6.26

I like how blurry you feel
and how familiar you become in moments of clarity

6.11/2

He was still there when I woke up. I thought he had left sometime around 3, when the door was opened and closed. But now, in the clear light of 6:27am, I could see him laid out on my couch. He was turned facing the back, my mother's blanket covering him and a good portion of the floor. I tried to pull off my best fake sleeping (perfected in the days of not getting up for church), but I was pretty sure my breathing had already changed due to my surprise, dread. He was also much too quiet to be alseep, but was not making any noise.
I counted to 100, being very aware the sound my eyelashes made against my pillow, waiting for him to move, cough, anything. At this moment, I wanted more than anything, not to have a studio apartment. I breathed deeply through my nose and started to "wake up". I saw his back tense as I sat up. I checked my phone for about 30 seconds trying to see how this would play out, and once it became clear he was going to keep playing the sleep card, I swung my feet off onto my floor.
Nothing.
It crossed my mind that he was dead.
I checked for and found signs of breathing, but even with me staring at him for a good 8 counts, he didn't turn over or open his eyes.
Whatever.
I made my bed quietly and went in to the bathroom.
- he's still here
- ....
- what doido?
- is he next to you?
- no, couch
- well you can't take it back now
- hah thanks you cunt
- xo come rub mine
I took a shower, because what else do you do in the only other room of cramped, city apartments? As I scrubbed my scalp with citrus shampoo, I hoped that, with the loud white noise, he would take the opportunity to wake up, leave, whatever. When I stepped out of the shower, there was only the water running down the pipe and silence. I took pretty long showers and certainly didn't rush this one. Hopefully, he was gone.
But as I opened the door, it became clear that he was far from gone. It was darker, which was common during storms in our area, but it made my unlit living room very dim. All the boxes I had flattened and put in the trash corner of the hall were stacked together in the middle of my apartment. His head stuck out from the middle of the makeshift room, and I could tell he was bare chested. He looked surprised to see me and expressed concern while pushing a stack of boxes to open an inviting "door". I laughed and inspected the creases of my forehead with my fingers to avoid his wide-eyed gaze. I asked what he was up to, and he beckoned me in the boxes.
As I stepped in, he unwrapped my towel, and I noticed he was naked. His friend, Alex, was sitting at his feet, smiling at my body. He always pulled shit like this. He gently wiggled the box door back into the wall, and I sat down on my discarded towel. Alex finally met my eyes and smiled sweetly. I kissed Alex softly on the cheek. I explained that I needed to go to work in an hour, and that he needed to decide whether or not he would give me a ride. Alex replied first informing me that I had plenty of time. They were laughing at each other. Their inside jokes killed me. I realized that Alex was still wearing her shirt, and I looked at him for answers. They told me I was stuck in my head.
I felt a little bit of guilt as I stood up and broke down the box fort with my shoulder. Their shouts asking me what my deal was went unanswered. I picked up my phone from the bathroom counter.
- their hair is too spiky
- lol waht?
- alex's here, come here
- dude [?]
- lol shut up i need a ride plz?
I pulled some clothes out of the hamper and dressed. He was rebuilding the fort. Alex was watching me through door, I had forgotten to close, while she started to brew coffee. I looked like a mess. It was getting darker. When I asked how bad the storm was supposed to be, they both seemed surprised and raised their eyebrows in unison. I was becoming fed up. How could they not see out the damn window?

6.11

more work on identity


for her, I will always load freshies
when she cries, I will curl around her and trace over her tummy with the tips of my fingers
I will smile when she looks good and stare at myself in the mirror, over her shoulder, when she's complaining about so and so doing such and such.
for her, I will sit down during conversations and take my time listening to every side of the matter
I will always make sure she is satisfied before I fall asleep
the last piece of chocolate will always be left for her

6.7

She said that I needed to write about identity.
I realized identity is fake.
We are our actions. Our actions are life.
but then there is all this bullshit in our head.
My issue with identity?
I can't recognize myself.
In the morning, it is "to whom do these legs belong?"
Catching myself in windows feels more like "CREEPY STALKER, oh that's me"
I guess I wanted her to pull a Tyra and force me to look in the mirror and name 10 nice things about myself. However, this never happened. Instead she formed this habit of placing her palms under my ears and staring sweetly into my eyebrains. This really ground my gears. All I could think of during this caring moment of self acceptance was how much neck fat I had lost in order for her to be able to feel my jaw (along with "how much longer can I get away with seeing her?"). I felt bad, but really there is no way to be able to explain.
It is like phantom limb.
but phantom body.

6.6

I don't know what she
makes me want from myself
- - - -
I can always remember this day 6/6/6 because the perfect thing happened. It is strange to think that this will once bring me to sound dated, and that 6/6/1906 and my 6/6/2006 were probably very different.

