It’s raining really hard here
because of course it is
I watch The Office to try and cheer myself up
but it’s Season Two where Jim is in unrequited love with Pam
and this predictably makes me feel really bad,
bad enough to prematurely spur on my already planned trip to the store
for beer and razor blades,
the beer because I’m out and
the razor blades because I found out that my pocket knife is pretty dull
I have Miranda July’s short story collection sitting on my shelf,
I got it for you a while ago
and I was planning on giving it to you for Valentine’s,
but I guess now it’s just going to stay on my shelf
and I’ll have two copies of it,
which is really embarrassing
in such an insufferably direct and human way
that it can’t be enhanced by metaphor -
I’ll probably end up giving it to you anyway
because I’m sure you’ll like it
even divorced from its context as a romantic gesture
I’m pulling the nausea inducing maneuver
of sending drunk videos to all my friends,
alternating between complaining and singing
and through an absolutely incredible display of willpower
I resist the urge to send you one,
mostly because I’m pretty sure that
you’re doing totally fine without me
and a drunk video
would be correctly construed as childish and attention seeking,
eliciting an eye-roll at best
and a complete loss of respect
and the chance that you’ll talk to me again at worst
You’re probably out having fun with your friends
because you actually have friends -
the closest thing I have to a friend here left unannounced for the weekend,
and in the kitchen I can hear one of my roommates
stop in the middle of a story about dancing with some girl at a party last night
just long enough to answer a call from his girlfriend,
and I can’t stand being anywhere in the world,
especially not here in my closet of a dorm room
I cut from the outside in,
getting steadily closer and closer to the vein,
like an unsure child afraid to jump into its parents’ arms,
so that by the time I’m finished
it looks like I’ve been keeping track of the days on my wrist
I’m listening to Johnny Foreigner while lying on my floor
and I sing along really loud to the start of Champagne Girls I Have Known,
“She says it’s written in the stars but I don’t look at the stars anymore -
I just want someone to die for”
and that brings my roommate to my door,
he knocks and asks if I’m alright
and I get up and answer the door without thinking,
he sees the blood all over my shirt and the bandages on my wrist
and says “What the **** dude, are you ok?”
and I say “Yeah, I just fell,”
and I can tell immediately that he doesn’t buy it,
because why would he,
but I cut him off before he can say anything else and
tell him to take a picture of me,
so he does and then leaves me alone again
after taking away my empty gin bottle,
and I still have the picture on my phone,
me slumped in my chair with a barely mustered smile,
I debate all night about whether or not to post it to Facebook so you can see it,
but ultimately decide that it would be too desperate and juvenile even for me
I’m texting Amanda, not because we’re even that close,
because we’re not,
but because she’s the only person
I’m more than fifty percent sure won’t tell anyone
about me flailing around my room
and openly crying about you,
and, trying to be nice, she says,
“She doesn’t even know what she lost,”
I want to sort of scoff at this,
but I just say “A boring *******
and she says
“You’re not boring, but you are sometimes an *******
(and I say that in the most loving way possible, haha)”
she asks me if I’ve ever thought of getting help
and after I finish laughing
I tell her that I’m gonna get my psychiatrist to up my dosage,
and she says, “Is that a good idea with how much you drink?”
and I say “No, technically I guess not, but neither is drinking at all,”
and she says “Okay, just making sure.”
I wake up to a bunch of texts from my friends
because apparently they got worried
when all my Snapchat videos of me drunkenly singing
with blood all over my shirt
also contained the obligatory mumbling of
“I wanna **** myself so ******* bad.”
Mike asks if I’m still alive
and I say yes, unfortunately,
and he says, cool beans.
