split existence, you've got a hold on me

we talk about moving to nebraska and having seventeen children. you say you already know the perfect place. i say seventeen is a lot of names to think of. coco, cricket, icky, buckley... but still you do not love me and i turn my back to you and stare at the wall. you don't want my visit to end like this. what am i thinking? i tell you but you don't return the favor and eventually i fall into a light sleep. when i wake up later i panic and just want to touch you. i turn over and kiss your sleeping mouth. you wake up and kiss me back. and i feel closer to you than to anyone else but i guess that's really not saying much.

we drive past all my old haunts on the way to your apartment and i tell you stories of every place we pass. sitting in that parking lot on shrooms. buying supplies for garlic mashed potatoes and macaroni casserole with becca at that kroger. i don't tell you how i once stopped at that gas station to buy you cigarettes. actually my friend bought them. i was only seventeen. but i think about it as we drive by.

i am surprised by you. surprised by how you text and call me so regularly. surprised by how you pick me up after work even when you have to work again early the next morning. surprised by the two R.E.M. cd's you buy for me at half price book. handing them to me and saying, here these are yours. surprised by how your hand brushes my hip in the aisles of cd's. and how in your room you kiss me without prompting.

my mom says i don't look skinnier but you can tell that i am. and i notice that you are skinnier too. you're always afraid you're dying. you've already made your funeral mix. i'm always afraid i'm going insane. i've already planned my suicide. you ask me if i'm happy and i say no. you say you're pretty happy now and i can't decide if this is reassuring or devastating.

when i'm sitting in becca's house i think i can't wait to get back to ny. i think that at least things are a little better there even though it's not easy to explain. i could say because my friends at home are all doing heroin but my friends here do heroin. and meth. and all kinds of other drugs. but i guess there's something fatalistic about indy. here i don't know where i'm going or where i'll end up and even though that's scary and frustrating. but in indy there aren't as many possibilities.

once i'm back in ny i start to go crazy again. i feel like i'm in a constant state of panic. i might fail my classes. and then i'll have to go back to indy. maybe that's why i'm going insane here. because it's not permanent. or maybe it's the impending failure. following me like my shadow. breathing over my shoulder. growing stronger every day i skip class and don't do my homework.

three more weeks. three weeks to try and save myself. three weeks until i see you again. three weeks until i can finally breathe again and three weeks until i can have real feelings again because here in ny every emotion is somehow cheapened and the time passes faster so that i can barley keep up.