a piece pulled from notebook scraps
What were once desire paths made by my stomping wellington boots have overgrown. The rocks in my front garden where we played house are covered by brebs and briars, reborn each autumn and settled in. And we who played-I'm not even sure where they have ended up.
Like time, you lose track of friends. And those you still hold dearly are one more missed weekend away from curating a shared calendar with all your schedules attached,
It's an uncomfortable shift, your early twenties.
Nobody knows what they're doing, you come to realise, yet everybody's kept busy pretending.
We're all still playing house.
It's as clear as the sky reflecting on the silver strand tonight, all the clouds have seemingly fallen into the water, settled softly on crashing waves and transformed to foam. I drink my mini bar bottle of wine and I smoke my secret pack of cigarettes that nobody knows about, except the moths that I swat back outside the window.
They're searching for light and warmth, and I almost feel a pull to let them inside, because aren't we all?
But, I take a drag and swat them away, eyeing the digital clock on my window sill. It's the sixth of November, eleven pm. I felt like a failure today;this past week-I haven't been working out and I've slept instead of studied. Maybe I'm feeling manic; maybe I'm just existing.
Is there a difference anymore? My cigarette needs to be relit, and I take out my box of matches as I don't own a lighter and doubt I ever will.
Is this what being an adult is? Taking my secret shames and vices where I can get them whilst lying to myself that I haven't gone too far? Maybe I should buy a lighter, and lie to whomever it’s for sparking up my birthday candles.
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This made me have an existential crisis but in a good way