Pinning People Figures to Walls and Loving It

Fred stares down at me from the wall.
I was going to name him Paul…But that didn’t sound right.
I shaped his body from a pair of old jeans and a tank top.
My brother’s baseball cap implies the head.

I was pretty stoned when I decided to pin a Fred to my wall,
it then took me another two hours to get the motivation to do it.
Now, I’m debating on making another, perhaps a Mary or a Phyllis.
Because what kind of a one-dimensional man doesn’t want a pin-up girl?

Maybe I should start a business,

Dolls on Walls: Bringing the Disturbing to Home Décor.
“They’re conversation pieces,” I tell people
when they gaze unnervingly upon my newly hanged friends.
What do I care, anyway? I can do whatever I like in this place; it’s mine.
And it’s about time.

I’ve never had a place of my own.
If you don’t count that closet fort, I made when I was six.
It was tight.
Always with the roommates, or the parents.

Always following somebody else’s law.
It feels good to make my own set of rules.
For example, every wall in this place (all eleven of them) must bear a Wall Doll.

The idea will grow on you, I promise.
When I say eleven walls, I’m not kidding.
I’m living in a 400 square foot bachelor(ette) pad.

There’s a sliding accordion divider
separating the living room from my bedroom — circa 1980.
I leave it unfastened. I dig open concept living.
And really, what do I have to hide?

Currently, I’m working on a project on my balcony.
I’ve salvaged a solid wood coffee table from the local dump.

It weighs approximately five hundred pounds.
I’m sanding it down,
I’m painting it all kinds of fantastical colours.
My friends, the ones who think they’re posh,
Say I should stain it.

A handsome cherry oak, they advise.
Instead, I improvise with acrylic pinks, oranges, greens.
I think some finger painting — hell, full-body smearing — is in order too.

My landlord’s a dick.
He is continually trying to say he smells pot coming from under my door.
I keep telling the guy he’s got the wrong place.
But he doesn’t like me, so he never listens.

Ever since the condom down the toilet incident,

the landlord has had it out for me.

I work as a phone operator.
I’m not very good at it.
I end up getting into these intense conversations with the clients,
And go way over my call-time allowance.

Last week I talked to an 80-year-old woman about her cats,
(Marshal and Mr. Tickletoes) For over an hour.

I think I might get fired soon.

My dad says I need to get my life together.
~I have no prospects.
~No education.
~No ideas for the future.

My mom surprises me with groceries,
Because ninety percent of the time
I’m broke.

I eat ramen noodles and grilled cheese…sans cheese.
Too expensive, cheese.

I guess I see why Dad worries.

One day it will be different.
One day I will have grown. I will have matured.
One day I will be unrecognizable to these people who worry so.

I will be thirty-three years old one day.

Living in a lovely home that my husband and I own.
We will be raising small children.
Working assiduously at life.
We will be living and breathing and being happily ever…
Well, happily, at least.
However, a quiet anxiety,
Like a satchel that grows cumbersome
With each passing milestone,
Will murmur its burden in those quiet moments.
It will speak about spent yesterdays and the ticking of a clock.
I will be thirty-three years old
with dreams that have been left unattended
yet so vividly painted in my mind’s eye, there is no possible way
they could ever be abandoned.
Life will have unfolded in front of me.
Friends who have been left behind
will dance beautifully in memory.
Now is the time for business associates and networking contacts.
Filling up my day planner
and the nights belong to nothing more than dream matter.
I will be thirty-three years old and belong to
two young people who have stolen every part of my soul.
If I could take a gander,
This was the kind of love bestowed upon Marshal and Mr. Tickletoes
By my phone friend, so many years ago.
Although, at times, it will feel like
I am spread far too thin.
Leaving little for self-growth and rejuvenation.
Sometimes it will be a lonely job — Adulthood.
But I will have married a man who in no uncertain terms
Is my best friend.
And every time, every single time,
These feelings of loss, inadequacy
Inch their way towards blasphemy —
He, incredible, he,
Saves me, miraculously.
And the adventures we take on will be
magnificent, mundane, horrible, and exultant.
All of it seeming deceivingly indulgent.
Some days will be terrifying,
And some tepid.
Some days I will worry,
Just as Mom and Dad did.
The terror of maturity will reign down on me.
And the hardness of debt, responsibility, shame, and confusion
will threaten plentifully.
I will be thirty-three years old and despite all of the worry,
All of the fright, I will love my life.

Fred is still staring at me, and I wonder if this time,
I’ve smoked a little too much.
I slide open the balcony door to air the place out.

That’s all I need is another warning letter,
taped to my door for the entire world to see.
I wonder what Dad would say then.

Maybe I am a screw-up,
Something to be worried about,
Maybe I am a little too eccentric.
Probably I am.

But I think that there will come a time,
Not too far from now when all of this;

Fred, the apartment, the shitty job that I suck at,
Will all just be before-times memories.
Recollections that will give me a smile on my difficult days
And make me shake my head,

While looking backward at these blithe and untroubled yesterdays.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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