i know the route

afraid

wide awake

abduction memory

up and down the block

the night i could see

your shoulder blades outward from your

patchy flesh

water stained dress

smell of wood pulp

standing in front of the empty bathroom stall as if waiting

hoping someone would unlatch the door

look up at you

if he’s talking he’s not

going to shoot anybody

i awoke this morning thinking of past summers, of the lingering smell of hot grass and the feeling of excited fear that comes about only on a good vacation in a place completely foreign to you. i have been experiencing this overwhelming feeling of being stranded in a new place, walking for hours and hours until my feet start to bleed, staining my shoes. The unshakeable feeling that things around you have changed, but you remain the same.

i just moved from brooklyn to astoria with my boyfriend. i began living in brooklyn 6 years ago, hands scraped and thinning at the seams. a fog pulled over my eyes, like i hadn’t yet learned to see. slowly, it lifted, until i could finally see the sun streaming through the trees again.

so much has changed in these past two months, that it is only now that i feel like i can stand on solid ground again. turbulence always makes me reach for something that feels familiar, is warm in my hands.

i’ve been partial to reading in bed until you are physically unable to open your eyes. i love reading on my kindle, at night after a 10 hour work day, freshly showered and clean of all makeup. i’m particularly fond of doing this with agatha christie’s miss marple series. marple has become like a friend to me, one that lives in your house and makes you a cup of tea every night.

i love walking around astoria park, the smell of chlorine when you get near the pool, the lake peeking between the trees on the landscape. walks along the water, with the sun rippling on the waves, feel so comforting, like being a child again. monarch butterflies gliding through wildflowers, long plains of grass to lay down on and watch the clouds. it reminds me so much of colorado, of spending entire summers swimming in public pools and drying out on the grass.

i’ve been trying to journal every day, writing only what feels right. what feels like what i am meant to be writing on that particular day. poems, diary entries, reflections; challenging my capacity to be honest. it feels freeing to sit down and write in a journal every day, like i have made peace with my truest self, and want to cultivate her. i want to be unafraid to commit myself fully to writing, to acknowledge the possibility of being bad, and continuing anyways.

i’m obsessed with the x files, the mulder-scully will-they-won’t-they, the seemingly never-ending danger that scarcely actually catches up to them. i love scully’s skepticism, even in the face of her own alien abduction, and mulder’s propensity for making a fool of himself. their effortlessly chic 90s suits, the occasionally corny monster cgi, and the moments of lasting horror that make me want to sleep with the light on.

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i started watching the old miss marple tv show, agatha christie’s marple, and became engrossed with it. it feels like a show you should be watching with your grandma, comforting and nostalgic in nature. i love the costumes, the layers added to very non-memorable characters, its’ portrayal of marple’s enthralling charm. i wish this never ended and i could watch a new episode of it everyday.

i’ve gotten back into looking for and reading bench plaques, now that this year’s horrendously miserable winter is over. i’ve never felt so beat down by a season before, like i was being strangled and caged constantly, like a dog tied up in the yard. spring finally came, when i was too bruised to truly appreciate it. summer is in full swing, and i feel almost healed, terrified of doing it all over again in a few months. but this winter, (hopefully) i will have central heating and hot water in my shower. what a blessing it is to have hope that the worst is over.

i’ll write more about all the bench plaques i have seen over the last 3 months, but i saw some fantastic ones when i was in cape cod, and i’ve been discovering many in astoria park, on my evening walks after work. i really do love the beautiful, complex city i live in, and the love that lives in it. i’m trying to see as many botanical gardens and parks before the summer is over.

my partner and i recently adopted an extremely nervous five year old cat. the shelter posted about him needing an emergency adoption, and we trudged 15 minutes in the pouring rain to meet him. standing outside underneath the building awning, we discussed if we were ready to take care of a cat that would need a lot of patience and understanding. we decided that if anyone was ready to love this cat, it was us.

he was in the sick unit, with many young sick kittens, so we had to suit up in ppe gear to get close to him. he was terrified, huddled in the back of his cage and shying away from any touch. but, when i put my hand near his face, he gave it a very gentle sniff. i knew we had to take him home.

we’ve had him for almost a week, and he is still extremely anxious and scared. we sit with him in his safe room, feed him dinner, and let him walk around while we try not to move and scare him. i know it will be a while until he feels comfortable with us, but it has been very rewarding to give him a home where he is safe. i cannot believe how much i already love him; how excited i am to become his friend.

i’m trying to appreciate nature as much as i can until it gets cold again and i resort to spending many nights at home, in the warmth. the beautiful waterfall in the new york botanical garden, the smell of fresh river water, late nights drinking frozen margaritas in the summer air, soft serve on weekend afternoons. it feels like time is passing so quickly now, faster that it ever did when i was younger.

may 5th: surrounded by trees, carved with drawings of yourself, and the word "‘missing” scrawled underneath them. except in the drawings, you are young, but not the young you used to be. a different version of you, young. one not plagued by the plights of puberty that plagued you. skin bright and eyes shiny, reflected even in the tree bark.

may 7th: the government built a maximum security prison up the field, 50 years ago. fresh and gleaming titanium bars making up the fence. it disappears into the fog on cloudy days, and one day it disappeared and never returned, alongside everyone in it. the morning you first noticed it was gone, the sky was clear and glimmering. by the evening, everyone else had forgotten it was ever there.

may 9th: your high school teacher once told you a story of the night he was camping deep in the forest, underneath a sharp red moon. he spent hours trying to sleep and finally, when he began to doze off, an electric screech woke him. he found he could no longer see, his vision blurred and hazy, like his eyes were submerged in smog. he clutched his pocket knife to his chest, and pretended to sleep until eventually sleep came for him. morning light blew through the clouds, and once again, he could see.

may 12th: walking into the bar you only go to on wednesdays on a friday. noticing everything has shifted just slightly, just enough to feel foreign to you. as if you had never been there. a place you have never been and should never be again. the bartenders thin-faced, yellowed, the whites of their eyes pulled up, almost erasing their irises. stoic, as they ask for your drink, the one they have made a thousand times before. they don’t know you, only that you came from somewhere they didn’t know existed.

may 15th: a bruise appearing down the length of your leg. spreading right and left, like oil in a pan. skin turning purple, an electric blue. when you graze it with the pads of your fingers, the blue recoils away from you. shivering as it runs down your calves. it grows as weeks pass, turning your bone and blood and muscle purple. in the shower, your leg cowers from you, convulsing in the hot water.

may 18th: surgery in the dark; the new innovation. surgeons who claim to be able to see in the dark, comforted by the silent black of the operating room. they say their minds are clearer, more attuned to the scalpel in their hand. you leave your house early in the morning, before the sun has. imagining the blade gliding through your abdomen, into the muscle below. the stars peering out from above you.

may 20th: out in the backyard, the fire pit erupts in flames, all on its own. it started doing this last summer, and one of us used to have to stay awake during the night, to watch it. we could never find a way to squash the fire, not until it decided it was done burning. your brother once killed the flame seven times in one night, and every time it would burst alive again, bright and wide-eyed. some evenings the flame would climb up so high to the sky, just to the limit of terror we could not bear, and it would descend back into the pit again, and blow itself out.

may 21st: sores on your eyes you have to lift and fold your eyelids to see. a symptom of an allergy you never used to have, to dust or cloud matter or the sun. feeling your eyelids crawling out of your skin and into the back of the socket of your eye. in unison, pushing your eyelid inch by inch, out of place.

may 23rd: toppling hallways of hundreds of apartments built on top of each other. a building made in silence. your sister moved in a year ago, only a month after it was built. she walks to her office during the early morning, and when she returns at night, the ceiling is distended and warped. forming a tunnel, twisted and shallow. some days it vibrates and beats like a heart. others, it bleeds and wails. on fridays, it turns sharp, hot to the touch.

ordering food at a restaurant that went under, many years ago. i vaguely remember reports of the owners beating the staff with metal kitchen utensils when they overcooked the salmon or plated the sauce incorrectly. after they went bankrupt, they burnt the restaurant down in the middle of the night. first, the wife was simply hitting the walls with an axe she stole from her neighbor, shattering the glass of the windows all over herself. i suppose that damage wasn’t brutal enough to satisfy, so the husband walked to the gas station a mile up, bought lighter fluid, and set the building on fire, with his wife beside him. the new owners rebuilt, using almost identical furniture and wallpaper. it is eerie to walk into, still to this day. it is like stepping back in time, before the gun had gone off, before the knife had sliced. i sat there thumbing the menu, watching the night break. the dark empty blue slowly swallowing the light of the sky, like a drop of dye into water.

