stranger

This isn't really the best time to write.  I'm tipsy from a kickball playoff loss - same as every year - and a  trip to Bull's Tavern to drink all manners of interesting and Imperial beers (because what else could possibly assuage a playoff loss?).  And I'm sitting at home, all manners of tipsy, listening to Noah & the Whale, wanting to write because it seems like the kind of thing I should do when I can afford to make time for it.  So I guess I will.

It seems unnatural that I still feel strange about Leslie.  I'm afraid that, six months after we've broken up, I've attached some mythical importance to her.  I'm afraid of losing her (from what?).  I notice her absence (from what was?).  I fear, internally, that she'll meet someone else and leave me behind (she will!  you broke up with her!).  I keep tabs on her intermittently through text and facebook and snapchat.  I really just want to hear from her.  I really just want to see that she's home alone, under the covers, with Phoebe and Fiona, same as when I left her.  And I never really explained to her how much of a mistake that was.  How when I called her I really just meant other things.  How when she said, "we're breaking up, aren't we?" that it isn't really what I wanted but that when she uttered those words, I didn't exactly know what else it could be?  And so here we are.

There's a discrepancy between how I feel about her in absentia and in persona (are those even words?). When she's missing and when I'm missing her, a text means a lot.  A snapchat photo of her alone at night or babysitting means a lot.  I remember feeling so broke up at home, months ago, when she'd been out with guys, and I was raking grass in the dog yard with my parents and sister the next morning.  She told me that she hated how NO OTHER GUYS WERE ME but it still stung that she'd even been out with them.  And this after we'd broken up.  I still feel that feeling sometimes when I hear from her, that feeling of love that I can't really understand or place.  I don't think it's love exactly - more of a comfort or a warmth in that I haven't lost it quite yet - or is that love (I'm reading Kundera's The Incredible Lightness of Being now and it shocks me how much of this that novel understands)?  It will torture me forever that I don't know what love means.  Or else I'll just learn someday and then know for sure.  This feeling that I have when reading her texts, when knowing she's responding to only me and is focusing on me solely, I don't know that that's love.  It feels like home though.  It feels exactly like home.  I'll still feel such heartbreak and jealousy and loneliness and emptiness when she finds someone else.  I'll feel like that guy from the reality survival show who goes out into Alaska and survives for a week until his helicopter rescues him.  I don't have a helicopter queued up, though.  It's just me and Alaska and no one to keep me warm.

Of course, in person, it's different.   I can go on and appreciate those times on the couch as Good Times, when her head's on my chest and her breaths are routine and it's all loveliness and tenderness and happiness.  Still, her attitude isn't on par with mine.  We aren't as often on the same wavelength.  It's still true that I'm a middling thing, a body in need of influence.  Where that influence comes from matters.  Will it be from a happy, positive person or Leslie, who seems to always be embroiled in something painful or stressful, whether it's her fault or not?   I can't be someone's bobber or buoy, their life jacket.  I'm not floaty enough.  Whenever she visits I'm both reminded of how nice it once was and how I know it would never work out between us.  And when she left the last time, I cried.  And now that she's gone again, I tend to only remember the tender things and feel that warmth therein.  This is the curse, I suppose, of the lonely man.  As Damien Rice wrote, forever ago, "I can't keep my mind off of you until I find someone new."

(even then, I can't attach quite the same baggage to her that I do to Margaret.  then again, what a fucked up situation that was.  I even brought it up tonight, in conversation, if only to highlight that she ended up fucking a guy from the backup band of FUN.  fuck that.  I shouldn't do that.  she's as long gone as anyone ever has been.  fuck me for thinking October was the month when she contacts me out of nowhere every year.  christ, get over it.)

"This is the last song that I write while you're even on my mind."

on paper and on intuition

she wasn't all that good on paper, if i really thought about it.  well, she'd turned her life around.  gone back to school to finish that undergrad education, ideas of becoming a kindergarten teacher, smart and such.  but there were the difficult parts: the depression, the rape, the habit of fucking boys who weren't me and eschewing my potential company for other plans.  i try not to think too hard about margaret.  if i do, i get back to wondering.  pondering all the what ifs and why nots.  that's never healthy.  it's easier to distill it all down to "she never cared" or, to add a smidgeon of depth, "... at least not like i did."  because there's still evidence, physical proof, of that supposed emotional attachment.  those paintings in the corner of my bedroom.  haven't seen the light of day in almost two years but i know they're there.  but anyway, this isn't a blog about how good or less good margaret was on paper.  it's about (if it's about anything) how good she was in the gut.

