I look at this situation through some strange muted grey-blue sheer curtain.
It's like biting into a piece of fruit only to eat the sticker.

The shit I'm afraid of has made me hateful.




I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing,
I let nothing out here for four fucking months,
but everything I put down now sounds dumb to me.

I keep dreaming into the day time.
Parts of my nightmares jut out into my realities.
They leave my senses muddled.
I wake up with smells in my nose that can't
possibly be there, images burned on my eye lids.

I keep seeing her hands folded on top of one another,
waxy. There are things we'd all rather not remember.

I want to go home. But where is home now? Where
has it been? Where have I been building my nest, twig
by twig. Not here. Maybe there. And furthermore
where will it be when they're all gone?

I heave so much accidental burden on the shoulders
of friends and for that, I am sorry.

Mike clutches a chunk of homemade bread in front of
a dirty American flag- Max on his left, in the kitchen,
washes dishes under a cabinet that says "CLEAN UP"

A rectangle of light falls perfect over your face.
I watch you sleep for -one, two, three seconds-
through the crack in the open door before I shut
it with a click. I want to take a photo, but I don't.

Back from then, you lean in the shade that buildings
provide and smoke a cigarette. I don't remember summers
being as hot as they are now. It's day time. We drink.

Somewhere in between here and there- we sit on folding
lawn chairs in the back of a van. It's winter and I root through
my pockets for chapstick. It's dark back there, no windows,
and my elbow bumps something as the chair slides when
we turn a corner- drum sticks clatter to the floor.

But further back now, cut feet from broken shells leave
bloody marks on uneven wooden floor boards. You dress
the wounds with shaky hands, I look away when it stings.

But further yet, a plain off-white coarse jump rope with
smooth wooden handles. It's cheap, I can feel it. I know,
from comparison, the other kids. The handles make dull
hollow sounds as I drag them across the pavement.

And even further- a yellow raincoat, borrowed in a courtyard.
A bed that takes up the whole room- a small space for sitting,
at the foot. A graveyard for pets and a pool. Coffee cans filled
with cement that anchor down our swing set.

These things, sometimes, I don't know.

And how is it that we feel the way
that we feel about insulting ourselves?

Not sure what I'm saying.

My stomach still burns sometimes.
Burns with coulda, shoulda, woulda.

Burns with sea-lust and tree-lust.
And wanderlust.

And I could have sworn, holding on
to glimmering wispy bits of a dream
state, that I was standing on the top
of a mountain, looking down. That
I was swimming through a raging sea.
That I was in the grocery store, not a
single label could I read.

I could have sworn I was in your bed,
or your bed, or your bed. (Or really any
of your beds, in dreams it's hard to determine)

And it's hard to determine what I want
sometimes. Most times. All the times.

And I could have sworn, holding on

to glimmering wispy bits of a dream

state, that I was choking, spluttering, 

struggling for breath; wet on a beach

sand under my nails, in my hair. That 

I was being suffocated by blankets, 

pillows, sheets. Strong, strong hands 

but weak wrists- holding me down.

Holding me down but not bringing me down.

Ah, well. These heavy words are hard to speak.
Yet, you must know.

Today, on the train home I wrote something
that is emotionally too much for this place.

So, I'll give you the first line and the last one.
But what's in the middle is mine. It's what I've
realized for myself and it bothered me a bit.


And we ran through that construction site in the
pouring rain, balancing clumsy feet on slick lumber,
like this whole quiet fucking campus was ours.

But coulda, shoulda, woulda steps right in the way.

What would you know about vociferous

opponents with impetuous tendencies.

And what would you know about that place in

between sleep and awake where your mind feels

like spiraling tendrils of nothing, of nonsense.

And what would you know about getting so comfortable

with someone that you just can't love them any longer.

(or you're just not sure if you ever did)

And what, please do tell me, what would you know

about feeling like your brain is fucking rattling inside

of your head, like your cells are vibrating at such a

rapid, uncontrollable pace that you don't what's up is

and even if you were to figure that out, you'd never

know where down was.


But, when you used to lie beside me in bed and

prognosticate, (because believe me, every one of

you have done it), I used to think you were an idiot.

And I'd like to say I take that back, but I can't.

Which is why I made sure we didn't lie any longer

than necessary and then, that we didn't lie at all.

Now, I'll drink to that.
But, then again, I'll drink to just about anything

You know, maybe I haven't DONE enough?
But what is enough? Or rather what is doing?
And when will I know whether or not I've
done enough? And furthermore, how will
I know if my judgement of enough is true?

In conclusion, I should do more.
Even if I'm scared.

Because I am scared, that's what it is, isn't it?

Why I mistook feelings of fear for contentment is

beyond me and also something I've always done.

And I want to renounce it, say no more.

But I'm scared, not an idiot.

I know myself, and my ways, and I'm not going

to do shit. I will be in the same place forever.

Maybe, though, I can take this as a challenge.

The silence is the scariest
thing about going home.

Well, I guess I lied.
Sorry dudes, my bad.

Doing just fine,
always doing just fine.

Less, less, less.
There are things that I just don't
want to face so I'll back away.
Slowly.
I will not wait for what won't happen to

happen. And I don't even think I want that.

This never turns out well.

Don't let this get to your head. And for

god's sake, if I say anything mean, don't

come back to me all offended about it.

Oh god, but I am not. I have to realize that I am not.
I want so much more from this. Or I want so much less.

I can not do this to myself. I don't know why I thought
that I could. This ball of god knows what sitting heavy,
heavy, heavy in my stomach.

This could make me sick or make me the happiest I've
been in a long time. I guess that's why I'm trying. But,
the outcome ceases to be in my hands.
I did my part in this.
Your play.

A good way to get into my heart...or my pants.
They're one in the same nowadays.

I am fine with the time that'll I'll end up with.

However long it may be, at least I get to have
this now. I'm living with little to no future plans
yet I'm making so many goddamn plans at the
same time. Is life even complicated?

Or is it just my marginal human error of feelings
that makes it so? (That is a rhetorical question.)

Now that I'm home (a strange word to try to
define sometimes) I find myself alone most days.

There is nothing wrong with that, I enjoy my privacy some days but I think my privacy allows my mind to make excuses. Make many excuses.
Because there is no one there to see it I allow myself to follow through with my compulsions.

There are things about each one of us that we hate. There isn't anyone in the world who doesn't have at least one little thing that they hate about themselves.
But that, that's mine.
Every time I pick, every time I tap, every time I straighten I just tell myself it's fine . No one will see me do it. No one judges what I need to get by.

It's not fixing anything.

I am stupid to miss what is not exactly mine.
I am stupid to miss what lies just along that
harried line of yes and no.

Yet I do. Because it's different now, different
now than it even was when it became different.

I knew that this was where it was going to end up.
I truly did and I wish I could say different, then maybe I'd feel less guilt. However, I'm not even sure that guilt is the right word for what I am feeling. I shouldn't have to feel guilty, I mostly just feel stupid.
So fucking stupid for doing this to myself, and I suppose to you.

We'll see what happens though, that's the only real way to do things. Besides, there's a fifty-fifty chance that I'll fuck everything up irreparably and the same that I won't.

I guess that's what gets me though now, got me through then, and will continue to get me through forever.

Ah, and the seasonal winds do change.

I get you those days. I get everything you'll give
me and I get what I take. And you'll let me take
most things those days. But, I have to say:

It's getting to me, it really is.
I want more, or maybe I want less, or maybe
I want something completely different. Or I'm
just fucking so hard lyinglyinglying to myself.

But, I'll be lying to myself for only a little while
longer if we keep at this current rate.

Life is hard when it shouldn't have to be.
But maybe that's why it's life.

Today I came into temporary possession of a packet of old writings.

Writings that I was convinced were truly gone for good. They had
disappeared years ago from their original place. Although I diligently
searched for them at the beginning, years passed and not a trace of
them was to be found. So I gave up.
But, today, in some strange stroke of luck I was offered what is
probably the only remainder of what they once were.

These pages were written by an old friend (or something to that degree)
and I am keenly aware that I am not ready to read them yet.

They will leave me feeling the same way he always did.
And I'm sure as hell not ready for that.

Everywhere in the world at any given moment there is at least one person fiddling with a radio dial, making a phone call to their mom, cooking breakfast, flicking ash off a cigarette out the passenger seat window, sketching a face, throwing their laundry in the dryer, taking a photograph, blowing their nose, packing a lunch, grabbing someone else's hand in theirs...

And I guess that means something to me, since I thought it, but I'm still searching for that answer I suppose.

If everyone else has since decided that consideration is completely
null and void then why must I continue to adhere to these rules?
These simple fucking human rules.
These simple fucking human rules that no one fucking follows.

And you ask me why it's so difficult for me to get along as the
days go on. Well, I'll fucking tell you why. People are disgusting
and inconsiderate. No matter what guise they put on at the
beginning and even if that keep on that facade, deep down they
are still just as selfish and vile as the people you hate.

And I've realized that no matter how much you give,
you will never receive the equivalent back. Because
you will never be on the same plane as that person.
You will never see eye to eye, the meniscus will never
seem to reach the same little notch.

They will never know how much of you they have 
taken so they will never know what to give back.

That, however, seems like an excuse that falls far short of it's
mark. But, don't think that by me stating this that I think I am
not guilty of the same vile human nature. Because I am.

But at the same time, I employ a certain amount of tact when it
comes to executing things that pertain to my morals. Or what I
call my morals but are really just a reflection of my upbringing.

And we've all had different upbringings so it seems brash to say
this about myself, and especially about other people, but this is
what I think and I needed to say it somewhere.

