more than dead

Sunday 28th

6:58am

The sun has not come up yet and my heart starts racing. I take out my bruxism guard without looking. My little bottle of pills is beside me, and I feel safe. I swallow and on my way to the bathroom I slam my face in the darkness and spit out a little scream. I go back to sleep soon and angry.

10:03am

Dreams are blocked again. My eyes wake up and the first thing I question is if yours are too, in the room next to mine. I catch myself thinking that thought and I don’t like it. I am not supposed to think like that about him. Divine, divine. Gray, cold. Just like the pile of clothes I left on the washing machine yesterday and now they are probably putrid and all needs to be washed once again. The once-pink and pretty and now yellowish-resin stained glass bowl is sitting right next to my perfume, and ironically tarot cards, which I stash twice with bountiful weed, light it up and oh my! Now I feel very distant but I’m in my head and my own space and I fucking love it and suddenly the chores become interesting tasks about making everything in my life beautiful, as it should fucking be.

10:42am

Washed dishes, re-washed clothes, and my roommate is now singing with his guitar. A bit loud for just now and then I remember I do the same all the time. I start organizing my library and two full bags of clothes which arrived yesterday after three years of storage. Opening it feels like a time chamber. I read my pandemic red moleskine 192 page diary and I think it is insanely good, like, actually good writing. I think about posting it here. Where did that poetic nineteen year old go? I need to write more, I start thinking. I was writing every minute of my life and making a slug a metaphor and oh, I did make sure it hit, even if it was just for me. All my books, all my copies, all my diaries. One of my most beloved possessions: My highschool copy of The Stranger which completely changed my life and has the permanent stamp of a single drop of tear I shed on the last page when Meursault was welcomed by the crowd with screams of hate.

11:13am

Spent an entire block of time looking for new Moleskine 192 page diaries, maybe in hopes of regaining my poetic abilities using the same “format”, and lip flips. Dance. Sweat. Face routine. Sing. Eat. Watch the last five episodes of Better Call Saul with lover/roommate and maybe make love after a week of no sex (I fucking hate Saul what a fucking horrible fucking character maybe it reminds me too much of my mother and sometimes myself fuck you fuck you).

1:15pm

Washed my mouth and danced for an hour to post-punk, scrolled ig for thirty minutes. I feel dead and I’m not sweating anymore and that sucks because it is winter and I’m cold and my hands are nowhere near my instruments and now it is late. The only clean panties left are the ones I bought the other day from the beautiful blue three piece lingerie set. So feminine, so fresh, so fucking sexy. My roommate is waiting outside in the living room waiting for us to watch a Studio Ghibli movie he has never seen. “What!!!” I said the other day when he had told me, and now I guess I’m unintentionally carrying him along, with this lovely and beautiful movie, and the only thing that really consoles me is the fact that I’ve been very clear multiple times about the nature of this relationship and that I, me, am in no shape whatsoever to partake in a relationship right now. It still doesn’t help with the small sting of knowing he is probably in love, and I’m already preparing the court case against myself anyways.

2:54pm

I remember hot water on my skin about an hour ago. No music. I let the steam flow inside the bathroom for five minutes until the room is warm and I finally wash my now very long hair after four days, which I’ve been growing so I look like a pre-Raphaelite woman. It has worked. I put on a cream bath, as I always do, and let it sit for five minutes while I scrub my dirty skin with a “strawberry milkshake” scrub that actually smells like milkshake and because the high hasn’t worn off yet I’m living in Disneyland of my own senses. I showered until the broken fan started making that loud noise that warns you you’ve been in the bathroom too long. No signs of my roommate yet.

Exhibit A: The 20-something-year-old oily skincare routine that makes her feel safe and almost sane and finally works:

• cerave foaming cleanser

• around seven drops of hyaluronic acid for barrier skin support

• vit c eye cream

• 345 dr alethea cream.