i had this feeling with her that i never had with leslie.  this excitement.  this feeling of butterflies when i saw photos she'd send or videochats we'd have.  a sense of wonder and amazement that THIS GIRL was talking to me.  was acting like she really liked me.  was sitting on her bed in her bedroom talking to me (and nobody else).  it was a notion of luckiness, really, that felt and was ultimately transient.  i miss that quite a lot, to be honest.  that's how i knew i had to make things work (and the reason i regret not forcing the issue more than i did).  i don't just get that feeling from everyone.  anyone, really.  i don't from leslie.  the odds are that, someday, some other girl will instill the same giddy dread, the same unsettling heat in my stomach, the same fireflies in my eyes, that she did when we were close.  it's just hard to see it as a possibility.  tough to take mathematical equations at face value.  one can do the math, run through the Drake Equation and sey hey, for certain, there's life in the universe.  lots of it.  but another girl who will make me feel the same way?  i'm certain of it but not at all confident that i'll find her.  where there's no evidence, no path of string or trail of jelly beans to follow, no hints or clues or smoking guns to indicate that she's right around the corner.  there's just a shocking revelation one future day, that one of those opportunities has presented itself once again.  don't fuck it up this time.

i was reminded of it by emily tonight, who has trouble finding a guy, but also by meeting alyson this weekend.  aly who is engaged already, of course.  friends of patrick from high school.  yes yes and i met them too late.  she's lovely and thin and tall enough and blonde and smart and proper and kind enough to converse with my tipsy self even though i was probably bothering her.  one iteration of "a girl i'd like to meet."  the long-term type.  the marrying type.  the real thing that you hope to find someday.  lucky mike, i think.  lucky mike.

(i recall that one night when i lay on the couch and talked to margaret on skype, only for the second time.  i was getting dressed to go to the bar with friends and cut our conversation short.  i hated to leave but i had confidence that it wouldn't be the last time we'd talk face to face (it was).  i couldn't have known she'd met some other guy in a band and that soon after, the day between my birthday and Valentine's Day, in fact, she'd tell me it was over (whatever it was) and that she was going to be seeing him.  i didn't know that as i said goodbye, laughed, smiled, and left for the bar, where i'd meet friends (big emily in particular) and, when asked what i'd been up to, told her about the girl and the conversation, and how just purely happy i was.  how i beamed from the face.  it was so close to the end and i never knew it.)

a perfect disguise

i'd forgotten about this.  writing.  i remembered the other night, laying in bed, something i'd read online.  something to the tune of... the best thing you can do to remember all these things, remember all these possible (still undecided) memories, is to write.  to journal.  and from bed i reached for my phone and told it to remind me to write some.  simple as that.  

it's been two years in change since the last time i posted here.  three if you search for any regularity.  it makes me nervous to return.  in my memory - and somewhat vindicated by a quick glance - every post feels like a jewel, so small and perfect.  such well-chosen words and diction.  it's pressure, in a way.  to type just the right characters here, not too proper or careless.  just right.  i think it kept me away, to some extent.  

but here i am, listening to Modest Mouse, tapping away before bed.  this should become a habit.  delving into thoughts and brain fodder - cobwebs, i once called it - and processing it internally.  spitting it out through my fingers in barely organized but thoughtful speech.  everyone should do this.  

i wanted to say that i'm happy.  right now.  well, aside from the sobering solitude and loneliness of rediscovering the blogs that i've had in the past.  my dad visited tonight.  he was in winston overnight for work.  same as every year.  so he met Nellie and we got dinner at Foothills and had bearz and came back and drank more and talked and watched baseball and played with the cat.  and it was just so great.    i'm so even-keeled as an individual.  i don't often get very angry or happy or whatever have you.  much in the same way that i value more than anything the feeling of wellness when i'm sick or hungover, such that (rarely, when i remember) i really take a moment to appreciate feeling normal and healthy when i'm fortunate enough to feel that way, i'm taking these minutes to appreciate the feeling of happiness that i've felt tonight.  when we'd be talking about this or that or just normal boring things.  he's been involved in selling a farm.  i talk about work or wake forest sports or whatever.  a father and a son having a beer and talking about stuff.  i'd take a step outside the conversation - still listening - and think about us.  admire the situation from afar for just a second.  a smile would creep across my face, i could tell.  and i felt it, inside.  this is just such a Good Thing.  i've carried that feeling through the night.  i'm sitting here writing because i wanted to give due diligence to this real emotion, this real time of happiness that i'm feeling.  my family is really quite wonderful.  i know that in the way that i know very many other obvious things but it only helps to stop and appreciate it once in a while.

