Super Low Quality Meme. Valerie Come Back We Need You More Than Ever

Bruises on my knees i don't know where they came from. My seventh cigarette of the day.

Dude last night I had this dream we were fucking. I saw the back of your neck all bare and it was like I fell forward lips first onto it. Thin gold chain, spring clasp, I ripped it off with my teeth. I heard you choke for a second until it broke but you knew I wouldn't hurt you.

And in the dream we are in your bed, in your old room, the one you shared with that emo boy-girl who didn't want you having anyone over ever, in that so silent space of broken eye contact and listening, listening. A space can't last if you know you have to leave it right, so here I am writing about some pathetic dream I had about some thing I said I would forget. Maybe some other night I would write about softness or upturned lips but no this is all water now

Friendship

I listened to the whole of your three-page poem about the life you wanted to live. I cupped your dreams by my heart.

The gasp when the wind is knocked out of you. When you can't do anything but react. It's harder to stay quiet when you have to- the time I just had to smoke weed way past dusk boundaries and brought you with me and we lay on top of each other in the snow, your hand over my mouth because I was so high and each breath felt like a roar.

I brought you with me everywhere I went. Around my neck during hazy nights sprawled on the bathroom floor. Bad hookups where neither of us have had enough to drink. I'll never forget your face in the periphery of every memory.

Last summer I watched as you fell in the pool and your blood stained the water like little explosions. You were fine, it was just your foot, but afterwards we lay naked on the hot pool deck and you confided in me the things only I could hear, that sometimes still you wished you were dead.

I had no advice to give because I felt the same way. It was kind of funny. We've known each other for sixteen years but we're still right where we started. Looking towards the same future. The same people.

either way by odie leigh // jeff buckley // normal people by sally rooney // unknown, possibly natalie diaz // eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (2004) // old friend by mitski // halloween by phoebe bridgers // unknown // unknown

unknown // ladybird (2017) // white oleander by janet fitch // elektra by sophocles // everything everywhere all at once (2022) // sharp objects by gillian flynn // mamma told me by mother mother

Six days sober

Recently learned about a type of pattern synesthesia where people can pick out 4-leaf clovers easily

I wonder if they are more lucky

Excerpt from 'For you I am a child'

I couldn’t see the letters my hand formed, black against blue on black, but I knew they were there. After this blind exercise was completed, I returned the pen and wrapped my cold feet back into the blanket. Now, it was easy to fall asleep, and if I dreamed that night, I do not remember.

If a poem can be anything, I could’ve written anything. How to make avocados ripe, directions to a church of law, a vow, an elegy, how to rig a sailboat, fold a fortune teller, French inhale, sin, make good oatmeal, kiss without teeth, escape self-delusion, write a novel, give a blowjob, be less, be more, leave everything behind, get blood stains out of white sheets, hold eye contact, not get lost in New York City, find the nearest body of water, win at solitaire, be alone, write in dip pen, build a portal, be with others, float, harmonize, unlearn shame, learn guilt, . . .

open.substack.com

For you I am a child

My body A bag of rice Split open face-down I yawned Tasted cigarettes In the back of my throat Knew I’d ruin myself Again and again Made a h

The sky is a foggy dark gray like I’ve hotboxed the whole planet and not just my 13th floor apartment, smoke curls out the window and it always has somewhere to go.

There is no room for hesitation or stupidity. It just is, and I am carried by want, impulse, the direction of the wind.

Like she said, I want to feel the heat of all the bodies. I want to be alive but aliveness disgusts me, I want to be predictable and human-like. Every moment I am thinking about how it will end and this gets me nowhere, so no wonder I feel stuck.

Trapped in between two tall buildings, endless city blocks, always paralyzed by fear, asking stupid questions like it’s part of my nature— which it is— existing under a false lightless sky; I’m finding wonder in things that I can’t see, taking the easy way out.

The most beautiful girl I know is sleeping in my bed

It's the dead of night and I have my whole life ahead of me