THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER

How often are you thankful? And I am not talking about in any strung out religious way.

I can think of a lot of things. Sometimes I forget them when I’m doing too much in one day, or when I don’t want to think about anything at all. And then there are days when the sun is barely peaking through the sky, if not at all, and the rafting overpowering amount of thunder leaves sounds traveling outside and into my ears that remind me why I am so lucky to have this bed.

I’m thankful for my hands. They have a weird shape to them, they are no where near piano fingers, and they have small scars from where I scratch too much (which I love so much more than I actually admit), but if I didn’t have hands then I wouldn’t be able to touch things in the way that I try so hard to do. They wouldn’t be able to tremble, which reminds me why I need another cup of coffee, or another cigarette, or maybe a tiny bit more sleep. 

I’m thankful for a ride, a highway, an extra can of sprite. It’s so funny because I am actually thankful for some of the things I hate most. And then when I love things too much, my body wants to explode, and I think that’s a form of thankfulness too. A snap of a photograph. My stupid education. Laughter in the form of a hand shake. Turning over at 5:15 AM and remembering someone sleeping next to you. The fucking sky. The way bodies fit together. Silence. Too much honesty, I am thankful for that, because I wouldn’t have wondered and learned and endured the things I have and will go through. 

There’s this actual feeling I get - it’s kind of silly and it doesn’t even make enough sense to talk about but there was this time a few years ago when we were drunk off the same alcohol we’ve been drinking for three years and we were almost out of cigarettes and it upset us so bad that we sat in this huge field behind my grandparents cabin that we used to be so frightened of when we were children. We had this really ridiculous theory in our heads that if we sat there long enough that we’d be able to be scared again; just the way we used to always be when we even barely saw it from a distance. It’s so funny to me now, because I’m lying in bed with my legs pressed up against the wall next to an Elvis Presley poster I got for eight dollars, and I’m thinking about feelings. It led back to that one time in that one field with that one bottle of rum and that one pack of cigarettes that only had three left, and I finally realized what we did that for. 

There’s something that some of us don’t like to admit. I think that we feel things for so long that we forget even how to feel them and that scares the living shit out of us. Especially when it’s our birthday and we forget why it should even be a celebration or when you go to your favorite ice cream shop downtown by the lake that your father used to take you to when you were four, or when you see someone ride a bike across the street that you used to think was the biggest challenge someone could even go forth with doing because it’s true, you were so small and innocent at one point in your life that you didn’t know any better with how to think or what to feel or how to even handle both of them at once. 

I think we sat in that field because we forgot how to feel things that we wished we could still be able to feel. And it was so honest of us to do that, because when I look back on it now, there isn’t any other person I could imagine myself being so vulnerable with. I had something, I don’t have it anymore, and that couldn’t be anymore beautiful to me. 

I’ve been living in fast-forward. I’ve been stealing your cigarettes. I’ve been dying my hair blue. I’ve been going through old boxes. I’ve been packing them. I’ve been kissing old photos and crying over new ones. 

I love when something is too beautiful to distinguish.

But it was almost 4 am and I had forgotten how to sleep alone. I was lying next to my bed side lamp looking at a beat up Debussy vinyl a friend gave me while itching my skin. I thought, “There are so many things I could be doing right now that don’t always have to be considered this morose.” I did them anyway and I smoked 10 more cigarettes to pass what humans call time and then I smiled like nothing had happened in class the next day.

It was so special to me that I didn’t need to always tell someone how badly I wanted to speak with them or how many times I could bite my nails and no one would catch me. And even when someone noticed, they didn’t say a word. I was the type of person that everyone just knew better than to share words with. Because I was the book, the pages were my scars, and the words were my soul. People liked to think that there was no more telling to the girl who already fucked herself so many times because she knew enough. When I was young, I felt everything to be so much more real than it actually was. There’s a secret. It knocks on my ribs and tugs on my skin and every time I almost forget about it, the sun gives me more freckles.