another happy thing occurred the other night.  i was putting Nellie to bed and she was getting anxious, meowing at me.  i sat on the edge of the tub and she on the closed toilet seat.  i stuck out both hands, facing up, cupped, and she'd stick one paw and then the other on this unstable platform before gathering the courage to step out onto it and walk up my arm toward my face.  it's trust.  it's a little animal like that and me.  it was a nice moment.  i smiled, probably.  

also, it amazes me all the girls i've probably written about on here.  it occurs to me that this blog entered its dead period right before the Margaret period and missed the first year of the Leslie time as well.  funny how that works.  i do wonder who's next.  

that's all.  i shouldn't philosophize too hard on my first night back, after all.  i hope i keep it up this time.  there's a lot of life yet to come.  

whoever is up there, please don't let me die

there never seems to be a Good Time anymore. not to sit and write. tonight though, as i was laying in bed, it became easy to convince myself to roll out and wander in here. from the bright of the screen, i can't see anything else in the room. feels like being cornered, trapped. i feel that way a lot these days. i've been wanting to get out for a while; i entertain so many thoughts and so much imagination but have yet to do anything about anything. it occurs to me occasionally how impressive things, even mediocre things, all come from people who Do. everything was created by people who Create. boundaries are pushed by the people who push them. right now, as ever before in my rapidly lengthening life, i'm following a path blazed by many, many others. i've done almost nothing. it's an interstate i'm on. it's the least interesting path possible. i hate that. i'm just scared to break out of it. and i'd usually rather sleep anyway.

i just watched the film "one week" which is probably why i'm writing all this. i hate to think i'm so easily influenced or motivated but it's basically true. i know it's all been inside me anyway but sometimes it takes a work of art to light that fire. makes me wonder what i'm doing here. makes me want to rage against the rote. ever since falling into lazy agnosticism i've wondered about my place in the world. how should i enjoy every day? how should i be remembered? and who should remember?

i daydreamed as i lay in bed a few seconds ago of taking a trip. maybe following john steinbeck's path around america from travels with charlie (not another trail!) or just following my own. on a motorcycle? in a volvo? would i go alone? i thought about asking kelly. i tried to imagine saying to her hey, i'm just going to drive for a while and would you like to join me? it's ok if you don't want to but here's your chance. and maybe she would agree and i would drive up to pittsburgh to pick her up out in front of her house. and there would be her family and dave and i wouldn't know what to tell them. this is my life? i promise to take care of her? it wouldn't change their minds and it wouldn't matter. and we would start away having not spoken to each other in person in four years at least. and not remembering then. it would be quiet sometimes but we could talk out the big questions. i would rage from the driver's seat Are we adults? I'm just a child! What am I supposed to do with all this life? and we could talk about all the other parts of life like what is Faith and does it exist in the real world? is that why you're not religious either? i remember you were agnostic before i really even knew what it meant. i hope i'm not like that just because you were. no, it's ok.

i don't even imagine how our relationship would change because eventually it's all just one thing. i don't want to break it down and organize it until it becomes, in my future imagination, that car trip where we fell in love or where we did these things or whatever else. if this imaginary trip is about finding life then everything in it becomes part of it and it becomes what i'm looking for. there's no divisions any longer. at least that makes sense from here.

i'm going to sleep now.

a cruel and elaborate hoax

the stars were out again tonight. for a little while at least. haze was rolling in from the east. the light from cape lookout, normally sharp, was a dullish yellow. a few middle-aged women were laughing and talking from a balcony behind me. i'd followed a fishing boat to the fence. could see the lights from the living room. five of them: four white and one red. the last two lazily appeared and disappeared. an explosion from the southeast caught my eye. it seemed like naval warfare. the kind of thing that's spectacular but not frightening when you can observe from a great distance. the lightning lit the sky every few seconds, keeping a much more erratic pace than the lighthouse. i think every time i looked away, a shooting star would flit past. two teenagers walked behind me once, heading home. soon after, a girl walked through the lamplight far to my left and down the stairs to the sand. i wanted to chase after her, ask her where she was going after midnight and alone. if you look up, you can see the milky way. a cloudy and faded scar across the sky. you can't see it in raleigh. eventually a plane inched past at a very high altitude. it was so tiny. the fishing boat, imperceptibly moving, turned to sail away. eventually only the two lazy white lights were left on the horizon.

