-a-can in their unallowed hot pots waiting for the boils. if only I could stick my beak into their foreheads and drag each noodle from their head to straighten things out. was it the money. the mostly divorced and remarried parents. whatever it was, it was like leaving orange juice in the sun.

Whisky became our new mouthwash of choice. Bathrooms on the road were grosser than we were. So we avoided them, I am not going to let him make me feel gross about this, my straggly heart sizzle sticks. Whisky, making the insides more parched all the time.

Some mornings we made it to the washroom and that's where Lucky finally confronted me. I was swizzling water in a glass for the third time waiting for her to leave. I saw her staring at me through the mirror, her fists on her hips, and I knew something was coming. She was waiting for me to ask what is it while I went for the toothpaste, you know today I have this thing for clean teeth and I'm making sure to brush every tooth five times. I was half expecting her to grab the tube and glob up my nose like those girls at camp used to do in my sleep when they were just starting out with candy tricks. The old feeling had got the hairs on my body standing up like nails again.

at the showers, those girls were feet side-stepping my floorboards and I knew something more than steam was seeping out. the guys came up to me afterwards and told me I was a freak for having orange pubic hair. then they avoided taking the orange Freezies for evening snack just to prove it.

You really messed him up bad, Lucky was letting it out in hammers. She smeared on the walls, Don't you care? And still after all these years I kept polishing my mouth and didn't use it to say anything.

and so, Wane, do you see me through negatives. are you chortling on your false blackmail photos back at the campsite at this very moment. are you like me here out beside the road again. when I go back, will you accuse me again with something so preposterous. that you saw me and Lucky holding hands last night in the back of the van. and even what if we were. is that so revolting to you. maybe if I'll pick you some of these blackberries I can get through to you by your stomach. that's the way it was supposed to be, right.

When you find dimes or paperclips or gems on the ground it's called a `ground score' Trace told me once. I was biting a nail that came right off when I smashed upon Wane and Lucky writhing in the campfire s ashes.

Wane was spewing past Lucky's ear, Hickey me hard and suck some more so my bruises will show.
Not even one drop of blood surfaced on my broken up finger.
I panicked, crushing berries and maybe the blood will come.

there is a place where courtship is really fucked up. I was sleeping the porch outside the cabin. Geal was sitting on the side trying to impress some guy, she was whispering into his ear. the next thing I know, she's grabbing the broom from me and stabbing me in the crotch. her lips drawn back like labia in example snarling: I'm gonna stick this up your cunt. I'm gonna stick it up your cunt.

the guy in hysterics drinking it all in. and he like everyone else at this feeding ground looking like he's straight out of a milk commercial.

I followed rocks out barefoot towards some sort of road. Geal was there. An older her definitely but not one wrinkle. She got to see my face and hands stained, the black clots of berries showing. She, grinning, telling me how she's going to Berkeley for psychology in the fall. Psychology of all things. She spent all of two minutes to rub that in and strategically ask, So where are you going? before disappearing. The rocks gathering in my knees.

I don't know how much longer I can do these spirals. and I don't know if I can help you set us free, Wane. and I don't know if there will be anything left of me. I had set out with thoughts of healing, I swear.

I think the last of me is drying up now.

I saw my ghost's view looking down on me from above and the only blood I had left was the purple lining of my black leather jacket strewn open.

then I was back in my jacket and Trace was there. the clouds, sheer, curtains being cut, and Trace wading through them. when she was close enough to me she crouched down dipping her fingers in the purple like she was leaving the edges of a photograph. Wane's not around, the sound out there, So, Who do you really love? I tried to touch the wafting voice, yes, I really love. I really love. but it wasn't the old Trace and she just laughed, the ees curling out in her Lucky Strikes smoke way, blackening the ethereal curtains.

I tried to remember the photograph. Trace is wearing a summer dress with spaghetti straps. she captures the sun with her emerald eyes. she is not used to seeing me without Wane. she flip flops between her three types of making coffee. between the kitchen and Liner and I in the living room back and forth and then by some chance is out of filters fuck and has to go out.

even when Trace is not there her essence gives off a raw smell, but all her edges are refined. she, carefully crafting the assortment on the ledge by the window. she displaying the porcelain dishes with swirls, catching eyes. she, leaving her way of saying things in the apartment, the way she pronounces words like deluxe and swank, it puffed up cushions. it's usually hard to stay awake around her, even with my Salada eyes.

Liner's eyes have the square table in the corner on the balcony. Liner's eyes saying, Salada eyes rag up my tongue. I take the rag up to my lips. his eyes drive past them.

when Trace got back she looked at me like she'd been given the job of stage sweeper and I put the broom in her hand. and I was still, waiting for her to hand over a sunburst guitar and call me on.

But what if I gave you the guitar, Wane? Would that finally do it?

Wane was scavenging through my body bag, taking items. By that time, I had cleaned myself off and he's packing, probably for the last time, according to Wane's plan anyway. Lucky had already taken off with the six rolls of film.

That's my Young T-shirt, he was stammering. I'm taking this fuck-me tape. I'm getting the deposits back for all the empties too, so just forget about it.

He told me I'm giving but it's become a curse many centuries ago.

I grabbed my journal before he got to it. No fucking way.
I just don't understand, he said.

although it was really obvious to everyone in that whole camp what was going on, only once did someone address it. she got all the leads in the play. she was the only one who liked Billy Idol. she sat next to me once on the hot pavement of the tennis courts, where everyone was called if there was an emergency. the asphalt burning our asses. and there was a lot of waiting around. so she told me this story. she told me of her mom's boyfriend and how he'd only eat carotene pills on some weird health trip. she'd always be like, so have a potato chip, and he'd shrivel back from the exuding grease. well, one day he turned up at breakfast with orange skin. and that one's true.

Finally the van was approaching the drive into the city and it could only encroach so far. Wane would keep looking up through the windshield for the moon like a spotlight or something, but it wasn't there.

Slowly our hands met like a spider finding another one out there. He murmured, I hope things work out for you. I hope that we're friends.

In the same dance he withdrew his hand and tossed me out of the sticky humid van and rolled off.

He's headed straight to Trace, I knew this when he slammed the door shut.

Maybe he's going there to confirm that she's on his side. Maybe to head straight back to where we came from and it was all for nothing. Maybe to head to her just for some wind itself.

But they both withdrew into the night afterwards and I couldn't touch them.

on the noon before Wane and I left on our trip, Trace rented a black limousine and kept driving it past my window. she would never give me the words why. I fled the windowed room and tried to flow down the steps feeding clawed-torn pieces of white dress like blank pages to the swirl above.

I fled the steps looking at my skin being slowly revealed in the outdoor light and was terrified that it would be mutated into some strange moldy colour from the green that had come in through the window or into some crusted colour from the sun on the roof. But there it was, my skin for me to scratch only.

And each white dress piece leaving was a paper that didn't have my blood. A million reasons for them to use their own blood and still they'll call me ungrateful to a million friends.

And as much as the dew felt cool on my savaged skin, I was wading through grass hunched over, naked again. The white pieces leaving me.

It had been two months and I didn't know if it was going to happen. I had to remind myself how to make a phone call. I had to wait praying for a lift in his voice. I had to describe where I was... Somewhere grassy and writing everywhere. It was too much. Liner showed and knelt to me lying there and had even brought tea.