Huh

I'm doing a bit more here, around the office. I feel useful, so, here's a start. I'm drinking more water, eating less. Enjoying the warmth of the sun. Trying not to be so one-track-minded. Thinking about different things. Concentrating on the immediate future. I think about the pool, lying next to it, swimming in it. So here’s a start.

~

Margo tells me not to smoke. I just love that name. "Smoking is bad," the 12-year-old sing-songs. I tell her that when she's older and I catch her smoking, I'm gonna smack that shit right out of her mouth. "You won't," she means catch her, not smack her.  That's what I like to hear, I say. "I took D.A.R.E.," she says. So did I, I say after a light chuckle, so did I. I think shouldn't have said shit.

~

I'm more useful at the office. I can answer questions. I know without having to search for answers. 'Cause this is how I see it: growing up means finding something to cope. Food, sex, alcohol, drugs, religion, exercise, career, anything... Loosing your innocence means losing the wild blind hope in a future you couldn't quite comprehend in youth. But the world was yours. Now you realize, no, I can't do whatever I want. I can't play in the WNBA, no amount of hard work could get me there (though that metaphor in no way reflects the author's personal opinion.) Damn, wasn't it so much easier when my family came to student of the month ceremony and I wasn't “allowed" to have a “boyfriend” or wear make-up and I rode my scooter up the street to my friends' homes and I came home when the streetlights came on? But damn. 

~

Last night in my sleep I was raped in my dream. Which is terrifying, because I concocted that image, the feelings, and I couldn’t escape them because they were in my mind. I’m stuck in my head all day at work, and I’m stuck in my head all night asleep, and I can’t run away from the creep with glasses because the creep in the glasses, my rapist, is me, isn’t he? For fuck’s sake, I’m my own offender. Damn. But I’m more useful at the office, and I know the answers to most questions.

~ 

This is what I do: I write, I eat, I don't cry, I sleep. I watch Netflix and waste gas and time 'til someone distracts me. So here's a start. I work inside my head all day, I post on social media because I'm exploding, but can’t read anyone else's posts, can't scroll for more than 5.6 seconds before data overload sends me further back into my scull, this buzzing shell of pointlessness. I talk and talk and I shouldn’t have said shit. How does it end? Lying next to it? Swimming in it? Leaving it? Damn.