Nika Harper's Blog, page 6
December 11, 2014
The DESPOTRESIDENT
Her face splashed every headline, the half-winking grin throwing horns into the air. The new leader of the Free World.
She was a fucking cunt.
Her strength was so many things about her to hate. She wasn’t skinny enough, wore too much leather to be environmentalist and not enough to be fashionable. Her eyeliner streaked too far out from her eyes or it wasn’t there at all, and that was unacceptable. She was not enough, or imperfect, and she was voted into office.
The world had made an enormous mistake, and it would keep it for four years… unless someone could find a way to impeach her. Communities were already conspiring to dig up the dirt, to uncover her secret motives and ugliness within, to prove how right they were, they ALL were.
The problem is, she was already an open book. Sure she’d done drugs and had the tracks to prove it. Her political cabinet was as ironclad as her alibis. Ms. President was a glorified fuckup, and she had an impenetrable army.
You could be trashy and yet, smart.
You could wear your heart on your sleeve, no matter how short or nonexistent the sleeve becomes. You could somehow, impossibly, win the popular vote by being JUST. NOT. BAD. ENOUGH.
Bad in ways that nobody thought would be elected, polarizing in 50% approval no matter how many people voted or cared. The lesser evil had green-streaked hair. The rebellion had a bitch who shopped at Macy’s. Nobody in the world was getting what they wanted and that was the deciding factor.
Because she was honest.
And nobody ever wants that.
Being everyone’s enemy wasn’t a job any sane person would take, so they elected the craziest. At least she wasn’t misleading. On the day of her election, under the pictures of the rock-star posed President, they were foreign columns.
Five declarations of war within ONE SINGLE DAY.
She showed up to her inauguration in a dirty wedding dress.
The crowd chanted “GOD IS DEAD” and she raised her middle finger to them.
“FUCK YOU. SOME PEOPLE LIKE GOD,” she yelled back.
Four years of this. The petulant teenager was now a world power.
At least it was refreshing.
There was always something to laugh at, to hate, to be comfortably secure in your own disapproval. The American people were united against her, but she reminded everyone consistently that it didn’t fucking matter. She would make progress anyway. Frightful, that creature. Torn leggings having picnics on the White House front lawn. Drinking gin during the State of the Union.
What was the current State of the Union? She claimed she could still afford a diamond tiara and a hairdresser. She pulled out both her elegant coiff and her expensive gems to fling them into the crowd. It bounced on the floor, shattering in the face of hungry but dignified senators, reflecting in the eyes of the public in front of their TV screens.
“Fuck diamonds,” was all she said, and continued talking about foreign policy.
Of which there was nearly none.
The first terrorist attack shocked the nation.
“Those people died for you,” the reporters said.
“Nobody fucking likes me,” she shot back, “someone should tell the terrorists to stop killing people who agree with them.”
And kids had better schools, and blue-dyed hair at age nine.
And health care was easy, and available, and the hospital workers hated the long hours just as the late-night patients took it for granted.
And corporations used new fonts, freeware shit they downloaded from wherever to prove how “cool” they were, while Madam President was photographed relieving herself in the lobby of their offices, underneath all those petticoats, all those layers of ancient decency that did little to shield the presidential Privates as they were intended.
“There are people outside the White House day and night, picketing,” a reporter said.
“Yeah, I used to be one of them,” she spat into the microphone. Wrapped her mouth around it, threw it to the crowd. It stands in the Smithsonian as part of an art installment, “Media Fellatio.”
“Don’t Tread On Us,” the militant, ancient banners read.
“Don’t Fuck With This,” her words rang.
Four years, maybe. The unimpeachable open book, the kick-to-the-pants that everyone hated and yet protected behind their closed doors. Because, if this was the worst things could get….
Then imagine the opportunity come next election time!
She drank in the hatred, she drank in the bourbon.
Replace me, motherfuckers.
I gamed the system.
But I did it honestly.
Your move, Free World. Have fun without me. Have fun forgetting me.
You won’t.
And she peed on the lawn, threw meat scraps across the fence.
Everyone’s enemy.
But at least she was open about it.
“Eat it,” she yelled.
