Phase the Fourth: I went to a New York City public school, P.S. 199, and played on many playgrounds, ate chocolate-chip muffins on the fountain in Lincoln Center, read books, and rode the carousel in Central Park.
I remember plucking purple sequins off my fireflies around us, but wanting
desperately to braid the tail, I remember
loving to
look anything and everything
I could get my hands on who I only talked to
earlier than all my friends, I remember
loving a green playground
confusing by
the fence during recess in kindergarten getting
so homesick at day camp baby heart (me) and a big heart (her),
being stoned and accidentally feeling unnaturally guiltless about it.
I remember wishing
I remember searching
I remember crying
I remember deciding to being so
scared running across campus always being
scared of falling, and being amazed that I wasn’t
scared of falling off of it, I remember thinking that
I would buy cigarettes driving around aimlessly to The Shins dreading the
moment my favorite plastic Aladdin plate, I remember drinking
a vegetarian for a year
wearing a gauzy, rose-covered shirt
wear red lipstick every day, I remember giving my mom
a kiss on my cousin’s remote control into a
little suitcase dragging my baby sister.
I remember forgetting
remember wishing.
I remember when Ilana with Brianne on EJ’s
kitchen floor container with Jocelyn wanting to be a hippie.
I remember drinking, I remember driving with the windows
In my room at home, at camp
I remember coming home
not being able to tell if my mom was pretty or if my dad was
handsome being afraid
that everything cool, I remember peeking to go to
school even when unable to
fall asleep on a Sunday night crying, I remember being
unable to fall asleep crying while listening to
certain boys I liked without
acknowledging their presences.
I remember always being
bored with my hair but just barely sitting
in the bathroom in the middle of the night with Girl Scout cookies, I remember
lying out in my backyard the first day in March learning plastic water bottles were bad for my liver and drinking
not remembering if I really remembered things
