can we hold hands one more time
absent mindedly moving our fingers in small circles
the sun's coming up
starting to creep onto the wall
your chest rises and falls with each breath
i can feel your heart beating
the light is going to bring an end to this
to this little world
this tiny pocket of happiness
oh how none of us ever expected this to happen
did we?
it makes it harder
when it happens suddenly
but i don't know if love has ever happened slowly for me at all
-
-
i am lying here
looking up at the sky
hearing the winds blow through leaves
and i cannot keep my focus
as i look upward
past the atmosphere and the galaxies
i am lifting lifting lifting
away and gone
like the loss of life
and the promise of meaning
tomorrow
we always pretend that there is some reason
why we are here
between
the living and the dead
but i know now the only reason
is so that we may love what is gone
-
i watched episode 9, season 1 of game of thrones. for those who don’t know, this is the episode where eddard stark is beheaded in front of his two daughters and all the nosy do-nothings of king’s landing.
this episode filled me with immense grief and horror.
it was also the moment where i realized this was one of the greatest stories ever told by a human.
i recently started rewatching the show and came to that episode just the other day. one day before the 15th anniversary of it airing. it aired on june 11, 2011.
on june 11, 2026 we had to put down our beautiful baby cat. he was of course, not a baby by any means, at 15, but he was and will always be a baby. you know what i mean if you have ever had to put an animal to sleep.
the day i watched this live on hbo, 15 years ago, i never would have imagined that 15 years in the future, i would have felt such a loss in real life.
and i know that our cat, his name was tucchi, is no eddard stark. but the loss is no less poignant.
i’m still in those intense waves of grief, and i imagine i will be for some time.
i no longer need to make sure there’s room for him on the couch, feed him his favorite wet food at night, cuddle and hold him while i sleep, pet him when he butts his head against my leg, or kiss him hello when he greets me at the door, but all of those missing moments have now created an emptiness in me that i don’t know how to fill.
i suppose they won’t ever be filled. maybe they will. in different ways. only time will tell.
all i know is that 15 years ago when i sat sobbing on my couch watching eddard stark get beheaded—i had no idea that 15 years from then i’d also have to feel the immense loss of my favorite baby boy. sobbing in a different way, for a cat who i loved so much and who loved me in ways i cannot possibly ever measure up to.
i love you so much, tucchi and i am going to spend the rest of my life trying to do good by you. whatever way that manifests.
-
Daily writing promptWhat’s the most profound piece of advice you’ve been given? Did you take it?
when i was a younger man, i was in therapy a lot.
absolutely saved my life. helped me untangle everything and stay alive.
that being said, hearing certain things from therapists has never been easy. there was of course the time my therapist told me i was a “petulant child” which was not altogether incorrect. (sorry mid twenties me and everyone affected by that mess of a person)
but, it was during one particularly challenging day at work, i used to be a pharmacy technician, i just could not keep it any more. the patients endlessly yelling at me, insurance companies not helping the people they were meant to serve, i just went on a rant.
my rant ended with me telling my therapist that when i called people on the phone i would hold my breath so that i didn’t annoy them with my breathing.
this is, of course, a whole other side of social anxiety that continues to rule my life with an iron fist, but it was the first time i vocalized this to someone other than myself.
her eyes got all wide and she said, “you are allowed to take up space and breathe, joe” which like, yes of course we are. but no one had ever said that to me. i still think it’s ridiculous that someone needed to even tell me this, but they did and i’m definitely better for it.
now, will i remember this and get back to my annoying too much self? who fucking knows.
-
you were leaning against the windows of the fudge store
looking bored, way too cool
pawing the silver chain around your neck
i walked by, flip flops catching between wooden boards
i swear
i didn't trip on purpose
but you laughed just the same
in the ocean the next day
what a happy accident, really
you'd been treading water not far away
i pretended to get pinched by a crab
the silver glistened against that too tan skin
the glint disappeared under the water as you made your way toward me
"are you okay?"
