The Leanover.

Time to do things, like read. Books stacking on top of books as words are devoured now that work is part-time. Marguerite Duras' The Lover was exquisite because the diction was sumptuous. I didn't want to put it down because each vignette was something to be devoured. Sentences dripped down my chin like juice from a mango.

After the show, I walked to the bus stop and I didn't see him. Inside the confines of the Empty Bottle, my body temperature rose. The impact of the brisk air outside wore off soon enough. Looking down Western, he finally spoke and asked if I was waiting for the bus. He gripped the headliner's LP in his hand and sat with his legs wide apart like most boys accustomed to take space on the bench. I said yes and he asked if I wanted to share a cab. I thought he was friendly and said yes even though the prospect of finding a cab on this corner this late at night did not bode well. Seconds later a cab pulled up with a young Black man driving. He looked at us, he looked at me and shook his head. Inside the cab, I tried to keep my distance even as I began to notice his features. He was my type and not: tall, skinny, vaguely alternative. His clothes hung off his lanky limbs. He seemed to drown in them. His hair was blond-ish and not short, which turned me off but then he said that what I said was "cool" and that turned me on. I hadn't realized I was talking.

A crisis would indicate that there was some sudden, grave change in the situation, something to disrupt my normal and frequent flow of potential paramours. That is certainly not my case as the situation lacks any ebbs and flows.

I think, he's cute, and that's all I think.

Located here.

The only thing you can do is love them. You can't be with them or even express your feelings of affection. The relationship is always one-sided, devoid of completion, lacking a whole. They exist and you feed off of their existence, unsure of yourself but sure of your devotion.

That is it.

My first thought, after stepping across the stage, was: what happens now? It is a cliché but it is a true sentiment. The last weeks were anticlimactic, to use an understatement. I wrote my papers and concluded my classes and worked all of the days in-between. There were no tears, no heartfelt goodbyes. My time on campus was only a reflection of a reality: I am here because I am supposed to be here. I walked out of the arena with a sense of yearning for the future, set in my goals yet unsure how to accomplish them. That is where I stand. That is what I think.

There is the idea of the comfort of the city, my own comfort within the city. I am sure in the places I frequent, the friends I have made. My body is now situated and accepts a sense of place with the dilapidated streets and overcrowded sidewalks.

There is the idea of the autonomy inherent in independence or, at least, supposed independence that stems from student loads and parental support. I think, what is my own life and how is it ultimately affected by a change in routine if my decisions have been formulated by outside monetary assistance and not largely of my own accord?

It goes to the notion that when I finally move out of my parents’ home, I will have found complete independence. That complete independence – currently out of reach – feels like the ultimate goal and the ultimate sense of self-actualization.

More importantly though, I am frightened by the idea of becoming re-acquainted with a former self. My visits home have confirmed this fear. Time spent in my childhood bedroom (filled with old stuffed animals and teddy bears, junior high diaries and posters of early-aughts pop stars) is unnerving. The room is trapped in a certain place of time. The years following are lost. Life as a teenager would prove to be unsatisfying from the onset and so I, instead, gave up on that livelihood and just floated towards young adulthood.

I have a need to reconcile my past with my present. Those lost years are something I will be forced to confront. I felt most like my true self, whatever that means, upon entering college and I have, for the past four years, attempted to distance myself from the life before. Moving home then feels like a tipping point, the catalyst in learning to accept myself completely by better understanding what it was like to be sixteen.

Down the streets, the hot, tar pavement and around the corner. Around the corner and along the muddied white lane. The lane, the lines of the lane disintegrating by the boxes, the cars, the patter of our feet. Our fee, pounding side by side now one by one.

Sitting here, I can calculate your exact decline. You were baited, but you’ll never admit as much. You were bored, but that will never suffice upon retelling your stories of grandeur with witticisms. You were artistic, but only so much as those surrounded by your art were less informed than you (to gauge their aptitude was easy, you thought).