Finals. It’s under thirty eight degrees the rest of the week. My coffee cups are stained and the brims are salted with natural sugar, my lipstick is smudging on the edge of my forks and spoons and traveling to my chin. Two a.m. showers are becoming more frequent and I am writing more in the margins of my calculus notes than ever before.
Wanderer Wandering – Slow Club
Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby – Cigarettes After Sex
This Must Be the Place – Talking Heads
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight – Richard and Linda Thompson
I Need Fun in My Life – The Drums
You Make Me Wanna Die – The Shivas
California Stars (Live) – Wilco
The Russian house smells like really cheap perfume, strawberry vape, and cigarettes. It’s starting to seep into my clothing. My roommate cleaned the sink over break. I forgot how nice it was to go to bed completely clean, slicked down in coconut oil in a big t-shirt. I’m feeling more and more like I can do it. I eat cereal in my Dave’s Coffee mug with almond milk I should probably refrigerate.
This doesn’t feel final like the tests suggest. This feels like a transition. The card deck is shuffling. The boy in my spanish class seems more like a dream every day I don’t try to talk to him. He goes off to a dining hall and I stop to buy pita bread and coffee downstairs before I go to my last chem lab. He is from my favorite city, he listens to Mac Demarco. His jacket is the same as Wyatt’s in a more cobalt blue than Michael’s. Sometimes I stop back in my room to put on eyeliner, to wash my hands, just to make sure that if he ever wants to talk to me my eyes aren’t so small and my hands show no signs of an inked home countdown.
Today I opened a can of chickpeas with a screwdriver and accidentally poured corrosive acid on my fresh papercut. Everything is grey and dark and feels like a saltwater pool. My lipstick shed onto my spoons and coffee cups and cheese block. Sixteen more days. But it’s not so bad.
one thousand lemons 