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[owocmgjive]

And you would see some people down there and you would make the mistake of making eye contact with them and they’d have this look in their eyes and that look would make you feel like an icicle had speared you in each one of your vertebrae. The look says: you fool. You’re still not in on the joke. The joke of this world, it’s hilarious and you’re not getting it and I am and I’m laughing all the way to the end. Hahahahaha ha. I got the joke and I opted out. I abstain from the vote Mr. Chairperson. I abstain. You’re stuck. You’re caught in it. I’m free free free. Look at me and look at you, still burdened by air conditioning and blinking lights on a computer screen and making sure you get your side salad to balance to that hanger steak and pommes-frîtes. I got it and I’m good. I’m here where it’s real, babe, blood and shit and asphalt and cats fighting in the rain. You wish you could join us don’t you. And it would terrify you because you would know that if they caught you with that look on the right day you, too, would be in on the joke.

[owocmgjive]

I’ve just arrived in Northeast Florida. I went to Walmart and everyone there smiled at me and said hello. The girl I went with said to me,

“Does everyone here look weird to you because you’re not from here?” And I said no. But after she said that, looking at the people in that Walmart made me want to go behind the deli counter and stick my face on the meat slicer. I thought, what are the odds one of these people in this Walmart in Southwest Jacksonville has a bottle of oxycodone on them? What are the odds I can rob them of it?

We kept going up and down the aisles, putting our items in the cart. A value size bag of mini M&M’s, Bryer’s peach cobbler ice cream, a twelve pack of Diet Coke. The girl I was with’s card declined, so I put it on mine, and we walked out into the parking lot to wait for our Uber home. A black Kia Soul, driven by Renée. Thank you Renée. The sun outside was strong and it was already at least 80 degrees out at 10 a.m. I thought, maybe I won’t have to stick my head on this Southwest Jacksonville Walmart’s meat slicer. But I do need to find some drugs.

Back at the house, the girl I went to Walmart with and I are sitting on the back patio smoking and smoking our Newports, sipping our Diet Cokes that have already turned warm and syrupy in the heat. I say to her,

“I think we should try to pickup. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be that hard around here.”

“Don’t be retarded,” she said narrowing her eyes at me a little and taking another sip. “Why’d you come down here just to fuck your shit up again anyways? I can tell this ain’t your first rodeo.”

I didn’t say anything back, I just looked into her peat moss eyes, noticing now how pinned they are.

“What dose do they have you on?” I asked, jealous.

“160, but it took me damn near 6 months to get there. Fucking sadists.” Even the strange, detached buzz from a Methadone dose that high sounded real nice to me then. I kept thinking, this is not my life, this is not my real life, I am not actually living through this. I am not actually sitting across from a girl, 5’3 105lbs soaking wet, with a Tweety-Bird tattoo on her forearm, and feeling nothing but jealousy over her Methadone dose. I thought about my sister. When I felt that stinging, hot feeling crawling up my throat, and my eyes starting to fill up, I put out my Newport and walked back inside.

[owocmgjive]

I’m tired. I haven’t slept well the last couple of nights, I’ve been up watching the weird 24/7 news channel and waiting for a story about people having it worse than I do. But no such story has been broadcasted, no one has it worse than me.

I wake up in the morning and I put the coffee on. I crack open the can of cat food and she comes running. The meaty smell of “Fresh Salmon Pâté” and it’s metallic smelling container fills the kitchen. I pull my robe tighter to put a barrier between myself and the November Maryland air. Synthetic fibers wrapped tight around me, bought at tj maxx for $29.99. I deserved a treat.

[owocmgjive]

I want to write about what’s been going on in New York, but the truth is nothings been going on in New York that wasn’t going on back home in massachusetts. I’m drunk all the time and I guess I’m doing more blow since I’ve been here. I haven’t met any new friends and I haven’t met any boys. I went to one’s apartment last night and let him punch me in the face over and over again until I had marks and my face was swollen. It seemed like fun at the time.

I lay in bed and I work or I call out of work and lay in bed some more. When I go on a walk I don’t go anywhere beyond Canal street, looking at the people who I want to be. I think I may go to an AA meeting. I’ve been saying that for weeks.

[owocmgjive]

You’re so boyyy!

[owocmgjive]

I came to florida, like most people, to escape. To escape the cold, infinite winters of New England, to escape myself. To be born again under the incessant sunshine, to be baptized in the light blue and salty waters off Delray Beach, to sit still in my car in the parking lot of a million different strip malls. To find quiet amongst the alligators and black, opaque water of the inter coastal and ponds that litter the area. To do nothing at all.

I came here because this is where you come when you do not care anymore. This is where you come to ripen and rot. This is where you come to be forgotten. Only, what I didn’t know when I came here, is that here you are only forgotten by those you left behind. The people here with you likely came for the same reasons, and thus are going to involve themselves in your life, constrict themselves around you like the boas that supposedly lurk in the muck.

[owocmgjive]

Have you ever felt like you were alone? Of course you have. We all do sometimes. But have you ever felt like deep down you are so fucked up and so bizarre that you come to the realization that you are, in fact, alone, and always have been, and always will be? Have you ever been around people who are clearly addicted to drugs or alcohol, yet still known they don’t do those things the way you do. They don’t suddenly flip a switch that turns off all logical thinking and puts your brain into “ I need more mode” I need more. I always need more. I need one more line. I need one more drink. I need one more moment of not thinking about what tomorrow brings. I need. More.

[owocmgjive]

?

It is easy in Paris. It rains most days this time of year, which makes it easier on the days where I don’t leave our apartment. I wake up, him already gone for the day, and make coffee. I smoke a cigarette. When I feel brave enough, I walk. There’s not much pleasure in this anymore, but there is no displeasure, so it is fine.