the woman that lives above the restaurant used to live in my apartment. she moved out after only a few months; i watched from my window as she jostled bags into her car in the middle of the night. she had a personality that was utterly foreign to me; the look in her eyes, the way she carried herself. often when i meet strangers, there are aspects of them that echo my memory of old friends i no longer know. whether it’s the way their mouth forms around certain words or their tendency to laugh in a certain way. in everyone, there are pieces of friends i loved. but not her. she was nothing and everything i had never known.

she wore long, beaded necklaces and sharp pointed heels. when i’d run into her while she was carrying groceries, her hair would be gently tied up and her cheekbones lightly flushed. she’d decline my offer of help, with a reluctance that permeated the air around us, but never enough for me to ask again. i once watched her stand up on the ledge of her balcony, hands outstretching, until they finally seized onto the edge of the roof. i watched until she got off, followed the way her knees never quivered.

i watch the door open and close; couples flowing in and out. The clacking of heels over and over again. the sharp whirr of the wind entering the restaurant, tip toeing around the tables. a friend from college used to tell me that i remember the past as one whole as opposed to in snippets. it’s hard for me to remember when something had happened, only that it did happen once, and is no longer. there was a time when my emergency contact was marked as my “life partner.”

the tables around me are filling with people; oddly proportioned families and groups of friends pretending they want to be together. i’ve picked my plate into nothingness, scrapped every crumb off with my finger and onto the grated texture of my tongue. as i sit, time is passing and becoming hollow. she is gone from me now, in a way she can never return.

february 7th: a garden you only walk through on accident. hidden behind a mawkish cafe in the part of the city people only go to work. gleaming with plants that don’t exist, flowers translucent in the dewy morning. reaching out and only feeling the touch of your own skin.

february 11th: the day is still waking, with the sun so pale and the air sharp. the reflection of my paucity gazing back at me. on wednesday, two empty, water-like women are waiting on the train platform. one of them enveloped in the tendrils of her scarf, the other aimlessly swaying against the wind. glimmering of a fraying attachment like when you know the faceless figure in your dream is your friend from long ago, a friend you no longer love.

february 26th: heard a rumor that a girl i knew from high school joined a cult. one of those cults that live in the mountains and eat rocks they painted with ash. i used to sit behind her in class, her spindly stringy hair grazing the floor below. clicking her pen, one two three. one two three.

march 2nd: having endless dreams of never making it across the water. images of a bridge i search for after awaking. a bridge i’ve never found. i’m on the verge of sleeping, my heart begins to constrict, knowing i am going to drown.

march 11th: the desiccated church in my neighborhood is bleeding, red seeping out of the steeple. i never look away from it on my walks home, the gleaming of its’ fleshy organs. when i awake from sleepwalking, i’m kneeling in the pews of the church, coughing.

march 21st: i remember the sullen man that lives in the old brooklyn bar, the one i only ever found when i had stopped looking. he’d grown short and limiting. the night i last saw him, his feet were so far from the floor, and his eyes, cutting even in distance.

march 27th: waking in the wrong room, a room lived in years ago. a room of only memory. my skin unfitting, stretching out from the muscle to the warm air. the blue of my gums glowing. a window of solitude.

“You know I can’t stand when it storms.”

“It hasn’t stormed since April. That last day driving home from Oregon.”

“Well, it’s going to storm tonight. I felt it in the bath.”

“In the bath?”

“Yes, when I got in, it was like the porcelain was trembling, and the water got cold before I even knew it. I don’t think the clock had even moved.”

“And that means it’s going to storm?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“The sky has been so clear all day, so clear it makes you feel like you’re being reflected back in it.”

“The weather can change very fast.”

“I don’t like to think like that, makes me nervous”

“The weather changing makes you nervous?.”

“The not knowing, the idea that a storm can descend without anyone having a clue.”

“Weathermen can’t know everything.”

“Well, they should know the weather. When it will rain, how hard, when it will stop. I can’t bear the thought of walking outside on my lunch break, not knowing what I will find in the air around me.”

“You’ve never been one to let go. I remember that one summer in Catania when I tried to get you to float in the sea and every time you would get so close, and then your legs would seize and kick your body up. I would watch you swim back to shore, arms shaking.”

“I remember.”

“That was three years ago now.”

“I know.”

“The water can keep you safe, if you let it.”

“I can’t stand my feet not touching the ground. Not being able to feel the bottom below me…”

“I know. Of course, I know.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“I wish that you thought it did.”

2025 was a year of refresh for me, in many ways. I got hired at a new job, made new friends, found new hobbies, realized I was in love. It was the year where I started focusing again on my writing, and my artistry. I have begun working again on my poetry book, and am finally at the point where it is over halfway finished and I have a multitude of poems that I like, and that work together. My goal in 2026 is to focus on getting more of my work published, doing more poetry readings, and overall fighting against my endless anxiety of putting myself out there. With that said, here are all my favorite things I did, wrote, read, and saw this year.

My favorite book I read this year was Wrong Norma by Anne Carson. Wrong Norma is an innovative, refreshing, inspiring, and challenging collection of writings that reawakened my love of prose and my desire to challenge literary conventions when I’m writing.

My other favorite books from this year were; Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector, and Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips. I read significantly fewer books than I have the previous years, which was disappointing. I had less drive for reading this year, and there were many books I read this year that did not excite me. Thankfully, I seem to be back on the horse and am excited to get back into reading this year.

I watched about 15 new movies this year, which is not shocking for someone who essentially refuses to go to the theatre unless my ticket is being comped by someone other than myself. Some of these movies were bad and only watched so my friends and I could giggle at their expense, including 2024’s “Abigail” about a little vampire girl who takes revenge on her kidnappers, and 2008’s “What Happens in Vegas,” where less than 10% of the movie actually occurs in the titular Las Vegas.

The very few movies I watched this year that I actually enjoyed were “Superman”, “Sinners”, “Wake Up Dead Man”, “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, and “Wicked: For Good.” I had an interesting time with movies this year; I first went to see “Sinners” in IMAX, and the theatre was not functioning. The image was distorted, the sound was ear-splitting loud. The trailer for the new Final Destination was playing, and the combined impact of unbearably loud noise with vibrant, distorted images of people dying in torturous ways gave me a horrendous panic attack. I can’t describe it any other way than I truly felt like I was going to die. Like I was there, in this Final Destination movie, and the world around me was endless danger. My boyfriend took me to a sweetgreen to help me calm down, very reminiscent of the scene in “Catching Fire” when Katniss is being harassed by jabberjays and Peeta is trying to convince her it’s not real. We had to skip our planned viewing of “Pride & Prejudice” in theaters later that day and I still currently need ear plugs anytime I see a movie in theaters.

With that said, I deeply enjoyed my viewing of “Superman” in theaters, the first time I have been emotionally moved by a superhero movie. I know many did not enjoy “Wicked: For Good,” but it made me weep in the theaters, and I became obsessed with Wicked after getting a concussion last winter. Concussions can change your personality, and luckily the only thing it changed for me was making me love Wicked, when I previously thought the plot was stupid. I explained this piece of lore to some coworkers at my work holiday party who remarked, “You don’t actually like Wicked, you just have brain damage!” Tomato, tomato.

My favorite TV shows from this year were Lost and Sex and the City. I have still yet to finish Lost, but I have enjoyed watching it this year, as someone who loves mysteries and plots that make no sense. I finally watched all seasons of Sex and the City this year. I loved it as much as it drove me crazy. I think I’m a mix of Miranda and Charlotte.

My favorite musical artists of this year were Elliott Smith, Alex G, Adrianne Lenker, and Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina, mainly helped me keep my energy up and outlook positive while getting up at 5AM for work. I have to give myself a chance to be happy.

This year, I got into a lot of new hobbies that have helped me stay off my phone more while also being emotionally fulfilling. I’ve gotten into collaging, coloring, crafting, collecting Pokemon cards, and I’ve began instituting a rule of writing in my journal daily. I don’t always get to it everyday, but I’ve been writing more regularly than I have in previous years. It doesn’t count as a hobby, but I’ve been going to the gym regularly as well, which has improved both my physical and emotional state. The hobby I want to get into this year is pottery, if I can give myself the patience to work at it.

I love collaging so much, I wish it was easier to find cheap or free magazines. I also yearn for a crafting table, which I have no space for in my tiny apartment. I dream of one day having a craft room in my house.

