[perpetuallyinbetween]

fuck me up

I can’t think. I can’t speak. I can’t remember. My brain is a black hole swallowing me from the inside out. I’m falling, sinking. Blink.

I can’t keep my eyes open. Everything I see filters through cones and rods and transforms into Death. My heart beats.

It beats for her.

I think I’m in love with Death.

Or maybe I want her to fuck my brains out, so I can finally get her off my mind. 

Can you see her? The way she saunters in the shadows under my eyes. Can you hear her? My voice is cracking and straining out of the grip she has clenched around my throat. I can feel her breath seep into my ears. A dense fog from the pits of my subconscious, lingering around the summits of my thoughts, crawling to the tips of my fingers, the tip of my tongue.

She’s a contagion. I’m undiagnosed, but I won’t get you sick. Just as long as we don’t lock eyes, as long as we don’t touch.

Oh shit, she’s airborne, so wait until my breath ceases.

How long until then? Ask Time. He won’t let me pass.

He says that’s his job.

But Death, she’s impulsive, impatient.

And I’m seduced.

[perpetuallyinbetween]

loose floorboards, unhinged doors

“My voice - though feeble - could be heard, could resonate in the hearts of others and make a difference. But hearing my own words just incites tears, just incites a state of self-destruction, because I start to realize how I feel...

Message to subconscious: help.”

“Don’t ask about my roots because I don’t have the strength to dig that deep and you - my audience - will be disappointed by my default response”

Age 20, Fresno, CA Sept 20, 2014, pre maternal c10h15n

[insert abandoned journal, 2.5 failed relationships, 3 states, 1 disappearing act]

“I know I’ll reread this and want more context clues. I am in the middle of transition, but a massive one. In a new place with no roots, making friends and existing in a completely new fashion. I am independent and individual.

Life feels pregnant with opportunity”

Age 23, Tacoma, WA, Oct 7, 2017, basement.

“I was 4, I was nothing worth caring for. I was self-sufficient able to make a bowl of cereal. Able to tuck away the aches of yesterday’s lunch long-gone, into the secret place within myself that held on to the pain of hopelessness and survival and - like alchemy - turned it into strength as I grew from 4 to 16, where I lay in the back of an ambulance being told that if I really wanted to kill myself I would have, and now all I know is that the paramedic is right”

Oct 16, 2017, attempt to process.   

“This my upswing for sure. I’m getting there. I have a few bucks in my pocket, I have a car that runs, I have a pup I adore, I’m playing music, I’m writing, I’m making friends, I’m expressing myself, I’m communicating my wants and needs, I’m being unquestionably 100% myself. And I’m talking to a cute girl who’s smart and can carry a conversation as awkwardly as myself.

Oct 20, 2017, hope.  

“Everything is going to be okay. Everything is okay.

In other news shit sucks and you’re working through it like a boss. Or at least I’m truly doing my best. Putting my best foot forward, whatever the hell that means. For me, I believe it just looks like moving forward confidently. It’s fucking scary being alone. And luckily for the human race - a social species - I am never entirely alone, but I am definitely as alone as I could handle being. Stay strong, Fiano. You fucking got this.”

Oct 30, 2017, recognition.

“Hello November. How long it’s been since I’ve been able to nestle into your fallen leaves and cozy up back to back with the crisp calm of hibernating bark and inclimate stones. Where the source of comfort and warmth must radiate from within instead of an outwardly reliance. It’s harder to hide from yourself when you’re facing the cold. Everything is bare and exposed, just like you. But there’s no need to be a victim to the elements, allow them to hold you in their chilled ferver. They’re passionate about loneliness and solitude, they’re passionate about existing in all states, because they live at all. We are all equipped to be resilient, we just have to lean into our resilience, which - in the cold - requires vulnerability, then we can learn how truly resilient or tough we are. It’s okay to be vulnerable, then we can truly stand behind the tough front we put up. And be beautiful in it.

The fact that we exist at all is in and of itself quite a beautiful thing. When there are stars exploding, black holes colliding, and constant chaos functioning harmoniously everywhere around us, it is quite phenomenal that the blood circulating through our veins allows us to live. That we can taste, see, touch, hear… in the midst of an overwhelming everything, we are permitted intimacy.”

Nov 1, 2017, accoutrement that broke the camel’s back.  

“I’m not necessarily feeling affected by winter”

Nov 8, 2017, defense.  