I have more to say on this subject but I am feeling
a bit wrung out at this present moment in time.

I have grown tired of this.
Yet somehow I have yet to outgrow it.
I do the same thing to myself each and every time.

My life is just a series of on and offs.

I hate that some days I want another city, maybe another state over my head. I want to breathe new clouds that are probably just old clouds in a new place, since clouds work that way.

I want a lot of things though. I spend many hours day dreaming or writing fictional stories about people more interesting than me. But sometimes my want gets the best of me, convinces me it's need, need, need. Even though I know it's not. Or something in me knows it's not.

But with my hands around my own neck, it's my own fault. A human fault, or a fault from society, but a fault that falls on my hands all the same.
But, I'm hesitant to change, a little want can make this interesting.

My stomach is shockingly full of want/need/miss feelings.
I suppose it's a good thing my head's more or less filled with
disinterest, logic, and knowledge of fails in the future.

I'm done with this day and it seems to have just started.
This feeling has an oddly frequent reoccurrence rate lately.

Just reiterating something I said
here back in mid August.

Fuck you, fuck you, but no really fuck you.
I despise you and the shit you pull some days.

You are pathetic. You disgust me.

I think I can safely say that I am annoyed.
I am sick of the psuedo-competition you've set up.

I don't know if I can deal with this civilly any
longer, but I'd rather not stoop to your level.

I am not the one ruining this. I may have, at
some point, accidentally been, but I am no
longer. I have paid my fucking dues, your turn.

But honestly, this shit falls on you at this point.
And it is fucking crashing down hard right now.

I get it.
I get that crinkleyedsmile feeling.
Somedays. Most days.

But, it too shall pass.
And some.

Wait, hold on one second. Back the fuck up.
Is that what you think that was? Is that really
what you think that was? Fuck you. Fuck you.

Seriously, fuck you and what you think is
all-knowing categorization of everyone.

More than half the time you're wrong.

Well, I might not go tonight.
If you insist on making me feel like shit because you feel like it.

Not everyone has fucking ulterior motives.
I was legitimately trying to be nice by suggesting that.
But, you have made it a habit of taking things the wrong
way, I suppose. And that, is swiftly becoming not-my-problem.

As much as I'm glad to have what had back,
I can still get awful selfish some days.

I guess, at least I recognize it, I'm not deluded
in ways that I can't imagine.

Tonight I watched a very disorienting movie.
Well, disorienting is not really the word that I am looking
for. I feel as if I am reaching for a word that might not really
actually exist in the english language at all.

This movie was a contradictory piece. It made a giant mess of
certain ideals that I thought that I had while at the same time
made considerable sense of others. And yet others, reassured.
And while it was about dreams, in it's essence, I don't think
that was even the forefront of my thoughts for the duration of
it. To me it was more of a study on thought.

Which brings me to the idea that some people think like this all
of the time. Some people just don't think at all. And some people
are some type of happy medium, or even uneven parts of both that
make a whole. I'd like to think I'm the latter. Or, well, I think I am
at least mildly self-aware to the point that I realize that I am a mix.

But more than anything, I feel like I am in less of a rush.
All of a sudden.

I think we've all imagined ourselves somewhere that we aren't.
But I'm glad things panned out the way they did most days.

The sinking feeling of intended separation.

Yet I still feel it some days and I fucking wish

I didn't because I have no fucking reason to.

I have no ownership and I rarely feel like I have

ownership but sometimes the feelings that I feel

without meaning to are just too fucking much.

Too much and it's all wrong.

I woke up this morning with a song about you in my head.
That'll be one of my print titles this semester.

Do not let me do this,
it will fuck up everything.

I'm currently banking on the fact
that you won't do anything.
And it will just go away?
So, uh, please keep it that way.

Even though.

To me, there's no worse feeling than being left out.
So, if you ever really want to hurt me, that's what you should do.

I AM NOT.
I AM NOT.
I AM NOT.

This is becoming considerably less of a reminder-to-self
and more of a neurotic mantra that I must repeat in sets
of three until the feeling goes away.

But, there's a problem.
That problem is that lately I've been having more trouble
squashing it down. I've been having trouble quelling that
horrible, terrible, angry, churning feeling in my stomach.
And I've come to resentment.
Yet, resentment is the all wrong word.

Because it's not that I doubt the prowess.
And it's not like the above sentence isn't a complete and utter lie.
Because it is.
It's just that the over confidence lacks grace so
I can only assume the rest will follow suit.

My choices always end up with the same outcomes.

And my thoughts are always all over the place, it's

not even possible to coherently write them down.

I have yet to figure out if that was a
bad idea, a good idea, or just... an idea.

You remind me of many people I won't lose interest in but I am no conquest nor do I need to be won over.

So it goes, I nearly always feel like a dick.

I am easily frustrated lately.

I find myself simultaneously aching for Purchase in the winter
months and the shining bright memory of rope swings into lakes,
camping, barbecues, and sun that exist solely in my dreams.

I need to go, I just can't sit stagnant like this.

I never lived in a place where you had to fight to make a name.
But many of my friends have and I hear stories, I see fights.
But I don't know how to or need to fight. I might need to start.

Even though I'm only an hour away from home the drive out here had that elevated road trip feeling.

I'm at a family party, for a family that isn't mine, but there's beer, food, fireworks, and a pool, so I feel like I belong.
I love holidays, I really do.

I need to stop being a disappointment to others.

I promise you, one of these days we'll all understand
what possesses us to do what it is that we do.

That day is not today, for I am out of words and out of
willpower. I'm sorry that you have to hurt, but I needed to.

Even the things I love exhaust me now.
I'm getting sick of living certain parts of my life.

I want to live how I live inside my head but my much
more than marginal human error is making that difficult.
And my emotions, the meager
ones that I possess, prevent that.

It seems puerile to want only "happy times and half
assed rhymes" but really I only desire eunoia.

Everyone I know has done something wrong, when's my turn?

Because either you're there or you're not.
Be happy where you can and complain when you can.
Know when to be and when to drop out. Just be.
Always be.

I can't wait to be there.
It might be in my head, but it's lovely.

But I'm wondering if that big dark cloud is me.

Somewhere expensive to live so there's something to complain about.
That's the title.

Today I chased the sunrise like people chase storms.
Couldn't take a picture because my phone was dying. But you can imagine.

Sometimes, when it thinks everyone's asleep, the refrigerator sings to the wall outlet.

Have I always been a fucking spineless piece of shit without the ability to stand up for myself? Or is this just a new thing?

I always thought that maybe I was strong, but I guess it goes to show that you never really know yourself.

I accept this defeat, the weak fucking piece of human waste that I am accepts this defeat.
I have failed myself, my upbringing, and my dignity.
If I ever even had any of that.

My body aches for that warmth.
The sun, the sun, the sun.
God, I miss it.

The traffic ahead on the highway.
The cars look like shining beatle swarms.
There's a bug infestation that's heading towards New York City.
We haven't got the time or the means to stop them.

Let her sit and fucking squirm.
HAHA.

The sun! Lying on the grass, stoned, warmed by the sun.
Oh my god, the sun. I had forgotten about the fucking sun.

The beautiful fucking sun! (Breathe in, breathe out. Okay.)

How do you forget something like that?

You don't.

But I fucking did.

God, I'm already thinking of summer, and warm window

sills, and fucking cherry tomatoes growing in the garden,

and driving with the windows rolled down, and beautiful

little bugs and worms in piles of dirt, and warm pools for

me to put my feet in and splash and fucking barbeques

with corn and beer and everyone that I love!

And oh god, the fucking sun.

And under-ripe (yet still delicious) grapes on Janetca's deck,

and wiggling my toes in warm green grass, and drinking a 40

and eating a bag of chips on the dinosaur blanket in the park,

and swinging on swings, and going outside for a cigarette and

not shivering, and just being outside in the sun!

THE FUCKING SUN.

If winter ends, no when winter ends, because it will, just

like it did last year, I'll pack up this baggage and be happy.

I am so excited for the sun.

It's fucking Christmas, can't this food stay down today?
Nothing says Merry Christmas like throwing up.

Irony, I'm outside smoking to get some fresh air.

I'm not jealous, I'm not jealous,
I'm not jealous, I'm not jealous.
Because I don't get jealous.

Am I affirming myself, or stating a truth. I don't know and you
won't know. Maybe a little bit of both? But here I am, sinking
my teeth into my lip, I'm trying not to think.
I have silk screens and things that come in threes. I have a two
AM phone call and a couple of cigarettes left to smoke, or give
away if I choose (which I won't). I have music that makes me
happy and music that makes my fucking body ache with missed
opportunities and sicksicksickness. Oh god.
I'm squeezing my eyes shut as I write this. I am so... unsettled.

Today I read an article about.
Actually, I don't want to talk about it.


But, it felt like a turn of phrase, a vein of vocabulary. One that
mirrors the veins staining your eyes red. The veins that halt all
communication, an impasse.

I am solicitously amenable to everything in that state.
Let's get shitty together, at the dugout.

You can love the dream and hate the reality.
OR
You can hate the dream and love the reality.
OR (if you're really greedy)
You can love the dream and love the reality.

But you can only choose one to be forever, no mixing and matching, would you choose the paradise? Live forever without and shred of negativity or do you need that bit. You can't love everything all of the time.

I can't love everything all of the time.
Take you're pick, make shit quick.

Lately I've been seeing words in the negative space between lines in a paragraph. And it's worse than "reading between the lines", because it truly is so. If I let myself slide out of focus it's like a whole new story beneath my fingers.

