Yale student radio (wybcx) is playing throughout the suite. I’m working on chemistry problems but when a song I don’t know is good enough to catch my attention, I add it to one of my gazillion Spotify playlists - God, I love the Internet.

One of our roommates, Sophy, is from California. She’s brilliant and friendly but almost never leaves her room, which she keeps hot and airless. If I’m in there for more than two minutes I have to start peeling off layers of clothing, one by one. She didn’t seem this odd last semester. We take turns, mediating between Sophy and the living, picking up her meals and packages, like vampire assistants.

Then there’s a nice but nerdy guy named Andy, who Anna’s adopted. He’s sitting on our deep, red, four cushion corduroy couch, crafting an essay on his laptop. He’s a divinity student who I rely on to answer my deeper religious questions.

“Do you think Jesus went around telling people his mother is a ******?,” I’d asked.
“Jesus had brothers,” he answered, “Have you ever read the bible?” He asks.
“My bible is Seventeen magazine.” I say, hand to heart.

“Listen to this!” Andy says - a peremptory order to the room - as he begins reading from his paper. “Disruptivist writers who no longer strive for agency, circumventing narrative in order to resemble the fiction construct, risk losing what Robbe-Grillet called the “intelligibility of the world” and themselves illustrate the exhaustion of forms.” Andy paused. “What do you think?” He asked the room.

No-one says anything. No-one ever understands what Andy’s talking about.

Anna and Sunny are studying and sunbathing in the common room like they’re on some kind of permanent holiday. They occupy two generous rectangles of sunlight streaming in through the closed picture windows.

They’re laying on yoga mats, almost shoulder to shoulder, wearing bikinis and Wayfarer Ray-Bans. It’s 12° degrees outside but there’s an oil heater with a fan blowing across it that provides them with a sun-like warmth.

Welcome to higher learning 2022

Rattle the cassette
with the biro etched “Car Mix”
grab the keys from mum’s bag
“Fill up what you use!”
“…Ok, can I have a fiver then?”
scuff to the car in unsuitable boots
slump in, adjust mirror, checking stupid fringe
which then existed
snap in the tape so the first bars
of G-Funk, grunge or B*Witched pulse
then it’s off to pick up
shotgun

Kim: “So, your plan was to win him with awkwardness?”
Me: “No, my plan is to be as sarcastic as humanly possible and see if he can handle it.”
Kim: “You are SO good at the interpersonal stuff”
Me:  “ I so hope college guys get me - I’m out of sync with these high school durks.“

Bili’s one of my two best chums. She's exquisite, cagey and ferociously funny - compared to her I’m tomboyish.

Her hair is a straight corn-silk that shines like black-enamel. When we watch movies, I get to brush it. Her heritage is Japanese, she has perfect, warm-ivory skin, but she’s as American as sarcasm or gun-violence.

When she talks to me, sometimes she’ll be flirtatious or motherly, but always jocose. She bullies me, good-naturedly coaxing and chivvying me onto the trajectory she selects.

I’m jiggered - I enjoy being treated like a pet. I’ve been so harried lately that it’s somehow calming. I think I’m going to spend the rest of the summer, blithely letting her arrange me.

Water Street
After the rain
Is where wayward teens
Ride their bicycles
On damp pavement
Under staggered lamps,
I never knew,
Before seeing from the 2nd floor
That 2am
Is when lost youth roam.

drunk on a feeling we know wont last

knowing the end is near

closing our eyes pretending we dont see it

u hear the glass shaterring hearts breaking

its something we cant let go of

its what i have been living for

how do we leave it when its all we need

i am under a spell

when i see u under the stars i forget about the troubles in the world

i forget about i have been through

why cant we stop the time

lay here with me until my breathing stops

i wanna make u smile when u are crying remembering the people that hurt u

i wanna hold ur hand when it gets cold

i wanna find u

wanna spend all my time with u

i miss u even tho i have never met u

wonder if we will ever meet 

just know i have loved u longer than u can imagine 

longed for u more than u think

All things ancient are once born young.
All things secret are shared by tongue.
All things hatred are worn with love.
All things whispered are sung by doves.
All things stone always come undone.

Am I no longer fretful of my youth?
Do I have any antipathy of death?

"Hindsight,
is 20/20."
As the tag-a-longs
And dingbats like to recite.
Well that's dumb- 20/20 is average!!
This is outrageous -even our idioms our idiotic-
So I propose a new saying,
And yes, who is the 17 year old white boy
To say anything about anything.
But hear me out,
How about instead, we say,
"Hindsight, the unluckiest symptom of consciousness,
and a hell in its own right"
Okay yeah, well, maybe it IS a bit wordy,
And yeah, okay, maybe it IS a TAD too cynical.
But since when has a teenager been anything BUT
A self-proclaimed cynic.

With stars too far to telephone,
And when telegraphs aren't a thing anymore.
We gotta make our own futures,
But when we're riding along through our
Generation of hate,
Or lovely liberalism.
Try not to check the rearview mirror

there are things i have promised you,
things i don't ever want to put you through.
i'm sorry i broke those promises somehow,
i knew we weren't for each other anyhow.

i just want you to be happy,
i know we're both tired of being shady.
things between us are already sketchy,
every day, holding on seems very heavy.

letting go of you was hard
yet i don't want toxicity to bombard;
i want the best for you and me
so please, let's just set each other free.