How To by Francesca Block (most popular novels of all time TXT) 📕

genius?

will you get married and divorced?

will you have popular daughters just like you?

and why are you mean?

why does mean = popular?

you know about sex, too

how do you know so much about sex?

i can see it in the way you move

who taught you?

did your mother teach you?

just by being sexy?

is it an innate thing?

what do you think about

alone in your bed at night

are you ever alone?

or do boys come in throngs through your window

popular boys with good hair and an innate

knowledge of fucking

what is your bed like?

do you have lots of stuffed toys

and shiny throw pillows?

do you write poetry in your diary?

is it anything

(like mine?)

are you popular because you are

a heightened version of the norm?

if that is the case and high school

was an insane asylum

who would rule?

you

(or me?)

sixteen: first time

my boyfriend took me to a party after hiking

i heard someone say, “she’s got that outdoorsy look”

i was dirty

and had on hiking boots that he had waterproofed

so the pretty soft suede turned dark and dull

there was a beautiful blond girl

dressed for a party because she knew she was going

to a party

and not on a hike

my boyfriend said good night and put me in the car

then he went back in for some reason

i knew with a woman’s knowing

though i was a girl

that he was going to try to get a phone number

he had photos of girls all over his desktop

a collage of images

my boyfriend and i hadn’t fucked yet

i was his younger virgin

part of his collage

when we finally did it

after a dinner of rare meat

at a fancy restaurant

the flesh stuck in my belly

i wore a strapless flowered sundress

we went to his gay friend’s home

and my boyfriend sniffed some amyl nitrite

when he came

he noticed a tiny hair growing near my nipple

“you better do something about that,” he said

i was so young

too naive even

for tweezers

but not for shame, of course

that comes early

after, i paraded in front of my friends

in a green knit dress and high-heeled shoes

i’m a woman now

my boyfriend and i broke up a few weeks later

goal achieved

i had one night of grief

but the virgins, my friends, were sadder

i realized he had been

part of my collage too

seventeen: war

my girlfriends and i put naked barbies

in the strawberry jell-o

ken had a mohawk, kilt, tiny earring and eyeliner

we girls danced in the living room

and had a cake fight

there were no boys by that time

just us all in shiny pink

waiting for something to happen

not expecting it to be anorexia or cancer or never

seeing one another again

or war

we were like those naked plastic dolls

swimming in a soft sweet rosy sea

while ken waited outside

untouchable

hoping no one would mistake him for g.i. joe

eighteen: monster

just when i thought i had escaped

the hatred of my body

my dad told me he had cancer

after, i went running

down the street

my face bloated red with tears

the boys screamed ugly from the car

when they saw me

i never understood

i had made my father’s disease

into my body

ugly

even after his death

she stayed with me like a gargoyle

only now have i begun to slay her

with the second corrective plastic surgery

poetry yoga therapy

glycolic peels

expensive haircuts and supplements

psychics, massage and shoes

that clinging figure

with the horns and forked tongue

i forgive her

she was trying to save me

in her way

make his disease something

i could point to

see, here it is

help me

kill it

nineteen: the asylum

when she thought of it she didn’t think

of the mental hospital that the city was known for

she thought of cresting the hill in the vw bug

falling into a valley of twinkle lights

she thought of beaches

fields of strawberries fragrant in the heat

as jam as cakes baking

surfer boys with sun-bleached curls

and sons-of-dentists teeth

she was one of five l.a. girls

on their way to a party

in tight striped pink tees and tighter jeans

drunk on keg beer

dancing to the go-go’s

making out with the boys

in their parents’ strange, clean,

bleached-sheet bedrooms

weak-limbed weak-willed with lust

thinking it was love

only later

when the boys didn’t call

were hospitalized for cocaine

or married the beautiful spanish sisters of the boys

she went to college with

when she baked her skin in the sun until it blistered

and bled

and her father told her he had cancer in his bones

was she vaguely aware

of the asylum

a myth of love for girls

when the father died

parts of his body were scattered

to the four corners

his eyes went north

his hands went east and west

his feet went south

the daughter spent twenty years searching

for the parts of him

she found a man who had her father’s eyes and saw

her the way her father never had

she found a man who had her father’s right hand

to hold

her the way her father never could

she found a man who had her father’s left hand

to paint

her the way her father never did

she found a man who had her father’s feet

she stood on top of this man’s feet

as she had stood on her father’s feet

when she was a little girl

but not after that

and she and the man danced this way

the girl loved all the men equally

and she was no longer lonely

but her heart was still broken

into four pieces

so she wept and wept and the men

bewildered by her tears

drifted away

but after some time her tears mixed with the earth

and became clay

and she formed the clay into a man

who was not any part of her father

when she kissed his mouth he came to life

and together they roamed the four corners

of the earth

both whole and alive

and in the sky were birds

and underfoot was grass

and to the east rose the sun

and to the west

came the moon

PART 2

in the