Dear God, all I ask is that I shall no longer date men who are
homeless, unemployed, or criminally inclined.
All I ask is that red meat and vodka be ever supplied.
Dear God, I know that thou art benign, and just, and merciful. Therefore I
pray that I may get my bronchitis looked at before I genteelly keel over on
my pink patent pumps, a Keatsian rale in my chest, glossy drool running clear
to pavement.
And may I always be able to summon up funds for a shot.
Would that the speed dealer cease to frequent my roommate's bedroom, and would
that they think twice before venturing into my room to steal my novel manuscript,
my liquid eyeliner, my Diesel blazer and the space heater, my one true love.
Dear God, I supplicate, that I might ever invoke the snide to poke aspersions,
even though my reputation be drawn and sliced by endless nights of endless wine.
Another night of knife-nicked bars stretches beneath my palm as I nod to the
latest mop-top who with me hath cast aspersions, nodding knowingly, our nights
together under disco and keys scratching like those records of the latest discordant
sort.
Dear God, wouldst thou speed the day that I may depart-- depart to a new morning,
free of gossip and penny-ante cruelty. To a morning where I have enough coffee
in the frozen Ziploc to maintain: to the train, to the office seat encumbered,
through the day to the train home again. To the home where I sit alone.
And to sit alone is all I ask, for I have long since learned to be faithful
to none. To trust the love of few is the only refuge possible.
And with that I am content.
Concurrent with this, wouldst thou, in thy infinite beneficence, dislodge the
ass of the homeless junkie languishing mouthwateringly, like a toxic praline,
upon my couch. I know you came to San Francisco to be a model or a stripper,
sweetie, but if any more of my CDs disappear I shall protest.
I shall protest most sweetly and quietly, for thou wert once my friend. However,
after your last foray to the Tenderloin's black-sneakered block, verily, I gave
up.
I do not want to give up. I must give up sometimes. Survival demands excising
a tumor when it threatens to engulf the heart.
But God, may I not give up too easily on the hoodlums in my care. May I remain
loving and gentle to those few who still deserve it; whose emaciated empathy
brings me out through nights of synths and strobes, dawns beheld through black
velvet curtains, weeks spent stretched between a food stamp and a fur wrap,
as I trace the fabulous upon the ridiculous, praying my rent check clears and
breathing ether all the time.
God, help me not to forget my name.
Andrea Lambert takes her vodka and red meat San Francisco,
though tenderloin is no longer her favorite cut. This is her second story for
Lime Tea (you can read her first here). She recently completed her first novel,
Jet Set Desolate.
