grow down

after writing for a while I ate soup and took selfies 

The room smelled of grandpa’s shoes and they proceeded to tell me, ‘we are hooking you to up to a monitor, you might want to close your eyes in case anything frightens you’ / maybe it would appear that after after all these months--I still forgot my own address--that those handprints on my wall that came with the house had lied and those did not belong to me / I could see all the people I’d gone through, short, tall, tippy toed, thicker hair than the dirty rings around my bathtub; I wanted a reason for liking baths better showers / a hypothesis to why my sockets changed when I was shocked by the light switch in the basement / how could orange be my favorite color when green made me feel pretty decent too? / but no, shocking did not bring me outside—I sat down, faced forward, and promised no matter what, that this screen was going to be a new best friend / a week later, Thomas found me skipping rocks and in geometry class—plop, plop—he sighed and blurted out 'I can’t stand human mannerisms!' I wanted the words out of his mouth to mimic those of a jazz saxophone, or deep esophageal sounds from a tibetan elder, telling me stories about their many old lives, even if they were lying for maybe two or three of those tales / "Who asked for you today?" He smiled, knowing he had information, and I would spend hours trying to retrieve the scrolls by bartering every CD to my name—but Thomas was not fond of pop or obscure folk / He unzipped his backpack and took out a tape recorder—Thomas always carried the weirdest things including a can of baked beans, a diet coke, two winter hats—most likely a couple sizes too big, and bandaids / my mind sprinted to the conclusion that Thomas might’ve been a clepto, at least it explains about a third of our couple years; whispering between oak desks, where students above us carved out unflattering scenes/ I started playing with hangnails and a fuzzy sound of fear rang from his purple tape recorder / ‘"Leave okay?"—"the restroom is closed now."—"Nevermind that, I’m gonna need a few more days!" "Why didn’t you say it sooner?" / as the lake stirred with bubbles, a taste of grass flooded my mouth, I had forgotten we were outside at an unfamiliar park. Thomas kept picking the prettiest flowers and throwing them into a ditch with graffitti or pollution, as my nana calls it. Moving forward again, I hugged my knees so I could keep track of my body parts and focus on the tape / "I was busy trying to find out where the missing ones went, they all look blue to me.. but um, not to worry by Friday I’ll have things packed up and on their way" / Thomas often put on one acts sporadically in the school parking lot if any of his teachers passed by, he called out to them a hand me down monologue on improv; nothing makes sense. / I wanted to hang a sign on my back that said, "NO LONGER HUMAN" / I hated that by three o' clock the door would slam, my eyes would go pink and yellow by floaters, and just on key a telemarketer asking if we’d like to claim our million dollars would leave the same message. More footsteps around me stomped, I counted twelve pairs of shoes, but I hoped it was only one—if only in these moments, I could escape inside my body. No one would think anything of it, I’d look the same, but I wouldn’t be vulnerable because I’d be swimming around in my stomach or my brain and keeping away from thoughtful intruders. 

pls pls pls snow,

casey