I’m Afraid Of What Might Come Out If I Write.

He Has Something In Common With Computers:

I cut, and then pasted these words into this box. In regards to my him and my life, he did these things backward.

Blog Things?

I was asked, once, by my roommate why anyone would want a Facebook account, a Twitter or a Blog. I told her everyone wants to know everything about each other, plain and simple. She told me that wasn’t true, not everyone wants to know everything about another person. Especially if they like the person. I thought of the social world outside of computers and realized she was right. I tried to reason with myself and figure a better answer to tell her, that well, maybe everyone just wanted to be able to keep tabs on each other, check up on each other. But even then, the pool of reasoning seemed shallow. I doubted emotions had much to do with anything. Thinking about it now, I wonder if it is less about us each wanting to grab hold of each other’s information and more about us each individually trying to reach out to one another.

That is what I’m doing, isn’t it?

Home.

What if I wanted
to be in the
mountains,
Where all the stars are
connect the dots:
moths chase your
tail lights
and the cold wind
coming in through the
car window smells like
dirt and wet pine?
I’d hope to curl up on
pine needles and call it a
lifetime.
I'd pick chunks from orange fungus-
The spores would spill on the
ground and grow miniature
cities.
I'd live towering over them like their
moon.
Starry eyed, reflecting the
forest light-
Cupping the needles of
tiny sky scrapers in my
palms.
I would harvest all those
tiny cities,like
blueberries,
All those crops I
call mine because
I collect them without being a
part of them,
Too big to know the streets,
Too far to feel at home.

Hm..

I shouldn’t go outside. That said, I didn’t actually make it outside. The second the door clicked open and I saw the blue sky breaking apart brilliant branches of hundreds of trees and the bright sun and the chittering birds in flight I stopped short in the doorway. My feet wouldn’t move. It smelled familiar. Like laundry detergent.

Assemble

I could assemble him as soon as I could disassemble him. There were very specific instructions to do so. He was a build-it-yourself doll. Lily, my twelve year old cousin, gave him to me as a birthday present. She knew, somehow, that I needed someone there and she thought a pseudo-Ken doll would suffice. I looked at the parts: limbs, legs, hair, feet, hands and toyed with the head. I told her I didn’t need a plastic doll. I told her I could make a real live person up out of pine needles, blueberries, trucks, bicycles, punk music and dirt, but she didn’t laugh. She looked at me and said, “That would make a really weird person,” and I told her it did, it did make a weird person. A weird person who’s quick, slippery, greasy; but a sticky substance who slips out of your life when you least expect it, sticking to your heart just the same. She told me I was even weirder for saying that, then threw a foot at my face and my cheek barely flinched. She left the room to go play with her younger sister.

Now I sit at my Aunt’s computer, typing this into the empty white that is the Blog post box. Part of me doesn’t want to write. The same part of me that isn’t recognizing the warmth outside. I don’t know why I chose to come visit my family. I thought I should get out for a little while, but being away from New York City only makes me more anxious. Maybe I should go outside. I’ll go outside.

There Was

the sound of the passing cars, the force of their speed, oncoming; the noise suctioning us against the pulled over truck. The blur of yellow headlights, and oh God, all those crickets. Owen was leaning over me, his one hand pressed into his leaking eyes, the other holding up his guilt-shaken body, using the open truck door for stability. The steady ding-ding-ding signaling the open passenger side door answered in-between the call of what felt like thousands of crickets all asking what was going on. Katydids chirped, another insect moaned. An orchestra of insects enveloped us. I said some heartfelt things and he said something about being sorry. I did something like cry, but all I could hear were all those beautiful, sounding crickets; shaking the passing cars on the highway, shaking Owen’s truck as we leaned, and shaking the ground that, for the moment, I could hardly stand on. At least, that’s what the world felt like, there on the side of the road. A semi sounded its horn, jolting me, making me catch stray hairs in my mouth and choking on my tears and hair and all the things I never told him about myself over the past two years. All the things, that as of five minutes ago, no longer mattered: that tranquil world of confident quiet was being left on the side of that road, this highway, his way out of here and out of my life. I thought about leaving the hair, caught in my teeth; his mouth wouldn’t be coming near mine anymore anyway, and what good were those lies I told now? That day I lied about how many men I slept with and how many joints I smoked. How I secretly hated his friends. Shut up, my mind had suddenly told those crickets. Stop making this everything it isn’t. But it wasn’t the crickets, and it wasn’t him. It was just another break up and everything after is just boring aftermath.