June 6: PPL, garlic fingers, 10 degrees cooler

[fuckatherine]

Frank O’Hara today. The book store didn’t have him so I journeyed over to the library and got the littlest collection. I get this feeling that I’ve read this one before but I didn’t internalize any of it that time. That’s always the problem. Every summer I get fits of intellectual inspiration that rarely take me anywhere, never infect my brain fully enough to be helpful. None of it takes root.

 

Anyways, Frank O’Hara. Recently in my reading I’ve been searching for evidence. Another person’s words to put language to feelings I can’t yet. O’Hara gets it close enough but he, like everyone else, wants to write about New York and California and Budapest and France. No one wants to write about Providence. I don’t want to write about Providence either. 

 

And I don’t really want to write about you. Stupid idiot. I feel stupid because I don’t know what I am allowed to feel, how I’m allowed to act. You keep telling me that I can feel however I feel, and that is true. But not all my feelings are helpful. Maybe not all of them are appropriate. 

 

I want to grow up. I want to become strong and impervious, always capable of making the correct decision that harms no one and brings peace to all. I never want to tamp down jealousy and disguise it as concern again. I want to never feel hurt and never cry and never miss anyone ever. I want to never feel my stomach tighten and never be nauseous and never, ever do anything for anyone I care about ever again. All I want to do is do things for people I care about.

 

I want a good summer. I want a good life. It’s hard to imagine people who you haven’t met and situations you haven’t experienced—how will I know that things won’t always just be like this? The answer is that logically, I know that things can’t always just be like this. But I’m never strong enough to make it happen. 

 

I can never deal the killing blow.