Streetlight Diaries

IG: @tericamartin

[streetlightdiaries]

Carousel.

I can hear the neighbors’ grandchildren having an Easter egg hunt outside. Will we ever get there?

It seems to me that we ought to have paid our dues by now; our days of pining through long tours and double shifts should have passed. It is not for lack of trying that we confuse late-night overwhelm for doubtful truths. How will we ever get past this?

At our age, our parents were chapters ahead of this. Our friends too are plainly in the midst of their happily ever afters. But we took a little longer. We saved a little less, loved a little more. Are we still paying the price? Were our adventures worth their weight in golden years?

I turn the page to continue my spiral and am at once stopped in my thoughts—a note from him. Handwritten, bravely hidden on the upper left-hand corner of a blank page in my book is a note, left in faith for me to find.

We’ve put stake in the future. There are bright spots between the blades, we just have to keep searching.

T.

[streetlightdiaries]

I should let you in.

Pink clouds move across my morning sky. The sun and I share a sleepy smile as I think about him, about my favorite band, about coffee . . . and a poem nearly falls to my fingers. Then I think about how long it’s been since I wrote a Streetlight—are Streetlights even relevant? Are they worth anything to anybody? Do they matter if they aren’t trending? Am I just embarrassing myself? Should I sign off once and for all? Am I still me if I haven’t shared every heartbeat along the way? Am I still a writer if I’m not posting, to you, here? Sigh. Hello panic, good morning again.

“And then it all went black, that was that—”

As mentioned, I’ve picked up this new habit of gathering everything I love, anything that makes me happy, and hiding it from the world. An emo Silas Marner. Last year, it seemed like every outstanding story I’d ever gazed starry at came to a point. Characters came out swinging and I was quickly overwhelmed. I floated through the fallouts, I didn’t write the bridges. I didn’t tell you because, well, I didn’t feel safe here anymore.

I think about the way they used my lines against me. You said you used to read Streetlight every morning. I’m afraid she’ll take something from me and I won’t know how to get it back. I’ll be damned if a passing line gives him a moment’s reprieve from his guilt. I can, but I won’t. I should, “but I’m not ready yet.”

I’d go outside and get some air if it wasn’t so damn cold. I’d reach out if I thought I could trust you. But it is and I don’t, so here we are. My body falls back into bed and my chest sinks to a hollow. It’s uncomfortable, but at least it’s familiar. I roll my eyes at myself and press play just to drown out the noise for a little while.

The drumbeat regulates my pulse long enough for me to get up and pull on a borrowed tee. A beanie begins to bop along on top of my head. And an hour later, I’m skanking on the couch, still singing the same song--his favorite bridge--and feeling kinda brave again. I think I’m gonna do it this time.

You’re a punk even when you’re not dressed as one. You’re poet even if your lines don’t rhyme. My all-time favorite bands re-wrote their entire albums in the eleventh hour.

It’s obvious that I cannot go on without processing and putting it all here, in little melancholy packages never to be lost or forgotten completely. It’s apparent that the only thing left for me to do is say my own name, then go back and unpack. Let’s see what makes sense now that the sun is up again. Believe in what you can. Chase down your hooks. Everything you need to know lives in between the harmonies.

Love, T.

[streetlightdiaries]

I don’t like a gold rush

I sit here on a nest of crushed bone. The sky turns grey. Paint peels off the white porch post, my bare feet pad across the hardwood floor. I think about fairy rings, and the picnic at the top of the hill.

A few seasons ago, I allowed a playlist of my favorite songs to reach a man who saw me as a Halcyon dream. I was folklore that he only wanted fifteen seconds from, and the red flush against my white throat chakra gave me away. The playlist was disregarded, and a humiliating wind took hope away; I had really wanted to let him in.

We typically label gatekeeping as a negative, even discriminatory practice and yet I wonder at its defensive efficacy. If I withhold my precious things—my favorite songs, secret spots, and Saturday morning rituals—isn’t it true that they will stay safe? Isn’t it so that I will stay in control as long as my nest is hidden? Even mythical creatures need love, but legend is not a fair nemesis.

Could it ever be?

There is a bench in my home that’s unvarnished, unruined, and . . . wholly unmemorable. How will it reach its highest potential if I never let anyone use it?

As the dark takes over, two ships gleam again. Is it mad to think I could save us? With the red from the sun and blue from the sky, I will carry us away.

