FOFOLLES

We are always ready for a good time, cheap thrill, party hardy. It’s kind of our thing.

Sometimes, the boys call on us to liven up the place, you know, provide the entertainment. We don’t mind being looked up, stared at, gawked at, like I said, we are down with all that.

Anyone who has ever seen us in action knows that we set the bar pretty high. We really know what we are doing. We get down right crazy – we really get into it.

We always ready for good music, hard alcohol and soft pillows. It makes us hot.

We don’t really care what people have to say about what we do. We know that we are high-class, fun-loving, good-looking girls and we get crazy. People can say what they want and to be honest, we use the whole twin thing to our advantage. What people don’t know? She isn’t really my twin, she’s my half-twin. That’s right, not so gross now, huh?

(ART by CLIO LUNIA)

Bitchcraft

I see it happening in my mind, but sometimes my imagination gets a little ahead of me.

I’m not always one hundred per cent certain that the things I see unraveling behind my lids have in fact occurred, to me or to anyone for that matter. The line is blurred between the external reality and my internal one. Sometimes I think to myself that it is quite impossible that all of these events could have occurred to me. Some of them don’t even make sense; too impossible to be true. But then again, why would I imagine such mundane events, like brushing my teeth. Maybe those ones were real, they must’ve been.

People are so concerned with the unlikelihood, if not impossibility of time travel. I say- you are all fooling yourselves. Time travel is a commonly practiced phenomenon. We all time travel. We might not get into some time machine, set a date and move through space to travel to the past or future, like those movies we’ve all seen and watched in disbelief. But, be honest with yourself for a moment and think about whether you are currently living in the present. My mom, well, she lives in the past. Everyday she tells stories of the good old days. She strolls down memory lane, recounting the great moments of her youth. When she’s not strolling, she is dwelling; dwelling on the things she suffered from as a child that have led her to be the woman she is today. Oh, mom. Oh dear.

My sister Jane, she’s living in a whole other world. She lives for the future. No. She lives in the future. She has yet to take stock of how great she has it in life at present time. She is way too busy thinking about how she can make it better, bigger, greater… later. Others would die for what she has now; she’ll die never knowing that she always had the ‘it’ she’s in constant search of.

The foreign, if not alien concept of time travel, not so strange after all. Think about it this way: you might not be on a plane going somewhere, your body might not disappear right in front of your very eyes like it does in the movies, but think about it. Think about the fact that there are very few people who have mastered the art of living in the present. Soon someone will try to convince me that witchcraft doesn’t exist. Yeah right!

I most definitely do not live in the present. I don’t live in the past or future either. I live in my mind. Not deliberately. I wish I didn’t. Well, that’s not entirely true. I don’t know in which time period I wish to live; I’ve only always lived in my head. Physically, my body lives right here, in my house with my mother and sister, and of course, our little puppy. But mentally, I suffer from self-diagnosed dream travel. What that means is that I dream things while sleeping, or I imagine things while awake, I remember moments that may or may not have happened. This may seem quite lovely to some- I mean, the idea of being capable of dreaming up absolutely anything and then not being able to distinguish that it was just a daydream… yeah, it sounds surreal. I have the pleasure of making up beautiful memories and then actually believing that they occurred. I am currently struggling to find out whether I am in fact an angel. Or maybe my name is Angel. Trust me when I say this is becoming problematic.

Most think it’s pretty cool, but nobody realizes that I call it ‘suffering’ for a reason.

It’s hard not knowing the difference. It’s difficult not having control over what happens to me in my mental life. Some people have the ability to close their eyes and imagine a better situation, or shut their eyes, curl their lips upward, breathe in a long steady breath and ahhh, think about what could be and then try to make it happen. I don’t have that ability. I have no control over what happens when I close my eyes. The same way I don’t have any control over what happens in my physical life. I’m sure there is a real medical term for what I have- maybe I’m delusional, or just plain nuts. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. My psychologist is trying to convince me that I have a craft I should hone in on and try to gain more control of. Basically, he thinks I’m cray cray, but he wants to me to believe that it’s a cool thing.

