choice

there's been a fly that's been bothering the apartment. i've chased it out of the kitchen every morning for it to come back every night. this morning, i saw it in the hallway, so i carefully crouched down to slowly roll up a sheet of paper into a baton, and i crept into the hallway, so gently that i rested a hand on the corner of the wall, and so slowly reached to the fly. and then i swung, and watched it lifelessly fall to the ground. and instantly i felt a horrible feeling in my gut. and i walked past it, it lying on the ground, me refusing to look down at it, and i continued to walk past and slide into my room. where i sat, feeling strange, and ultimately carrying on with my day, until right now, where i chose to think of it again, so we could think of it together. 

i'm going to tell you a story.

on planet utopia there's a country run by puppy dogs and every year they have the puppy dog parade. and the puppy dog parade is the cutest sweetest celebration of life that's ever existed. they sing and march and play cute little puppy dog trumpets. but if you ask them what they're celebrating, they'd say, the great puppy dog war, of course. and then if you ask them what happened at the great puppy dog war, they'd all kinda scratch their heads about it. "sumthin' bad enough to have-a purade i su'pose," they'd say. and then they'd go back to having the best parade you've ever seen, waving the tiniest, paw-sized flags of puppy dog country. 

you let your mind wander, thinking of brutalized puppy dogs. dogs with bared, bloodied teeth. dead puppy dogs lying on the ground. you don't really know what could have happened, and you don't know if they do either. either way, real war or not, there's a lingering sensation of grief under this anonymous triumph. and you just have to let them be. you want to know so bad. you just let it go.

god tested me by having me drop an apple on the floor.

alone in my kitchen, i was picking myself up, i was feeling my brain fall out of my head, myself slipping through my fingers. i love myself. i am okay. i am repeating this to myself. there's nothing else i can do. i love myself. i am okay. i am slowly cutting up an apple and dusting it in sugar. i love myself. i am okay. there's nothing else i can do. i leave the kitchen, reach for the door outside. i need fresh air. i need to see my neighbors. i need to see someone else's face. the bowl of apple slices tumbles to the ground. and moments ago, i was nothing, and right now, i have become everything, and i laugh and realize this is a part of the schtick. a cruel joke, a test. i could let this tip me off the edge if i wanted to and no one would bat an eye. i pick the apple up off the ground. the clean pieces go back in the bowl. i think about what to do with the dirty pieces for a second. i realize i don't need to fix this one. i throw them off my balcony into the lawn. they will die there. it's my fault and that is okay. i go outside. i let my neighbors each have a slice. i love myself. i am okay. there's nothing else i can do.

we're winding through the mountains, autumn has kissed these mountains lovingly, the leaves are twinkling through the sun and shining orange and red and are lying across the countryside, sprawled out and lounging, letting little cows aim around and little farms tuck and nook in her curves and corners. "is this roger miller?" i ask my dad. i know the song he's playing. i start humming along before i know for sure, reach and fiddle with the radio. it's not. it's "she's actin' single, i'm drinking double". i just used to listen to those songs back to back. it's funny how those little things get confused. two thoughts crossed. dancing together in my memory. little knots buried in my head. i keep singing.

i'm a couch cowgirl. i've been one for a while now. i'm constantly bobbing between locations. i visited my parents house, and it was like revisiting a worn out nest. it smells like me, my body has carved out space, softening the cotton of it's interior. but it has been left alone for too long that it is cold. i have been away too long that it's become unfamiliar. when i try to think about where my home is, i can't have an answer. i spend months sleeping in different beds at a time. my home was been spread too thin, spread too far across the states, that it doesn't cradle me anymore. the last time i was cradled i was tucked in a couch, head buzzing, with music so loud it rhythmically thumped the couch, and i was so nestled it felt like i was being rocked to sleep. 

i walked around my childhood bedroom naked. and it was because i chose to, not like the times where i haven't had clothes. if anything, i had too much clothes so that i wanted to be naked. what a beautiful privilege.

