Sleep. Sleep is something worth daydreaming about. It's what goes on between my eyes and the stippled shadows cast by a night-light on the popcorn ceiling. It's beside me, too. Four minutes past midnight, says the red lights of the digital clock; that makes eight minutes in bed, and my lover lies still beside me. His chest rises and falls, and the bed gently quakes in rhythm. His breath is a heavy wind as loud as a room of whispering people; I imagine them with emerald eyes, smirking as they watch me out of the corners of their eyes, mocking my envy. If only I was truly jealous. A conscious lethargy is the only thing that hasn't left me, the only thing that lingers after each day and demands my attention at night. So I lie awake, pondering it, sometimes til tears, sometimes ignoring it while making shapes out of the light green painted stucco of the wall, sometimes in the popcorn of the ceiling. They are always shapes of failure.

I could never sleep. Not even when I was young. I recall lying in bed for hours til my mother finally slept, then sneaking downstairs to watch late night TV with Dad while he drank red wine out of a whiskey glass; he always wore the same blue and red striped robe. Well, maybe not always, but that's how I remember it. Sometimes our cat, Mary, would join us. I liked to pretend she was watching TV with us. I heard cats can't really see anything at all when they look at the television. Something about the light and their eyes. I don't believe it, though. Mary loved my dad, she wouldn't let anyone else pick her up. He would do so, and then he would put the white cat inside the outer panel of his robe, just above the belt. And she would sit there, at his waist, looking outward as he would walk to the kitchen and fetch the glass and the bottle, and pour himself a drink.

Occasionally, I'd be up late enough to see him smoke his pipe or a cigarette. When he smoked, it was in the backyard. Mom would throw a fit if it wasn't. That was when I learned to appreciate the cool, California desert night. I think so, anyway. The scene was too perfect for me not to idolize it as a child. The wavy grey smoke, the cool, dry air, and a starless, light polluted sky. I never cared about the stars, only the moon meant love to me, so the scene was perfect. I didn't know there were supposed to be more stars until later in life. I still don't care.

I feel like my life is a flame. It's too quick. I'll be twenty this year; much too early. I'm not ready for that yet, and I won't be when the month, the day finally comes. I want to scream about school and this world. I'm not meant for it. This education system is a fucked up place to be. They told me I'd like college, that it was different, that someone like me would do better there than in high school—which is already a given considering that I didn't give a shit then. There was a saying I'd like to tell myself while in high school, “Never let your schooling interfere with your education”. I took it too far. It was one of the many quotes that were posted up in sporadic fashion, littering the walls of my Freshman year English classroom. I would read them while the teacher explained our homework. I don't remember any of them now, but then again I don't remember much when I'm tired.

I know if I can stop thinking, I'll fall asleep; but that takes too much effort. I have to focus on nothing at all, without focusing. Let my mind slip but I can't let it wander, or else I'll just be back to watching the ceiling again. I lean up and look towards my lover. He's got an all access pass into dreamland, with no block-out dates. Lightly, I give him a kiss at the corner of his mouth. Sometimes, he'll talk in his sleep. Not tonight.

I hate waking up early. I used to love it. Sleep was like a waste of time, anyway. Why would I want to lie unconscious when I could be up and doing something productive? After I realized that what I do is never productive, however, I stopped caring so much about when I got up. Today I got up around 10 am. I had woken up earlier around seven when my boyfriend left for school, but fell asleep again. Ten was fine.

My pits are sticky. I had put on too much deodorant, and the gel sticks to itself and to my skin as I move my arms up and down. A slight discomfort. No one will notice or care but me. I grab some baggy jeans from the floor and throw on a dark blue tank top, then step out of my bedroom and head downstairs. I trip on the last step.

My name is Failure. It follows me where-ever I go, and it's all I will ever be. I don't bullshit myself. I know I'll never be a rock-star or an actress or a famous director. I'm not gonna try to be something I'm not.

