lauren zuniga

Teased by success.
we are like vampires in tampon factory.
It doesn’t have to be this way.

The only good monologue has mistakes.

I will read out of this book of drawings.
This is a book of lovers/freaks I tried to change.
I had new visions of them and tried to draw them all in a book.
The strange thing is… my drawings kind of look like you.

In some ways you look like the star of the wheelchair parade.
This one lover and I went everywhere in our wheelchairs.
I couldn’t convince this lover that some day, I needed to stand on my own.
So it ended ugly and they rolled out of my life forever.

This is a self portrait.
I drew myself as a Bengal Tiger smacked up out of its orange. 
Pacing, just pacing until my next meal. Grrrr.
Shading’s a little off.
I call it “Hushing my legs out to the twilight poison
of h-h-hot bitch knife flavored lip gloss- in still life.”
This was the point in my life where I blabbed too much
and that shooed away inspiration.

I didn’t have a grasp of what was happening to my heart
until after that first break up. I won’t bore you with anything
but the necessary details but let’s just say I was plowing anything
that smelled disinfected and didn’t wear pookah shells.

I was fake.
I tried all kinds of leadership seminars 
to shirl these feelings of being fake.

I started making lists to get the stripes back on the tiger.
I was watching my stripes slip from my spine,
laying there on the ground like a bunch of parenthesis.
Not to sound self-righteous, but the lists became my glue to become myself again. 

It was text I had crafted from a place I didn’t ever know existed.
No bald headed philosophies. Just boot strap shit.

Go away therapy. Flush home pills. Make lists.
My lists started out strange.
When I got to the end of them,
I felt beautiful, but yes, they did start out strange.

#1. Do something rebellious to get out of your comfort zone.

My first graffiti art said, “Don’t pierce your babies ears.
They don’t like it and no one thinks it’s cute except for you
and your friends with jet skis.”
That felt pretty bitchin’ and looked kinda gangsta in a Mormon sorta way. 

#2. Write something down that is impossible and write it as possible.

It took me a while but I came up with this little gem. 

“Be on time.”

There are a whole bunch I made, which are a bit embarrassing, 
but the last one became my favorite.

#46. One day, when you are tired of being broken,
carefully strap little LED lights to hummingbirds,
at least 52 of them
and release the birds into your lover’s bedroom at night.

When he or she asks you what is going on,
tell him or her to be still,
lay there like idiots,
make some dumb wishes and enjoy your shooting stars.
The ones you made on your own.
Make endless wishes.

The birds can take it. 

{Derrick Brown is the author of I Love You Is Back, Scandalabra, Strange Light and others, as well as the Grand Puba of Write Bloody Publishing. He is a failed mime and the captain of everything else. Visit his shenanigans here.