She Tweaks While She Bleeds

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She Tweaks While She Bleeds

March 11, 2011 by Julie

Big Barbie

Has black plastic trash bags

taped over the windows

in her single-wide trailer.

Three hundred pounds

of Triple D axle grease,

Big Barbie’s got a tattoo

of a dead cop on her ass,

short white spike hair

black boots, tunnels

in her ears; she rides

naked on her Harley

in the middle of the night.

Big Barbie knows pipes,

transmissions, belts,

better than any damn man.

She likes to play rough

with pretty little dolls,

knock off their heads

and leave them laying

in a dumpster behind

Angel Mae’s Bar.

She’s got the best acid

in Chatham County.

Don’t go to Big Barbie’s

unless you’ve got cash.

But once a month

when her pipes get funky,

she sits by the window

and thinks about how

her stepfather raped her.

She thinks about the baby

those bastards took away.

Big Barbie cuts her arm

with a rusty razor;

tweaks while she bleeds

into black plastic space.

-Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

This poem originally published in Don’t Call Me Plath.

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Posted in poetry | Tagged a rough life, character, poetry, voice | 27 Comments

27 Responses

on March 11, 2011 at 4:27 pm TechnoBabe

Rough life. There are so many people living this type of life. If you can call it living. Just breathing does not mean living. The tattoo is unforgettable.
on March 11, 2011 at 5:27 pm Julie

Hi, Technobabe. I hope you are doing well this week. I tagged it with a “rough life,” but that’s an understatement, isn’t it? Thanks for reading and for your kind words.
on March 11, 2011 at 6:39 pm Susan Gabriel

Wow. I think I met this woman once. Very alive poem. Very well-written.
on March 11, 2011 at 7:10 pm Julie

Hi, Susan. Thanks so much for reading and for the good words. The woman in the poem was actually a real person. I was terrified of her when I met her (I was very young at the time). When she came up to me, I thought she was going to kick my butt. Then she started telling me her story, and I was so moved. I’ll never forget her.
on March 11, 2011 at 10:07 pm dan

julie, i love the changes u made. powerful poem, one of my favorites. it makes me look at people in a deeper way & shows the human side of a rough biker chick. you’re so good at human nature/characters.
on March 11, 2011 at 10:10 pm dan

p.s. – please email me if u can. will be gone for a day but i can write back.

*****************************************************

Thanks, Dan. I love that you noticed the changes. Yes, I will certainly e-mail you. I’ll do it this evening, okay? Thinking of you. -Julie
on March 11, 2011 at 10:30 pm christine

Another powerful poem, Julie! You have the gift of knowing the just right images to portray the essence of a person. Riding a Harley naked at night, now that’s something.
on March 11, 2011 at 10:56 pm Julie

Hi, Christine. I was just thinking about you. I hope you’re doing great. School’s almost out! Yeah! You’re rocking it, I’m sure! I can’t wait to hear about where you go next. Thanks for reading and for your kind comments.
on March 11, 2011 at 11:42 pm JR

This is one of those “in your face” type of poems with a subtle warning as to how a person should approach Big Barbie. I like it.
on March 11, 2011 at 11:50 pm Julie

Hi, JR. You’ve probably met her…or her brother…at your job. There are so many stories out there, and a lot of them begin at an early age.

Thanks so much, JR. Have a good weekend!
on March 12, 2011 at 6:53 pm Ruth

Big Barbie is still tender somewhere, isn’t she? I feel her, smell her, see her, and I feel her hum on that Harley through town. I bet she’s real loud. Very real and vivid, dear writer. Yes, we have to look closely. Everyone is worth a closer look.
on March 12, 2011 at 7:42 pm Julie

Hello, Ruth and thank you very much. You put it so well. “Everyone is worth a closer look.” I love that. Happy Saturday to you!
on March 13, 2011 at 1:27 pm TWM

Her and I could be friends at least until we ran out of stories to tell because I think we both have gotten past the age where we want to make anymore really good stories happen.