I had flunked a bunch of high school. My computer addiction was full fledged. Smosh videos were what I was about, along with buying cake mix from Walmart Neighborhood market for 79 cents. I could pay for it in my spare change. Every night from the hours of 8pm-1pm, I locked myself in my tiny tower of a bedroom, pulled out a tupperware, mixed a little cake mix and water (a trick learned from summer camp), and youtubed until passing out.
I had failed English because I had little to no interest in Alaskan dog-sled racing, and a hearty dash of teen angst. My dad said he would pay for summer school, but I had to ride my bike there and back every day. School was 7 miles away, and there was a separate bike-trail for most of it.

There were a handful of issues.
1. I am a girl. Sweating before and after school as a teenager wasn't really in my hair's favor.
2. It is June in tornado alley with big storms happening almost every night. Wet road= wet streak up your butt when arriving to class.
3. I had to cross over a lot of creeks between 6:40-7:10 am.

Pretty much every morning I am trying to pull a windbreaker over my ass, keep my hair off my forehead and blindly peddling through dense fog on bridges.

So it is around 7 am, 6/6/6, and I am finger-combing out my wavy, cherry red locks with my left hand while my right hand is squeezing my handlebar in rhythm with pirated Karen O screams. I've been kinda excited for today. As a young, alternative adult, I'd entertained some possible happenings with the local hooligans, but "gotta get up early for school lol kk tootles". It was perfectly foggy, like milk was mixed in the air, and I turn up onto my last bridge.
Just right there. Just right in front of me. A babies arm.
lols, wahh?
I decide the middle of the bridge is probably the safest for the last 15 ft, and as soon as I make this decision my front tire pulls a moses on a pentagram with baby parts piled in the middle. I jerk to the left so quickly that I immediately fall off my bike and smear myself in the sticky red substance.
I begin weeping. I can feel the curtain close as I pick up my bike, backpack and dust off my jacket, further smearing my mess. I don't look back as the standing ovation begins. They are sucked into the fog as I push my peddles down. I am sobbing with so much suction that the gnats are getting stuck in my throat.
Walking into class after a performance like that was like floating on air.
I showed those kids the man's blood on my jacket from my fight last night. Told them he'd lost 3 teeth. I just got out of jail. When it was my turn to read out loud, I could hear the metal kids whispering about me. My voice was steady and strong. I got some girl to buy me skittles.
All in all it was a good day.

6.2

"Nothing we had in common was real or genuine, " he says to me as I do the dumb thing and stare at my hands. "You realize we fucking hate each other?"
It had been a long weekend with my uncle. The crazy.
No one really knew what he did.
He drank.
He smoked cigarettes, but I swear they were a different brand last time we visited.
He had this orange shirt that had faded into this strange terra-cotta/salmon color thanks to his organic sodium mixed with infinite hot washes.
He had a name, but no one really seemed to use it in conversation. You just knew who they were talking about when you walked up to the table. Or the conversation would be started by some object being glared at by more than 2 people in the room. One person would raise their eyebrows and the other would nod.
He was what you talked to the cousins about after you ran out of the obvious questions and everything else seemed like it would awkwardly point out how far you had drifted apart.
But now?
He hated me.
He was supposed to be watching me while my parents did what ever it is parents do when revisiting their hometown after 15+ years living elsewhere. So I was sat down in front of the tv on some corduroy masterpiece of a couch he had managed to keep clean. To be fair, his place was pretty clean.
He was clean in scrubbed-raw way. The sun-bleached way. Everything smelled of boiling water.
He watched tv with me for one 30 minute segment, and then we started some movie. It was a film I, apparently, was a minority for not seeing, and now I must remedy this fault within myself. So we chilled. I'm pretty sure he was drinking. I'm also pretty sure that he had jokingly offered me, a minor, a drink earlier. I'm really sure it wasn't that much of a joke.
He left partway through the film and went to this sort of half basement/spare room that was allowed for by the house being built into a hill. Sometimes I could hear some shuffling, placing of things, typing, but never much else. I was still pretty uncomfortable around him and wasn't quite sure where the restroom was. After the movie was over, another one began playing. This one I had seen before. I needed to pee. It was getting dark.
He had started murmuring to himself. At first I thought it was the film, but then I noticed there was laughter during inappropriate parts. I turned the volume down. Not all at once. I took maybe a good 10 minutes to get down 5 even numbers. They always have to be even.
He wasn't so much murmuring now. His voice had risen to normal conversation mode. I heard a beer open. I heard him talk and put the can down on the table several times over the rest of the second movie. As if on cue he started to come out of the room right as it ended.
"He looks happy" is all I can think. I realize I am turned, open mouthed smiling at him with the volume very low.
He realizes too and becomes a shade of scarlet I have only seen once before.
He takes me outside and sits me on the tail gate of his truck and starts pacing in front of me. I'm not quite sure what is happening at this point, but I fantasize about romans dragging prisoners behind chariots. "Am I in trouble?"
He is throwing his hands up and pacing this awkward oval in the driveway.
He has mastered this drunken mumble yelling. I have no idea what he is communicating. I ask "is that room why you are upset?"
He says he needs advice