ypsilanti's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- school you never had any reason to think you'd see the day you'd have to jump every fence that you, with your own hands, put up. the days are kind of turning into daytime and not daytime. last night we "talked" (in the way the electrons talk to birds or embraces talk to walls) until 6am, at which point my dad's alarm clock went off and i knew i had to go to sleep. perfect. being back at a house that belongs to my parents, especially for this extended period of time, throws me backwards into senior year of high school, and then time spent my first year of college when i couldn't afford my own place. up all night, never for a second unaware of the presence and definition of all the other people in the house. sleeping or not, familiar geographic location or otherwise, new days and jobs, extra housepets, a different couch or car or floorplan, the constant motion of all those years between then and now... and it's all exactly the same in many ways. i find myself thinking about things that haven't affected my life in years. my mind feels soft and wandering. i fell asleep to nightmares where my car flew off the road en route to all my dreams coming true, and then ones where my eyes had grown to the size of skateboard wheels and filled with circles of blood. waking up far too late in the day, but still finding a way to daydream, with the last rays of the sun falling down the mountains. how could this have been planned with any worse or any better timing? spin yourself around. extend your hand and i hold my arms up above my head to catch you from your side of the sky ******* let's fall asleep on the roof of the school again tonight, and maybe sleep while they're in class. from six or seven am until three or four in the afternoon, i think we'll be able to manage. it's no longer sad or terrifying to me, all the kids who used to make me so mad in there. now it's just funny. these serious students, wrapped so tightly in their concepts of future and ego based on ideas and tightropes as thin as the sheets of paper they run through while we're dreaming above their ceilings.. stockpiling quotations and darts, saving it all up like people used to build bomb shelters.. amassing these nameless concepts and permission slips whichfor, but not noticing the drain that runs directly from the stems of their ambition to their time and possibilities. when we wake up, as soon as the last bus drives away, or maybe later, i'll show you the far part of the playground i was telling you about in that story i started.. where one night me and the first girl i ever dated were driving around.. this was the year after we graduated, maybe two years, i don't know.. and she kept on wanting to make out or have sex in strange places around the neighborhood. initially making "jokes" or weird little comments about how it would be funny if we ran off into the cornfeild and made love, or how it would be cool to park the car in the middle of the golf course and mess around. eventually we ended up in the playground. you can't really see it right now, it's too dark, but there was a spot over past the baseball diamond, past the weird fence thing, a smaller playground kind of sequestered, with a slide and everything. back then it was kind of brightly lit, maybe the light burned out or someone threw a stone.. i was kind of tired and feeling sick from working too much and waking up early. i didn't really eat right in those days, either.. but i don't remember exactly what was making me so ill-at-ease on that night. i remember it was cold, and i felt kind of groggy, and maybe had something else on my mind.. but, no, none of that stuff was bothering me that i remember. i just remember wanting to hang out and talk with her, thinking it was sweet and kind of cute to play on the playground and have fun.. but there was this strange, invasive feeling happening that i couldn't figure out. a feeling from her, like all of the stuff i was excited about was just some coy lead-in to a scene of (literal) schoolyard seduction, like a set up. at first i felt just kind of confused and like i was doing something wrong. like, what was i missing? why did i keep trying to explain a story or ask a question, and always get a short, whispery retort followed by a "passionate" initiation of kissing and struggling around on the bridge made of wooden links? for what felt like hours, i went along with this confusing drama, a strange and jaggedly forced escelation of physicality that felt so akward and disconnected. and then, lying in the dirt of the playground, mouths and arms and fingers smashed together in the hollow light of the overhead lamp, i felt for a second like i was floating up, almost as high as we are now, looking down on the two lovers from the level (and with the illumination) of the streetlight. i understood that the part i was playing in this entanglement was just that.. a part. a ridiculous, seemingly mapped out role in a play that i didn't realize had begun. us being there had little to do with either person, much less both people at once. it didn't even have to do with sex or lust or sexual frusturation or any completely acceptable (and sometimes sweetly akward) desires. more than anything, looking down on us, all i saw was a set-up that had been set-up for it's own sake. an oppurtunity to create a moment out of the available components, a story to be made for later divulgence, or to recount in rushed, secretive tones as an aside to the next boyfriend or at the next playground scene. i saw the wreckage of people doing what they think they're supposed to be doing without wondering why. it was maybe at that minute that i lost some of my fear and anger for all the fools that come here, all the kids in the school, you know? i realized that they don't know why they're here, and especially don't want to figure out why. they'd rather go backwards, and just build up a hundread other things that they don't understand why they're doing. a repertoire of mindless practices. they weren't thinking exactly about what it meant to be standing up in class and yelling out loud, upset over some topic brought up in history class. they didn't want to think about the ramifications of the mean things they were doing to themselves and the other kids. they were thinking about what their future biographies would read like, or what funny story they would someday tell about their wild days at the school. it was all premeditation, hiding from the fear that none of what they were working towards even existed.. i don't know exactly what happened after that. i remember we drove home, but i don't think we went directly there. maybe to a friend's house, maybe just driving around a little more.. i can't remember. i can't even remember the outcome of the evening, or if we just eventually straightened out and re-buttoned our clothes and left the playground without fullfilling our roles.. now that i've gone on so long about it, i'm realizing i can't remember hardly anything that happened with her after that night. i know she went back to the school at some point, and i left. she might be on one of the busses that'll be here a little later, but she might have moved on by now.. i honestly couldn't tell. anyway, it all happened over there a little less than a halfmile. maybe a quarter of a mile. i'll show you later on tonight. we can try to use the dismissal bell as a sort of alarm clock to let us know it's time to wake up. let's try to get to sleep before the sun comes up. it's always so nice to fall asleep in your arms up here, with the wind kind of washing over us, letting the night wrap us up like we were the only people alive. i don't know who else would stay up with me for so long, so high up, even.. you're really special. i know i've been telling you this for a long time, but i just want to keep letting you know that i like you so much. i couldn't have imagined a wish that could have come true as beautifully as the time we've spent together has. for real. 3.43am - 11.29.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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