"yeah there's just something in the--"
i jumped again, feigning pain
there was nothing there, of course
the waves rolled over our shoulders
we moved with them so easily
the next day we had greasy clam strips
cold tartar sauce
salt and wind in our hair
sitting on a carefully laid out towel
"can you tell me about your family in jersey, again?"
no, that's silly
i wasn't even listening the first time
just watching the way your neck looked
every time you swallowed
i used to think the ocean was scary
its dark, endless, rolling currents
dragging us all to the horizon
frightening creatures in the depths
sunlight disappearing over our heads
is this where we're all born?
but that's where i first talked to you
a lie bubbling from the deep
rushing to get some air
up here on the shore it's much brighter
we can go inside the fudge shop now
ride the ferris wheel
buy books from the little shop off oak avenue
i still have the bookmark we got
pressed between the sandy pages
of the swarm from schatzing
it's travelled with me on all my moves
cemented to that bookshelf
i know i'll never read it because
i'm not into the english translation
and i don't think that shrines should be disturbed -
i’m not patriotic, and not because i hate the states or anything.
i mean, okay lets be so for real — i do not like the direction and path this country has fallen into but patriotism seems like such a silly thing when the world is so big.
being brought here as a baby and always being aware of the fact that i could have just as easily grown up on the other side of the world, i’ve never felt any sense of attachment to like… anywhere i’ve been? i don’t really know how to describe it. always loved moving. shaking things up. collecting stories.
i think the closest i’ve felt to loss when it comes to a “place” is when my parents sold the house i spent the majority of my youth growing up in. it was our third home at that point, but it’s where we had stayed the longest. it was always a constant in my life. i could always count on going home for the holidays and being inside, all cozy in front of the fire.
it seems silly to me to feel patriotism for … what? land? a place? arbitrary human-made borders on the land masses that managed to break through the ocean?
i associate patriotism with over zealous xenophobic people. proud people. unflinchingly accepting ideals proposed by the government. maybe that’s what the states have done to my brain. or maybe i did it to myself.
i would really enjoy if my feelings toward the word changed, but i fear it might be a while until that happens. i’d like to feel proud. i’d like to know that we’ve done the right thing; protected people. shown love to immigrants. but i don’t know if that is possible. time and action will tell.
-
i need to preface this with a statement.
i do not actually enjoy cooking.
i find the entire act of it terribly boring.
the grocery shopping. the unpacking. the prep. the act of cooking. boring.
but, i do love the eating part of it.
in a feeble attempt to reconnect with a culture i should have grown up in, i found a recipe online for classic romanian dishes. the criteria i was looking for when it came to recipes was that it needed to be easy to make, and was hopefully delicious. added bonus if it was salty.
romanian cabbage rolls pop into the picture after some online searching and there’s a special note about rinsing the pickled cabbage leaves off because they are too salty makes. it makes me grimace. i will never rinse these leaves off. you can’t make me.
i source all the ingredients from jungle jim’s and then i get to work.
mixing the pork with fresh dill and onions is extremely satisfying. i had no idea i would enjoy mushing meat together as much as i did, even though my mother made me mix up meatballs when i was younger. but this time is different because i am choosing to partake in the cooking of my own accord.
i forget what other seasonings were in there (i have to pull the recipe up every time i make this) but i remember definitely putting in rice as well. a binding agent? i don’t know how these things work. don’t ask me.
anyway, you unroll the cabbage leaves and roll out a strip of your meat mixture on the leaf. then roll it up nice and tight so no meat falls out. put it in a crockpot with tomato sauce and smoked sausage (or any other type of smoked meat) and let it cook for eight hours.
sometime before it finishes i make some buttery mashed potatoes and put a couple cabbage rolls on top of it when they’re ready. it is oh so wonderful.
it takes a significant amount of time and effort to accomplish making this dish, but it’s well worth it and then feeds us for a few days. i’ll have to find the recipe and then document how i do it sometime, although you could definitely just google “romanian cabbage rolls” and find the recipe just as easily, i suppose!
that’s my favorite thing to cook and that’s all, folks!
