When I Was 20, I Lived in a Living Room

And I wrote about all my present events as if they were in my past. It's a strange thing to do, but at the time it made sense.

See,

I felt bulletproof for a little while.

And then I realized I was wrong, but it only made me feel bulletproven, validated.

As in,

"No, I am not bulletproof, but here -

look at all this bullet-proof.

I have the wounds to show you.

I'll lift up my shirt;

you will see

I am riddled.

come, occupy my negative space."

And so,

we acted like happiness was a score to be settled

- a dual.

Pointed earned and lost through laughs and smiles, or...something like that.

- touche.

Score tied, zero-zero.

Sometimes they call that "love."

But in actuality, there is no winning or losing. There is only luck

, and inertia.

Keeping the planets lined up (in just the right way),

Keeping the stars saying yes (or no, sometimes),

Guaranteeing - at the very least - that any part of the dust in my lungs might find its way into yours

, or vice-versa.

And now, instead:

stick

tick

click

b o o mstayawhile

s t i c k a r o u n d.

(putmymouthonyours, the rest is easy [or so they say])

i'm just saying,

if you stayed in my living room,

i'd let you keep your clothes in my garage.

I Was Going to Google It, But I Thought We'd Have a Conversation Instead

I WANTED to document 30 minutes of an amphetamine crash.

5:04 a.m.
These are the most unproductive moments of my life. My heart has never beat so fast, and my eyes have never moved so slow. I'm darting. I'm shaking. I'm drafting notes.

Is this a panic attack?

The sun doesn't rise until 6:38 a.m., did you know that? The fuck is that about? Did you know I'm a little more than a mile from campus, and there's thunder and lightning and rain, and that might make it dark for a little longer? I think it will, and I don't have an umbrella or a hood or an excuse.

No, really, is it?
Hours ago my heart felt like it would swell until it exploded. MY BODY WAS ALL CAPS. I was so excited. I love(d) you all, I want(ed) you to know it. My arms tingled. My thoughts chased after my words, which tumbled carelessly and endlessly out of my mouth, my eyes were bright. I laughed into your collarbone, I told you all how much you meant. Now, alone at 5:09 a.m., an amphetamine rush is only panic. My mouth is dry. I don't want water. I want water. I have to get up for water. No water. Where is my love now, where are my thoughts? I have no more words; the insomnia stole my words. Where are all those whom I've neglected for fear of missing? Where are all those whom I've avoided because they kept calling, unknowingly waiting for my anxiety to subside? Where is everyone now that my hands are shaking and the sun's still hiding and the clock moves two minutes forward only to fall one minute back?
-
I think I have effectively broken every basic rule my parents have ever given me. All at once.
I think I look like an asshole when I try to dance like a hipster. I think everyone looks like assholes when they try to dance like hipsters. But I think I do it wrong, so the asshole-ness is extra. Like, I get a gold sticker.
-
By the way,

Sorry I stole the sheets from your bed.
Sorry I didn't let you know what was going on. I didn't mean to, or not to.
Sorry I was drunk when you saw me. Sorry I'll be drunk next time you see me. I'm actually only a little sorry, but I know I should be more sorry, so here's my apology.
Sorry I did exactly what I begged you not to months ago. Sorry I cried then. I cry easily; it's a little stupid and a lot embarrassing.
-
What if we made fewer confessions and told more truths?
-
Sometimes there are nights that disappear into haze. Maybe you forgot what you were on.
Sometimes you wonder where you were all night, and then you wonder where you should have been, and you wonder if you should have been the source of the noise. If you should have been making the floorboards creak and wail with your jumping, if if the walls would have been happier to echo your voice. Entire portions of night disappear. Where did they go? More importantly, where did I go? I think that I stopped existing for just a little. I think I got lost in an alcove; it was pretty dark, y'know?
-
I think that I live far away from home, though I don't really know what that means.
Hometown nostalgia tricked me in those last few days, made me think it was real. Made me desperate to be seen before I disappeared. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be wearing skinny jeans and plaid, I wanted all of you to see how the band of my boxer briefs peeked out the top of my pants. I'M GAY, I wanted you to know. I'M GAY, and I was gay when you knew me, but now I'm not sorry, and no one needs to tell me it's okay and that I'm okay and that high school doesn't really matter, because I always knew those things. It's just that now I believe them.

Leaving was sad. Leaving was final.
They said you'd go to college, and you'd come back, but you'd never come back. I think I'm going a little farther this time.

