Using my hand, I lower myself onto the trunk in Mike's room. My head swims and my watch tells me I have twenty minutes before class. I feel sick but begin mentally preparing myself for the relatively soon walk to class. Mike and I continue our conversation:
"I don't really know," I say. "It's just, like... Everything that I am is so anti-instutitonal."
Mike doesn't miss a beat and his exasperation is evident when he says, "Sammi! That's a terrible way to live."
My brain feels water-logged and I am not properly offended by Mike's comment, nor am I mentally capable enough to respond with the ferocity I normally would. Instead, I shrug and curl up on the trunk. My eyes closed, the world finally stopped spinning and I could concentrate.
I wanted to tell Mike, in more detail than I had in the rest of our conversation, my reasoning; I wanted to make him understand: "Institution" is a vague word and while there are some social constructs that simply cannot be ignored, conforming to ones that are detrimental or harmful or problematic to you or others isn't mandatory. Anti-institution isn't anti-community; it's not anti-social; it's not anti-personal relationship; it's not anti-empathy or anti-reciprocity.
Anti-institution is a lack of trust, not in the people I know and understand, but in those who are privy to more and decide not to share. (Yo man, I'm not sure how I feel about all information being available, but I'm certainly not about this current system.) It is the belief that I am important, intelligent, and capable enough to make my own decisions based upon the information given to me, my own personal preference, and the well-being of myself and others. It's not letting others make these decisions for me, simply because I know myself and what I want better than they do. Whether my decisions include partaking in recognized social constructs is based upon everything I know and believe at the time. Anti-institution is everything I do of my own free will, whether it is a conformative action or not, which creates a lot of room for new ideas and opinions and beliefs.
Anti-institution has no place for, "That's the way we've always done it." Anti-institution is constantly inspecting the walls and ceilings of social constructions for termites and mold because we are ready for change. We are ready to scrap everything we've created thus far for something better, something to keep the termites out. No idea or system can last forever. Some don't stand to come past half-thought. But anti-institution is thought. It's a constant need to search and imagine something new and better even after we imagine something new and better. Anti-institution is everything I struggle and aspire to be and I don't know if it's something I can ever make Mike understand.
***
At New Year's, Geoff was playing music from his phone, which sat in his breast pocket. After one J. Cole song came on, I called him over.
"Dude, dude, dude," I half-chanted. "Can you play that song? That "Just Can't Get Enough" Song?"
After some scrolling and some arguing as to which song was which, Geoff played "Can't Get Enough" by J. Cole and walked back over to where some of the boys were lining up fireworks to be lit. I leaned toward Christine and started rapping the first verse. A verse later, Geoff had circled back to us, and we shouted to each other the honest-to-god best line in the song, "I love it when you give me head/ I hate it when you give me headaches." During the rest of our time together at the Rosens' Geoff and I repeated the line to each other like goons followed by peals of laughter.
***
I want summer. It's literally only January and I can't wait for all this fucking snow to melt.
***
I love Ed Sheeran. I think he's really cool, honestly, and I usually sincerely appreciate his lyrics. Ya know? Honestly. But that's why I'm not super stoked about that song, "Thinkin Out Loud." It's adorable, but it truthfully doesn't have the same magic that the rest of Ed's lyrics have. Like: "I don't get waves of missing you anymore/ they're more like tsunami tides in my eyes" and "Give a little time to me or burn this out/ We'll play hide and seek to turn this around/ All I want is the taste that your lips allow" and "after my blood is drowning in alcohol" and "they say I'm up and coming like I'm fucking in an elevator." All of his lyrics are hella and I just feel like "Thinking Out Loud" is missing that.
***
"You cured my January blues
Yeah you made it all alright
I got a feeling I might have lit the very fuse
that you were trying not to light
you were a stranger in my phonebook
i was acting like i knew
cause i had nothing to lose
when the winter's in full swing
ain't it funny what you'll do"
***
lol. I almost forgot. I totally wrote stuff.
I think I titled this "You are nothing," which is a little bit depressing but I don't really have any other qualms with that title.
The way a game of
hopscotch, turns into a
hop, skip, and a jump off
a slightly-larger-than-you-thought
cliff;
The way the sun,
ashamed of its boldness and height,
spends the rest of the day
receding
(in with a bang,
out with the cold, chilling lights of night
seeping in to fossilize your bones);
The way the waves
reach foamy fingers
for the driest
swaths of sand
before
folding back into itself:
returning with the confidence
of high-tide
ebbing with the embarrassment
of low-tide
is the way that I
find solace in the
smallest version
of myself
after realizing
(with a crushing lack of finality)
that I am a speck
piloting a titan.
I think I'll call this one "Titles are for schmucks. Later haterz"
Gathering
fabric at the front
of my hips
I walk on
the mountains
of concrete,
the water rising
to their peaks
I sit
to examine
the bottoms of my
feet
thinking that
maybe
the holes in me are
(simultaneously)
smaller
and
mountainous
***
Yo dude. Writing is difficult and I'm inconsistent. So, I'm sorry for being terrible at this, but also not that sorry.
***
1. It was sparkling cider. 2. Lexi is still putting up with my shit in 2015
