At school I watched students in my Creative Writing class preform self- written plays entitled: "Long Shot," "Where's the Lighter?," and "How to Befriend a Black Person." The lattermost was rather amusing. After school I took my dog on a long walk.

Spring was overwhelming the suburbs and quickly took a hold of of my senses when I walked on the secret path by the creek. Pollen lumped itself in white caterpillar-like mounds, losing fur to the breeze as if it were capable of shedding its winter coat. I thought to myself that life must be all about shedding skin, then forgot why I thought that.

There was the permeating smell of the wood of my door caused by the sun's persistant heat. I thought that if wood could sigh its breath would smell of Croatia, of the lazier ships that bob in the docks while the temperature rises to 35 degrees Celsius, and the floors of my grandmother's house when the doors to the terrace are open wide and she is smoking a cigarette, drinking Turkish coffee.

I remember how she sat with me there at 3inthemorning when I was young, plagued with insomnia. And the sensation of electricity in my fingertips that I always thought would accumulate to some otherworldly magic but only ever had me diagnosed with anxiety.

How can I explain this all, or even, any of it?

I keep checking my palms for dirt to find they are covered in blood.

Remember the talks you had with god as a child, before you decided, "fuck it, be evil"?

I should write about the sea, speckled with white foam from the northern winds

and how I am watching it reel past my window in clear skies scrubbed clean by last night's downpour.

It was different then (speeding down the edge of a continent) in blinding rain,

mouth slightly open from the concentration and strain of keeping my wheel straight at 80 mph in a windstorm.

Later that night when the gusts blew the stars in and the guests were stumbling around and

suddenly, it was overwhelmingly clear. So I kept a smile and pictured you playing pool in a musty room, armed with your ego.

That night I scrubbed away the rest of our veneer.

My words were dry and shattering, brittle in cold air.

I am crumbling with the force of your grip, chasing some teenage fantasy.

I am wide eyed, open mouth panting over your shoulder.

You think that I am boring and you've skimmed right through me, reciting predictable plot lines.

You cannot see the tenderness with which I am written, the thin font that carries me from one mistake to the next.

You do not understand that I am foolish and only interested in the unattainable.

That I cower in the hands of commitment, as I do when I catch you watching me

from across the room.

I should purge myself of everything vile, everything I don't like or understand.

I should move only with the intention of traveling somewhere new and never use people as modes of transportation.

I want to be young again, instead

I feel like something has broken deep inside me and I am waiting for the symptoms to set in.

Still I find solace

In the way things fall apart

The glass sticking in my fingerprints