-
okay, so a long time ago when i was a freshman in college i had this friend who was dating a hockey player. watching hockey was about the only exciting thing i could that first year — besides meet boys who kept holding my hand but then told me they weren’t actually attracted to men? it was all maddeningly frustrating.
anyway, that first hockey game i went to? yeah, i was SAT. it’s so fast and quick and it seems like the players are flying! i’d always found air hockey thrilling, especially as a child when we’d go to bars as a family and my sister and i needed to be distracted while we waited for the food to arrive.
i kept going to the games. it was fun. always hated sports. except hockey was just such fun to watch. it was fast! you had to pay attention. there were fights! loved it.
i signed up for an ice skating class my college offered later that year. i was under no illusion that i would ever be able to play hockey. i couldn’t even stand up straight on ice skates, and big beautiful thighs were so far away from any realm of possibility for me that i had resigned myself to one simple fact — i just needed to get the basics. i needed to get on the ice and try it out.
it was tremendously fun. i learned how to do crossovers, skate backward, skate very quickly, jump, and catch people as we skated backward. it was fantastic. i loved it. there is just something so incredibly freeing about flying around on the ice. oh, and added bonus — our final exam for this class was a group choreographed dance using all of the moves and techniques we’d acquired during the semester. we chose to do “bad romance” from lady gaga since i think that had just come out and there’s a video of us performing this somewhere, but i hope i never see it again.
the rest of time goes by as it always does. i went to some hockey games in the town i was living in, after college, and i found them enjoyable, but the team wasn’t terribly good. there was one star wars game i remember going to and it was so cool to see darth vader gliding around on the ice brandishing red lightsabers.
i fell out of going to hockey when i moved to the city i live in now and my long latent enjoyment of the sport revived itself with these game changer books. heated rivalry really did me in.
and by did me in, i mean i felt like these books gave me permission to write the things i want to write and get back in touch with myself. i know it’s corny, but i’d been self-censoring myself with my own writing. i write a lot of words that don’t ever see the light of day, and i spent and even larger amount of time sanitizing those words to be palatable — to who? i have no idea.
but, reading about hockey, reading about these characters whose experiences were similar to mine (and vastly different in others) was exhilarating. and of course it reignited my interest in hockey.
so i went to a hockey game a couple weeks ago, and i’m going to another one tomorrow. it’s great fun and i’m enjoying being back outside, without the numbing effects of alcohol to propel me through, and it’s nice to be part of a crowd all trying to manifest one thing. a delicious win.
i’ll never be able to play hockey, but i sure as hell enjoy watching it.
-
i think it started in my nonny's basement
on a sunday afternoon
before the family dinner was ready
the hiding, i mean
we all sat stuffed on the couches around the room
like the spiced meatballs cooking in sauce
in the big pot on the stove
my cd player was wearing the fuck out of track number 6
what u see (is what u get)
britney spears
ever since oops... i did it again came out
i knew i needed to listen to this album
i'd told my parents i thought she was hot
whatever that means
they bought me the cd anyway
"what are you listening to?" my uncle asks me
i pull my headphones down, irritated to stop the music,
even though i'd heard this song one million times
"what?"
"what are you listening to on there?" he points to my silver cd player
my pride and joy
i panicked
and i knew i needed to lie
i could tell from his smirk that he would not believe me
i could try to fumble out the sentence, "britney spears is hot"
like i'd done with my parents
but i wasn't good at lying, yet
quickly
what's the most masculine thing i know?
