Miss Elpea

Or, sometimes we hope for very small things. And we get them. And we’re happy. 

Hashtag, maybe we don’t spend enough time saying.

That time I thought I was in love
and calmly said so
was not much different from the time
I was truly in love
and slept poorly and spoke out loud
to the wall
and discovered the hidden genius
of my hands
And the times I felt less in love,
less than someone,
were, to be honest, not so different
either.
Each was ridiculous in its own way
and each was tender, yes,
sometimes even the false is tender.
I am astonished
by the various kisses we’re capable of.
Each from different heights
diminished, which is simply the law.
And the big bruise
from the long fall looked perfectly white
in a few years.
That astounded me most of all.

You cannot be grateful without possessing a past. That is why children are incapable of gratitude and why night prayers and dinner graces are lost on them. “Gobbles Mommy, Gobbles Grandpa…” George races through it. She has no reference points. As I get older the past widens and accumulates, all sloppy landlessness like a river, and as a result I have more clearly demarcated areas of gratitude. Things like ice cream or scenery or one good kiss become objects of a huge soulful thanks.
Nothing is gobbled. This is a sign of getting old. 

Anagrams, Lorrie Moore. 

No not really.
Instead I make lists. I am a list maker. Today it said go to the bank and I did. It said stop by Walgreens and I didn’t.

I work and I skate and I write and on the weekends, I drink with my weird little derby family, in which I am a zany uncle with hairs growing out of my ears but also maybe wit and something magnetic like sex appeal. If you squint. Harder.

I limit my Dr. Pepper intake to prevent diabetes. 

I keep snapshots taped to my wall and know that nostalgia means the pain of return; I don’t take them down.

I read and I shiver: be good to me, Lorrie Moore. I’ll happily give you my summer.

My cat sleeps on the couch. My cat greets me at the door. My cat won’t stop meowing, goddamnit you’re lucky you’re cute but god damn it. 

I mark days on calendars. 
Off like I’m waiting for something. Through like I won’t get them back.

My roommate leaves a spoon in a tupperware of mac & cheese. My roommate means gallons and bathtubs and lakes—well she is afraid of water; well that metaphor wasn’t your best; well I’m trying to say what I’m trying to say without saying it.

I am living in Muncie but am not broke. There are probably laws against this. 

I will remember this summer as the summer I wanted to never have children.
(also the summer of freezepops and the summer of knowing I am child enough for myself)

What I’m trying to say is keep moving. Write more. Maybe also, I love you.

I have my father’s knees.

The cicada skin I found on a telephone pole has hairs.

Grad school and writing and all of it. Considering all of it.
Today I feel like me again. 

Grandpa once told me he had always led a charmed life. I was nine and he said I looked like I’d get much of the same. 

Following a night of dancing/karaoke with Circle City & Bleeding Heartland:

Guerilla skating in a freshly waxed Atrium/Leterman building.

Old school video games: Diddy Kong’s Quest.

Simultaneous lawn sports: frisbee/soccer. 

Mass skinny-dipping like whoa. 

I’m building a tiny model of the big bang theory. Maybe. For the past week I’ve been wondering if the scope of it isn’t too large, with galaxies and universes shooting away from each other I mean that’s great. For universes. But I’m this tiny person thinking about other persons who are also tiny. I spend large portions of my day doing that, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we of the little people are caught in a bang that is similar to the big one. Reflexive, even. Like planets, humans begin at a single point and are flung great distances apart.

We’re born the same: wrinkly and crying and gooey and with that womb experience. It’s a small warm place, how different could they be? We all have weird body hair and none of us talk. THEN, our different mothers/fathers/whoevers take us back to our varying homes. I sleep in a pink crib and you sleep in a yellow one. Similar but not identical.

We will go to school. Different schools different teachers, but it’s the same idea. I get a pack of Starbursts in my lunch box and you get a Twinkie. We make friends. We get report cards. We decide stir-up pants are heinous. We do most of the same things but a little bit differently. When you get smashed in the face on the bus because you are a boy, that won’t happen to me. Later on, when we are twenty and you are drunk and slurring all this over, I won’t be able to relate. Not entirely, because we are flung apart, but I’ve been inside a bus. We have that. I can nod and say shit, son.

We finish high school maybe. I go to Ball State. You go to IU. Maybe Yale. Maybe trade school. (Maybe something farther than that, but I don’t know what that would look like to write it. Cars. All I know about not going to college is working on cars. That’s what I know and if you’re offended I don’t blame you. We are far apart and do not easily relate.)
At BSU, I am an English major but you are a math major. We both spend a lot of time in Robert Bell and I can guess what public restrooms you most likely frequent. You hear the trains at night when I do. When it’s sunny outside for me, it is for you also. I feed the ducks but you don’t ever notice they’re there. If I run into you at a restaurant in twenty years and say nice Ball State T. 2010? Me too! God, remember those ducks? You won’t. I cannot imagine Ball State without ducks and our conversation will be brief. 

We will graduate on the same day. Your mother will take photos and mine will not wear pearls. What next? Cities apart. I will sit between book shelves and you will sit at a conference table. I will no longer be able to imagine you in the restroom. Your water faucets are an enigma. You will have children and I will not. You will read bedtime stories to your children who are at the first leg of their Smaller Bang with other children you haven’t met. Their generation will not decide that stir-up pants are heinous. You will accept that because it is the personal expression of the child you love. I will turn on the TV, see stir-up pants worn in a non-ironic fashion, and I will hurl. Also some people move to Poland.

I have no idea what Polish fashions make me want to hurl. I can’t even begin to discuss that with you. 

anyway, it’s just an idea and I have homework so I’ll finish this later. Does that make any sense? Not really no I don’t think so. I want to say that the older we get, the more experiences we collect and because those experiences aren’t shared, the less intimate our relationships can be because we can’t relate. I mean, empathy is great, but maybe it only goes so far? Anyway, I’ve got a long commute and I think a lot.

This is so not what Tumblr is for. #internetetiquette,asshole.