i am having an impromptu sleepover in my own music room.
laid a couple blankets, pillows spread about, lights on "lava lamp" effect, currently spinning Royksopp vinyl..
and the kitties are loafing next to me.

it's crazy hitting me how i used to do this all the time, i mean - flashback 15 years/more and you could catch me up ALL NIGHT updating this space. creating 'banners' to advertise my diary.. entering in contests.. what an odd fleeting time that was.

[shall we play memory-roulette?]

--being in my bedroom - 1am, probably around 12 years old (? god, i'm horrible with ages/time), out of school .. my blue rope light and lava lamp (yellow wax, pink fluid) the only light sources on.. playing trip-hop essentials (probably Mandalay, Massive Attack, Portishead, The Cardigans, for some reason Olive also comes to mind?) and somehow i randomly had 4 mattresses stacked on top my already tall bed frame.
{i want to say we had extra mattresses cos we replaced ours and i begged my dad to allow me one night with them all so i could (internally) feel like princess and the pea.}
and while atop my queendom of deep-mood (i refuse to say depression), it all felt so.. cinematic.
like a camera had begun rolling and my inner dialogue - expressed thru the music and tonality of light - swept thru the lenses on my mind.
i had only then just begun to sense my identity, my queerness, my feminine side.

--i knew somewhere deep down this wasn't what either of us expected, you traveled so far just to see me.. and for some reason we risked it all ?
.. i had a friend who could drive go pick you up with me, and as you got off the train.. i just knew- this wasn't right. all the missing pieces of you i didn't know - that i filled up with all my perfect substitutions - shattered. and what the fuck did we think we were doing? what were we going to do? i hadn't even asked my parents if a friend could stay - like where were you GOING TO GO?
somehow i thought leaving you to 'sleep' in the backyard of the library would be totally fine. with just your jacket and my promise that i'd see you in the morning.
{i scream at myself, WHY}
i have to move on.

--[this is not related to the previous memory-vomit]--
--i'm on the phone with you, and you're telling me about your new boyfriend. or if he wasn't your boyfriend he was your something, and here i am - thousands of miles away, YEARS into this ridiculous online 'relationship' feeling absolutely FRANTIC with jealousy and with the cigarette i was smoking, i slowly pushed the embers into my thigh as you spoke about this guy. i never let on that i was doing this to myself, but for some reason in my mind, i felt this was satisfactory in getting even with you -- in some warped way, hurting MYSELF, while you HURT ME, was making YOU HURT.
"how could i be so immature, to think he could replace the missing pieces in me.. how extremely lazy of me."

--the day was coming, and in the previous months we had our ritual .. a couple cocktails while watching How To Get Away With Murder. you'd come snuggle around my feet and purr while watching. it was our little oasis to get away from it all. but this night was different.. and thinking back now, it felt insurmountable. how was i able to function knowing you had an expiration date. in your little mind, did you know? you seemed relieved when the lady came and sat down.. you weren't hesitant or afraid at all. just walked right up to her and laid down.
i hope when my time comes, i can approach it with as much grace as you did. i'll absolutely never ever forget looking into your eyes .. as you faded away. it was the absolute most painful thing i had ever done, but i knew i had to witness it. and you weren't even technically 'mine.'
..there just too much to unpack here.

// my reel has ended. but my night is only beginning. my minds a never-ending slideshow and sometimes, getting these fragments out makes me feel a little less fractured.
xxx