Fiction is a lie.
But sometimes it's one of the most beautiful lies in the world.
So, I guess that's okay.

You don't get to know who you are,
until you are who you are.
There is no fate though.
There's just knowing, or rather,
not knowing until you just know.

Do you understand me?
Because I only sometimes understand myself.


I only sometimes understand myself. I only sometimes know
what I'm thinking about. Today I'm thinking of lists. Or rather,
I'm thinking in lists, because I always think in lists.

I'm thinking of white sheets and little white toes. I'm thinking
about deer antlers tattooed on a chest and brown coffee cups
that came looking stained when they were new. I'm thinking
about robbing banks and an honest girl standing in a handmade
sequined sweater. I'm thinking of everyone I ever loved, even
just a little bit and those tiny little lady apples that fit perfectly in
a palm. I'm thinking of band aids on scraped fingertips and
clouds that look like animals. And clouds that don't look like
anything but clouds. I'm thinking of crisp crunchy leaves and
bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. Lots of fucking bicycles.
And things that are neither here nor there and ants in the bread basket.
I'm thinking about drinking vodka on a Tuesday afternoon in
the middle of winter and just winter itself. Because it's not
winter yet, and I almost wish that it was. I'm thinking about
people with problems that I've never had and people who
used to have problems that I'll never have. I'm thinking about
privilege and well, I guess I didn't get any further than that.

Goodnight, for this night.

I can't sleep.
I can't sleep because I can't close my eyes.
I can't close my eyes because I'm scared.

I don't know why I'm so afraid.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
No monsters hiding under the bed or lurking in the closet.

I'm so inexplicably terrified right now. I don't know what to do to quell this horrible feeling. I just want to sleep, I'm so tired, I have the mother of all migranes and the light is hurting my eyes, but I can't shut it off because I'm pretty sure I'd die of unexplained fright if I couldn't see. And I'm so nauseous right now because of this migrane and I don't know what to do.

I'm just a scared little fucking kid.
All I need is feetie pjs.

My mind is fucking reeling.
All of my senses are in overdrive.

I can't sleep.
Oh god, I'm freaking out.

I don't have a word for this feeling quite yet.
This unsettled way that I always seem to get when I stay
up too late thinking of things I never did and never will do.

Mostly though, right now, I wish that everyone was awake.
I wish that it was like day time. I wish everyone was walking
around, and driving. I wish stores were open, and mainly, I
wish there was someone that I could talk to.

Someone that I could just sit and chat idly with, over a cigarette.
Or some food, or a glass of wine. Or a beer. Fuck, I don't know.

I'm restless as fuck. I can feel my stomach churning like fucking
butter. I can feel my skin compressing my muscles, my veins, my
organs. I can feel myself shrinking. It's nights like these that the
most I can fucking do is hope that somehow I'll just pass out.


I just fucking hope that when I shut the lights off, when I close my
eyes, I'll be out for the count. I won't wake up till the sun rises.

I just fucking hope I don't lay there and stew.

"Because," she said, "I can dream for
you until you get one of your own."

And it's funny, in the way that time seems a little bit funny when
you dwell on it for too long. It becomes even less of a construct
than it even initially is. Time is theory and theory isn't something
you can hold in your hand. Not something you can grasp onto
with your skinny little fingers. Time is like inane, pointless chatter.
Does the world go from sunrise to sunset? Or sunset to sunrise?
Would it make any difference if we went from sunset to sunrise?

Sunset was the beginning of the day and sunrise the end.
If instead of having night when it's dark, we had it when it was light?
If AM was really PM and the other way around.

If you think to much about something, it makes it obsolete.
I've thought to much about time, so it doesn't exist.

That, however, does not mean that I don't have to make it to
work at exactly 6:00. At least not if I want to keep my job.

The comforts of home are something that I think of more as this part of my life comes to a close and a new part begins.

Dave's keys jingling, the line of plants on his second floor apartment window, Beau's numerous paintings, Drew's bottles of wine, Pedro.
Matt's telescope, his jazz music, the slanted wall of his staircase, extended filter cigarettes.
Max's nails clicking on the kitchen floor, the beaded chandelier on the basement ceiling, a stripped Victoria's Secret dog, Alice.
Air conditioning, incense, Law and Order: SVU, The BeeGees, grapevines.
Greta and Lucas' car seats, Sailor Jerry tattoos, a red Mustang, American Spirit cigarettes.
Six cash registers, Betty Lou's new pair of shoes, Kronos clock, red shopping carts.
A blue minivan, drinks in parks, Metrocards, the TV remote, an elevator with a door that swings out and open, italian ices.

Things that I don't need to forget.
Things that I won't.

"Take care of yourself, kid" he told me as I was leaving.
And at that time, I just laughed.

I laughed because I was young, but not much younger than him.
I laughed because I was drunk and high.
I laughed because I was happy.
I laughed because I was still running on that type of adrenaline that only live music and skin can give.

I laughed because I love laughing.
But he was right. It's important to take care of yourself...
I'm kind of the world's worst shunner of responsibility.
I'm disappointed in my inability to take care of myself.

Out the front door.
The front door.
On the street, feet pitter pattering across the same dry concrete stretch. The world looks like rain. Not the humid type, but the cold type of rain, the kind that reminds you that this season's almost over. It's time to move on. But we're not ready.
Going home.
Off the street and into the car. The car is cool. The windows are closed because of the impending rain, and the air is on. The street lights make shadows like paper cups. Nightime makes the car feels like an enclosed airtight capsle. Nothing can touch us now, but we're not reckless. It's late at night and as a being, we're understandably tired.
Going home. 
In the car, exiting the tunnel. It's pouring on the other side. Thunder and lightning are fighting but we're safe and dry and cool in our little wonder of modern technology, the car. We can't hear the thunder and lightening, we can't hear the usual cacophonic noise of the city. The neon lights make the sky pour colored droplets.
And we're home.

I sometimes wake up from strange vivid dreams like that. Where we're leaving her house and then slipping through the Holland Tunnel on the way back home. Like, I remember all the details, but only when I'm dreaming does it seem like it was once a reality.

And, I'm tired now, so very tired.

Oh god, the snow.
I'd forgotten about the snow.

It's tough to explain on days like these.

My skin feels too small and there's a lump in my
throat the size of a small country. That constant
feeling of needing to puke or cry can get to your
head fast. I'm nervous and upset and happy and
sad and angry and restless. All at once.

It's overwhelming and it's uncomfortable being me.

So I curl up in a strange position in the center of my
bed, I lay flat on my back, I curl up in fetal position
on the floor, I lay on my stomach and rest my head
on my arms, I lay on my left side, and then on my
right, but none of it's right. None.

And I don't know what to do. There's a burning in my
cells that can't be stopped and a myriad of questions in
my fucking head. It kills me to spend ten minutes thinking
about the dead baby bird on the back deck that's been
sitting there for the whole fucking day. It kills me to even
dwell on the fact that I'm angry that other animals don't
bury their fucking dead.

I don't want to be angry anymore. I want to be me again.
I want to be painfully awkward by choice like every other day.

"Give 'em all the slip" she whispers in my ear and then I'm up like a shot.
It's 4:55 AM. I finally laid down to sleep at 3:30 AM and I'm fucking tired,
but the sun is rising and that This Will Destroy You/ Lymbyc Systym song
that I fall asleep to each night and wake up to every morning is playing
so my body thinks it's time to get up but it's not.
No, no, no, it's fucking not time to get up, but I do it anyway.
I go to the bathroom, and then it sets in. Sick. I feel sick. I'm stuck to
squirm, thinking about spring-loaded snakes in a can and birthdays,
for another two and a half hours.


There's a fucking humming in my brain, in my bones, my fingertips.
A humming in the tune of summer that just won't settle because it's not just
yet summer. It's not summer with all of this rain. It's not summer if I'm fucking
shivering at night. It's not summer if my fucking pulse is ripping my neck to
shreds because I'm so restless. Fuck, I wanna go and drive somewhere,
anywhere. I want to set out in the morning and not return till night time,
with a full roll of film.

I'm wondering where the fucking sun is, I'm wondering when the
fuck the pool will be open, and I don't even like the fucking pool.

I'm just going fucking nuts in this tiny town.
On this tiny island. I'm going fucking crazy.
Fuckfuckfuck.

The windshield wipers agree with Conor's father, they
shake their fingers at me, telling me that I can't do it again.

I can't give advice for another moment without taking it
myself. I can't drink so much, can't smoke so often,
but at least I can laugh, you know?

I've watched the sunrise for the last four days.
It feels to me like last summer, when I had so much trouble sleeping at night that I'd just lay in my bed, waiting patiently for the first inkling of morning light to paint my blinds, and then I'd pass out. Only to wake up an hour later, body sore like the early morning sun had burnt the marrow in my bones. Scorched my joints, making me creak like the tin man. Cower in the shade like a lion.

Tonight it felt like early morning, the cool breeze blowin my cigarette ash about. And for a moment I forot where I was, what I was talkin about and with who, and... what season is it again?
I have trouble being tired, but being tired is my trouble. But, trouble seems trivial when you've been awake since 6:00AM yesterday and it's 5:00AM today.
A lot seems trivial when you've been awake for days.

According to Dante, I'd be in the sixth circle of hell.
The heretics.
My punishment, to burn in god's catacombs, a flaming
tomb, for eternity. When judgment day comes and I do
not pass, the lid is closed and I'm stuck, smoldering
...in a tiny pine box.
I'd also be in circle four, the hoarders and the wasters.
I'm a hoarder and a waster of time. I collect bits of time
to squander into oblivion. Sleeping, eating, killing time.