About that thing, about my parents, about how we fucked it up. We just fucked it up, this thing. That they always saw their lives, secure and prosperous, without lesbian daughters or heartbreaking arguments or silent stalemates. We should have been sad to see each other go; instead, I think we're relieved. How does that thing happen? That thing where your life wasn't what you wanted or expected or believed? Does it happen to our unhappy, middle-aged parents? Or does it happen to us all?
-
But hey, what am I scared for? Hey Brandon, didn't we realize today that everything, every moment has already happened at some point in time? All of this has already happened; somewhere it's done. It's just a matter of getting there. I'm worried about 6:38 a.m., but that's okay, because by 7:38, I'll know. It's just a matter of getting to 7:30. Life will just happen until then; we'll get there. We'll know.
-
5:33 a.m.
Street lights still glowing orange. Can't tell if it's raining, can't see through the blinds. Weather.com says it's raining. Guess I'll have to trust that. I wonder if, when I get outside in an hour, I'll be trapped between places, locked out of one apartment, a mile away from the next. It's going to be raining, which is too bad, because I wanted to walk along to the sunrise. Maybe I should memorize these directions, just in case the newly inked napkin melts through my fingers on the way.

I Have a Chronic Need to Explain Myself

1. Tonight is my last night in the Philippines. I will miss Biblical flooding and laying on the bed being too hot to move and being too shy to speak too much in public and getting drunk in my grandma's house after she insists that I eat lasagna.
2. Last night was my second to last night in the Philippines, and it was wonderful, and it reminded me feel that I have a lot to come back for.
3. There are gays here. As a general statement, they're cute and always willing to talk to my drunk ass.
4. Have you received your postcard yet? Well that's because I didn't send it. Here's a preview!

For anyone who doesn't know about Katrina 'Asian' Casino Postcard Project 2009, here's a brief explanation.

A couple of days before I left, I collected addresses of people who wanted postcards (this part is relatively straightforward). Now, I was going to write you all personalized rap songs, but as I have a tendency to always insist on being embarrassingly honest, I decided to put a spin on it (the postcard project, not the rap songs. That could come later though). I collected the names, and drawing them at random, assigned the recipients to one another. I also threw in some extra people who I haven't been talking to/didn't ask for a postcard. Just for funsies. And because I didn't have any dark secrets to reveal to some people. Everyone who's receiving a postcard is receiving a confession, secret, or general pointless rambling/crazytalk to another person. Just something I've never told them because I'm too awkward or shy or lazy or I have social tact or something (this is a lie, I have no social tact). Each postcard begins with "You don't know this, but" and then continues on to whatever one-sided conversation I wanted to have. I feel like this post is going to turn into some absurd Filipino post-secret ripoff, but sometimes that's just how it is.















Also I tried to get the tackiest postcards available.
Also I'm a really poor planner, and these will probably be mailed from New York.

So without further ado, I bring you a series of really serious statements followed by really hilarious pictures.

---------------------------------------------
You don't know this, but...

Sometimes I get a little scared that we'll never be who we were on that first night.

You're one of my favorites, but I'll never admit this to you because I'll always be too afraid to hear I'm not one of yours.

Everyone knows it's always been about you.

And I don't know if you'll ever believe it, but I'm fine.
(The rice paddies that my ancestors slaved on so that I'd never have to wear sunscreen in the summers)

Once I was lurking your Facebook page, and I accidentally liked one of your wall posts, then freaked out because I was way too high to figure out that I could unlike it.
(Alternatively: Meeting you was like meeting myself.)
(Fuck yeah, tigers!)

You and I both need to calm the fuck down.

I'm fully aware that all I really do is break promises to you.

You're the reason I question anything at all.
(Am I the only one who finds proud eagles of all nationalities to be hilarious?)

You're the reason for the flowers in my hair.

Every action that has defined our relationship has also perfectly and explicitly conveyed my deepest personality flaws in a way that I never could have anticipated or expressed.

When I was younger and thought that I wanted to get married and thought that I wanted to get married to a man, that man I pictured was just like you.
(Mabuhay a las Filipinas! We sell slippers, brooms, fans, and...wedding cakes made out of beads?)

Sometimes I find you to be so unbelievably plain that I can't help but find you irresistibly attractive.
(Hello, favorite.)

Though you probably do, I should have kissed you right when I had you.

