the semester is almost coming to an end— and for that, i’m grateful. i spend most of my days not studying anymore. i walk around campus chewing on the soft rubbery insides of my cheeks. i hit my cart and get high and droopy-eyed, texting my friends compromising pictures of myself, or, alternatively, lusting after a guy i went to high school with. i feel like a whore but the sun still sets and the birds still chirp in the early spring mornings, when everything’s all wet and sparkling.
im crumbling. america is at war with iran for some reason and everyone pisses me off. i tell my brother that the guy across the street is yelling at me or catcalling me — i’m not really sure — and he says he does that to everyone. okay, aidan, like, yes he does, but also its upsetting and weird for him to do that.
i am crumbling and i want attention and i want to feel wanted but i don’t care enough to form new connections with new people. maybe thats selfish or narcissistic of me to admit. but i need to admit it.
sometimes i think i’m setting myself up for failure: don’t study, flirt with your friends, admit something stupid to them. ruin the friendship, forever. smoke a bunch of weed in your childhood bedroom until it reeks of dead flowers and teenage girl angst and there’s also - you guessed it - a hint of weed lingering in the air, like a mournful ancestor watching over you. and the ancestor is all scared for you but she can’t do anything because you cannot see ghosts, but if you could, what would she say?
we’re crumbling and i walk around campus after smoking in my car, windows rolled down ever so slightly. its cold out, the trees are barren still and there aren’t many animals scurrying all skittishly out. in the distance there’s the quiet rush of a stream that cuts through the forests that i’ve never been in. i watch two bricks beginning to collapse into each other, and in my head they are two lovers having sex for the first time. and i begin to feel a little better.