And I wonder, as I search for the reasoning behind the
strange celestial guidance that the strong part of my mind
would never allow me to have, why in all the pictures of
hell that I come across everyone is naked...

But, moving on from classic literature.
Sometimes I just want to get on a plane, a plane to anywhere.
I just want to be in the fucking sky, the clouds, breathing
recycled air. I stopped seeing this as an escape plan, but more
of a traveling plan. Traveling to nowhere. Traveling to "I don't
fucking care anymore". This is because I fell in love with a bassist
smile and kick drum eyes. Chord progressions never sounded
the same ever again. I fell in love with a brand of noise.
I like to think that I never once looked back.


You want to make God laugh, you say?
Well, I suggest that you tell him your plans for life.
That'd get more than a chuckle out of anyone.

This is dawn.
This is cartoons on a television
and streetlight conversations.
This is the dawn of a new era of noise.

I want to record all the tiny noises that you barely even
hear, mundane noises, and put them together.
Loop them to make a life-long track.

The gate in Kel's driveway creaking in the wind with crunching
leaves and a bag of chips to serve as vocals, the soft hum of the
computer and a little sigh, right in your ear is the bass.
The rhythm guitar is laughter echoing in an old parking garage and
the lead is a thousand clicking camera shutters. And then the drums.
The drums are the most important part. It saddens me that no one
seems to realize that the beat is what keeps us moving as a fucking
family. The beat is our blood and sweat: the feelings that we put
into the beautiful genius noise that some call pollution.

Have you ever not been able to feel a thing for one pristine
moment? Have you ever let that go, just stop fucking chasing
it because you accepted that you've been swept up? That this
is out of your control? It's too powerful, a shabby genteel
monster. So, you just go with it, you let it sway you, you let
the world hold you up for one single second before the room
quakes, before everyone's feet land in sync on the floor?

My drum track is a heartbeat. Kill me for the cliche, but it's
perfect and in tune with the feeling of the music. All of our
heartbeats swell as one for a quick moment, before the beautiful
fineness of discordance. And in the very background, a train
racing along the tracks can be heard.

This is my soundtrack. I am not forcing you to listen to it,
in fact, I'm not even offering. You are not worthy of mine
until you compile your very own.

Maybe, if I ignore it, it will go away.

Proverbial change.
A switch, a shift, a change.

What's strange is that I would have never
seen it, if it hadn't came in the form of a
stolen pixel picture.
Boston boys and boston girls, that certain
sound that can't ever be replaced.
The feeling is undeniable and I've never....
I've never.

Sometimes, I wake up from dreams not really knowing what happened
in them, but then later, I'll read someone's blog, and it'll all come rushing
back. It's as if, across all of these state lines, god, sometimes even fucking
oceans, everyone of us shares a slight bit of our subconscious.
My subconscious is so divided that I sometimes forget my hometown,
my name, my age. So divided that sometimes I'll answer a question with
something that is so far from the truth that I'm not even sure that I
made it up. I think, that maybe you did.
And because we operate in a strange pristine harmony, because we
have perfect form, like synchronized swimmers, the line between my
thoughts and your thoughts become fuzzy, indiscernible in my mind.
The warm type.

And every time my subconscious splits, it's like a small hiccup in our
routine. Almost like someone's nose descended too far below the water
for a quick moment, and they've breathed in water and it's caught
behind their tonsils and in their throat. Causing that tiny tickle, that
'almost cough', causing them to faltered slightly. And then like military
stepping, a double step the size of an SAT word, and you're back in line.
I can feel the cadence in my bones and since we share the same phalanges
that type and write, I know that you can feel it too.
A thrumming, humming, strumming on nylon strings, stretched taunt
across your ribs. A cage for the sound that you always wanted to make,
made for you by your loving mum and da. And when the car crashes into
the passenger side door, slams into your body, cracking your bones, I will
feel it too. I will feel when your music is set free, when the coroner hears
a tune from deep inside you, loud and clear to the ears. The image of your
face and that tune, stuck in their head for the rest of the week. I will feel
when your music escapes, seeking refuge in the curved, tired ears of the
mortician and his family. Not quite inaudible, but more muffled, murmuring,
muted... muttering.
I will feel where your music settles down, in the fingertips, the tiny
fingertips of the baby at the funeral. I will feel it settle there because
I will hear the child's fleeting elation of the meager music floating from
the casket as it's lowered into the ground, floating in swirling
fall with with leaves and freshly dry cleaned black coats.
Then snuffed out with the first shovel of dirt atop that hardwood finish.

Sometimes dirt is warm, if left out in the summer's sun.
So, please, shovel some dirt on top of my body, as a blanket.
I would like to sleep for a long time.

And all of a sudden, it hit me.
This is serious; you guys, I'm growing up.

But, I'm still the same.
Am I happy about this?
I am unsure.
Am I sad about this?
No.

Although I'm growing up, I'm still not sure I can
answer questions about my feelings accurately. I
thought that growing up meant certainty, but I'm
seeing now it doesn't mean that at all.
Time and age are gaged through numbers and I
still can't make it past college level algebra. Maybe
certainty has nothing to do with numbers? If that's
true, then there's still a chance I'll one day understand it.

In the morning it's tough to regret. I'm not sure if it has something
to do with the fact that we've been working on slowly shaving or
feelings down into nothingness, or it has something to do with the
fact that we've never felt remorse before so we're confused as to
how the feeling truly feels.

Because at night, we don't have much room to live.
And in the morning, we don't have much room to live.
And the afternoon, no, we don't have much room to live.
All the fucking time, there's no fucking room. Goddamn it.

And we start to get scared in this strange small place between
the bed and the wall. We start to feel claustrophobia setting in
and oh god, we can't fucking breathe anymore and we're
screaming and screaming and screaming, but no one can hear us,
because we're suffocating. Panicking prevalence.
And then everything's black, and beautiful. You can hold your breath
until you pass out but no one can hold their breath after they've passed
out. It's involuntary, like blinking. It's one last tick of the suicide clock.
It's one last botched hope that wasn't backed with proper research.

And I can't help what's easy and undeniable. I can't help the noise in the
background and the grain in the photos. I can't help anything because I
lost my faith in all higher control so long ago that I'm not sure I ever even
had faith to begin with. And I'm laughing now on a bedroom floor, for every
naked, cold, scarred look, cause they'll be a hundred more that will never
have to experience that. It all boils down to privilege. I want these fucking
kids that I have to go to school with to understand one day what it's like to
not have everything fucking wrapped in a pretty little package and handed to them.

Why are my entries so fucking long as of late?

There's always going to be something that I wish I had done but never did. Maybe even never got the chance to. And that fleeting moment, that fleeting window of opportunity, will never be opened again like a lockbox with the key lost.
And, I'm warning you now. If you personally know me, in real life, I plan to use names in the next part of this entry. If we spend time together, you will recognize names and you may be able to put faces to them. And since I know that this isn't so hidden anymore, that people do read it, I'm going to warn you that you may even be included in this. Alright, so it's less of a warning, but more of a heads up. This is going to be the least cryptic entry I've ever written.
I think of photography daily. It's actually a constant thing, everything that I see is turned into individual photographs. I am going to type out a list of photos that I wish I had taken. That I wish I had gotten my camera out in time to capture it forever and immaculate on film.


James and Kevin, sitting on each end of a park bench next to their bikes. James with a cigarette in one hand and a black sweatshirt with Wingnut Dishwasher's Union spray painted on the front.

Danny lying on his stomach on my bed, back when it was just the mattress on the floor, with a comic in his hand. Only one light on, casting shadows under my desk.

Pat outside of Catch 22's Winnebago clutching a poster he got from Ed and a pack of Native American cigarettes, the kind you don't have to pay taxes on.

David and Drew in the kitchen with red dye staining their fingers and David's pants, ingredients for a cake visible behind them. Pedro standing on the foremost counter, in the right corner, out of focus.

Brittany sitting by the merch table smiling next to the display of earplugs, water, and tee shirts, with my favorite security guard sitting behind her, eating the peanut butter cups that I bought.

Mike standing right next to that pole on the corner, almost leaning against it, with a cigarette, his glasses slightly crooked, his mouth open in mid-sentence.

From the back seat, Jessie smoking a cigarette out the driver's window, looking straight ahead while Sam talks to him from the passenger's seat, her head turned, looking at him.

Joanna on Halloween, in her detective costume, standing on a stack of wood that's tall enough to let her see over the heads of a great circle of people crowded around a group of street performers.

James at the Hook in Red Hook Brooklyn. In the little enclosed courtyard out the side door, his back facing the gate that the instruments and equipment came through earlier. Slightly overcast day, slipping carefully into night, dusk. A door leaning on hit's side to his right with a perfect number five spray painted on it.

Cody sitting on the washing machine (or maybe it was a dishwasher?) in the corner of his kitchen.

David sitting on my bed, this time the mattress is on the frame, with one of my bras cupped so as to make a circle of sorts, up to his face, pretending that it's a gas mask.

Rob bent over, breaking up a dub on top of a borrowed dollar bill on the little counter next to the sink in the basement of that church on the corner. The one that they somehow found keys to and have a habit of trespassing. A purple pipe, a green bowl, a box of matches, and a half finished cigarette next to him.

Kevin and Mariano (who is wearing a hat with ear flaps) in some park in V.S., Mariano rubbing his hands together for warmth with a smile on his face, Kevin, brow wrinkled in concentration, sparking up.

