ey, TSu-ra

i'm trying, baby!

and cyberg, and aaron, i'm glad yr back.

Outlet Malls are America’s number one travel destination and the scariest hours are the ones where the light is in change. The Kingston Mall always has the most beautiful view, it seems. Every time we ever left that Target the sky was on fire. There was an exhaustion, a dehydration, a vitamin deficiency, an adrenaline hang over, a euphoria migraine. All love and all embarrassment.

Nineteen

The holiday itself I don't remember
Smoked into gray dreams like much of that year

but the day after New Year's
I jumped out of my friend's car,
without saying goodbye,
forgetting a green glass bubbler and a silver feather necklace
underneath the passenger seat.
I dashed down the block just in time to catch the late Chinatown bus
from Philly to New York City
I arrived in the darkness
and I stumbled off the bus
into several boxes overflowing with unpronounceable vegetables

Sam was waiting there
in a heavy suede coat
He went with me back to Matt's parents' brownstone
where shimmering white wine
and baked chicken
and crunchy cauliflower
and every man I had ever been in love with
were all waiting for me.

It was an exercise in awkwardness
like much of that year.
We got drunk
We probably ate too quickly
and left the house again
to go, I don't know where.
Where does a group of drunk, awkward nineteen year olds go
on a freezing January night in Manhattan?

The rest of the evening hazes back into a gray smoke
the tall, sad trees of the dark park,
a long subway ride where no one touched
as much as they wanted to
a train flying off into the starry sky,
and the incriminating evidence,
an abandoned apple
still sitting on the roof.

No you

There is something between
that makes me.
If it's not there
then I am not.
If I can see it then something happens.

NINETEEN

Obsessed with finding my best self
I'm furiously trying on new costumes
still convinced that there's an outfit
or hairstyle that will make me recognizable
as a good person.
On new year's day
I make a serviceable small book of collages
and give it away to a complete stranger.
I'm unable to tell
who will be in my life forever.
At nineteen I give things away all the time.
There's this enormous estuary
between me and those I love
where long, lonely sunsets
paint their reflections on the surface
like a kaleidoscope or a soul
who's being reborn almost by the hour.

One word ‘baby’ brings tears to my eyes
A knot in my stomach

I Say That First Thing Every Morning When I Get Out of Bed and Look In the Mirror

The eyes. Even in photographs you can see
there's something off in em. I imagine this
is what they will remark
retroactively
if I wind
up a suicide. Something in the smile.
Too wide and wobbly.

The beard. Like my uncle.
Newfound determination. Mental
health starts at the breakfast table.

The unwritten,
unheeded rule for living: If something
makes you miserable,
stop. I could get
on an airplane. Easy. But airplane
to where? Discomfiture as usual.