not the end of everything.

– before beginning, I become distracted by my image – and what’s distracting is I don’t think of it as my own – (I’ve written this two thousand times before, in other words and also the same) – the maintenance of being myself – well, it’s an idea I’ve been engaged with all my life – and the truth is it’s a process which I acknowledge but somehow can’t accept – I have no patience, that’s one theory – fuck your theories – and I agree – or maybe, it’s being better than myself that I take to be my responsibility – if not, a responsibility, call it the chore I’m asked to accomplish everyday – the only job my parents hold me accountable for – she said if it’s about you, then your life is paved by selfish pursuit – in other words, you don’t mean to do good –the great kind, that is – when she said that, it wasn’t the first time, I knew this but it’s not like she remembered – because what she says about me and my life doesn’t effect her – I tried to process the insinuation, along with the last few weeks – but it was a lot to do at once – and, well, I don’t have patience – not any patience, but the patience this sort of revelation requires – so because I couldn’t do everything I just repeated what she said, well the one line that stuck or that I remembered – and while repeating it, I told myself to memorize it, remember it really, so it can mean something for someone – but as I was repeating it, I began replacing “it” with “this” and now what I’m so hurt about is when she said, “if this is about you, then your life is only in pursuit of doing good for yourself” – I feel hurt but maybe it’s just the confusion – so I told her – “I never say I want to be a famous author”…“I’ve never said that” – which was true at the time and still is if I say so myself – I stood up because I was through talking, which means I just couldn’t talk or want to – and pulled the fat of my thighs like a clamp – in the mirror I looked thin – but then I thought about my hands and the pulling and that I was becoming an illusion, that I wanted to mistake the real, that I was anything but substantial – really all I was doing was perpetuating an ideal – “Would you stop already, it’s fucking nauseating” – “This fat is going to make me throw up” – “It’s muscle” – “It’s weakness” – “Get over yourself” – “I am”– “Why were you crying about who takes the cat when you move?” – “Because” – “You’re leaving?” – “Because I love her” – “You’ll love any cat that’s yours” – “What else am I doing wrong?” – she was talking, explaining, expounding, whatever word makes a drone sound somewhat worthy of listening to – but I couldn’t hear her, only because I didn’t want to care – you know people can talk for hours and never know each other – even though she told her and he told him that that night they were so close – at times I know I’ve lived two lives and just yesterday was told, in this third one, that I live in the moment but then will go and spend time thinking, spend too much time reflecting – when I was a child, I thought adults were different because they acknowledged the important things – I always thought this was a privilege – now-an-age I seem to be wrong and friends try to correct my behavior – I don’t care – when I was intimidated by adults, their lives, I still dreamed about them – and I do – dream about me all grown, secure, writing about the world, how we look too big, feel so small –