From the backseat, the well lit sign in front of In & Out lighting up the front on the car. Scott in the driver's seat, head turned towards the window which is mostly open, only allowing you to see the back of his head. PJ's head and shoulders are leaned slightly into the car, the brim of his hat blocking out his eyes. It's clear that they're fighting by the way that PJ's mouth is poised.

Emily and Michelle standing next to the concrete pole in the parking lot near Dunkin, Michelle lighting a cigarette with a barbecue lighter, Emily in a fit of laughter.

Jay Tea leaning against the wood paneled wall of VP South with a half full pint of beer, which is certainly not his first. His mouth is open, he's yelling at the guy in the sound booth because the beginning of the Flaming Tsunami's set is just a phone ringing for five minutes straight.

David's fish tank light on, everything else turned off, casting a warm, orange tinted glow on everything. He's laying partially under the covers, on his side, facing towards the drawers and the heater. A smooth expanse of back is showing, highlighted on it's start near his hip, but faded into shadows.

Taylor sitting on the floor in her room, drunk, playing with her new cat and laughing. Her girlfriend, Shan, Steph, and Katherine are visible in the background, crowded around the computer taking photobooth pictures.

Terri laughing at Kelsey in Union Bagels. Really laughing, not just that little half smile, because what she said was really funny.

Emily in her Daria costume. The black knit ski hat with flaps and tassels, the skirt, the green jacket, and those shiny black lace-up boots.

Kelsey and Joanna in the basement of Five Pointz. It's dark, almost too dark to see, but you can just make out the piles of clothing scraps littering the floor and the creepy as shit cobwebbed sewing machines. It's not posed, their faces are slack in observation, their heads slightly turned away from the camera.

Shan standing outside of Union Bagels waiting for us to finish our cigarettes, disposable camera in hand, talking to Emily about something. The sun is high and bright in the sky.

Matt, in Scott's car, driving down Scranton, smoking a cigarette out the window while playing some skating game on his iPhone. Charlie in the foreground, out of focus, his mouth open, talking to someone in the front seat, the collar of his coat hiding his chin.

Katie in a leather jacket with her nose red from cold and crying, sitting on the floor in the box at the train station. The florescent lights giving her an eerie glow. Safety pin in hand, cleaning out her pipe, a mostly full forty of Olde English to her right. Ryan, from the knees down, wearing jeans, in the left corner.

Meggy sitting at Vince's kitchen table, her skinny arms, skinny wrist, skinny hand holding a cigarette. Denny out of focus on a stool behind her. Smoke clouded around her as she types on her phone. An ashtray as well as two beer cans, a pack of Marlboro Reds, and a cup of orange juice on the table in front of her.

Nick sitting in his computer chair, next to his TV. He's looking forward but he's laughing at the movie on TV.

JP pouring Bacardi into the fire pit at V.S. State Park and then lighting the leaves on fire. His body illuminated against the background of silhouetted trees and somewhere in the distance lights on the highway.

The boy at the Museum of the Moving Image with a too small, dark blue Sonic Youth shirt, skinny jeans, a backpack, and yellow shoe laces.

Dan coming down the stairs from the perspective of someone going up the stairs, at Webster Hall. His face open in a smile and a greeting. His cheeks ruddier than usual in the strange red glow from the light at the top of the staircase that's reflected off the mirror above.

Tom at the Knitting Factory, from outside on the line, with the curtain on one of the windows pulled up. His smile comically large, his hand waving.

Ryan standing outside of In & Out, talking to Kelsey who is sitting on the curb with her coat pulled close around her. Kelly looking uncomfortable in the background. Almost not associating herself with the

Someone's ex-girlfriend, sitting on top an amp outside of a venue in R.V.C., head down. The sun is bright and hot, but she's wearing a black sweatshirt. Connor is visible in the corner of the picture, from chest down. No shirt, no shoes. Green socks and loose jeans.

Emel smoking a cigarette in a blue coat, outside of the school, in the street as not to be smoking on school property, at 9:00AMin the pouring rain.

Evan sitting on a blue rolling chair in front of the door out of the computer lab. The room behind him is lit up but the lab is dark. He has headphones in and is scrolling through his ipod with disinterest.

Britt lying on the table in the printmaking room, her hair splayed out, next to a pile of coats and bags, almost blending in.

Kelsey in Search & Destroy on St. Marks, rifling through a rack of second hand shirts that are organized in color order, wearing a short black dress and tall black boots.

David sitting on a stool in the back of VP South, in the fenced in area, the band's vans and cars are visible through the fence. People that may of may not be Jay Tea and Doug are out of focus in the background, smoking cigarettes.

Johnny's little brother sitting in a chair in Vince's all-white basement, dead asleep, the lights hitting his freshly dyed green hair. People in the background playing a "riveting game" of beer pong.

Brendon in the kitchen of his apartment, arm outstretched toward the fridge door, mouth open in question.

Dave lying in my bed at three in the afternoon, orange sunlight in the winter, all the blankets pulled up around him, bunching in a circle around his face like the mane of a lion.

Joanna standing by the dresser upstairs, the sloping ceiling making her look taller, leaning over to blow out incense on a rainy Sunday.

Vinny in Vince's all-white basement, directly under one of the lights, sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table where a homemade gravbong is sitting. Shot from behind, the blurred figures of Sean, John, and Nicole sitting on the couch in front of him visible through the spikes on his head.

Beau standing in the front doorway, afternoon sun as backlighting. A rust colored scarf tied around his waist and grease from his bike smeared on his nose.

Matt sitting on my wooden chair back when the pile of laundry in the basket used to sit right next to it. Leaned over in jeans with a hole in one knee and a hooded black sweatshirt. Fiddling with a half empty soft, battered, pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes.

Sam and Jenna sitting across from Sam, Jesse, and I at a strange wood panneled, lace curtained diner. Sam leaning forward, hand outstreched towards a plate of french fries that are out of focus in the foreground.

Tom leaning against the wall behind Tofu. Red sweatshirt, black coat, black hat, hood up, that fucking giant earring and a disaffected look on his face. Cigarette in hand.

Shane and Jon is Shane's basement sitting on one of the couches, trying to play some unidentified driving game with a guitar hero controller because the regular controller is broken.

JP under the streelight by the curch, leaning back against the hood of Sean's blue minivan at night. Four kids sitting on the sidewalk in the background. JP's head is titled towards the sky, watching the stars.

Griffin in the underground garage by the Starbucks. Held up by Jesse, in a headlock. Arms blurred with the motion of fighting back. Both boys wear identical broad smiles, betraying the idea that they are really fighting, but instead just rough housing.

Ashley lying on her back in Vinny's backyard on a warm September day. John with the Black Flag tattoo and some other kid that I can't really remember the name of, who my possible be one of Vinny's "cousins" on either side of her. Far enough to almost be out of the frame. The air above and around them is heavy with smoke. Ashley is laughing, sun filtering through the tree branches, casting shadows.

Jimmy leaning over into the crowd at VP South, basically held up by them, in short shorts and a pair of high top hounds tooth Circa's just like the ones I had in low tops. Sweaty strings of hair that have got to be in his face, microphone presses against his halfway open lips. Fucking drunk as hell, and probably singing the wrong words.

Two kids from Staten Island, outside of the Knitting Factory. One of them in a striped sweater, smoking a cigarette, Marlboro Reds, the pack sticking out of his pocket. Both of them staring straight ahead at the camera, the smoking one smiling as he exhales, the other one mid sentence.


I am beyond not done. I promise you that in future entries there will be more descriptions of pictures that I wish I had taken, but never did.

I'm feeling a lot better about my current standing in life than I was when I wrote my last entry. All in all, I realized that the music that I listen to, the things that I read, the classes that I go to, the food that I eat, and the people that I spend time with could make me feel two completely different superlatives, depending on the day or the situation. The trick is that I have to realize that I'm the one controlling these superlatives. It's going to take a long time. That, I do know. In fact, I may not actually ever successfully convince myself of this, but the strongest thing in my mind right now is that this time I'm not lying to myself.

Sure, I still wake up thinking that life sucks, but maybe that's how everyone wakes up?

And lately I've spent less time freaking myself out about my future and more time actually vocalizing it. It makes me feel awkward at first, but I hope it's helping.
BUT, enough of me being blunt about my life. Frankly, that's boring.

Instead of blathering on I'm going to tell you about how happy I felt to wake up to a snow day. This sort of residual happiness that comes with still sort of being a child. Even though I knew that I'd have to shovel the car out and clean the windows and the lights. Even though I knew that I'd have to shovel the walk and the driveway and the steps, it was still this thrilling prospect. I want to tell you about how bright everything is at night, after snowfall. Because god, it's fucking beautiful and deafening. It's so isolating and I always have trouble sleeping because of the bubbling uncertainty in my stomach and what feels like glaring-fucking-sun, even though I know that it's the moon. Smoking a quick cigarette at 3:00AM while the snow was still coming down, right in through my window and soaking through my sleeves where I had my elbows resting on the sill.
Quite, pure white quiet that I can feel suffocating me in the most positive way possible. Clean white sound, saccharine silence to my ears. I know all about the cold snow on my feet the next morning while I walk to get some fucking tea and food, and the way that my fingers will certainly sting as I try to suck down a quick cigarette before class, and the way that the cars and feet are going to make muddy slush puddles in this pristine white, ruining the effect. The way that the sun is going to cause meager clouds of evaporating water to rise from the pavement, unbeknownst to those who aren't looking. (I'm not even sure if that last one should be listed with the other unpleasantries since it can actually be quite beautiful.)
I know about all that shit that makes snow the biggest suck-fest '09 just north of New Jersey, but somehow this strange excited feeling still remains instilled in me since the day we met. A snowday! chant running through, mantra-like for the whole day.
And it goes from freezing my feet off in my black and neon green handmedown snow boots from the fucking 80's so that I can watch you two making asses of yourselves and then napping in a too small bed, in a too hot room, trying so hrd not to focus on my fear of suffocation.