• a star-patch on the never ending pimple (I think it is the same sad spirit not wanting to leave my body)

• centella water fit spf (THE MOST AMAZING PURCHASE EVER and IT MAKES MY SKIN BEAUTIFUL)

So, SHE had been burning my skin with acne acids and stuff just to discover that HEY! it was HER DAMAGED SKIN BARRIER!!! NOT ACNE! Full skin repair mode which is doing its thing. Bye computer. I am a slave to consumerism. Or maybe a traumatized person who was bullied in school for having acne. Both. JUDGE MIA APPEARS ON COURT.

4:10pm

Went out and bought groceries in the freezing cold. Bought French chocolate, expensive white wine, Parmesan cheese, and vegetables for salad and meat tonight. We are skipping Studio Ghibli because an important scene happened at the end of the last episode of Better Call Saul and maybe that’s for the better because the act of showing and experiencing studio ghibli movies for the first time is a very intimate thing that maybe should be reserved for soulmates.

What if. I start rolling a joint and the TV is on. “Your skin is the softests. It is not fair.”— my roommate says before I press play.

9:59pm

Watched two episodes and ate so much cheese and wine and I let my roommate sleep in my room. We fell on each other’s arms and dozed off. When it was already dark, a couple of hours ago and we were half awake, I felt so horny and I said to him: please touch me. And you touched me and consumed me as sweet as ice cream and my body was your temple and your body was a channel of pure desire.

We still haven’t made dinner and the salad and meat is still in the kitchen outside the fridge waiting since four in the afternoon. You keep rambling about Star Wars like a little child while I write on the notes app as religiously as I can, and also pretending to hear it all, promising myself this has to be done, the writing, anyhow. I grind some weed and pack a bowl and tell you mockingly that if we don’t have dinner soon baby girl is going to be punished. I make you laugh hard. You are such a great cook.

11:19pm

Made a nice green salad. I think of the state of my being and suddenly feel scared. I am still relying on men’s desire to live, to feel contained, to remain tangible without vanishing. As if being perceived as an object of desire takes away all the pain of having a neglectful childhood. I must be wary of the words I use. I decide not to cry or think about it. I just hear the meat being cooked and I remember that soon we will live in different places and I’ll be more alone and it scares me to the bone.

Monday 29th

12:16am

The salad remains cold and untouched and I’m finally in my night solitude. Big Sir is tempting me. He has appeared in my life again. And who am I to say no to help when my brother needs medical care? And what about me being able to finish my studies, pay rent, pay health things, psych, meds, food, without selling my body on the internet forever?

Maybe I could sell my soul for a couple of years, I tell myself. I still get away with whatever I want, I say. Security. Security is so important to my life that, at this point, the thought of having to be hungry or not entering college because 9-5 work makes me feel dead inside. More dead than dead. More dead than using my body as a vehicle toward what I truly desire: education, stability, decency of living, and, sure, a couple of nice things here and there. A cup of coffee somewhere I don’t know. A bus ticket to the South where the big mountains and lakes are.

I answer Big Sir one last time without promising anything. Yet.

8:25am

My eyes are half closed. I open the notes app. The day is here and is waiting for me to take it. Take it. Take it. I reach again to my weed bowl. The sun is coming up and it looks like six in the morning on a summer day. I did not wash my face or mouth before sleeping. I can feel the crusty face. I have the sexy panties still on. Time to perform soon.

9:32am

I did my routine, made some coffee on my french press, and put on the full blue lingerie set with flowers and use it for the first time on my stream. I open my streaming inbox after two days of not working. A man says he was getting enough money to see me again and it makes me sad. Then another says that he thought of me, twice, when he fucked his wife. Then the other says that our conversation, yes, twenty minute fully clothed and paid conversation, was very important to him and wanted to talk soon.

