"The hardest thing in life to learn is which Bridget to cross and which to burn." ~David Russell (with apologies).

If I die before I wake
Light a fuse, bake a cake

These days when I smile it hurts like an old familiar pain that I hardly notice anymore. Tolerable. I notice when the sky gets very dark and then it opens up like curtains and in sprays a million buckets of rain. I notice that I'm getting wet, that my hair is curling up into waves like the sea but I don't think I worry about it too much. I'll dry and if not then I'll grow mushrooms like on the grass, like on the tree stumps out in the secret garden, left to become tiny tables for pots full of flowers and strawberries.

When I write longhand now it's not as often that my brain switches gears, writing partial Jacob-memories before I drag the pen in a swish haphazardly down the page, ripping a jagged line that tears the paper up behind it like a shredded zipper. I sometimes call his number and now it tells me I dialed wrong, that I should check the number and try again. Where did his voice mail message go? The very short one that said, Call ye back when I can, 'tanks, in the quiet Newfoundland preacherman voice that he used in his office when someone was in distress. I believe I heard that voice more than anyone. I have voice memos that I saved from things so I can still listen to him but I only do that in the walk-in closet with the door locked and my headphones on so no one hears and thinks I'm slipping.

I'm not slipping. This is how things will always be.

I'm cold. I should run and slide into some jeans (new, straight-leg, way too long but nice) and a big sweater (Cole's grey one. Not giving it up ever even though it still reeks of paint thinner and gives me a headache and itchy hives because it wasn't made with soft wool) and maybe socks too. Ones with skulls that come up over my knees. Then I'll be super-warm but instead I'll probably just wait and have a hot shower before bed because that feels good too.

When I make coffee in the afternoon a dozen voices remind me that it's a bad idea. I do it around twice a week to be rebellious. When I pick up a pencil to start a drawing I immediately want to rip all the pages out of my sketchbook and start fresh.

Sometimes my music switches me back to another time and place. Sometimes I wake up with ideas about allegiance and loyalty and love that differ wildly from the day before. Some days I don't recognize myself in the mirror and some days I can rescue a downhill slide with any manner of stupid inconsequential actions and the moment I figure out the process for that instead of it occurring only by happenstance, well then I'll have conquered the world.