an archive

One entry I wrote while I was in Paris reads: The women in front of me talk obnoxiously about their days.... A small South East Asian woman and her baby sit across from me in the metro. The baby is wearing a bright red jacket. I’m not sure what color jacket I was wearing that day. Or if I was wearing a jacket altogether. Looking outwards, rather than inwards, it reminded me how minuscule I am and how big the world is. And so I brushed away the former. But then I freaked out about the latter. Yet, I’d rather be worried about the meaning of life than confront the things that keep me up at night. I want to say I feel broken or not normal or not in a good space, but if anything, this is what I am familiar with. The happiness, it scares me too. I’m not sure if I’ve ever fully felt it. I am actively aware of happiness when it chooses to come. I cling to it, and so it disappears as quick as it came. 

For guys, going after a girl is smooth. He’s a player. He takes action. My best friend would hit me if she read what I’m about to write but she said time and time again to me that she never makes the first move. Maybe that’s not fully true but she said it once and it stuck. Guys think I’m bold, scary, determined, confident, all because I try to own my sexuality and body. But that part’s easy. That’s all fake. The part where you have to be vulnerable, not so easy. For girls, saying you want a boyfriend is clingy, it’s typical, it’s emotional and feminine and apparently those words haven’t transgressed their patriarchal origins yet. My sister said wanting it too much is the reason some people don’t get it. Sleeping around… and confident about it? Whore. My other best friend and I, we call each other whores for fun. It’s nice to own it. But then it gets confusing. It gets very confusing. Because at the end of the day, lying alone in bed sucks. And that’s kind of it. Sex is an escape mechanism, for me at least, like drugs and alcohol and all other addictions that are bad for the body but temporarily good for the soul. I don’t know if I’m making any sense. I want to tell the guy I’m kind of seeing that I’m not his perception of me. I wish I was, the strong confident determined outspoken person in his mind. But I’m not. I think time and time again about how he called my boobs sexy and the way I sat on his face and pushing him against a wall. He told me he didn’t tell me my boobs were sexy earlier because I knew it. I realized how sad I am. I don’t know who I am. Not in any way shape or form. Maybe a little more than yesterday. Maybe a little less than yesterday. At the end of the day, that empty feeling in my chest; it’ll never go, right? And I won’t let anyone in either. The inflicter and the pained. Double edged sword and all that. I guess if I’m being honest I’d say I wish he invited me to watch movies with his friends and go out for dinner and be taken care of and treated nicely because I deserve that. I don’t even think I deserve to be a booty call. I’m not even treated like I deserve to be a booty call. I just want to be put first. Be someone’s world. Cross a mind, be loved, openly, come home to someone, tell someone all about my day even though they don’t exactly fit into my world but they try to. I want to introduce someone to my best friends and make sure they get along. I want to cook dinner for someone and spend all morning in bed and talk like the helpless romantic I am rather than type it. I want honesty and vulnerability and care. I want to asked how I felt I don’t want it to be inferred. I want stupid laughter and long nights and dates where we go eat ice cream in a parking lot. I want a cliche movie scene.

our memories scattered across an old mattress, hopes of what we could have been left on the bedside table, fingerprints marked on the kitchen floor, dreams and ambitions by the door, all left behind a deserted array of flowers and a white picket fence with peeling paint

tears in the shower and hurricanes and thoughts of you distant memories and realizations at 4 am insomnia paranoia all the same fear looming over me regret, a shadow tears at the dinner table hushed lips and faint kisses and foggy memories panic at 8 am on my way to you crying crying choking on our memories on what could have been what should have been or maybe on the fantasy and illusions pain heartache and too many tears in the shower. 

fog blurring distant memories concealing a clear sky, the clouds of my imagination the sunset blending into white picket fences and laughing children in a garden of dandelions, into an ice cream shop and a rainy day and too much hot chocolate, into distant reminders of a past too indistinct to fully comprehend. fog blurring it all until your chocolate brown eyes and the way you walked and fingers interlocked watching the colors of the sunrise.

a white picket fence a house with daisies a strong embrace toys scattered across a wooden floor laced with words unspoken - FANTASY

I packed your things into a box and eventually lugged them out into my storage room out of sight out of mind, distant memories packed away into boxes, forgotten. Boxes: carrying questions and answers and too many in-betweens, our favorite ice cream shop photos and white picket fences and two cats. I’m moving today - unloading boxes from my storage room; old clothes a few trinkets and mountains of you flooding over me distant memories packed away into boxes, unforgettable.

AMUSEMENT PARKS continuously making excuses like standing at the end of a long line watching a rollercoaster eager to get on but the question that is posed is whether or not it was worth waiting in line for; under the heat of the sun, and the crying children, and the arguing teenagers, Was it worth the wait? A rollercoaster: exhilaration fear does one outweigh the other or do we ignore the fear to enjoy the ride because we waited in line for so long - Was it worth the wait? Or maybe you should have realized that the other line was shorter or that they amusement park was a little too full or that the heat was just too unbearable today - We wouldn’t want you to reach your breaking point, now would we? People question my decision to stand in line but sometimes all the other lines are closed and we have no options or maybe they’re open and we tell ourselves they’re closed to feel less guilty about waiting in line for just another rollercoaster and we tell ourselves that this one goes higher that it’s newer but maybe it’s just not worth the wait or our time or our forgiveness.

NEIGHBORS I don’t blame you for living here. I unlocked the doors for you, Let you in - poured you a drink and asked about your day. Don’t act like a victim, You didn’t reject the drink either. I don’t blame you for building a house next door, you were a friendly neighbor - or you pretended to be, until your house was being built on my land, and you took it upon yourself to redecorate the furniture and change the wallpaper. I didn’t say anything when we became neighbors - perhaps out of fear, perhaps because I didn’t realize what you really were, perhaps because I refused to admit that I knew you, from the times we used to sit and drink together when I was too lonely to leave the house and too tired to eat.

what's the word for not being able to sleep because my thoughts are killing me what's the word for being suffocated by my own conscious as i watch the sunrise it is ironic because while i ask for a word to describe this feeling i am describing it perfectly so maybe i don't need a word or maybe i do some people call it depression others anxiety i am unsure. sometimes i think it is plain loneliness i am unsure. i get confused about my emotions i know you’re thinking bipolar i am unsure. i cannot define myself into these words all that i know is that i am sad always sad constantly sad if i’m not sad i’m angry and occasionally happy or excited but those are fleeting moments i am either ends of a spectrum standing at the edge of various extremes like i am waiting for something to be triggered but nothing changes as i lay here and watch the sun rise

loneliness.

crash.

alone. 

never for me.

just to be with you.

the chemicals habitat in my lungs

I cannot see.