sky day 334

think about all of the times you have almost gotten hit by a car from listening to loud music and laugh

go through old emails before you have to be at the clinic in an hour

think about how no one at the clinic knows what email is

decide that is probably for the best

because email is depressing

and then think about how it is not your place to decide what is best for marginalized people, ever

 

you told me about the time you slept with someone you didn't really know

and then woke up the next day and found out they were a neo-nazi

and that made you sound hardcore, or open minded, maybe

but that just sort of terrified me

 

 

i read email

i saw the indian man who owns the liquor store feeding pigeons this morning

and i also saw him hit a homeless man with a broom handle one time

feed birds hit people

at zwane clinic i am playing a show for little kids on friday and it is my last day there

how do you say goodbye to little kids in a foreign language

how do you tell them that you are not going to see them again

how do you leave when you know no one else is coming to take your place

and now that they know the alphabet and about how fifty xhosa words are spelled

who is going to teach them about sentence structure and also more vocabulary

who is going to teach them what adjectives are

adjectives are so important

how the fuck am i supposed to walk away from that

i am not qualified to explain to anyone what adjectives are

truth be told i don't know if anyone could possibly explain the relevance of adjectives

i am not qualified

i am not a teacher

but there are no other teachers

there are no teachers

there are no teachers

there are no teachers

so i am automatically the most qualified willing person

what makes my life remotely more significant than their literacy

you said, you teach kids about hiv through music

i said yeah

you said that was awesome and i could tell you thought i did that just so i could tell people about it because there are a lot of people like that here there are a lot of white people like that here

and so i left the conversation

 

i want you to touch my hair

i want you to receive the nobel peace prize for wanting to write me a letter but not knowing what to say or how to say it

i think that is probably happening to someone i know in the world right now

i also want you to get enough sleep so i am going to not bother you from now on

wooden planks surrounding the roommate who woke me up last night

because he was touching himself at two am on a saturday

this made me laugh in the morning

i woke up and ate a huge apple and drank a huge thing of water and a piece of bread

in the morning i did not look at his face or say good morning i just washed my clothes in the bathroom sink and then i hung them up on the fence to dry and they were dry in like seven minutes

and then he said good morning and i was like, "good morning"

and then he was like, "what are you up to today?"

and i was like, "uh, i'm going to study and then go to langa"

and i did not ask what he was going to do because i have never seen him do anything but watch televsion or now, masturbate

which was probably rude of me but it was already weird

and i stared at the prescription pills under his bed

that was weird but important

 

 

i can't decide in these situations if i should show these things to anyone else and then i always do because i have low self esteem and this is why i do this and this is why i do this

the way he wrote that made me think about how i feel about actually sticking with this project for a year

and i wonder why i did that

because half way through i decided it was very contrived and also quite boring

but that was okay with me because i think i am sort of contrived

and it's probably not so bad, to be contrived

because that is close to being average

and if you are average then at least you are not below average

and also then you are probably down to earth

so i considered stopping and oh, i don't know

 

jody gave me back my book at the bar

"a cocksucking smooch with not public speaking skills," we laughed about that for awhile

and he laughed and laughed and the bar guy told me he didn't like my american accent and that there were no accents allowed at this bar

and jody was drunk so he told him to fuck off, was he xhosa or khoi khoi? then he wasn't from here either

and then i said, ha ha

and we left and went to the park where someone spray painted "tic generation"

and i was so relaxed i felt like i was in the thirteenth noun class of a traditionally unwritten language

thirteenth noun class i was not gendered because there are fifteen genders and i was either singular or plural so i fit every single noun

read email from victoria about watching her baby videos

and her saying that she had to turn them off because her mom looked so beautiful in them

and she misses her so much and her mom listening to the pixies and the smiths and taking pictures in the 1960's and being full of fire and seeking independence

and missing her mom and wanting to ask her a million questions

and then feel body parts singularly of themselves, o my

with love, from the northern hemi

with love, from the southern hemi

 

 

and i wanted to spray paint over somebody's eyelids

little red x's or just a sentence like,

let yourself feel things

please let yourself feel

there is nothing about feeling to be afraid of

it is a microcosm of a cardboard puzzle of a canyon with blooming trees and plants

and clean water

let yourself feel things and eventually you will be ok

Done