the habit of being

What do you think it means? I think there are just these strobe lights that flash inside me and sometime the lights hit the page and words appear. Sometimes I can tell I should be writing by the rhythm of my thoughts, and a lot of times I don’t do it anyway.

I want to say I love him and instead I say live in the present, it’s not healthy being the way he is. I want to say thank you but I keep thinking birth control pills have a sweet aftertaste, but why aren’t we fucking enough to make it worth the expense? I think it’s me.

I had my first strictly Freudian dream. I was trying to put on a yellow gorilla suit and all my teeth fell out. This isn’t like me; I don’t have symbolic nightmares. I have dreams you can’t tell are dreams until you wake up, and sometimes you still aren’t sure. My nightmares are arguments, fights, scenes, tears. I wake up glad I’m not alone afterall, glad I wasn’t really abandoned over that one. It’s not an alternate reality, it’s just technacolor anxiety, it’s the way I thought the day might go. I was sitting in the car with my teeth in my hands and my mother was driving me to my childhood dentist, Dr. Sally, and I kept hoping it might be a dream and hoping it might be a dream and trying to open my already open eyes on another level somehow, until I woke up and my hand was bleeding, unexplainably.

I was waiting at the bus stop this morning, and a woman stopped her car and offered me a ride. She took me to Dupont Circle and I passed up all the oportunities I had to tell her I used to be a hitch-hiker. She said she was in favor of adventure in life. I said “mmhmm,” but I didn’t really mean it. I said I came to Washington because I wanted to see another place; and because I had a friend who lived here.

My father emailed me and said he wasn’t doing too swell, and this probably means he’s on crack. I said remember people care and drinking is Not a Good Idea. I said read a good book, write a poem, pray. My stepfather emailed me and said if I’m impressed by the popcorn feature on that microwave I should check out the Advantium, which does this that and the other, and maybe one day he’ll be able to buy me one of those, when I have my own house. He said my future was bright and he loved me. Asked if I had any timetable on going back to school.

We went out to eat, at a Vietnamese place. I had vegetable fried rice. I haven’t eaten meat since I finished the soup my mom spent $40 to express mail me.

I was supposed to make cookies but I didn’t. I had this plan to do one nice thing for him every day. The first day I lit 50 tea candles and made dinner. After that, I don’t know. I keep hoping I’m nice without noticing it. I think I used to be.

I think this is all afflicted.