come on baby, light my fire!

and here it is: the pit. 

the pit that forms in my stomach every time i leave massachusetts and come back here, to a town that should be my same-old home but every day grows less and less familiar. old, dusty, low-lit pubs become gauche sports bars, mom & pop shops close in favour of trendy cafes, the women's resource clinic is torn down. everything there is to do was done when we were 14, and every day i wonder how far i could get if i just started running down the long, cornfield-lined highway. i've been trying my damned best to not just sit around all day and wait for the phone to ring- yes, i'm waiting for you to call me- but as the days go by it seems bleaker and bleaker.

this instance keeps returning to me- and i am speaking directly to you now, forgive me- that occurred in january that's been eating at me ever since. it was when i was in your (at the time) girlfriend's car and she threw her phone at me to play music and all the searches were songs i knew she didn't listen to and it hit me that those things are what you to would listen to when you were in the car alone. there was something about that realisation that struck me, it felt to personal to look to see what they were. it wasn't her music, or your music, it was the two of you existing completely honestly together. but i talk about her too much. i didn't intend for this to divulge into the open letter it seems that it has, but i'm not going to stop myself because who the fuck am i supposed to say this to and besides, you're never going to read this and so: i think i bring up your ex-girlfriend too much. the reason is, i think, that deep down i know that nothing will ever come close to how much you love her. and yes, i walked into that one with my eyes wide open and still i managed to hurt myself over it. most times, it really doesn't bother me. i know the way you two lived and i know how much you mean to each other but damn, i wish my entire relationship with you didn't completely revolve around her. (and it's not enough that she's still in love with you) all those times i turned before you kissed me were because i caught her looking with that look on her face like she'd been stabbed, no matter how happy her new girlfriend makes her and no matter how much she left you for her, she loves you more. 

i fucking understand now why the beats all went west- i sit in the car and i think about just driving and driving and what is there on the east coast? i've seen new york, i've seen boston, i've seen the little horseshoe crabs. i want to fucking drive through the endless expanses of dust all alone and write what comes to me and sing with the windows rolled down letting the sand in. i want to sit on the beach and wait for the sun to rise behind me while i look at the ocean and ask myself how hard it would really be to just walk on out there and not come back. 

i've been thinking a lot lately about reincarnation and quantum immortality, separately. we died back there when we almost went off the road and we died back there when we got lost in the woods and we died back there when that man held that knife. we died when she sped up to pass the car in front of us, ignoring the car already in the oncoming lane. we died when the carbon monoxide alarm went off and we didn't leave. and as for lifetimes, i've seen so many people for the last time in this lifetime. left finny without even saying goodbye, and i'll never see him again in this lifetime. i knew a girl when i was little who was named samsara, and i never thought about the beauty of that until i got older. 

i am going to throw away everything i own. i have too many things, and i've been trying to throw them all out for years and still, nothing has gone. two years ago i started leaving unmarked boxes of clothes on people's doorsteps, and strid really seems to appreciate it, but she's all grown up now and she's SURELY getting rid of her own things now too, so really i've got nowhere else to put them. as for the baubles, i like the baubles. i hope one day i own my own little house and i fill it with baubles. i am getting rid of a vast assortment of baubles, though. it's the little things that get me, though. i don't want this unburned candle or this unopened hair dye or this full box of envelopes. 

and the fucking plants. i planted new plants to keep my mind off how fucking awful i've been feeling. the problem is i can't plant them in the ground, they're not native, and i can't just kill them, that feels like it defeats the purpose, and i can't take them with me, i'm travelling, and i can't give them away, everyone's travelling. and how much longer am i living here? it doesn't make sense to get an apartment here if i'm only going to be here for 3 months a year, and if i move out to massachusetts then i'm stuck in a place with no one i know for the 3 months when everyone's gone and at that point why not just come back here and visit everyone i know.