I bought a Polaroid printer after writing a stand-up set that made fun of materialism. My politics and heart are heavy. Almost to the point of appearing loaded.
Watching my memories print out in yellow, red, and finally cyan reminded me of the mechanics of time passing. Even though most of my friends have only existed as pixels in my world for over a year I feel something crack as I hold their images in my sanitized hands.
My face is older. Not even sunscreen kept my skin young in El Paso. My cells have sunk and I wake up coughing. It’s not covid (trips to free testing sites have tried to tell me that) but that’s all I think about.
Sometimes I’ll go for drives and think that Lorde is singing about me. We’re both growing up and miss our friends and who we were with them.
Franklin Mountains stroll past as I cruise five miles below the speed limit on Transmountain Drive. This is one of the only times I’ll ever slow down. I’m in control and the world is beautiful and listening to Ribs reminds me of every time I listened to it before tonight.
It’s midnight in St. Louis and my friends had curfews so I had to go home. We’re in high school and invincible to everything but our parents. I’d listen to Ribs and miss the minutes that just happened. I knew we were magic and this wouldn’t be forever even if I wanted that. Friendship was basements and fake IDs and promises and prom.
I’m in college and wanted to transfer until I had a boyfriend and he acted like a rosy mirror that told me I was beautiful and unkind to him. I taught myself to skateboard and listened to Supercut by the river because I knew he never left campus.
Now I’m twenty-three and sunburnt and staying up too late on a work night. I wanted to journal about my inadequacies and how fucking sad everything at work is without breaking confidentiality or trust. Lorde’s lyrics tuck me under my weighted blanket and tell me to just keep showing up and make meaning out of the everyday.
It’s really not enough to feel the lack.
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