“Rebuild yourself. Brick by brick you will be fortified with strength, integrity, discipline, self-respect, compassion, and love. You are capable, willing, and competent. Allow time to take its course so that you might also heal before reopening old wounds that weren’t treated properly the first time.”

Nov 9, 2017, believing.  

“That’s what I’m looking for… people I can collaborate with, transfer ideas, be challenged by, learn from. People who incite revelations within myself.

Nov 9, 2017, manifest.

“Am I truly as positive as I present myself? Am I simply branding myself, projecting an identity which is not my own? I do not believe so, I feel whole-ish and complete in my pursuit. I am needing to make sure to check in with myself about the people I’m interacting with and what my expectations are. I think I’m making some amazing progress though.

Nov 13, 2017, belief meets doubt.

“Today feels good. Today feels right. I think things are truly starting to settle. I’m finding friends and feeling at ease. Leaning into good conversations and positive influences. People who challenge me intellectually. I think that’s the most important thing to me right now.

Nov 16, 2017, identification.

“It’s hard trying to discern what it means to be human; if the self-destruction is what makes us human or if it’s the natural inclination to be like animals. Humanity perhaps functions on a spectrum, my fear is the unpredictability of the scale tipping in the direction of cruelty.

Sometimes I look at the people around me who have fallen to poverty and I feel fear because I am so much closer to that than success. Perhaps that’s just a state of mind.”

Nov 17, 2017, insert fear.

“What I do have is my story. I have where I come from, and I haven’t fully trusted anybody with it fully yet… I have to choose carefully and shut off my desire to bubble over and tell <crush> everything. Because I’ve been so hurt by that before. So absolutely defeated and disappointed. Perhaps I’m calloused. But I talk to test to see how someone will respond to me, to see where they can go when I’m saying something. If they can be trusted.

Dec 10, 2017, insecurity knocks.

“Do I truly have nothing to give right now? Am I drowning in the reality of who I am. I tried to be okay, but perhaps I am not Miss Optimism.”

Dec 19, 2017, doubt answers.  

“It should always be work, it should always take effort. One cannot thrive at living without putting in the effort to thrive in the first place.”

Dec 30, 2017, grasping.

“I don’t want to talk or think about how I’m doing”

Jan 1, 2018, toeing the threshold.

“I don’t want to think my thoughts because everything just ends up an unanswered question. For whatever reason I keep thinking of someone could just give me a reason to stay or go. But since when do I function on other people’s reasons? I’m feeling volatile, I’m feeling unpredictable, I’m feeling a lack of control of my emotions. I need to get my shit together.

Where do you find healing in a broken world? I don’t think I’m better than everyone, it’s just easy to see people’s flaws, which isn’t what I’m focused on , but it allows me to gauge what depth they’re able to function on. Or perhaps I’m just a dick. Perhaps it’s easier to focus on other people’s problems rather than my own. I wonder where the line is that differentiates intelligence and insanity. Or perhaps it’s delusion I suffer from. Perhaps I’m not as smart as I like to think. I do feel as though I’m about to lose my shit soon, which I don’t want to do. I think I also don’t want people getting to know me. I don’t know that I want to fit in. I want to simultaneously matter and to not. I don’t want help anymore, though I am grateful for the people I met.”

Jan 12, 2018. Descent.

[perpetuallyinbetween]

there’s  some dna stuck in your hair

She was 30 when GI Jane came out on VHS. Shortly after finishing the film, she modeled herself after Demi Moore and cut off all of her hair. I was 3 and don’t remember that I cried when I saw her. She says I didn’t know what had happened to my mom. Of course I didn’t recognize this newly self-possessed woman who had finally taken a matter into her own hands. I have a photo of my mom with that haircut: before the abuse, before the neglect, before the meth, she looked like she could have been happy.  

I had kept my hair long and unruly since I was 9; it had become my pride,it had hidden my face from eyes I couldn’t trust, it was my security blanket.  At 23, I decided to take my life into my own hands. Where independence had served as nothing but a detour for my mother, it would be my own walk. I took the scissors to my hair, my matrilineal curse, without thought, without care, with a sense of freedom. With every snip my heart was reawakened to Her first love, my body remembered Her first alignment with the moon, my mind relived Her first rebellious thought. I was shedding this childhood blanket and stepping forth into my own womanhood. 

Relinquishing myself of the weight this hair bore, I couldn’t focus on anything else until I had finally set the scissors down. 