My boyfriend got into collecting Pokemon cards this fall, a hobby we both had as children and had given up many years ago. It’s become a much more expensive hobby than it was in my childhood, taken over by scalpers and greedy adults. Despite this, it’s brought us both a lot of joy. I think it’s very human to yearn for collecting, to have little trinkets or cards you accumulate over time. I find it to be very romantic to share a hobby with someone, and to have a collection that is shared. We’ve had fun meeting new people at card shows, and lying to ourselves that we’re only going to get a few cards.

This year I went to Italy for the first time, and I travelled all over New York, including to the Catskills, and Montauk. It was a very fulfilling year of travel, and seeing new places. I had both my favorite meal and my first truly rare steak in Florence. I saw purple sand for the first time of my life in Montauk. I got allergies for the first time in Rome. I went to a multitude of new restaurants, bars, art shows, and new places in the city.

I wrote some things I’m really proud of, including many poems and many pieces I have published on here. I wrote my first short story in years that I published on here, entitled “The Aquarium”, probably my favorite thing that I published this year. I also wrote a letter to my brother 5 years after his death, that I am very proud of.

I started a series on here called “Journal Excerpts” that I really enjoy, and want to continue on into this year. My favorite prose piece I published is “The Empty Lot,” from February.

I’m eager to write more this year, and give myself the freedom and the credit to take myself seriously as a writer.

There will (hopefully) be more regular posting on here again, even as I continue working on my poetry collection. I’m keen on another year of through the clouds. xoxo.

My first full time job in the city was right in the heart of the Financial District, right next to City Hall Park. I used to take the J every morning to Fulton St. When it was warm out I’d sit in the park everyday on my lunch break, reading a book. When it would get cold, I’d walk to the library a few blocks down, and read my book there. I worked there for two years, during a very emotionally turbulent time in my life. During the worst of my days, reading in that park was the only thing that brought me any real joy. It was the only thing on an average day that I looked forward to, and the only thing that would get me through the day. There was one day where it was finally starting to get warm after the winter freeze, and I was desperate to feel even a sliver of the joy that sitting in that park gave me. Seemingly acting as a cosmic denial of what I was yearning for, it was pouring rain outside and would be all day. Unable to take another rejection, I sat on a wet bench, balanced my umbrella between my legs, and read.

I don’t miss that time in my life, except I really miss that park. The subtle, warm gleam of sun through the leaves, the soft misting of the sprinkler on the grass encircling City Hall. I loved the walk down from my office to the very specific bench I liked to sit in (same block Carrie met Mr.Big!). I ache for a warm sunny day sitting in the shade in that park. I struggle to think of a part of the city I love more than City Hall Park, except The Conservatory Garden at the very top of Central Park.

That year I blew through 70 books, the most I’ve probably ever read in a single year. Most of them were read in City Hall Park, or in the NYPL on Murray St. I associate most of the reading I’ve done with that park, and I don’t think I’ve enjoyed reading more in my adult life than I did there. I rediscovered my love for poetry, and for memoirs in that park. I think, contrary to popular belief, living in NYC can kill your artistic inspiration. The over saturation of bad art, of consumerism, and the endless monotony of working to afford where you live can decimate your artistry. It sounds insane to say that my desire to create art was reawakened in the Financial District, but it’s true.

I love that it is filled with real working people, people that have to take the subway to work everyday. I love that people walk like they have somewhere to be. I love that the buildings are so tall it makes you feel like you are in a snow globe, free of the constant surveillance of living in the city. I love how many stores and restaurants in the neighborhood have been there since before 9/11. There’s a fantastic film and camera store on Chambers St that develops your photos in only a few hours1. Like many old pizzerias in NYC, it has a wall of photos of celebrities that have visited the store. It’s one of those places in NYC where you can feel that the owners want you to leave as soon as possible. That is, of course, how you know the service will be good. I’ll never get my film developed anywhere else. In the seaport area, right on the water, there’s an amazing dive bar that feels like a relic of the 90s.2 A genuine griminess that most Manhattan bars fail to recreate. They serve your drinks in quart containers, and bras line the entirety of the ceiling. It’s one of my favorite bars in the city, and that is not just because the bartender let me play whatever songs I wanted when I was there on my birthday. It reminds me of a time gone by, a time that we can never really return to. I feel like I could do everything I want to do in a day without ever having to leave FiDi.

FiDi is the only part of the city that I’ve worked in, and thus have had to be in a significant portion of the time, that I am significantly fond of. I attended school and I have worked in Union Square, and I have very little love for Union Square. It’s touristy, overwhelming, and when there isn’t a pop-up in the park, like the farmer’s market or the holiday market, I find it incredibly uninteresting. FiDi’s so different to me, it’s like a gleaming oasis that is always waiting for me to return. It’s so much more than finance bros and wall street, but you’ll never be able to see it if you don’t open yourself up to its beauty.

So many different kinds of people work in FiDi. Due to the construction in the area, there are so many construction workers flooding Fulton St and Park Pl. I met a group of construction guys and electricians once in that dive bar I mentioned earlier, and it was the first and only time I met a group of men in a bar that insisted on buying me a drink, without expecting something in return. They bought me and my friend some shots, talked to us like we were normal human beings, and then left. After they headed home, my friend and I sat there wondering, “What, no catch?”

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About four months ago, I started working a job that is in FiDi. I could not believe my luck; finally finding a full time job after a year of applying and it was in my favorite part of Manhattan. Good things come to those who wait, I suppose. This time, I’m working right on the water. I adore it more every single day. My office is right next to what is maybe the worst CVS in the entirety of Manhattan, but even that I have grown fond of. I love how peaceful the streets are on my walk into the office early in the morning, before the tourists even think of leaving their hotels. I would be happy if I never have to work in another neighborhood. If you are one of the many Financial District haters, let me show you around. FiDi belongs to people like you and me.

The term “brain rotting” is usually used in a humorous context, by someone who really is rotting their brain, but thinks it’s funny. To be the one to say that brain rot kills, makes you, “the friend that’s too woke.”

I deleted Twitter almost two months ago now, and deleted Tik Tok a little over a week ago now. After I deleted Tik Tok, I noticed I was using Instagram reels for the first time in my life. I had to forcibly make myself stop scrolling, so I deleted Instagram too. The result being that I have nowhere to endlessly scroll and waste hours of my life.

Social media does not make me happy, and hasn’t for years. Twitter, especially, exposes you to opinions and sentiments so evil, it makes you feel like you are falling. The falling has no end, because you always manage to find something worse, something more horrible than you could have conjured up in your head. When you’re consistently on Twitter for years of your life like I was, it makes you believe that evilness is everywhere, and that there’s no relief.

Many of the people saying all these horrendous things are only saying them to rage bait you, so you’ll respond, resulting in more engagement and monetary gain for them. The simple solution is to stop looking, to stop engaging. But no one ever does.

You are in an endless cycle of horror, where people are posting disgusting content, and everyone you follow ,who you like, is quote retweeting to “own” them, which creates more engagement for the original account, who keeps posting because they know they have won.

Tik Tok is a breeding ground for misinformation, stupidity, and cruelty. I can’t even count the amount of times I scrolled upon a Tik Tok of a woman, who was either overweight, disabled, or deemed “too confident,” being torn to shreds by men and other women. When the original poster would respond, either in tears or angrily, the comments would respond with the sentiment, “This is the internet, you can’t expect people to be nice.”

The truth is that they aren’t wrong, and there is no fixing this. The disease has spread. An internet without men will not fix this, wiping the slate clean will not fix this.

It encourages vanity and selfishness, over self reflection and community. In the brief time span I was on Instagram reels, I saw a glimpse into what seemed like people in active psychosis, and people snarkily correcting others with information that was wrong. A woman posted a video entitled “Ugly truth of being pretty",” and in the caption, wrote in depth about how she doesn’t have any friends because she’s pretty. Another woman was commenting on a video about a cat suffering from a UTI, saying males can’t get UTIs because UTI means “Uterus tissue infection.” Another user had to correct her and explain that UTI stands for Urinary Tract Infection.

The first woman is not internally reflecting about what about her behavior or personality might make people not want to be her friend. When vanity becomes your entire life, there is no room for self reflection. If others do not like you, it must be because you are too pretty and they are jealous. If no one wants to be your friend, it must be the fault of everyone else. The other woman was confronted with information that interfered with her knowledge of something, and instead of turning to researching, to see if she was wrong, her immediate response was to accuse the poster of being stupid. The internet makes you stupid, delusional, or cruel. In many cases, it makes you all three at the same time.

