burning bridges

All in all, things are pretty lousy. I'm struggling to keep my head and heart above water, but, today, for the first time, I blew smoke rings.

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I am driving faster than I should, pressing harder on the gas than I should, I should I should I should be silent and soft, I should keep these lips pressed quietly together these fingers wrapped tight around the steering wheel. I am veering off course, please, don’t stay silent, please, say something.

I am running over skeletons, spilling wine and I am plotting a course that looks nothing like the map and nothing like where we’re meant to be. Tell me, why do you get to be the serious one? All melancholy and abruptly ended conversations, I am tired, so weary, tired of trying to break your silence with my songs when you never sing along. Do you hear this silence speak? The road comes rushing up around me, swallows all of the things I’ve never loved and shows me the underbelly of the best, the glowing bones of the worst.

In California, I could run forever. The engine would gulp the mountains, the miles, and it would take days to reach the other ocean. North, south, I could hit the corners of the world. This island is small, so small, and I feel like I echo too loudly, fill too many lines, say too many words, ask too much. And all of our silences are awkward, all of our words the wrong ones.

I give my hopes too easily—that was the question you didn’t ask: my faults. When you are sad I want to fix it. When I am sad, I know I simply must ride it out. I am driving faster than I should, and it won’t be you that I call, when the engine fails and I am stuck at a truck stop, eating cherry pie and waiting for a ride.

when i am drunk i

smoke cigarettes in my bathroom
listen to 'jolene' on repeat

under the water

I got impossibly high last night at a friend's going away party. I felt like I was drowning, just sinking into this deep, deep, water and there was no one to pull me out, so I just let myself sink, until I sunk into the bottom of the ocean and settled.

Mr D was there, and there was drama with some of his friends. I sat in the the corner of a leather couch between two boys who were talking about football and tried to stay warm. I'm always cold here--except for in bed last night. Mr D wrapped himself around me and passed out and I sweated out all of the drugs and the Jack.

I like Edinburgh better than St Andrews. I wish I could put into words what it is, but it's nothing I can put my finger on. They both have good people, fun bars, nice cafes, stunning views. But I don't want to go back to St Andrews this afternoon.

dear heart,

please stop doing the following:
messy somersaults
longing to go to india
coming up with terrible metaphors
pining (also known as melancholy longing, desiring, or aching)

buck up! read some poetry, go for a run--do something! i'm counting on you to keep it together.

love,
p

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The tiles of the sky slide slowly behind my window—a field, deserted, the moon, for a brief moment. This is the view I see while we talk, my face pressed against a pillow, I speak slowly. My evening overlaps your morning: here, you say sweet dreams, I say have a nice day.
Each gap in words: I wonder if after, the things you say will pace wearily across my thoughts, if they will step into my prayers and jiggle loose all of the things we leave in the backs of our closets: school uniforms, love letters, forgotten hats and half-eaten candy bars in coat pockets.
Back to our conversation: you ask about my lover, hesitantly. I describe the moon, the field, the empty room where I sleep. I imagine you brokenhearted, Emily lying unmoving over your thoughts. I wish these conversations could lift the gray of this unpain, this notsuffering that fogs the fields and covers the moon. You invoke God when the conversation stalls—I know he’ll reward me for this sacrifice. As the sky slides upward away from my window I uncurl my fingers from our exchange: neither of us has what the other needs, but we’re good enough at keeping each other company to call it friendship.

all dream the same

I have tentatively started smoking again, although primarily cigars on Sundays and cigarettes when I'm drunk, which I was last night. I feel like it should be sad, to get drunk by oneself on red wine on a Sunday evening, but it didn't feel sad. Around 3 am I finally got myself out of bed and downstairs to have my cigar, and met two boys from my building! They're the first people I've actually met in my housing who don't live in my flat. We had a nice 3 am chat, them not wearing shoes, me in PJs under a big red coat.

To balance the excess of red wine and cigars and staying up late, I went for a run today, and will hopefully make my way out of bed and to a cafe to do some reading. I'm trying to read a lot to distract myself from the fact that the only time I ever write is when I drink, and even that is just drivel. Yes, I have writers block. Badly. Suggestions?

milan kundera

I'm sorry to disappear like that--I haven't been keeping up my paper journal, either.

Scotland is beautiful. I've started running more (and when I say running, I really mean I jog for 15 minutes, then walk back) through the fields behind my apartment and out towards the ocean (more properly "sea"). St Andrews is situated on a bay, with golf courses looking out into the water. The town itself is based around three (mostly) parallel streets, and at the end of them are a set of ruins (castle and cathedral) that just drop right into the water. There's a tiny little cafe that serves panini and soup to go and a couple times now, for lunch, I've gone and gotten soup in a coffee cup and gone to sit near the cliffs.

I've had both of my classes now--'Legend and History in Sub-Roman Britain' and 'Queens and Queenship in Early Medieval Europe.' My class for 'Legend and History' is about half and half boys and girls, and no one seems very friendly. But my 'Queens' class is almost all girls, and they seem super chill.

I've been having a hard time meeting people here. I've been to a couple of LGBT events, which are a lot of fun, and the people seem nice, but other than that--the guys all seem stuck up and the girls run around in packs, which makes it hard to meet people.

My new job started last night, though. I'm waitressing at a grill, which seems pretty laid back. Plus, one of my co-workers is a third year, and has offered to be my Raisin Weekend Mom (St Andrews has this bizarre tradition for freshers or transfer students where one weekend in November, you are adopted by an academic 'family' who basically just get you very very drunk--I'm stoked).

I've been reading a lot, too. I'm almost done with 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' (which, while a great title, sort of reminds me of 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' in that I'm a little embarrassed to admit I'm reading it) which I'm loving. I think I've got a thing for Eastern European writers (Kafka, Nabakov, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, etc).