Nowhere Near

living by myself downtown felt like nowhere near by yo la tengo. it felt like sleeping next to strangers and wondering where i'd be eating next. it felt like anger and freedom. it felt primitive and all too far away

i remember looking out over the river and drinking beer

crying because no one around me knew me like the people back home so entirely did and i didn't feel at home with these people i was just some random eighteen year old girl. that is all i was. i could be reduced to that. 

and sometimes i look back at her and i think she just needed a real friend, someone to hold her in bed

to not touch her, to leave her body be

to take her out for ice cream and to braid her hair out of the shower

she needed to be held so desperately 

i wish i could hug her now

i would sing yo la tengo to her and i would tell her to just stay in bed today because that was really what she would've needed

she was spent

falling asleep in church, sweating in the breakroom at the job she worked, snoring over her half-written essays. it didn't didn't feel easy, did it?

for a short time there, i believe i was in love or in love with being far away

i was so so so far away 

there was something beautiful about this time for me

i was on fire with independence i was so upright in what i deemed for me

the grass at the park sang for me and i, for it

my favorite food place knew me and i, them 

i was setting down some real, yet strange roots there

and in small moments: in sips of coffee, yoga in the lounge, in smoking weed with my roommate, in running into the ocean, in crying so hard in the hall i did not care who heard, 

i was building something

you don't know how important it is to be an angry woman.