I keep having awful stress dreams in which I am paralyzed by my mistakes and then go crazy. Bruises are all over me. I can’t stop smoking. My pee is orange. I woke up starving. I slammed my finger in the door and my nail is turning, my finger is swelling. It hurts a lot. The arch that hangs over my cuticle is teal. purple leaks up. I kind of wish little holes would start to form through which streams of blood could gush. One by one these little holes would open until the whole nail would explode and blood would erupt like a fountain. 

Rainy morning. I don’t know what the date is. I dreamt a funeral; I was the only one wearing black. August is sleepy and so am I. Sunday was good. Monday I fell asleep in h’s bed because I was sleepy and more comfortable next to her than on my own. She kicks in her sleep like she’s fighting for her life. 

Yesterday I rode my bike fast up and down the street like a boy. 

Tanned on the roof like a teenage girl. 

Went over to w’s to watch the parent trap. We drank wine and ate pizza in bed and used rags to catch crumbs and wipe our lips. We were impressed by the movie, especially by its cite-specific details—notably the vegetable oil hallie uses to prank annie with at the walden camp for girls, which is very in maine, is Hannaford-brand, a grocery store that is very local to only three states, one of which we grew up in. We went to hannaford a lot for cheese or ice cream.

I’m very unmoved, generally. But laugh and move my shoulders more easily. I don’t want much to do anything, and I really don’t want to see the barbie movie. I want my emotional pull strings manipulated by the greatest or cheapest of masters. But nothing seems up for the challenge. Every reading or gallery or bar I go to is offensively mediocre. August is a bore. I want to erupt. Sometimes I think I'm writing a book.