It wasn’t the product of a chrysalis... but a Metamorphosis. Kafka wrote the dread that grasped my throat and strangled my lungs as I looked directly into the eyes of my own household monster. I heard his voice softly cooing, felt his warm breath on my neck, his thumb and forefinger gently caress my bare ears, his hands press into my back... 

I was looking at my father.

I had run from the memories, run from the reality, run from every single problem... I had run until I was stripped bare, until I was forced to stop and truly look at who I had become and who I was becoming. Until this point, I had thought it was their fault: the dissolving of my sanity and esteem. But I had become them both. I wasn’t just dancing around their mistakes and forging my own path, in my attempt to escape them, I was obediently following their footsteps: 

I fucking hated myself. 

Cold water, a blink, a shake, a breath, a moment. 

I looked at my father’s eyes and my mother’s chin, smiled the smile that somehow embodied them both and not at all. I wondered at what fixed point in my DNA, what coding of fate and genetics had this moment been destined? Which centromere held us all together?  As I looked at them both in that borrowed mirror, I saw clearly they had stood where I stood and had also faced what they hated the most. My nightmares had once been theirs. 

Understanding seeped into my breath, liberated my lungs, infiltrated my blood stream, and began untangling the synaptic self-hatred I had learned from birth. I had shed my pride, shed my security, shed my childhood. Now, I had to decide to love myself in order to truly sever the double helix that bound me to them. 

Starting with my hair.

[perpetuallyinbetween]

It’s matrilineal

I’m  back to square one: spending my nights in Denny’s, spending my days in regret. School work weighs heavily on my dragging heels, the responsibility of two jobs tugs on my arms like overweight children demanding my attention. I am a caveman, circling the figure eight, unable to break away from the paths grained into my DNA. 

I’m no trailblazer, I’m the caboose of a clinically insane assembly line: crazed women dancing to an imaginary chacha.  

I’ve exhausted all familial charity. Now I am held truly accountable with nobody left to blame for my unhappiness but myself. 

My double helix is a curse, and I’m a willing follower. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

Encouraging words from the father

[perpetuallyinbetween]

Coming out. Thanks for the statistic dad

[perpetuallyinbetween]

It's nights like tonight when I'm sitting by myself at McDonalds that my existence seems bleak. What I have to offer doesn't extend past the hair on my skin and what I am is limited to my aesthetic definition. The middle aged, overweight manager flirts with me, and I graciously accept the free food he offers, joking that I owe him one. My laughter resonates naïveté, but my diaphragm is weighted with shame and loneliness. Still I sit here, because if I'm going to be by myself, I don't want to be alone. I hallucinate familiarity in order to protect myself from reality.

[perpetuallyinbetween]

fuck yourself instead.

I hate that you took an anti-rape pledge, stating you would "create safe spaces and accessible resources for survivors and victims" and yet you let me apologize for what you did. You wrote it off as dual drunkenness. Even though I shook my head 'no' as you gently caressed my rib cage. I shook my head 'no' and pushed your wandering hand away from my breast. I said 'no' in a strained voice and turned my body away from your fingertips, which whispered desire above the hem of my panties. And when I started crying, you touched me still. Your apologies sounded sincere, yet your hand rested intentionally on my navel. 

I kissed you back, in hopes it would be the one action I could own. The one action that would give my body back to me. Just because I slept with women before, just because you were my friend, didn't make my body your canvas of self-discovery. 

One year later...I say sorry before I say no. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

you deserve it, ma

My doctor told me that with addicts, you can't compare yourself to their decisions. It doesn't have to do with how much they love you, she said. You have to understand that. 

It's all advice the ten year old I still am refuses to hear. My ankles still dangle over my make shift bed in my father's apartment, as I sit waiting for my mom to pick me up. A handmade mother's day card to my left and an unblinking Nokia cell phone to my right.  

I love you more, was written on the inside in purple pen. 

Four words I etched into reality with a dry Magic Marker every time I tried to cheer her up when she cried, every time I'd clean up the glass from the dishes she'd thrown against walls, every time I'd wait at the baby sitter's while she got her self inflicted cuts attended in the ER.

The ten year old me can't think of anything else I could have done to make her love me.

The almost-20 me yearns for the deficit  

[perpetuallyinbetween]

So, tell me about yourself, I guess.

