untitled, pt. 2

once i decided to skip town that was it, my mind was set

i thought if i changed my place i could change my luck

took my things from your apartment, booked a rideshare

and went away to a city i knew where i would stick

there's still times now when i feel like running away

when things have gone wrong or started to feel stagnant

my reflex is to daydream about leaving everything behind

think about meeting different people, seeing new places

but this isn't what i want. i built something for myself here

through all the loneliness and countless apartments

i finally feel like i'm where i want to be, and who i want to be

and that's not worth giving up for an escapist fantasy

old things

used up cartridges of printer ink

empty film canisters storing old things

my audio jack, finicky once wet with snow

i twist the cable trying to get the sound back

i hear a girl crying in a bathroom stall

being broken up with on the phone

he hangs up and she calls back frantically

begging for an answer to "what did i do?"

the battery of my secondhand tablet

is running out much quicker these days

i get frustrated, my study interrupted

and in that moment i hate technology everything

my cell phone's cover screen cracked

sometime when i worked at the library

i've thought about getting it fixed

but i'm just not invested enough

cellphone contacts

"what is it that your therapist said?
"you're 'making mountains out of molehills' again?"
well, yes, maybe i am making problems
or at least blowing them out of proportion
(maybe i'm even being a little dramatic)

but i think that's warranted in this situation
i find myself housed (!) with a good support network (!)
and yet flip through my cellphone contacts late at night
when i need someone to talk to and come up blank
finding nobody i can call

i realize i am covered in snow
from sitting in the park by beis rivka
i hopped the fence into the baseball diamond
meandered northward and lay down in the middle
with a foot of snow as my pillow

and yes maybe it is concerning that
your voice is the one in my head right now
"rationalizing" me after all these years
but you know me i've always needed a bit of antagonism
always loved a healthy dose of masochism

as i begin to head home to warm up
stumbling just a little, typing on my ipod
only now noticing the dampness in my left shoe
which i know was never meant for this weather—
just below freezing, perfect for drinking in the park—

i feel a compulsion now (why now?)
i need to write i need to write i need to write
i need to get this out onto some paper or somewhere else
it's bad enough that he's in my head
i don't need you here too!!!

rosemary brown park in february

i stop and sit and smoke in the park by my house on sunday
the packed snow brings my feet up high, close to the bench, and i rest on my knees
and i stare across at mclynn and this t-rex spring rider stares back
i stay there in the cold for what felt like hours (probably closer to 20 minutes.)

i go home and get nothing done and i cancel my plans. everyone is in a bad mood.
and i decide to shovel your driveway and clean up your bedroom for you
knowing the less you have to do the more time i get to spend with you
the two of us sit in my bedroom and play mario kart. it cheers you up.

monday you apologize for treating me like we're dating.
you call to invite me over when you're going to bed just to see me
and we talk about the future. what we want. i know i can cope if it doesn't turn out my way 
but right now my feelings are strong and all-encompassing.

when i write like this i want the last paragraph to be some kind of wrap-up, 
a conclusion of the message i'm conveying, a sense of closure in the lines
i'll restate my points, contextualize them—i'll give meaning to my experiences—
but i don't know how i'm supposed to do that right now.

i cannot describe or understand the person i am anymore without yearning
not as a romantic ideal or an abstract concept but as an actual physical hole in me.
i'm stuck with this lingering sense that something is missing, that there is something i lack
but i don't even know what that might be or where i should go looking for it
and so i turn inside myself and try to refine the person that i am
i no longer feel my past chase and weigh me down but i worry about the future
recognizing the mistakes i have made has made me a better person
but
nothing i can do right now will get me what i want
i turn inside myself and i daven to G-d that everything will turn out alright
i close my eyes and recite the ancient words which for a moment keep me together
i stand and i shuckle until the kesher of my shel rosh gets tangled in my ponytail
and so when i remove it my hair is frizzy and sticks up in all directions
like bedhead, as though i was making love to the aibeshter. (a sick sense of prayer.)

and even in this moment i have a twisted idea of intimacy
i'm reminded of the mere concept and instinctively shut it down.

nothing i can do right now will get me what i want
in my head i imagine i can focus on my studies and drown everything else out
but then i take an extra vyvanse and just stare at my computer screen for hours
i am not capable of focusing let alone drowning out what calls to me
in my free time i daydream about what our apartment might look like
as though us being in a relationship once again is already a given
i get distracted looking at apartments. i scroll through marketplace for hours
i fantasize about running away sometimes. a lot of the time, actually. 
but
nothing i can do right now will get me what i want
and right now i'm working on accepting that.

holding on

what a thing to intertwine your life with another person

when i miss you, i forget about all the problems we had

i still find pieces of toothpicks around my apartment

and for a moment it actually makes me happy

after the party

my semester comes to a close
and i mark a few endings at once.
in cold days my friends came to me,
i shared warm heartfelt days with them.

i sulked in my bed after the party
when i learned you would be leaving soon.
months of thinking of you, cities away,
three short days had come and gone.

i sulked in my bed and you came in
put your arm over me and i pulled in close
my head on your chest, hand on my face
you gave comfort to sad and sleepy me

in these short dark hours of the evening
brief and fleeting moments like winter sun
i cherish them until your alarm goes off.
but i know that i will see you again.

you are my friend and i miss you dearly.
come back to me and hold me like you did.