Caroline Muniak - First

I have to be first. On the bus, I have to be the first person at the door when my stop comes, the first person out, the first person to the corner crosswalk, the first person across the street. I have to cross the street at the Union Station bus circle before the bus comes so I don't have to wait. I have to be the first person downstairs to the platform and I don't mind if I just miss my train because that means I can be the first person onto my car (the first one) when the next train arrives. It also means the seats are cleared of other riders and I can have first pick of where I'd like to sit - first set of seats, center seat.

I don't have to wonder where this need comes from. When my father was young and a new officer in the Air Force, he participated in the pilot training program. On the day of graduation, he realized he was second in his class and signed up for the navigator training program. In both programs, you get to be on a plane and participate in important government missions, especially being an officer which he was. Also in both programs, whomever graduates first in the class gets first choice of their plane. Second place gets second choice. My father graduated first in his class of navigators.

"Only when you're first do you have all the choices," my father always told me. All my life I have been a chronic second-placer. I intellectually know that second place is really good, especially with how close to first I typically come. But it's still not enough. Our society does not remember second. It does not respect almost as good. First place, big numbers, lots of commas in a bank account, Mensa members, high averages, and diplomas on the walls. The more the merrier. That's what's impressive.

But I am not my society anymore. I, of course, still have a social security number. But I cannot go on getting feelings of adequacy from crossing the street first. I cannot focus on the victories of more. I cannot even focus on second.

I desire to focus on the lack of effort required in the majesty of the world. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Victory can be too. Today I am victorious, not because I won a Nobel Price or even this week's edition of Writing, Writer, Writest, especially since I have not done either of those things. Today I am victorious because I write. Today I am victorious because I give of myself even through fear. Today I am victorious because I am.

Caroline Muniak is.

Katie McMahon - You Are Not What You Eat.

I won a cake in the Easter cake raffle when I was in seventh grade. It was a coconut cake and I wanted to keep this cake for myself and hide it in my bedroom so I could eat the entire thing. But it's hard to hide a big white cake box when you walk into your house that you share with your brother and two parents who watch everything you eat.

Still, they never watch after you're done.

If I can sneak slivers that are smaller than pieces or paper thin slices that you wouldn't even bother putting on a plate, then maybe no one will even know. Maybe she won't say anything about it. And after all, it's my cake and I won it. It's not my fault they called my number. If I didn't claim the cake, who knows what they would've done with it? The thought of that coconut cake, shaped like the Easter Bunny, sitting in the back alleys of my neighborhood with melting snow surrounding it makes me ache deep, deep, deep in my stomach. Truthfully, I don't even know if we have alleys. Just the thought of it makes me... hungry. Makes me cry for no reason.

So the cake sits on the kitchen counter and everyone is happy. My mom can't eat sugar because she's diabetic, so it's between me and my brother and my dad. My brother mostly likes to eat pizza. I don't think he even likes cake. My dad eats lots of sugar and sometimes he's had so much to drink, he doesn't even know that he's eating it. This is perfect, because if I can sneak into the kitchen when everyone is asleep or watching television, I can take a knife and cut tiny pieces of coconut cake and throw them quickly into my mouth. Then I can carefully and quietly wipe down the knife and place it back into the drawer to sleep next to the other knives. Metal against metal. Please, please don't make any loud sounds. If anyone says anything about how the cake is disappearing, I can blame it on my dad. I can even blame it on him if he asks me why the cake is slowly getting smaller and he will yell or threaten to throw the cake away, but I know that he is secretly asking himself if he ate it, and when, and how sad it is that he cannot remember the taste.

While I love the coconut Easter Bunny cake so much, I also hate it and want to throw it at a wall or pick it up and drop it on the ground and smash it with my feet. The cake is all I can think about. I obsess over it. I want to eat it all and then feel sad about it being gone. I want to freeze it and eat it again in twenty years. I feel like I will never see another cake again. I know that I will never win a cake again, or anything for that matter.

I want to wake up in the morning and crack two eggs into a frying pan, in hope that two tiny little Easter Bunny cakes will fall out and I can cook them up and slide them onto my plate while everyone else is still sleeping. I grab the salt shaker and shake it over the tiny cakes and flakes of toasted coconut find their home in the frosting.

