shivasshakti

We're sitting at the dinner table, my mother's eyes heavy from too much to drink and my dad eating silently and quickly. I'm trying in vain to make small talk. Like I said, in vain - it's not working, and I think it might be making this whole situation more awkward somehow. It shouldn't be; it's just a stupid casual dinner, but there's some of that cliched unspoken tension, metaphorically thick enough to metaphorically slice with a metaphorical knife. Gay, I say.

Now my mom and I are listening to David Gray's "Say Hello Wave Goodbye" but she seems unmoved by his haunting voice and haunting lyrics and haunting music and I'm somehow hurt because showing her this CD is like baring a part of my soul somehow. No, that's stupid. It's just a fucking CD and I'm obviously oversensitive because I'm desperately seeking her approval so this is just a stupid extension of my stupid insecurities. Could it get any stupider? Mother, may I? I'm a grownup now - fuck approval. It's overrated anyway.

Now we're being silly - typical girly girls - and it breaks my heart that I'm breaking her heart. And I'll miss her, and she'll miss me, and we'll fight. And she'll pout, and I'll stress, and she'll cry, and I'll cry. And in two years I'll be back, telling her how right she was and how she can't let me make the same mistake again, just like I've always done and she's always done and history repeats itself. We're laughing at something that would be insignificant and lame to anyone but us and maybe there is something to that "mother-daughter bond" or whatever it is they're always romanticizing and sentimentalizing about.

Now she's gone to bed and I'm feeling alone, like our time is short somehow. She knows it and I know it and it's happening again but this is me and that is her and so it goes and blah blah blah... I'm waiting for someone to take care of me because I can't do it myself. This girl will self-destruct in 30 seconds. Oh, wait. I've already done that a dozen times, deconstructed and reconstructed, lost and found, come and gone, up and down, back and forth, and who was it that said The only thing that stays the same is nothing ever stays the same? Somebody felt all philosophical and deep but I bet it was really just some stoned teenager listening to Floyd and watching the Wicked Witch 'cause that's a fucking trip, bro.

Now I'm Melon Collie again and tired of thinking about it and I really just want to sleep it off. I'm tired and vaguely annoyed but still, of course, obsessing.

Now I'm looking out the window and there are so many stars that I can't do anything but stare. It's quiet - no music, no TV, nothing but my breathing and a clock ticking and the stars seem to crackle. Crackling stars? No, that's stupid. Where are all these dumb, thoughtless thoughts coming from anyway? Who am I to force profundity on a moment that's nothing more than that - a moment? Just a moment in the middle of infinite moments that are infinitely not profound.


I'm tempted to cause a scene.