"ja rule" i hear myself say
"ah, who's that?"
he doesn't believe me
"rapper," i say, "has a cool song with ashanti"
is he believing me?
he taps his fingers to his ears
miming
as if he's wearing headphones himself
"yeah, that sounds like ja rule" he says, sneering
i have not been able to look him in the eyes since
because there's something about the first lie you tell
you always remember it
and so does the person you burdened -
i got down on the subway floor
face so close to whatever that fluid was
“is that fucking—oh my god, you’re crazy, dude!”
the way you laughed, the disbelief
made me feel proud
cause i was the type of guy who’d stick his face in piss to try and impress you
we sat in seats next to each other
should i hold your hand?
we got up for the little old lady with too many bags
hanging onto metal poles
trying to keep our balance
i swear you fell into me when the train was on the straightaway
did you do that on purpose?
i always wondered
our friends were there
i'd confided in them once
they watched me try to be someone i wasn’t in front of you
a thrilling game i never wanted to end
we could have a house in the country, made of branches and sparkles
we’d go outside in thunderstorms and really kiss this time
you wouldn’t have to stop and say,
“we can’t.”
big solid logs crackling in the fireplace
windows overlooking the frozen lake and eternally snow covered trees
white eclipsing green, cold smothering life
something spicy in the oven, talk radio in a different room
traced my fingers over your chest
your hand on my thigh
bliss, right here on this starchy couch
unburdened, somewhere in the mountains i should have run to
your hand absentmindedly reaches for—
at the station now
stepping into this underground world
do you want to stay down here too?
the little rattling reverie
closes with the doors of the train behind us
locked inside -
listen, we don’t do it anymore. and i miss it terribly. i’m also going to write about this one specific thing even though there are many family traditions that exist in our family.
we would always go to my aunt’s house, who was really my mom’s cousin, but like — you’re not going to call someone “mom’s cousin” so “aunt” it was — and we’d gather around the piano in a warm cozy house all decorated for christmas every year. there was a gorgeous twinkling tree with a beautiful train track set up around the base. i loved train sets as a kid and i always wished i could shrink myself down in size so i could ride them.
there’d be drinks and food and quality time with cousins and other family members you hadn’t seen in a while. one time a family member told me, “hey, i just want you to know it’s okay to be gay.” i was a 25 year old man at the time who had come out in 9th grade but i looked at him and said, “oh wow, thank you.”
the packet of christmas carols that was distributed was the same every year, but sometimes there would be new carols added! the songs we sang were always in the same order, pages worn with use and time, but lovingly so. staples sometimes barely keeping the pages together.
my aunt would sit at the piano bench as we all squished into the sofas, armchairs, or if you were young like me, the best spot on the floor. we’d go through the songs like a ritual, ushering in the holiday spirit as best our little voices would allow.
there was always one song where my mother would ad-lib a line in that was not in the caroling booklet. the song in question was called “nuttin for christmas” which as i type that seems absolutely insane — but my mother would always add in the line, “boy was she mad!” in an emphatically dramatic manner. it always caused my cousin and i to make direct eye contact and cringe.
every year my mother continued to do this. over. and over. my cousin and i looking forward to it more and more each year, until it became so deeply entwined in my own feelings about christmas spirit that i was no longer able to differentiate between the two.
we don’t have these caroling parties anymore and i miss the joy and magic the adults in our lives worked so hard to give us.
it’s almost like santa’s jovial “ho ho ho” to me now but if i close my eyes, travel back in time and remember how everything used to be, i can still hear my her voice singing out, “boy was she mad!” into a room so full of love and happiness.
-
your life, your very existence
is more than the ego's attempts at self aggrandizement
i can never see myself
in ways you thought you could
there's an aching emptiness of where we used to be
lisped, drunken voice notes
"i love you"s
maybe he heard
agonizing over change and parents who leave
grief is funny because
our youth only ever dies at once or not at all
"i feel like i always make you mad"
you said that to me once
like you weren't my reason
for everything
maybe he heard that too
i hope your everything is safe and that you can take these little words out of my head and turn them into nothing, which is where we are now
floating out there, gasping for air?
god, i hope not. -
dream job? honestly, would love to get paid to write things. have people be interested in the worlds and stories i’ve created.
