Bye
I hardly ever talk to real people anymore. Really talk. I don't know... I guess I just haven't been interested. To be fair, I haven't been especially interesting either.
Anyway.
Last night was awful in an absolutely ridiculous way, and I have decided to stop whoring my life over the internet.
Bye.
My boots alternately squish and crunch over the brownish sludge covering the sidewalk. To the right, past the parked cars wearing coats of snow, the road is clear and black and wet. To the left, a vast plain of untouched whiteness marks a construction site. Squish, crunch. Squish, crunch. The metro ride had been hot and sweaty underneath coats and scarves, and everyone had pulled off hats and gloves for the time being. The outside air with its thin confetti of snowflakes feels cold and clean against my skin. It leaves flecks of white in my dark hair, miniscule flakes clinging to my lashes. Squish, squish, crunch. I wait at the intersection of a street to cross, stamping a little bit, blowing puffs of steam from my mouth, feeling like an impatient horse. To the left, a XXX store. To the right, a tattoo parlor. I cross the street and keep walking. Past the DVD rental shop, past the hair salon. I pause at the entrance to the familiar alley near the apartment. Tire tracks and footprints scar the frosted ground. The wooden steps at the end of the alley that lead up to the next street are wet and almost black - a stark contrast to all the washed out whites and grays of the earth and sky. Just half a block further. I keep walking, jingling the foreign change that isn't mine in my pocket. A girl around my age walks alone on the opposite side of the street. It is almost like we aren't alone, walking like that. I count the doorways on my left. Two more. One more. Here. I fumble with the keys until one slips into the lock. Kicking snow off my boots, I step into the apartment stairwell. As I turn to close the door, I see the girl watching me as she walks away.
tomorrow i head north, beginning a three and a half day process that will eventually lead me to montreal. my suitcase is packed and sitting next to the front door, just waiting for me.
i am afraid to go outside tonight. i dont think i could stand how beautiful it would be. and beauty can be the most depressing thing in the world.
sometimes, i feel like im just floating.
why is everyone celebrating?
the thoughts in my head - they shouldnt be there. and the memories i have - i shouldnt have them. the things that i feel - they arent the right feelings for the holidays. sometimes i think my life is irrevocably corrupted. maybe it is. maybe i can never feel the peace of redemption.
but i know now, as i didnt before, that it doesnt matter.
the things that i do now are generally decent things to do. the motives for doing those things are far more questionable. maybe nothing i do in this life will ever be perfect or pure.
that doesnt matter either.
whatever my thoughts, memories, feelings, motives... it doesnt matter. the only person those things affect is me. it is action that affects others. and above anything else, it is actions we can control. above anything else, i want to affect others in a positive way.
if i move in with a 92 year old woman out of the motive of free rent and end up helping her by moving in... what does it matter why i moved in?
it doesnt.
in other news... im still in love.
there is a song called "misery is a butterfly" but i think thats a lie. i think happiness is a butterfly.
today is beautiful. i want to feel this forever.
on telelvision, a twelve year old boy is stabbing a radiology patient.
i am the tree in the foreground of the picture in the heading of this page. you are the bench. or the trees in the background. or the footprints through the snow.
it is 1:56am. it could be any time of night or day as far as the artificial lights in the ceiling go. and the hallway leading to the door of my room gets more confining every day.
i dont feel like ive felt much of anything in a while. except disappointment and frustration and love and lust and generosity and selfishness and satisfaction and pity and adoration. and a million more. i spend nearly all of my time in bed, limp, propped up by pillows, computer in my lap. i hardly study. i go to the library and tell myself its fine to lean back in the chair and close my eyes just for a second. or for ten minutes. or for an hour. its fine to pick up the bookbag that you never even opened, and to leave the library, and to catch a bus home because the ten minute walk would be too much effort. well, it is fine. except that at night i lay here propped up on my pillows and try not to think. i try to smile, because things are going well and people are all right and everyone is friendly and the semester is ending. but i dont. i dont smile. and then that dreaded moment comes when i cant resist picking up the bible that i leave on the windowsill next to my bed. that moment is the worst of every day.
maybe when earth hugs you its not really a hug. maybe shes just grabbing hold of you before she tosses you out into the irrationality of space.
why must we divide life into day and night when the substance is the same
skin that smells like lavender and hair that smells like green tea. people are moving in the bathroom. i hear drawers open and close and get the crazy idea that if they stay open, my eyes might stay open too. my head is a melt of cutting videos in the basement, peter godber running from hong kong, whale sex. my body is a melt of lotion and scent and comforters. im completely alone in the room, and i feel like Earth is hugging me. i dont know how to hug it back so i just go limp and smile. i smile and imagine an armadillo dancing with a skunk in the reading room of the undergraduate library...
i mean, i guess sometimes you just feel
good.
minute self reflection
i cry when i get frustrated. i drool all over the place. i cannot for the life of me keep my shoelaces tied.
i snuggle my stuffed pig to sleep. i take naps at least 3 days a week. i play with my food and mix it into disgusting creations.
i correct simons spelling online. i despise people i dont know. god help me, i absolutely cannot ask a professor for one on one assistance without tears in my eyes.
in retrospect, i am not at all surprised that i was so disgusted with myself for so long.
but as for the present, i am not at all surprised that i amuse the hell out of myself.
rain slick brick walkways.
white truck in red-brown mud.
emily knowing her poems were bullshit.
every word of every conversation with you.
fruit cut so that each edge of each piece was rippled.
stumbling on uneven bricks as strangers walk toward me.
and, that girl in my class whose face is the most beautiful, in profile, ive ever seen, but whose face is not nearly as spectacular from any other angle.
i kept noticing things today and just sort of zeroing in on them until that was all that was in my head. like watching the movements of my untied shoelace as i walked. i dont know, it was amazing. i kept seeing all these tiny things and it was amazing. the flecks of gray on a squirrels white belly as it stood on a stone wall with an acorn in its paws, its giant black eyes like the eyes of the statue that sits on my desk. i couldnt stop grinning about that squirrel and i let out a couple of involuntary giggles too but i tried to hide them. i dont know if this is allowed but i went in the student store and read a book for a while and then put it back on the shelf because i already own it. when i was reading i glanced down at the floor next to me and there was a yellow piece of paper taped there that read, "smile, you're on candid camera!" i looked around for a camera or something but i didnt see one. i felt bad thinking that if i was on camera, id have been boring to watch. my inside self is a lot more active than my outside self when im sober these days. im not sober now. it helps my fingers move to type out all these words. i dont know if this is what college is supposed to be or if this is what im supposed to be. just sitting around drinking rum and coke and not feeling responsible for anything. god i just dont know. its just all these tiny little things like the movements of your shoelace. its fucking beautiful. i wish i knew how to show it. but my outside self can be so unexpressive. especially of joy. its crazy. my inside self is in a constant state of frenzied action and sometimes the joy is so overwhelming that you cant even distinguish it from the sadness anymore. do you know what im talking about? you take any emotion to a certain point and you hit this plateau where everything just IS and its beautiful and its nothing all at the same time and you just sort of go numb and nothing feels real at all. its moments like that you could just die. from happiness or from pain, it doesnt matter. you could just die and it would be all right. i wish i was just a little bit more drunk because its wearing off pretty fast now but i think itll be ok. it doesnt matter if i drink or not, really. because everything is fucking beautiful just the way it is. and i could just die because im so happy that i cant even feel anything anymore. i dont know what is going on in my head.
