Stories For Some Other Time

 A sense of paranoia I hadn’t ever felt before in Brooklyn began to set in once I started walking away from the noise of the club. I was wearing the most clothes I had ever worn on a night out, shorts that covered my thighs, and a top that went down to my belly button. I don’t subscribe to the archaic idea that what a woman wears puts her in danger, but the thought floated through my mind that maybe I shouldn’t be walking alone at 2AM, and maybe I shouldn’t be driving back to Boston by myself at that hour. Very curious thoughts given that last time I went out in Bushwick I wore clothes from a sex store in 30 degree weather and walked home at 5AM in a coked out haze with no jacket. I wonder, I ponder, I pray that these thoughts represent the deep change within myself that needed to happen to get me to the stability and happiness that I have now. A girl can dream. Maybe it’s not that deep. 

Someone I once shared a bathroom stall with said coke addicts never get old, and raised her flask at me before disappearing into the fog. We both knew it wasn’t true, but it sounded so sexy to say, we decided to believe it for as long as we kept going out, little club rats that we all were. In an existential sense, coke addicts never do grow up. We go out, get drunk, do coke, make art/music/write/etc., do more coke so that we can work harder so that we can make more art. We go out, get drunk, do coke, swear we’re done drinking, do more coke…Fuccckkk I’m late for work again! Very little opportunity for self-reflection, for critical thoughts about why we do what we do, why we go where we go, and how wherever our minds take us now is actively building a foundation for where we’ll go in the future. Fuck that noise! This house is a mess and I only just cleaned it. I ran out of cigarettes and red bull. What on earth am I gonna eat for breakfast now?! I should get my own reality TV show. My life is so perfect, so glamorous and hot. I really need to start making my own music. Wait! I’m already the life of the party. I need to do tasks today. I need to… I need to… ?!? Damn. The bag’s empty now. 

One of my favorite poets said that anyone who thinks sex is inherently precious is not your friend. Sneaky coke girls know this. We sexily slink through the crowd, every movement softly suggesting sex, but when it comes to the heart of the matter, to the core of why I’m in your orbit at that very moment, all I’ll say to you is head costs a gram. Blow for blow, babes. It’s a cycle. I love it and I won’t be ashamed of it. Stars are made from people who own their own mess. You can’t really do that anywhere besides New York.  

I guess people in Boston don’t like to sweat. They must not like rolling. They must not like dancing. The hardest drug I saw was a half empty bottle of Grey Goose even though there were 5 people at the table behind me. I wondered why those people could spend money on a table when they could learn about spatial awareness for free. I can’t quite figure out why those horrible people go out, then. Who wears perfume to the club?! Worse than Manhattan, if you ask me. When I left with my friend we talked about how half those people woulda been kicked out if we were in New York. But we’re not. We have stable jobs. We have health insurance. We’re in relationships that fill us with joy instead of leaving us wondering what the hell we’re doing when they all kick us out of their shit apartments their parents pay for at 10PM. Can’t spend the night, sorry. I’m going on a date tonight. Sigh. Now we have… joy? Feelings of content? I had a professor in college tell me everything’s gonna be okay if I have anything to do with it. Here, the clubs suck and I hate this stupid city that’s a town for people who don’t know how to live in a city. I hate that I have to wear real clothes when I go out. I despise that coke has nothing to do with my apartment always being clean. But I have something to do with it. So I’m staying. Because I’m too old to keep telling myself I’m living in a story of my own creation when I wasn’t even the main fucking character. 

When I think of my short amount of time in New York, I think of how once I found a Juul on the floor of an Uber, thinking I scored. I took a beat to think about all the times I’ve lost my vape on the way to the club. Shit sucks, because it means you’re fucked for the rest of the night. I’ve been fucked all night, too. It’s not as thrilling as it sounds now that I’m older. The vape was dead and the pod was empty. We ran out of condoms around 5AM. I guess some things are just meant to stay dead even if there’s a way they can become what they once were. 

If I say I don’t miss the chaos, the confusion, the constant fear that I’m doing the wrong thing at the right time, I’d be a fucking liar. When I went out in Boston, my friend and I left the club early so we could watch a movie. And I hate that that’s all I wanna do on a Friday night now. In a different universe, my battery’s never drained. In an alternate timeline, I can go all night. I’ll say it even though Otessa Moshfegh already did- I’m homesick for another world. A world I'm never going back to because it was always theirs and not mine.