Black Sheep - A Novel Excerpt

Men fall in love with me at first sight. Trust me, there were lots that I wanted to that didn’t, but the ones that did, fell hard, fast, bloodied. There was nothing to be done, even I couldn't warn them. I was a bomb waiting, ticking, sweating, that they could never reach in time.

I explode all over people.

There is a belief in certain circles that some are put on earth only to shake things up. Spiritual shit-kickers by birth, by definition. Having been a victim of watching my life like an outsider, I want to tell you I am one of those people.

You never get what you want, only what you un-want. Isn't that sad? Like, truly, the saddest thing about life? Men want a woman like me, but since I’ll never want the same, I'm gone before things begin. So, in getting what they wanted for awhile, they actually only got exactly what they un-wanted.

Does a part of them whisper that? Like a premonition they ignore?

I watch this play out, like scenes in a movie I can’t escape. Everything is acted with a sickening intensity. The pacing's too slow. The seconds I spend with these men thud by like boots in slush.

Every time, I convince myself for awhile that I am different. That love, in it’s pregnant hope, it’s early bliss, is actually greater than everything else. That I can beat who I am. That it will change me, that I will become something else. That everything can stay new.

But the truth is, you can never escape yourself, even when you try. Maybe it’s my knowing this that killed the romance in my heart, that ensures I’ll never have the wherewithal to really be someone’s girl.

I want to love these men, I do, but I blink and then everything's over as quickly as it began. I am yanked out of men's life with such force that I can't catch my breath.

I am some strange cosmic sacrifice. Standing five-foot-two, weighing one hundred and ten pounds, I was sent here only to fuck shit up.

It’s best just to accept that you can simply never overcome most points of your personality. I am going to end up completely and devastatingly alone.