11/15/00

the thoughts in my head are so tangled that it’s all coming out as static. i don’t know what makes me think i can actually make any of it comprehensible enough to write about, but i’m going to try anyway because nothing else is working.

once again, i’m letting homework pile up on me. this.is.not.a.good.thing. i also just recently came to the realization that i have to pay for my second semester of classes soon. i haven’t even paid for my first semester yet. once again, not.a.good.thing. plus, i’ve got xmasbooksdebtsuppliesfoodetc. doubleplusungood.

but that stuff isn’t really what’s bothering me (although maybe it should be). and i don’t know if i can really talk about what is. i never have before. even pressing the keys to say it seems like an unrealistic feat. some things are like the monsters in your closet. you know they’re there, but that doesn’t mean you go into the closet to investigate. you pull the blanket over your head and try to pretend they don’t exist, even when you can hear them growling.

i can’t talk about this. fuck it.

our dorm just recently caught up with retro era technology and purchased a microwave. my suitemate, rachel, and i decided to go bask in the glorious rays of brain cancer and test it out the other day. it’s one of those snazzy new age ones with the different button settings for foods: pizza, french fries, tv dinners, popcorn. we throw in some loaded butter kernels, press the popcorn button and wait. by the time the microwave was done, only three kernels had popped. rachel wanted to put it through again and i told her it wouldn’t work. but does anyone ever listen to me? no. so, we ended up setting the popcorn on fire. rachel pulls out the smoking, flaming bag and hands it to me. do i look like a fucking fire extinguisher or something? after contemplating the stop, drop and roll method, i threw it into the sink and doused it with water. then it was down the hallway, black gook dripping through the bottom of the wet bag onto the gleaming hallway floor, picking little pieces of still yellow popcorn out from the wreckage. my clothes still reek of the stench.

i think i’m an unwilling pyromaniac. i’m intrigued by the flame; it mesmerizes me. whenever i discard anything important, i burn it. photos and gifts from exes, love letters, old diaries ... i hold a match to them and watch as they twist and curl into themselves, and then into nothing. i breathe in the smell of their demise, and there’s closure. i can’t be tempted to remind myself of how things were anymore, can’t reread the old letters, run my fingertips across the surfaces of sentimentalities; can never go back again.

i did this once with a box full of trinkets and poems and drawings and notes from an ex, and the flames licked up the unrequited love much more quickly than i was prepared for. i dropped the paper as it flared, scorching my hand, and seconds later my entire desk was on fire. i covered it with a metal trash can in attempt to smother the fire, but when i pulled the can off, the flames only grew. i finally put it out after battling with it with a thick, old blanket for quite some time. then there was the time my brother and i were sitting in the living room talking, with candles flickering ghosts of shadows across our faces. there was a piece of scrap paper laying on the table there, and we absentmindedly teased the candle’s flame with it. once again, it was engulfed in flames and this time it fell onto the couch, setting it ablaze (you‘d think i‘d learn). my brother managed to put it out, leaving a brownish-black, foul smelling crater on the seat of the couch. we just flipped the cushion, and i don’t think our parents ever caught on. and then there was the time i accidentally started the grease fire in my kitchen ... let’s just say that one ended with my whole kitchen burnt down, twenty-some thousand dollars worth of damages, and third degree burns on my dad’s hand and arm; huge, oozing blisters like too ripe tomatoes leaking their juices.

i should have been born with a “keep away from flame” tag attached.