i wish you were here.

come around

my life revolves occasionally around, say, girls i'll see. out places. in the world. they're everywhere here at the beach. all of them walking around in bikinis. and i with nothing to say. a few weeks ago i went with my mother to martin & osa. they were closing soon and we thought there might be something interesting there. i go into a dressing room to try on a pair of green pants (i think). for once i decide that what people do is leave their clothes there and someone who works in the store will return them to the racks for you. so i left them there.

i walk out the door and have to move aside as this attractive girl stepped past me. my first thought for some reason was that she was with the guy in the next room (i would think that, yes?) but then i saw her walking back toward the front of the store with my pants. how clever, i thought. i take the pants back there, put them on, take them off, and here they are back again. very clever. anyway, the girl was quite pretty. i wish i'd gotten a better look at her. the first thing i noticed was her hair, which was about chin-length with heavy blunt bangs. she looked sort of like the christina ricci-ish girl on the peppermint patties commercials. in any case, she was slight and pretty and i liked her hair. soon after, i walked back towards the front and she passed me again. i excused myself and smiled but that was it.

i know why i didn't say anything to her. it's because i am who i am and there's no other real reason. i don't know what to say to people, especially girls i don't know, and i don't necessarily have the balls to do it anyway. i like to blame it on the fact that i was with my mother and not, say, alone or with friends. couldn't really help maybe. i kept trying to glance at her but we were leaving. i caught a last look as we walked out but she was in the back of the store. i think she saw me too.

on the way home i kept thinking of things to say. hello, i like your hair. what's your favorite movie? why? because i'm going to maybe ask you out based on your response. forget that i'm going to the beach soon and then moving a hundred miles away. shush pretty girl. someday i'll learn maybe. i just hope she's somewhere else i am.

...

last night i was sitting here in the cat's bedroom again, watching running with scissors again and texting danielle. sweet girl, i wish we talked more. she claims to want to but never really does. she was dropping innuendos like she always did, how she'd love to be in nc with me right now. all that. i had a quick vision of that idea. it ended up like no uncommon daydream of mine. i was here with headphones on, laying down. dark room. she'd quietly open the door and slip inside. i wouldn't be surprised. she walks over and lays down on the couch on top of me, buries her head in my chest, and just rests. i can feel her weight on me, her warmth. i scratch her head for a while and we fall asleep.

...

a little later, i walked outside to look at the stars. i couldn't tell if it was clouds but i think i saw the milky way, right over the ocean. like a great and tragic scar, a story to tell. i looked around and think i saw a shooting star out the corner of my eye. cape lookout lighthouse was bright. there were a few lights of boats. a couple walking on the beach in the dark. a few lights on in the complex, people drinking around tables like we used to. on the way out, i passed a girl dancing and as i was walking saw a guy dancing next to her. they were upstairs, through the blinds. someone else across the way, third floor, presumably watching me. a couple kids with flashlights at the corner of the next building over. looked like thieves.

the sky was astonishing though.

there is no last time, never will be

seems strange to have nothing to say about big news but to skip to the small stuff. i guess it's a matter of processing... and that sometimes the small stuff just means more.

part 1

the girl who sits in front of me in our daily morning english class is named emily. i know this because on the first day of classes we exchanged digits and she walked me to the bookstore. a few weeks later she walked me to the student center so i could donate blood. emily is a few years younger, tallish-thin, and studying textiles. she's blonde and pale-pinkish like a pig. i don't mean this in a negative way, just a descriptive one. she's friendly enough and all, says hello to me most mornings. she's one of the people i meet where i can't work out the fantasy. she's not perfect (like the film class girl) but there's nothing wrong with her either. she dresses variously, never quite very fancy nor ever in sweats really. usually has her hair up though.

which leaves the neck. i don't sit in class and stare at the back of her neck. but one day i looked up and there it was. pale and pink and below the blonde and above the red of her t-shirt and so close and i had this such strong desire to reach out and touch it. have that feeling of solidity and mass and the knowledge that it's part of a real person, a real girl, who is really quite kind to me. i forget these things sometimes. maybe it's a sexual tic, only coming to light for and of certain people. i don't have such realizations with many. it's just that the fantasy was mingling with the reality while she was sitting in front of me. and there was her neck. this isn't a vampire thing, i just wanted to put my fingers there and have her feel me too. it's not crazy. just a mix-up of reality and surreality.

