so we were in the car and the rain was coming down so hard that the nissan in front of us put on the hazard lights and i started wiggling and said it’s a disco! and wanted to put on abba but alex was right - i have too much spread across the hearth right now & i would have crashed us both (and the dog) into the guardrail. these days every time we go up to maine i get a little bit more bored of it. i’ve been thinking a little too hard about the plan i have, which is to say that i’m in therapy once a week, and love kate more than i love a gun. we were on the road for 5 hours which wasn’t long enough to cover either of our whole histories, but it was long enough for both of us to admit how bad it got. i cried about what happened to them, which is funny because i laughed when it was my turn to say that yeah so that’s how i broke my arm. everyone around us was almost invisible in the thunderstorm except the yellow winking lights flashing on&off and some anonymous folk song was playing. a few times in the ride i found the music i’d put on to be inappropriate but didn’t have another idea for what to exchange it with. everyone i know and love is turning 30 and i’m living in a tiny apartment that doesn’t see the sun and my windshield wiper needs to be replaced and i don’t think i’m going to buy the gun but i’ll let you know if that changes.
we threw the party after i picked the woman’s teeth off the floor and i hadn’t washed my hands enough afterward, even though the bartender let me behind to the hot sink and good soap. people stepped around her while she pooled down the stairs and got blood on my phone. for a moment when she asked me to open the camera so she could see the damage, it was me and her in a strange, over-bright selfie, and i thought - oh fuck, she kind of looks like me. i think i should have probably called an ambulance after her fall, but it would have been hard getting her into the back of the truck. 3 hours after i play king’s cup with 3 other people and i feel way too old for the whole thing, like we’re all doing some kind of theater. 24 hours beforehand, we’d sat at the same table and it had been perfect, loose and friendly and a little overexcited.
we all groan when we get up from the couch. alex and i are considering buying a house. the woman who fell was wearing the same color as i was and she was probably in her mid-40’s and her husband at first said she’s always doing this and then when she opened her mouth we found out she’d bitten through her tongue when she slammed her head on the railing. i kept telling everyone - it’s actually not the blood? it’s that i am terrified of a future where someone just watches me fall and then lets a stranger pick me up.
and it’s like, not that bad. I tell myself that in the shower, on the phone, in traffic, rushing through life without ever knowing why the hell I’m rushing. It’s not like there’s a destination at the end of this path; I’m not on any sort of time crunch. But I’m throwing back shots in someone’s backyard and telling everyone at this party how it’s fine, really, I came to terms with it a long time ago. I made my peace, they made their choice, and by the way, could you turn up the music? I just love this song, it reminds me of the summer I turned 18. All glitter and sugar-sweet lies that dripped from her tongue. But I’m closer to 30 than I am to 17 and damn, where did the time go?
you laughed at something Britt said and I watched your eyes crinkle at the edges. The road trip from six years ago when I came home plays out in my mind- she stopped the car and told me to get the hell out and I wandered unfamiliar streets for hours- and I’m thinking about the way the bottle broke, shards of glass smashing out against the concrete, slipping through my hands the first time I heard her say “yeah, she’s kind of crazy, but at least the lonely is gone.” and I know, I know, I know things have changed, but I’m standing here in a gale begging for answers. If we’re all just looking for a hand to hold, I’m still reaching for yours. I haven’t bought the gun yet but it’s on my mind about thirty percent of the time. I’m still thinking about an exit plan and at this point, I’m not even sad anymore, I’m just tired of living with this dead weight.
There's still scars on my knees from childhood scrapes and sometimes I wonder, if this is the skin I've been wearing this whole time, who am I underneath it? I'm watching my hands do the work they've done every morning for the past two years and I guess what I'm saying is, I don't know the difference between love and muscle memory. I do the dishes and the laundry and I pick up the dirty socks and I wonder if my love is the same- not there because I want it, but because it's my job, and if the muscles in my hands remember how to work with a confidence I don't feel… what does the muscle of my heart remember?
//a collab with @inkskinned
baratheonpilled
blakekathryn
