Shelby feeds the brine shrimp in the science building. I wonder without wondering if it would ever be like before, before what I did to Jasper and her birthday. I watch her type something important. Her light up keyboard reminds me it’s still dark outside. His CVS receipt slithers around the bottom of my backpack, between a dead candy vape and Milton’s sonnets. The texts on Shelby’s laptop say that me and Jasper left her birthday early, towards the North Woods off campus. There were so many bunnies. I want chapstick but don’t open my bag in case she remembers I’m here. Have you ever sat still to avoid being noticed? It’s like watching a film with your parents right before bedtime. You think they don’t remember. I didn’t do anything wrong. She switches between her phone and laptop. Shelby has one missed call from her paternal grandmother, the one who took her to see Frankenweenie at the Short Hills mall. One of the shrimp has some kind of deformity or disease. She makes a note to come back and kill it next month.

— Gospel of Thomas, Saying 61

We kind of ended 

it already, our  

texts are the 

King James version.

The same conversation 

repeated 

January night pain

Awash in

light black light.

Older boyfriend, dilapidated apartment.

Like shutting 

a heavy, splintered 

door and sprinting to 

Uber Pool in a fur jacket.

Many who are 

first will be last. 

How often does the hierarchy get inverted?

Maybe once. 

Posting necessitates self-comparison. But what is to be said about para-social Instagram dynamics in places like New York, where one might actually engage with the object of their digital fixation? There is the obvious example of men developing internet crushes and hoping to cross paths at an “event,” merging the flesh and screen versions of her. However, there is far more intrigue within these hybrid relationships among women, specifically the “cool girl” and her throng of (mostly) female acolytes.

I find myself constantly occupying the positionality of the latter, agonizing over some other city girl’s curated-but-not-curated feed. Girls rarely discuss this in real life. And yet, we all secretly wonder how every day of a given woman’s life is an impeccable synthesis of culture and consumerism. With traditional influencers, the audience can save their egos by remembering her unlimited budget and Sisyphean mindset regarding image curation. This local phenomenon, however, will erode every shred of your self confidence. She’s sophisticated, yet so down to earth. She’s incredibly humble, yet her limitless wardrobe is always on brand. Everything looks graceful on her. This is worsened by the fact that we can actually see these people at bars, parties, and, worst of all, “readings.” I mute them on Instagram but peruse it to torture myself. I haven’t figured out how to mute them in real life. You feel like a pervert when it happens, Oh I know her from Instagram. In a film, the protagonist might realize the popular girl isn’t all that, and she’s struggling deep down. Not in New York. They actually are that much better than you, in real life, without even trying. They’re hotter, more put together, with infinite money and love. Their dozens of equally niche-popular friends dote over them, and their opportunities seem infinite. You’ll wonder what makeup she uses before realizing it’s not the makeup.

Last week, I attended a stylish yet intimate birthday party where every girl’s aesthetic was seamlessly distinct yet aligned with all the others. They all knew exactly how to act with one another, and what cultural references would land. In these situations, I often forget how to pilot my body, overcome with envy and longing and silence. Mesmerized by the ironically colorful cake sprinkles, the realization crept that I do not have a Friend Group and probably never will. At the risk of eliciting pity, this isn’t necessarily something I would “want.” Niche-girl-groups operate on Agamben logic, specifically pertaining to social media, as their use of technology is predicated on absence. I would not recommend saying this at your mutual friend’s birthday party, especially if you already struggle with feelings of social isolation. My friend Quinn attempted to comfort me by articulating how many of these girls are actually hot mess drunks, but I wish I was drinking with them, too.

The hipster vibe hotel in Ginza had Monstera plants and high ceilings instead of a TV. My room’s record collection included Black Box Recorder. I drank matcha, attended art galleries, drank at izakayas, and fawned over the cartoon Sakura blossoms that adorn public transit. The English translations around the city were equally charming — a dessert store called STRAWBERRY FETISH next to a tutoring company called THE HAPPY SPIRAL. But after a week, the novelty of konbinis and toilet jingles had dulled. I took the metro to a random stop.

I stepped out of Kanda station and saw a store. Not the towering, formidable Shinjuku stores, with their exteriors of puppygirl posters. It just said DVD. This area was not cute. No Shinto shrines, no matcha, and definitely no white people. The store’s entryway was boring. Magazines about Akita husbandry and math. Okay, on to the next floor. My AI translation app tells me this section is dedicated to voyeurism, older women, and Western. We’re getting somewhere. There’s a dimly lit area where you can view the films, and I stood and watched with some old Mishima looking dudes, making sure to nod anthropologically. I was hoping to ironically-not-ironically post a suggestive DVD cover to my instagram story, perhaps something involving monstrous creatures. Just to prove that I go off the beaten path. I attempt to understand subversion rather than recoil from it. I’m in Japan, yes, but not in an anime and Disney way. More like an Enter the Void way, except I’m alive and buying hair clips.

