GUEST BLOGGER: CHLOE CALDWELL "THESE ARE THE THINGS"

Snow on the ground. Riding the A train uptown. New York is the only place I can read the back of a pregnancy test while eating Smart Food popcorn and be invisible. Having second thoughts. Afraid of moving. Even more afraid of staying. Afraid of myself. There are things I can’t let go of.

The people of my past. The people of my past don’t know that I sit on floors in New York City listening to music and thinking about them. They don’t know that I smoke cigarettes while staring out windows thinking about them. Standing outside of bars, thinking about them. Sleeping on floors. They don’t know that all I do is think about them—write about them.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. Last night I lit incense that my friend told me smells like hamster shavings and smoked the rest of my friend’s TOP tobacco and listened to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks all the while staring out the window at the snow.

Windows. All the different windows. Rooms. Perspectives. Views. Incense flavors. Lovers. Candles. Music. Anxieties. Seasons. Treasons. Jobs to wake up for. Bras to unfasten. To fasten. Cell phones of different men on different nightstands. Cell phones to drop in margaritas while trashed. Cigarette preferences. Cigarette addictions. Glasses of water after sex. Different lovers saying can you get me some water? Do you want some water? Can you pass me the water? Futons. Flannel sheets. Silk sheets. Snowflake pajama pants. Alarm clock noises. Different CD cases on different tables with white lines of different powder on them. Lucky lighters. Unlucky lighters. Someone told someone that the white lighters are bad. Unlucky lovers. Lucky lovers. Books on the subway. Books at the bar. Books in bed. Books in my bag. Books on my head. White powder on the books into my nose. Socks. Sweatpants. Scarves. A cigarette outside after a fight. A cigarette at a bar after a fight. In the kitchen after a fight. Cars. Car crashes. Different penises. Different hands. Drugs in the morning. Drugs in the evening. Drugs at suppertime. Different handwritings on the different letters they write when we break their hearts or after they know they have broken ours.

And New York. I can’t let go. I loved New York so much last night that I had to tell myself inside my head: yes, it would be weird if you humped that store front, yes it would be weird if you lied down on the sidewalk masturbating, yes it would be weird if you rolled around on the street like a kitten with catnip. I’d walk around with a constant hard on if I were a male. It’s like the city is fucking me on a regular basis. How bad do you want it? Bad! I answer. Hard! Fuck me off! Fuck me until I hate you and you hurt me. Fuck me until I am tired and burnt out. Fuck me until I leave you. The money game, the train game, the making breakfast game, the drinking game.

These are the things I obsess about and I do not think the average person does. These are the things that make me question my stability. These are the things that are important to me. These are the reasons I need to write:

Sun. Fire escapes. Drugs. Mannerisms. Powder. Apartments. The words people say to me in the sun on the drugs on the fires escapes off of different apartments. Kisses hi and kisses goodbye and dank bar bathrooms and insufficient sun and insufficient funds and arms around waists and hands around necks and hands around cocks and trains and tracks and third rails and you buy the first round I’ll buy the second and sweat and sobs and sadness.

I want everyone I love to live in one place. I want there to be just one place that I love. They will never all be in one place. There will never be one place that I love. I want to dissect my friends' beautiful hearts, take the parts that I love out and into my own heart. I want to have a little red wagon with all of the people I love inside of it following me everywhere I go. I want to pick up new people in new cities to go into the wagon. But I don’t want to have to lose any of the old people to get the new ones.

I want to keep them all.