today i’m you for the first time

i stare at my reflection in a subway window in between polished people going to work, white blouses and black suit pants. girls dress the same all around me. the lady beside me drinks coffee and looks at her horoscope. somebody in front of me reads a book about AI. a man blocks my reflection and stares into my soul. i get off at 23rd. 

i’m in the library reading. two guys sit down in front of me, wearing black shirts and cargo shorts, one of them eating a sandwich. they’re probably a bit older than me. i think, these are the people i want to be friends with. one of them looks back at me a few times and i can’t ever tell if it’s interest or strangeness that makes people do that. one of them leaves and it’s just sandwich guy left. it would be so easy for me to go up and say hey, but i don’t. i don’t know why i don’t. maybe i want it to be natural. maybe i want somebody to notice the book i’m reading or the shirt i’m wearing. sandwich guy leaves and doesn’t look back. i’m always looking back. 

i’m still in the library, but i’m reading in a little study room. technically i shouldn’t be here, but i’m here anyway until 12:30 when it’s actually being used (there’s a schedule). every few minutes people come to the tables in front of me and switch out. a girl with blonde dreads and yellow converse. a girl with short hair and a striped tank top. someone else calling someone else behind them. it’s weird being friendless but not minding. i have this feeling that any friend i’m going to make here, won’t be here.  i am once again reduced to a spirit or a ghost or some kind of invisible being, just watching others. in class i sit at the front and gladly answer questions while others stay quiet and silently judge me. i think about the impact this will make on the way people view me for a second, but then i realize i’m older than them, and also i’m not going into massive debt just to stay quiet all year. i compare hildegard of bingen to joan of arc and i get praised for it. i guess this is what art school is. a girl in all black waits for me to leave the room. i finish reading and go out to tell her that she can use it, because i didn’t need it anyway. i just hate that the library plays music.  she thanks me and goes in quickly. a ghost that passes through people. i continue reading outside despite the music. 

the library is in the basement, and since there’s no windows they have these projections of trees and the sky on the ceiling. in a way it’s depressing and fucked up. like some sort of futuristic design when all we have left is projections. people wave to each other and smile. it smells like compost. i still need to get my ID. 

i think i want to be in a band again. i turn to look at myself in the mirror and i have no idea what i actually look like. all i see is deep lines by my eyes that never go away, ever. an ill fitting shirt and a kind smile. i want to find a few people and shake them until they know what i’m trying to say. i wonder if i’ll ever find them. i go on craigslist and scroll through ads put it’s pointless. nothing ever comes like that. it’s always people in high school. and college. i’m in college. there were people in high school who i shook and they understood what i was trying to say. but not enough to shake me back. not enough to care and not care at the same time. not enough. i let out an involuntary cough. i’m not sick anymore but i keep coughing anyway. i really really don’t know why. i keep shaking people. i’ll keep shaking people until somebody shakes me back with enough force we shake countless others. is it about a sense of purpose? community? i surround myself with music and people in music and with music who do music and hate music and love music. but it’s never me. it’s almost been a year since my band broke up. 6 months of nothing but stress and being so so broke and paying people back and screaming, but not well. i need to shake somebody who’s okay with the last part and won’t make me feel bad about it. everybody in the world is in a band. every time i bring it up someone asks what i played. half the time i don’t even know how to answer that. i go back to reading. i think i’m so special and maybe the world will bend for me but everybody here has pins on their messenger bags too. i glare at a girl talking too loudly and maybe i think i should leave. i take turns looking at everybody’s faces and nobody looks back at mine yet again. i’m not asking them to - it’s just interesting being i a room with so many strangers and not knowing a single person. people sit next to me and eat salad. a girl with purple hair talks shit to her friend. i sit here and read and write what i see.

i sit on the bus going to 3rd avenue. it’s not fall yet. why do i feel like this? is it on purpose? it’s controlled, i know that. feels like cheating. but maybe that’s just what feeling is like without wanting to die. i just thought i was supposed to want to die.

i wait for a bus going back to 23rd. my shoulder hurts. my new bag is great, but it digs into my shoulder in a way i don’t like. i think my entire life i’ve wanted to be in a band. well, no. my entire life i’ve wanted to make people feel something with art. but the band thing too. i remember being 10 and 11 and 12 and thinking the thought. i remember being 15 and thinking the thought. being 17 and acting on the thought. being 19 and being in the thought. also being 19 and giving up on the thought. now i’m halfway through being 20 and there it is again. i know i should chill out and take things slowly. i just got here. i’m already doing a thousand things every day. but the idea stays put in the back of my mind and doesn’t let go of itself. the m23 inches towards me. i could walk but it’s hot and my shoulder hurts. maybe if the universe gave me a not so subtle sign i’d know i could try again. but the sign would have to be really big. a billboard saying GO DO IT, IT’LL BE BETTER THIS TIME, ITS NOT TOO LATE AND NOT EVERYTHING WAS BETTER 20 YEARS AGO. but even then i would probably doubt it.

a guy sits in front of me and watches something. i want him to be the guy i shake. i want to reach out and take his food and his starbucks drink and put my hands on his shoulders and say something like, we need to say something. do you want to say something with me. i’m afraid i’ll never see him again. but if i don’t speak nobody speaks. i just keep reading. he leaves and it’s over. i see my reflection in the glass beside me. this time nobody blocks it. the lines in my face never leave. my hair frizzes up. there is no perfection here. 

i’m almost late for second class. in my head it was thousands of light years away but in reality it started in one minute.

i get home and nothing is right. i go down wrong streets and of course i have nowhere to go while my roommate does therapy in the room i share. i lay on the kitchen floor. my bag, for some reason, feels like there’s bricks in it even though nothing in it is that heavy. my shoulder kills me. i am a ____. i am a vessel. i’ve been a vessel for so long i don’t know what else to be. i can’t stop looking at the kitchen light. perhaps i took my poem a little too seriously. tomorrow i’ll wake up and be you for the first time. i wonder who i turned into. okay, how about this: tomorrow i’ll wake up and i’ll be me for the first time. or how about just, tomorrow i’ll wake up.