Found in an old journal.
We are standing in the heat and talking about our moms. Hers is crazy and mine too. Sometimes when I talk about my mom with other girls we try to top each other. Mine used to do heroine, but hers really beat her, so then I have to lie a little just so she knows I didn’t get off easy. You don’t want to look like a wimp.
I’m not doing that today though because this girl is really cool and I don’t want her to think I’m weird. I’m trying to smoke my cigarette without looking lame and I’m trying to feel okay inside my skin but I feel like a fat wad of tissues held together with snot and in serious danger of blowing away.
We smoke in silence and I want to press my skin against hers. I know that I’m nothing so I could fall right through, past my empty clothes and into her. Just by looking I know that she has substance, and if I could just press hard enough I could fall into her skin and have it too.
I stand on the summer sidewalk and I daydream watching the smoke drift into the air. I wish I could figure out how to disintegrate or solidify. The bus comes and the girl leaves to live her real life. I stay and wait. I feel like there’s nothing holding me to the planet. You’d think all this sadness would bring me down.