someone sent me a playlist for my birthday. he's sweet and thoughtful, these eight years. I thought we would be more, but he really was quite something. and he's still here, in the important ways.

I started listening to it late on the night he sent it, even though it was long. even though there was some metal. even though there were songs where I involuntarily clasped my hands to my chest and tears trickled across my temples like some kind of illustration

do you mean this
is this here on purpose
we've talked about it but
are you letting me have it
as a birthday present

it's not always about being sad, you know
sometimes it's just
acknowledging what was
and in what ways it still lives
that something does, not just in me

especially now
when every day
is so
lonely

that was like a week ago but it's relevant because I meant to listen to one or two songs and, oops, was up until almost 5am.

and tonight I took two klonopin with my other pills in pairs. that was a couple hours ago now. I think the kissy smoky jazzy album I've been using for sleep is giving me amorous dreams and they're starting to upset me. I saw Bosnian Rainbows on my "recently played" list and wondered which song, where, I would put it on a playlist. so, I put on some of my favorites. if you give a mouse a cookie, she's going to think about the At the Drive-In album she didn't like at first because she didn't understand it, and if you let her listen to the milk then she's going to think about those green couches and the high school summer she spent basically living alone, and the summers after that and the years after that and how one time she was 17 and walking aimlessly into the dark and that was more than 20 years ago and she can see better now, even though it still gets dark, but she's still sort of just

wandering

man, we go through many moods in the span of a few paragraphs here. paragraphs that, as usual, were meant to be lines

and I haven't even written about.. it's been months

point is, it's nearly 4 am, I should be asleep (chemically, not morally) and instead I'm foot drumming, bed dancing, and chest clawing

so I guess I'm going to have to put the amorous dream music on again, because the alternative is to go backwards (instead of forward for once) and put on Mellon Collie, and while I used to sleep to it when I was BUT A YOUTH, I've never listened to it on noise canceling headphones and

anyway now I'm doing it already and there's still foot drumming and bed dancing... we don't need to get to the chest clawing

or, my god, the dramatic lip synching at my captive pillow audience

please, anything but that