i love watching a tangle form. my friend and i have been smushed together by both the unpredictability of the universe and the unition of decision. we are closer friends now than ever. we wander the streets of brooklyn together at night, she lets me sleep on her couch, the next time i'm on wycoff ave, now i can remember that i have been on wycoff ave before, because of this said friend. same way we have archival people and places, we are actively writing each other into our histories. we've swam topless at a nude beach and have seen each other sleeping. our presents bond over our pasts, and funny enough, as we choose to walk along, from over our shoulders, we watch the little threads from our past, histories that are still ours but left behind, start to slither and cross to each other in almost the same way we are crossing. isn't that funny? this giant square dance of passed partners? from the sky, one must see the most beautiful net of repeating patterns.

i roamed around la guardia in cowboy fashion. i love airports. i've been flying alone since i was 16, taking a plane at least 3 times a year, sometimes up to 6 or so. i'm looking at the women around me, and then shoddily at my appearance, and feel wrong. when i crawl into my bed that night, i'm struck with every single memory of my body in the same exact place. i'm living every single time at once. i tilt my head back. i think about myself. i worry i am not a girl. i worry i am not a boy. i am just a cowboy. a cowgirl. everything, spread thinly over toast.

i cried on the plane. i cry a lot. but i thought about my histories. i thought about how limp and thin i was feeling. i knew if i rolled myself up, took my entire self that stretched from montauk to old faithful, i'd be enormous. but that's simply not possible. and i thought about my lover who isn't my lover. and sniffled to that, too.

i remember being in the bathroom and ripping her hands from her face and asking what was wrong. thinking back on it, i want to hit my head against the wall for prying at her fingers; of wrestling her. i remember seeing her cry, her getting mad at me because i'm slowly falling apart, and thinking, i should be crying. i'm the cowgirl. i haven't slept in my own bed in weeks. we're arguing because we can't afford dinner because she got fired from her job. i can't go home because i don't have a home anymore. i can't get a job because i don't have a car. i only have myself and what was in my suitcase. i should be crying, i'm the cowgirl. she has picked me up and dropped me over and over again. my knees bruised, i forgive her, i trust her hand, i run back. the current has pushed me into a corner, me flailing against the tide. this tide that pulls me in, pushes me out. i'm fighting to stay afloat. i'm laughing at the feeling of it licking my legs. the sun feels beautiful. i'm so tired. fuck, i'm so tired. i should be crying, i'm the cowgirl. i'm okay. i love myself. there's nothing else i can do. 

this memory is old. for some reason it still haunts me. it gets under my skin when i'm in the grocery store. i brush it away. it comes back.

my dad was really happy i wanted him to drive me back to school. we don't get quality time anymore. we lumbered through the countryside in his pick up truck. nowhere else in the world makes me feel as safe as my dad's pick up truck. and it could be any model, it would just have to be my dad's. i'm leaning against the windows trying to take pictures. he says that no one at work really appreciates the leaves like he does, so he's glad i'm taking pictures. i think in his next life, my dad would be a fabulous painter. and maybe in his next life i'm his son and instead of cutting my hair short i grow it super long. and instead of my dad being the only one at work who likes to take pictures of the trees he's the only painter in the city who doesn't like to gesso. maybe it's something about the texture, i don't know. he'd tell me when we would take flights together. and then i'd be the type of boy who gets giddy at the prospect of a pick up truck. a rare sight. maybe. maybe in that life i've broken the heart of a beautiful man. maybe. 

maybe, maybe, maybe.

when i was in eighth grade i ripped up a girl's homework for stepping on an ant. now i have ladybug tattoos on my thighs. i killed a fly in the hallway and i left it there. i thought about burying it. i think we only make choices we want to make. and i made a choice to feel bad about leaving the fly in the hallway but i left it there anyway. and i still choose to feel bad about it.