part 2

i'm not sure why the word "convalescent" came to mind today. i suppose myself to be a romantic convalescent. or emotional or social or whatever you like. thinking mainly of kelly here. we haven't spoken in over a month, easy. she hasn't texted in weeks. and i've let her go. i mean i still think of her occasionally and it makes me sad, it does. i almost apply a sort of mindfulness principle when it happens. try and choose not to think about it. just move on. not necessarily dealing with it, you know, a more permanent solution but... letting it be such that maybe it will fade away in time. and i think it is. slowly. it certainly helps that things are happening for me now. that i have school and a few new friends and a new job and plans to move and an apartment and daydreams which aren't about her. she obviously has infiltrated my life quite completely so i can't blink twice without seeing something that reminds me of her but i'm ok for now. especially if i don't think a lot.

i'm a convalescent, right? slowly healing.

part 3

an idea for a photograph. inspired by the film Performance. utilizing mirrors. the subject, and i think my daydream earlier starred emily from english class (especially since i found out she doesn't just make clothes but does fashion stuff... go figure), has a polished mirror with no frame. holds it up to herself in the photographs, angled away from the camera so as not to show the photographer. looks like a hole in her. can do a close-up portrait where half the face is visible and half is behind the mirror. i suppose focus would be a problem with all this. in any case...

more inspired by the film, could do something with body parts. her holding up the mirror to her face or chest, the reflection showing someone else to the camera. myself holding it up to my chest, her breast reflected in the camera. ok, so that's more or less a daydream but why toss up barriers now? it could happen. she lives in winston, yeah? forgot to mention that. anyway, mirrors. tape a small round mirror to a shirt, looks like a hole. needs to be bright outside, depth of field would help the focus problem.

je m'appelle lars

no, i'm not quite that bad yet. and listening to withered hand does make me feel better. and my cat.

it shouldn't bother me now, that kelly and dave are still together. why shouldn't they be? i suppose they're approaching their one-year anniversary by now. or in the next month or so at least. i don't like to remember that. seems so significant. i can't believe i've been living with such poison in my veins for so long. and now is so much easier than before... well she's not around as often. in many ways we aren't as close. well, that's empirical i guess. we aren't as close. that's just how it is. and it makes me sad for sure. i need her around.

i texted her this weekend while in winston. we were just starting to drink and every, every time that makes me lonely. no matter what anyone does. makes me want danielle or kelly or meghan or whoever to be around. and i wrote her and told her that and she just wished i weren't lonely and said that she'd been out all day helping dave get his boat back in the water and that she was sunburned and tired but happy. and i could see the two of them doing just that. for some reason - and it was deep down because i know in my head that they're together - but i was curious and frustrated and surprised for a second in a very childlike and petulant way, thinking is that still going on? that hasn't ended yet? i suppose i just hadn't heard his name in a while because she was being kind to me. i didn't really write back after that. after a while i got so frustrated that i walked outside without telling anyone and strolled around the apartment complex parking lot seven or eight times talking to whitney on the phone. she still doesn't know about the whole fake situation but she's a good friend all the same and it was really quite useful and wonderful to be able to talk to her even about things that didn't really apply at all. and she was glad to talk to me as well which was nice.

and kelly wrote me today and didn't mention my disappearance at all. maybe she didn't notice. i'm sure she's got other things and people to be concerned with. still, i miss how things used to be. of course i do. and still, more than anything, i want dave not to exist. i want us to be friends again like we used to be and...

and i think i want to return to my daydreaming. my constant comfort of possibilities. see, i miss that as much as i miss her. i miss the thought of maybe visiting her and what would happen. i miss the idea of us being together. both of which i can't really dream of anymore. i'm sure i've thought of it before and i try not to now even and it's still difficult to write down but if they're for good then all the opportunities are gone. if she's with dave for the time being with no end in sight and no reason to stop, those dreams really are gone from me. and if it's been a year and she is still seemingly happy and... i'd love for her to be the happiest girl in the world. i'd love for her to find happiness everywhere in her life, all puppies and flowers and sunny days and beautiful photographs, just not from dave. happy from me maybe, happy from no guy at all, i don't care. i just don't want her to find all that in that boy. and that's all just selfish but... yeah, it's just selfish. so what.