Two thirty p.m., and I'm meeting my friend Jeff outside the local library. We were supposed to meet half an hour ago. “You're late again,” he snaps awkwardly. I don't think he means to snap, it just comes out that way. He's a tall, lanky Asian kid sitting on a wooden bench under the shade of an arbor covered in some kind of ivy. His feet were up on a table, and across from that was another bench, sitting in the sun. There are a row of arbors, benches, and tables set up this way. Very few are occupied.

Jeff wasn't his real name. It was some kind of Japanese no one could pronounce; so he just went by Jeff.

“You knew I'd be late,” it's true, I really think he knew. I'm always late.

“I got here early,” as he said it, he set down the book that had been covering his nose. “But I checked out this book. It's really good so far. You should read it when I'm done.”

“What is it about?”

“Here, just read the back. If I say anything, I'll just give it away.”

I take the book as I sit down across from him, turn it over, and read the back. In the middle, I forget what I'm doing, look up at him and say, “So did you bring the stuff for the project?” It's a shame. He really does have the best taste in literature. I regret it, but do nothing about it; I set the book down on the table.

“No, Lisa, I left it at home.” In his voice, he rolls his eyes. He turns toward the backpack at his feet and starts to rummage through it. After a moment or so, he brings out a binder stuffed neatly with school-papers. While he does this, I get a small, old oak box out of my own backpack and set it down on the table. Inside, unsorted and unorganized, are various colored pens and markers. I smile as I open the box. My treasure-trove.

I always loved to draw. I'd beg my mom to buy me colored gel pens or those fancy markers, then I'd keep them in a pencil box, and draw during class. In 8th grade I used to get shit about it. I refused to share my pens after some of them went missing, so they started saying I loved my pens so much I touched myself with them at night. They claimed I had them all named things like Romeo, Don Juan, and Hitler. That is why, according to them, I wouldn't share. None of it was true, of course.

“What's the first drawing you need?” Earlier, I had agreed to do the illustrations for a children's book he had to write for an English class.

“Dunno, we could do a cover page, or the first page.” He picks up a piece of note book paper, then begins to read from it. “The first page goes like this:

“Once upon a time there lived a pretty dwarf lady, who fell in love with a Fairy Duke. Though she was twice his height, and three times his girth, they were happy and pretty together. Then, they got married.”

I'm laughing pretty hard, which gets him laughing as well. In a moment we cool off. “Alright, give me a blank page.” I'm in the middle of talking when he hands me the paper. On it, I draw a pretty, though chubby, dwarf woman kissing a thin, tiny fairy man with rainbow wings. On his head he wears a hat that is half stove-pipe, half crown. Around the two, I draw a large red heart, illustrating their devotion to each other.

“Not bad,” he says, “Now for the next page:

“The two basked in their love and produced a child. Although their daughter was just as pretty as her parents, she had been blessed and cursed with unusually large and strong hands.”

I respond with a drawing of a baby wrapped in a blanket, smiling stupidly. I add large hands on skinny arms, then hand him the drawing. He ponders it a moment. “The way you drew the baby, she looks like a cigar.”

“No, she doesn't,” I protest. “Lemme see.” I grab the paper from him, and the corner where he was holding becomes dented.

He was right, I realize. The wrapped up baby looked like a wrapped up cigar, and the single curl on it's head could pass for the smoke. “You should draw Bob Marley smoking the cigar-baby,” he laughs out the words.

“It's an absurd metaphor. It's . . . profound.” I say, laughing after I emphasize.

“The best children's books are always profound metaphors, or dark when you think about them.”

With a half laugh, I say, “What's the next page?”

“She's grown up, and dreaming about becoming the next fairy duke, but she can't, because she's a girl,” he says. “I don't know how you can draw that.”

“I'll just draw her face,” I say, “And give her the same stupid expression she had as a kid,” as I say it, I pencil down the illustration.

“No, she has to be pretty, that's how the story goes.” It's easy to detect awkwardness in his voice.