I wonder how much longer I’ll keep doing this. I wonder, while I think of the hours of study and what requires of me to finish my degree. They need money, I need money. I don’t care as long as I finish what I’ve always wanted. I don’t care as long as I live a decent life anymore. I’ve seen the other side and it’s dark. I will not leave camming because it gives me all the extra money that I use for my brother’s health and also currently saving to move and to probably go South, again, and touch the snow and take some shrooms and maybe stop smoking so much weed for a while.

The enlightenment fantasy, one of my favourites to indulge from.

9:55am

Makeup, wash hands, be done.

11:29am

Did fifty minutes. Stopped for 20. Good money. Good traffic. I look beautiful. It is strange how I don’t feel as consumed by men when I do this as when I give them my body and my night. I keep in mind the beautiful lingerie and my perfume keeps me sane. Haven’t eaten yet and strangers are already complementing my “small petite and big ass” body. I mythologize to survive again. What else is there? At least I’m far from suffering. I’m performing.

12:29pm

Finished another round. Pay was around 30% less than the first session. Hum. I take a glimpse of myself in the mirror and reread my previous entry. I need to put some eyedrops in my eyes. My red stained lips look beautiful and a bit used. I still have not eaten and I treat it like a trophy. There is everything wrong with it. There is also a man who wants to meet me, first through Facetime at 1pm, and see if I’m real and maybe come and visit. We’ve been talking for a couple of weeks, but I haven’t thought about it much until now. Refresh, perfume, decompress, call, water, cam again. Then rest. Then create. The only way.

1:49pm

I had the forty minute call. And I wonder where the other time went. He is not the definition of handsome, but extremely intelligent. I took a closer look at his teeth. The teeth reveal so much. When somebody doesn’t take care of them and you still have so much money, there is really something wrong with you. Anyways, his teeth were white and seemed to have been cleaned professionally too. Probably whitening on top of that. I like that. If a man has good teeth he probably smells good everywhere else. I was cheeky and showed the little cutesy persona, lied about being a year younger, lied about being a little naive and a bit stupid, and he was cheeky and happy and he loved me. We both agreed to keep talking. I haven’t mentioned the horrors yet. The “I don’t know what Palantir is” vibe.

Bathroom, water, reset, cam again.

2:57pm

Did another block and upped the price. Went really well. Sent a massive message about being online in five hours “Come and see me! <3 Kisses!!”. Time to doze off for a bit. A hit of a weed bowl. Danger zone, 3pm is approaching. Stomach: empty. On my nightstand: vegetable pasta salad with tuna and tomatoes and olive oil and avocado and some vinaigrette. I can’t work if I eat. My psychologist would be upset if she knew my recent behaviours and thinking patterns. Till Thursday, 11am. I put on How to Get Away with Murder and try to fall asleep for an hour and a half, at least.

5:17pm

I slept for an hour and so and woke up naturally, thinking it was the next day and I was happy and then tasted my salad mouth and knew it wasn’t, and now I’m going to wash myself. I remembered I had sent a massive message saying I would be online in two hours and a half but now I just don’t want to and maybe I won’t enter again for today. I will, actually, probably and most likely.

5:51pm

Decided to do a 25 minute pilates class. “Where is the art?” My mind starts asking before I can say: “We need to care for our body”.

“Have a glass of wine”, says the mind “No, pilates first”, replies the same mind.

6:27pm

I decided to not drink tonight. Point blank. No negotiations. My body feels good. I am eating well. Why would I fuck it up? No, no. Toast and cheese and one egg awaits for me before entering another cam session. The real win today is not opening Ableton but actually not drinking for a day. Even if that means eating more, sleeping earlier, not making anything. One. Day. At. A. Fucking. Time, I say as I pack another bowl and start dancing to the new Brutalismus 3000 album before shower.

6:49pm

I feel… very much alive? After… only one toast and a fried egg? Only twenty minutes passed and my mind is saying: you live in a city where people go out every night. Go out and find out? Go out and find love? I redid my makeup again. I feel beautiful. Is this impulsive? I don’t know. I want to see the world.

6:55pm

I remembered I have a plan tomorrow that involves a lot of people and drinking and decided to not go out.

