except that I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. this weekend was the strangest in so many ways, I didn’t leave manhattan once, didn’t go to a crazy place, just did crazy things in the comfort of less than a mile from 3rd ave and 12th street. 
I’ve spent a lot of this week eating potato chips in my bed because I thought it would make me happy but I’m not really sure if it’s doing it’s job. 
MY NOSE IS ALWAYS MAD AT ME
my suitemate bitched at me and Claire about the messiness of the bathroom - which, by the way, I (not her), I clean every weekend - she never fucking goes behind the toilet and scrapes up hair with a paper towel and clorox, nope, not her, it’s me, so wow, fuck that
AND I’VE GOTTA LISTEN TO IT

and I got day drunk and called Mr. Mistake Man because I missed him and when we hung out I realized I can’t be around him for more than 10 minutes at a time because his hair has grown out even further and there are separate curls and I want to play with them and so I leave him places and ignore his calls,

but Friday night was true freedom and love, playing in mushrooms and eating snow, playing and jumping in it, not going inside because it was stuffy and recycled air was SUFFOCATING me, I sang and danced and snuck away from the world with Claire night after night because everyone else is lame, the lamest, needs to get outside and see some real snow, something not real in the Dirrrrty South, but real here, real and what I want——
I can’t go a night without him calling me.
I must ignore - move on - grow up
that feeling where your hands burn because you’ve packed so many snowballs and your face is covered in snow and your hair is wet and you ignore your phone when it rings because you’re with the only person you need to be, your friend and pal
PATTERNS and COLORS are different this way & I’ll never look at them the same 
people always spilling beer on my bed
I must ignore - move on - grow up

DAY ONE OF TORTURE

we’re together all day and all night, for months, so many moons and suns, and i still can’t read him. 
he comes in on friday, and his hair is too long and he spends all day and all night pulling at the curls absentmindedly. i wish i could do that, i think. and we drink and make questionable choices with our noses and head out to a place where the party is free and the music is mediocre. he is holding my phone for me and gets a girls number and asks me to send it to him and i pretend i can’t find it in my phone even though its typed into my keypad. 
we all go home together. we smoke in the bathroom, steam separating all of us, and then before i know it it’s him and i, legs underneath each other, covered in a blanket on my couch watching adventure time. sometimes i steal a glance to see what he looks like when he’s watching tv. what i want but never mine. i laugh and laugh and think of his weight on my foot constantly. and then we look at places to rent this summer and then i say fuck it, i’m going to sleep, its 5 am and i have work tomorrow, gotta be hungover and hang out with the little kiddies who love me, and they’re always the worst on fridays, such turds, and so i crawl into bed and he gets in next to me. wearing my clothes. holding me in his head. i know i’ve got to talk to him because i said i would and it’s been on the tip of my tongue all night but i push it back there and say hold on and say not yet and say right now is perfect as we talk not too quietly to each other for hours, inches apart, looking each other in the eyes when i open them.. looking at his face is like looking at the softest, sweetest thing you’ve ever seen..and not being able to grab it. your hands will fall right through it. you won’t really make a mark. and he wrestles with me and tries to get me to move and tickles me and i am his and he is just trying to get me to move. the only times he holds me when he’s asleep are brief, maybe we’ll be spooning and he’ll have his legs underneath mine, only to move in a few minutes, or his face will be pressed against my back and i can feel that hot breath running all the way down to the small of it…so warm, so there, and i want to turn around and shake his face and say “i LOVE you, can’t you SEE THAT, it’s in everything i do about you, the way i look at you and talk about you, ignore your bad parts and glorify what’s good, let you sleep in my bed every night if i could because i want to be kept up by your snoring and your coughing and the sound of you smacking your lips, those lips that part seas and god i’m dying why can’t you see it or do you know it and do you just ignore it” but i don’t. instead i laugh and keep calm, that face that shows no pain, and when he falls asleep and i hear his snores, i say to him, murmur quietly, “i have to talk to you but i don’t want to” and i lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, suddenly unable to sleep at 6 am, and i look at my flag to my left and say in my head “lone star state, lone star state.”

——————-

DAY TWO and THREE of TORTURE:

