because I need to start writing about this.

we are two people in a single bed, lying to ourselves and saying that it's comfortable. we wake up in the morning full of backaches and smiles. he has discovered that, perfectly positioned, his face can make fart sounds in my armpit. we laugh and laugh. we make eggs, toast, tea. we wake up slowly, me more so than him, and he reminds me that, in the morning, I constantly look like a cat who has found a stash of catnip. and I do.

he puts on music and I dance, awkwardly, unabashedly. there is no reason to be nervous or embarrassed, even in the most ridiculous moments. there never has been. he lets me know that I am silly, hangs his head in faux incredulity, smiles faintly. I kiss his cheeks, freshly-shaven. we are happy.

there is so much snow. I was going to go back to my apartment. I was going to shower, to clean, to lead a productive day. we sit and read. we watch dr. strangelove. we look out the window. more snow. we prepare canned vegetable soup ("I ate so much of this in college. my bloodstream must've been full of sodium") and grilled cheese ("I wish I had nice cheese to make fancy grilled cheese." "maybe if you mixed the mexican cheese and the cheddar together, it would seem like it?") and he shows me how to use non-stick spray. we talk about foods we never ate growing up; foods we ate too much of growing up. we talk about growing up.

our families are startlingly similar in some ways, but different enough to keep talking about. both sets of our parents are divorced. we each have a parent with too many siblings. we each understand the kind of upbringing the other had, why it makes us the way we are, why we have not had a fight in the four months we've been dating. why we will not have fights. (hopefully.)

we sit on the couch together and read. every once in a while one will reach over to touch the other's knee, arm, thigh, hand. sometimes we make eye contact and kiss. sometimes I lean on his shoulder. sometimes he leans on mine. we are quiet. we are happy.

tomorrow we will sit on the couch and read the new york times. he will take the news. I will sift through, finding whatever grabs my attention, less dedicated with keeping up with anything. I will not have showered in 36 hours and he will not mind, or at least not let on. he will have showered twice since I came over. I will not have left the night before, partially due to the snow, partially due to laziness, mostly due to the fact that I don't feel like going back without him. but I will need to go back to take that shower.

we will leave, come back to my place. our friends will be there, as they always are, watching football and cooking and laughing. we will read a little more, I will pretend to watch football, he will add clothes to my pile and I will do laundry and try to clean. we will talk about books and complain about having to go back to work ("the weekends go too quickly." "everything goes too quickly").

but for now, we are on his couch, reading. everything is quiet. the apartment is cold but we make each other warm. we are happy. we are happy. I am happy.

it's been a long, long time.

i haven't written here in ages. a longer post will come later; for now, i need to take my brother christmas shopping.
list of things you should know:
- i am living in detroit and enjoying it
- i'm working 50-some hour weeks and okay with that (mostly)
- my roommates and friends have formed a strange little family
- my boyfriend has a toothbrush at my apartment
- there are constantly people at my place; we have the gathering spot
- i do not write much anymore, but have resolved to change that
- i don't know where to live next year (a common theme in my life)

that's it for now. brother is insistent on leaving. good-bye!

inked

i wish i could write reminders all over my hands and arms without anyone else noticing.

i wouldn't have to buy a planner or anything.

recycling again

and oh i creak like floorboards under
all the weight of you
and when you walk around, i mutter
all that we've been through


also, found a way to rhyme "crackle" and "black hole," which is one of my prouder songwriting moments.
this new song is still unfinished, though, as of yet. needs another two verses and possibly a bridge.
i have been writing verse-chorus instead of AABA lately. it comes and goes in phases, i guess.

big old house, on a hill

a place to live! a place to live!
for a year, at least.

it's very old and very quirky, but that's what makes it interesting and charming. i hope this is it. i hope this works out. fingers crossed, people.

saturday night

the beer in lingering in my nostrils
the wind is lingering in my hair

everything floats down here

anything that sinks from up there
floats down here


i miss msp.
i miss it as a representation of the cusp of psuedo-adulthood for me.
i miss many more things about it but i just don't feel like writing it all out right now. there's not really much to do with that information other than wallow in it, and i don't really want to do that right now.

interpretation

when it comes to singing these days, i only really want to whisper or yell.

neither of these things are good for your throat.

but fuck the gray area, right?

scrambled

the internet has ruined my ability to read a book.
well, not ruined.
just made it much more difficult.

shut the computer, self. shut it. read words on paper.
or at least on the kindle. come on.
you have the attention span to get through a novel.
you've done it so many times before.