T.

works cited: T.S. and the Greeks

[streetlightdiaries]

The Battle at Carmans Avenue

What is it about a sunny, autumn afternoon that prompts the pen?

One year ago, I returned to the castle. Many of my cottars and characters were still there, which was comforting at first, and then swiftly suspicious. It turns out you can indeed go home again, but you probably shouldn’t.

Over the course of our latest chapter—which had everything to do with the past and only contrivedly spoke to the future—I was accused of treason, witchcraft, and cowardice. I could not tell which of my characters were in earnest, and which simply needed me to behave a certain way in order to preserve their own narrative. I did not stop writing. I stopped posting because I didn’t have the energy to worry about how my words might be twisted. I no longer cared to share my side of the story.

To someone who is not ready to hear the truth, honesty is treason. To someone who refuses to take responsibility, actions are caused by an invisible magical force (very flattering, by the way). And to someone who does not want to lose their power over you, leaving is cowardly. But manipulation is not chivalry, and it is important to me that the reader understands “running away” is acceptable when your peace has been compromised. A year later, I drove through a one-bank town with the windows open. Somehow, my hair did not tangle and my lungs did not tire as I indulged in a golden-hour, Jerry-Maguire moment with Tom Petty on my side. Will I write about my characters again? Probably. Love remains after the embers of battle extinguish. I’d be interested in writing a new chapter, and knowing us it’ll be nothing simple, silly, nothing so mundane. You know where I’ll be waiting.

T.

“Free Fallin’”Tom Petty

“Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway)” Straylight Run

[streetlightdiaries]

“You are a melancholy toy solider with a tiny rose clenched between its teeth”

[streetlightdiaries]

For the rest of my days

Have you ever been so afraid to lose something you hang onto it forever? You never let it change or grow; you do everything you can to keep a shred of it just as it was. This is how boys become baggage and hearts learn doubt.

I used to write of days so struck by wonder they became legend the second we passed through them. Like butterflies flying off our shoulders, those days dripped with color that I collected and used to pen a million pages. But even the most confident kids can’t control time, and we watched those wings migrate to new destinies across the map. I found myself all too aware of the fact that everything I have is someday gonna be gone, and I spent the next decade absolutely crushed by this reality.

I cried three times the day after the night I spent with him:

First, because I couldn’t believe it’d happened at all. The sun pierced my ambiguous eyes and tears splashed unexpectedly into my morning coffee. Somehow, without hope or full heart, it happened, and I couldn’t imagine what I’d done to deserve this.

Later, I cried when I realized we’ll never get that day back. Old fear set in. One of the best days of my life had passed once again, and I was so scared that this delicate little being would die at any sudden moment.

Finally, I cried when a blackberry bramble snagged my tan skin. I realized in many ways, I haven’t grown up at all, and that these are all the ways he said he wanted to get to know me better.

It’s true; we’ll never be this age again. We’ll never feel these firsts under this moon with this gin on our breaths or this love in our eyes. Moths turn to dust and starlight to dawn. I thought the rest of my time here would be spent writing stories I had once lived, but perhaps there are a few new chapters left after all.  

I have this memory of us standing in her little apartment giving her the news like it’s not real until she knows. That memory hasn’t happened yet.  

Don’t press your prom flowers. Give their seeds to the wind and put on a new song.

T.

[streetlightdiaries]

There is something between us.

He’s prone to hyper-fixation of an issue to the point where it changes the course of his life. That is probably very politically correct, but it couldn’t be me. 

“I’m thinking, like in the movies,” she keeps saying, but my life is not yet a major motion picture. And although I appreciate the turn of a pretty phrase, we can’t help but break up before I’ve even dared to love him. 

I had a version of home, and just like that I was left to live without it.

Is an author allowed respite, before the story presses on? Is it still a fool’s journey if I stepped off the cliff years ago? Can I truly heal our generational wounds without opening a few of my own? 

“It is hitting all my personal triggers,” I told her, now I’m hanging on for dear life before the bridge is even built.

Cut to me washing weekday dishes with the tears I cry to the new Foo Fighters album. “That’s fucked up,” I say to an invisible Grohl, who laughs and nods, I know. 

Who would willingly participate in this? I sit cross-legged on the hardwood floor, quietly singing and very near happy. What is it that strings these moments together? Is it memories we cling to? Is it tradition? Is it Dave’s gritty vocals? Is it strength grown from calloused hearts, or an invisible best friend in a darkened living room? Who the fuck cares. I am strung along nonetheless.  