Maybe I do have a craft – bitchcraft. And maybe I am not the only one who sees that gunman behind me holding up a riffle shooting at a deer in the forest. Or maybe I am the only one who sees it.

Ok fine. Whatever. I’m crazy.

(ART by CLIO LUNIA)

UNITED WE STAB

One day, a while back, I was out with a friend. Yeah, a girl friend, but not a girlfriend. Anyhow, we were out walking around the stable just hanging out and talking.

Cynthia and I have been friends for a long time and obviously I like her like more than a friend, but that day when we were out walking was not the right time to tell her how I felt. I was gonna listen to my mom’s advice and just sit her down and tell her, “Cynthia, I like you like more than a friend and I want you to be my girlfriend.” But, my mom is not always right you know. Once, a while ago I had a friend over playing video games and I had told my mom that Brad totally sucked because he always cheated, and she told me that I should just tell Brad that he shouldn’t cheat anymore. Worst mistake of my life! Brad went all ballistic on me and stabbed me in the shoulder. It hurt so much I was all like, “Thanks a lot, mom.”

That has nothing to do with my story, but whatever, I just wanted to explain why my mom was so not always the right person to take advice from. Especially since, that time with Andrea – ugh! I almost forgot about that time. This girl at school was always making fun of me, and I told my mom about her so she could tell me how to deal with a bully like her. My mom said that I should ask her nicely to stop and if she still didn’t stop then I should tell Mrs. Finastra what had been going on. So, of course, I listened to my mom’s advice. Another disaster! Andrea never stopped harassing me, so I ended up telling Mrs. Finastra about Andrea and that only made things worst. Andrea waited for me outside near the swing set after class and she jumped me and stabbed me in the leg. Oh man! I swear, I don’t know when I will learn my lesson: my mom clearly knows nothing about being a fourth grader. This is some complicated stuff.

Whatever, back to Cynthia. She’s so pretty. I was going to tell her she’s pretty, but that’s what my mom had said I should do, and I was not listening to my mom anymore. So that day, while walking around the stable and just hanging out, I decided to shove Cynthia and call her annoying. She cried so much, she told me I was a jerk, but the weird thing is she didn’t leave. She didn’t punch me, and she didn’t jump me, she didn’t stand united with all the other bullies and stab me. It was amazing!

The short and the long of it is that from that day on I knew what I had to do to stay safe and keep my cool. If I just called girls I like and told them I liked them, I would be made fun of. So instead, I would treat that super crappy and they would stick around. Bizarre, but it works. Just ask Rosie – my new girlfriend.

Oh and by the way, do you see that green blob catching up behind us? Eesh, I am so scared it’s coming for me! I see it sometimes, getting bigger and gaining on me. I try not to pay attention, especially since no one else sees it except fro me – I don’t wanna seem crazy, and I know it looks all pretty and shit, but I mean, that is some big-ass blob! 

(ART by CLIO LUNIA)

Box Explosions

When Paula came to me that morning, everything finally made sense. I had always had a sense, call it intuition, but I just always knew.

Ever since she was a baby, I thought she was a little different than the others. Paula was my first baby, so I didn’t have much experience, but somehow it isn’t experience that makes these things apparent.

She looked physically equal to other children her age.

She spoke properly and articulately for a child of six.

Emotionally, she wasn’t too happy or too sad.

She was never erratic or fussy.

She was sociable and amiable.

And yet, here I am saying that she was different. Well, what made her different?

Look at her! Just look at her.

Would you call that normal? Would you say: “Hey, there is that Paula kid, nothing different or disconcerting about her.”

I can’t explain it to you any better than that. If you can’t see for yourself what it is that unsettles me about her, then maybe there is something wrong with me.

She’s a child, for goodness sake. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to think this about her. I can’t help it.

I have watched her every day of her life and to be perfectly frank, she has always rubbed me the wrong way, but I never said anything because, well, because it’s awful to feel this way about your own child. But when Paula came to me that morning, everything finally made sense.

Everything had come together. She looked at me with those perfectly sketched almond-shaped eyes and a mountain of bows and ribbons on her head, and as she pulled at a pink strip I was forced to look away.

