i don't even recall writing this

& i thought how lovely to be loved
when they’re gone by their own hand or
by their own cigarettes,
so many people can whisper to one another
‘oh i loved her’
‘he helped me’
‘i miss him’
and never having seen their face
and when someone’s lying on their floor
and they worry they’ll never love anybody
as much as they love him
the man they never saw
she wrote on her hand,
i miss you
i love you
please come home
but gone away was he

too bad so sad
oh i loved her
he helped me
i miss him

pixies

sometimes you buy a record and it makes you awfully nervous because at first you don’t like it, but if you go to bed and listen to it the next afternoon, it sounds better. it still makes you uncomfortable though, the sound not sweet and breathy like your other albums
i think music ought to do that once in a while though
it should make you sit up and inch towards the edge of your chair and shift and wait until the grating guitar stops
it should make you think,
you know?
or maybe it’s better if no one knows at all.

an old piece of writing

i used to be afraid of escalators because i thought if i fell i would fall forever.
and then i was afraid of deep water and not being able to see the bottom of the ocean because i thought i could disappear into the dark folds of the sea
oh, i feared anything that i didn’t know much about.
i was drunk on knowledge for years, intoxicated by the smell of encyclopedias and the black ink marching along the thin pages.
i was scared of oncoming traffic, and of long division, being able to see people’s ribs, dancers, pointy shoes, molasses, not being able to do anything, becoming paralyzed.
i was afraid of attending the cinema because i worried i wouldn’t like the film, and my money would have been wasted.
the realization came slow, like a rainy morning with no sunlight, that the fear was not something i needed, though my body seemed to thrive on it
i melted away from terror
i was lonely, but i was happy, for a while anyway.

i am motivated to do nothing but sit inside and watch the cars go by, alongside the jews in their tall hats. and i wish singing didn’t mean you had to make sound.