I cannot sleep because the cake is in my dreams. The cake speaks to me in my sleep. It stands upright and asks me, "Do you wish I had been a carrot cake or a chocolate cake with walnuts?" I shake my head violently back and forth and throw my hands up. "Why do you hate me so much?" Oh, cake! I don't hate you, I love you! I hug it tightly and the frosting smashes into my shirt and the coconut flakes get stuck in my hair. How will I hide this mess? I need to throw the cake away. I will tell my mom it got old or I gave it to a homeless man. I grab a handful and shove it into my mouth. Then, I take the big white flimsy box outside and place it carefully into the trash bin. I lift open the top and smudge the bunny's eyes closed.

I feel the tiny pieces weighing heavy in my stomach. I feel them turning into big, fat blobs on my stomach and my butt and my legs and my face and I scream, wishing I had never won that stupid cake. It's ruining my life. Why couldn't I have won something else like a new bicycle or a smelly candle or anything else at all?

All the other girls in my school are sitting at home eating spaghetti or doing their homework or thinking about boys and here I am with this stupid fucking cake. Congratulations, congratulations, oh how great! How miserable.

I feel sad like crying... like hugging and not kissing, like taking hot baths, like screaming into pillows, like putting on ten pairs of socks, like going to church and blowing out all the candles people have lit for dead people or sick people or people who have no problems at all and want it to remain that way.

What do you wish I had been? A girl with green eyes or a boy with curly hair and straight teeth? Why don't you hug me so hard that I smush into your body? What do you do with all the pieces and slivers of me that you cut off in the middle of the night? Put them back before I wake up. Put them back before I grow old and they don't fit anymore.

Katie McMahon is a lady who lives in the North Hollywood area. She has a bachelor's degree that she keeps on her bookcase and looks at sometimes. She is getting a master's degree to put on her nightstand. Sometimes she takes pictures which you can look at here, but you don't have to if you're busy right now.

Barbi Beckett - Winning

My grandma was fun for someone who rarely left her chair. The most active she got was hauling herself, and me, to bingo on Friday nights. We also made frequent trips to Kmart where she would always give me a quarter for the three horse merry-go-round out front. I loved that thing and would even fantasize about riding it, but, because I had the little green man in my head, I could never enjoy a sweet ending daydream. He lived in my brain for the sole purpose of destroying happy thoughts. So when I would escape into a coin operated carousel reverie, the little green man would let me enjoy a few revolutions, then buck me off my horse and bust my skull on the ground where the blood and brains would spill out.

Despite the little green man’s agenda, I often mused about having an actual horse in my suburban backyard, so I flipped out when Grandma told me that a local TV station was giving away a quarter horse in a contest. She said all we had to do was send in a postcard with my name on it. They would put it in a barrel and draw a winner. We were all set to go when she realized the deadline for entries was that very day. She said she would send it in anyway. Oh, well.

The school year ended and I went about my summer routine of killing time alone and with the other neighborhood kids. Three of the houses near mine were high turnover rentals, usually for Army families. I had been making (and tasting) mud pies (gritty) with the kids in the rental across the street when we decided to go in and watch television. I was the oldest so I figured out which button was “on”, pulled it and from the tiny speaker, I heard a man’s voice say my name, “Barbi Beckett.”

I whipped my head around to the girl kid.

“Is that you?” she asked.

And then, “Barbi Beckett has just won her very own quarter horse!” The man was standing next to one of those clear barrels with a handle on the end for rotating it and he was holding my postcard. Apparently, we hadn’t missed the deadline and he must not have stirred very well because mine would have been right on top.

I ran across the street and busted through my front door squawking to my dad that I’d won a quarter horse. He slowed me down and backed me up. I told him about the man saying my name when I turned on the TV and about the postcard and Grandma. I watched as he reached next to his Lazy Boy for the phone to call her, then directory assistance, then the television station. In the meantime, I built cities of castles in the air about this salvation from my current life. Having a horse was going to put me in a new world, with a best friend, someone to take care of, someone who needed me and would give me greater perspective from five feet higher. Not to mention I was going to automatically be liked by everyone from now on.

Once my dad reached someone at the TV station, I could tell by his end of the conversation that it was true. I had won a horse.

He hung up the phone and sat quietly in his chair. He finally said, “You know we can’t keep it?”

I did not know that. That was not what I knew.