it’s weird because when we’re writing, no one is looking, no one is reading, no one even knows this is occurring (usually), but the words and worlds are places i like to get lost in. they’re so real to me, all consuming. they’re like a place of safety for me where i can just journey off somewhere in my imagination, mold everything the way i want, and then feel peace there.
i don’t know, if i could bring the feelings of adventure, mystery, and romance to other people — the way i bring it to myself and have fun while doing so, then i think that would be really cool.
i just like telling stories and i don’t know if i’m good at it, but it’s certainly a dream job of mine to be able to do that. i have to just keep practicing and learning!
-
i buried my eyes a long time ago
so that i could watch the world above me
through a layer
where i could be safe
two blurred shadows, overlapping
and laughing
it's hard to see in the mire
followed you down the streets
on roofs of tall skyscrapers
the flashing lights of times square, dazzling
cozy cottages in the mountains, fire crackling
getting fuzzy now
but if i blink enough
i can still follow your trail
watched you get married
didn't even crytime passes
i survey less clearly now
i’m getting used to this
you see, things rot in the soil
but i heard sometimes they grow too -
there's an evil calm that snakes its way through this house
a quiet light that's almost too faint to see
and as i lie here on my back
i look up at the twinkling stars
the reds
the greens
the occasional flashes of stucco walls
i feel myself rising up to meet them
even though i think i'm light years away
i can hear the upstairs neighbors yelling
because sometimes
sometimes
love
isn't the answer
and gravity is too hard to bear -
i don’t know why
why there are two of me
the side that bites his wrists
and nurses wounds
that can’t finish a book
and is reading too much
guzzling top shelf liquor
while telling everyone i'm sober
the guy who’s going to text you
the most vile things
i would never do
and i’ll sit in this cold motel room
all year long if i have to
with its scratchy sheets
and mothball smells
you're clinging to me
but i'm cold as ice
now i'm frozen to the porcelain in the bathroom tub
a little doll
please break me
the world outside is moving
and my insides are churning
i’ll wait
toss and turn
until i’m someone else
in the morning
the curtains are still closed
and you tell me
“we can’t keep out the light”
and i know you’re right
but i'm going to tell you that
i'd prefer if it was dark -
i find myself guilty of using this word way too many times. to be honest, i love this word to pieces. you can use it for literally anything.
last night i literally became a dragon.
i literally hate your guts.
i literally cannot even believe you told her that, you sycophant.
and etcetera. i think it’s just a stunning word and i will use it daily until the day i die.
i’m now rereading the prompt and i feel like it has a negative connotation to it, like it’s expecting us to write something that we may be inclined to dislike. i like when people use words and i think that people who get hung up on something being used by “too many people” would do well to remember that their opinions are literally subjective.
-
Daily writing promptWhat is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
besides my wallet and keys, i don’t really go anywhere without my backpack. i walk almost everywhere i go; it’s just easier to do that in a city, and i like having my backpack in case i end up getting something at the store, or i have to pick something up from the library, or like if i find a small kitten.
most days, my backpack is completely and utterly empty — i always just keep it around for what-if moments. i think it may be the physical manifestation of my anxiety that is a steady undercurrent of all my actions.
“gotta be prepared, joe,” says my anxiety as i strap an empty backpack to my back for absolutely no reason at all.
-
Daily writing promptWhat’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?
the most expensive meal i’ve ever had was in las vegas at that restaurant that is inside the eiffel tower, on the strip. it just twinkles so nicely in the night sky.
i think it was close to $250 for my partner and i but it was so wonderful that i can’t think of any meal that tops it. the meat was just deliciously juicy and red — or maybe that was the ambience — and when we merely mentioned escargot, our waiter had said, “well that’s something we usually only serve at lunchtime, not dinner.” we were like, “oh that’s okay, thank you though!”
i was kind of bummed cause i’d wanted jacob to try it. i think it gets a bad wrap but i’d had many platters of it while in france and it had been years since i’d had it and my god i really wanted some more.
anyway, we’re nearing the end of our meal when our waiter came out with a platter of escargot and it was so buttery and garlicky that i couldn’t handle it. i was so happy. i don’t know how to use words to describe the insane euphoria i felt at getting to eat escargot again.
anyway the entire meal was delicious but i think i would have paid $250 just to eat those snails.
