riverrunsthruu

[riverrunsthruu]

oh God. I missed him so bad and I didn’t know it was him I was missing!

I have, genuinely, never felt this way before. Genuinely.

I have wanted to run and hide and freeze and hide and stop time and hide and hide hide hide myself but now I don’t care. I’ll let him see me. And I’ll let myself realize that I’m going to be seen and that it’s not going to kill me. It didn’t even kill me the last couple times, just broke me down so badly that I felt like an impossible case.

I remember telling friends, “I’m cursed.” Why was I so hard on myself when he’s so soft to me? So tender and ginger even when I tell him to bite harder? I want him to eat me all up so I can disappear. Am I trying to run away from this? From feeling hot inside? From letting myself let him in?

I have never felt this way before! There was nothing before this! Before him!

I send him signals down the invisible telephone wire that connects our brains and souls to one another, telling myself that it’s really not that serious but simultaneously hoping that it is. I want it to be serious. I really want serious. I want him. I have him, I think. I really do.

[riverrunsthruu]

“I had a dream last night that I had to drive through the Appalachian mountains which kind of seems like it’s about you, tangentially.”

I’m sick I’m sick I’m sick I’m sick I can’t eat and I can’t sleep my body had a real, blood and bone reaction to him having to leave and not being in my bed anymore. I want our limbs all tangled up. Come back!

[riverrunsthruu]

[riverrunsthruu]

[riverrunsthruu]

the 11-11 pinkie ring I purchased myself from a flea market in Hawaii in January broke, today.

Two months and some change later. The 12th of January to the 27th of March. In between those dates it’s seen four PhD program rejection emails (they don’t do letters anymore), a proper green river Chicago St. Paddy’s, me picking up a third job, a decision to give up dark soda for Lent, the passing of David Lynch and a subsequent decision to pull the trigger on a cinema membership, my first presentation at a big regional conference, two different trips home and back, kitchen-scissor bangs, an unfortunate situation where I legitimately shit my pants, my first set of acrylic nails, and a lot (a lot) of tears. So many tears.

I filed the sharp edges of the ring with a nail file and bent it a bit over itself. I changed its composition to fit my circumstances better. It won’t fall off my finger now.

I wonder what this means. Actually, I wonder what’s coming next.

[riverrunsthruu]

Chappell Roan in Valentino / Michael Blanchard; Michael Kovac & Michael Loccisano

[riverrunsthruu]

the entrance to the women’s locker room at my new gym (the only gym I’ve ever belonged to) smells like an indoor pool.

The smell—Lysolic—conjures up memories and feelings that I don’t know if I actually experienced or if I dreamed up. The line is blurry and mildly frightening. Like something happened to me in my childhood that I cannot remember. That I blocked out. But I think I dreamed that up, in a way, to try to explain my circumstances and make sense of how I pull my clammy hands away every time.

The grocery store next to this new gym is wayyyy too fucking expensive and I grab my mini gnocchi to cook and eat later while I’m binging and I get annoyed, for the fifthteenth time this week, that my roommate doesn’t have to worry about paying for her own groceries. I cry on the walk home thinking about the reflection of my body in the warped gym mirror and the way my bangs stuck to my red forehead. I cry again while listening to Visions of Johanna and my tears freeze on my face.

Is it all preordained? Or, can I actually change things that seem out of my control? I can avoid stepping on certain parts of the sidewalk or I can make sure to tell my sister I love her over text. Is the anxiety over my future and my grey hairs worth anything? Anything other than more grey hairs?

[riverrunsthruu]

Are you afraid?

always

[riverrunsthruu]

“The American South” by Anthony Blasko

[riverrunsthruu]

picking off the stubby tips of my eyelashes

and wincing, slightly for show, when I accidentally pluck one all the way out. It’s like stubbing your shin or hip bone on a dull piece of furniture and saying, “ow!” as more of a reflex than an indication of anything you’re feeling. Because you’re not feeling anything at all!

Besides feeling sick, and snotty, with a semi-sore throat and stopped-up sinuses that are conspiring to give you the most conniving type of headache. There’s so much pressure in your skull that your head could split open, right now, the just-moisturized (Neutrogena water cream x9) skin so supple and squishy that it has no trouble pulling itself apart, away from itself, like an elasticized piece of cheese, as the pressure mounts and mounts and mounts and mounts and mounts and mounts and explodes.

I’m sick and I shiver a little bit now sitting on top of the covers, all bare legs and Benadryl. I hope sleep comes on fast. I hope sleep fixes everything. I hope tomorrow I can go about my day like I have planned to go about my day for the last six weeks but haven’t once done. Despite supportive parents, a bloated stomach, and all the time in the world, which will pass anyway. I’m standing, GODSENT sweatshirt and bare-legged in a blizzard, with time swirling all around me. I’m paralyzed. I can’t do anything. It’s so fucking cold. My toes are turning black from frostbite. I chuckle. “Ow!”

[riverrunsthruu]

I paint my nails now, three years later, with the same pearlescent polish.

I want to feel—now—like I could’ve stepped out of the ocean, been borne gorgeous and perfect and pure from the sea.

I bought this polish in Italy three Februaries ago, in the town where they have that famous horse race. Where the neighborhoods used to be gangs named after different animals. I spoke quickly to the sales girls, the three of them striking with their red lips and straightened hair, because I was told my Italian would sound more believable and less clunky if I got the words out fast.

“My Italian is soooo bad,” I said, in Italian. They laughed and said in English, “No, no, you’re so good. Our English is so bad!” It wasn’t. It was perfect.

I have been sad each February since. Is my body remembering something bad, or is this just what the month is like?