He went on to tell me that horses need a stall and a lot of special care. He probably sensed that I was trying to figure out where we could put a stall in the backyard when he said, “They’re not allowed in the city limits”.

When he went to work on Monday he talked to a friend who was interested in buying the horse for his daughter. Pop came home that day to share the good news that some other little girl was going to get my horse but the money would go into my savings account.

BUT, when he came home from work on Tuesday, he told me that he’d spoken to another co-worker who told him about a place in Chaparral, New Mexico, not far from our house, where we could pay to keep the horse and have it looked after. He didn’t know any of the details yet but he would consider this possibility. I couldn’t believe the dream still had a pulse, even if it wasn’t thriving.

I could be patient about the working out of details. The horse was still in Lubbock and wouldn’t be trailered to El Paso for another month. Still, I had to start thinking about names and figure out who I could get to take me to see him. I knew no one would want to go as often as I would so I’d have to rotate the people I knew with cars in shifts. Those people would be my dad and my grandma.

The weeks passed and I finally learned that my horse was on the road. In a matter of days I would meet him and learn his name. (I’d realized he probably already had one and we would just have to stick with what ever that was). He could’ve been called Toe Jam. I didn’t care.

Then, it started to feel like it was taking an awful long time to come from Lubbock. When “just a few more days” stopped cutting the muster, Pop finally had to break the news; The trailer had tipped and the horse’s leg was broken.

I got… worried.

See, no one likes to be the messenger in these situations. But, throughout my life, my dad was especially bad at it.The dog was put to sleep, the cat was hit by a car, the brother over-dosed. These deliveries left me feeling hopeful and wondering, What’s so bad about napping at the vet? Is he hurt? What hospital is he in?

Again, in this case, what was so obvious to my father, took some time to be translated to me. A horse with a broken leg gets shot. My horse was dead. He was coming to me from Lubbock, his trailer tipped over, his leg got broken and someone killed him with a gun.

He is not coming. He is shot and dead.

The castle cities crumbled. Everything would stay the same, except for this new sensation I had of being a cigarette butt with it’s fire twisted out into the sidewalk.

The way it ends is they provide a busted up old replacement horse that my dad does not want the responsibility of. He sells it to the co-worker who buys it for his daughter. I go with my dad to the stables where the horse is, to see him just once. When we walk up to the paddock we see a horse, a trainer, my dad’s co-worker and his daughter standing around the horse, petting him. I can’t even look. I go back and wait in the car while my dad goes to talk to his friend.

After a while they both come to the car. The man leans on my window to thank me and tell me I should come ride Lola some time.

Lola.

It was safe to say the dream was dead. And the little green man was no longer satisfied with sabotaging the twenty five cent rides of my imagination. He had a hand in shaping my reality as well. That could explain a lot.

Scott Joel Gizicki - King Midas, What a Bastard

Foreword: Sometimes in life, well, I think you just need to write yourself your own win like I did with this song below during a more trying time of my past. King Midas, What a Bastard I bought a Cow It said Moo Move on over to me Went to the market Came back covered in fleas At least I still get the milk for free I got it just the way I want it to be, yea Chicken crossed the road To catch a bus down to Georgia Sold his soul to the devil Ain’t gonna take no time To take get my eggs outta basket Send it on a one way ticket to hell Just don’t forget to pack the snow cones I think I keep walkin’ On the sunny side of the street Ain’t gonna rain on this parade They put a monkey on a cake For my very first birthday Now you betta get off of my back Cuz I got it Oh yes I got it I got it just the way I want to be, yea Ain’t gonna take granted Eve’ything that’s been handed to me Gonna keep this silver spoon under my tongue And Just like King Midas Touch eve’ything it turn to gold I got it just the way I want it to be, yea Cuz I got it, oh yes, I got it I got it just the way I want it to be, yea They say its cheaper by the dozen so I grab myself 13 Good thing the baker and candlestick maker are my friends When you learn to play with fire You’re gonna find a moth that gets burned Just like a chicken down in hell Yes, I’m gonna play charades Among the water and the flame With a wink I make a lion tame Cuz I got it, yes I got it Oh I got it, Yes I got it You know you want it, Cuz I got it Yes I got it, oh I got it I got it just the way I want it be, yea Scott Joel Gizicki is just another one of those new Los Angeles residents that acts and enjoys writing as well. After being born and raised in Detroit, he finally made it 3,000 miles to the city he's always wanted to live in this past August. He hopes he can stand out from the crowd; at least a little bit. :)

Mike Gamms - No Win For Me Today

I know what it feels like to love myself, and I know what it feels like to hate myself. I just wish I knew what it felt like to just like myself. That normal feeling of contentment that the rest of the world seems to have. For me it's either one extreme or the other. And no matter which side of the sword I wake up on, I always try and balance my brain the same way: by drowning it with booze. Today is no different.