I think my baby is possessed. But what is worse… I think a box exploded on her head. 

(ART by CLIO LUNIA)

Polka-Dot Days

I always had this image of school being this super duper fun place where kids go to learn cool things. I was so excited when summer was over and the school year was just days away. I was finally going to make some friends, learn how to read a book without my mommy’s help and gain a tiny bit of independence. I swear I could’ve jumped with glee… the mere thought of being away from home everyday, just like my daddy. Cool.

I woke up on that cool Monday morning and I jumped out of bed. First day of freedom! I went into the bathroom to do my thing, brush my teeth and comb my hair.  I splashed water on my face, took a good look at myself in the mirror and wham! All grown up and ready to go.

The next step in my big day: what to wear? Well, of course I had already thought that through the night before (okay fine, the week before). I was going to wear jeans and a white t-shirt, because that says I’m casual and I look good in the basics. But, then again, it also says that I am plain Jane, and that is definitely not who I am.

So I thought about it a whole bunch and I finally decided that I should wear a dress. I have this amazing little dress that fits just right. It’s so adorable and really tells the world that I am a nice cute little girl; non-threatening, which is the perfect way to make new friends and to let the teacher know that you aren’t there to start trouble.

I have the most awesomest leggings that I was obviously going to wear with the dress. It couldn’t be a more perfect combination. A quick twirl of my hair and the buns went up into two perfect little doorknobs atop my head.

Ready, ready, ready to go!

I ran so fast down the stairs I nearly tripped down the last few… eesh that would’ve been an awful way to start the new year: tears, blood and crutches! My worst nightmare!

“Mom! Dad! I’m ready to go! Come on, I don’t want to be late!”

The last thing I wanted to do was stumble into class late and have everyone gawk at me like I didn’t have an alarm clock, or something like that.

“Mom! Dad! Hello? Come on, we gotta go!”

Why hadn’t anyone heard me?

“You guys!!!”

At that point I got worried. Well, more like suspicious… were they trying to ruin my first day of school? What was happening? Nothing was going to stop me from getting to school on time. Nothing and no one. I was too excited! I would have walked there myself if I had to.

I looked at the clock and it was ticking faster than usual. Oh man! I was going to be so late – it was embarrassing!

I stomped back up the stairs yelling, ‘Mom!,’ ‘Dad!’ with every thump. Arg!!! The light in their room was still off. Were they kidding me? They had to be joking!

I opened their door and let the light trickle in. I ran over to their bed and jumped up and down on their lumpy bodies.

“You guys! I can’t believe you are still sleeping and I am sitting here more readier than ever!”

My mom rubbed her sleepy eyes and looked over at the clock: eight o’clock. She jolted a smidgen and tugged at my dad.

“John, John,” she whispered. “John, wake up, we are late.”

They jumped out of bed, ran over to the bathroom and faster than the speed of light, we were on our way out of the house, into the car and on our way to my first day of school ever!!!

Red light, green light, merging, changing lanes, crosswalk, stop sign and turn, turn, turn… we made it! Yippee!

I sat in the backseat of my parents’ car and held on tight – this was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. What a feeling!

I slammed the car door shut and walked with a certain bounce in my step. I turned around to wave to my parents and off I was. My first day of school ever! Nothing in my life up until that day had been as exciting, as enormous, as anticipated as my first day of school.

I smiled at everyone that day. I ate my entire lunch (which I prepared myself the night before), I sat at the front of the class, I raised my hand and answered questions, I made so many new friends and I even started learning new stuff.

“I love you school. I can’t wait to come back to you tomorrow.”

I had whispered those soft words to my chair, desk, door, hallway and building on my way out of school that afternoon. The whole way home I couldn’t stop thinking about the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. I was the luckiest little girl in the world – I had so many more years of school ahead of me!

As I neared my mom's car, a boy from my class came up beside me. I thought for sure he was going to tell me just how great I looked, or how nice I was, or how smart my answers were in class.

"Nerd!" he belched as he shoved me into the garbage bin at the end of the walkway.

"Rats," I whispered to myself. "This totally stinks." 

 (ART by CLIO LUNIA)