i babysat all afternoon, a girl i've been watching since she couldn't talk and today she said, "for instance," and i couldn't believe it. she used to think that i was cool, but now i am a pain, now she won't laugh with me. which is sad, right? which i can't take personally, right?

but anyway. i have money now. i could buy a dress! i could go out to sushi! i could buy homeopathic anxiety medicine! i could save it too. for some grand trip someday. for some grandness around the next bend. around the next afternoon trying to get six year olds to drink water and put on sunscreen. i am a really mean babysitter. i try to explain that my job is to keep her safe, try to explain the concept of inertia as a justification of why it is a good idea to ride the scooter a little bit slower but it doesn't really work.

once when she was still little i was there and there was a thunder storm. a scary one, and i explained that the clouds were friends, bumping into each other. saying "hi." i demonstrated with pillows and she believed it completely. it was basically true, and then she laughed and i put her to bed.

totally lame

i went to a show with my dad and wrote all over my hands....

"dear me,
you've been seeing a lot of bald girls today. she is looping the guitar and the keyboard. you like the way that sounds..."

and then on and on about how that sounds cool but looping in your head is not cool, how you would rather be playing the drums, be making the beat.

also about having gotten sick in iowa city.

and then you thought about how awesome "iowa" "city" would be for a knuckles tattoo.

and about that guy in iowa who sounded like garrison keillor.

and about how sometimes you want to get a freckle as a tattoo even though that is totally lame.

rode thirty miles today.

was with him when he got called a faggot, feel bad even repeating it here, like saying it is giving it more power. i laughed. like. what the fuck. like that's funny, that they think that's mean. like, that's really the worse thing they can say about you? like you like boys? like I LIKE BOYS TOO.

always convinced that people who say faggot are hating themselves more than they are hating you. convinced that those boys wearing beaters driving around in their car on this hot day they want each other. they want to be parked and laying together, not driving in the heat, keeping their bodies far apart, shouting out windows.

i am feeling on top of the world. in love and everything. this vampire weekend song came on and it sounds so sweet. let's lay here, let me read this book, the air feels nice tonight.

i feel like i'm awesome tonight, like i'm awesome and like the world is awesome, and like i and the world are going to have this great future together.

tonight the air feels good, the wind through the trees, you whispered in my ear about the wind through the trees, the wind all around the world, just for me, just for cypress.

when i say "you," i am not talking about you.

holding on like i'm a life raft, like we're drowning on the ocean and not laying on the couch.
listening to sad songs because being sad feels good.
feeling my head inside my head because i'm sleepy.
loving the grayness of today, because it is permission to do nothing, because you hate doing so many somethings.
typing this, is not typing up notes for school, is maybe a million times more important.
smelling something, smelling nothing anymore.
missing you even though you just left, since i've know you forever, since i'll call you in minute anyway.

bus ride ride

this is a blog entrie written in a word document, which seems almost wrong. can i even do it? can i even make the tone sound right? is it a mindset?

i am on the bus, i have been on the bus too long, like, i almost became convinced that i was going to the wrong place, like i'm not going where i am suppose to be going, like who am i without someone to confirm who i think i am? where am i going without you reminding me what is important, without you caring, or without us caring together.

yesterday i was on a roof, and i started thinking about jumping, about how if i jumped i would die, about how it would only be there in a moment, how if i was alone that moment might come quickly, too quickly, and then i employed the life saving technique.

remembering before it happens, something really great, a moment where the light is bright and perfect, a moment where i am happy to be alive. so that even when...

it wasn't even sadness, it was more like appathy, like a tiredness, a not wanting to have to ride the bus, a not wanting to keep trying, a "life has been good let's quit while we are ahead" sort of thing.

i don't want to apply for college.

visiting schools with my dad was the most exhasting thing i have ever done. maybe a hyperbole, but still, do you see what i'm saying? i haven't even said anything yet, what i meant was that i was imagining a million lifes for myself, what conversations would i have in this dorm room or a dorm room that looked like this? what realizations would this campus lead me to making? is it even possible to tell or is it all based on some serinipity?