Oh wow! Well, thanks for finally asking. My name is… well you know my name already, hopefully. I’m nineteen, almost twenty. As you can see I’m of average height and weight, well I think its average. Magazines call me “full-figured”.  I don’t know when it became a bad thing to be full though. I am financially independent, a full time student, with two part time jobs. I have some tattoos as you might be able to tell. I’ve had my septum, Monroe, and nipple pierced. My hair isn’t originally this dark, but it couldn’t decide what color to be, so I made the decision on its behalf.

Sorry, am I boring you?

What? Oh. No... not at all.   But did you know that -

I did, thank you. Before I made any body or life altering decision, I fully researched other possibilities, and found the one which suited me best.

But you should –

Oh! Now that’s one I haven’t heard before. Thank you so much for discrediting the decision to which I’m already committed by offering an opinion on something I already ruled out as unfitting to my current situation.

Well you shouldn’t have done –

But I did. And the crazy thing is – I know it’s hard to believe – it ended up working out in my favor. It’s like I know what I’m doing.

It’s like I know the circumstances I find myself in and can predict the practicality of my future based off what I’m doing now. It’s like I’m capable without you.

I know I’m only nineteen, and that I’m only a woman, and sometimes I cry, and sometimes I drink too much, and sometimes I have meaningless sex. But I’m a capable individual and I know what’s best for me and what I need when I need it. It’s how I got to where I am right now, I don’t know if you heard but I’m financially indepen -    

I was just suggesting –

Well perhaps you’d like to take your uneducated, unasked for opinion, and put it in a gumball machine, so when I find two fucks to give, I can spin them through the system of clogs and willingly watch your opinion drop down and hit the small metal door with a clink. Then I’ll sit and chew on it for the 30 seconds it lasts and when I’m done, I’ll spit it onto the sidewalk where thousands of feet will have the misfortune of stepping on it over and over and over, until it becomes as absolutely unnoticed as it was unnecessary.

Or you could spare us both, and not ask about something you don’t really care to know. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

take a seat.

There’s a homeless woman who has just left the Starbucks’ bathroom, standing outside the building smoking a cigarette and muttering to herself. As I sit comfortably, abusing the company’s free WIFI, I watch this woman strangle her sanity, and all I can think about is how I didn’t put a cover down when I used the toilet.

[perpetuallyinbetween]

fresh brew

“What time is it?” He asked, about to prove a point I knew was mute.

“1 am.”

“Yup, you’re weird.” The Denny’s chef nodded contentedly at me, as he explained his rationale of understanding customers: Because I was there late, I was weird like the rest of them.

We both knew that wasn’t true, I clearly wasn’t like the strung out bunch dwindling in. But he wanted to talk to me which was made obvious by the amount of times he started absurd conversations.

Of course, I obliged.

It wasn’t an obligation really, was it?

I kept telling myself I was there to be inspired. To write. But really, the chef and I both knew I was there because I didn’t want to be alone.

He called me ‘darling’ and topped off a full cup of coffee and I felt comforted.

I gave a generous tip and walked out the doors, feeling him watch.

That night I proceed to talk to whoever will respond. I spend my worth on every word of deprecation, raising the pitch of my voice to match the height to which I will never fully stand, twirling my hair into a weave of lies with a finger that knows more about women than I’d care to admit. And I know a man will be fooled into holding me for the night. And I the fool for thinking it’s what I want: the immediate gratification, the feeling of being known without having to explain, the sense of love without the need of expression. 

All I ever get is a mouthful of regret with a bitter aftertaste of shitty diner coffee. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

impulse.

I couldn't breathe. I kept checking my pulse to make sure it wasn't a heart attack. I kept checking the whites of my eyes to make sure my liver hadn't failed.

It was another anxiety attack. The kind where I know I’m dying and reassurance that I’ll be okay is futile but necessary. The kind where I start to cry because I want to tell all my family, friends, and once upon a time relations, how much I care about them and the importance they held in my life, but I can’t tell anybody the way I’m feeling. Mostly because I can’t articulate how I’m feeling beyond: “I’m dying” in shredded breaths. And nobody understands that. 

This night, it was catalyzed by an accident. I had drunken some Dr Pepper mixed with whiskey as part of my wind down. An hour later my menstrual cramps started kicking in, and I was growing rather uncomfortable. So, I went to my medicine cabinet and popped the only painkiller I had left: hydrocodone with acetaminophen. Then I looked at the warning label, which very seriously directed me against taking the actions I’d already committed.