I don't even want to end this eloquently. We are cutting it off right now. I'm tired.

It's okay, I know:
TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ

I am too tired to go back in and fix my grammar and make this presentable because it's almost 3:30AM and I need a fucking cigarette and probably a beer even though I just had a good amount of alcohol a few hours ago, and I'm just so fucking sick and tired of life. In conclusion, I can't make this entry presentable because I'm fucking depressed. Yeah, I finally said it, I'll elaborate on it further down the page.

And do you know what's really nuts? I loved it the minute that I heard it. Really, I did. But I have got to shut it off, right fucking now, because I'm going to fucking throw up, or cry, or something equally as unpleasant. I don't know what it is, maybe all of this appreciation can't stay inside of me, can't stay there churning my stomach up, each note gnawing at my small intestine, the gang vocals scraping their way up my spine, the smashing piano itching at my palms and everything about his words unsettling me in the best way fucking possible.

I JUST WANT EVERYONE THAT I LOVE OR APPRECIATE TO FUCKING KNOW THAT I DO.

So, tops on my list of things that are totally bumming me out the hardest is the fact that two of cameras broke. I didn't realize that so much of my life was in a little bit of purple plastic. And, you know I wouldn't be so fucking bummed if I didn't keep looking at all these awesome photographs. Because, god, sometimes I feel like I do this to myself. I feel like maybe subconsciously I want to be fucking miserable, that way I have something to legitimately complain about (even though that is why I want to live in NY forever. New York will never disappoint if you're looking for things to be disappointed with.), so I just do things that will prolong my depression. See, fuck, I'm even doing it right fucking now. By writing about it in here, I'm thinking about it and fucking bumming myself out.

So, maybe today feels a little bit like one of those days that I wake up in this awful funk of nerves and everything attached to my bones, and my bones, feel broken and ugh, Idon'tfuckingknow. Maybe it feels a little bit like one of those days that I skip all my classes, throw up a little bit, lay curled up in bed, and smoke a cigarette and feel marginally better by seven at night.
You see, it's like this. It's an unsatisfiable itch in the back of my brain, or weighing down my shoulders, sitting heavy in my brow, or tearing my stomach to fucking shit-shreds. It so messed up, since it's not a need for nicotine, since I've tried that, and it's not that I need to sleep, (well, I probably do, but I know that's not it), and it's not any other problem that I can think of the fucking solution to. It's just a feeling of complete and utter... maybe, helplessness? Or, just, I don't want to fucking say it again, but I am so unsettled. That's really the only way for me to describe it. Okay, that's a fucking lie. Because guess what, I haven't been wanting to bring this up, I haven't wanted to dredge this shit up into the light because I'm trying to not make it a big deal, especially since I don't particularly know how many people really read this, but there's a better word to describe my general discomfort with life. Do you know what that word is? It's depressed. I fucking hate thinking that it's true, it's really fucking true, but.. exactly that: it's really fucking true. Because balanced humans should not be sad and stagnant like this. They just fucking shouldn't. And it's just gonna get worse, I know it is. It's gonna get worse when I move and can't get a job and can't see my boyfriend. It's gonna get worse when I fucking hate my major and want to drop out of school. It's gonna get worse when I don't change my major because I have all these issues with decisions, and by issues I mean I actually can't make my own decisions because clearly I'm a fucking child. It's gonna get worse when I graduate and hate my life because I hate my major, and I can't get a fucking job. It's gonna get worse when I'm not where I want to be, because apparently I'm just learning that people are rarely where they want to be. This new found knowledge clearly professes the fact that I'm a fucking child. It's gonna get worse when I'm not living where I wanna live and doing what I wanna do and making the money that I wanna make and having enough time to myself, enough free time to get my head around the little thing. It's gonna get worse when I have bills I can't pay and a life I don't want. God, I'm so fucking young, what the fuck am I doing.


I was talking to Tommy and Bar-Shaan about moving to Portland and I'm actually really considering it. Like, not for a long time or anything, not a permanent stay, but maybe for a summer or a spring, just like one season. Or, more than one if I really like it there. But, tops a year. You'll understand why I give myself limitations like that when you become me.

Things that are tangible, things that
I can hold in my hand, things that I
can feel or touch, things that I can
measure easily, physically.

Three things that are not tangible:
1. Music
2. Physical pain
3. Emotion

When I was in the hospital, the surgeon
asked me to choose a number, on a scale
from one to ten, of how bad the pain was.
When I asked what constituted a one, he
told me that pain is different for everyone.
That there's no way for someone else to
determine what a one is on my scale of pain.


(...Before you read the next part, I want to
let you know that I don't mean to be angst-y.)

This is what I tried to tell you this morning.
But, godfuckingdamnit, you never fucking listen
to me. You never fucking listen to me and then
I have to start fucking shouting. I have to start
fucking shouting because I translate the fact that
you're ignoring me as you not hearing me. And
because I think you can't hear me, I shout louder,
and then you fucking shout over me, and then
neither of us can hear one another. Fuck it.

You said some really shitty things this morning
and if you think that those were okay things to
say to me, then you were sorely mistaken. I'm not
sure exactly how to deal with it, but I pray you
trust me: I will fucking deal with this as I see fit.

WHO THE FUCK DO YOU
THINK YOU ARE, HUH?
If I ever, ever, witness that again,
I will be slapping some bitches.

I am fucking livid, that's what I am.
Who the fuck brought you up to think
like that? They should be shot and as
should you. In fact, I think I'll do
it myself. Clearly one must take moral
law into their own hands in situations
such as this.
Check it: I'm a fucking vigilante.

I don't like Jimmy Kimmel but I was in too
much pain to actually get up and change the
channel, so when Dov Davidoff came on I was
still watching the TV.
It hit me like a punch in the fucking gut,
(which I really don't need right now).
Because, god, he moves just like him. Like,
well, basically, like he's hyped pretty
hard on drugs. His voice, the content of
his jokes, just like him.
I'm laughing, just like I'd be laughing if
it were him, but it still hurts. Fuck, it does.
God, I miss them.
I'd love to go back, just once.

I guess what I'm trying to convey, to asseverate,
is that I'm always going to miss something, to
miss someone, and I'm always going to hurt.
SOME THINGS MUST BE OVERLOOKED TO KEEP ON LIVING.


Also, I know I never believed in karma, but it's
funny, if I did, I wouldn't now. I don't know
what I did to deserve it but I have some awesome
friends. A friend of mine drove all the way from
his house to mine, after hearing that I didn't
feel good, with some pretty strong pain killers
and a stuffed hedgehog. I'm not sure if the idea
that he did that made me feel better, or if it
was just the awesome pills.

It's funny that I know exactly what to
say at certain times. I know what to say
to create the outcome that I want to see,
but I wonder if I really mean it.

I mean, if it occurred to me at all, then
there must be some truth in it. But, I can't
help but wonder if anything that I think or
say is really true. Is it just a reflection
of what I wish I was. Is there a giant reserve
of true and clean ideas in my head that I have
yet to tap into because society daily helps me
ignore? And if I were to move away. To cut off
contact. To become self-reliant, for everything.

Would my opinions change?
And if they did, (no, when they did, since they
would without a doubt), would it just be the
change in situation, in circumstance? Or, would
it really be that reserve?
That true, clear, pristine opinionated treasure.

Sometimes I forget to mention things.
This happened probably nine days ago.

If it wasn't cold.
If my fingers weren't freezing,
hanging out of the car window
with my cigarette. If I wasn't
hanging out with some kid in
flannel and this swell hat, and
another with a thick handmade
scarf, well, I'd think I was
west coasting it. With all the
Sublime and all the weed...
I was almost feeling sunny.

I want a cigarette so bad that panic is crawling and
scrambling up the inside of my stomach. Digging it's
claws into my stomach lining and my throat. It's
gripping my tonsils and cutting off my airflow,
making me breathless and dizzy.

Fuck! I'm crawling out of my skin and I'm not even
sure if it's just the need to satisfy my addiction.
Although, it shouldn't be more than that. Today was
a pretty good day. So, I'm going to use the fact that I
need a cigarette so bad that I'm flipping as a segue
into a thought that is jumpy and makes no sense:
(Oh, and it took me about two minutes and thirty misspellings of the word
segue to get it right. Fuck, I'm loosing my touch on words here.)

The light from the computer screen illuminates my
hands, my face, my arms, and my shoulders; tapering
off once past there. But, mostly it catches my hands.
They look naturally pale but that's not what I'm so
engrossed in. The light makes every single line in my
hand stand out in relief. This strange stark contrast
that looks like a mix of snake skin and age. Scars, the
scars from age, not just age as an abstract concept.
I've never thought about it, but in this very moment,
in this very light, they're almost beautiful. I guess
I'm thinking about what Dave and I were talking about
today. About life experience. I almost feel like each little
line represents something that I learned in my life that
I've actually used more than once.
I suppose that once I'm grown. Once I've stopped living.
Once I know everything, my hands will appear smooth
because the lines will have covered everything, taking a
full layer off of the top. It's strange that the most
experienced would be the cleanest, least calloused hands.

Oh, and I am totally talking out of my ass, because it is
2:16AM and there is no way anyone can make coherent
sentences, especially not if said person maybe didn't sleep
so well last night, smoked too much weed today and almost
fell asleep standing at work, and is seriously bugging out
because of this lack of nicotine.
No one, and I seriously mean no one, should listen to what I'm saying.
Jesus Christ, I'm going to puke if I don't smoke a cigarette.

