A column about my short story. An Installment about its fodder. Arranged in alphabetical order. Inspired by Sheila Heti. Journal entries, notes app lines, my essays, and the story: stripped for parts to make a new whole. Look at my mind:

About a guy who wants to sell all his furniture before he kills himself. About a man on a park bench pretending to drive a car. About a man who loses his girlfriend so he follows women who look like her. About piecing together who you’ve been to know who you are.

Am I doing my work? 

Ask everyone to send in a video where they pretend to be me. Ask for tracking number from depop. Business as usual. But maybe that’s just because I don’t have much to talk about these days. Committee of selves. Cool concept but something is missing. David was trying to remember this. Do not cry, please! Each of our truths must have a martyr. 

Email Daphne. Even our barriers are stuck. Existentialism. Finish YDN. Force yourself into the conditions of art-making.  Give yourself a break after this CRAZY week. Gasparra Sampa, Italian poet. Go to post office. Go to student accessibility. Good but something is off. Guilt consumes me. He carried it to the tomb and let it rupture his insides. He feels guilty about it, and yet he can’t stop. He hated their eyes rummaging through his soul. He laid the card down, and the light stayed red. He said, Eli, you can shout at me. He said, God, he has no conscience. He tapped it again, and nothing changed. He was born in the same house he was raised in the same house he was wed in the same house he regressed. He was surrounded by people leaving for the world. He’s slept on a single mattress his entire life, but he can’t roll off of it now. 

Her words became mine. His tea gets cold. Hold on to you. How fascinating. I am not bad. I am soon to accept this. I got this story from a fella out west who said he could make me cry with his words. I hate my bedroom. I have wronged many people! I know the feeling. I love black tea. I read on. I spent the first six months of this year pretending to be a Jehovah’s Witness. I want to carry the cross for reasons I can not name. 

I will see you! I will understand the world. I’d gone into my first semester of college looking for meaning. I’ll phone again next week. I’m catching up on sleep and emails. I’m in tears.

Is it vain to make carbon copies of your letters? It was all the same thing. It was why he turned towards the Light when his tea began to sour. It’s enjoyable to have something to do. It’s nice to be part of something that people enjoy. 

Jonah and the whale. Jonah had to leave. Leave this country? Leave your phone at home today. Less time to do whatever it is I’m supposed to do. Less time to read. Less time to write. Life is long; beauty is everywhere. 

Mary was the first Christian. Message Brunella. Message Cal. Message Kanyinsola. Noooo. Now was here, it was there, it was gone, it was fleeting, running, slipping through his hands, it was crushing, a weight on a weight on a weight on a weight, all of which looked like air. Office of career strategies. Office of fellowships. Oops.

Perhaps those few months of blankness are exactly what I need. Pitch Brink. Remove the man. Return fliphones. Richard Siken and the shrinking gap between writer and reader.  Reply to MC. 

She is the reader and the writer. She misinterprets your questions because you misinterpret her. She said, We know why we’re apart. She said, Make your own Hollywood. She was marching to the sound of her own splitting hairs. She was mixing her metaphors, and mixing them well. So since we’re human, we have to face it. Someone dreams of moving pictures. Something that means everything. Start small. Stay right-sized. Story about a forensic artist who falls in love with someone she draws. Story about a silent town. Surrealism with Camille! Take Jonah, for example. Take our future out the can! 

Talk about the job like it’s yours. Taxes. The body will not be tricked. The courage to be disliked. The future is now. The gaze would not budge. The light went green. The train moved on. There would come a day when all this was gone. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow the world begins.

Write Charlie Kaufman a letter. Yes, I would like that very much. 

You will die in your bed if you refuse to leave it.