By Sierra-Nicole Qualles
Honey, I must have run out of ideas when I spent the night on the balcony. Two dogs below wanted me to jump down to them — spend some time and have a drink in the gutter. I told them no and that I was waiting for a ghost’s head to put my hands on. I’m sure they wondered why on earth I would want this. But why should I trade a ghost’s head for the gutter?
I stood outside the station once doing nothing but posing. I guess I was also waiting for my train but mostly I planned to be a fixture ready to ignore whatever words were thrown my way. Nobody talks to me though. Unless you count time searchers, sex searches, or compliment kickers. I don’t count them, though I remember.
A stripper named Syd told me I was her first woman. There was something fixed during the dance; something far back in my memory finally corrected by our discussion of breast sizes, dream jobs, and the feeling of always being watched. Medicine comes to me at odd and perfect times.
Everyone’s asleep and the house is getting louder. I hear running outside my room, someone is throwing pots downstairs, something’s dragging on the roof, and somebody is slamming on the wall. I’m tired of checking and finding people who weren’t invited. Then again they aren’t all unfriendly and I don’t want to be blamed for the noise.
Some days when I’m truly having fun, people fear I’m sick. They find thermometers and pity for me. Concern is somehow replenished, while on other days it’s dry. But you can’t tell people things they don’t want to hear. They’ll find a way to mistake happiness for a cold.
Sierra-Nicole Qualles is a wanderer by day and poet by night. She frequently wallows in the alphabet and experiments with nonfiction, with a particular interest in the acrobatics of the mind and of history. She has sharpened her craft at Otis College of Art and Design by earning an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry. Earlier at UCSB, she earned a BA in German and became addicted to the exposure to different languages and the expanding opportunities to listen. She has been published in the literary tabloid OR and recently completed a book of poetry.