i still make mixtapes and mail her and get nothing in return. in fact, since dave happened i think she's only mailed me once. can that even be true? seems impossible. christ, have we really fallen so far? it's a sobering thought.

i'd rather not think any more about it now.

idea for a photograph

i pass all these fields. everyday, all these fields. i'm attracted to the fields. ideas of laying in the fields, the little plow lines, the grasses all white swaying. hiding people.

laying in the dirt, looking down a little row. she's standing there a few feet away, barefoot and dirty. kick up a little dirt, just so it hangs in the air. her legs behind the dust, a little out of focus, the dirt valley before her is focused. it's solitary, the photo. no movement.

wow, i thought i'd have more words to describe the idea.

hold me like before; hold me like you used to

i like it when we're ironic. well, i don't really. but in a really smug way i do look up to the sky and shake a figurative fist for a moment. i like it when titles are ironic. no, that's a lie.

you don't move me anymore and i'm glad that you don't. no, that's a lie. yeah, you do. still. somehow. like when our song came on in the car and i turned onto the dead end street near the lake that i like because i didn't want it to be playing when i got to burger king because that would culturally poison it. and at the end of the road they were building a house on the empty lot that i like to look through to see the lake. and the trees were green anyway so i couldn't see much. but i pulled my phone out and tried to write you one line but couldn't decide which one. so i drove around the circle and back to the road before deciding and i texted you while cruising back out of the road and you didn't write me back until later. and you said you'd just listened to that song and smiley face but i don't know if you still associate it with me or not because i didn't ask.

i looked over when i got to the bottom of the hill where i used to get the biscuits in the morning with my dad. over at the passenger's seat of my car. it wasn't empty because my three cd holders were there and the little book where i keep more. but for maybe the first time i saw the space you would occupy if you were there. and it existed but you didn't so it was all this negative space and you should have been there. it was really unbalanced with just me. it's so strange to imagine you as a real physical person, haha. i often think of you there, semi-spiritually. like you could just ride with me and look at me and see how i drive and where i go and what i listen to and how i sing when i'm alone. but i never noticed all the space that you aren't like that.

and what i really want, right now, is to just lay on the floor with you. these dumb movies do that to me sometimes. i just want to hug you so close and tight that we melt together and are indistinguishable. like siamese twins. can't separate us or our heart will break.

hold me like before; hold me like you used to

i don't know how close we ever were. i mean in a real, empirical way. did we ever bump into each other? that one time you were around. i remember i played pong with marie because she liked me back then. i was probably real awkward about it too. that night is probably the only event from college that i can remember and can't find a single picture of. that's ironic. if anything is ironic, it's that, knowing us. did we ever hug or does it just feel like we did? have we only hugged over texts because that's a letdown. that's less than hoped for. i won't say less than we deserve because that implies that you deserve just me but i won't be self-deprecating now. did we ever speak, personally? did our eyes ever meet? it was only that once, how much could we have accomplished at all? still, you're missing tonight and that's all that matters. anytime i need you. isn't that just the way? too many goddamn questions tonight.

i should have other things to worry about than musing on a girl i met once. god, sounds so ridiculous when i tell the truth like that. just the facts. i should be worried about the cancer. i've thought about that too much, though. (i don't even know that i have cancer, just guessing. like all the diabetes speculation of years past.)

i hate how my mind always skips and hops about from i want to i want to i want and never from i have to i have to i have. i guess there are more lily pads of one sort than the other is all.

...

like so many aurelianos. i had a phrase floating around in my head earlier that i liked a lot. i think it had to do with being lonely or solitary. wait, no. it's this spot on my shirt. see, there's this dark grey spot, bullet-sized, on the right shoulder of my shirt. i think it got there while i was washing my car last week. probably washing the front wheels, which are the dirtiest part. all that brake dust on the aluminum. probably some water splashed up and landed there and the spot never came out. anyway, the spot doesn't bother me but it does make me feel marked. and i worry that someone is looking for me and will find that spot and fire a bullet through me. i tossed on some jenny lewis before i started writing and leaned my head back and closed my eyes. trying to focus on the song through the glow of the screens and my brain which always wanders to things i wish not to consider while i know i'm listening to a song i want to enjoy. and at night like this i always get afraid because i can't hear and someone is breaking in the door from the porch and walking around the corner and seeing me in this vulnerable state. and he's drawing his gun and will shoot me through this damn spot on my right shoulder.

like so many aurelianos.