Though it really was the solitary, desperate cry for us all to change.
December 7, 2014
Plaintext Storybook Romance
If you’ve ever been in love with a fictional person, it’s a lot like how it was in the early days of online dating.
What you really had were words, sometimes a small photograph, and just your imagination. It was pure and strange, connection through such limited mediums, and usually a lot of distance. What is it like in your part of the world? Is it daytime? When do you eat dinner? When do you get a break from school?
When are you going to email me back?
It was, oddly, born of a certain convenience. You would meet this person in a place where you both frequented, usually a white-background chat room or message board. A hangout for people who were a little more like you. And something catches your eye, maybe after a minute or a month. THAT person, they make me laugh. They seem smart, interesting. We talk the same, or we don’t. They’re RELEVANT. They become real, the sketch lines begin to form around them, separating them from the canvas. Through nothing but talk, they begin to exist. Details fill in about their mind at the same time as their face: They like living with their extended family instead of their parents. They enjoy going outside but are taking time to talk with you instead. They like pizza, but only thin crust, and everyone says they should eat more because they’re so skinny.
Little mysteries emerge and resolve every day, the imagination of a person. And before you can even know it, they’re on your mind… When you’re at dinner, when you’re lying in bed, when you aren’t talking to them which is decidedly rare; you’ve been glued to your keyboard for the past week or so. Sometimes a picture comes in, a scanned low-rez thing that is blurry and doesn’t show too much detail. But there they are, a person. They’re real, they must be. You know their middle name, the colors of their bedsheets… you find a way to sneak in long-distance phone calls to hear their voice.
There aren’t webcams, or microphones, or text messages. Just people sitting at a desk, hours apart, so fascinated with one another. And then one day you hear the words….
I love you.
This human mosaic has parts of a mirror in them… they show you how you really feel.
Then you share it.
Minutes away feel like hours.
Emails are long when schedules don’t line up. Instant message boxes carry your passion with it, and you imagine the rest. Blue eyes, I think…
You lay on the pillow and wonder how their neck smells.
You hold onto your own hand and wonder, rough or soft palms? Long fingers? Left or right handed?
You imagine them with you, the bits that you can piece together as best you can, and dream of it all. The fantasy of a surprise trip to their school, finding them among the masses, and smiling. The hope that they are around every corner, ready to sweep you into their arms and knit the little bits of art into something real and tangible. Not a quilt of creativity anymore, but real.
You ache to feel the pulse in their wrist as you hold hands.
To share lip balm and giggle. To see their room, and their clothes, and all the little details like visiting this fairy tale you had created for so long. Every detail is a treasure, helping you feel closer.
Pressing your lips to the same part of the letter they placed their own. Memorizing the handwriting, the words, the way the L curves as they write, “Love,…”
Love felt like longing. It felt like a ticklish ache. You went to bed with stories in your mind of how things might go, when you at last… met.
Someday years from then, a cologne or a candle reminds you of laying on your bed and thinking, my love might smell just like this. Even if it wasn’t true, in your mind they did. That was them, but more. It was the imagination of them.
Just a fragrance in the air, and you remember the storybook life you once had, built on little else but words.
December 6, 2014
Fine Is What Your Thoughts Say
It’s fine you see
It’s just an alarm clock
Set for a place you want to go.
It’s fine you know
It’s just your birthday
But it seems hard to walk through that door again.
It’s all good, you see
It’s a job, we all have one
And nothing will bite you when you open that email
That is, unless, you think too hard
Which you are, which isn’t helping
Because it’s all FINE
But you’re not believing it.
Your shower is fine
You could be in it.
It’s not hard to run hot water over your body
But you are not and that’s a choice.
Dinner isn’t difficult
But you’re staring at ingredients like you don’t know how they go together
But they go together IN A PAN
And you haven’t cleaned it yet.
Staring isn’t cleaning but you’re doing that anyway.
It’s all fine because you have friends
When you don’t call them, they try to call you
But picking up is scary because
Then you’ll have to talk about something, anything, maybe yourself
And it’s easier to let the phone ring out.
It’s okay, there’s always a good reason
And a way people can logic that you’ve stopped moving
And all you do is look.