i'm coughing now. i feel like shit now. like sweaty and like i should have brushed my teeth and my hair and like i shouldn't have taken the bus. like maybe i should go to sleep, like i'm taking this blog entry wildly off course, like i'm proud of myself for not freaking out right now even though i haven't the slightest idea of how i'll get home, how i'll find my way from bus station to bus station to bus stop to house to shower and bed. how i have some sort of faith now on the bus, perhaps induced by sleepyness, by shere inability to worry anymore. i would love to take a shower.

scared shit-less of moving out, of staying here. of two fights in a row, you texting your sister and me on the phone with my mom. one fight about the fair, and another about my head. it's not really about that though, it's about not wanting to call, it's about wanting to be free.

perhaps i am wasting my summer in the very best way. perhaps i am falling in love either with you or with how open the sky is. perhaps when i start to cry it has to do with being in a body, with not being in the wind. like being with you in bodies is too much work. spirits don't get driven home by their dads. spirits don't talk about brown and williams. spirits live in the moment when the radio is loud in the sun, when there is jumping and taking your sister's nail polish. spirits paint each others' nail under the big open sky. spirits don't have heads to get stuck inside of. spirits are spiritual without god, they laugh at bad jokes and never get tired or hungry or cranky.

perhaps i should learn to love the body, to learn to love the way my mind goes in cirles until it reaches the end. the way that i am able to work on a paper or a project or study for hours and hours. to get so hooked onto that i don't notice my back hurting or how bored i am. maybe i should love that my spirit is trapped inside of a body that i have control over, that nobody can take a box and capture my spirit. put it up for sale, or...

if i do end up taking pills (am i being to up front here? or is that part of the charm?) will i be the same person? will it be a hole in my head, or a damp on my spirit? will my blog posts be as good, or my studying so constructive? but really does that matter? really do i care? will i be happier under the sun, laying there, not wishing to escape the body, wishing to escape my head going in circles, over and over like i'm going crazy, like i'm already crazy?

i don't like to go to bed before my parents get home. my parents are leaving me home for days at a time, and i will stay here, glued to this screen, scared of the noises at night.

it didn't use to be an issue. back when i was little, when i was twelve and i would put myself to bed, before they returned.

this year i would get up before them, in the morning and go to school on my bike, and turn off my lights after them. having hit the books all day, having talked on the phone too long.

i'm sleepy now. i'm waiting for my dad. glued here to the safety of the internet, where there is nothing but light, there can't possibly be dark.

tender forever is by far my favorite band. in a way that i can even explain. the love for those songs resides in my chest not in my brain. it resides in the belly, in the heart.

every morning i would watch a tender forever video, after getting out of bed, before getting dressed, getting dressed is such a hassle. i'd rather stay in my pajamas and watch youtube, all day.

it doesn't work like that, instead it was my coffee. a video, a song and then being pushed into a day, into a week.

i love tender forever.

new post, new day, hot day, waiting for a phone call, waiting for a hundred phone calls, waiting for the mail, getting the mail, not getting the call, not having the gall, not being sure, not being not sure, hoping that you read this, hoping that you'll still love me in a hundred years, even when your dead in a grave next to someone else.

even though we've never been to the grave yard together, even though all i want to do with you is to check up on your uncle, take care of your dogs, be tucked into bed. i want to be married, i want to to be free, i never want to leave.

i would rather spin the bottle, i would rather, sometimes, forget. i would rather not be so hot, it is so hot. i am so tired, i want you to hold me. i want you hold me and tell me that i am not crazy, and that you do not love me. i do not want to think that you love me, i do not want to think that you love me, that i love you. that my shoes are hurting the backs of my feet, that the airconditionar is going to be the straw on the camels back, that while i'm getting cooler the world is getting warmer.

let's drive around. i like to drive in your car with you. i like to be with you. i like to feel alive. i like to feel dead. i like to lay in bed. this is to a hundred yous, to you and you and you. this about nothing. this is about me .

maybe i am actually crazy? maybe not a sane person, maybe it is my own fault, maybe you shouldn't be reading this. maybe i shouldn't write, maybe it is selfish, maybe i am being selfish running in circles in my head, maybe gatsby was being selfish falling in love with daisy. didn't he owe the world? not anything exactly, but having been there, all that time, shouldn't he do something, have more parties, supply more illegal booze?