Ascending more and more stairs, I dodged old men and young Marvel shirt wearers alike, and then I saw this corner. I’m not ignorant of this nation’s predilections. Japan’s most famous manga is called My wife is an elementary school student. There are teen cat girls everywhere here, waving signs and beckoning male clients. I also know what adolescent girls look like. I know teenagers and high schoolers and cosplayers and college students. The corner DVDs were children. I don’t mean teenagers that look really young, or have been styled that way. Describing it won’t really do you any good, but they were maybe five. This is so shocking that you likely still do not believe me. Clearly, I just don’t know Japan, and they were just teens styled lascivously. Disturbing, sure, but you can chalk it up to ephebophilia and say something about cultural relativism. ChatGPT told me the same thing. It said I was making assumptions. Claude told me the truth. Basically, the law lets it slide. Someone on Reddit had a parallel experience in the same neighborhood. The only comment is “I know what shop you walked into.”

Online, the Japanese fixation on young teenagers and schoolgirls is part and parcel with the cultural fascination. Of course, any adult desire for a teenager is perverse. I don’t know if it removes one from the fold of humanity the same way attacking a five year old does. On more subversive levels of online discourse, though, some people will argue that adolescence makes any age of consent entirely subjective. I was expecting lewd, youthful images throughout Tokyo, both real and imagined. I pondered on my future musings — how such an ancient society could be simultaneously so advanced and so crude, etc. And then I would tell people about the pristine metros that play custom jingles for each station. Everyone would seethe with envy as I revealed my Onitsuka Tigers and PA++++ sunscreen. You may say it was just an illusion, it was just an ephebic teenager! No. I know perversion. I’ve been to France.

I left the store, ate cute fruit on a stick, and traipsed through a mall. ChatGPT basically told me to try and forget it. I felt like a creep for obsessing. This incident, and my subsequent realization of orientalism’s flaws, was somewhat reminiscent of the American online right’s fixation with pedophilic elites (yet the simultaneous glamorization of homogenous nations like Japan.) In addition, I might wager this is part of Japan’s global appeal — it is modern, ancient, inviting, closed, beautiful, disturbed. We might be disgusted superficially, but are we any different? It took about two weeks for everyone to stop caring about the Epstein files. For the record, I love Japan. It is efficient and verdant and reasonably priced. The whole country is very Ursula K Le Guin, specifically “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” Most of the online comments on this polemical topic are, let’s just say, dismissive.

I, too, was forced to dismiss it, because I had mazesoba to eat and cigarette boxes to photograph. It’s kind of a metaphor for my life. To find myself in something beautiful and locate its dark crevices. And then I’ll ignore the crevices like I always do. I refuse to leave until all shadows are uncovered. I could never let something just be good.

.

was hard to fill. 

Things attempted 

themselves,

Fur coats, crying,

smoking, Chanel no.5, 

fighting back, not fighting back,                    

 fur coats, money.

1pm mornings, 

Squeeze harder.

 No. If this

was a movie, we’d cut to real life. 

A blank black bedroom, 

floor mattress fortress, 

All my relationships rhyme.

Ashtrays, dead candles and 

half full paper coffees 

and the family of loose chargers curling up in the corner. 

I swear it won’t hurt, okay how about now.

It’s not exactly sexual intercourse

that Anne had.

Sitting alone on your leather couch, I’m making fear. 

A Pneuma (virgin spirit?)

can enter a woman.

I thought I was done crying.  

Parthenos

Okay, 

that word doesn't mean virgin either.

in a flower garden. 

No other couples are there. 

You cry. Your hair is clean. You both cry, and someone must leave first,

But it’s not urgent.  

Melancholy, hope, catharsis. 

The fake pond is covered in real petals.

The perfume was an apology.

It’s not yet clear if I deserved it. 

After all,

I took photos during arguments and dinner

For my secret album. We couldn’t decide 

If the scent was working or not.

It considers the whole flower:

Stem, leaves, petals, thorns.

I had History Hayden. Hayden was in his thirties, and rode a muddied fixed gear bike to every session, which he leaned outside of the clear cubicle. He wore JNCO pants and hats with band names that were just words, like Morphine and Swans. He slumped in his chair, which smelled like clean clothing that had been left in a drawer for many years. I did not learn much about history, not least of all because each hour was invaded by the sounds of Merzbow, Xiu Xiu, and a female noise band so bad it must have been his girlfriend’s. He always began by asking how I was doing, despite being in rich kid summer school. I always said great, even if I was recovering from a bad trip in Washington Square Park or writing frenzied Reddit posts despairing about my intact virginity. He would then turn his stickered laptop to me, with the brightness dimmed, and explain the cultural significance of various bohemian lodestars. My elastic teen brain was not equipped to handle this profundity – Zizek, Amalia Ulman, Lydia Lunch. Brief, scrawling notes were taken. It’s still unclear if he did this with all of his pupils, or if he selected them by perceived subversion. For instance, sometimes I wore a long sleeved shirt under a short sleeved one, smelling like dad’s cigarettes. I would tell my parents we covered The Haitian Revolution.

He brought a gift to the final session. A copy of Rachel B. Glaser’s Moods, as I had told him I wanted to become a famous poet. They were friends. Six years later, his Instagram account was recommended to me via “suggested people.” I direct messaged him, re-introducing myself, though I really wanted to ask why he culturally oneshotted me at such an impressionable age. I have yet to receive a response.

screen leaking through the

window. I think we failed already.

The end of winter, closet of fox fur

Indoor coats. Floor mattress fortress. All

my relationships rhyme with each other.

Perfume and ash. The map of parts

of a bicycle. The story of your first erection.

Hotel TV on a family trip it was Sonic the Hedgehog.

I mean, the girl hedgehog. I’m leaving for real

this time, stillness.

Okay, your mouth moved a little.

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