That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about when I say
it’s really hard for me to be at all honest or immediate,
not that I necessarily wanted him to be all, you know,
“Please be careful because you’re my friend and I care about you,
if you need to talk just let me know,”
or something like that,
because that would have felt really uncomfortable and disingenuous
considering our friendship,
but I don’t know, I’d just like to be able to earnestly express myself
in a real, physical scenario without cringing about it forever
Basically all I accomplish all weekend
is spending my last ten dollars on alcohol and drinking all of it the same night,
so now I am literally broke and also
literally out of alcohol,
but I’m sure it will be fine because
nothing bad has ever happened as a result
of my being alone with my thoughts for an extended period of time
I told myself that I wouldn’t write any poems about this,
but my sentimentality got me here
and there’s a comically slim chance that it could get me out
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 10:18 PM UTC
It’s raining really hard here
because of course it is
I watch The Office to try and cheer myself up
but it’s Season Two where Jim is in unrequited love with Pam
and this predictably makes me feel really bad,
bad enough to prematurely spur on my already planned trip to the store
for beer and razor blades,
the beer because I’m out and
the razor blades because I found out that my pocket knife is pretty dull
I have Miranda July’s short story collection sitting on my shelf,
I got it for you a while ago
and I was planning on giving it to you for Valentine’s,
but I guess now it’s just going to stay on my shelf
and I’ll have two copies of it,
which is really embarrassing
in such an insufferably direct and human way
that it can’t be enhanced by metaphor -
I’ll probably end up giving it to you anyway
because I’m sure you’ll like it
even divorced from its context as a romantic gesture
I’m pulling the nausea inducing maneuver
of sending drunk videos to all my friends,
alternating between complaining and singing
and through an absolutely incredible display of willpower
I resist the urge to send you one,
mostly because I’m pretty sure that
you’re doing totally fine without me
and a drunk video
would be correctly construed as childish and attention seeking,
eliciting an eye-roll at best
and a complete loss of respect
and the chance that you’ll talk to me again at worst
You’re probably out having fun with your friends
because you actually have friends -
the closest thing I have to a friend here left unannounced for the weekend,
and in the kitchen I can hear one of my roommates
stop in the middle of a story about dancing with some girl at a party last night
just long enough to answer a call from his girlfriend,
and I can’t stand being anywhere in the world,
especially not here in my closet of a dorm room
I cut from the outside in,
getting steadily closer and closer to the vein,
like an unsure child afraid to jump into its parents’ arms,
so that by the time I’m finished
it looks like I’ve been keeping track of the days on my wrist
I’m listening to Johnny Foreigner while lying on my floor
and I sing along really loud to the start of Champagne Girls I Have Known,
“She says it’s written in the stars but I don’t look at the stars anymore -
I just want someone to die for”
and that brings my roommate to my door,
he knocks and asks if I’m alright
and I get up and answer the door without thinking,
he sees the blood all over my shirt and the bandages on my wrist
and says “What the **** dude, are you ok?”
and I say “Yeah, I just fell,”
and I can tell immediately that he doesn’t buy it,
because why would he,
but I cut him off before he can say anything else and
tell him to take a picture of me,
so he does and then leaves me alone again
after taking away my empty gin bottle,
and I still have the picture on my phone,
me slumped in my chair with a barely mustered smile,
I debate all night about whether or not to post it to Facebook so you can see it,
but ultimately decide that it would be too desperate and juvenile even for me
I’m texting Amanda, not because we’re even that close,
because we’re not,
but because she’s the only person
I’m more than fifty percent sure won’t tell anyone
about me flailing around my room
and openly crying about you,
and, trying to be nice, she says,
“She doesn’t even know what she lost,”
I want to sort of scoff at this,
but I just say “A boring *******
and she says
“You’re not boring, but you are sometimes an *******
(and I say that in the most loving way possible, haha)”
she asks me if I’ve ever thought of getting help
and after I finish laughing
I tell her that I’m gonna get my psychiatrist to up my dosage,
and she says, “Is that a good idea with how much you drink?”
and I say “No, technically I guess not, but neither is drinking at all,”
and she says “Okay, just making sure.”
I wake up to a bunch of texts from my friends
because apparently they got worried
when all my Snapchat videos of me drunkenly singing
with blood all over my shirt
also contained the obligatory mumbling of
“I wanna **** myself so ******* bad.”
Mike asks if I’m still alive
and I say yes, unfortunately,
and he says, cool beans.
That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about when I say
it’s really hard for me to be at all honest or immediate,
not that I necessarily wanted him to be all, you know,
“Please be careful because you’re my friend and I care about you,
if you need to talk just let me know,”
or something like that,
because that would have felt really uncomfortable and disingenuous
considering our friendship,
but I don’t know, I’d just like to be able to earnestly express myself
in a real, physical scenario without cringing about it forever
Basically all I accomplish all weekend
is spending my last ten dollars on alcohol and drinking all of it the same night,
so now I am literally broke and also
literally out of alcohol,
but I’m sure it will be fine because
nothing bad has ever happened as a result
of my being alone with my thoughts for an extended period of time
I told myself that I wouldn’t write any poems about this,
but my sentimentality got me here
and there’s a comically slim chance that it could get me out
hyper aware of how embarrassing this is