BRB, PUKING; LAWLZ.

God, Jesus, fuck.
Shit, fuck, Christ.

WHAT DO YOU WANT
ME TO FUCKING SAY?

Do you want me to tell you that I don't know
what to do? Is that what you want me to tell
you? Because I fucking will if that's what
you need to hear. I'm trying to be honest with
you, but you have to give me direction. I don't
have a fucking solution for this shit. I don't
have help that you're not too fucking proud to
take. I don't have anything to give you is
the bottom line.

Basically, I just wanna fuck shit up. Now.

You know how you see in movies, when someone
knocks everything off of a table with one epic
swipe of an arm? Just like, glass shattering all
over the floor and shit just like exploding up
into the air, cascading down in slow motion.
Pieces of everything integrated with the air;
it's like breathing the most satisfying disaster.

(totally worth particles in your lungs)

And always, always, always: that fucking look of
pure animal-instinct-anger/frustration/desperation.
It's a beautiful and terrifying sweep of emotion.
A display of steel-strong emotion.
The fucking sweetest.

Well, I don't know if sometimes I feel like doing
that or I feel like watching someone do that in real
life. Just totally destroying something like that.
Shit, man.

It's unsettling.
I've forgotten to miss you.

I'm pretty content with watching crappy
TV on Christmas. Crappy TV that I know
for a fact I watched last year.
I'm pretty content with sleeping on Christmas,
in a bed made solely of blankets in a room that
always smells like incense and weed. 
I'm pretty content with smoking a bowl on Christmas
and eating a dinner made of side dishes afterward.
I'm pretty content with spending time on Christmas with
friends in Sam's living room, complaining about music.

I've been pretty content lately.
It's grounding.

I don't know if what I'm getting myself
into is really what I'm interested in.

I'm so scared.
I don't want to ruin you more than
the rest of your fucking life has.

At least we have fun right now.
You're about living in the moment, aren't you?

I don't have much left to give right now.
On Saturday all I could think about
was how I wanted out but now, I'm
not so sure that I really do.

I'll explain, more in depth, at some
point. A point when I'm not completely
fucking miserable all of the time.
All of the time.
Thanks, you fuck.

It makes me upset when I look at all of the people around me who aren't doing what they want to be doing. It makes me wonder exactly what went wrong, where did their plan fail? Which then leads me into the thoughts of "when will my plan fail"? And, for that matter "what the hell is my plan, anyway"?

Because, god, I have like thirty million different stupid plans. One day, will I look back and say to myself "remember that time that I thought I was going to be an illustrator, god what a joke." or "remember that time that I wanted to major in advertising and package design, well, looks like that didn't work out." or "remember that time that I wanted to live in Brooklyn, never got there, now did I?" or "remember that time that I wanted go on tour with some band, as a tech or a merch kid, or something- did I really think that was going to happen?".

And, it's terrifying, because I don't want to get stuck doing something that I do not want to be doing. I see that too often, daily in fact. I see people stuck in places in their lives that they just shouldn't be stuck it. That they just shouldn't have to be stuck in. That they just don't deserve to be stuck in.
And I'm not sure if it's real misfortune or just laziness, but either way, I'm fucking screwed. I'm unlucky and I'm damn lazy.

I'm having an existential crisis. It's pretty fucking lame.

I sometimes wonder if the lady that reads the lottery
numbers ever thinks about who's listening to her. I
wonder if she really ever thinks about lottery at all.
I wonder what her opinion about lottery in general is.

I wonder if she ever imagines all of those
people listening with rapt attention, only to her.


Lottery players make me sad.

And Blake says I should quit, and it's funny because
the first thing out of my mouth is "If you give me a
legitimately good reason to quit, I will.". The thing is
I don't think before I speak and I don't think I can
actually come up with a decent reason to do so.

My legs shake like earthquakes and light looks like
bandages, wrapped around our skin at night. I'm not
scared of the dark, but this coat keeps me warm, sated,
and happy. I miss everything about New York weekends
and I just want to move out of this town. There's so many
other things I'd rather do. But, fuck I'm so lost. I feel like...
sometimes I might be going crazy. This whole routine isn't
working out and I don't have the time or energy to change it.

My elbows itch, this cardigan's too small, and my pants sit
low on my hips because my belt doesn't hold them up any longer.
My shoelaces are tucked in my shoes because sometimes I forget
they're there and I'm afraid I'll trip over them, forget to throw
my hands out to break my fall and smash my nose. It's not
a real fear, or not in the paralyzing sense, but at least I'm truthful.

I wish the world was flat like the old days.
Then I could travel just by folding a map.

It might not be my idea, but it sure is a good one.

That simple line about poisonous leaves and childish bravery opens
up this giant pocket of memories that I had no clue it was even possible
to miss so much. Just to be with them, for one more day, like it used to
be, would be all I needed to heave myself out of this stupid slump.

It puts me in pain to think of the way we laughed at the bottom of his
staircase. My stomach aches thinking of the way her feet pointed in as
she leaned on her knees to draw, his fucking fisherman hat, the couch,
the TV, the dirty pair of Vans by the front door.
Even his hellish dog, I miss it all.


In addition to missing that, I also miss Jon and Shane's attempt to play
a racing game with a guitar hero controller,  prom night in the rain, the
heat of the subway and getting lost on the way to Kew Gardens. I miss
the time we went to 5 Pointz, Gries Park in the wintertime, the advent
calenders and smoking in Shane's car, drinking red label and watching Logo,
and all of those stupid stupid ideas that we had and carried out.

It's not even that I really spent all that much time in any of these
situations, it's the fact that I know I was happier back then. That
mindset seems unattainable now, and if I knew what I could do
to change that, I'd do it in an increment less than a heartbeat.
The only problem is that the root of all this seems to be
growing up, which is irreversible and inevitable.

What it all boils down to is the fact that I miss having free time
to do what I want to do with the people that I really love.

I always read in books, see in movies, hear in songs, about that
horrible, desolate period of nothingness and wasting after breaking
up with someone. I've never hurt so much I couldn't eat. I've never
cried over someone like that. Which, I can only logically deduce,
must mean that I've never been in love. The thing is, love's not logical
like that (although, quite apparently, it's filled with silly cliches.).I don't
mind chilling out alone for the rest of my short life, just as long as I've
still got friends. And now I'm laughing because I've never been in love.

I'm not sure if my hilarious laughter is just a touch too close to panic,
or if I seriously think this situation is funny. I've been fucked up lately,
(and I earnestly hope that I'm fucked up tomorrow too), so I'm not so
sure of what I'm really feeling.
But if laughter's the best medicine, then I'm fucking cured!

Kelsey says they're like cattle, the kids in our school.
They travel in droves, herded from class to class.
She says that sometimes, over the roar of their voices,
she hears animal noises, like the cafeteria is a barn.

I think that she's right, but not for the same reasons.

The way that words are.

That's all I feel like writing. Because any more
would be a bad idea, just like it was a bad idea
to go drunk and high to work on Tuesday.

It's nights like these that are the problem. The nights where all I can think
about is this one totally unattainable dream of mine. and I watch all these
fucking videos and look at these photos, and look at how they live and I
want it so hard that it hurts, and all I can do is just smoke a fucking cigarette
and then like, procrastinate on the papers I have to write, and take some
fucking pills to finally go to sleep.
But I still fucking wake up in this horrible funk, like I was dreaming about
being one of them and then when my alarm went off, I realized that it was
just a fucking dream and I was so fucking devastated. I have no idea what
I should really think about this shit, but fuck, I don't know.

Because it's like, shit, I could be painting, or fucking writing or something
but I can't get everything into words fast enough for any of it make sense
at all, in the fucking least, and I just wanna grow up.
There's this thing that Jason Dill said about New York in an Epicly Later'd
show and he was like "New York, when I first came here was like if you
were nine years old and fucking hated school and you wanted to eat
whatever fucking shit you wanted to eat and you didn't want to do a
goddamn thing and your parents were just dope addicts and they didn't
give a fucking shit and you'd just go outside and it was as if your whole
neighborhood was like kids filled with that same deal, like their parents
didn't give a fuck, you'd go play and do whatever the fuck you want and
the streets were lined with candy and fucking like slides and like rope
swings into pools and that's what it felt like when I first got to New York.
Like, I don't have to do fucking shit, this is awesome, I can fucking smoke
weed and do all these fucking drugs just like whoo! You just like step
outside and you just like get conveyed into the fucking clubs and
bars and phyconess, and..."

And I don't know if it's because I've always lived here, or whatever, but
I don't feel that. I want to fucking feel that, but I'm so fucking attached
to this stupid-ass dirty place that I don't want to move but I think that
the only way that I'll ever feel that is if I move. It's like, when I go to
visit someone else for a few days and everything's so chill, and I can do
whatever the fuck I want and everything's so fucking novel and there
are all these new people to meet and make fun of and like totally fucking
fall in love with because they're so damn awesome, but I don't think I'll
be able to feel that for my whole time living somewhere, so I guess I'll
just have to keep traveling all over the place, and not have some grounded
place to go back to. But the problem is that I have to much fucking shit to
carry with me from place to place, and I would consolidate if I fucking could,
but like everything's so important and familiar that I can't. And, I don't know
where I'm going with this, because I really have to write that fucking paper,
and whatever, but I'm so fucking stuck in this ridiculous mindset where I'm
like a couple of years older and just like fucking having the time of my life
and the sad thing is that I just can't realistically see that ever happening.
Life feels like such a giant waste if I can't do exactly what I want to do and
get fucking paid for it, but there's nothing that I like to do that I'd ever
actually get paid for, and like.... I don't fucking know.

