Sometimes i Love My Life, and Other Times I'm Walking On the Side of a Highway
August 2011
Three weeks before the start of college, give or take, two friends and I ate Thai food in a scorching hot strip mall in Colonia, New Jersey. Some combination of the peppers and my gastrointestinal disposition that day caused me to pull over in the drive home, declaring, I have to poop! My two friends encouraged me not to waste any time on the side of the road, to move forward with our journey, for the peace of my home toilet awaited. After frantically pulling into the driveway, I made the grave mistake of opening my legs too quickly, feeling one small bit of feces leave my body. After all was said and done indoors, I told the raptured crowd that we must return to the car to find the missing turd. It never turned up, and in 2016, after ignoring it’s mechanical issues for far too long, I donated the car to Cars for Kids. I’m sure they cleaned it thoroughly before chopping it up and turning it into scrap metal for cans of Coke.
June 2022
I thought it was you who stopped texting me back, but turns out it was me. It was Pride season and I was feeling bad for myself, receiving approximately no invitations from the Manhattan gays I thought I had ingratiated myself with. You, on the other hand, clearly had plans, which felt unfair. I hated myself for feeling like that was unfair. It wasn’t until I saw you again in October that same year that I realized you were waiting for a reply, with my availability for that upcoming week. We probably would have done what we had been doing for the weeks prior. Greasy takeout, those frozen peanut butter cups that you filled my freezer with, a scary movie, you’d tell me how comfortable my bed is (again), you’d leave for work very early in the morning, I’d fall back asleep, forgetting to text you back until late in the afternoon.
April 2013
Our tent collapsed during a rainstorm, a few days after Easter in Italy. We woke up in a puddle that smelled like onion grass. We laughed at how bouncy the Italian language sounded. When the manager of our campground asked if we wanted another round of cappuccinos we said yes please.
September 2020
We sat on my back porch and talked about TikTok witches who predicted the pandemic. My new Soda Stream sat in the kitchen and we filled up bottle after bottle, getting chills at the ways our lives would never be the same. I told the story of the man I saw a few blocks south of Chinatown wearing a “Welcome to 2020” New Years hat. We all laughed. This was the last time the four of us sat together like this.
October 2012
We pooled our money together to buy a bong, three feet in length, from a head shop down Brighton Ave. It was an early fall night but we could still sit barefoot on our balcony, passing the bong around, until 11PM. Eventually, you told me you needed to lay down. The two of us followed you, sitting on the corners of your bed to make sure you were alright. Our weed-induced self-consciousness caused us to interrogate you, which we all realized at once. We couldn’t stop laughing, no matter how hard you pleaded. You sound like monkeys, you yelled! We laughed even harder. Eventually we turned the lights down and helped you fall asleep. In the morning, you told me it took you forever to fall asleep because your mind turned into a kaleidoscope. We seldom touched the bong again.
September 2001
I sat crosslegged on the floor of the “family room”, watching the news. It looks just like a video game, I exclaimed with shock, watching people teeter on the edge of the World Trade Center, choosing if they should die by fire or asphalt. You scolded me for being insensitive, for making a joke about something so serious. I felt misunderstood, unable to comprehend the severity of what was happening. Why would you let me watch something like that, anyway?
July 2013
I don’t remember when we started hooking up, but I remember when we stopped. It had been several weeks since we saw each other, the distance allowing the torridness of whatever happened weeks prior to dissipate. You told me you thought you might love me. I told you I couldn’t do the same. Our bedrooms shared a wall for the next few weeks and we did our best to stagger our schedules and friendships. I wonder if you heard me a week later when I found myself with another lover in the hot bedroom next to yours. I hope not; I never meant to hurt you.
August 2022
I rented a Zipcar to drive to Trader Joe’s in Queens because I thought a freezer full of vegan nuggets would save me from myself. Waiting in the parking lot of America’s Food Basket on Atlantic Avenue, in the corner of Brooklyn that isn’t quite Bed-Stuy, isn’t quite Crown Heights, and isn’t quite East New York, I thought about how it felt like no one texts me anymore.
Later this month, I’d be spending time with family, traveling to Western Massachusetts with two friends to attend a music festival at an art museum. I have a job, I’m healthy and I’m not homeless, but Jesus Christ, why don’t I have plans tonight. The Zipcar app said I could pick up the car ten minutes ago, but it’s still not here. I guess I’ll have to put off saving myself another day or so.
Maybe I’m just hungry, I thought. There’s a Popeyes just ahead. People who act the way I want to act don’t eat Popeyes as much as I do. What’s going on with me.
Just last week I loved my life. I felt accomplished and clean and desired and like people liked me. I guess sometimes I love my life, but other times, like right now, I thought glancing up at the elevated train tracks and high-way speed traffic making its way down Atlantic Avenue towards the thoroughfares that took people far away from here, I’m walking on the side of a highway.
September 2007
The goth kid with a heart of gold took to me. We sat next to each other in science class and I’d help him with his homework. This was a hard time in my life (bullying) but a good time too (success in school, acting lead in the school play) and I sensed that he knew I needed some protecting. People never messed with me when he was around. We made a funny pair—him in his parachute pants from Hot Topic, me in a White Abercrombie polo with a small turquoise moose—but doesn’t everyone at that age. For some reason I had a compass, for drawing perfect circles I guess. He asked if I dared him to pierce his knee with it. I dared him. He did it. We laughed. I never asked to see his knee again. I wonder if it ever healed right.
November 2022
No one mentioned that I was moving soon. I assumed everyone knew, but quickly realized no one know. Instead we sat around, eating tinned fish, talking about what everyone streamed that week.
May 2010
We didn’t skip school like the kids who cared less than us, but we still made it to Busch Campus in time for the show. The two of us rammed ourselves to the front of the crowd, saying No Thank You to the girl who offered us molly. The light bent in a way that, combined with the awe of new experiences in a teenage brain, gave me what I thought molly might actually do for me. I thought we’d make a point to do these things together forever, but instead, we did them less and less and now we don’t do them at all.
Sometime in the 1980s
All of this started