Life at Number 2

Rent. I'm a day late already, but I soothe myself with the thought that mail doesn't send on sundays. The trip to the wells fargo atm is a short one, only about two miles there and back, so I decide to walk. Wells Fargo, together we'll go far...lalala. Spring feels like summer, and a high of 90 this afternoon accompanies cloudless blue skies and a neighborhood flower bloom ratio that could rival the meticulously maintained botanical gardens for which this city is famous. I walk down Washita Street, it's quickest, cuts through little five and ducks around to Moreland, but it passes your new place. It's strange having you live in the old highschool, which, sparing a grove of bamboo and a line of Inman Park's finest bungalows, is quite literally my backyard, and I pass by keeping my head down, eyes focused on the broken pieces of concrete sidewalk and the soft pat, pat, pat of my feet that I can hear through my headphones. I feel the tension mount till I'm finally around the corner, to safety. It's not that I don't want you to see me, I just don't want you to see me and think I've passed this way hoping to see you. I am content with our interaction of ins and outs, they make sense, barely a ripple and don't make waves. A poster on a passing light post reads: "Please help us bring Molly home!" Under which is a picture of a winding road, and in smaller print, "Lost 18ft python." I realize it's not a winding road, but a very large snake. Peaches. Truthfully, this neighborhood was in need of a dangerous nocturnal predator, it's beady, heat seeking eyes narrowed on a slumbering hobo, death served on the surprising platter of asphyxiation, bravo snake, bravo.
On my way back I pass the small group of hippies that like to camp out behind Savage Pizza on Colquit. Last week they complimented my dog's sharp looks, and today they all have puppies. Now these aren't the "peace and love" hippies of the past, nor are they the tie-dyed, organically bejeweled trust-fund kids of today. This particular band appears to be a cross between 80's punk rock and the odd Caucasian rasta culture that's emerged recently. Think dirty heads of dreads, some decorated with feathers and beads, dressed in black rags from somewhere or other. One asks to pet my dog and I say sure. Behind him is a tiny black puppy, six weeks old, brand new. I don't touch it, and can't help thinking rather pridefully, "well at least my dog is up to date on his shots!" As I leave I'm pretty sure the guy asks me if I've ever wanted to huff paint, but I can't be positive.

Only in the nighttime

My imagination walks with me, paralleling the universe, me and my head. Whats happening, and whats happening in my head. Sunrise, 8am breakfast, if you were here, I'd make some for you. Do I need to say that I am a loner? Do I need to explain that I am content living in my head, that I'm sorry for being incapable of providing the relationship you want from me? Just pick up the damn phone once and a while. One, two, three, Unfortunately sir, we've reached our quota of reservations for this year, can I interest you in another year? Or feel free to claw your way in at any time, but I can't make any guarantees about admittance. Love was the only thing I ever needed. 

I think you are interesting. Quiet and funny. And sort of wounded. Getting to know you is like a Christmas gift, you're my pretty puzzle. I want to run my  fingers over the wet grey grooves of your brain, sulci....gyri....sulci...I want to tell you where your memories are kept. And then I want to take them away. I'll watch your eyes replace the space with thoughts of me, baby bird, just another mother in the world. I kiss your lips and every once and a while, I peek, and run my fingers through your hair. Just a bucket of paint, stirred in a perfect swirl. Watching you watching me, we let the colors mix. 

Zipcode Organic 26

Gone People

Categories. The blinking search bar is the question in my brain, the "Alright, lets get started" followed by an awkward silence when I realize just wanted to solve the problem doesn't actually help solve it. If only I could narrow this down by a series of categorical eliminations. Medicine? Health? Is my destiny located under the Social Sciences tab? Am I a psych major with an interest in journalism graduate school? Interpersonal relations, holistic wellness, arts? The question of where my life is headed is making my life hard to live. It makes it hard to get up, hard to breathe. Hard to think. I'm hoping I find my answers at the bottom of a glass of green juice. At the end of a long run. In the comfort of routine. Im interrupted. I'm hungry. I need to heal and I don't want to dig my grave, and I don't want to hear the disappointment in her voice if i don't go back. The disappointment in in my voice when I say I couldn't do it.

I need to heal. I need to be alone. I am lost.

About Amber and Mr. McCartney

Thank you for being aware of what I deserve.

The bright yellow, the conscious burnout, the drip...drip...of my deathtrap. The weightless life and death of what was. Here you are in amber, and you don't need to tell me what I know. That it doesn't make a difference if I sit or I stand.
That maybe your a man, maybe your a lonely man, who's in the middle of something that he doesn't really understand.

20

Lately you'll probably hear me offering preemptive explanations for my actions. I'm this, I'm that. Too old to drink like a kid, I'm righteous and set in my ways, I like animals too much to eat them, I'm just taking a break from school. The list goes on and on. And today I found myself saying "I don't know when I got this old and un-fun and I'm sorry." I lay these reasons around myself to deflect this idea of what I think other people believe I am, all because I inherently feel that I don't fulfill their expectations. But the truth is, I'm not sure when I became someone who has to apologize for herself all the time. What's so wrong with doing something or living a certain way simply because I want to? I think that's where it gets personal. I lived for a long time being treated like my opinion didn't matter, and "not wanting to" was a surefire way to get into an argument, because no explanation I gave was ever satisfactory. The reflection of that is this series of explanations I throw out to excuse my behavior...not necessarily because anyone else believes I'm so wrong, but because I do. The truth isn't acceptable. Who'd believe that I'm 20, and tired.

My day off

The best times are almost never planned. This afternoon, for example. On this temperate January day (I'll remind you last year, we were iced in for a week!) I took Cinc to the dog park for nearly two hours, and sat on the tables with the other regulars and conversed with a girl I'd spoken with a few times in the past. Her faithful companions are some of Cinco's favorite playmates, a burly female rottweiler named Monkey, and a wire haired mutt that resembles Benji from the movies. Benji and Cinco are well matched, Cinco bigger and more muscular, but both with a voracious appetite for chasing and wrestling. As she left, she turned to me and said "My name is Laura, by the way." I like making new friends. I drove home, and as I walked in the door with a tuckered out pup, my housemate Pii asked if we'd like to meet the dog he was sitting, and of course we oblidged. Dante and Cinc were natural companions, and ran around the backyard and into the creek together as Pii and I talked. Midway through the romp, there was a bounding of paws and Jenny and here dog Hugo appeared from around the conrner of the apartment complex next door. Jenny and I have crossed paths during nighttime walks of our dogs, and Hugo, a 5 month old great Pyrenees mix, has grown almost as big a my dog. The three dogs run around together, each with white muzzles and blonde fur, looking almost indistinguishable from each other. Pii goes back inside with Dante and Jenny and I stay out talking, then are met by Mason, Hugo's brother, and his owner, a girl whose name I can't recall. The dogs cross the creek, which only a few days ago was a roaring river thanks to the pouring rain for the past 4 days. They are led by Cinco, the ringleader, and I guess I'm a bit more lenient with his afternoon outings because the other girls try to get the group to cross the creek back over to us. As we do so, I see my neighbor Rusty and his seven year old son Jack walking towards the creek. Cinco and Russ and I sat on the rocks of the creek and talked while Jack explored, and after a suspenseful leaf-boat race between Rusty and myself, Jack and I engaged in an "EPIC" (his favorite word) nerf-gun battle. By his rules, it ended with: me- zero points, him- three points. Of course he won. 

If there is one thing in this world I can do, and love to do, it is talking to people, and making friends. It's good to remember how it feels to be young. Life ain't so bad, huh. :)