Was planning on staying in last night and getting some reading done. But I got some other things done instead, and decided to surprise Jürgen with some soup or something, since he's evidently kind of a klutz, and managed to get poison oak all over himself, and hasn't been feeling well. I took the second-to-last bus toward downtown, only to find that nobody was home. I waited a full hour until the last bus passed, but Jürgen hadn't arrived. I'd already missed the last bus going back up the hill.
Eleven-twenty at night, and Helena's standing in the middle of the road, not really having any idea how far from home she really is, and not really feeling brave enough to stick up a thumb. One of these decades, I really should learn to properly ride a bike.
(I still don't know where Jürgen was. Probably stayed late to meet with classmates or something... Who knows. He's a big boy and can take care of himself. I was the dumbass who decided it'd be a good idea to go to his house in the middle of the freaking night...)
So I walked back home. I'm guessing it's about four or five miles from where I started. It's been awhile since I've walked on a nice paved road in the middle of the night, headlights swooshing by and humidity turning my ears red.
Gave me some time to think.
I'm not so sure if I relished that time or despised it.
I hate everything about you. I hate the way you just swallow everything, take it for yourself and hoarde it and never let it see sunlight again. I hate the way you speak to me. I hate the way you laugh when I'm sad, and remind me of it when I'm happy. I hate the way your breath smells. I hate you more than I've ever hated anything in the world. You fucking venus flytrap. You fucking nasty, dirty, filthy, EVIL bitch. I wish you would die. And I wish I could have screamed all of this to the woods last night as I walked, but I'm still kind of a city girl at heart, and I'm still a little afraid of what the woods would do to me.
Am listening to the saddest song in the world. Don't remember its title. It is the saddest and most beautiful song I have ever heard. It sounds like a sunny day. It sounds like walking along the road around Lake Washington. It sounds like mer-people and lake foam. It sounds like suitcases. It sounds like running. It is wistful. And desperate. It sounds like the absolute exhilaration of finding that your heart is broken, not just empty.
I had a dream last night that I was washed into the ocean by a tsunami, and woke up on a tiny sea-stack island. In the center of the island was an old man, and at either end of the island was a large tree. The old man (who looked like the picture of Methuselah in the picture-Bible I had when I was a kid; robes and sandals and the whole deal) said, pointing: "That one is a cedar. That one is an oak." Then the old man disappeared. I stood in the middle of the island, and watched another tsunami forming in the distance, and not knowing which tree to cling to. I don't know what I did. I woke up, wet with sweat and tears.
It is sunny today.
I'm going outside.
~Helena*