8:53pm

I made a considerable amount of money in an absurd amount of time and I feel good and guilty. It is still early. My roommate was calling my name earlier from the other room and I felt the little hook of life again. There must be an in-between. Not a techno party. Not disappearing into the city. Not opening another bottle and calling it a celebration. Just a small ceremony for today’s accomplishments, maybe.

Let’s see.

10:34pm

Watched Princess Mononoke instead of going out, which feels like a kinder ending than the one my mind was trying to sell me. I smoke half a joint looking at the bright full moon and decide that it is the time for me. Time for peace. Time to forget about it all in the simpler and structured drama of life that How to Get Away with Murder provides. No drinking.

Tuesday 30th

10:00am

Got up at seven, invited my roommate into my room, he was shivering with cold. We got into my thermic bed cover and cuddled for another two hours. Now I’m here. Guilty? Maybe. Maybe we are just two people enjoying each other and there is nothing wrong about that. I think I’ve lied to myself with that exact same line since a couple of weeks ago. I love the way he hugs me from behind and puts one hand beneath my sweater and another on my waist. He says I’ve got the softest skin he has ever touched, again. “Coffee?” He asks, as part of our daily ritual ever since the first day we lived together.

I remember I need to fly to the dentist by 11am and start doing my routine. Excited to make my music. Excited to work today for some reason. Excited to go out at 10pm with my friends and tell the same jokes. Excited to live. Yesterday was my last day with the period. That must have got a lot to do about it. I splash some milk on my coffee thinking about how I’ll try not to eat until I must. Mischievious and disordered mind.

11:06am

On the subway, on time. Communication Breakdown by Led Zeppelin is blasting on my headphones. A guy in black clothes smiled at me and made a little dance as if he could hear me. Maybe I am too high. Maybe the four bowls before the dentist were a bit too much. Not for me, I think, as I Want to be Sedated by The Ramones starts playing.

My fingers are typing on my notes app. I’ll just close my eyes and let the anxiolytic + weed combo make my dental dentist moment beautiful because I love the dentist. All the order, the cleanliness, not like a hospital, because people don’t die at dentists. It’s like a nice doctor’s office but minty. It’s only cavity restoration. Not pain. Happy.

20, 20, 24 hours to go
I wanna be sedated
Nothing to do, nowhere to go
I wanna be sedated

1:23pm

I arrived at the dentist blazed off my head just to be told the minute I stepped in: “I’m putting the anesthesia now”, meaning, the fucking big needle, but the man had a great hand, and then, to be quite frank, they cured the cavity with such delicacy that those forty-five minutes went by without gesturing stop. With close eyes I started to think about the dentist personal life, his choice of haircut, and how I would be willing to fuck him. Who says men are the only one who think about fucking the women they see in their daily lives lives? 8/10 dental experience. Would be a 10 if not for the needle. Now the money needs to be made and friends need to be met and sleep needs to be contained. I rethink the money situation, and decide yesterday was a good money day and today is art day and I will pour hot coffee and open my daw. There is a reason I’m being paid a lot for the shortest amount of time. The weed man is arriving soon.

2:04pm

Time passes by fast and I’m still in between writing and opening Substack and editing the diary and writing my to-do list. Met the weed delivery guy who winked at me. Bought: one small beer, one avocado, fake chicken meat patty, and a little cute box of a variety of greens. First the beer and my daw. Then whatever else. My roommate leaves to buy weed (I feel guilty for not asking if he wanted any but don’t say that I forgot) and it seems like the perfect sunny afternoon moment to sing my lungs to Leonard Cohen and a cigarette and a beer.

5:32pm

I wake up from a nap that was never achieved. Eyes closed for another ten minutes until I pull myself out of bed and now it’s getting darker and darker and the day is suddenly gone. I research, again, how to make my weed tapering off not so bad. First, I need to log every intake for the first week and second decide if my smoking urge comes from: Anxiety / wanting to soften / avoidance / ritual. Those are the categories and I plan on executing them tomorrow.

