sweet

her lips tasted faintly like mint, coffee, and mystery. sweet atypically, like a shot of rum or a piece of sour candy.

back in new york

first day of the semester, but i don't have any monday classes. (for now at least before i decide to entirely rearrange my schedule, which has happened in the past.)
i do have an appointment with the psychiatrist, though. depression swag.
i feel like there is so much i should be doing - buying books, working to erase the incompletes from last semester, looking for a job - but all i seem capable of is sitting with a cup of tea and my favorite book. drinking and reading a thousand times over, waiting for the mystery of the universe to unfold or for the world to end in great combustion. waiting for something.
i'll eventually wait outside, but it will be cold.
the sun will shine, but it will be cold.
i'll face the sunlight with cigarette and scarf
and winter will greet me uninvited
overstayed its welcome.
it's almost noon
and i'm wondering if anything is different, if noon yesterday had the same meaning as noon today. if i have the same meaning, the same chemicals in my body, the same rotting and decaying feeling in my limbs. if noon today is noon last week, noon last month.
at around three yesterday, as i watched the city coming closer closer to my view, i thought i felt a lifting. as if the plane itself transferred some of its miraculous qualities and i could lift myself away into the clouds with my newfound or reappeared bliss. i thought i felt a lifting. will three pm yesterday be the same as three pm today.
i'm here in the city now, a speck from yesterday's view. invisible between the skyline. i'm the city now. there's nothing to approach when you're already there.
so i wonder.
i'll wonder and watch, anticipate and avoid,
drink and read and smoke
and smile and lie and lay and sleep,
until...
what.
so i wonder.

blah

feeling strange. these last few days at home, these days anticipating city life again. dreading school again. i feel more suspended than usual. i don’t think i’ve ever felt this homeless, this confused. at a loss for words, wits, pleasures.

texts from earlier today
friend: u go back to ny next week?
me: sunday!
friend: o wow, cool beans?
me: i don’t know. not sure how i feel.

crippled by growing anxiety. kept awake by my failures and imminent short-comings. exhaustion through anticipation. an endless stare in the mirror to figure out if the same person i was when i arrived, left, was away, is here now. did it change at all, are they all one? or is the me lurking somewhere in my dark new york streets; is it yawning in my old bed; or hunched over a desk in some classroom, gasping for remaining breath; betraying life, leaving it with chalkboard scribbles, empty eyes attached to empty fingers? is it dead? am i dead?
is it dead? am i dead? is it dead? am i dead?
i’m growing tired of being a zombie...

wrote this on tumblr just a few minutes ago. it's the only thing that slightly captures my current state. words/thoughts/allthings just haven't been coming easy lately.

hello again

today is my mother's birthday
i spent the morning cutting and pasting
like a child again
or even like the me of last year, two years ago, high school
how have i gotten so old so quickly, i thought
as i chose the correct shade of pencil, ripped pages from natgeo
it feels like i haven't done this in centuries, i realized,
was that another life question mark
what creature was i then
i carried the card and little bag to the classroom
greeted my first love with a happybirthday and a smiletoendallsmiles
her eyes lit, voice rose
i spent the afternoon in a little chair at a little table
in the classroom filled with little people, mini-humans
vivacious curious little people
i sat at the little table ripping pages, writing things,
listening to mrs. lattimore's stern but gentle voice,
loud at times silent at others
i shared some conversation with my new peers
waving and giggling and whispering
it felt like i hadn't done that in centuries
how have i gotten so old so quickly
i towered over my new friends
though still very much a child my mother's baby
as i extended hand or grin to new faces
my heart and limbs were curious
like a child's again
expectant eyes silently questioning, what shall i do next
laughter spilling out of my nervous throat
yelling, oh the hilarity of life
curious hands cutting simple bodies accepting orders
lining up saying prayers
me praying to never grow old
to stop where i am turn back time
be a child
feel like a child again
to sit at little tables with my little self for the remainder of my
little life

an endless cigarette...

i am ignoring texts and calls
making promises i won't keep
sorry world,
until later

sleepy january, headaches, new yesterday

every day i lay in bed, stare out the window,
see the snow fall, gather
make a prison of my home
and just a few moments ago i realized that
around this time last year
i felt sort of the same
i told my mom i wanted to go back to new york
and yet somehow i'm back here again
empty again
still waiting
for life and happiness and
other young, human things
but different because i
turned, and fell,
slipped somewhere...

i can't wait to be back in the city with more distractions.

1/4/11, pieces of my journal

holed up in the closet like Margot Tenenbaum
cigarettes, underwear, choice of entertainment
Howl appetizer then on to Bukowski, a
mockingbird on fire
cigarettes tinged with candy cane sweetness
they begin to taste like food, this all
the meal i need
because my thighs are still fat - as I
made the blade remind me for the coming
days, successfully and unsuccessfully cutting
scraping and drawing closer to death
inching closer to strangers with mischievous
eyes and wonderful hearts but not watchful
enough as they're flung to the heavens
hoping to be caught by some curvy angel
some promiscuous frail soul to manipulate
in bed in streets in dark closets on floors in texts
and still hiding somewhere in stores on
couches in crowded rooms flooded by
poems of tomorrow and long lists of relationship
criteria for the masses dissolved in a
defeated ship
head aching for something the pills can't
cure water can't quench something
beyond cigarettes and transcending into
lucid dream world letters into hungry
ripping panties an ache further than caffeine
further than clouds' billowy sway trek
unrelenting in sleep and stained sheets
pounding pounding pounding away at the innards
of brain and stomach acid
music to drown out and clap away the rain
punch and pull the pain crash wave against
wave and fall asleep in the world's corner
grass dead and growing rising in vapor to
bring joy to others more deserving