The anonymity of the internet will always encourage people to be their worst selves, and the public praising people receive for being cruel will encourage people to amp up their cruelty, and for others to experiment with being cruel. Someone will tweet something along the lines of “Only those of pure blood should be allowed on X” and Elon Musk will respond “Looking into this.” It has no end.

I used to spend hours of my life getting so angry about what I saw on Twitter or Tik Tok; spending so much time ruminating on how stupid and ridiculous people online were. Quite literally wasted years of my life I can never get back. During this time, I was always wanting to write more, go out more, and try new hobbies, but I was always telling myself I didn’t have enough time. The truth is what I always had enough time, I was just wasting the vast majority of it.

Now that I’ve been off most social media for a bit, my image of others is based entirely around the friends I interact with, the people I meet in public, and the people I work with. Of course, there are negative traits in many of these people I interact with, but it is authentic. These are not people performing cruelty for the sake of making money online. When I’m interacting with my friends outside of the bubble of Twitter, I get to interact with them alone, without the added exposure to endless cruelty.

Somewhat free of phone addiction, I now am forced to do the hobbies and activities I love, but put off doing for the sake of doomscrolling. I’ve found myself on numerous occasions opening my phone, remembering there’s nothing to scroll on, and opening up the library app and reading instead. When there is nothing to look at online, I’m forced to actually do things.

On my lunch breaks, I read my book or read the news. I research history and plan my day after work. On days I get home from work and have no plans, I spend hours making collages, doing research, and writing for my poetry book. I’ve ordered some clay to start making pottery. I’ve memorized where every country is on the map, alongside facts about each country. I’m slowly watching my brain lose knowledge of useless social media drama, and learn more about history, language, and philosophy.

Despite working a lot and being constantly anxious about the current state of the world, there are lots of things I can do that stimulate my brain, and bring me joy. One of the many problems with online scrolling is that it never gives you a sense of accomplishment, because the scrolling has no end, and never will. At least with a movie or a video game, there is a sense of accomplishment in finishing it. In knowing you completed something. I want to surround myself with activities that feel fulfilling and give me a sense of accomplishment. The internet cannot be fixed, but my brain can.

my feet were bleeding

the roof of my mouth was decaying

i’d walk until I no longer felt the warmth of

the streetlights in my ears

the hum in my skull to get to where i needed to get to where my skin wanted to be I had to

walk through the graveyard

back during the plague they used to plant graves of the poor up so far into the mountain in shallow

shallow graves that when it rained the bones would come running

down the

mountain

and the townspeople would wake

up to skeletons sleeping on graves. after

they started planting graves on top of other graves

until no one had a grave of their own

there used to be a pastor who would leave notes on our doorstep that would tell us that heaven has

limited space

they might run out of room before we die

i would put the notes to my mouth

chew them into a paste swallow them with berries from the woods

an old grey cat lives in the graveyard he chews you up before you can feel his cold rough coat against

your bloodless palm

if you come bearing pieces of raw beef cartilage or road kill he

might rub his head on your ankle

tonight he’s curled up on top of a four person

deep grave, watching the stars

when my brother died and they buried him on top of our great grand father the old cat would let me put my hand in front of his nose to smell

the hair growing out of my head is not my own when i look in a mirror or down at my shoulders i know it belongs to someone else but now it runs out of my skin like it is my own i live in a sequestered frayed house that more people have died in than lived in the middle of the night i walk along the corridors and rub my face against the walls feel the wallpaper crumble against my skin when the night is particularly long i run my tongue against the wall until the first layer of tissue is gone come morning my tongue will be cut in half and strands of my hair will line the floors and cover my bed the brown bear that walks by my house in the mornings has blood streaked through its’ fur and glass prodding its’ leg i watch him through the window watch the blood drip in the snow when i was a child a teacher told me that when i was born it was already too late

I was out to dinner last Saturday and I felt a chill in the air for the first time in months. On my walk to get to my boyfriend’s apartment the day before, I noticed piles of dead leaves crunching under my feet. It’s hard to believe the summer is almost over. It was a brutally rainy New York summer and it almost felt like a dream. it feels like it never even happened.

The year is over halfway over now and I don’t know how it’s possible for time to pass this quickly. This time last year, I was in Ireland, walking along rocky beaches and up cliffs. When I remember that that was a year ago now, it almost makes me dizzy. I have never felt more old but at the same time, I still feel like a child. I can still feel so strongly how it felt being 13. It’s almost like no time has passed at all.

I blinked and i’m almost 26. I keep having dreams where i’m a teenager and I am failing to do something I have already accomplished. I wonder if this feeling ever goes away. this feeling that I am getting older before I can catch up.

As i watch the season change, I’ve been thinking about what has been most important to me this year. This year has felt different to every other year of my life. It’s easy to talk about wanting a new start, but it feels weird to actually start one. it feels like I am finally not drifting through life, like I’m actually actively making decisions to form my life.

I’ve been committing to my writing seriously for the first time in a long time. This involved finally being able to take myself seriously as a writer, and not shying away from feeling embarrassed or being judged. I did my first poetry reading this year, and have started pitching my poems for publication. I feel like almost everything about social media wants you to fear being embarrassed, or being cringey, above all else. Like being cringe is worse than death. But I’ve realized that there’s actually nothing worse than spending your whole life afraid of being genuine, until you wake up one day and you’re 50, and have never even attempted to do the things you want to do. Getting off Twitter has helped a lot with this. I think tweeting requires a consistent level of self deprecation and aloofness that just is not sustainable for me.

Beyond that, I feel like this year is my first year in New York where I really feel like I belong. I have been traveling to new parts of the city and I have found that it really feels like my home. I have so many memories tied to different streets and parks and restaurants. it feels like I’ve made a life for myself, rather than have had one created for me, like how I think it would feel if I still lived in my hometown. I like that i’ve found my own places, and found my own life.

Towards the end of last year, I started falling in love and beginning my first serious relationship. I previously have notoriously not been a relationship girl, for a multitude of reasons. I always felt so much more safe and comfortable being alone, and many of the relationships I ended up finding myself in felt damaging or limiting in some way. as I’ve been coming back from my years long isolation after my brother died, I realized I was looking for connection, but did not have any hopes of actually finding what I was looking for.

It’s kind of hard to believe how out of nowhere it came, and how quickly after I decided I wanted to be in a relationship. My now boyfriend was only the second person I went on a date with after redownloading hinge. I’m not convinced fate exists, but it felt like everything in my life was pointing to us being together. I had so many likes and so many matches (sorry, unintentional flex) that I had to devote an hour everyday to responding to my matches. and every time I did it, he was the person I most wanted to talk to. I liked how he asked me questions about myself and had actual conversations about our interests and our lives.

We had to postpone our initial date plan because he was sick, and when I hadn't heard back about rescheduling, I decided I should put myself out there for once, and ask him if he wanted to go out. I only got the courage to do it after a few margaritas with a friend, but still. The bravery was there. when it comes to romance, I always keep my feelings close to my chest, to an extent that I think is self destructive. In high school, I would have rather died than tell my friends who I had a crush on, much less tell the person I liked. I was not expecting him to say yes, or for him to even respond, but he did. We met at a coffee shop and then took a walk around a park, and then got lunch, and then walked along the water, and sat to watch the sunset.

I fell in love with him very quickly, and being with him became an extremely important part of my life. I had to take the most horrendous subway route from my apartment to visit him, and it didn’t bother me. Every second with him felt worth it. We met in October, and I knew by December I wanted to be with him every day.

I don’t believe you need romance to be happy, but having a partner I can connect to and turn to when I need help, has made my life incomprehensibly better. before I met him, I was working with my therapist on my struggles with depending on anyone. My need to be independent was making my life lonely. When I met him, I realized the independence I would be giving up was so much less valuable than having a life with someone.

This is a story about having a new start because I found love that is fulfilling and life changing, but also about how my own choices to put myself out there, even in minor ways, have drastically improved my life. The unfortunate truth I’ve learned is that almost everything good that can happen to you happens when you do something difficult.

I decided to go to a different high school than all the friends I had in middle school did, and I ended up in a situation where I had no one to eat lunch with for the first week I was there. I knew of a group of girls that I had gone to middle school with, and knew only extremely casually, but I knew where they met before going to lunch every day. So, one day I walked up to the section of lockers where they all met and asked them if I could go to lunch with them. at the time, it was the scariest thing i’d ever done. I could hear my heart beating like it had crawled out of my chest and into my ears. But they said yes, and I had made friends that I kept my entire high school career. It’s kind of depressing that I’ve only done things like this a few times in my life, but I can only hope I continue to force myself to be brave, even when I am scared, which is most of the time.

