old journal entry

19 August 2006

At fifteen, you’re thinking you’re terribly mature, glassy-eyed and wracked with sins, but the confessions spilling like fluid from your gaping mouth are insufficient. You need penance for absolution, but that’s fucking scary, so you try and control yourself.
The end of summer is here, you can smell the heat in your blood, can’t remember what’s happened these past few months save snippets of feelings and sounds; the weight of someboy’s body on yours and that stench in his breath, the scraping of razors on tables, how terrified you were when you realized how lazily the days were melting into one another, like sick, bubbling butter, oily and far too rich. You can remember bits and pieces. The grass of your boyfriend’s unkempt lawn trying to scratch the skin from your back and the look in the eyes of his lover when you met her and asked her if she gave decent head, at least. The sigh you were surprised to hear escape your lips that one day when you were at the beach, looking out into the carefree waves, wishing you could be a mermaid. The softness of the French cigarettes that an acquaintance brought from Europe, the smoke curling itself into your lungs. The madness intertwined into every fiber of your being as you’re dropping, dropping, and dropping. The smell of vodka you love and the rum some idiot spilled on the aging carpet in the living room of the boy you just fucked.
You’ve never liked rum. It tastes too sweet.
You remember nosebleeds and soft kisses from a person that you shouldn’t have dared to touch. But you dare to do anything and everything. You remember playing the piano in the afternoon with the windows wide open and thinking about “wasted potential” before shying away from the topic. What, do you want to feel even more miserable? No. I didn’t think so. So don’t think about it. You can’t remember whole events, and you wonder why.
Tonight you’re going to sneak out of the house, using the front door because it creaks less, walk through the suburbia, scream for Jesus, and think, fuck, in Southern California, summer nights are too hot. They burn. As if they’re trying to push you back, or punish you, or something.
You’re going to casually slip into a bus, wink at the driver, and keep going, going, going until you look outside the window and think the city looks trashed enough. You’re going to get off the bus and walk until someone whistles, approach, and have a short conversation; Hey/Hey/Got anything I could buy?/With money?/Or with skin, whatever/Okay.
And this dumbshit will take you to where all his friends are getting high, dangle a packet in front of your face, and you’ll tug him to the back of the building where you’ll think, Hurry up. Hurry up already before I feel empty again. He’ll murmur something about smooth skin, and you’ll find it kind of hard to breathe. He’ll say, Amazing. What’s amazing? Nothing’s amazing to you anymore.
You’ll eventually stumble you’re way back home—Do you know how to get to blah blah blah/Yeah, sure. Need a lift?/Thanks, yeah/It don’t come free though—you’ll get sick and tired of men in that way you always do after a night like this, glide back inside your house at five in the morning, using the back door because you forgot about the creaking, pray&swear, fuck, please don’t let that wake anyone up.
You’ll fall into bed and try to sleep but wake up two hours later anyway, shaken with some half-nightmare, remember that you’re still dressed like a slut, change, wipe your face, reach behind your dresser and add the night’s earning to your little bag of magic tricks. You’ll wait for your parents to stir, then go downstairs and act like you just woke up. You’re a fantastic liar.
The morning will be misty and condemning, and you’ll be asked, Do you want breakfast? No. Not Hungry. Food is evil; a slip of control. I have control. You’ll drink black coffee and say, I’m going for a walk, wander around the streets until you find a little cul-de-sac that looks like it’s still asleep. You’ll reach into your bra and take out a cig and a lighter and sit on a curb, thinking.
You’ll think about random things, remember, realize, and try not to cry, ask yourself what the hell you’re doing. You’ll go on with your day and at some point have a thought fly across your mind, fleeting, you’ll remember that you turned fifteen three months ago.
The sun will fall, you’ll smell the air and think of the hurt, repeat the entire cycle over again, continue to fall, laugh, and laugh, and laugh. And you’ll go back to school; a friend you haven’t seen all summer will ask you When did you get so sad? And you’ll say A long time ago. Damnit, a long time ago.