the habit of being

Girls who like girls like girls because they are so girly.

I have a new cousin, Bridget, who is twelve and straight as a board, with a back not much broader than a grown man’s hand. She is delicate and precisely spoken, her hair is long long and brown and shiny without a single curl. Her walls are covered in horse show ribbons, arranged by color. And she has a green feather boa from the dollar store draped over her mirror, and the feathers are molting, so the end is just a green string.

I lay in her room, in the extra bed covered with pillows, and read her copy of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and she said “Do you happen to like grape Pez?”

I gave green and white treats the size and shape of chocolate chips to her pet rats - Mimi and Aria - and she was really my favorite person in the whole world, while I was visiting Delaware, for her mom’s wedding to my Deadhead uncle.

I drank champagne and took blurry pictures of her, wearing high heels I could never manage myself. She rubbed my shoulders - she’s proud of having strong hands from riding, so she’s always offering people massages. I wish all relationships could be like this.

. . .

Girls who like boys like boys because boys are not girls.

The why of #5: It has some to do with the way you make me like me. First of all, there is that you are not skinny. Your not-skinniness makes mewithyou skinnier. Feeling skinny and small makes me happy. Your hugs render me crushable and weightless; they are very good. Then, there is the way your hands are rough like loofas, which make mine feel a little smooth and pearly. Your hairiness makes me meticulously groomed. Your boxiness makes me circly. Your embodiment makes me airy and transparent, floaty and flighty.

And, there is how your words are flowery and vibrant but, well, not very literary. Maybe because you’re too happy. Men have less trouble being happy, sometimes. I know so many words to convey sadness. Words about obsession and words about desire. Words about hatred, words about lust. I have written so many words like these, but I simply do not know the vocabulary of happiness. Perhaps there is not one. Happiness is just too small - happiness is staying under the covers when it’s cold outside, and being half asleep in that way that makes every five minutes that go by feel like an hour.

Oh! I like going through my day smelling like your shampoo, which reminds me of your hair, which I like to have my hands in. I like that I can just barely touch you and suddenly your entire self is reacting all over the place, like you can just barely stand it, you are so.. touched. I like that I can make you react. I like that power. Relationships are so great before they are complicated.

Poetry happens when you just can’t bear to write a complete sentence anymore.

Writing from the perspective of the person you want to be, rather than the person that you are, is dishonest.

At a young age, I have driven past lovers into both therapy and celibacy, though they may claim it was not me.

Why are photographs of empty beds always so disturbing?

When your life reads too much like a story, you are more inclined to forget what really happened.

Breaking up with someone is a very empowering thing.

How to be cutting edge: consume a lot of caffeine.

One day you will realize all of your teachers were half-crazy.

Intimacy happens when you don’t stop yourself from confessing.

It’s criminal, how much art we create without even trying.. how much space we manage to take up, unintentionally.

The old barista calls everyone “baby.”

The quickest way to de-sentimentalize your life is to make it academic. The fastest way to idealize it is to make it art.

There is something about the second man to call you a piece of shit.

Compassion is tricky.

“Often the most perverse people are the ones who do not like sex.”

True love happens while you’re sleeping.

Everything was sun-colored as we walked into the desert to die. Sick dusty shells, we were delusional with anguish. Our breath stank. Our knotted hair flew in our faces. Our packs were heavy. The wind was heavier.

On the horizon, there were brown mountains, sienna lumps, and it was impossible to tell how far away they were. Very far, a million miles. One road stetched forward. We would never get there, but we imagined ourselves melting into the waterless ground that stretched between, dried out and tongueless, sitting silently on rocks, watching the life blow out of us and away. We could watch each other die, but we could not get too close. Closeness was forever over. I could not even walk near him. His mind was full of misery, disgust and nothingness.

He’d removed my hand from his chest the night before, as we feigned sleep in the bunk of a big truck’s cabin, on the bumpy ride into California. He’d silently, quite deliberately, put the offending object off of his person. In the morning, he told me he did not love me anymore. He said this resolutely, frustratedly, as someone hard and cruel, but yet somehow dead, given-up. He said other things too, mercilessly. It was the worst it had ever been. I was frantic; I was numb. I hadn’t had much sleep, and it was all too real.

I was ready to go die with him, and as I struggled against the wind that threatened to blow me under the wheels of each passing car, I mumbled under so many breaths “I hate you.” His back was before me, curled over and bracing against the wind with the heavy blue cross of our failure on his back, as on mine. It was the first hate - it gave me strength in my exhaustion. With every step, I looked at his hiking pack ahead of me; “I hate you.”

We were going noplace now. We were going “that way.” We were going “away.” Away from the greener hills and science fiction herds of windmills. Away from the truck stop where we sat, frozen, glued to our plastic booth, listening to “Tainted Love” over the intercom. Away from the highway, and all the other places we’d come from. Away from our false adventure.

There was sand. There was orange, and tan, and dust. There was flatness. It was hot and freezing at the same time. It was March. It was almost Palm Springs. It was the end of the world. The second end, and there would be more. It didn’t matter. He didn’t love me anymore and, in all my love, I hated him for the first time. I was so hysterical, I was almost serene. I wore myself slap out and just kept on walking. I wanted to collapse. To collapse would be dignified and horrible. It was not possible to walk in a straight line, because of the wind. It was not possible to stand up straight. It was not possible to cry, but it was impossible not to. I was crying and not crying. I was breathing heavily.

There was a store. It was small, of the earth. Inside, there was no wind. We got bananas. We got water. The shopkeeper spoke to me. I don’t remember what he said. I don’t remember what happened. I remember fruit. I remember sitting outside the store on a wooden log, a parking space bumper. I remember being silent or shouting, or both. I remember a car pulling up and making everything worse. I remember remembering every detail about the people in that car. I remember symbolism I’ve now forgotten.

The wind in the desert makes you raw, and we were already raw. We were so raw we were not even really there anymore. I don’t know what happened to make us turn back. I don’t remember deciding. I don’t remember relief. I remember that we were not so far from where we’d started. We could see the truckstop still, and the windmills, and the highway. We were going back to cooler colors.

Then, vaguely, I was thinking about pills. I was inventorying what we had with us, counting them in my head, with my breath, like sheep. I was breathing, forgetting the desert, trying to distance myself, trying to see myself separately. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was still walking. I was desparate. I did not know anything by the time we came upon the highway.

The truckstop was on the other side. It was grey. The highway was busy. There was no crosswalk. We ran for it. Our packs were heavy. Our packs were blue. I did not mean to fall down. When I tripped, I tripped in slow motion. After I realized I was going to fall, I just fell. It took a long time to fall. I twisted my ankle. I landed on my side. My pack was on top of me. My pack was strapped on. I couldn’t get up. After I realized I couldn’t get up, I just didn’t get up. Somewhere close, an eighteen wheeler blared its horn. I lay my cheek on the asphalt.

Somewhere, he turned around. Somewhere, he said “shit.” I was so glad to stop walking. I was so glad to lie down. He ran back to me and dragged me over to the shoulder, out of the way of the truck. It hurt.

It was a long time before I moved. I lay curled up on the side of the road. It was the longest minute. It was the calmest. He asked me if I was okay.

Only a day or so later, I’d take the pills, but this was the closest to death I ever came.