I’ve been counting footsteps. I’ve been drawing straws. I’ve been scratching my skin away. I’ve been skipping showers. I’ve been walking really fast. I’ve been drinking coffee at all the wrong times. I’ve been kissing hands in car rides. I’ve been carrying around nothing. I’ve been making love with a camera. I’ve been making love with songs. I’ve been skipping making love at all. I’ve been waking up to open doors, washing machines, and the sound of rain. I’ve been having no where withdrawals. I’ve been missing ceiling fan dust and bottles of rum. I’ve been biting my nails far too much. I’ve been cracking my knuckles and counting the months. I’ve been wondering where you are. I’ve been staring at smashed windows and streetlights. I’ve been indulged in ripped sheets - they are hallucinogens that burn and grab multiple rims of my tired body. I’ve been chasing skies and drinking more than I should. I’ve been blowing out headphones and taking bus rides to places I wanted to remember. I’ve been trying to let go.

I’ve been drowning myself in coursework. I’ve been trying not to crack. I’ve been listening to sad songs and lyrical geniuses. I’ve been listening to nothing. I’ve been picking my skin. I’ve been singing a song. I’ve been biting my nails. I’ve been waiting to wake up. I’ve been waiting for the sky. I’ve been waiting for nicotine, I’m a mess, counting how many times I can trace my fingers around the triangular shaped heart on your skin. I’ve been acting like I don’t care. I’ve been inside for a long time. I’ve been waiting for a call, an email, a text. I’ve been waiting for the passenger seat in your packed suburban. I’ve been waiting for hands. I’ve been waiting for eye contact. I’ve been waiting for sixteenth avenue again. I’ve been waiting for embarrassment. I’ve been waiting for tremors. I’ve been off. I’ve been getting off. I’ve been acting like I don’t care. I’ve been acting like I don’t care. I’ve been flicking my cigarette in your direction. I’ve been spitting on your shoes. I’ve been waiting for a long time.

I’m lying in the backseat of my fathers car. It’s April 14th, 2012. It is the most perfect kind of warm outside. We are driving. Out the window, I can see the tops of trees passing us by and hints of sunlight peek through and in between branches. There’s something that I wish I could tell you, dad. There are a lot of things that I wish I could explain to you in the way I wish you could understand. I hope that one day I can be as strong for you as you have always been for me. You sometimes still reach your hand back from the passenger seat to find mine, as if you have been searching for me. I am seeing it all now. I see the way my absence hurts you, I can see the way my adolescence still stains your soul. I’m always going to be your small child who is begging to have our picture taken in the photo booth. Your suffering is inevitable, and I can see that, but you still smile and let laughter leave your lips at all the right times. You are my best friend. I hope you can still see that.

I miss this feeling.
I miss this. Please let me.
Remember this.

Something I noticed

I am in no way beautiful. I am just really consumed.

It was 2003, a long time after the New Years Eve that I hadn’t forgotten after all these days and months of self-cleansing. It was after my fifth drink, that count down, the days I spent in bed indulding myself in books that I had read so many previous times before. This doesn’t even make much sense, I never do, so I don’t know why I’m trying to explain but you smelled like vanilla and cigarettes and wasted space. I am really glad you’re still my best friend even after all this time. I know it isn’t apparent, even if it’s more obvious than ever that I long for your friendship more than words can seep through on this stained coffee spilled notebook that’s been sitting on my night stand since you left the other night. I am glad time doesn’t exist for you as much as it still does not exist for me. That would be a shame. My days consist of rum and perfect hands. But you are here again and you are really drunk and telling me stories about the sky. I always forget that I have heard them before because they are so endlessly wonderful and I think it helps you forget how drunk you are so you slam your body against my sheets and fall alseep saying the words, “beautiful, beautiful sky.” I am still writing this in my head and you will be gone in the morning and I will be sober again and filling out the job applications that sometimes get swept off my dresser from the wind. My window is always open. I’ll see you next week.

What I really meant was that it is even harder to get up in the morning since I have stopped talking with you, but I still try so that I can see the sky. Everything keeps replacing itself and I have had a hard time imagining things like I used to, because nothing gold can really stay. I used to have this incredible satisfaction of what I saw my future to be, but I am having trouble making things out like I used to be able to do with such pride. Because it all ends, because nothing ever stays, and every single person I know has had their feelings change in a blink of an eye. It’s too much to handle. It’s too much to hold on to so it makes so much more sense to just let it go. 

“Time was passing like a hand from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.”