Their motivational talk sounds like the things you hear in your head
Right before you feel guilty for not being able to do something
Because it’s all easy and okay.
It’s fine to be five minutes late
Even when you started forty minutes early.
It’s okay to need to catch your breath
When the room feels too full.
If everyone feels these things and they’re normal and not hard
Then clearly you’re screwing up somehow
Because the shower just isn’t a shower
Not to you.
Let’s be lazy and lay around all day.
It’ll be fun.
Sure.
Lazy, paralyzed.
It’s all the same in theory.
It’s all fine.
December 2, 2014
http://nikaharper.tumblr.com/post/104...
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many weird things to discuss with him.
Hey Dad, remember when we played this album on vinyl, and I thought ti was weird? Well I bought the album now and I remember it by heart, and I…
Hey Dad, I think your taste in bourbon sucks and I’ve been waiting years to tell you. I’ll fix ya a wicked Brown Derby, but you have to put on a song I haven’t heard before. I have a rebuttal playlist of shit you haven’t heard, because you’re old. Try this drink, do you like it? Let’s fight.
Hey Dad.
Nobody gets it. Tell me what it’s like to be a fuckup. I’ll talk over you and think about what I’m going to say instead. But I’ll really like this song.
Hey.
Dad.
"You’ll be smarter than me when you pat me on the head with a shovel."
Hey. Check me out.
I’m so much smarter than you.
http://nikaharper.tumblr.com/post/104...
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many weird things to discuss with him.
Hey Dad, remember when we played this album on vinyl, and I thought ti was weird? Well I bought the album now and I remember it by heart, and I…
Hey Dad, I think your taste in bourbon sucks and I’ve been waiting years to tell you. I’ll fix ya a wicked Brown Derby, but you have to put on a song I haven’t heard before. I have a rebuttal playlist of shit you haven’t heard, because you’re old. Try this drink, do you like it? Let’s fight.
Hey Dad.
Nobody gets it. Tell me what it’s like to be a fuckup. I’ll talk over you and think about what I’m going to say instead. But I’ll really like this song.
http://nikaharper.tumblr.com/post/104...
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many weird things to discuss with him.
Hey Dad, remember when we played this album on vinyl, and I thought ti was weird? Well I bought the album now and I remember it by heart, and I…
Hey Dad, I think your taste in bourbon sucks and I’ve been waiting years to tell you. I’ll fix ya a wicked Brown Derby, but you have to put on a song I haven’t heard before. I have a rebuttal playlist of shit you haven’t heard, because you’re old. Try this drink, do you like it? Let’s fight.
nikaharper:
nikaharper:
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have...
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many weird things to discuss with him.
Hey Dad, remember when we played this album on vinyl, and I thought ti was weird? Well I bought the album now and I remember it by heart, and I remember the stupid look you had on your face when you sang along to it.
Hey Dad, what do you think of Patreon? Fuck you, I like my tattoos, you’re just an old dude now. Nice hair, you dork. Mousse hasn’t been used since the 90’s. I signed this book for you.
nikaharper:
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many weird...
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many weird things to discuss with him.
Hey Dad, remember when we played this album on vinyl, and I thought ti was weird? Well I bought the album now and I remember it by heart, and I remember the stupid look you had on your face when you sang along to it.
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many...
I miss my dad.
Like tonight, I’d be drunk and he’d be drunk and I’d have so many weird things to discuss with him.
November 25, 2014
Slurs. Youth. Facebook.
In which I, many years ago, accepted many random people as friends on Facebook and have systemically been deleting them from my friend list. Be careful who you add.
I’m shaking. We believe that things are okay because we’ve been inoculated to them. Because maybe it doesn’t apply to us, or maybe we just don’t “mean it” like that. Or we’re mad at being censored, as is EVERY person I’ve ever met. But this isn’t the way, nor the style, for which to launch a revolution. Fire with fire, guns against guns, not understanding the other spectrum? That’s not a fight. That’s ignorance.
I wish I knew about it when I was young. I’m not young anymore. I learned that just because YOU laugh at something, that doesn’t make it a joke.
