My toes curl like cashews

It's been a week and school is over. Graduation is in a few weeks, but Witch Baby has decided not to walk. She's done with highschool, thankful for the friends she made at the very end, but happy to see the end of 4 long years.
Angel Juan and Witch Baby haven't kissed since the night he came back. When she thinks about the stinging slap she cracked across is smooth cheek, she cringes. Witch Baby is afraid to touch him, afraid she has some electricity running through her body that will spook Angel Juan like a horse and send him galloping away.
They stay in close proximity. They share a bed, because it still doesn't feel right to Witch Baby to have Angel Juan sleep in the house, but not in her bed.
The past week as been a blur. The exhibit was a but a vague memory as Witch Baby poured over text books and flash cards, pulling snarl balls out of her hair and throwing a clutch calculator across the room until it broke.
She hasn't seen Laurel or Claire. She doesn't know if Claire has recieved her scholarship.
Cherokee is just as busy with studying, and Stella is busy working and the Jah Love Shop.

The future is looming, sometimes ominous, yet full of mystery and opportunity.
Witch Baby feels like a new born creature looking at new light. Weak, feeble, waiting for fur to dry. Theres a hunger inside her and she will seek nourishment to quiet her insides.
She is learning to walk on new legs.
Not yet an adult but no longer a girl, she is scared and excited.
Witch Baby's witchy powers grower stronger by the day.


Angel Juan is spending the day with Serafina. They left so early this morning it was still dark.
I've had some weird, clutch, cramps lately. Sometimes I get dizzy, sometimes I feel like I'm going to puke.
Usually it comes and goes but today...today the pain is coming in blinding waves.
I've been trying to ignore it, but it's scary. I'm not going to see any whacko doctors with their needles and shiny tools. Witch Babies don't get sick.

I have to do laundry, so I'm stuff dirty clothes into my hamper bag to drag downstairs to the laundry room.
I'm cleaning Stella and Angel Juan's clothes, too. They have been busy and shouldn't worry about clean clothes.

As Witch Baby descends the last set of stairs towards the laundry room in the basement
she is overcome by another wave of pain. The laundry bag falls from her hands and tumbles down the stairs. Beads of sweat cover her forehead, her vision fuzzes over and wont clear no matter how hard she blinks.
She wants to cry out, for somebody to help her. Weetzie...Dirk...Duck...anybody...
Witch Baby clutches her stomach and clenches her teeth. Her breathing is labored, heavy, and shallow.
She stumbles down the last few steps and lands on the laundry bag.
"What the HELL is going on?"
Witch Baby wants to cry out but she can't. She's too weak to yell.
She's confused...doesn't understand...what is happening...why does she hurt?
That is when Witch Baby hears the whimpering.

Pained whimpering followed by a low howl, heavy panting...then it starts all over again.
Witch Baby crawls, following the sounds into the laundry room. Her vision is clearing a bit and the pain has subsided.
Still she crawls, approaching the source of the pain sounds carefully.

And there it is...curled up on a beach blanket.

"Slinkster Dog?!"

Our oldest dog is in terrible pain. I can feel it. That's what I've been feeling.
Slinker Dog is older than me! It's a running joke in the family that he will out live us all.

...he wont.

Despite all of his terrible pain, his tail thumps softly on the blanket when he sees me.

"Oh, Slinkster Pup," I say petting him gently.
When I touch his fur I can feel the pain again in my own body. All of the pain.
"It's okay Slink," I say through clenched teeth. "I'm going to help you."

</i> Witch Baby gathers Slinkster Dog in her arms along with the beach blanket.
She stumbles her way up the stairs, careful not to disturb the pained creature.
She can feel he his pain, but also feels he is comforted now, in her arms. He is not alone and so he is less scared.

Witch Baby lays Slinkster Dog on the plush chaise lounge and whispers in his ear.</i>

Weetzie...
She's not in the house. She must be in the garden.
I don't want Slinkster Dog to be alone for long, I have to find her quickly.

"Weetzie!? Weetzie?! MOM!?"