7:42pm

A friend who studies nearby is coming before we leave for the bar because her house is far away and the bar is closer. This female friend, whom I will call BECKY has been part of my life since I was sixteen. She is three years older than me, funny, can be a bit too direct sometimes, but also very respectable in her field. ROOMMATE is cooking chicken and rosemary potatoes and we decide to make a third plate for our friend out of ours. We talk about our personal projects, life. I comment on an idea for a project she had told me years ago and says: “Yes! How do you remember?” Because it was so damn good. I tell her she should execute it. “Maybe not in this time… but in the future…” We talk about how fucked up the world is and how everything seems meaningless but how it is in this very moment where we start creating value, and prove that we are capable of creating meaning by ourselves.

8:55pm

About to leave. Laughing so hard. A full 700ml beer inside. It is cold and I put on sweatpants and a hoodie. Red lipstick. Mascara. I hit another bowl and we leave.

Wednesday 1st

3:08am

Went out to an old restaurant where waiters are old and have aprons and it all seems very important. We put two tables together and prepared for the sports game and our favourite team lost after a couple of litres of beer shared. Bad omen. There was a Greek man who looks 25 but is almost 40. There is this friend that seemed cold but maybe I over analyze things. Slept late late. I did not work and it was a beautiful day. Friends invite me for pizza and beer again today. Walk in the city at night. I say yes without thinking.

12:56pm

Woke up two hours ago and ROOMMATE came to my room door again with a pouty face so I did not write and he stepped in and slammed into my bed and we cuddled for an hour until my pilates alarm went off and each had to go to their jobs. S is calling. I feel anxious and stupidly smoke the first bowl of the day without thinking of the mental fog.

1:57pm

I feel like someone gave me a punch in the stomach after talking to S. Something nasty about asking for money before meeting them and I feel anxious and things are not okay, but I remember how much he makes, and then he sweet talks to me about what would I give in exchange, hinting at desire as if it was as easy as just that, but who am I to declare war on what I’ve been feeding? Men who keep me from going insane, men who pay for the doctor’s appointment, sometimes the rent, because two weeks earlier I couldn’t work for two weeks because I felt like dying. My brain is a magical thing. Regret… I feel it. And then it shuts down.

4:31pm

Worked for a couple of hours and didn’t do much. I kind of don’t like myself today. I’m against talking bad to myself but I allow it anyways. Slow traffic. I decided to not go out due to yesterday’s night out. Fuck having pizza with zero degrees outside. The plan seemed nice and gentle drunk, but my mind is not so nice and gentle now. Maybe too gentle and vulnerable. The outside world seems suspicious and unkind.

5:16pm

I decide to smoke two big bowls and play Leonard Cohen again and drink a large coffee. I have not eaten anything at all but made sure I stayed hydrated. I am waiting to do one more working block, eat alone, by myself, just how I like it, and then maybe order sushi or ice-cream. I secretly want my roommate to go out tonight and leave me alone for a while. I love him, but I need space. He already said: “Oh yes, we could see our friends on the weekend and stay home tonight”. I will need to have a serious conversation about us soon. Again.

Complicated emotional roller coasters. I need a guide on how to stay away from those theme parks.

6:08pm

Played Leonard Cohen and The Velvet Underground songs. Still unfed. Cam for thirty minutes. Stop. Eat. Order food. Face. Face. Face routine. I feel like I am fading but somehow I keep going. What the fuck am I doing to myself? What is this twisted game? Am I putting food aside because I am not hungry if I don’t smoke constantly? My systems are really dysregulated. I still decide to not eat until after work.

