A Long Night to Wonder

So here I sit, with a glass of champagne and a half-empty mug of chai tea, listening to Panda and Child, typing at random because I’m still afraid to face the future. To my right, there’s a telescope on a tripod, my little brother’s, it looks pretty cool but isn’t calibrated yet. To my left, through the doorway without a door, there’s a beautiful little tabby cat trying to figure out how to open the dishwasher, or something—she’s acting a little weird, lately, actually, I don’t know what’s up. In front of me, occupying the rest of the table, there’s a huge stack of newspapers, and magazines, and stuff. I shoved it into a huge pile because it was in the way of a card game that came up earlier.

There are only two songs on this CD, ‘we must avoid these mistakes,’ that I just don’t like, and this is one of them—it’s called “twice is nice,” and… it’s something. It’s frantic, it’s a little too frantic for me, I guess. Shouting yourself hoarse at a world that just doesn’t want to listen, is what it feels like, and I’ve done too much of that already. I think. Well, not really. When I find a point that sticks, I’ll try again. I guess that’s just it, I don’t know. I used to spend hours wandering, in any direction, just… walking, looking for something that resembled an answer. Sometimes I came home at peace; sometimes, I don’t. The cold winds wake me up, the darkness clears my mind, and the stars call to my heart; when there’s a full moon, I revel in the pure light that coats the ground, brighter than the streetlights.

Yes, the verb tense confusion is fully intentional. [Oh, come on, you had to notice that.]

What I should’ve done is taken out my horn or my guitar (Sean, by name) and played until my muscles—lips and fingertips, respectively—were too sore to continue. But now it’s late enough that horn would be too loud (oh, how I hate living in proximity to people) and guitar… well, no excuses there, really. I should, probably I will before I go to bed. What I should’ve done is clean up, my room is such a mess it’s becoming hard to find things. I did clean up, the living room, partly, and the kitchen, mostly. My brother left the place a mess, and I didn’t want to clean up while my friends were here; we all came here for kind-of-lunch and hot chocolate after spending the afternoon hurling ourselves down a snowy hill on sleds. It is pretty cold in here, now, the furnace is off- oh, there it goes. What I should’ve done is finished applying to the rest of the universities, it’s really bad that I’ve left them this late and now I might not get in, but I’m doing this to avoid thinking about the future. Oh, oh, if I keep putting off these thoughts they will trap and kill me. Oh, but if there’s no way out why not bang your fists against the cage until the scars are enough to kill you? I’ve tried that, too.
In the end, I’ve no one to blame but myself.