Witch Baby finds Weetzie in the garden with Dirk. The waves of pain have started again. Slinkster Dog is getting worse.
"Hey, Witch Baby," Dirk says. "Oh gods...Witch Baby!?"
Witch Baby has fallen to her knees. She collapses into a patch of cabbages.
"Slinkster...Dog...help...him."
Witch Baby manages to squeeze those last words out before everything goes black.

When I come to, I'm laying on the couch in the livingroom. Dirk doesn't want me to move but I feel fine.
Weetzie is kneeling by Slinkster Dog, crying.
I go to my almost-mother, blonde bombshell mommy. I whisper to Slinkster Dog, "Everything's okay, Slink Pup. We're gonna help you."

Weetzie looks tiny, tears spilling into her lap.

For the first time in my life, I reach for her.
I wrap my arms around my Weetzie-Mom and whisper,
"Slinkster Dog is leaving us, Mom. We have to help him...with the pain. He's less scared now that you and Dirk are near him."

"How-," Dirk starts to ask.

"I could feel him."

"Lanky Lizards, Witch Baby," Dirk sighs.

his eyes, his hair, his scent, his voice. my knees are pudding. tapioca. he is really in front of me and I really just smacked him. I'm on the ground again, on my knees like some clutch worshipper of this god-like statue boy.

My voice is low again.

"You were the only who could make me stop running. You were the one thing in my messed up, snarly, head that made sense. I was never afraid to love you. I was only afraid of losing you. And then it happened. My worst fear. Not once, but twice, Angel Juan. The first time, I found you, saved you and still you stayed away. Then I saw your lips on another girl, and I know you followed us home to make sure I was okay after the booze and drugs and everything shattering. I didn't see you but I felt you. Then you were just gone and I couldn't look for you again because I didn't know where you had gone. My heart beats like a drum for you and I couldn't find you. You didn't just leave me, you took my heart with you. When I found my heart again it was bruised and torn and it wasn't with you anymore. You didn't take care of my heart, Angel Juan.
Now you have stopped running. Now you are back and my heart is beating like an animal for you again. But I don't want it to! Now I don't want to need you."

My fingers are tangled in my hair, palms covering my face. I am disected and labeled before him like the frogs Cherokee and I refused to disect in tenth grade biology.

"What time are we upon and where do I belong?"

Witch Baby's arms are limp at her sides as Sister Stella finishes the song.
"I forgot how to play," Witch Baby thinks. It's him. Him. Him. Hymn. A sea of eyes are staring up at me and my sister and I've gone completely immobile because the only eyes I see are His.
Stella asks Witch Baby if she's okay. Witch Baby is burning inside, that anger/love fight is starting and a feeling low in her belly that makes her want to hop off stage and grab his hand and run, run, run so far away.

I motion to Raphael to grab the bass. He knows so he asks no questions.
I look at Stella and say, "The reason I went to NYC is here. He was...is...my everything."
I take a deep breath and clench my teeth.
"Little Fury, Stella."

I count out the beat and start the slow rhythm.
Stella's voice is sultry and hot.
Raphael's gentle hip thrust, knee swoon, dread bop is making Cherokee and lots of other girls twirl and blush.

Round up, holler girl
Ah, I will sing
Title TK
If I don't black out

Dumb made for fucking
And missing from the party
That boy spun out
Hold what you've got

While Xenia twists up
The sky
Akron flakes out
Grindcore little fury
I feel hot tire
Why is it floating in
My beer
Hold what you've got

My big drum
On your big face
The one-eyed jazz
As hickeys fade

Round up, holler girl
We'll all need bigger uniforms
It's been a few days
And I know I will have spun out
Hold what you've got

My big drum
On your big face
The one-eyed jazz
As hickeys fade
Grindcore little fury
If I don't black out

Hold what you've got
Hold what you've got
Hold what you've got
Hold what you've got
Hold what you've got


I throw my sticks and stomp off stage.