I love you...not like that, not really, anyway.
(I don't know if I just haven't been paying attention, but I have never fucking seen one of these.)

I'm really sorry we didn't get to talk in the brief time we were together, that time we existed in 3D.
(I have no idea why I don't own one of these hats yet.)

I wasn't even really sure if I liked you until recently.

I think you're really beautiful.

You should stick around.
(Hi, drag show this year plz?)

You're a little boring, but you're so so sincere, and I guess that's okay.

You might well be the reason I don't regret coming home this summer.

(I ran out of photos/postcards, so here's a picture of me getting attacked by a crab at my grandma's house.)

This postcard was discarded because I couldn't verify its truth:

I'D LIKE TO KNOW what you think of this. What you think of that, that thing I just said. I'd like to know if you knew, and if you knew then when you knew and why you haven't said anything, and come to think of it, why I haven't said anything either, but I suppose that's not for you to answer. I'd like a lot of things. I'd like hot nights with rolled down windows and loud music. I want to sing along. I'd like questions without answers and open ends and true belief in possibility. I'd like the fifty-yard line. I'd like a deluge, a rainstorm, silencing the world outside my car; I'd like to drive with no headlights. I'd like to know the corner of your jawline and what it feels like to thread my fingers through your beltloops. I'd like the rooftop where I learned to smoke and sneak and eventually not get caught. I'd like my hometown nostalgia. Fuck, I'd like any nostalgia.

And I don't know if you know this, but when I'm gone, I miss you the most.

What Am I, a Bicycle?

Or, The World Clock on My Phone Means Nothing
Or, There Are Motherfucking Cats Fighting on the Roof, and I Think I Just Heard One Fall Off

I was going to do a pretty dry, straightforward post about what's been going on the past week, but that got difficult as I have too many feelings, and I still can't properly structure any of my thoughts. I go between feeling elated then lonely then listless then frustrated. I can't quite figure out what I'm doing here yet. I think I'm on vacation. I don't know what that means.

Anyway, since I'm obviously going crazy, I've just compiled a couple of stream-of-consciousness deals I've written over the past few days. Sometimes I'm almost coherent, but it's not something I'd like to get used to.

---------------------------------------------------
IF A TRAIN LEAVES from Montreal at 8:30 am on July 23, and a plane leaves from Manila at 11 am on July 24 but also at 11 pm on July 23, at what point will the difference in time zones start to make sense? When will I understand what day it is? What will it feel like when I’m hurtling through time in the body of an aircraft, a time machine cleverly disguised as a plane? What will it feel like when the world unfreezes, again engaging in its perpetual motion, and I am awakened from this listless existence where I am haunted by the shuffling feet of lethargy and ennui? Will my days still blend together? Will they continue to lie before me, stretching out into infinity as if in a perspective study, their only end an early night’s sleep? What day is it now? It wouldn’t make a difference.
-
I think that, if I stared hard enough, I could make myself into you.
I think that maybe I’ve been studying without knowing, tracing dotted lines and cutting out patterns. But no matter how hard I try or how closely I look, I will always be only the paper doll version, cardboard clothes falling off at their poorly bent creases.

Maybe what I really want is to turn you into me, because maybe the only person I’ll truly love is myself. The only person who won’t ever leave is me, and even that’s a little questionable. If I turned you into me, would you leave? Or would I decide that I didn’t like myself and abandon you in your paper doll clothes? Probably. I’d let you turn to pulp in the rain, and I would know that you couldn't chase me.
-
THERE SHE GOES again disrupting the poetry of her collarbone.
A flash of red is a plea that you’ll remember her face, because she won’t tell you her name.
Her walk is brutal, her hips, her skinny, swaggering boy hips, unforgiving.
I’ll always think she hates me.
-
Sometimes
When I am drunk
My thoughts
Move vertically.

This also happens
When I am talking crazy.
-
I wonder sometimes if I made you up, or if it was the other way around. I wonder if you made me into you. Maybe that’s why you left.
-
Last night I meant to write a series of drunk emails.
Instead I threw up in my grandma’s bathroom.
And knocked over a picture of the Pope.
My cousin passed out on the couch.
And our grandma found her at 4am with all the lights on.
Today a really wide truck tried to get through a narrow street where our car was.
My aunt rolled down the window.
Translated, she yelled,
“What is this? What’s going on? What am I, a bicycle?”

I’m staying here an extra nine days.