I found a version of love. 

T. 

“The Glass” Foo Fighters 

[streetlightdiaries]

Somewhere over the I-90

Excitement is contagious. 

I walk down a quiet country road. The predictable crunching of gravel under my sneakers soothes me as I go; I’m a little nervous. I’m a little nervous about a great many things. 

As the wind picks up, distant sounds are carried into my ears. I hear a traffic whistle, children laughing, bagpipes, and the low idle of a large engine. I’m unsure of what I’m walking into, but I’m out of the woods now. A man on a bicycle winks at me as he rides by. Suddenly, a rusty truck pulls out of a driveway, sending a hot wave of ominous dust spiraling toward me. I gasp—It’s a twister! 

Chittenango, New York is holding its annual Oz-stravaganza this weekend in honor of its most famous citizen, L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. As its newest citizen, I figured I’d better have a look around. 

The dust settles and I turn the corner to be confronted by a brilliant burst of technicolor. Pink tulle drags along the pavement, glistening red shoes click-clack across the street. Law enforcement directs as rainbow-themed floats get into position and spectators look for a spot to watch. I move up Genessee Street, crossing over onto its yellow-bricked sidewalk before finding my own place. The parade begins at 2pm. 

I take note of passerby’s as I lean against a store front. All degrees of participation are present here, from League-sanctioned bonnets to green-faced goths, tinfoil-wrapped funnel hats and fur vests with detachable wings and tails. I fall in love with a floor-length ball gown, but really, anything gingham will do. It’s sort of hard to tell who is in before-character costume and who just happens to be wearing their overalls from this morning’s farm work, but it doesn’t matter, because everyone is just so excited.    

As the march commences, the fire engine, garbage truck, and snow plow are so clean and shiny that I involuntarily start to sing “and a couple of tra-la-las” under my breath. Bubbles glide out from school bus windows and a former MGM child munchkin giggles as if no time has passed.  

“And you, and you, and you, and you were there” 

Anyone who has ever done anything that could possibly relate to Oz is in this parade; authors, historians, people who saw the movie and happened to have liked it. Chittenango is excited. They are proud. They are celebrating and warmly welcome you to join in with them. I hardly recognize myself as I run to catch a small toy thrown from a parade float. I start to sing along to the VFW’s brass band, and I blush when the Scarecrow waves at me. What a Hunk.

A troupe of belly dancers in the height of their crone era undulate up the street, triggering fight-or-flight responses with their spot-on Wicked Witch cackles. They are casually followed by the community church group. The grand marshal holds a rainbow-colored umbrella to keep the sun off him as he rides in the back of a ruby-red convertible, and when the third grade class sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” more than a few eyes prove cowardly. 

We all follow the end of the parade into the town park, where the fair has been set up since last night. Artisan vendors, kettle corn trucks, and Professor Marvel’s traveling wagon sit adjacent to traditional fair rides. The line for face painting stretches well beyond the fried Oreo stand, and the balloon man twists up terriers as quickly as he can. I notice a booth running a sale on red-and-white striped compression socks. 

There is an unparalleled confidence at a rural fair, and I find any worry over embarrassing myself to be quite irrelevant since these people are much too humble, too kind, and too generous to notice as I wander around alone as if I’ve just run away. There are so many genres of people here I couldn’t possibly not fit in. I see every age, every ethnicity, and every economic class mingling together where Dunkin Donuts smartly hands out free munchkins and I think—it’s small-town eccentricities that make these corners of the world more imaginative than any city I’ve ever been too. I am so glad I’ve returned. There really is no place like my home. 

I find my way to the historical landmark sign to sit down amongst the poppies. As the crowd dissipates, dads start to loot through their kids’ goody bags. The scarecrows scratch at their collars and the witches head to the Ten Pin. I pick up a cherry Dum Dum off the street and wonder what dues the Lollypop Guild has to pay. If I had a crystal ball, I’d say we’re all going to be just fine.  

Your old pal,

Terica

[streetlightdiaries]

‘Cause everyone eventually floats away

This one is navy blue and the shade of kelp washed up on a beach. It’s foam at the bottom of the waterfall. 

I twirl about the living room, dancing a couplet with the ceiling fan. Who would willingly participate in this? When I was a little girl, I’d stand amongst the fireflies and think I’d never be alone. Something tells me I’m not going to change.