Thursday 2nd

7:35am

The pale blue announces itself as I consciously and half awake put sports clothes on. Time to delay smoke time by at least noon, and my body already feels the tightness, the sensitivity of it all. I log: URGE DELAYED. One of my favorite artists is coming and I impulsively buy the early bird tickets. Happy. Bank account: enough to survive for now. Did not go out. Instead, I ate at 7:30pm, then at 9pm two slices of pizza, watched How to get away with murder, had a smoke session by myself, and thought about it all. DID NOT DRINK. Today, I’m recording guitar for a song and producing another two. Minimum working hours for the day: $XXX to feel safe. Let’s start this shit.

10:45am

Therapy session done. Suddenly I feel calm and at peace knowing that I got through all my morning routine without weed. Stupid for some, gold for me. I have successfully eaten before noon, stayed sober, did an hour of yoga cleanse, shook it all off with Underworld’s Born Slippy, read Substack posts, showered, and had therapy session. The urge to numb appears again. I delay by washing dishes and clothes and making more coffee and singing to Leonard Cohen.

11:33am

I remember visiting my grandpa’s room at sixteen, when he lived at my home. He was talking about this woman who he had known for years, apparently they were in their teens, and she was a beautiful blonde. He had a sexy dream about her and had tears in his eyes. He said, eyes wide open, how he remembered her soft skin and her little white umbrella to protect it from the sun. By that time, he needed a wheelchair but his mind was lucid. He died shortly after.

5:30pm

Finish work. Time to properly eat and nap.

8:37pm

Feel clear headed. Danced, played guitar. Slept. Only smoked three bowls in the whole day. X target of money made and done. Mentally: exhausted but also tender. Wanting to taste the city, look outside, look outside and watch and burn and dance all night. I open a bottle of wine and share it with ROOMMATE.

Friday 3rd

7:30am

Bathroom, pill, back to sleep

10:03am

Woke up. Drank half a bottle of wine yesterday but it was okay, which is exactly the kind of sentence that should be illegal. Plugging my guitar. No time for words. The day is sunny and beautiful and I still feel like I have been dragged by my hair through a very elegant swamp.

My room smells like skin, weed, coffee, and the faint chemical ghost of my face routine. I look at the guitar like it is a priest and I am late for confession. There are things I need to put into music because if I keep putting them into language I will start charging myself rent for every thought.

5:45pm

Went to Chinatown with ROOMMATE, yes, and we held each other on the subway. I’m thinking this is getting a bit out of control, but my body remembers this morning when without saying a word he pulled me to his bed and touched my body softly and pulled my pants off and fucked me fast and good and I felt a bit used, in the good sense, and I loved it.

Conscious weed consumption is going how it is supposed to be: skipping and skipping and congratulating myself like a small bureaucrat until I ultimately fall for it around 3pm in an alley behind Chinatown before entering the sea of people. The city was cold and bright and everyone seemed to be carrying bags full of fish, soup, sugar, and tiny plastic futures. Bought miso paste, two bottles of sake, seaweed, and two salmon onigiris.

We watched Princess Mononoke yesterday and today we are watching Spirited Away, another classic supposedly saved for lovers, but me showing it anyway, because I still love him and I don’t know what to do. Maybe I am giving him pieces of my inner world while repeating out loud that this is not a relationship. Maybe that is worse. Maybe showing someone Studio Ghibli for the first time is more intimate than sex. Maybe I should be arrested.

Today I cried twice in the street and you said how lovely I looked. I always cry. Thinking of little men and women on the street. Thinking of the environment and greed. Thinking of the fact that everybody is trying to survive and still somehow everything looks like a marketplace of souls.

I don’t want to hurt you.

7:39pm

Spirited Away credits start rolling. We sit close. Too close. I drink sake from a little glass and feel the old fantasy returning: that maybe domesticity can save me, that maybe tenderness can be a country, that maybe a man’s hand on my thigh can count as health insurance, citizenship, mother, father, God.

It cannot.

But for two hours, it almost does.