-
i have a hard enough time thinking of 3 things that make me happy.
30?
here are some thoughts that came to me in no particular order.
- therapy
- my father
- my mother
- my sister
- my boyfriend
- my friends
- my job
- the internet (i know)
- youtube
- kingdom hearts
- a really juicy book. the kind that sits with you for weeks after you’ve set it down
- kool-aid in the summer (the blue kind)
- riding a bicycle
- singing in the car
- the enchiladas my boyfriend makes me (we can seriously get two dinners out of those suckers)
- music (especially the kind i like enough to buy on vinyl)
- falling in love
- traveling
- the moment i found my birth family in a rural little town across the sea
- dead by daylight (ok any sane person would never say this game makes them happy, but i love hanging out with my friends while we play)
- the mona lisa (i have no idea why seeing this in person was so joyful, it subverted every idea i had of it and i loved that)
- wandering around countries that are not your own
- that scene in stranger things where sadie sink rises into the air. you know the one. *chef’s kiss* superb moment in tv.
- when you showed me attention for the first time
- when you told me to never speak to you again
- my apartment (i seriously love the vibe we’re starting to build here)
- our cats, tucchi and wheezy (they are precious baby angels even if wheezy peed on my shoes)
- the moment when you realize the trauma is now just a part of you, and not your entire existence
- when we finally found the hotel in new jersey after walking from new york (why were none of the streetlights working that night)
- the fact that things like this give me a chance to reflect and be grateful about what i have in my life. that makes me happy.
-
i can see you up there in the mountains climbing your way up to a life i've left behind it’s so weird to see your friends my friends once but i was just visiting wasn’t i? do you remember crying on the floor? not wanting it to be the end scratching my fingernails into the wood i'd hoped it'd hurt, but it had felt right you know it would have been a nightmare don't you? an awful twisting dark sleep paralysis on a never-ending loop dark forests in new england horse drawn wagon pulling us in warm breath swirling around us hot mead waiting inside and the snow was falling so softly a blanket i wanted to dive into but then i realized i didn’t love you for the first time and no amount of adventure or honeyed wine could change me i’m so relieved you’re happy and i watch on wondering what would have happened if i hadn’t been who i am
-
i think i’d have to write that religion is a tradition i have not kept. i was raised roman catholic and it was sometime after the priest kept saying, “homosexuals will burn in hell” and my religion teacher telling me that i was “being used as a vessel of evil to destroy your family” that i became a little disillusioned with this particular tradition.
i think the ritual of religion, the meaning we place in repetitive acts and phrases and songs is beautiful. but i can’t ignore the hurt it caused to not just me but millions of other people. it’s not something i could continue doing in good conscience.
i remember i spent many years online trying to explain my faith to people. but it was really a way to try and explain to myself why i kept going back to a thing that hurt me.
sometimes bad things are just wrapped up in sparkly gift bags with lots of tissue paper, i guess.
-
i don’t know. i’d like to say “oh i’m funny to the point where it’s like, can you stop please because did you know you’re actually really annoying?”
how i see myself is not how i think i appear because when i’m actually myself, people think something is wrong.
i remember one time my therapist quickly read me for filth and said, “so you do a character. an exaggerated, humorous version of yourself. you are constantly putting on a performance.”
i’d say that — i’m really good at creating this character. this (what i consider to be) massively transparent person who barely masks his depression with humor is like so faux cringe to me. but i can’t stop doing it! he’s gotten me through so much that at this point i think maybe it may have been me all along.
but the day i chose to just shed him off and be myself, i’m not joking, everyone asked me if i was okay and if i was depressed and if something was wrong and —
it just didn’t stop. it was so irritating that i decided i’d never do that again.
so anyway, if someone asked me how i’d describe myself i’d say that i’m whatever you need me to be.