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Beyond the major life changes I’ve had this year, there have been a lot of minor things that have improved my life. I’ve been trying to create more, which means reading more and adventuring more.

In terms of reading, I have been really into Agatha Christie, Claire Keegan, Jeanette Winterson, poetry, and old children’s Moomin novels. I’m not really sure why but for the past few months or so the only thing I’ve really wanted to read is Agatha Christie novel after Agatha Christie novel. I think I just really enjoy the whimsy of old timey mysteries and I have grown really fond of her writing style. I don’t like trying to solve the mystery while I read because I enjoy being surprised at the end. Recently, I’ve been particularly loving the Miss Marple novels. I just really love the idea of an old lady detective, and I find her personality incredibly charming.

I’ve read a few poetry books this year that I have found really impactful, and that have helped inspire me to keep working on my own poetry collection. Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips is a collection of poetry that helps you remember what’s enjoyable about poetry. It explores the complexities and the distortions of memory and dreams.

“Which is how we learned what we should have known already, that sometimes to remember a thing can hurt more than the thing itself ever did, long ago, back when hurt was a feeling, still, not a memory—not an art, yet.”

Last month I read Refaat Alareer’s collection of poetry titles If I Must Die, taken from the name of his most famous poem, Alareer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2023. This book was published posthumously, serving as a heartbreaking prediction of his own murder. The book is a collection of prose and poetry based on Alareer’s experience growing up in Gaza, and watching the majority of his family die. It was a really difficult read, but I think is the most important book I’ve read this year. I think if you’re not reading at all about Palestine, you might as well not read at all.

I also read two of Claire Keegan’s novels. Keegan, an Irish author, writes fiction novels about Irish history. Small Things Like These is about a man living in a small town, forced to confront abuse taking place in the local church, and the town’s complicity. Foster is about a young girl placed in the care of strangers by her parents. It details her growing connection to her new foster parents, in prose that is both eerie and sad.

Earlier this year, I read a novel by Tove Jansson, the creator of The Moomins. The book is about a young girl and her grandmother who live on a secluded island. It’s both an ode to the beauty of nature and also the complexities of growing older, both through the eyes of a child growing up, and an older woman realizing she is forgetting what it was like to be young. It has some really beautiful prose and was simple in a way that a lot of books are scared of being. I feel like a problem I have with some modern books is that I feel that the desire to be as interesting and as attention grabbing as possible leads to the loss of a good story.

I have been reading Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, the fourth book I’ve read by Winterson. I recently read Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, which I found life altering. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is a fiction book based partially on her life. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal is a memoir about her life, that coincides with the plot of Oranges. Why Be Happy does detail parts of her childhood and her relationship with her mother, but it overall is a novel about healing from trauma and her years of struggling with self-destructive tendencies and self hatred.

For music, I’ve been into Alex G’s new album, Headlights. It’s his first album on a major record label, and I was relieved that it still sounds like him. My favorite tracks are “June Guitar”, “Bounce Boy”. “Beam Me Up”, and “Real Thing”. I often struggle to articulate what it is specifically that I like about music, other than the lyrics. I can say that I like how this album makes me feel and I have found it soothing while listening on my walks home. Other than this album, I have been struggling to find new music that I like (recommendations always appreciated).

For movies and TV, I really enjoyed Netflix’s, ‘The Residence’, a show about an unconventional detective investigating a murder that takes place at The White House. I enjoyed the writing, the acting, the characters, and the mystery. It feels very modern day Agatha Christie, with a set of unique characters, all with their own motives for killing The White House’s Chief Usher. I was heartbroken to hear that they cancelled it after one season, and fear I might be forced to watch ‘Only Murders in the Building’.

In terms of hobbies, I’ve been bench plaque hunting, as usual. Beyond that, I’ve been trying to do more puzzles, as well as teaching myself things to help educate myself and also keep my brain active. I’ve been reading and learning about gardening and flowers, in the hopes of one day being able to have a garden of my own. I’ve also been trying to learn all the countries, where they are on the map, and facts about all of them. It is kinda sad I don’t already know these things, but I am fixing it!

My boyfriend and I have been playing multiple Pokemon games, something I haven’t done in years. It’s been a really fun thing for us to bond on, as well as being a way for me to casually return to my childhood in a simple way. I am particularly fond of Sylveon, a fairy cat-like Pokemon, and Chikorita, a grass Pokemon.

For food, I recently went to a fantastic Japanese restaurant in The East Village on a night out with my friends. At home, I’ve been obsessed with making salad bowls. As a professed cooking hater, I only make myself meals that are as simple as possible. As little time in the kitchen is what I aim for. My salad bowl is quick and simple, but I devour it every time I eat it. Rice, spinach, tomatoes, avocado, chickpeas, and broccoli with a lime cilantro vinaigrette. I can’t get enough of it.

Beyond that, I’m still thinking about the best roast potatoes I’ve ever had, the ones I got in Rome. Perfectly crispy and soft on the inside and the most delicious flavor, I’ve never had anything like them. I think about them every day. In Florence, we had the best overall meal I’ve ever had, and it was incredibly simple. The biggest steak I’ve ever seen (very close to being raw), more roast potatoes, wine, and a side of greens. I dream of this meal.

After meeting up with a friend who asked how I was, I said I’m doing good, and she said “Good isn’t a word that usually comes out of your mouth in response to that question.”

She’s completely right, and I’m relieved not only that I was able to say that I am doing good and mean it, but also that I have friends that I can be completely honest with about how I’m feeling. Here’s to having friends, (finally having) medical insurance, and being in love in August.

thanks for reading xoxo. and i am totally serious about wanting music recs. i’m in a never ending cycle of listening to the same songs on repeat.

Wren and Noel live down the street from the aquarium. They’ve lived in that house their whole lives, sharing a room since they were born. Up until their mother died.

It’s a homely green cottage, with dead hyacinths and a wilting lavender bush planted in the front yard. The kids across the street have started picking at the grass that is yellowing on the edges of the yard. Sand has been tracked permanently into the hallways of the home, embedding itself in every crevice. Wren’s mother used to get so irritated with the sand constantly between her toes, but she was always the one dragging it in. The floor boards in the kitchen have begun to shift and creak.

Wren turned eighteen 8 months ago, on a crisp, yellow October morning. She woke up at 4am and could not fall back asleep, watching the moon reflect on her mother’s closet. Her knit sock-clad feet climbed out the window and onto the roof. Laying her head on the crumbly shingles, she counted all the stars she could see. When she was fifteen, she used to come out on the roof every night. Picking at her nail beds, she would sit and weep.

After a few months of following this nightly routine, Wren began being joined by a goldfinch that had a clipped wing and a missing foot. He would fly by, and land a few inches from her feet. For the first few weeks, he would ignore her, never turning his little face to look at her. Eventually, he started landing next to where she would lay her hand. His small, sweet eyes would watch her, in between picking at the roof with his beak. There came a day when Wren stopped going on the roof, she can’t really remember why. She just woke up one day and no longer needed to be up there. After that, she stopped seeing that little bird. She would look for him on her walks to school, sometimes making herself late to look up into every tree. She did this for weeks, and he still did not return to her.

Wren goes to the aquarium every weekday while Noel is at school. She watches her sister drive away, down the street her mother used to drive down. She packs her tote, watching the early morning sun stream against the water, as she walks down the block.

She bought a yearly pass for the aquarium with money her mother left her, specifically the cash she had left in her purse. She bought it from an old woman who had been working at the aquarium for the last few years. She’s the mother of someone she went to high school with. The girl’s name was Amy, or Amelia, or Emma. She had died in a car wreck when Wren was in her junior year. Her death was ruled an accident; Amy was presumed to be drunk and had driven right into a tree, while she was driving up the mountain. Her car had fallen off the cliff, and when they found her, she was completely unrecognizable. Her mother never let it go. She was positive it hadn't been an accident, positive someone had ran her daughter off the road.

Wren sees her every time she goes to the aquarium, her long brown hair tied into a bun and her fingers shuddering as she scans her ticket. She’s studied the lines on her face, her cuticles picked at until they bleed. She knows the despairing look in her eyes; it follows her as she walks down the hallway into the blue abyss of the pools.

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Wren loves the jellyfish and the otters. Ever since the summer started, this first summer without her mom, she would sit outside near where the otter enclosure is, and watch them for hours. She’s given all of them names, and personalities, and stories. She likes imagining them having better lives, better families, than her own. Her favorite one is a beautiful shade of chocolate brown, with tan paws. Sometimes, she thinks he is reaching his paw out to her, stretching it out above the glass of his enclosure.