Saturday 4th

11:03am

Drunk. Or not drunk anymore, but spiritually wet. I scroll through Instagram for two hours and I don’t get out of bed. Everyone is apparently leaning into sex work nowadays. Girls with perfect hair and perfect apartments and captions about empowerment and softness and agency and girlhood and survival. I think of this model that I still admire, who was very popular back in the day and now sells content. I think of my own sexualization as a kid. I think of the state of the world. I think of the way the world discovers your body before you do and then acts surprised when you learn how to invoice it.

Somehow I am reclaiming the possibility of being sexualized by sexualizing myself on my own terms. At the same time, how do I fully own it? It still serves the purpose of fulfilling men’s desire and repeating the cycle. The dichotomy between pure and dirty kills me from inside my stomach sometimes.

I desire to be pure. I decide that doing sex work is not taking that away from me. I want to still be pure. Pure of creativity, of desire, of excitement and love for living. Purity in curiosity. Purity in the soul. My body can be used as a medium. My body can be a bridge. My body can be a little company, a little altar, a little scam, a little survival machine. I don’t mind anymore if that means living a life where I can create and pay for a decent, nice, healthy life for myself and my brother.

1:49pm

I feel the full weight of my existence and it does not cease. I feel ill and well at the same time.

2:22pm

My roommate is going to see one of his lovers. First official time in these two months where he goes and I kind of feel sad. But that is okay. This is the contract, no? This is the freedom I asked for. This is the beautiful progressive arrangement where everybody is honest and nobody owns anybody and still my stomach quietly behaves like a medieval wife watching her husband leave for war.

It is my father’s birthday and I don’t want to call. I decide that I need to, and as soon as I hear his voice my heart softens. This is the terrible thing about fathers. You can be angry for years and then one tired little note in their voice turns you into a child standing in a hallway again.

My brother is navigating illness and when I told my father what had happened, what the doctor said, and that I’m fully paying treatment, he turned inside and said: “I don’t have anything myself”. My mothers narcissism and her addiction have destroyed my home and she is not to be told about my brothers illness, her being one of its roots, and therefore all his mental responsibility lies in me. The only person in this world that cares. And then there is my mental stability. Who cares for me? Who? I scream to the void and nobody answers.

I could die in the street and my family would know a month later.

4:31pm

I am tired. I am tired of micromanaging every single aspect of my life. Body. Consumption. Brother’s mental health. My mental health. Rent. Desire. Food. Face. Weed. Money. Men. Art. Whether I am being loved or bought or both. I watch the rain pour and put another coat on. It is my father’s birthday, I remember again. I take out my pipe for the first time in the day, prepare a bowl, and connect the interface to the computer so I can shut the fuck up about it with words and lend it to the music. ROOMMATE said he was only going for a little while. It makes me wonder if he is going there to talk about what has happened. About today, in the morning, when I whined and cried about the fact that I might need to give myself to men to go through college again. I deeply regret telling him. I also remember he is my closest friend. I don’t want to hurt him. I’ve been clear. I don’t think he is having a great time.

Would anyone ever be okay with their partner doing sex work?

Why am I even asking that question?

6:05pm

The first bowl is looking at me untouched and unsmoked. I seem to be in a dissociative state. Barely touched the guitar but my mind has been looking at the ceiling for hours, waiting for a divine response. No one answers. My roommate came back home and wants to spend time with me. I try to infer that I have not eaten at all and that I want to watch my series and sleep but he doesn’t get it and instead I make him do yoga. I don’t want to drink tonight and I’m too out of here that I just want to be alone but I am too scared to ask for it.

8:53pm

Ordered food and I’m about to eat for the first time. Mac and cheese. We have been listening to Slint’s Spiderland while we stay in silence and I smoked a whole joint. It is the perfect soundtrack for two people who are not saying the thing. The room feels gray and holy and doomed. I love him. I need him to leave.

9:27pm

Food arrives and I tell him to go. Guilt appears on my stomach. He wants to stay in my room. Now I feel frustrated and I jokingly tell him that I need to be alone.

I don’t need to joke about that.

11:08pm

Two bowls. Sleep.