maybe the sad music doesn't help. maybe you being across town, where the streets feel different, maybe when we met, maybe that i forget to eat.

maybe.

i am thinking about my love for this american life. about how nothing at all makes any sense when snow is blowing into your face. how snow blowing into your face makes you walk fast, how snow makes you different. not a day, but a winter makes you love meat and it makes you sleepy. it makes you want to escape or quietly die.

airpoet

my grandparents drove me here, to this airport seat, to this brightly lit room. they drove through the gray, we drove through the beige of the suburbs where all the buildings look alike.

what am i trying to say?

i am listening to the new tender forever, finding an old friend in a reformed body. the mist over the city, i think my glasses are dirty, you are looking a little bit different. i love you just the same. i miss you just the same.

sometimes when the only thing you want is to feel really alive, saying goodbye makes you cry. i didn't cry saying goodbye to lois and eric, i was trying too hard, holding my eyes opens with some sort of determination, not saying anything. almost crying hurts worse than crying.

to stop and to think about being about to get onto an airplane is fucking scary. we will hurtle through space. it is flying, it is magic.

where does one actually belong, after time finding friends in new bodies, in better shape, with different thoughts, and then you are in some magic place, or are looking for some sort of magic, are trying to chase each other back in time, finding the things that you had in common, or maybe there was never anything there. to what extent is friendship a construction? a house built of marshmallows on the beach, you just only hope it won't start raining, and then maybe now it's melted down, and rather than starting over you try to turn the knob of fluffy sugar that has dissolved anyway.

i love you still. even if it only in a memory. can i love you in the past tense? can i keep stealing that line over and over out of andrew's poem, out of my own heart.

how does time work? how does love work? how does magic work? how is your imagination different and/or the same as mine? to what extent are our imaginations shaped? to what extent is the problem not rain but different concepts of how the house has weathered time? to what extent does it being well built make a difference? to what extent can you compare friendship to marshmallows?

how are boardwalks justified? (extremely unedited writing)

i am falling asleep right now, falling to pieces, always. was on a bus for too many hours to count today, was next to someone i love too much too tell. next to the sister who isn't a sister, the friend who is more than a friend without being anything more than a friend. in the isle with m&m's and head phones and a piece of seat between us. she is on the other side of this town now, but i won't see her for a while now. neither of us belong here, we will both return to where we really live, to these lives that we are carefully crafting, painfully slowly.

she said that someone had said to focus on the task at hand, to focus on each task at hand and then a month will be over and then the year will be over and then it will be a little bit less painfully slow. and then i will be dead, not literally, but fuck, slow the fuck down. my grandpa's friend told me not to rush, he's all gray and wrinkly. i am rushing through today, getting ready to dive into this year, to hold my breath as i kick across the pool, racing my own ability to hold my breath.

but really, why? but really, maybe i should slow down, to give myself a reason to take a breath, to open my eyes. this is corny now, but really. a lake and not a pool, a beautiful tree covered hill side. something like that. something more. like maybe if there was something beautiful i would or could slow down.

then again, maybe it is in my head. like maybe if i took a breath while i was swimming across the pool, if i slowed down i would see something too. a beautiful girl adjusting her goggles, or a sliver of light promising magic.

how does one construct a life? how does one construct a building or a city? how does one put in windows so that people pause? how are boardwalks justified? how do i put aside something? how do i build my life? how is a life crafted so that it is something beautiful? something to be lived and not to be survived?

that friend is something else. lets me put my head on her lap and meow, a friend who crawled around on knees with me, who drank milk out of bowls on the floor with me, a friend who played "cat" with me. she is something else. she is something besides that, a friend who knows with me, a friend who talked about floor plans with me, a friend who talked about building a commune with me, an eco friendly commune when we were ten. she hasn't really changed, we still talk about building, on the bus about living. on the bus about days and schools and houses and parents and grandparents and broken hearts and harry potter and farting. like all that goes together, as we rush on the bus, through the tunnel of free way, through the day that was today, waiting to get off to finally go pee.