in betweens so i'm sitting here with a sock puppet thinking really? this is really what was fated for may the 31st 2008? for me to be sitting here...with a sock puppet named anwar or pookie or bitterness or whatever finding a drunk dial call from a guy who used to stalk me the most comforting thing to happen the whole day seriously? who writes this stuff? sally will be here tomorrow. tomorrow i'm done with this semester. tomorrow is the end of an era. starting tomorrow my books go into boxes and my room no longer has yellowing walls and a broken door no it has a LOCK, a beautiful precious lock, it has light purple walls a four poster bed, two balconies-- one of them overlooking a vast expanse of...sand (it's still beautiful) it's going to be so different. everythings already different but now my streets going to be taken away. you didn't have to take it out on the street you know. it's so innocent... i used to go to nursery on this street when i was four. my baby brother was born around the corner. and you didnt have to take it out on wust el balad. i had my first beer there. i saw my first play there. my first gallery. my first kebda on the street. my first lunch with a stranger in a dark bar tucked in the corner of a rundown building. where's the stranger supposed to take me now? one of the fourteen on campus cilantros? i met three best friends there and i did so much growing up with them there. you didn't have to do that and you didn't have to make me think i could find shelter in someone again. that hurt. yeah i'm still up. i know, i'm grateful. but i'm sorry, starting tomorrow i have no idea what i'm going to do everyday. not for the rest of my life-- that's fine, i can freak out over that but the in between the in betweens that took five years to grow. the little places where i knew what to order and how to order, the faces i knew, the time to walk and where and how. all that stuff. i remember going up the stairs my first day in this building-- i remember i fantasized about one day running up the stairs like any other day, after hanging out with my friends, going home in a taxi by myself (inconceivable back then)-- i fantasized about the security i would feel in a few years and five years later it's as if i'm still on those god damn steps! i don't know how i'm going to fight my parents about driving so i can leave that house in the middle of nowhere. i dont know where i'm going to drive to once i can-- certainly not those fancy faceless coffee shops. i dont know where i'm going to buy cigarettes on that giant caged up campus. i dont know if i can talk to a bunch of freshman on a patch of sand pretending to be the garden. i know this is silly. i know everybody worries about the bigger things-- the future. i've got that too, i dont complain about that-- i'm fine with being the starving artist. no i'm not. but i'm in denial and it works for me. but i guess i'm just saying...take comfort in the things that haven't changed. like your bed, and your neighborhood, and your school and old jokes and the places that feel familiar because they can be taken away too and no matter how great your plan for the future is-- it'll never replace the comfort of in betweens |