Esme Writes.

So I sit here and spend a morning anxious and over-analyzing whether or not I should text you because I feel like shit and think maybe its close to getting weird even though it’s probably not but you can pretty much make anything weird when you spend 4 hours dissecting it down into things that are smaller than fucking protons. Strings maybe? And these strings maybe harmonizing and maybe they’re not and who the fuck am I to say because I am not a physicist, but the air inside has been feeling charged with a weird current and we blamed the moon last week but what can we blame this week?

It’s the smallest little fault lines that seem to be separating everyone and the tremors from those shifting plates send quakes up through our feet and at varying times we all find ourselves struggling to set our feet down firmly on earth that won’t betray us. We don’t know where the fault lines are, we just know that sometimes the earth shakes and sometimes it doesn’t.

I spent awhile trying to build walls around me without knowing about these interruptions and when the walls wavered I leaned up heavily against them praying they would hold. Dear fucking god or Allah or whoeverthefuck let me hide let me hide and what can you do when you’ve built a strong wall across a geothermal divide? The earth decides and there is nothing you can do.

Its humpty dumpy sitting on a wall but instead of him going tumble and crack, the whole damn thing takes a fall and he’s damaged far beyond recognition and the kings horses and men just mill around wondering who the fuck built a wall there anyway.

Who the fuck built that fucking wall.

Who wasted the time and the effort?

Don’t they have anything better to do?

Its 1 step forward and 3 back and the 5 forward and then 2 back and so on and so forth until I looked down on the ground and realized I’ve been learning to waltz the whole time and if I had just taken the time to notice all the steps were mapped out on the floor for the entire time. I just didn’t look. Because…

Because I was afraid. Because maybe I would have seen that. I would not have been able to take the time to build such a pretty precious wall around me and I also would have seen the warnings about the fault lines or if I had bothered to ask the guy standing next to me would have told me about the ol’ earthquake of ’91 when he was “shook so damn hard his glasses damn near fell offa his face”.

But it was more imperative. More important to create a shining and closterphobic perfect world. A world the size of the span of my arms. A cylinder. A boring and utilitarian cylinder. An anxious and lonely cylinder.

And when the walls fell they left me out in the open like a sitting goddamn duck and I had to step from the rubble because it was dusty and made me sneeze and cough and both of those things are uncomfortable. Then I said hello to the quake of ’91 guy and he said hi back and we then didn’t know what to say because my walls blocked his views and the dust made his throat scratchy and we were silent for a while which is uncomfortable. I made my way across the sidewalk and started saying hello and some people just glared at me and some people said nothing and it made me want to cry because being alone is uncomfortable. And then one night I felt so alone and stood there and didn’t know anyone else there and I was silent and that is uncomfortable- but you stood there too and I was sick of coughing and blushing and of silence so I said hello. You said hello back. The earth stayed steady. We danced that night.

Instead of wishing for walls then, I sat under stars. And while in my cylinder I thought I was the only person who saw these stars, you talked about them too and saw the same thing that I saw. Us, together.

It’s the togetherness that has kept me going these past few weeks when the fucking moon went crazy and made everyone crazy and then the air was charged with some sort of crazy current and people were snapping and buzzing and growling like monsters and ready to wrap fingers around my throat simply because I looked at the guy wrong.

Maybe it’s the heat, except the heat should make us limp like the tomato plant on my back stoop. Drape limply. Make us lethargic and sigh with dry delicacy.

I guess if it goes on too long we start to crisp and crackle and snap. Rice krispy style murderous undercurrents take hold.

People go crazy. Things make less sense. Hands wrap around throats. I start overanalyze. Dissect.

And What I mean is, I lost my job. Again. Except I didn’t fucking lose it. I know exactly where it is and my manager’s girlfriend stole it. And it wasn’t so much fired as I was taken off the schedule and they stopped answering my calls leaving me with a bank account balance that is less than the cost of most things in life.

And I was left to sort out their reasoning which could be resolved to: there wasn’t any reasoning, and I cried and then I called my dad, who also has proven to be my financial advisor, to discuss very seriously the possibility of declaring bankruptcy. Which made sense at the time.

He advised me against it. I called my banks and told them I didn’t have any money to make my credit card payments.

And what I really mean is that this is a terrible apology to you. I am sorry.

It’s not fair of me to think we’ve spent too much time together this week, and nor it is fair of me to feign indifference to seeing you when it’s the absolute opposite but you know that this one friend helped me get this new job and I felt obligated to grace him with my presence last night and maybe have a drink and shoot the shit and then another hour passed and we went into his room to smoke down some Mr. Nice and I laughed and call it research even though at the collective we only have shake. Then it was 3 am and I texted you probably a lot too late. I hope you had a good night.

Oh- the new job is volunteering at a collective: Cash gifts for my time and fine herbal benefits. That statement is peppered heavily with dots that resemble flies hovering around words. An all around kush job. There is no brushing the flies away.

…

I just want to live my life with reckless abandon.

I want to chase the highs and the blue skies and the brilliant flashes of lights that snap crackle and pop at those moments when you take a hit or someone makes the best joke of the evening. The moments that go in the books as score one for the good times. Always have the tally be in favor of the home team, rolling like rivers and dancing and gyrating and alternating in colors to the beat like a goddamn disco floor.

Why the fuck not?

I want to say fuck off and fuck you and leave me to it.

I will be there with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other and jump on the trampoline all night long. I will be there to watch the sun fall from the sky and the moon rise in blood orange glory.

I will be glad when you join me and we end up piled and intertwined girls legs and boys hands, eyes and hair and lips and giggles and whispers and the ends of cigarettes blending into words that echo the calls of the frogs who stayed up to watch us ruin the night. Our secrets suspended in a bubble above our heads mixed with the scent of too much weed and too much wine and too many vodka shots which I vaguely remembering chasing with cake. We breathe a collective sigh together. One of simple joys. Sharing nights together in celebration of our limbs moving, our brains firing to accept the simple truth that we are together.