Next thing I Google, my liver is failing.

The thing is… it wasn’t. But I didn’t know that.

In that moment I was as good as gone.  I would die alone, and wouldn’t be found until I had missed my first or second shift at work. My dad would do a terrible job of my funeral arrangements; nobody would know I had died because he wouldn’t tell any of my friends, and the procession would just be a shit show. He’d probably play “Delilah” by the Plain White Tees and he wouldn't know what to say.

The memory of me would be as I felt in that moment of anxiety: unknown.

I am the infinite chasm you peek over from a safe distance, the cave nobody has seen the end of, the dream in which you keep falling.

My existence is my black abyss within the span of the ocean.

My existence is the embodiment of my worst fear.  

My eyelids weighed the world, but if I slept, I might not have woken up. So I set an alarm for every hour to prevent that possibility. With my lights on and a borrowed teddy bear nuzzled against my chest, I finally allowed myself to breathe, and I fell fast asleep. 

The next morning, I'm excited to be awake. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

the man.

I have been waiting on the phone for 61 minutes, hoping someone on the other line will end the torture of elevator music and repeated intermittent messages. The monotone voices are meant to be some assurance there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but I don't believe them anymore. I swear to God these voices are going to be in my nightmares. I can't back down now though. An hour of my auditory occupation has been dedicated to the medical insurance company already. That's an hour of my life I will never get back. 

...Is this adulthood? 

Someone finally answers, only to put me on hold again. The total amount of time we spend talking is probably 75 seconds, in which time she tells me she can't help me and gives me another number. 

The other number won't answer my call because of too much traffic. 

I'm going to have aneurysm before I get my health insurance. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

The Aunt

Her stomach churned on the car ride home knowing that behind the door to her own house, she would have to deal with her younger sister’s idiocies. This one’s name was Clayton.  She got out of the car quickly, ignoring the kiss the man/boyfriend/manager/pimp tried to give her. She’d pay for it later, but she’d been paying for it for the past few months already.

In the living room, her sister was on the couch with Clayton, inappropriately dressed, obviously having just committed some act of alleged love. The woman wasn’t one to judge, but she felt slightly nauseated at the thought of her 31 year old sister with that 18 year old boy. She walked past the love birds without saying much, down the hallway. As she did every night, she peeked into her nephew and niece’s room to whisper a goodnight that would only be heard by their subconscious. She had expected her nephew to be at his father's this weekend, but there he was in his bed. Then she realized that it wasn't her eight year old nephew, it was a man she'd never seen before.

She was back in the living room in a step, “Who the fuck is in your son’s bed?”

“Oh, that’s just one of Clayton’s friends. He needed somewhere to sleep tonight,” her sister commented off-handedly, never taking her eyes of the screen.

“So you felt like it was a logical decision to let a grown man sleep, unsupervised, in the same room with your four year old daughter?” 

“Oh, he’s harmless.”

This cavalier response was more vexing than the initial decision her sister had made. She walked away, unnoticed, back to her niece’s room, scooped the little girl up carefully, and put her down in her own bed. The girl’s hair fell over her eyes in crooked chunks and her mouth was wide open allowing a small stream of drool to fall on the pillow. The woman smiled a warm, sympathetic smile at such an image of innocence still untainted.

And with that, she went and took a shower to wash the night’s work off her body. She scrubbed every inch twice, running her fingers through her hair, hoping to clean the net of scents. She brought her hands down to her face and scrutinized the lines on her palms, knowing they promised a better future.

Something had to. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

the safe way

To be cliché, I hate my period. I don’t so much mind the biology of it. Like yeah, I can deal with the fact that my uterus is rejecting an unfertilized egg and all the nest of that egg is tearing itself away from my inner walls and falling out of me. I just hate the fact that I have to go to the store, find the fucking feminine care section tucked away somewhere in the general region of diapers, home care, and animal food, and then pick out the cheapest way to clog my flow and protect my clothes from stains.

I walk into Safeway and I emphatically snatch a basket to prove how much I hate the person coming in behind me because of a vehicular tiff we got into in the parking lot. If they didn’t know, they do now. Then I walk with a mission to the most sterile looking isles. If my eyes wander anywhere else, I know my basket will slowly fill with fruit, cookies, and chips and I’ll be out the door in an excited frenzy over food, having forgotten about my tampons.

