Jenna in New Orleans

There's a girl being reborn
In New Orleans

Her name is Jenna

She's a waitress
At a nice restaurant
Perched atop a garbage heap

Down at the bottom
The dwellers crawl up
Looking for something to eat
And she throws them down scraps
On her break

On her break
She smokes and stares out
Over the city
As it pulses
Still wet
From birth

From rebirth

She tries not to get ash
On her nice black pants
And she thinks about the men
She used to fuck for money
And how they paid her less
Than what she makes now in tips

She thinks of the man who left her in Chicago
And the man she left in Chicago
And the girl she left in Vegas
The one she got high every night
Just to see another person happy

She cut off her hair
And half her jeans
And she doesn't wear make-up
Because she wants her skin
To look hard

But the innocence she tried so hard to destroy
Creeps back through her pores
And paints her a lovely color

Her apartment has windows
With black duct tape over them
Because she doesn't like natural light

It comes when you don't want it to
And she doesn't like waking up to it

She spends too much time
Looking at her fingernails
Wondering when she can start biting them again

She quit all her bad habits
On a lay-over in Atlanta

Looking out the window of the plane
Talking to some kid
Heading to Providence

Jenna doesn't tell him
That she lived there for years
When she went to Brown

She doesn't mention it at all

But she thinks about the bad October
When she got drunk every night
And slammed her car into a pole
Thankful it wasn't a tree

She remembers the Halloween party
When she slapped some girl
Because of a comment she made
That turned out not to be about Jenna

She remembers her mantra
The only thing that kept her going--

'Can't wait to get the fuck out of here. Can't wait to get the fuck out of her.'

She wanted to move
At least that's what she thought
It never occurred to her that moving wouldn't be enough
That what she needed was a rebirth

Outside her apartment
There's a woman named Osa
Who came to New Orleans from Uganda
To live a better life

When Katrina hit
She got raped by a guy in the Ninth Ward
Who left her pregnant
And a chain smoker

She kept the baby
But she kept smoking throughout the pregnancy
And nobody told her to stop

Osa doesn't remember the rapist
But her daughter Ana is half-white
So Osa knows one thing at least

Jenna likes to sit with Osa on the stoop
And trade cigarettes and stories

Osa's are true
But Jenna makes hers up
To make Osa laugh

What does she need to hear the truth for?

When Osa told her about the rape
Jenna thought of the bad October
At a house party in Newport

How the fuck she got to Newport is anybody's guess

She remembered walking in on three guys
And a girl on the bed

The girl didn't look any older than Jenna was
But she was crying
And the guy on top of her
Had her hand over her mouth

Jenna remembered switching places with that girl
Going inside her body
Feeling the push
And the struggle

The tears going back into her own eyes
Burning them up

Knowing there were two other guys
Going to do the same time

Her skin going hard then harder
Then becoming a wall
An impenetrable wall

Then one of the guys called her a nosy bitch
And slammed the door shut

Jenna stumbled out of the house
And landed in the driveway

She woke up the next day in her dorm
One of her friends had brought her home

She never knew who the girl was
She didn't even know what street the house was on
Or why she was there in the first place

But she remembered the burning tears
And the hardening of that girl's skin
While she was inside her body

Instead of telling anyone about it
Jenna learns to run

She stops drinking
And becomes strong
Strong against the softness
She still feels inside her

She pushes herself
To do well in school
To find a good boyfriend
To become a positive force within the world

And still she can't go to parties
And still she can't listen to loud music
And still when she finds a boyfriend
And he wants to make love
She has to be on top
And close her eyes

Then she goes to London
And meets Robert
And he's so decent
Being with him
Is like rubbing balm on your skin

Finding him is like finding forgiveness
And so she stops running

But she doesn't stop moving

Because London is still too loud
And Providence is too close
And New York is too dark
And L.A. is too bright
And when they get to Chicago
Robert tells her he's sick of moving
And can't they stay still
And she walks to
But she can't
And he can't understand
So he leaves

Everything after that is a rebirth
Falling in love with a boy waiting for his flight
Running around the airport
Like characters in a short story
Going to Vegas and meeting Emma
Sleeping next to her every night
Counting out how many times she'd reach for Jenna
Only to have Jenna move back a few inches

When she got on the flight for New Orleans
She had no fingernails and no hair
But she did have eight grand shoved in a cheap purse
She bought right before she left

Flying over the city
She was disappointed at not seeing water
Even though the flood was years ago

She wanted to dive into the water
And come out of it reborn
Ready to live in a new city
As shiny and fresh as she would be

Instead there was dirt
And stories from strangers
People like Osa
Who still couldn't believe
How sharp history in its present form
Could be

Jenna sits outside the restaurant
And plays with new names

Maybe she'll call herself Emma
After the girl she left in Las Vegas
Lying on a bed
Reaching for her

Jenna remembered thinking she looked like the girl from Newport

Back in the bad October

When the break is up
The cigarette still has some breath in it
So she decides to quit the restaurant
And stay out here
Until the manager hires someone new

She'll have to move again

Whatever money she has
She'll give to Osa
In a blank envelope

The city's not new enough
And the people are all old
Still clinging to their old culture
Trying to dig it up
Out of the rubble

She wonders where she'll go next
And whether or not her feet will stick this time

She'll bite her nails again
She'll fuck men again--for money, for free
She'll get high again
And give up God again
And believe again

But tonight she's old

Tonight her only home
Is the cigarette
And the view from above

Looking down on the poor helpless people
Wondering how much longer she can look at them

Before she runs