I fell in love with a drinker. This was not an accident, and in fact his drinking was very much an attribute to me then. We took a trip, once, to the Islands. He wanted to stay at the Four Seasons in St. Lucia, but I wanted something cheap and tacky, I wanted to feel like we were in 1977. So we booked a cruise.

It was hot, too hot, which was exactly perfect. The energy was sucked out of everyone on board, who were mostly a lazy crowd to begin with. Retired couples, newlyweds, the usual. At night, when we fucked I could feel the tropical air on my skin, and looking out through the open window saw nothing but water, which is to say nothing at all.

Of course, we drank. It was vacation so we started with breakfast. Predictably, the bloody’s were foul, and so mimosas at breakfast, and beer by the pool, and rum on the rocks with lime wedges before dinner, and wine with dinner, and more rum after. I see this all sounds bleak, but I assure you it was not. We laughed often and ate well, our skins bronzed in the Island sun, and read, and enjoyed our temporary spot in this world. Our temporary identities away from the grueling, excessive context of home. We could have been in the Caribbean, or we could have been in the Andromeda galaxy. It was bliss down there. Of course, this gave us an anonymity and a lack of context, and this was exactly what he was looking for. In the city we were sneaks, hiding out in little sushi joints and wine bars way, way downtown. Or we were recluses stowing away in his apartment for days; fucking and drinking and doing nothing at all.

We, of course, never went on any of the excursions. No horseback riding, no snorkeling, no surfing lessons. We didn’t even have people to buy little knickknacks for from the street vendors in town. We did, however go sailing. He got us a boat for the afternoon, just us, and we were to sail the perimeter of the island.

I was not meant to be with him. He made sure I knew this each time we went out. He was risking quite a lot to be with me, he would say, his job, his family and friends, his reputation. Of course my friends all knew about him and what we were and they really had no judgment about it, though they pretended to. I guess our generation had become nihilistic enough about this sort of thing, about sex and relationships at all, to be okay with it. But he was not from our generation, he was older, and raised on the dogma of Reagan, and Wall Street, and capital ‘T’ Traditional Values, and so our little arrangement was taboo, and must be kept secret.

[owocmgjive]

“Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One’s relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain.”

— Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart 

[owocmgjive]

Two days left and so despondent about it?

I think I feel a lot of what I should be feeling. Happy and sad. Nostalgic and hopeful. Mostly scared. I don’t handle change well, and this is the biggest change I’ve ever faced. I think I made the right decision deciding to Summer on the cape! I’m not sad about this weekend anymore, it wasn’t a big deal. I am sad I have no group, I am sad I’m not in a group chat on snap. I am nervous about the barbecue, who will I be with who will I take pics with etc. I am not and will not go home alone on my last day! Actually not worried there’s no point to be worried anymore! If I make ppl Uncomfy by being with them I do not care I am doing what I want on my last day! If today was Boring it’s okay, if tomorrow is fine, it’s my last school night ever. Things are gonna change so much but also I do have time still, finals, prom, graduation. I still have a couple of weeks before leaving so less pressure than I felt a few minutes ago lol. Writing helps so much I feel so much better now!

[owocmgjive]

“Nothing proves I’m alive. There is only the rain, the rain is endless.”

— Louise Glück, from Solitude in “Poems 1962-2012″

[owocmgjive]

“Memory eats me alive. Memory guts me, unravels me, strews me in the snow.”

— Aurora Engle-Pratt, from “White Out,” ÄLPHÄ (no. 1)

[owocmgjive]

Was dreading the cape but now realize it will probably be good for me! I think that if I were to stay this summer would be so much proof of rejection and failure and the space will help me heal and forget the shit I’ve gone thru during school. Why did it bother me so much that Taylor is in the hot girls group chat? Why? I feel like my whole life is moments like that, where ur close but not close enough yknow? Like you just missed an opportunity for something great and it flew right by u. I have six fucking days left of school SIX including weekend!!!! Not real nope nope. Idk what my life has in store and I think I don’t want to. I have lost all desire to plan and prepare I think maybe I’m used to being disappointed by my plans, things never happen as you plan, so no more plans = no more disappointment? Idk. If u don’t have expectations u can’t be let down, if u take everything for what it is then it’s not good and it’s not bad, it is what it is. But it’s hard because I feel so rejected. I don’t want to go to Boston calling at all, but I feel like I’m suckered In at this point lmao. I don’t know how I feel but I know my head hurts and I know I don’t wanna feel this way.

[owocmgjive]

Two-ish weeks left of school and literally don’t feel anything about it bc I know once I open that up I will be terrified. I can’t deal with it right now, but I want these two weeks to be good. I don’t want homework or tedious things filling my time, I want to make them count. I know it will be okay even after school ends cuz I will have prom and graduation after, which is nice. I want to go back to last year so bad and change so much shit. How I prioritized kelly was insane and really fucked me so much in the end! Why did I give so much effort to such a useless relationship. Maybe it wasn’t useless, because now I realize everyone hates kelly but that says a lot about me and how I view friendships. I’m not a good person to be friends with, or maybe I am. I am a good friend but maybe not for the right reasons? I want to be BFF with Kirsten and maddie and jordin and the girls but I’m not. Scott being so accepted is killing me like I feel like I can’t blame heteronormativity so much anymore maybe it’s just me. It always is just me because I ruin things and I fail a lot. I have a lot of thoughts but they’re not coming out right now soo..

[owocmgjive]

There is no respite

[owocmgjive]

Some pictures from late April and early may 2018

[owocmgjive]

Senior skip day