suddenly mexico
Jillian said, "Let's get away for a while," said, "let's get away." We packed the old Volvo with marijuana cigarettes, unthreaded beads made blue by the piss of old Native women, organic bananas, cold buckwheat pancakes smeared with Nutella, tiny hand-drums, books and books and books, bikinis fashioned from bandannas and vintage bathhouse umbrellas, and Mexican magazines with weeping women and men with broomstick mustaches on the covers. And a guitar because no one should travel without six strings and a guitar painted with Dia de los Muertos skeleton roses and an angel with a James Dean rebel-face.

She said, "Let's get away," and I told my job that I'd be back in a few days, the job that I hated and adored because it allowed me to be creative, but caged me in that same creativity because I created masterpieces for another artist and stamped his name where mine should have been. I never worried about getting fired or losing money. I always had ways to keep from getting fired and finding more money. I didn't give a damn about sunscreen or burying my heart in a little Alaskan grave-house so that no one could pull it from the frozen earth. There was a list miles long of the things I considered beneath worry. Some of them were:

- kissing strangers (I once kissed a cop who pulled me over, even though I hate authority and have a strange, delinquent's hatred of the police)
- eating spoiled food (I dived in dumpsters for supper, taking turns with my conspirators as look-out, lest we get caught)
- going strange places (I hitchhiked all over and needed nothing more than five dollars and an open road to fill me with puppy joy)
- taking my pleasure as I saw fit, rather than basing my sexual experiences on whether my partner had an orgasm, which is often the case with heterosexual loving (and I did what I wanted with whoever I wanted whenever I wanted--safe, safe of course)
- gossip (I wanted people to be talking about me, rather than ignoring me and was the type of person who'd blast you to your face, rather than tell everyone else how I felt about you)

When I consider this list, I think I'm still the same except that I do not allow my pain to prostrate me for days, nor allow how others feel about me to become the way I feel about myself. I worship every girl-goddess-mother-sister I see.

So Jillian said, she said, "Let's get away for a while," and I went to Mexico, went with my fierce faery's heart knocking in my chest, singing, "Rum, rum sugar." The men chased me everywhere, calling out, "Bonita, bonita," and I wanted to hide my blonde hair because having corn-silk, white-baby blonde hair in Mexico was like being a unicorn. I was a unicorn dancer with my sharp hoof-heels and a fringe of hair that swung out as I shook my head and laughed and laughed and laughed. I was in Mexico, suddenly.

We tossed back shots of tequila, scooped flan out of orange pottery bowls with our fingertips, danced on cobblestone streets, and broke shot glasses on the floor of a cantina. I stomped on the shards of glass and the mariachi band played harder, strumming fingertips and strong brown hands, and my smile as wide as the moon. My mermaid beauty was more fragile than the Valkyrie beauty I possess now, the Valhalla hall of warriors tilt of chin and stare of glacier's tears eyes. I hadn't yet learned to possess my beauty, so I became confused when others found me attractive. I curved my shoulders and tried to stand smaller than I was. I was afraid to shine too much light around me, so I made my home in the shadows that other people cast.

One night, one night in Mexico, I kissed and loved and laughed and kissed, so many hands on my waist and exploring the shape of my hips. I bled on the only clothing I'd brought, a white Spanish lace dress. A menstrual moon-wash on my thighs, on other hands, and a boy saying, "You bled on me" as if it were a venial sin. I cried a little, cried, shaking my shoulders in tiny sob-hiccups. Jillian braided my hair while we smoked pot on the sand, getting stoned and drunk and loving each other. "You are my unicorn," I told her. She let me put shells into her dreadlocks and a piece of bamboo I'd cut with a machete.

The moon dipped her face into the ocean as I waded into the waves and washed the blood out of the dress and my panties. The next day, I hung the dress on drift wood, and let the salt and sun cleanse the red away, skimmed my feet in the foam and waves, like Aphrodite being born in reverse. I cried a little bit, and walked the shore naked, waiting for the dress to dry and for the blood to go away.

"Let's go away," she said, she said. I listened, and we went away.