Maybe it’s the Scorpio moon that’s got me thinking so much about him, but after a good night, I always drive by past that old house. It’s as if it didn’t really happen unless I touch base there, like it doesn’t really count unless I whisper to his ghost. In a life of consequence, this was the place I first fell in love. It’s the place I left my handwriting on the wall, where I first heard Taking Back Sunday, and where an explosion once left my hair singed on the left side. This was where we said goodbye, now it’s the place I hide my hope.

Tonight the streetlights turn on before I come back to Earth. An unwritten character has taken over my entire being. He infiltrates my mind, reigniting my wonder and leaving me to replay that single second from the bar. I find there are some things I have left to learn; I could learn something from him. Just give me the time to burn. 

Three stars in my eyes. I run my fingers over illuminated keys and change the song. I don’t need the romantic plot line. I simply need you to send me my next favorite song.

We won’t get too far apart.  

T.

“Gold Star” The Dangerous Summer

[streetlightdiaries]

You’re so cool, yeah, you are

A few months ago, I told a confidant that I felt like a party clown whose friends roll her out for cheap nostalgia. Terica, who will wear fishnets and Dr. Martens, shows up with pre-dirtied hair and a demeanor that suggests she is just coming off a heartbreak or hangover. My confidant laughed at me, objectifying me far worse than others would dare, and I wondered--what exactly do I get out of this arrangement?

In the wavering sun of May, I go through the motions of becoming Terica. I have been asked to come see a set and am already running late. Still, I make an effort with the grease paint partly because I don’t want to disappoint and partly because I don’t know how many more chances I’ll get to be her. Once in the city though, it takes at least ten minutes to work up the courage to get out of the car. I saw a little girl with wild hair, running across a yard in mud boots on the drive in; I wonder if she’d be proud of me if she knew me now. Would she be impressed? Would she think I was cool?

The Syracuse music scene is punkier than Long Island ever dreamed of being. It gives rough edges and real dirt, and I am taken aback because for me, it’s love at second sight. I cross the street to meet a crowd of happily affected outcasts as they spill out of the venue onto hot sidewalks. It’s cool to see a punk in the daylight. The frays of their denim vests become individualized in the light breeze, and their smeared eyeliner is so textured I have to concentrate on controlling my gaze. 

Inside, performers appear the way they are supposed to; they have all the right tattoos in the right places and look perfectly cute in their mildly skinny jeans and winged eyeliner. I wonder how long it took them to get into character. It’s pretty clear who in this room knows me, who wants to, and who needs me to act my part. I can tell all of this by where they stand when they look back at me, by how hard they try to summon that staircase wit, and how they act when I lean into ask about the opening riff, as if I don’t already know the answer. 

I am quickly charmed by the band I’ve turned up for. They’re sweet, but keep up with my sarcasm. They drink white Russians, have never read this blog, and when tempted by a debate over the new Foo Fighters song, their eyes light up the same as mine. Is it a match made in heaven or hell? Me with my red lips, them with their black hoodies. We talk in tight circles, too old for games, too young for white flags. Sometimes it’s safer to coolly stay in the role you’ve been given and it has always been my position to stand, possibly approachable yet highly flammable, just off the back wall. So when the merch guy tugs my coat sleeve in an effort to coax me closer to the stage, I can’t help but laugh out loud in discomfort. It’s then that I dare to think I’m not their clown. Maybe not here, not them. I buy another round and a few more laughs. Show me something I haven’t seen before and I will show you the parts of her you haven’t yet known. 

I like frontmen who watch the local bands and girlfriends who don’t want to be there. I like photographers who ironically wear “pancakes, pancakes, pancakes” tees to a waffle house. Did I want to take someone home? Fuck yes. Somewhere in the middle of a disenchanting setlist I got that glow right in the center of my chest in a way I thought was long since dead. But I played it cool, and I took what I could get in the low lights of a familiar scene.

The next day, I lie out on porch cement daydreaming about things that did not happen. The going rate of a nostalgic scene clown is the privilege to spend time with characters who perhaps would not be immortalized on page, if they hadn’t found a writer who is as equally uncool.

A few days ago, I told a confidant that I thought Streetlight was a waste of energy. But it’s my diary. It was my first crush. And it carries on, like a nonsensical conversation on a tour into Upstate, New York. 

T.

“Kool” by Meet Me @ The Altar

[streetlightdiaries]

When people are talking, I miss what they say—

Love falls away. 

There are times in my life when all I want is to stare up at the moon. There are times when all I want is to show him the moon I see. The cruelest thing you can do is be there for a girl who is used to being there for herself.