-
If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?
have we literally learned nothing?
i would bring back 0 dinosaurs because i have watched jurassic park enough times to understand that the hubris of humanity is what helps destroy the world.
we already have enough vessels for that to be carried out!
(i know this isn’t real, but i’ll die on this hill)
-
i was just discussing this with a friend today, actually.
she’s about to head to new zealand and that’s the place i’d love to travel to the most. but alas, i am a poor human and travel to other places is something i cannot afford.
i fell in love with a boy there once — just through email, nothing crazy — but i always had this fantasy that i’d just go there and find him walking down the street one day.
i’d say, “sam?” and he’d say, “joe?” and even though we only last saw each other when we were 16 it would be like no time had passed and that every irreconcilable difference we had was resolved.
we’d enjoy the mountains together, taste cheeses, drink wine, and wonder why we’d left so much time lost to nothing.
his country would smell like mine and i’d think that absolutely everything i’d ever wanted from life stemmed from his approval.
unbeknownst to me, years later i’d actually fall in love, shatter my world into jagged fractures and hope that i’d meet another boy there. i’d try to get internships, look at apartments, figure out how to emigrate, all in the hopes that one day i’d stumble across a boy i was never supposed to be with.
i’m sorry if you’re still reading this. and i’m sorry that life can be so terribly sad.
i hope that one day i can visit this country that has connected me with humans who have taught me so many things and shaped me into who i am.
-
it has taken me a massive amount of time to do these and i apologize. who am i apologizing to? i don’t know — the internet at large i guess.
anyway, i’ll listen to music at work. luckily a lot of what i do during the day allows me to keep headphones on and focus on one task at a time.
i’ll switch it up and listen to audiobooks every so often. right now i’m working through molly shannon’s, “hello, molly! : a memoir” and it’s simply wonderful.
it’s making me think a lot about the last time i was genuinely happy and i love it.
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if it wasn’t then it’s gonna be now tell me how how you think we’ll get out of this there aren’t many nights left of you and i i can feel it in my bones every inch of this place feels wrong forced like my smile in the picture when we picked apples you were so happy i never corrected you no one knows when i’m acting my crowning achievement i lost and left so much of myself back then i can’t remember what used to move me forward what made me wade through tides of uncertainty you always kept me anchored to shore so on the night it ended i can’t remember anything else except finally feeling free
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gratitude? i think that i am horrible at expressing it. there are a lot of things i want to say to people that i just never say because i’m worried about how it will come across. will they think i’m being genuine? will they think i’m being too corny and then not take me seriously even though i swear i am trying to be as earnest as i can?
i don’t… think i do a good job at expressing it.
not expressing gratitude, in the past, has often been used as a way to hold something over my head and because of that i feel resentful when i have to express it. like — what? you want me to say thank you for something you did for me absolutely every time i see you?
my head doesn’t work like that.
i am eternally grateful for every opportunity or kind thing someone does for me and i will let them know. i’ll thank them and i’ll try and think of ways i can show them kindness in the future.
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sometimes you just kinda fall off in life and i tend to do that a lot, hence why i did… 12 posts even though i said i was going to do 30. it doesn’t ultimately matter because there’s no one who has any expectations for me except me. i can just pick up when i feel like it. like today. hoorah. bye.
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What quality do you value most in a friend?
i absolutely need my friends to be funny and know that 95 percent of the time everything out of my mouth is bullshit.
