My roommate the other day said

'i just wanna go to the club"
 
i thought about it and said   what ive said to my other roommate
 
a few days earlier:

"i feel like the pandemic has aged me five years"

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in the beginning of the pandemic i craved returning to the club
in between essays i needed to escape or in my childhood bedroom staring at
pictures of myself in figure skating dresses

i
remembered sweat and wanted to dance next to bodies
callously bump into each other and take swigs out of strangers' flasks and hits of joints
pass around the poppers bottle with friends i made in the bathroom
slide down until I’m sitting on the tile floor
the beat bumping through the wall
intensifying the buzz
a sensorial reminder

in my states of oblivion

the pleasures

 

of existence

of life
 

that

another week is worth living

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three times a week now i blow my nose to clear any particulate matter and sanitize my hands and file in a line six feet apart tap my school ID I lose once a month 
Open up a vacuum sealed q-tip in a cubicle put it up my nose and place it in an airtight vile
hand it to gloves that run my sample through a PCR

in search of a virus that could kill me, my peers, professors, partner, family, or a stranger

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i think the last time i was at a big party
 
was the punk show at apple jam that was the loudest the diy club had ever been
i got a bloody nose
and olivia made a speech

and when we went outside i put my drink in the snow on the car parked in the driveway of arts house and olivia struck up conversation so that they could bum a cig from an international student
i wore my fenty bodysuit under my Harley Davidson t shirt and a harness 

 

or maybe it was when

i dressed in drag as a girl and 
the trans kids that scared me got it and i was kind of accepted but im not sure if i was

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im just now as of a few days ago becoming aware of

the obsessive thoughts that i have about other people's opinions of me

 

especially queer people

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my partner noticed it 

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and in a similar way my professor noticed

i had imposter syndrome 

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having names for things can help

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-----

 

 

 

 

 

 

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i used to get through an entire week of institutional conditioning of ableist clock time 
by looking forward every monday to friday evening when i could become a new person
sometimes two different people

now this pandemic ive had to meet those people with language and lucid sobriety
 
rather than feeling and intuition that comes with
dragging mannerisms to fit this week's
costume regalia
energy evocation mythical being
carrying the legacy of an elder i will never know
the inner child a spiritual thing beyond a body in my blood
the creature that was me when i saw myself in the mirror with a eyeshadow brush when i walked out of my room when i entered the party the rave the basement when i felt the beat when i was at the club 

 

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alberto said he just wanted to go back to the club and i couldn't imagine
how

that could be fun again
i couldn't imagine a next time
like i used to

i looked at him from the makeshift office in the kitchen
the new luxury i have learned from this year
a different space to think than where i sleep

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in my chair with a cocked head
and i tried to imagine a sensation of euphoria
in proximity to many
and i encountered a wall that kept me from the daydreams for the past:

what i told him when i started the conversation
sometimes i say things that aren't quite the right answers but they make some sense and the receiver over time can decode it
but i feel so ashamed of the inability to properly communicate
now i understand why i said i have aged five years since quarantine

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changing so much and self becoming over this past year

 

 

i can no longer relate to

5 day work week
redbull drinking/double/triple adderall dosing to stay up until 2am to to keep up with my little ivy close enough in miles to count with the fingers of one hand
harvard and MIT 
inferiority complex
neurotypical peers syllabi and toxic professors
internalizing self hatred
sometimes she
self
my only motivation the club
i can no longer compare
who i am now to that person

 

 
no longer imagine who i will be that first time i am back at the club