“She can still be pretty. But the expression is hilarious, how could I not add it?”

“So long as you make her pretty, we're going for consistency here.”

“Sure,” I say, and add swooping eyelashes and curly hair. “Then, a thought bubble, with the Fairy Duke's hat. . .” I pause for a moment, and smile. “But not just the Fairy Duke's hat. It's shaped like a seductive woman—wearing a top hat. A hat with a hat.”

“What.” He says it so simply it can't be a question.

As I finish penciling it in, I hand the drawing over to him. He laughs as soon as his eyes lay on the double-hat. “It's a metaphor for a female fairy duke, it works,” he says. “You're going to color these in, right?”

“When I'm done with 'em all. Have to ink 'em before I color, though.”

I am an artist of the highest caliber. I may not have the best technique, but in content—I feel like my soul is bursting out of my chest.

“Ok,” he says, as I finish up the details, “Here's the next page:

“She decided to leave their chauvinistic world, and ran into the night on her eighteenth birthday, leaving their pig-world behind.”

The image is clear in my mind; I can feel it echoing into my arm and filling my pencil. It demands satisfaction. “I know the perfect thing,” I say. “Just wait. This one might take a while, read a bit of your book.”

“Alright, but make sure she stays pretty. Are you gonna use that expression again?”

“Yes. Wait, no. She's running away. You only see her back—but she is making that face.” I laugh. He sighs heavily, and picks up his book.

The drawing is strange. On the ground is a pig wearing a top hat beside two large balls, one which I plan to color blue, and one purple. Above him is the main character, surfing away on a trail of stars. The trail leads to the figure of a woman in the sky; her gentle, smiling face is the moon, a thick curtain of stars is her hair, and her bosom is a dark grey cloud. Her arms, also clouds, are outstretched, welcoming the large-handed heroine. I show the drawing to him. He falls in love with it.

Jeff is one of my closest friends. We met when I was a Freshman in high school and he was in junior high, on the internet, through a small website my older brother ran. He knew Jeff from school. When I first read his posts on the forum, I thought Jeff was a girl. He's changed a lot since then.

“If I don't get a good grade on this, my disappointment meter will break,” he says, “It's just too artsy.”

“It's your story,” I say. “And you said you can never come up with anything original. All my ideas are just based off of other people's, they're not genuine. I can't invent.”

“Yeah right,” he says, and explain how his story vaguely parallels a book he read recently, but only just enough to call it his source of inspiration. I maintain that his children's book is still far from it. He disagrees, and I can tell that's how he really feels. Like a phony—what he desperately wishes not to be. “I know what the next drawing has to be,” he says. “The story says that although she tried to get away, she finds herself being courted by all of these men. They're all carrying spears. And whenever one of them asks her to marry him, she breaks his spear. Draw her breaking a spear, and make it bleed.”

I laugh at the obvious Feminazi joke he's making. “Sure,” I say, and he hands me another piece of paper. I draw what he asks, but realize I accidentally drew her off to the side of the page. So I fill the space with the drawing of a dead man being eaten by a rose. “Roses are vagina symbolism,” I explain. “The evuhl man is being eaten by a rose, metaphorically symbolizing how he's being beaten by a girl.”

“And the broken spear is his manhood being destroyed.” Jeff laughs. “Alright,” he says, “Last page. It goes like this:

“The maiden cried, 'No! I shall never become a slave to your house!' And with that she knew she did not need the power of the Fairy Duke's hat to be happy. She discovered a group of strong women like herself, the Castrati, and they basked in their womanhood until the end of their days. The end.”

I laugh so hard I almost fall out of my chair.

“Just draw them basking on large roses,” he says.

“You should print out a picture of Bob Marley. Photorealism is so hot. In a cartoon story, I mean.”

“Bob Marley?”

“Yeah, so he can smoke the cigar-baby. Remember? It was your idea.”

We both laugh.