When Wren’s mother died, before she bought the pass and spent all her days at the aquarium, she used to walk through her neighborhood during the evening and into the night. She would walk into the early morning hours, listening to the leaves blowing in the wind, the squirrels scuttling around, and the beating of her own heart. She used to look into the windows of houses with their lights on, and watch the figures behind the curtains. When she was very young, her mother used to walk down these streets with her, telling her about all of their neighbors. Her mother had a knack for describing miserable things kindly.

She remembers the walks they took in the fall the most fondly. The crunch of the leaves underneath her mother’s boots, and the smell of the chill in the air. She would count all the cracks she saw in the sidewalk beneath her feet, and her mother would let her play in the yellow leaves.

Wren thinks about dead Amy (or Amelia, or Emma) and her mother. How they probably took walks just like she did with her mother. How her mother probably can no longer walk by trees like she used to, or drive up the mountain.

She thinks about saying something to her, about talking to her when she comes in to scan her ticket. But every time she tries, it’s like her mouth closes shut and she can’t speak. Wren struggles to speak about her mother, even with Noel. It’s almost unbearable to talk out loud about what she misses, what she resents about her life now.

After she sees the sharks and the jellyfish and the seals and the otters, she finds herself in the gift shop. Running her fingers on all the stuffed sea animals, she stands and stares into their plastic black eyes. There’s something so comforting about these things that are not real, these objects that cannot hurt her.

Wren thumbs the fur of the stuffed otter, and thinks she might cry. She brings its it up to the counter, and pays for it with a twenty dollar bill wrinkled in her mom’s old wallet.

The walk down the hallway back to the entrance feels like it lasts forever. The cartoon pictures of whales and seahorses make her feel like a child again. When Wren gets up to the ticket counter, her mouth still feels like it’s filled with cotton and glue. Pulling the otter out of her bag, and shakily sliding it across the counter to that poor dead girl’s mother, she feels the most alive she has felt since her mother died.

She doesn’t wait to see what she does; she can’t stand it. She feels too close to living.

When she gets home, she climbs back up onto the roof, and lays like a starfish on the asphalt shingles. Her skin bakes underneath the sun as she covers her face with her hands. When the sun begins to get unbearable, she turns to the side and hides her face against the roof. She lays there until the sun begins to set, and her sister has joined her.

Noel forcibly takes her hand, and lays down next to her.

“You know I used to come out here right after mom died? While you were planning the funeral and calling all the cousins mom hated, I was sitting right here.”

Wren turns and looks up at her, removing her now sunburnt fingers from her face.

Noel continues, “I didn’t help you with anything. I was terrible. I sat here for hours, doing nothing at all. That little girl that lives across the street used to call out to me from her yard but I ignored her. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I didn’t want to breathe. It was like I was dead. And when I’d come back in at night, you were wandering the hallways like a ghost. Wandering back and forth, staring at the photos of us as kids. I’d walk by you and it was like you weren’t there at all. You didn’t speak to me and I was so thankful you didn’t.”

Wren sits up, stretching her stiff bones and pressing her fingers into her hot skin. She turns to look at her sister, who looks so much older now than she did yesterday. Her eyes are kinder, her face less soft.

“I couldn’t bear to speak to you, to make it real, by saying it aloud. I wanted it all to be a dream. I felt like I was growing up so instantly, so alone. Like in an instant childhood was dead, and I had no ability to go back.”

Noel wraps her arms around her legs, and rests her chin against her knees. She looks up at the receding sun and the clouds drifting in and out.

“I wish it was all a dream too. But I feel awake now.”

They sit there quietly for a while, when a little goldfinch flies down onto the roof, landing on Wren’s knee. He nuzzles his head into her skin and when she reaches out to pet him, he doesn’t shy away.

This is the first short story I’ve written in years. I've been wanting to write one for so long, but just have not been able to. I come up with ideas and they either fall short, or I can’t create them in a way that feels satisfying to me.

I’m glad to have finally gotten through that case of writer’s block, and hope I continue to be free of it. As this is my first short story in years, it is a bit rough around the edges and is a work in progress. As always, thank you for reading. <3

from september to january of 2024

i’m returning to sit a spell after a brief hiatus to go through the benches i saw from september to october of 2024. during early september, i was coming back from San Francisco and starting a new job after my month of (unemployed) vacation time in august. i wasn’t very excited to start what was supposed to be my interim retail job, but i was relieved to have an income again, even though it would be small. 

the first set of plaques i saw in september were on a series of benches in a park in san francisco named huntington park. i was having quite a miserable day; our flight back to new york was delayed 10 hours and i had broken my toe the day before. my toe had swollen so much it could barely fit in my docs, the only shoes i had to wear, and i was having a hard time walking. it was hot, we all had our luggage, and had no idea what to do with our extra 10 hours in california. 

the journey to the park was a 10 minute walk up the notorious san francisco hills. i was crying from both the pain in my foot and my general frustration with the day. as we sat in the park for hours, giving up on finding fun things to do, i decided to hobble around and read the bench plaques to liven up my mood. the park had a circular layout surrounding a fountain, with benches all around it. 

my favorite plaque in that park was this one, from Jesse to Richard. the inscription translated says “i was born the day i met you.” 

it’s a memorial bench for 77 year old richard palmer, who died in 2021. i still get a little bit choked up when i read this plaque. all the romantic plaques i read before i met my boyfriend have taken on new meaning for me. i saw this one about a month before i met him! 

there was a romantic theme to the benches here, as that one was surrounded by one commemorating a marriage, and one celebrating a couple’s life long relationship.

i came back to my spot on the bench next to my friends after my journey around the park, removing my shoe again. resting my now-purple toes on the top of my suitcase, i listened to the wind whistle between the leaves of the trees, and watched the flowers sway underneath the burning august sun.

on september 12 i was back in the city, on my way to a job interview. it was still boiling outside, and i was dressed in my all black interview clothes, melting on the subway. two stops before i was to get off, the woman who scheduled the interview with me let me know the interview was cancelled because of some change in schedule. i got off there, at 59th, not sure what to do with myself. decided i should make my trip uptown worth my while, i go on a walk through central park.

i stop at the little strand pop up that's set up at the beginning of the park, and buy a few second hand books. the sprinklers were running and the sun was streaming in through the trees. in the entrance of the park i found what has become one of my all time favorite plaques. 

this bench makes me weep. it reminds me of how much time has passed since i moved to the city; how much older i’ve gotten. moving here feels like forever ago now, and nothing is as it used to be. i feel so thankful for new york; for the freedom to become myself.

the city stayed warm long into october. i remember it still being in the 70s on halloween. my room was piling up with agatha christie books i had checked out from the library. i was making new friends at my job and i was falling in love. it almost felt like the warmth would never end.

it turned out to be an unusually bitter winter. there were many walks home from the train that were unbelievably miserable; the wind was relentless. my aversion to wearing gloves became untenable and i was forced to buy earmuffs. it was so freezing i very rarely went looking for bench plaques.

I dragged a friend into a quick bench plaque search before we went to the met, and by the end of it my hands were red and raw like i had just bought them from the butchers. still, i thought it was completely worth it. this was the only day i went bench plaque searching, after very early november, until march.

the new year really did feel like a new beginning for me, even if the cold felt limiting. i was treasuring my new relationship, my new friendships, and the return art was making in my life. i was feeling inspired to write more, to believe in my art more. walking under the dead trees, bundled in my coat, it felt like i could try again.

it’s maybe ironic to have these feelings of hope for a new life while walking through rows of mostly memorial benches, but i think thats part of the point. as sad as reading these plaques can make me, it always reminds me of the love in the world.

thanks for reading this chapter of ‘sit a spell’. i’ll be back (hopefully soon) with my bench finds from march and april of this year. as always, i love being sent photos of bench plaques other people find in the wild. <3

may 4: the tour guide at the museum never leaves. he eats nothing and spends all night stroking the art. he guides us up the stairs and through the hallways, saying words that he is the first to use. when we lose him in a crowd of people, we can still hear him speaking to us.

may 17: the old lady that lives on the outskirts of town spent her whole life growing her garden. she never married, or had any children. the neighborhood kids would ride their bikes down the road, and watch her garden until her hands bled. they’d say that she always looked like she was in a trance. i walked down that road once, and saw her planting hydrangeas near her porch. her eyes were completely white and the birds had stopped singing. i got in my car and drove back to town, hands shaking.

may 31: watching a man get out of his truck and pour piles on piles of dirt onto the street. lifting up gargantuan flower pots and dumping it on the burning asphalt. then, he uses his hands to scoop up handfuls of dirt off the ground, and put it in his pocket. once his pockets are full, he wipes his hands on his jeans and gets back in the drivers seat.

jun 1: a man catcalls me at the grocery store i frequent. he asks me to fist bump him as a thank you. there is a gray piece of matter where his face should be, an endless nothingness. when i step out onto the street, every face i see resembles him.

june 26: i work in a library of books no one has ever written and no one has ever read. people come in and out all day long, talking only to themselves. during the night shift, the books whine and cry. i run my hands on their spines; feel them shake against my skin.

july 5: thousands of birds live in the cemetery. their population never decreases or grows, not even when that group of teenagers brought in those invasive squirrels. they wrote in their science report that after a day, the squirrels, as a group, left the cemetery. the groundskeeper says that he can never get close enough to the birds to see what they look like, only that they peck at his legs when he stays too late at night. once, he tried to grab one that was biting him, and it disintegrated in his hand.

