Friday, January 30, 2009

I am standing at the corner of February as I consider my hands.

You read the letter I addressed to your neighbor;
I wiggled my eyebrows and you snorted.
Later, you pretended to sleep and I
crept into the kitchen to pour
a glass of water.
With your eyes still closed,
you commanded my return.
I know because the creases of
your forehead were unchanged.
"Spell a word on my arm," I whispered.
In summer, you traced "butterfly" and "love."
By winter, it was a stupid game
and I was just a stupid girl.
"Do you know what my hands look like?"
But you were asleep this time,
and now I was the one pretending.

April is not at all the cruelest month.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I really wasn't looking forward to going back to school, but I sort of missed it. I'm not sure why. My philosophy professor was delightfully perverse and insane. I met my music professor for the first time in the bathroom, which was awkward. So far, I like my classes. Let's hope that remains a common theme this semester. I also cleaned my car. This is a very big step for me.

I want to fall in love.

Monday, January 12, 2009

I went to the bookstore today, but they only had one of the books I needed. When I got home, my mother informed me that my brother was assigned to write a poem:

John Cabot
found a rabbit
he got lost
and he was the boss


I thought it was cute.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

I can't stop sleeping. It's really, really bad. I'm a morning person, typically. There is something deeply satisfying about rising early and having the entire day stretched out lazily before you. But lately, I've been waking up at 7:00, and then going back to sleep until noon. This is absolutely unacceptable. I think I'm in love. Not with anyone in particular, but just...in love. I'm trying to make this post longer so that the placement of my picture is effective. After this sentence, I will type out random thoughts in the order they occur. Please feel free to disregard them. I want to take karate lessons. I miss Hey Arnold. I think I'm addicted to casinos. I love my mother. And my dog. There is a cartoon dressed as a pork chop on television. I love storms, and I've always secretly wanted to be trapped inside my basement during a tornado. I want to move to Montana. My floor is littered with pens that sport the names of pills people take. In a calculated murder of minutes, I point to the clock, so we smash it.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Today was a good day.

I made cookies.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

This is not how I thought it would be. I always thought it would get better. I thought I'd move away and meet people I could honestly feel at home with. I'd wear sweaters and pick apples and write poetry and sleep outside. I'd smile and fall in love and learn to play guitar.

And here I am. On a futon, feeling sick to my stomach, listening to The Decemberists. And now I'm crying. Fuck.

I just...I don't know. I don't know. I feel like this is the end of my life. I feel like it's just going to keep being like this. I'm going to keep sleeping and waking up and going online and never leaving the house except for work or school.

I opened up my music folder a few minutes ago. "Do I even like music anymore?" I thought. I mean, I used to actively seek out new and interesting music. It used to make me happy. But now I rarely listen to it. And when I drive, I prefer to keep the radio/my Zune off completely. I find the hum of my engine to be unsettling yet soothing. But this scares me, because I hate everything. I hate going out, I hate staying in, I hate cooking, I hate writing, I hate people, I hate the wall, I hate the window, I hate this world, I hate that I have no friends, I hate that I'm socially inept, I hate that I've never met my father, I hate sex, I hate that all people want to do is have sex, I hate that I'm not pretty, I hate hearing people chew, I hate pretending to text when I'm in public because I'm afraid to look at people, I hate falling in love at red lights, I hate working at Stop & Shop, I hate going to Rhode Island College, I hate Seekonk, I hate myself, I hate my friends, I hate being a woman, I hate that my feet are perpetually cold, I hate that I'm fat, I hate worms, I hate guilt, and I hate sleeping alone. And that was okay. I was getting used to hating all of those things. Because I liked music, right? And now I'm indifferent to it. Indifference is far worse than hatred.

And now I'm laughing. Within the five minutes it took me to write this fucking post, I started feeling better. And then I was angry because I didn't feel like shit anymore and I at least wanted to wallow in depression until I published this damn thing.

Fuck.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

I've been preoccupied with the concept of socialization lately. I say this because I remember his excessive use of the term "heteronormative." I think he mainly liked the way it sounded (I'm guilty of this as well), but it's consuming and intriguing to think about. If I had not learned to prance around in absurd amounts of pink tulle or nurture plastic dolls with painted smiles, would I be much different? Probably. It all seems very odd and surreal to me. Perhaps that's because I've been feeling disconnected from the physical state of existence yet utterly encompassed by the mental.

I have the strangest encounters with people. They happen once, and then I can't shake them from my mind for decades.

He came to my house. I made pancakes while he prepared fruit and he asked why my back was turned. I was very conscious of my movements; I felt as if they were raindrops asking for permission to fall. He had a peculiar way about him. He was silent, mostly, and excruciatingly serious. The spaces between his teeth seemed almost intentional, like they filtered out any customary language so that nothing less than profound ever permeated the air. Later, I found myself wrapped in a blanket. He lay behind me, breathing heavily. He was so thin. I surmised that, like the spaces in his teeth, his frailty was also calculated. I did not feel anything for him, as much as I wanted to. I touched my hand to his cheek. He looked at me with frantic eyes, urging me to take action, and I started to get nervous. "Do you ever smile?" I asked, and his expression softened. "Sometimes," he replied. It was starting to snow. We walked outside and I kept taking small steps because I liked the sound my heels made when they struck pavement. He smoked a cigarette and observed my backyard. It was a bleak day, and everything reminded me of weathered literature. We stood there for a while, not saying anything. I kept thinking about the day I woke up to watch the sun rise. And how much has changed since that day. And whether that's good or bad. After I led him to the highway, I started crying. Not because we weren't right for one another, but because he came to me with questions.

And there is nothing more devastating and discouraging than never having the answers.