lately i’ve been trying to leave pieces of myself wherever i go. i press flowers in between pages and make paper stars to leave on store shelves, stuff loaned textbooks with post-it notes of encouragement like they’re enough to solidify my place in the universe but nothing wants to stick. most of the time i feel washable, like the world could wring itself of me in one twist. i sign my name under poems and try to convince myself they’re my permanent record and it’s a performance act, a kind of necromancy i can’t get to work.
i’m getting desperate, these days. in five months i’ll be eighteen and i feel like i’m ten years old again, carving half the solar system into my desk with the point of my compass to make it mine. like i’m a hiker leaving markers on a tree, I WAS HERE in all caps with enough arrogance to think that someone will stop for it, that the bark won’t just cover it up again. i tried to make a list of things that last and couldn’t come up with anything, not even footprints left in concrete and not even tattoos, not even you. i still remember my childhood best friend’s landline but we haven’t spoken in years, so the list stays empty.
do you remember when you were a kid, no object permanence, like you would close your eyes for a second too long and everything would fill up with something new and bad and sharp and then you wouldn’t recognize the place where you were standing? some days i think that i’m grasping at things that don’t exist anymore. every time i go back to the playground i grew up on something about it is different; the merry-go-round was a hazard, i guess, but all i remember is being seven years old and spinning and spinning and spinning and thinking the world had learned how to move for the first time.
i’m so sick of renovations. for once i want something to stay. for once i want something of mine to be able to withstand anything, even flood and even fire, even heartbreak. even public safety warnings.
lately i’ve been trying to leave pieces of myself wherever i go. i press flowers in between pages and make paper stars to leave on store shelves, stuff loaned textbooks with post-it notes of encouragement like they’re enough to solidify my place in the universe but nothing wants to stick. most of the time i feel washable, like the world could wring itself of me in one twist. i sign my name under poems and try to convince myself they’re my permanent record and it’s a performance act, a kind of necromancy i can’t get to work.
i’m getting desperate, these days. in five months i’ll be eighteen and i feel like i’m ten years old again, carving half the solar system into my desk with the point of my compass to make it mine. like i’m a hiker leaving markers on a tree, I WAS HERE in all caps with enough arrogance to think that someone will stop for it, that the bark won’t just cover it up again. i tried to make a list of things that last and couldn’t come up with anything, not even footprints left in concrete and not even tattoos, not even you. i still remember my childhood best friend’s landline but we haven’t spoken in years, so the list stays empty.
do you remember when you were a kid, no object permanence, like you would close your eyes for a second too long and everything would fill up with something new and bad and sharp and then you wouldn’t recognize the place where you were standing? some days i think that i’m grasping at things that don’t exist anymore. every time i go back to the playground i grew up on something about it is different; the merry-go-round was a hazard, i guess, but all i remember is being seven years old and spinning and spinning and spinning and thinking the world had learned how to move for the first time.
i’m so sick of renovations. for once i want something to stay. for once i want something of mine to be able to withstand anything, even flood and even fire, even heartbreak. even public safety warnings.