Writing a lot about everything

White iBook on the fabricated wood desk provided in the dorm room that felt more like a prison than home to a freshman still unsure about her college choices. Whitewashed cinderblock walls painted over sins of previous occupants, whose echoes I could still hear. Picking hair out of my new rug, obsessively. My door open because I’d read in Teen Vogue that was how to make friends. Laughter dancing ghoulish down hallways like tombs.
Before selfies are a trend, taking photos in my full-length mirror, photos with my camera backwards. Capture my face, my hair, my “I’m here” self like it proves something. Being the person I think I should want to become. Writing a lot about uprooted plants. Writing a lot about everything.
Found my underwear drawer in the kitchen morning after. Vaguely remember searching for something hidden in the dark, not wanting to wake my roommate. Easier to remove the drawer, but not quieter. Panties in a box on the formica countertop: A surrealist painting of a life, my life. I laugh and wake my roommate anyway.
A note: “I took one of your flan for breakfast. I’ll pay you back. Nota bene: Mi dispiace, e te amo. In Rome, be back domani. Baci.” And a euro to weigh it down. Headache pounding on the train, too much melon-flavored vodka. Behind my eyes, dancing through a velvet-covered door, a doorman shushing revelers as night turns into morning.
“Ordinary Day,” by Great Big Sea. A video camera we borrowed and a quiet Friday morning chapel. Dress carefully for the viewers we won’t have. Piles of laundry, a car door slamming. Beer cans in a garbage can, waiting for recycling. Fade between scenes in time to the beat. Syncing life to art and so forth.
Airplane bottles of liquor mailed in a box with a dinosaur drawn in crayon. A paper on yoga as theatrical practice, downward dog in a borrowed sports bra. Cutting tape, taping cuts of life in snippets. “You can’t edit what you didn’t record,” professor with an emmy in his closet. Advice he means for screen time, taken elsewhere.
Poetry on ragged notebook pages. Clove cigarettes and Merton. Strange noises behind locked doors, magazine inspirations. Cover letters, wings and prayer. Writing a lot about futures. Writing a lot about everything.