So I go straight to the general direction of tampons. Yes I’ve been to this store hundreds of time in the past four years, and any other week I know exactly where feminine care is, but today, I head to isle 13, doubt my decision, back pedal two isles, go up the diaper isle, back down the pet/home care isle, and then finally find feminine care located one more isle down.

Once there, I avoid eye contact with anybody else roaming around. I hate any passerby and their newfound knowledge that I, the girl, (Nay! The proclaimed woman!) in the plaid shirt with disheveled hair, am on my period. But it’s not my hormones that make me hate all the Tampax products with over cheery slogans and colors too bright for my period brain to handle; it’s that I can’t afford them.

Generic brand it is.

I mean it’s just soaking up blood, how fancy does it need to be.

But those neon colors are kind of cute…

No. Focus. Get the fuck out of here.  

But chocolate…

No.

Buy 2 get 2 free at the check-out…

Okay.

It's 11 PM, meaning every suburban husband has snuck out of the house to get what he actually wants to eat for dinner. I get in line behind four men. The man immediately in front of me has a baseball cap, a mustache, and is buying a 12 pack and five packages of chicken. I keep my lady stuff in my basket.

****

“Do you have your period?”

I was startled at the frankness of this question. I had been talking to this homeless man about the Bible for the past two hours. He had approached me and I took it as a “ministry opportunity,” even though he had beer in his mustache and one of his eyes drooped, giving him somewhat of a sinister stare; I didn't want to judge a book by its cover. But I had no idea why he was asking about my menstrual cycle.

“Uhm, I mean… yes.” I was sixteen and still ignorant as to how men of the world functioned. I answered the only way I knew how: honestly, but I noticed I was getting a little uncomfortable. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me under his baseball cap, seemingly satisfied by my answer.

“So, when you go to pee, do you ever feel a little feeling down there?”

“What? No.” I was growing confused and flustered. I didn’t know how to get out of this now and I didn’t understand why he was asking me these things. Fear started to well up in my stomach and my subconscious was rattling at its cage, trying to warn me of the injustice the man was mentally committing against me.

“You don’t?!” he sounded simultaneously surprised and disappointed. “Do you ever touch yourself down there?”

I wish I could have looked him straight in the eye and claimed myself back, I wish I could have just stood up and walked away, but I was paralyzed by fear, not sure if a sudden interruption to whatever reel was going on his head would catalyze a sudden act of aggression. I both knew and didn’t know, just as I was sitting before him, both clothed and naked.

I looked everywhere else but his eyes, I was afraid they would show me what was playing in his head, “No. I don’t.”

Again, disappointment flickered at his smile and I stared at my lap knowing I should have left long ago. It was just a conversation; it would have been so easy to walk away. But he asked one last question,

“Do you use tampons?”

****

I pour my liners, pads, and super tampons onto the conveyer belt, not making eye contact with the young cashier.

We make casual, light hearted small talk over my stereotypical purchase, joking about shared awkward experiences, and for a moment, I feel like just another normal girl. 

****

I couldn't tell if he wanted me to say that I did or didn't wear tampons. 

I told him no hoping it would be the wrong answer.  

He seemed overall satisfied, and I felt nauseous. He was finished with whatever he wanted from me and I felt I could finally walk away from him. But as I passed him, he grabbed me in a hug before I could say no. He pressed his body against mine. And I just stood there and let him.

I didn't think I had a reason to, but I felt violated. 

I felt like just another girl. 

[perpetuallyinbetween]

Chester

I’m sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce on my bed enjoying my three favorite things in life: Justin Vernon, granny panties, and vodka. The scent coming up between my legs reeks of familiarity; a scent unique to pre-menstruation.Sadly, it brings me some hope. I drunkenly lost my virginity using the all star of contraception: pull out, so even the smallest, weirdest sense (scent) of consolation is welcome. Honestly, if I continue to worry about the possibilities of being pregnant, I’m almost positive the entire family-sized bag of Hot Cheetos I just consumed will morph into a Chester the Cheetah baby.

It ain't easy being cheesy.

Good thing I'm just easy. 

This is being nineteen.

This is my time to make the rest of my stupid decisions. I am undoing all of the mature and responsible decisions and life goals I made in my adolescence. I am pulling the thread of the sutures I’d sewn over my wounds of the world with a dexterity exceeding that of a seasoned surgeon. I am making spirit room for the urgency of my self-inflicted wounds.