call me your girlfriend when we’re sixty
i keep thinking about how much i’ve been feeling like a teenager lately. usually when people say that it refers to a high-school-sweetheart type feeling, but my situation is hardly romantic. maybe it’s the classic “i’m my old self again.” “my old self.” that could refer to any point in the cognitive past. the story of growing up is not linear. we never learn things when we need them. but i can’t quite concede to say that life is a series of mistake we’re learning from. is it? “my old self again.” is this irony? or a phenomenon we haven’t quite figured out yet? “we’ve got the old alyssa back.” where was i? who did I belong to? how do I know that I have myself back in my own hands? i’ve started to believe that parts of me still belong to other people. maybe i can’t get those parts back. maybe i can rebuild them, only on my own. maybe I can plant something in the empty space that was left.
for kelsey
the moon motel was our claim to fame i watched you rearrange the traffic cones on friendship road i never saw you again
i left too early for work i have to go to the post office so i turn left instead of right and i pass the house of a guy who no longer lives there, well maybe his parents still do in first grade he told me i had personality in third grade he read the first three harry potter books three times over in fifth grade his friends made him tell me he had a crush on me while a teenage cover band played jimmy eat world songs at the class picnic in seventh grade i lost him to a goth phase and in ninth grade i met up with him again when i let him know exactly how i felt about the chin strap he had shaved into his face in tenth grade we had dreams about each other and kept a friendship afloat over aol instant messenger in eleventh grade he sat next to me in physics class and asked me to watch the sunrise in twelfth grade i watched him total his car and walk away without a scratch i drove him to school and picked him up every morning at the house on this street which doesn't look as scary in the daytime as it does at night there never used to be a traffic light at this intersection there was only ever one light on the drive to school and it was always red when we got to it
i cant play guitar and that is frustrating because everyone else can i am an artist! but even i have trouble describing the melting snow running down a pole at the traffic light i sit at this time every morning i can make this drive with my eyes closed and it feels like i just did because my head was busy thinking about what boys might think about when they arent talking are they as frustrated as i am is it like playing the guitar are they mad that they cant just spit it out in so many words or that they cant keep their fingers still in the right spot or do they not think at all
the coldest shower i ever took was in bloomington, indiana the second coldest shower i ever took was only cold because i had no control water from the heavens made us wild that day deep in july you never want a cold shower more than you never want a cold shower to end i want a cold shower right now i want a cold shower for myself five years ago, shock some sense into younger me, wash away the ugly things i used to say. driving someone else's car is kind of like bathing in someone else's shower i have done this before many times but i have no idea what i am doing on the clock delivering pizza casually k turning on the street where i lost it when is a cold shower a treat and when is it a punishment deep in july you cannot tell the difference
subtweeting will take years off your life
skin tight dress clothes in the dead of summer as skinny as the day i turned sixteen. every time i pass the location of the future keyfood i get nostalgic for being a kid in brooklyn and throwing up those cheese doodles and funions i never made my mom buy again.
i melted into a puddle on nichol avenue and i can't believe between me and the rain the chalk on the sidewalk has not been washed away i used to miss my exit now i miss my bus stop they skipped spring this year so i'm forging one forcing the rain it's too early to be this humid this is the year i melt into a human puddle in the middle of the sidewalk on the way home
come to my room every night at 8:35 and see how the sky shines a shade of pink onto the corner of my bed before it turns blue/black. maybe stay for a while, wait as long as possible before switching a lamp on. glows from the porch light, street light, and passing headlights help us save energy in the dark. take bets on how long the leaves on the trees will match the colors of the house behind it. everyone seems to have a driveway but us.
words + iphone pix by alyssa rorke drawings by laura mar
Vrx 2015 nbnj