#what progress

Oh boy, that was a long time ago. I’m gonna assume this is post that you’re referring to?

31. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand.

I am ready to go anywhere, maps out on the dash: there is just something about sitting still that makes me want to rip apart whoever is closest to me. I’ll try to sculpt myself back together with sugar and caffeine.

He thinks I am weaseling my way into his day, when all I really want is to stay in bed till noon. In the mid-morning light, everything looks a Little easier. I hold my own hand while they yell in the kitchen. Oh,

I’d rather not have anybody else hold my hand. Revelations: I am better off lying face down on the asphalt, waiting for Wednesday. Facts: I am still afraid of drowning in the Atlantic, only to be found

by a man who did not matter. Hero of the week, year. Plaster my name on billboards so more men can see stars in my eyes, something he never did, something I tried not to resent him for. (We were only kids, after all.)

It’s about time I stopped counting the chimes of the clock, stop counting down days and minutes and hours and instead start counting exits. I’ll only have myself to ask if we are going the right way. Finally, no more quizzes:

if you miss the Whitestone, what bridge do you take to get off the Island? I won’t need to answer to anybody, because I’ll be gone for good, Jersey behind me, friends in dark corners asking me to stay, for the love of God.

He will become ink in my journal, and I will become clouds in his sky, but only after he’s had a few and his picnic has gone awry. I’m not sorry. I am not counting windows on the buildings anymore. No more throwing pebbles,

next time I’ll throw a fucking brick. The ideal is not worth pursuing, but maybe we could furniture shop and pretend we had a whole three hundred square feet to ourselves. Is this model kitchen a good place to say i love you? or

is it time I accepted high school linoleum floor conversations and the intersection of that street and mine are not good enough backdrops for anything significant? Maybe I could start pretending we never saw that gazebo; he never put his hand

on my back. It is time I erased “he” from my vocabulary, it has not done anything useful for me in the past. I hate everything about that syllable, would rather drown myself in the sand of August and wait for someone to make me into a castle.

Secrets: I won’t tell anybody that sometimes I wake up whispering, because my future is full of flowers, house plants that are dependent on me. When I kill them I will not cry, but take a train to Philadelphia and wonder why I didn’t

kiss the boy in the post office. Why am I on a deli line kissing my own palms? The dentist asked me are you okay, sweetie? and I tried to pretend that was not the first time I had heard that in a month. She put the novocain right in my gums and I praised

God, my tongue is falling out of my mouth again. Can’t use it to say such good ideas like: I don’t want you to cook in my kitchen or Don’t bother buckling your seat belt. People are only honest with me when I’m huddled under my bed. Close the door on your way out.

I count up to exit fifty-nine and tell the windshield I am home. The windshield tells me to turn around already. I’m not sixteen anymore and it’s about time I started acting like it. That sand is not going to swallow you whole, and nobody is going to invite you to breakfast. I love

Sunday mornings because they are an excuse to be alone with people. If I move to Roscoe for the summer, I will become a Christian for the social aspect. Old ladies will smile at me like I have something to offer. Boys in cardigans will believe I am something more than trailer trash.

The problem is, I get carsick near Roscoe every damn time, and the I-84 is no longer mine, and those echoes I wrote about at age sixteen are no longer mine, and nobody, not even men on the street, see stars in my eyes, nobody lets ribbons flow from their tongues when they

say my name, nobody would choose to carve my letters into clay, and that is nobody’s fault but mine. When I pass exit fifty-nine, that is nobody’s fault but mine. Keep going until you hit Montauk. Try not to remember that you were happier the last time you were here.

Try not to remember that on this very beach, when she needed to lean on somebody, she did not choose you. Try not to remember how you realized then and there that you were not that person to anybody. Instead, let the ocean erode you until you are nothing but bones, then

Imagine having three hundred square feet all to yourself. Imagine having a kitchen to yourself. Nobody will invite themselves over to make dinner, ever. You can drink wine and read a book all by yourself, and you will never have to worry about anybody seeing shooting stars on your wrists.