ruminations: things that keep coming back to my mind when i try to fall asleep

1- talk sexy

my eighth-grade math teacher still works at the same school.

he didn’t teach me how to do math in a way that stuck, he taught me about people. how you can only make so many sardonic remarks and smart-ass quips before the fact that you’re 14 doesn’t matter. he still sits in the same classroom while the girls turn to each other years later and cringe when his name is spoken. where is his name is followed by “wasn’t that weird when-“

he taught us how to tuck our skirts under our thighs and keep our knees together as he walked through the desks. how to pick up his pens quickly when he dropped them before he got the chance to bend down and linger. he taught me how to talk sexy: keep your answers short, never say quite what you mean. 

2- monday night

monday night we smoked grass on the roof for the last time. isaac smoked a cigarette for the first time all year, and we watched as the snow fell slowly and covered everything until it all looked like clouds. later, we drove a half-hour away in a snowstorm to the 24 hour diner to get coffee and omelettes, and we used up the rest of our money to play “mr tambourine man” on the jukebox. you sang your heart out to the long-haul truckers, drunk party girls, and single old waiter. then we beat each other up in the parking lot, laughing and trying to draw blood, until we wore ourselves out and piled back into the junk that litters the floor of your car. 

3- empty room

after you moved out, you went back to california and left me to clean out your room. i spent the night placing your clothes in boxes and clearing out your desk drawers. it struck me, deep into it, how many things you so easily left behind. among them:

• letters from your mother
• antique rolling tray
• your favourite CDs
• three open tubes of toothpaste
• your posters, magazines, and books
• birthday cards from your sister
• an ashtray full of old cigarettes
• your diary
• your favourite pipe
• your favourite sweater
• most of your shoes