I dig through the rummage in the living room in search of a clean cup to make my concoction. The table is covered in cigarette butts, microwaveable pizzas and empty beer cans. It may look like a scene of out some cheesy Animal House rip off where everyone gets laid and everyone is happy, but I assure you it's not. I may get laid every now and then, but that sure as shit doesn't lead to happiness. Instead of just thinking I'm a worthless sack of shit, I now think some girl is a worthless sack of shit for letting someone as foul as me weasel my way into her panties. With every girl I penetrate, I lose more and more faith in the female population. If I'm smart enough to know they should have nothing to do with me, why aren't they? Oh boy is the self loathing strong in me today.

I eventually give up looking for a glass and just pour the straight vodka into a half gallon of OJ. Yesterday's juice and today's vodka will only lead to tomorrow’s hangover, but at least it'll get me through the night. It taste like shit and burns going down, but considering the gas has been shut off for weeks, this provides a much needed warmth. The warmth it provides is temporary and artificial, much like the joy of the rapidly approaching booze buzz. Every self loathing word my fingers type only makes me hate myself more for being such a douche bag. Does everyone hate me this much, or just me?

The TV doesn't work and I've already read all the books I have, so I must seek other entertainment to accompany my intoxication. I try to just lie down and fall asleep but the bed bugs are gnawing at my skin. I think that the bed bugs may not be the only thing eating at me from the inside. I hate myself even more for thinking a thought so pretentious. There clearly is no win for me tonight. My mind has waged civil war.

Maybe I'll call a girl. She may not come over, but even just the conversation makes me feel less like I'm all alone and drinking myself to death. But considering the whores I associate with, she might be down for a fuck. Some days it's a hell of a lot easier to get someone to sleep with me than it is to get to sleep with myself. But then again, if she sees me in this state, feeling sorry for myself, she might not want anything to do with me ever again. My girls like me on the ups, feeling way too good about myself and treating them like shit. This clearly isn't one of those days.

I decide on a shower instead. I take a cold one so I can wallow in my own misery a little more. This proves to be even worse than I thought, as the harsh beady water only serves to irritate the sores and bumps from the bed bugs that have made my epidermis their home. I turn the water off and decide to give myself a good look in the mirror. As I stare, I find myself more and more repulsed. I haven’t shaved in weeks in a failed attempt to cover up the hideous red blotches all over my face. I can almost feel the bugs crawling around, pissed off at me for trying to drown them in the shower. I've always wanted to be Charles Bukowski, but I was hoping I'd get his talent, not his ugliness and skin condition. I guess I should have been more specific with my aspirations.

The dried skin and bags under my eyes are getting worse. Those were there long before the bugs moved in. How did I manage to go from being an awkward looking boy to an ugly old man in less than a year? I thought I would eventually grow into myself and be a good looking man. Instead my boyish features became crusty and infected. I stare harder into the mirror to try to look past my ugliness.

I look inside myself and only find more ugliness. A bitter man filled with a hatred for everyone and everything. I wouldn't say I'm a misanthrope. Misanthropes hate everyone else in the world, I just hate the me that I see in them. The pretentiousness, the contradictions, the emotional vulnerability I try to reject always seems to find its way out.

The OJ jug is nearly empty and I'm starting to feel its effects. Especially considering the three Vicodins I choked down with it. Afraid of the bugs that have over run my room, I curl up in a ball on the damp bathroom rug. The bugs inside me will eventually breed on the rug too, but at least for tonight I've found a safe haven. The last wave of my juice hits me pretty hard and my eyelids close. I have found peace. Substance induced peace, but peace none the less.

Mike Gamms is a 24-year-old unemployed writer living in Los Angeles. Originally from Upstate New York, he occasionally writes awful things at www.mikegamms.blogspot.com.