surrounded

i’m in bed most days. to my left is just kids by patti smith. i read four pages before falling asleep last night. i started reading it because everyone seems to have read it and everyone keeps telling me that i’d love it. i’ve never listened to patti smith’s music intentionally. it’s sitting on the pillow that i use to block the draft from my barred windows. there are four stuffed animals tossed about. i’ve been thinking of getting rid of three of them because when i invite people over to fuck, i feel embarrassed. women have never commented on them. men always do.

the body pillow supporting my back has lived in nine different bedrooms with me. under the pillow case, it is stained from sweat, makeup, tears, and probably chocolate milk. i got new sheets and a new bedspread after my ex and i broke up. cum stained and worn, i needed a reset. i wrote a piece about these new sheets, and read it to strangers and posted it on my substack that my ex subscribes to. he said he doesn’t open my emails, so i texted it to him.

my bed is pressed against the aforementioned drafty window. on my windowsill, i keep three grinders. i haven’t purchased weed however long, so i’ve been scraping the kief out. two of the grinders are old. one i’ve had since 2019. the other since 2021. the kief is brown and sticks together. sometimes i get so high that i lie in my bed with the spins. when this happens, i pull my blue blanket up around my face. i bought this blanket from the target in union square while drunk and stumbling. i hauled it back to brooklyn and didn’t wash it before i threw it on my bed. i wonder how many hands brushed it in the store. i feel gross when i think about this. i’ve washed it since then. obviously.

i also wash my stuffed animals sometimes. okay, really only the one i hold each night. when i was a child, maybe six or seven, my mom took me to build-a-bear and we stuffed a bunny rabbit. i named her felicia after a cat my mom had when she was a kid. my mom told me that felicia ran into the woods and died. she liked to tell me morbid things and i think i liked to hear them. a few years later, my cat peed on felicia. no matter how many times we washed her, she smelled like cat piss. i cried as my mom put felicia into a plastic bag and threw her out.

when i was a teenager, maybe sixteen or seventeen, i went to build-a-bear with a friend before our senior trip and i stuffed a bunny rabbit. i named her georgia for no particular reason. i brought her on the coach bus and let a boy in my class make fun of me for having a stuffed animal. i still have georgia. she’s lived in eight different bedrooms with me. i wash her often. i like when she smells like dryer sheets.

next to my bed is a nightstand that i built over thanksgiving break. the twenty minute assembly was bullshit. it took me four hours. on my nightstand is a plastic cup with melting ice from the latte i grabbed before class. there’s a glass of water that’s been there for a few nights. i’ve been having weird dreams about a former friend. i wonder if i’m in love with her because she’s always in my dreams. i told someone this one time and they told me that i need to empty the glass of water on my nighstand, that i keep having these dreams because the water is trapping them. when i empty it nightly, i don’t dream as much. i’m happy in these dreams where i’m in love with her, so i haven’t emptied it in days.

my medication is also on my nightstand. if i don’t see it right when i wake up, i won’t take it. if i don’t take it, i get a little crazy. if i get a little crazy, i lose things. i’m really tired of losing things. i have aquaphor next to my medication because my lips crack in the winter. next to the aquaphor and the medication, i have a stack of books. my friend mia’s galley that she stamped with her lipstick, when things fall apart by pema chödrön, jailbait by ruralisolationshortie. my journal sits under my books. i haven’t opened it in awhile because i haven’t felt the need to submit and cement my complaints. the pages of my journal are filled with me whining. i love to whine, to complain, to bitch. maybe i’ve just been doing it out loud lately. the bottom drawer of my nightstand holds my sex toys. a dirty dildo that i really should clean soon. any toys that go in someone’s ass are clean. because i have standards.

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an excerpt from an exercise written during chloé caldwell’s writing with intuition class.