"the root of depression is being too self-involved, and the cure is to read."

keep out

it is friday night.
i am in my living room with the television on;
i like to think the noise will cover up my loneliness.
that the talk with ease the noise in my head.

earlier i took a drive around my hometown.
i used to be too anxious to drive.
now i am too anxious to stay home.

i drove through the neighborhoods i used to live in.
i couldn't drive past the houses.

there are more churches than liquor stores here.
the stoplights are placed in seemingly sporadic locations.
streetlights line the bridge, and, in the winter,
are covered in christmas decorations.



i don't know how to write poems anymore.





i want to sit in empty churches;
stand on bridges.
gnaw off each of my fingers, individually,
knuckle by knuckle;
claw my face off.
drink and drink and drink and vomit.
forget.

stopped up

i keep having dreams about screaming

tired

i would rather go to sleep
than keep scheduled appointments

i'll blame the pills and all of that stuff for now

what does it mean

it is very confusing
to love this hard
to not be able to say it
(why not? who said?)
to want to yell loudly

to try to understand its place

(it is very confusing
to feel so strongly
about anything at all)

i even ordered decaf

when i am too caffeinated and/or undernourished, my arms feel like they are made of plastic bags and pudding, like they might slip off of my bones at any second, like if i shake them parts of them might fall out.

i want to do hundreds of pushups
and also sleep forever and ever.

carving.

life is a continual emptying;
i feel, lately, like i am constantly gouging out my stomach
and letting the cold air come in.



(i feel, lately, like i am too melodramatic about everything.
i might be seventeen years old again.)

here.

existing is rough, sometimes.
but we all get through it,
until we don't.

acting out

love is the most confusing concept and i have no idea how it works most days.

heavy

topics of conversation:

what foods are good
what foods are bad
weight loss
who is thin
who is fat
how fat makes you feel
why the scale was hidden
why the scale should be out
exercise
what foods you can eat
what foods you can't eat
getting rid of junk food
what to eat today
what to eat tomorrow
what to eat this week
what other people are eating
how many pounds you've lost
how many pounds you've gained
how to lose more

...i am going crazy.

please just give me a crystal ball

is it even possible to get a job for just two months?

(i would like to have a summer but i also need the money very much.)

hometown

i should be happy while i'm here. the lake is so big and my room is so full and my family has so much food. i have more friends than i remembered. it will all be okay.

(right now, though, i feel suffocated by heat and boxes and obligations.
and that pesky feeling of not really knowing where i am, sometimes.)

scrubbed raw

everything is clean.

i could go.

i'm just not, right now.

(this is harder than i thought it would be.)

seesaw

just trying every angle, while i still can.

i wish my hands worked the way i wanted them to.

closing up shop

i want to cry but there are too many people here—

fuck

fuck fuck fuck fuck



(i would like to stand on the side of a bridge and scream,
spit into the mississippi,
light something on fire,
shake uncontrollably)

the cafe is closing

stayed out until two last night, walking around the streets of st paul with a friend.
ate pizza and ice cream and (mostly) didn't give a fuck.
should have done this more in college.
need to remember to do this more, post-college.

i like people.
i like people and they like me.



i move this sunday. we leave at night, drive straight through, and get back to muskegon just as everyone will begin to wake up.

fuck phones

i just gotta get the fuck over this;
it is so very hard to interact with anyone, some days.

(it's that feeling you get when you know that you need to call strangers to set up an appointment with strangers to interact with strangers and although you'll never see them again, you worry about what they'll think of you. there are so many things to get wrong. there are so many words that will come out incorrectly, so many moments in which to appear too ignorant or too vulnerable or too "blonde" or too anything. there are so many things that other people can think about you.
but a person cannot be completely invincible. a person cannot be completely anything. gotta remember that.)

i need a script in order to talk to most people.
maybe that's why i like books so much.

wear your nicest bathrobe

i'm thinking about starting a depressed writers' club. i could invite all my closest friends.

"the sad kids writing club:
we'd have meetings if we could leave our apartments."

majestic

i have very few close friends.
i think all of my close friends know this, and sometimes i worry they feel some sort of pressure from that knowledge. i hope they don't. but either way, i am so glad for them, so thankful for them, so amazed that i have found people to really, truly care about when i am so often afraid to even look at anything. it's beautiful that they exist and that we found each other.
it is also wonderful to feel understood. that only comes along every once in a while.
i sometimes worry about coming on too strong. it's just that i want these people to know that i really appreciate their existence. mostly, it's that a phone call or a long walk can make life considerably more bearable in a way i couldn't have fathomed.

some things:
reading hemingway short stories (i only seem to read hemingway in the summer)
saying psuedo-goodbyes
having more frequent and more vivid (and sometimes more violent) dreams
screaming slightly less at night
drinking occasionally, but don't tell anyone
moving in less than a week
driving all through the night to get home
feeling more detached
listening to music occasionally, but still not often
writing rarely, poorly, ineffectively. not giving a shit about that, right now.


some days i just want to mash the keyboard; i feel like that would suitably describe some of my emotions.