Witch Baby is sweating from the lyrics and the eyes of Angel Juan burning her skin. Stella's voice was sexy and smokey and she's caught the eye of Nick Agate which makes Witch Baby think of his hellish party.
She downs a bottle of water in what seems like one long gulp and tosses the bottle in a recycle bin.

My heart is in my throat thumping like that crazy rabbit from Bambi.
I feel him like electric shocks, i smell him in the air, i lick my lips and taste him.

That boy spun out.

I can't breathe. I make my way through the crowd to the back door and escape into the fresh air.
It's so loud inside, no one hears me scream to the sky. On my knees my fingers clawing into the dirt.
He's behind me.

"It had to be today? I had it all together and now your here and what am I supposed to do?!"
Suddenly I'm yelling. I've never raised my voice to Angel Juan.
"Am I s-supposed to just fall into your arms because you've decided to come back. Because maybe you finally realized you're not the only one who has fears and pain.
My pain is ugly and dark, Angel Juan.
Do you remember when we were babies I told you that?"

I'm so angry and I'm so hungry. The love and the anger swell in me bigger and bigger and neither will win.
Neither will win.
So I kiss him hard until my lips feel bruised for the love
and smack him once across the face for the anger.

I am standing in a field of thick green grass. There are dandelions everywhere butter yellow and gray seed puffs. A strong wind blows. My hair whips around and dandelion seeds start to fly. There is a black blur circling me, giggling. A boy.
The blur is Angel Juan when we first met, before he was deported back to Mexico.
Suddenly I am closer to the ground, baby Witch Baby. Snarling, hissing, beasty, girl. Watching the black blur calms little me and makes baby bats flutter in my tiny tummy.
Angel Juan runs by me and I follow, it feels as though i'm floating. He is hiding in a forest of trees which have suddenly sprouted. He zips and zings from one tree to the other, hiding behind thick trunks and waving at me from branches above. I never catch up with him. As I walk through the forest I become 18 again. There is a large clearing where I see the moon is full and low in the sky. In it I see Vixanne's face.
"You have to find her," My mother's voice fills my head. "She needs us."

"Who?"

The girl from my picture is climbing a rock formation. She is still black and white with purple eyes. She's singing a Social Distortion song and she sounds like shes being backed up by the actual band.
"Where are you going," I ask her. "You could get hurt."
I feel clutchy and protective of her and I have no idea why.

"I'm trying to find the moon," she says

i've been dreaming about poison and death...
angel juan is home and we have never been so close...and so far away at the same time
i think henry, the old guy who draws on the sidewalk with chalk is an angel.
I told him to say hi to grampa bat for me.
I met a girl named fair waters and invited her for dinner.

i've gone to see vixanne...

"The Calendar Hung Itself"

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head? And does he sing to
you incessantly from the place between your bed and wall? Does he walk around all day at
school with his feet inside your shoes? Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with
you. Does he know that place below your neck that is your favorite to be touched and does he cry
through broken sentences like I love you far too much? Does he lay awake listening to your
breath? Worried that you smoke too many cigarettes. Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile there are a thousand more that you won't ever see but most hold inside
yourself eternally. I drug your ghost across the country and we plotted out my death. In every
city, memories would whisper, Here is where you rest. I was determined in Chicago but I dug
my teeth into my knees and I settled for a telephone and sang into your machine. You are my
sunshine, my only sunshine I kissed a girl with a broken jaw that her father gave to her. She
had eyes bright enough to burn me. They reminded me of yours. In a story told she was a little
girl in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field and there were rows of ripe tomatoes where a secret was
concealed. And it rose like thunder, clapped under our hands. And it stretched for centuries to a
diary entry's end where I wrote, You make me happy when the skies are gray You make me
happy the skies are gray and gray and gray. Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open
chest with its hands stretched towards the calendar hanging itself but I will not weep for those
dying days. For all the ones who have left there are a few that stayed. And they found me here
and pulled me from the grass where I was laid.


I love this song.
It makes me think of me and Angel Juan.
I love him more than breathing.
Drum-Love.