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july 8: on the deck of a boat, wind blowing my hair until it wraps around my neck. tightening and curling. i cut it from my throat with a shard of glass i picked up off the street. watching it fly out to the sea, getting strangled in the water.

july 9: walking on the beach, sun boiling me alive. i feel my skin start to melt and congeal with with my blood and my organs and my cartilage. my feet are sinking into the sand, my muscle ripping off and scurrying underground.

july 15: there’s a man digging up flowers in the garden across from my apartment. he sits there, day and night, digging and digging and digging. one night, i walk across the street to stand over him, and watch. he won’t look at me, or the shovel he has discarded. the streetlights illuminate the bruised purple flesh underneath his eyes. he has dug so far his hands have been completely rubbed down to bone. my knees are starting to buckle, and i sit down next to him.

unmarried women line the streets at night, hungry for love or attention or sex or a compliment. whatever comes first. they wail and writhe and bark, revealing teeth crystalline and cold. when it comes to eating, unmarried women have nothing to chomp to chew to devour but their own raw, pink indented tongues. charlotte is unmarried and a lover. she has never lined the streets at night, like the others. she believes she is destined for more, to be more.

carrie meets mr.big after fucking her previous mr.big. when she breaks up with mr.big a third mr.big will meet her at a bar and eat tendrils of her hair. once mr big number three has eaten all her hair carrie will dump him and run into mr.big number four on a walk through central park. the sun shining in his hair and the smell of the blossoms will convince her this one will be different. this mr.big will be more than big. he’ll cut open her thighs and lick her veins. the girls will say “he is just like the others” but they don’t know him like carrie does. she’s never felt more herself than when he is eating her flesh and drinking her blood. can’t a woman dare to love?

mr.big number four will abandon her on the lower east side, among the other unmarried, bitten women. carrie hates to be alone, so when mr.big number 5 spills coffee on her in the elevator of her apartment building, she will invite him to come inside. there are an endless stream of mr.bigs waiting for carrie. she can’t help that she wants to be chewed on by them all.

charlotte’s face started to distort when she initiated her divorce. her eyes started to bulge, her skin has started to melt, and her eyelashes have taken on a life of their own. they’ve started swaying, and stretching themselves from her eyelids. they’ve started pulling her around town; into stores charlotte would never dare to enter on her own. they’ve been stretching so far it’s forced her to run everywhere, so she joined a run club. one day, charlotte is running through central park, when she sees Trey. He’s standing there, in a suit she picked for him, with his perfect even skin, and his lifeless eyelashes. she’s never felt so far away from him. she can barely remember what it was like to be married to him.

samantha has slept with the last man in new york city. everywhere she turns, she sees a man she’s slept with. they’re in her elevator, her coffee shop. she’s started seeing them outside her bedroom window, watching her from the street. she needs to find a new man to fuck. and stat! on a hot, sultry, friday night, she’s walking home when her heel gets stuck in a sewer grate. before she falls in, something catches her. a slimy, green hand. she turns and looks down, finding a man made of green, weeping sludge. his grime encrusted eyes are staring back at her, and he smiles. well, he’s almost a man!

the girls wake up one morning in los angeles, with no memory of how they got there. drenched in a warm blue sweat, they stumble uphill and downhill. their heels melting into the pavement, and their feet melting into their heels. they walk endlessly, down streets that have no signs. carrie turns to miranda, and sees her skin is turning clear. she can see the palm trees through miranda’s sunken cheeks. when she tries to grab her hand, there is nothing there. not for miranda, and not for carrie.

When my brother was a child, he claimed he was incapable of smiling for photos. In all his school pictures, he would do an awkward, flat smile. Year after year. When I was a kid, I thought this was a really funny quirk, albeit I always thought he was lying about not being able to smile. As an adult reflecting on his death, it makes me sad. My brother, claiming he was “unable” to smile, or in reality, simply just didn’t want to.

My brother died by suicide on the Fourth of July, five years ago. He was pronounced dead in the very early morning of the sixth, but the holiday is always the day I associate with his death. The day he wouldn’t eat any dinner or come out of his room.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve talked to death about my brother dying, but in reality, I don’t think I could ever talk enough about it. He was my brother.

In an article for The Times, David Lynch’s daughter was talking about a conversation she had with actress Isabella Rossellini. Rossellini was sharing with her, her own sentiments on grief.

“She told me she was on a plane once and became very emotional. The stewardess asked if she was OK. And Isabella said, ‘My father died!’ And the stewardess said, ‘I’m so sorry, when?’ And Isabella said, ‘Fifteen years ago!’ That’s how fresh the wound feels, like Dad just left. He was just in the room. I was just talking to him.”

I don’t think there will ever be a time when his death does not agonize me. It sometimes feels like he just died yesterday. It can’t possibly already be five years without him, when he is still my brother. I’m not sure if that makes any sense. To me, he is just as much my brother today, as he was 10 years ago. Time doesn’t change as much as you wish it did.

I did, however, have a realization when I was writing in my journal earlier. I was writing about my plans to go to the aquarium with my boyfriend on the Fourth of July, (after i requested the day off from work and gave no specifics to my employer) and I was writing about how we used to go to the aquarium together on every family vacation. How I remembered us touching the stingrays at the aquarium in San Diego, so many years ago now. The realization I had come to was that I was able to think of positive things about him around the anniversary of his death, instead of only feeling sadness. That gave me the idea to write something about my brother that I haven’t yet, a dedication solely to things I loved about him.

When we were kids, he would let me hide in his room if I was scared or upset. Those were the only times he ever actually let me play his video games with him. Usually, he would hand me a controller and not plug it in, but tell me I was playing.

When we were both back home during the pandemic, he would always remove bugs from my room when I asked him to. Day or night, he’d come remove it, and take it outside. That summer, I had had an infestation of beetles in my room from the AC in the window, but he ensured I didn’t have to deal with them. He had a kindness not only for animals, but for bugs as well.

He helped take care of my cat when I moved out of state for college. That cat didn’t really like anyone other than me, but my brother really grew on him during my absence. My brother was a friend to him when I could not be.

He was obsessed with Star Wars, even the movies that were really bad. And he didn’t appreciate them in an ironic way, he genuinely thought they were all good. I used to think this was insane, but now, reflecting on his life, I find it charming. I wish he was still around to enjoy more bad Star Wars media.

He was extremely reserved and quiet, but when he spoke he could make everybody in the room laugh. He spent more time listening than speaking, at least around his family. I miss having him as a calming presence in my life.

He went out of his way to learn new skills. He had been practicing guitar in the months leading up to his death, and he had become very good at sports as he grew up. We had both learned to swim very late in life, but he put a lot more effort into being good at it than I ever had. I remember on one of our trips to Canada to visit family, he wanted our aunt to teach him how to dream journal.

He has very strong opinions on a lot of things, and was honest about them. It is a trait we both share. He had never been shy in sharing his opinions of movies, tv shows, music. I was obsessed with Glee, the tv show, for many years in my tweens and early teens, and he despised it. He made sure to let me know he hated it. But, he still came to see the Glee movie with me in theaters.

It is maybe selfish to say that I loved him because he was my brother, but there’s no other way to say it. He was my brother. I was born having a brother. There is no other relationship that can replace it; nothing that is equivalent. Even though I will have to live the rest of my life without him, I’m grateful he was my brother, and that I knew him for almost the entirety of his life.

I have a relentlessly hard time writing about positive emotions, about good things, about things that make me happy. Every time i try to write a poem about something good, something happy in my life, it feels like i’m trying to be someone else. I can’t help but wonder if it’s just who i am, if writing about the good is meant for somebody else.