i’m on a roof in alphabet city and he is somewhere below me. i’m rolling past everyone and flying above their heads too, but not so gracefully, more of a stumble. the bacon comes and the party’s over, and he comes back with us. he has an expired guest pass and we change the date on it (in a different color ink, no less) and somehow he gets in. he drinks our whiskey and vapes our weed and somehow i am fine with that because i always am because i like the dimples around the corners of his lips. and there i find myself again, on the couch, watching tv with him, and then he tickles me all over and pushes the laptop away and then he’s holding me and it is brief and quick, each button undone, and my head is spinning and my long-johns are shed and it’s just me brushing my hands over his hip bones, they’re so high on his torso, i examine everything, i want to remember it, because i can’t do this anymore, and this is the last time, and i say yes to everything because how can you say no when he looks at you with those eyes? and then i say can i go to sleep now and nothing, not even a kiss, not even remotely close, just a “yeah” and i feel so dirty like a trash bag like a waste bin like a land fill, oozing and smelling with shame and regret, and i crawl into bed next to him again and i want to feel what its like to have his arms around me but instead we fall asleep side by side and inches apart and don’t say anything.
i wake up that morning, get rid of my sober state of mind because it is too sharp and honest for me and leave him there and hope that he’ll still be there when i get back. drunk at 2 pm. stumble back in and he’s been waiting, drinking whiskey out of the bottle, and i am laying in bed next to him again as he sits there, my legs under his legs, and later people are over and i am getting ready and he is about to leave to see another one of “me”, those girls you know, who care much more about him than he does of them, and it’s just him and i in my room and i say, i breathe, i breathe in and i say i’ll say it i’ll count down from 5 and i’ll say it, and i do that three or four more times and then finally
“i don’t think we can hook up anymore.” “what?” “i don’t think we can hook up anymore..” “word” “i just really like you and care about you a lot and it’s making me feel really shitty” “word” “i mean i have an understanding of what this relationship is and i’m not holding up my end of the deal” and he says “word, i’m not mad” and i am choking back tears not sure how i feel about how easy he accepted it, no argument, no questions, nothing, is that good or bad, and i say, “i knew you’d understand,” and i want him to walk out and leave me there so i can sit and stare at that lone star state, what i am, and he lingers instead. i can’t look at him. he walks away and all night i am out of it, staring out at nothing, drinking beer like water and i want him to be in my bed when i get back and i want to talk to him for two hours and i want to find him sometimes holding me.
he calls me at 1:30 am as i am alone, drinking and vaping in bed, crying a little bit and watching parks and rec. i say i’m asleep. i go to sleep.
i wake up. he haunts my dreams again. 

You rang and I can feel it in my heartbeat

Its just that sound and swell and I can

Hear you

Laugh at the things that I say and I think

How is it that you don’t feel what I feel

How is that fair

That I take care of you and set you up to sleep

In a place that

I took you, to save you, to

And care so much that I can’t sleep

And I am tempted to go out past my wishes

Exhaustion and its so hard to breathe

With or without you.

sometimes i just wanna give myself a good one 
for how fucking stupid i am
wishing and counting and maybe even just
thinking this bull shit would happen or
go my way when it’s not going to because
well it’s not like i ever had a chance or
a real hold on it although maybe i thought i did
but i think that’s just the way that rolls you know
you’re right there, real and fine in front of me and
i think that that means that IT is real but IT is not real
i am alone and that’s all there’s nothing more to it 
i don’t wanna feel shitty and stupid anymore
but i honestly feel like i’ll never feel ok again
i could bring you up in conversation at
any point in time
and you would be relevant
and that’s how you know you’re fucked 

You told me once on your back porch after we French inhaled and you asked me to stay the night that if it happens naturally that’s how it is true love. And I looked at you and I said to myself aint it this? Because there’s nothing more natural than the way you make me blue. And you rubbed me out that night. You poured it all into me and when I woke up the next morning, early, work in a few hours, wearing last nights make up and no clothes, I looked at you. Snoring. So dark. Naked, sprawled out, taking the expanse of your bed. Next to me. What I want to look at for all of time. What I want but never mine. That’s what I do, isn’t it.

You push me up that night against the bodega as we go to buy beer and you take my breath away. You kiss me like you mean it. You pick me up a bit and I am already swept off my feet, you didn’t need to do that. This. We can’t stop doing this. We can’t, I don’t want, I just want.

And I walked out of your house so early, quiet, the sun up like it was when we finally fell asleep, you on top of me, like I was never there to begin with, and took the train home. It arrived right when I got onto the platform. Everyone on their way to work and I am going to clean myself out. Some things stick though and stay for much longer than you want them to. Maybe forever? I examine myself every day. I blame myself for stupid mistakes. Things I shouldn’t have done. Trust I shouldn’t have put in you.

I’m in love with you. The kind where I don’t care what you think or feel but I want to shout it from the rooftops and cry about it at the same time. It’s torturous but right; it’s the worst but the most exhilarating feeling I can think of. You make me run eons and you can bring me down in one second. You’re a child, you’re no man, I know that, I know that and love it in the way that I can’t help myself.

No one will know what it’s like to not want anything else. You’ve been there for so long. You’ve always been trouble.

You make me happy. But you make me terribly sad.

By monkey luv I mean

No one gets me like you do

Right there is what I mean

The kind of wrestling and

Clawing eyes out that

One can only dream about but

You do it to me

By my monkey luv I mean

Unable to sleep… close to you on the couch

Sitting on your lap and you tell me to

Wake up

Wake up

Wake up

And I cant help but wonder if you mean

Get over me

Get over me

Get over me

And you choke me out and bruise me with your

Monkey luv

My monkey luv

I grasp for things that

Aren’t me but

I want them to be and

By monkey luv I mean the way you laid me out and

Rubbed me through and the way you

Bruised me in places so

I cant wear real things and

Every time I look, see, find it

I think of you

By monkey luv I mean

I am yours, undoubtedly so

No one can compare to the way you

Grab my throat and

Those … lips

Like

Pillows like

Two of mine, one of yours like

But you are never mine

And

When I think about

Where could you be and what are you doing and do you miss me and when I realize

I care

When youre not around

I want you around

I am happy with you around

My monkey luv

Never mine but

Watching you sleep is anything on anything

Having you sleep next to me is

Better than

Breathing

Breathe me my monkey love, never mine but forever a thing