*****************************************************

Hello, WM. I think she would like you a lot, regardless of your age or stories. Who wouldn’t like the Walking Man? Have a good one & thanks for stopping in. -Julie
on March 13, 2011 at 7:03 pm solitary walker

Yes, a powerful poem, I think – I like the specificity of it.

Much of the time we don’t look closely enough.
on March 13, 2011 at 11:09 pm Julie

Solitary Walker,

Thank you very much! It has been a pleasure to meet you.
on March 14, 2011 at 12:36 am Terresa Wellborn

A tough poem, I love it, the grit, the oil, the rusty razor and black plastic space, I can nearly taste it. Well done, Jules!
on March 14, 2011 at 2:13 am Julie

Thanks so much, Terresa. Here I go sounding like a broken record again…haha! But I do appreciate it. Have a good one.
on March 14, 2011 at 4:03 am The Storialist

Ouch.

Painful. But she is so lovable. You could fill up a town with all of your amazing characters.
on March 14, 2011 at 12:39 pm Julie

Hi, Hannah. I think character poems are my favorite ones to write, even the painful ones. So thanks very much for that!
on March 14, 2011 at 2:38 pm george

Powerful and disturbing, Julie. It makes me look beyond Big Barbie to the flaws in my on perception. How easy it is to relate to the suffering of someone who, on the surface, appears to be one of my “tribe.” To see the suffering of someone who is very different, however, someone who may even be superficially offensive to me, that is a much greater challenge. Once again, you have done what all great artists do; you have forced us to pay attention to something that would otherwise be overlooked — and when we overlook the suffering of another, we have committed what is perhaps the greatest sin.
on March 14, 2011 at 4:09 pm Julie

Thank you for the kind words, George. I know what you mean when you talk about flaws in perception, because I was guilty of that, too. I was young when I met her, but that’s no excuse. I didn’t see this woman as a human being until I heard her story. It’s easy to look at the surface and judge. She terrified me, and I had heard many stories about her.

Another thing to note is that the narrator in this poem (like in many poems) is giving a perception that may be exaggerated. In particular, riding naked on a Harley or fighting. Those are secondhand stories “about” Barbie. The real story shifts to Barbie in the last two stanzas.

Thanks again, George. I appreciate it very much!
on March 16, 2011 at 2:52 am jorc

very powerful. very real. a brutal reminder to look inside the people we know, not at what they say, or do, but inside.
on March 16, 2011 at 4:25 pm Julie

Hi, Jorc. Yes, it is so good to look on the inside. Sometimes it’s hard to do, so I like to remind myself.

Thank you very much! I hope your week is going well.
on March 21, 2011 at 1:55 am Brigindo

You are a master at creating characters. I’ve loved them all and can now add Big Barbie to the mix. I hope we see her again.
on March 21, 2011 at 2:37 am Julie

Thank you very much, Brigindo. I’m so glad you like Big Barbie, and I appreciate that you are reading. Have a good one!
on April 10, 2011 at 4:35 pm Lorenzo

This is great, Julie. The first stanzas yank me right into the story of this character, laughing out loud at the tatoo of the dead cop on her ass and this ultra-subversion of what ‘Barbie’ has come to mean in our society. I chuckle and read on; I like her but think I am not sure I want to meet her.

And then the humor is suddenly peeled away, like those black plastic trash bags pulled way from her windows and we see the harrowing truth, the memory of rape, and the murderous cut of that rusty razor. And I think, damn, I already have met her … and just didn’t know, just didn’t see. Have to look before we see. And make us look and see and feel is what your poems always seem to do so well. It would be hard to condense more raw storytellling power and emotion into a few short lines than this. Bravo!
on April 11, 2011 at 5:51 pm Julie

Hello, Lorenzo. Your kind comments are much appreciated! And I love that you noted the name.

Barbie was inspired by a real woman, and it was sort of a lesson for me in “what’s underneath” the surface of a human being. I don’t mean that I’d run up to her and embrace her today (she’d kick my ass…ha), but if someone honestly tries to reach out for compassion, I try to give it.

On the other hand…

an alternate story happened to me last week involving a hustler. Man, she was good. And boy, am I a sucker. Ha! But it will be a poem someday, too.

Thank you so much, Lorenzo!