no. 1

he was the rockstar and she was the groupie who was too afraid to say his name. she knew his family, drove by his house and knew all the lyrics to all the songs that his shitty band played at the YMCA on weekends. she'd heard that he was a jerk but she just didn't believe it, couldn't believe that such a good looking, nasal singing, long distance running kind of lead singer of a highschool boy could ever say those things, would ever think those things. she left him behind in highschool, that was the tragedy. it was over, she could follow his footsteps online but what use was it with him in another province? no drive by sightings or gossip filtered from friend to friend. it was embarrassing to admit. it sounded worse than it was, like she was some kind of stalker groupie girl, some kind of crazy. it could stay behind her in middlebrook, no one at elliott would ever need to know.

titles are too hard

laguna beach
what a treat
no offense but
theres no suspense
in what you like
and dislike:
celebrity news and
surface insights
thats why all we do
is reminisce and
shoot the shit and
make no new
memories.
nothing in common
except highscool
i can fuel the night
by rolling my eyes
inhaling my sighs and
holding my tongue
holding air in my lungs but
i still like you just
not like i used to.

flannel sheets

she woke up between warm sheets in her empty frozen room. she never wanted leave the comforters, her fortress of pillows. she was a trapeze artist: one person was holding her ankles and another swung towards her, with arms outstretched. choose a direction! it’s not that she couldn’t face the world today, nothing quite so melodramatic or interesting. she could easily rise and dress, stuff her warm limbs into icy foreign fabrics, splash water on her face and move through the day. she couldn’t choose: apple or orange, toast or cereal, the next year of her life. couldn’t she just lie in limbo, make angels in the sheets, lie with her bare stomach pressed to the mattress and her head at the wrong end of the bed? indecision turns to apathy perched on her shoulder.
instead let’s think about everything that is irrelevant, because the summer’s too late to decide you know. pack a suitcase with some things, find a map, read a book. and most importantly: find a willing friend, someone who can listen to you talk about stupid stuff for hours, list your anxieties alphabetically with fluctuating pitch and urgency. it’s not running away, it’s just running laps; you’ll come back eventually. out of one hundred decisions you can make this one –
she thinks about this from under the striped flannel. indecision twists into motivation; a place, a plan, a project. as long as she keeps moving she’s accomplished something. as long as she keeps planning you couldn’t call her static.