May Catalogue

may: i go to sleep late and wake up early. i dream of being someone else. i work and play until my feet hurt so bad i can’t walk. i’m guilty for having fun, bad for being alive. i’m hot girl summer. i’m endeared to all bark, no bite, lost their thorns. i want to lose my thorns and i want to be cruel. no—never. that would be the worst thing in the world. 

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may: it’s that spring sort of cold—rain, no more drought—and next day it’s sweltering. i lose my mind daily. i am in love with people for the first time in a long time. i am fascinated. no one can know me. no one has the right. doesn’t it just feel nice, sometimes, to have a life only for yourself?

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may: my name, so it’s my month. olivia rodrigo is on repeat. i look outside every day and wonder how it can look like this! i forsake responsibility. i’m a silk screen of a person. i learn that the planes that were flown into the twin towers were commercial flights. i feel bad, and so good, and so right, and everything is okay. how can the world look like this? god is breathing down my neck and i’m ignoring his calls. if i don’t try, then i can never fail. i wouldn’t survive that.

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may: i wait for cicadas. i succumb to reality. i awake in a dream, a kind of half-life. i have to go to the “ftm porn” subreddit to find transition results. nothing feels right. i hold myself wrong—it’s something in the shoulders. i want to open up all the windows and let the sun and the air in.

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may: i am published for the first time. they add commas to my work; i forgive relentlessly. like it will save me! i forgive as a means of surrender, of rolling over. i want to read but can’t focus for more than a page. lilac rots in my room. i aspire to be merciless. i want to hurt. i am my own gentle sacrifice. i can’t imagine feeling better. i get ice cream every other day. i live a picnic blanket life. i think fondly of girlhood. i’m going to live forever and i’m going to die tomorrow. i blink and there’s summer behind my eyelids. good.