I was telling a friend about my childhood a few months ago and after listening for a while she said, “Well you’ll write a really good memoir one day!”

I found and still find this comment really funny, but it does beg the question, is that the writing box I am stuck in, forever? Or is is a matter of writing out all the bad until there is no more bad to write about, and then you can write about the good? Do I need to write that memoir to be able to write anything else?

When I was a child, I always felt like I was trapped outside of the world of normal, happy girls my age. Girls with mothers who threw them birthday parties and girls who had a sense of community. Girls whose parents had friends with kids their ages they would get to hang out with. Girls with mothers who would do their hair in the mornings and put them in ballet classes. Girls with mothers.

I wanted desperately to be like them, to be carefree, to not feel so sad. I wanted to feel like everyone else, to not be so isolated. A childhood filled with a yearning for something that was not meant for me.

Jeanette Winterson began her writing career with Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel about a young girl, struggling with her sexuality while living under the roof of her abusive, Pentecostal mother. Since writing this book, Winterson has written a multitude of other things, including novels about romance, and even a book of ghost stories. Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir about her abusive childhood has been followed by fictional, literary novels.

I wonder if this is just goes for writers like us. You write the worst of it, all of it, until it no longer dominates your writing. I have ideas for fiction novels, for short stories that I just can never write. It does almost feel like those stories are just not what I’m meant to be writing, at least not yet.

For months, I’ve been telling my playwright friend about the play I want to write, but never do. It never comes easy, like writing personal essays, like this, does. My boyfriend and I spent a week in Italy together late april/early may and I desperately wanted to write about it. A week of many firsts for me; I’d never been on a vacation with a serious partner before and I’d never been to Italy. But every time I tried to sit down and write about it, the words that came out of me sounded fake.

I wanted to write about sleeping with the windows open in our tiny Rome airbnb, about wandering the cobblestone streets together after finishing a bottle of wine, about how we spent every second together for a week straight and it still did not feel like enough.

I couldn’t come up with 500 words about what was one of the best weeks of my life. I feel like I was being barred every time I tried. When I was writing about being genuinely happy, it sounded corny, sounded like I was putting someone else’s words in my mouth. Happiness sounds off, when it is coming out of my mouth.

Then, I wonder, does it feel off because it is actually wrong, or because the taste of it is unfamiliar?

Exposure therapy consists entirely of making yourself sit with discomfort, until eventually you no longer feel you are in danger. It can be years of sitting in this discomfort. Causing yourself what can feel like agony, for the hopes of being free from compulsion and anxiety.

Is the other possible solution making myself cringe until happiness sounds like me? Writing what feels corny, feels fake, until I accept that sadness and negativity are not always what is real? I was never much of a relationship girl before I met my boyfriend, but now I am. We can always change into what once felt unnatural, can’t we?

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the long hiatus from posting. I’m trying to get back into a rhythm of writing regularly, and challenging myself to write things that feel unfamiliar to me. Going to try and commit to publishing one piece a week, and will hopefully be returning next week. <3

february 2: stuck at a bar where you’re not allowed to speak. everyone looks identical to the bartender, and when i turn, he is staring right at me. or, i guess, they’re all staring at me. i can feel my vocal chords thinning.

february 3: my skin has begun to change. i feel it twist and turn underneath my clothes. when i take off my lace shirt at night, the lace remains, fleshy and cold.

february 8: it’s too hot in my apartment. it’s always too hot in my apartment. the water in my shower is ice cold. the water in my shower is always ice cold. to fix my shower they’d have to rip out all the plumbing and start again. that wall will never be ripped open. the shower will always be cold.

february 14: stargazing underneath the snow fall. reaching for your hand in the dark. watching a star fall and crash near my feet. as if i could stand to be anywhere else.

february 15: walking on the frozen lake early in the morning. my nose frozen from the cold as a fox runs in front of me, and slides down the hill. its orange fur in the dull grey of winter makes me want to cry.

february 21: drunk in a bathroom where i’m surrounded by my own reflection. four versions of me staring me down while i scrub my hands under scalding water.

february 22: waiting 10 hours to get into the club. people go in, one after the other, but no one seems to be coming out. smoking cigarettes that never burn out, unless you crush them into the pavement.

february 28: picking off petals from my roses and pressing them into a book. feeling the soft, fleshy texture of the rose between my fingers, and placing them between the pages to die. my books are becoming overrun with these flowers. it’s almost like they’re being suffocated.

march 3: i pull chunks of hair out every evening in the shower, feeling the baldness of my skull. in the morning my hair is where it once was, soft between my fingers

march 6: wind whips my hair and bruises my ears. my eyelashes fly off one by one. i seek solace in a deli, where the shelves are made of bone and the floors are sinking.

march 7: in the park at dusk, no one plays in the playground. i can hear feet crunching in the sand, but there is no one to see. i can feel something pull my hand.

march 8: in a movie theater where i can only go up. i walk around and around in circles trying to find a way down, but the stairs only continue to disappear. i can’t remember what it is to leave.

march 9: the music in my headphones is cut off abruptly by a tape of someone speaking. my phone gets hot in my hands. when it ends, i can’t remember what they said.

as a child, i spent a lot of time in the colorado mountains. i remember being 14, and so miserable i was unmoved by the sun shining against the grass, by the leaves swaying in the wind. a still, unrelenting unhappiness that remained inside me for years. growing up in a place so beautiful, wishing to be anywhere else, to be anyone else.

i spent much of my teenage years dreaming, a near constant haze surrounding me. dreaming was a way to survive, a way of breathing. when i reflect on my childhood, it’s like being choked.

loüise gluck wrote, “we look at the world once, in childhood. the rest is memory.”

when i drive by strip malls it always feels like i’m back home in colorado, even though strip malls all look the same everywhere in america. the sight of one always makes me feel like i’m 14 again, getting groceries and dropping off dry cleaning. so many things remind me of being a teenager, the time where you’re still a child but almost a person.

you’re only fifteen once, but the memory of being fifteen lasts forever. sadness that happens to me now, at twenty-five, will always remind me of how it felt to be sad in childhood. often, i find it hard to remember that people are no longer perceiving me the way they did when i was fifteen. i feel beautiful when i look in the mirror, but when i’m looking through my eyes that used to only be fifteen, i still feel i’m being viewed as ugly. “you look at the world once, in childhood. the rest is memory.”

you can never be sixteen again, but somehow, you will always be sixteen. and fifteen. and fourteen. and worst of all, thirteen.

when i’m on the subway platform at sunset, eyes burning in the sun, and wind blowing my hair, it’s almost like i’m eight again, playing with the grass in my backyard, watching the sun set.

Share through the clouds

there are moments, usually for just a second, when i smell something in the fresh air that makes me sickly nostalgic for a feeling i can’t name. for a memory that feels like it is only partially mine. a nostalgia so overwhelming i could cry. i sometimes get these moments when i’m walking in brooklyn. it almost feels like i’m in the dream haze i spent so many years pretending i lived in.

i have these other instances, where i feel so intensely disembodied it makes me physically ill. i have to sit down, with my head in my hands. it’s a feeling i have a hard time explaining. a feeling that i have lived more than what i have lived inside my body. i repeat to myself, “this is the only me,” but it feels like a lie. i become so nauseous. it feels like i’m being told “this is not the only you.”

i told a friend about this phenomenon once, in her car outside my house, and speaking about it aloud made me feel scared. watching the streetlights out of the corner of my eye, i felt watched. like i was speaking about something that is not meant to be known. is this the only me?

maybe there is a me that has been here before, that walked by the brownstones in brooklyn as a child. that grew up in the sea air.

the older i become, the more grounded in myself i become. in my body, my personhood. my family used to tell me that you are more attuned to the spiritual side as a child, and as you age, the connection between worlds fades, until they don’t blend together at all.

i feel like a person now, a way i never felt in childhood. when i was young, it felt like life was ghosting the tip of my tongue, never actually touching me. i wanted to be real. is this because i was half in the living world and half somewhere else?

i’m not a religious person, but i have always felt spiritual. looking at something new, and feeling as if it is something i had seen before. i had been there before, somewhere, in some world.

maybe i have always been breathing in one lung here on earth, and out the other lung someplace else.

Is this me?

Is this me? Is this

me? Is this the only

me? Is this the only me?

Is this the only me? Am I here?

Am I here? Am I? Is this it? Is

this it? Is it? Is it me? Is it

me? Is this the only

me? Is this the

only me? Is there

another me? Is

there? Is this it?

Is it? Is

it?