The heavenly stars are on fire
I’m told.
You have to take some things on faith.

But where’s the smoke?
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Songs for this:
Man in finance (G6 Trust Fund) by ******* a couch, Billen Ted
Bored by Laufey

Being back home, in my childhood room is like climbing into a time capsule. I left for college quickly, back in ‘21 and I’ve only been back here once, briefly.

My closets are still full of my old high school clothes and there are shelves that line the upper walls of my room with maybe a hundred “Disney Princess” collectable statues (my favorite is Ariel).

I have one wall space behind my bathroom door that has a hundred yellow stickies on it - reminders of old assignments and quotes like, “Do you hate drama or create drama?” and “Imagine your future.”

Everything seems carbon dated. It gives me an impeccable, knife-like sense of ennui. I want to cherish it all or burn it all, depending on the time of day. I went to take down my old Humphry Bogart and Billie Eilish posters yesterday and Kim said “Noo,” in such a sad way that I stopped.

Hold on, let’s overthink this.

I had a hard conversation today. I broke the news to my cats (Belichick and Tom Brady) that school starts at the end of the month, and I have to go back.

They took it well, I think. You know how cats are. I’ll know in a day or two, if their good will has turned to sour offense - they'll claw something up.

Belichick seems to be watching me extra closely though.
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Songs for this:
Lava by Still Woozy
Can't Hardly Wait by The Replacements
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08.01.3PM

Ex-President Trump had a near miss recently. That can be traumatizing.

We know how it is, our old republic survived a near insurrection recently.

At least Trump's assailant was killed, he can rest easy.

Thanks to faux-jurisprudence, our felon is still out there - on the loose.
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Songs for this:
Run On by Elvis Presley
Use Me (feat. Cynthia Greene) by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Order My Steps by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

My Grandmère and I have long, gossipy conversations,
where we fall into our own chatty, slumber party rhythms.

She’s met or knows everyone important, and people tell her things.

They DM her or whisper secrets of lives ordered but loveless,
of careers choked by excesses and indiscretions.

She gets stealthy, leaked business reports of purported fortunes gambled and lost or of innocence wasted in bittersweet embrace - delicious, tangled narratives that expose the gaps between facades and realities that can’t be purchased.

Sometimes we pop popcorn on our private ends of the Atlantic,
watch Netflix, share secrets and laugh conspiratorially.
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Songs for this:
Us by Regina Spektor
Young And Dumb by The Bird and the Bee

My boyfriend Peter’s like smoke, he’s elusive. He doesn’t always carry his phone.

There’s a crosswalk in Tokyo, it’s in all the movies. The light changes and hundreds of people walking in different directions meet - but they don’t collide - they make room for each other, flowing around each other like water.

Peter and I make room for each other. Then we come together and we make something. We’re of such different textures - we come from stark counterpoints but somehow, we mesh.

He’s the first person I go to with an idea because I trust him and I think he understands me. He’s my secret weapon. His advice is a coin I’m careful with.

He’s gone through the long slog and achieved a dream. And he did it poor. He fought a guerilla war with almost no resources. He lived in crowded spaces, existed on Ramen noodles and saltine crackers, taking any job to cover.

He’s practical, goal oriented and he can be unsympathetic. He’ll whisper, “Nutup up, tinkerbell - you’re such a baby,” but there's a supportive energy to it - and he’s usually right. He heralds a reality I’m not always used to.

Anyway, he was smoky tonight. I couldn’t reach him. Sometimes we go over a week without talking (I'm not always reachable either) and when we do, it feels intimate and victory-like.
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Song for this:
Come in from the cold by Marc Broussard
One Two Three by Hooverphonic

Let’s talk about feelings - feelz.
Does anything else really matter?
Ok, sure - health - yeah, right up there.

Covid was my generation’s depression (literally).
Maybe not for everyone, there were places that ignored covid, I think.

We didn’t ignore it, not any of it, not at my parent’s house.
Do I sound bitter? I got fifteen long months of ‘social isolation.’
In most states, you can shoot someone and not get fifteen-months.

At one point, we sprayed Lysol on everything that came into the house. Except the cats.
Anyway, that lock-down mess was reason #1 why I skipped senior year of high school for college.

If you look-up ‘desperate’ in the right dictionary, they used my high-school junior-year photo to illustrate it.

University felt so far, so different from my covid, remote video, no-touch high school life that it was, in the most basic sense, like going to a foreign country.

It felt dreamy, in a jet-lagy, out of sync, science fiction, not part of real-life way. I landed in this wonderland where I didn’t know anyone, or where anything was and there was a different sense of fashion, of music, of freedom and I didn’t quite speak the language (not snack bar, buttery).

It was like there was a soundtrack, that’s how serious it was.

You know how, when you’re intoxicated, you can be half awake and still excited? I didn’t want to miss any of it, I’d rub my eyes to stay focused.

Everything was so stimulating - the sights, the sounds. I had this idea about writing - a fealty to the idea that I could capture the experience and share it with others.

Now, I think that idea was so 2021.

OK, before it’s too late - poetry time!

Now-a-days I feel like I’m in the know
hold on, I’ll I paint the celestial afterglow
uhh, this might take a while..
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Songs for this:
Dreamin' by G. Love & Special Sauce
VIRGO'S GROOVE by Beyoncé

What happens when someone falls out of love?

Is there a single, frozen in amber, sanctimonious moment when
you decide you’re too good for whomever - the falling-out moment
- where imperfections are revealed like a magic trick?

“Huh,” you find yourself saying, “Weren’t you cuter, half-an-hour ago?

Or is it a slow, drip, drip, drip Chinese-water-torture-like seepage?

Maybe breakups are written in the stars, you know, Mercury drifts into
retrograde and suddenly there’s empty air where your lover used to be.

I’m not in a breakup, but I like to be prepared - these are just questions.

like

Isn’t every male whale a ***** whale?
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A song for this:
If I Didn't Have You (Live) by Tim Minchin