I sit around in a lovely sort of pain, listening to the same 1975 songs and watching ice melt in my glass. He has become an extension of my thoughts.

The lines of communication have grown cold and my heart tries to focus on the facts. Instead, it twists them into flowery button-ups and beautiful shoes. The first verse in my veins cannot possibly understand how?! why?! he could not be on some roundabout life path that leads directly to me: all my best verses are yours. i’m who you’re looking for.

How do you love someone who does not want your love? All this time and none of us have figured it out. We’re bad at love, but we know, at least, that we’re supposed to cherish it. Perhaps we cherish it more than most, since it has so frequently escaped us.  

The smell of hyacinth fills a darkened room. I walk a drunken line of wanting to know where he is and what he’s doing, but I can’t handle who he’s with. I am staggeringly aware that it’s not me, and that’s enough. Watch the ice, turn up the volume. There are no off-brands, I think. There are just other people with different lips that will never be mine. So what’s the point of all of this?

A distant lover offers little in the way of anything besides proof of fate. I think there’s a chance I am quite heartbroken and haven’t realized it yet. Because profound is not synonymous with probable, and undeniable does not mean doable. His love for me is limited—god I hate that.

Just tell me what I want to hear.

I love him even when he doesn’t love me. I love him when I’m incapable of acting the right way or saying any sensible thing. When his best friend is telling him to stay away from me and I can’t bring his name up in conversations with the airplane codes, I am still in silent awe of his existence. By any other name, this la poésie est dans la rue is fear of abandonment. I watch the ice melt, trying to understand how long it takes, trying to grasp how long we have together. I didn’t know that would be the last day I ever saw him. I couldn’t imagine that was the last night he’d ever call my name. I remember my right cheek pressed into his shoulder, and I swore I’d always recall his smell but . . . 

I touch a wilting bloom and it falls to pieces. I scream and cry out, “I’m sorry! No, no, I’m so sorry!” I plead, but it will never face the sun again.  

Love falls away like her clothes on the foundation we built.

T.

[streetlightdiaries]

Heart Out—

In my world, the only logical thing to do with a heartache is to turn it into a hit song, or a book. Don’t talk about it, don’t deal with it, just toss it in that old Vans box next to our 15-year old fight and your girlfriend’s Jac Vanek bracelet.

An empty gas tank and another era gone by. Another choice to be made, another divide. And I wonder—why do we say, “I’m in love with you?”

In my family, the biggest party one will ever throw is in congratulations to yourself for finding the one other person on this chaotic rock who can deal with you. ‘Your person’ will not care that you fight with your best friends, that you can’t speak as well as you write, or that you sleep all day and play the same 1975 song every night. A big congratulations, you did it! You have found someone who is willing to hang out forever with your special brand of weird. Who’s willing to stay. 

We offer, “I’m in love with you” as a gift—from me to you! Here you go, here’s all my shit and shortcomings, you are welcome. Some times we say it because we’re afraid to lose what we’ve found—Stay with me, I can’t imagine life without you. Some times we mean it as an intro to an entire album and other times it’s a setup because you’re stuck on a second verse and you know I’m good for that poetic kind of pain. Some times we say “I’m in love with you,” because we can’t find our breath until we do. Because our pulse quickens at the mere thought of your voice, our hands shake wondering what you’ll do next. We say it because the feeling is so real, so undeniable, and so pressing that time really does stand still and the angels send you signs that could mean nothing else but fate found.

Some times it is selfish to say, “I’m in love with you.” These grand confessions, although romantic and mesmerizing, only make the speaker feel better and set the receiver up for absolute agony.  

Why do we take our tar-damaged hearts out of our aging chests and hold them out like a solution to stuck storylines? We do it because then the ball is in their court; your move, your choice, will you decide for me? We say, “I’m in love with you” because we’re fucking cowards who would rather write a song or a book then put action to our feelings. See, Van’s box circa 2010.

Why don’t you take your heart out, instead of living in your head?

If you love me and I love you, then nothing is solved. Not a single thing, beyond The 1975 rock-block we’ll obviously have when all of this obviously works itself out.

Terica.

“Heart Out” The 1975 

[streetlightdiaries]

“With her hair like, everywhere”

I reopen our playlist. 

A song, once a beacon of our undeniable connection, now a chorus line I cling to while everything else unravels.