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What jobs have you had?
i have had so many different jobs! i’ve been a dishwasher at a restaurant, a custodian, red cross office volunteer, a cashier, long term pharmacy call center representative (i don’t even know what i was doing in this position but i went to a hospital once and a woman patient winked at me in an elevator and told me she wanted to fuck me??) retail pharmacy technician, social media manager, radio DJ (for far too short a time), marketing department in a library, and other library worker roles.
i’ve taken something from every job and that means the good and the trauma.
i’m finally in a position where i don’t feel like my head is going to explode and where i don’t have to cradle a dying person in my arms as they choke to death on their blood — just one of the wonderful upsides of being a public librarian! those are stories for another time.
i’m happy where i am and i’m happy about the long and winding path it took to get here.
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Do you practice religion?
i’m really procrastinating these, aren’t i? this is … a loaded question for me but i’ll summarize it briefly by saying christianity harmed me more than any other force on this planet and my spirituality stays as far away from it as possible.
i’ve found joy, sense, and peace in the practice of witchcraft and that’s all i can write without diving into one million things i do not wish to write about at the moment! huzzah!
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What are you good at?
i’d like to preface this by writing that i’m only going to do 30 days of these daily prompts. the end.
next, i’d like to write that i’m very good at being direct, transparent, and chaotic. i think sometimes it makes people upset but i’d rather we all share our feelings openly and honestly. the world seems to be better that way; when we get straight to the point.
also, kingdom hearts. i’m really good at playing that game. except for chain of memories because let’s be honest — numbers and cards are my two least favorite things on the planet.
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What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?
“having it all”? i think that phrase is fairly subjective, of course. having it all is definitely not something i’ve ever strived for because for me it represents boomer american ideals of the american dream. i know that’s not what it really means but that’s what it is in my head. i can’t own a home and my student loan debt will never go away until i die.
“having it all” means living comfortably to me. getting by. not surviving, but enjoying the time i have here on earth. hanging out with friends, eating good food, seeing new places, and doing new things. those are the things that are important to me.
and like … i’d like to publish a book one day.
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Who would you like to talk to soon?
i wish i could talk to ___ ________ soon and apologize for saying that i didn’t like how i felt when i talked to him. it was a kind of awful thing to say and i know it was the nail in the coffin. but we’d already been six feet under for a long time.
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What personal belongings do you hold most dear?
my mother kept a journal when she adopted me from romania. their harrowing journey is well documented and is very special to me. i want to get it published one day so other people can know how incredible my adoptive parents are.
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Do you have any collections?
i feel like if i begin writing about all the horrible ways i’ve collected people and stories, i will fall into a hole i’ve tried very hard to climb out of. but that’s part of who i am and while definitely worth investigating the reasons as to why you should probably never do that — now is not that time.
instead, i collect a lot of material things and i won’t lie, i find great comfort in my legos, video games, books, and every other physical form my desire to escape takes. they’re parts of experiences i’ve had, or demons i’ve fought. when those moments should no longer be remembered, i toss the item into a donation bin or recycle it. i guess… i guess that i love collecting things.
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What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
i honestly just want people to be like oh that guy was pretty funny. and nice.
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How do you feel about cold weather?
i actually love cold weather. it’s when some of my favorite family and childhood memories happened. intense snowfall has always been such a big part of my life that i think snow and cold weather have weirdly … shaped me into who i am? i’ve never really thought of it before! i miss the snow. i miss not being able to find my car and having to dig out my car with my neighbors. gosh, even the not fun parts of cold weather are things i still weirdly cherish. anyway, i’m a big fan.
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i am going to start doing these daily. maybe. we’ll see. but anyway, i like these because it causes you to reflect and i don’t think we do enough of that.
i’ve never broken a bone, but i always say that i have? it’s kind of messed up now that i’m thinking about it, but when i was younger my sister and i were swimming in our neighbors’ pool. i was under the water and she jumped off the deck, into the water, and crushed her heel into my nose.
i think the nose is largely made of cartilage, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
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i do this every so often — completely freak out about my digital footprint on the internet.
i then completely eviscerate any evidence i exist before rebuilding something.
rinse. repeat. i wonder if it’s a cycle i will ever leave?
tales from the cove 