I know that Lent is approaching because I feel like dirt. From the ground. Like dust. I could blow right away into the wind and mix with the fat fluffy Chicago snow. I could mix with the snowflakes and melt into water and get frozen to the front windshield of my car in the morning and I could watch my red face, pressed flat against glass, as I curse at my own self, particles of my own body and my own dust, as I rub my hands together. “Shit. I’m gonna be late to school.”

[riverrunsthruu]

i find it funny that conservatives try to paint me calling for the death and destruction of multi-billionaire CEOs as some radical "woke liberal" standpoint. as if that even has anything to do with politics, especially in this era of surface level circus politics. the same way they try to politicize the hurricanes or the wildfires destroying parts of america, as if climate change is somehow a red vs. blue issue. it's no secret i'm from a deeply conservative family in the sticks of florida and i still grew up hearing "i fought the law and the law won". the healthcare system has fucked each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation. remember when country music, the genre currently associated the heaviest with the most conservative faction of america, used to be staunchly anti-government and about sticking it to the man? remember when the coal miners, grandfathers to the "trump-er hillbillies" of appalachia that everyone loves to write off as ignorant, fought tooth and nail for unionization because the companies that were built off their labor didn't give a shit if they lived or died? since when has "upholding traditional values" gone hand in hand with... defending lawmakers and oil tycoons. my family and i complain about the same issues at the dinner table. the men in charge better hope they can keep their digital smokescreens running as long as they can because the moment the rednecks and the hippies lay down their swords long enough to realize they have the same enemy, all hell is gonna break loose.

[riverrunsthruu]

how do i love myself? or, how do i let myself love myself?

I think this to myself in the shower in a classic Hannah Horvath-type-beat moment where I draft one-liners in my head that I plan on writing down later for others to read. Or, to shout into the ether as I'm doing here.

I feel it's easy to have a "bad week" as an adult working a job and just dealing generally with the monotony and arbitrariness of Monday through Friday (as a thing and a concept) without the scaffolding of school to support you and dictate your schedule, your priorities. I am lucky to have things to do, to fill my time. Truly, though, I had a bad week.

Rejection letter, wait-list letter, looming job interview, waking up too early, going to sleep too late, not going to be able to pay my rent-- whatever. The list goes on, always goes on. And I continue doing what I've always done, working through it and making it out the other side. That won't change now.

I want to put pause on it all and just sit with myself until I feel like, well, myself again. Obviously, it doesn't work like that. I keep thinking all of this might be 'better' or 'easier' if I just let myself love myself. Maybe I need to be gentler, kinder, etc. Or maybe some things just suck and I cannot change them. I can only take them as they come to me and then wait, wait, wait. Wait.

[riverrunsthruu]

need a polite way to say "im not engaging in a discussion on this topic with you because the conclusions you have reached are based on so many interwoven layers of misconceptions it would be easier to just like, hard reset your whole brain, just start over as a baby and try again"

[riverrunsthruu]

coming home is nice because there are so many cemeteries here

and there are not many cemeteries near me in the big city. None that I can find, anyways.

The summer my friend died, a couple years ago, I would sit in my car in the massive cemetery and weep and weep into my takeout lunch. I’d wipe my tears with brown paper napkins and chew anxiously on clear plastic straws. Now, when I’m home, I go back to the cemetery to sit in the same car and cry different tears. It makes me feel calm, despite all the crying. My friend isn’t even buried there— I don’t think he was buried at all.

I had such a bizarre night last night… women stranged on the side of the road with no coat, strangers in my car, re-connecting with an old friend on grief, being propositioned by a wealthy film producer and creep… all between 10:30pm and 2 in the morning. The veil felt—no, feels—so thin. I know exactly what I’m doing with my life, with my plan, but I still doubt myself. I still want to throw up everything in my stomach until I turn myself inside out. Until there is none of me left.

[riverrunsthruu]

fuck yes Hayden!!!

i find it funny that conservatives try to paint me calling for the death and destruction of multi-billionaire CEOs as some radical "woke liberal" standpoint. as if that even has anything to do with politics, especially in this era of surface level circus politics. the same way they try to politicize the hurricanes or the wildfires destroying parts of america, as if climate change is somehow a red vs. blue issue. it's no secret i'm from a deeply conservative family in the sticks of florida and i still grew up hearing "i fought the law and the law won". the healthcare system has fucked each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation. remember when country music, the genre currently associated the heaviest with the most conservative faction of america, used to be staunchly anti-government and about sticking it to the man? remember when the coal miners, grandfathers to the "trump-er hillbillies" of appalachia that everyone loves to write off as ignorant, fought tooth and nail for unionization because the companies that were built off their labor didn't give a shit if they lived or died? since when has "upholding traditional values" gone hand in hand with... defending lawmakers and oil tycoons. my family and i complain about the same issues at the dinner table. the men in charge better hope they can keep their digital smokescreens running as long as they can because the moment the rednecks and the hippies lay down their swords long enough to realize they have the same enemy, all hell is gonna break loose.

[riverrunsthruu]

"i want to be a good writer, or be considered to be a good writer. but nothing i write is my own"

-i wrote in my journal two nights ago at 2 in the morning, when the veil was thin thin. the journal previously exclusively used to write down analytical thoughts. oh no! i strayed from its purpose and its theme. now it's tainted. (that's not true...)

i'd like to put those analytical thoughts somewhere outside of their leather confines some day. the substack is a nice start, but it feels so public. people's parents have access to that kind of shit now. besides, i never feel like the authority. there's always someone out there who knows more than i do/would. someone who can write it down so it reads better, more eloquent. less fragmented and confused (like this).

maybe this is the start to finding my writing voice? or, to becoming more comfortable with it? private blog... if you see this... no you don't. unless you like it. but why am i worried about that?

it'll be the coldest night of the winter so far tonight.