A song, a moment we had on a sunny, back summer road, now only makes me jealous while she sits backstage. 

That song I played for 3 hours straight, mad as hell and so bent on never letting you affect me ever again.

The song you sent me, which I listened to despite being mad as hell. 

Our first song, so delicate under the light of the cold moon, holding my arm in any way that would keep us connected. What sweet innocence can be found in hopeful desperation. 

Then my song. This song was about one person, and then another, and then about me. Then—

I wanted to talk about Little Dove, but I never speak of it above a whisper and the amplifiers were very loud. 

I’m looking for a solar flare, for proof that Carl Sagan was right. My colours, yellow and green.

 Sunshine, we don’t belong here.

T.

[streetlightdiaries]

It's a fine line we fray

“Change” by Between You & Me

[streetlightdiaries]

The Lady with the Lamp

Twelve hours later, she wakes to the sound of rain falling against the fence post. The early morning grey seems safe, and she sits up to find the date, time, and place have been reset. 

The pathophysiology of an emotional GSW includes, but is not limited to defensive fevers, pale, raised voices, and a shortness of breath that if left untreated, makes it impossible to sing. As the intensity of pain rises, the more apparent these symptoms become. 

We all have deep-seated fears; the fear that every new release will push her towards irrelevance, the fear that their friendship is based in another’s absence, and the fear that this pain is chronic, rather than conditional. It is fear that pulls the trigger. It was weak messages that caused the Light Brigade to fall.

Her position comes with a round-the-clock watch that is mostly performed with fervent honor. But every so often, the lamp burns the tips of her fingers. Who checks the nightingale when her song ceases to call? 

At the end of the night, he texts her Nirvana lyrics but she’s already asleep. 

T.

[streetlightdiaries]

weak

messages

create

bad

situations

[streetlightdiaries]

Salt-pepper-ketchup.

I am in love with completely ordinary things. The early morning sun, Long Island homeowners using garden hoses to rinse the season off their bricks, a boy eating his breakfast before work.

I’m unsettled letting go of you.

When I crossed the Hudson, there weren’t any songs jumping off the playlist and the cards were silent. The temperature changed three times on a quick drive down and suddenly there I was, in the exact spot I’d been imagining for the past two months. 

I should have been more prepared. But I overestimate my ability to function rationally around him (“Speak words you actually mean!”) and I underestimate how hard it is to really let go (We air drum rather than have the difficult conversation). It’s tough to navigate our interactions no matter how much I want it, and the only thing that ends up giving me comfort all weekend is the very same thing that perplexes me to the point of delusion. The answer is yes—my Codes and I have over-romanticized most of our existence, but not everything. 

The last time you saw me was in a crumpled photograph that missed the bin!

The Starting Line comes on and emotional turmoil ripples across the room. For various reasons, some of which overlap, none of us can stomach the memories attached to this album. Maybe we’re bad at love, but we take care of each other by skipping the songs we’ve yet to heal from. 

She drinks orange wine and needs very little coaxing to play an old acoustic song. We clap and clap. I call him babe, thinking I’ve won this round, but he slips in quick, quiet one-liners that leave me . . . 

We are paper mache pieced together with sentences I wrote. The magic is in her text when I’m two minutes away. It’s in matching rings on the sidewalk and my hand in his shirt sleeve.

Slouched in an Astorian apartment, we are extremes: She’s my godsend and worst nightmare. For him, I say too much, yet talk far too little. He worries that everyone is happy, but he’s the only thing that could ever really hurt us. Are we reckless with each other because we just can’t help it? Are we drawn to each other so involuntarily that we can’t reasonably believe this is real and therefore, don’t take it seriously?  

It’s hard to tell if he wants me here or not. It’s difficult to know if she’s the type to put up with my bullshit or not. It’s not fun being so afraid to make a mistake that you make them all. Once Volcanoes, we are now kick drums with an Elton John feature. I think we have these awkward pains because we’re still growing, which is exciting, because that means this isn’t over yet.

Maybe we put too much pressure on our crushes. Maybe we put too much pressure on ourselves. My home breathes, it moves and sings, it even sleeps occasionally. It will take Work to be comfortable in this new era. But if anyone can do it, it’s us. Me and the Codes.

In the morning, I stood in line at the deli while Asian mothers practiced dance routines in the park. All the questions I fell asleep with were answered in dreams I had lying right next to you.

Terica.

“Decisions, Decisions” The Startling Line

“Save Rock and Roll” Fall Out Boy