And, I'm really sorry if you read this and it makes no sense to you, because
I just kept typing up the shit that I was feeling and I didn't really go over it
to see what I fucked up on, or whatever, and I've been going crazy because
I've been working so damn much and I haven't been sleeping and I just had
my first proper meal in a few days, so do, please excuse me, but I sincerely
hope there's someone, anyone, out there who reads this and is like "fuck,
that's what I've been feel lately- like I'm crawling out of my skin because
my mind is growing through years, but my fucking body is the same age."
because then maybe we could split the cost of one of those fucking storage
spaces and throw all our extraneous shit in it and take all this fucking saved
money and just go. Just fucking go, and just fucking be.

The morning cigarette is the killer of all. Anyone who has ever been a
smoker knows that. It has you grasping, riding on a nicotine bliss-out,
and then it's dead. However, it seems, it's still lingering in your finger,
your hair, your sweatshirt sleeves- remnants floating in your lungs,
reminding you that your next cigarette is much too far away.


Today I woke up way too late for that morning cigarette; energy drinks
are a piss-poor substitute. They leave a crave that claws at my insides
worse than usual. It gets hard to breathe, just thinking about the first drag.

I'm dying cause I can't smoke, but I'm killing myself when I do.
What a fucking conundrum.

I'll think, if winter comes, no wait, when winter comes,
because it will, (the rotation of the seasons hasn't failed
me yet) I'll be back in control. It'll be free time, cold hands,
cold kisses. It'll be my safewarmandsecure coat in the woods
in Queens with a beer in my hand (drinks never get warm in
the winter like they do in the summer, because every thing's
so cold, which is awesome cause I hate warm beer!). It'll be
crystal breath and red high in everyone's cheeks.
People are more beautiful in wintertime.

Matt tells me this winter it won't snow. I haven't wrapped
my head around why I'm so despondent. (to sit down and
think about it requires time that I don't have). He tells me,
while we sit on the back porch smoking cigarettes, waiting
for the methadone to kick in, that the snow insulates us-
quiet and serene.
It makes me scared to think that winter may be different.
It makes me scared to think hat while winter usually grounds
me- the cold like slap in the face (stunning for a moment, and
then subduing)- this winter may not be the same. Witout my
seasonal grounding, I'm afraid of that well-learned downward spiral .

In winter I'm invincible. Paralyzed by cold instead of fear.

It's hard to sleep when everything in my
mind is spinning. It's not the drugs, since
I'm not on a thing. (I'm sober, aside from
nicotine.) All I want is undisturbed sleep
for a few good hours.

That, and, dreams of liberation.

When it comes down to it, home and
house are not the same words. At all.

Honestly, the worst part is that I just don't know when
you're kidding. Sometimes, you seem so serious that the
after-laugh is just a few octaves too high to be true.


I haven't slept for real in days.
That mostly explains why I keep slipping in and out. My
ears are like the radio tuner in my brothers car. Unless
you've got it just right, on the spot, it sounds fuzzy.
Some days I act fairly normally. I conform to society, and
interact in a normal way. But, other days, I just go crazy.
I just make up these giant spun webs of bullshit. When I
close my eyes I can see a beautiful and intricate web of ideas,
with little drops of dew glistening on some strands. It might be
visually appealing, but the fact that it is all lies, lies, lies, fails to
be overlooked. They may be hilarious, awesome lies-
but lies all the same.

Some days I wake up from a small nap and it feels like I've
climbed a few flights of stairs. But, then it all rushes back to me.
Three or four hours have gone by, and I have been walking up stairs.
I've also been actively participating in class.
Holy shit, I feel like the walking dead.

I fear for the day that my head gets the best of me. The day that
I finally thin out after years of eating less and less until I become
emaciated, and I can fold my spindly arms and legs into my body.
I can curl up into a tiny ball and perish, because I no longer desire
to live in this half world.
And, it's happening again, right as we fucking speak. The exhaustion's
so intense that I can't even think about sleep. I'm so fucking awake.
I haven't slept for real in days.

During the day, things are good. Mostly. Really
good, in fact. I feel warm, relaxed, heavy, and
high. In the shade of his backyard, with drug
dealers, addicts, and old friends, I am content
to lay on my back in the grass with my eyes closed.

The air is smoky and their peaceful chatter
intertwines with the smoke tendrils. The words drip
steadily into my ears: jail, rehab, prohibition, psych
wards. The sun is low, flashing in my eyes when I hand
my baby bowl over to the kid with the black flag tattoo.

I listen to an offer. Vin says he'll take gold for some
coke, but I'm too settled, sated, to even laugh at the
strangeness of me being in such an environment.
I grin, and everything is good.

It's at night that things are bad. Well, not night, really.
According to the circadian rhythm of most people, it's early
morning. I feel lonely. I can never get as comfortable lying
in my bed as I am on his lawn, or the floor, or the train
platform. It's too cold, or too warm, or too empty.
Mostly, too empty.
I lay awake, stiff as a board, arms, legs, and back straight.
Streamlined.
I'm empty and lonely and angry that I can't fall asleep.
I love the drugs, for the most part, but sometimes they're shit.

Life is crippling.

Real feelings have always seemed like a shitty topic with you,
so I avoided them, but this is unavoidable. It either stems from
annoyance and avoidance, complete neglect, or maybe even
lack of conversational topics. Most things have stopped mattering
lately, disappointingly enough, this doesn't happen one of them.

Hey, look, this doesn't mean that I'm not appreciative of everyone
else, it just means I was hoping that you would not forget. You did.
(I'm a needy, expectant, person. I don't know when it happened,
but at least I'm coming to terms with it. I'm seriously accepting it.)

I now know the real meaning of growing pains.
HA.

For an enemy, I'm a
pretty awesome friend.

Light blinks heavy in my eyes. My pupils dilate and
my eyes prickle. They sting. They're dry and they
almost feel sandy because I'm so accustom to this dark.
Ouch, and my body is laden. I'm creaking with age that
I physically shouldn't have. There are bruises that aren't
visible, as well as some that are, but in the strange
florescent light everything seems bruised. When the lights
go out I am but whole, but when they're on, I'm damaged
goods. They tell me at work "write off anything that you
wouldn't buy" and honestly I wouldn't buy me. I'm not
even good enough for donated spoils, I'm a few days stale
already, so just scan me and X me off with a permanent marker.
Throw me in a trash bag, wheel me out.
My warm breath fogging the bag;
I'm fucking suffocating.
The end is near and the smell is rank.

Right now, I'd like a very large cardboard box. I would stuff it with
blankets and pillows, like I used to do when I was youngyoungyoung
(younger than I am now, because I'm certainly not old at the moment.).
I would lay in there until I fell asleep.

Comfort now comes corrugated, boys and girls.
Step right up, it's free if you ask nicely.

I went to they shoe store and I bought the ugliest pair
of shoes that I could find. I'm not sure people understand
the concept really, but I keep using car accidents as an
example. People slow down, or even stop to stare at a
horrible bloody mess. People are addicted to shit like that.
These were so ugly that I needed to have them.

But, honestly it's more than that. I couldn't get them off
of my mind. It was like a sick fascination. They were
burned into my brain. A bowling shoe shaped scar in the
soft, delicate, tissue of my brain. The damage was worth it.

The shoes cause blisters. They match nothing. They look like shit.
I'm so glad I bought them.

I wonder what I think about, just after I wake up for
the first time in the morning. Right before I close my
eyes and go back to sleep, I wonder, what I think about.

I tried this morning, when I woke up at nine, but by the
time it was eleven, I couldn't recall.
I think it was about hamsters. Which, is not what I thought
it would be.I figured it might be something enlightening, not
that I'm trying to say something grandiose about my thoughts,
I just wonder:
Am I really that uninteresting?

Small fluffy rodents aren't enlightening.

"I don't even know why you're looking at the towns,
basing your decision upon them. From what it sounds,
all of your time is going to be spent in the studio."
She says, voice muffled from the sound of the air.

God, fuck, no. If I want out,
I will find a way, trust me.

I just need an escape route.

I guess the best part about missing a season is
that I forget all of it's less redeeming qualities.
The same way I forget the deathly heat of a show
after I've left the venue.

One day, I'll leave everything, all of my worldly
possessions and I'll reinvent myself. I'll miss them,
just like I'll miss the breathy winter whisper in my
ear. I'll think "one day they'll resurface" I just
have to wait another quarter of a year for them.

They're worth it.

I'll miss my friends and their voices like I miss the
sweaters of fall and the sunburned necks of summer. I'll
miss those places and the memories that we thought would
kill us at the moment, but we ended up laughing about in
the end. I'll laugh in futures face because I know that
one day future will laugh along with me.

I'll realize that 500 miles isn't a measure of distance
or time but rather a measure of my perseverance, my drive.

And we'll all breathe the same heavy humid party air,
saturated with smoke and beer, white powder in my nose
and pills in my stomach. I'll never again be jealous of
the young and in love because I'll have seen it from all
angles. I'll know it's flaws and they'll be no reason to
be reacquainted because we'll already still know each other,
inside and out. It'll be the same motions in the night and

I'll think "If winter ends..."
No, wait! When winter ends, because I'm sure it will, all
I'll miss is frosty lashes and shaking hands. Which isn't
much to miss. I guess I just want to know- are you listening
to the differences of what this season means to you and I?