Top Tracks of 2015

Finally got my Spotify-generated list of the tracks I listened to the most in 2015, in descending order of most-listened to. These are the top 50:

1. Pedestrian at Best by Courtney Barnett
2. Alone with the Owl by Jason Molina
3. Alone with the Owl (cover) by Sarah Jaffe
4. Rich by Cosmo Sheldrake
5. Weight of the World by Birds of Tokyo
6. Feel the Lightning by Dan Deacon
7. Pripyat (Part 2) by Seth Sentry
8. Big Shot by Pearls
9. But I’ll Try by Ainslie Wills
10. Borderline by Tove Stryke
11. Anchor by Birds of Tokyo
12. Living Proof by Infantree
13. To Be Born by Sayde Price
14. Pontoon by Emma Louise
15. Ship to Wreck by Florence + The Machine
16. Illuminate by The Kite String Tangle and Dustin Tebbutt
17. Hold Me Down by Halsey
18. Jungle by Emma Louise
19. Wolves are Waiting by Dustin Tebbutt
20. Stay (feat. Hayden Calnin) by Tully on Tully
21. Braces by Emma Louise
22. In Love With A View by Mojave 3
23. Everything Should Try Again by Jason Molina
24. Lodi by Creedence Clearwater Revival
25. Just to Feel Wanted by Tuka
26. Mirrors by Emma Louise
27. Line of Fire by Junip
28. Bones by Dustin Tebbutt
29. Night Song by Emma Louise
30. Policeman Getting Lost by The Clientele
31. Deception Bay by Boo Seeka
32. Satellite by Ainslie Wills
33. Hold On Magnolia (cover) by Communist Daughter
34. Atlas Eyes by Emma Louise
35. Cosby Sweater by Hilltop Hoods
36. The Great Unknown by Banff
37. The Creators by Sahara Beck
38. Mountains by Quickbeam
39. Alaska by Animaux
40. Home by Dustin Tebbutt
41. Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain by Sparklehorse
42. Love Me Like a River Does by Melody Gardot
43. 17 Hours by Emma Louise
44. Adolescence by The Murlocs
45. Boy by Emma Louise
46. Stand in Line by Banff
47. Brainwash by Cillie Barnes
48. Maybe by Carmada
49. Cages by Emma Louise
50. Silk (feat. Thelma Plum) by Dustin Tebbutt

And here’s the playlist:

mini mixtape xxxix - cumulonimbus

lightning has not
happened for a
while i can't keep
aching since

when does it have
to be so hard she's
everything you need
when you are feeling
down this has got to

stop this game i
know that i can't
change your mind
but i'll try sparkling

stars may as well
be dancing & my
dreams of you are
shattered under-
neath the light
of the same moon

cold when morning
comes to take
you & the time we
had is over it's
got to stop i know


floating around
in deception bay
hold me down
as i get closer i'll
just drift away
further now

too many winning
here to pass loss
to my fear 'cause
everything i'm
hearing sounds too
good to be true

another one is
approaching near
words i want are
getting clear i'll
stand aside &

probably let this
one through


what would you
do if it all came
back to you each
crest of each
wave bright as
lightning what
would you say if

you had to leave
today leave
everything behind
even though the
words are shining

you realize it's
just a whim & you
notice it matters
who & what you
let under your skin

would you hold
everything back all
emotions & desires
convince
yourself there is
someone else
& hold back from
the world your lack
of confidence

what you choose
to believe takes
you as you fall

days look back
through your dark
corners step back
from the
line of fire


want to be the
voice to your
favorite song if i
can give you all
my love would you
still ask for more

would you let
me go my
own way let
me know if i'm
too far away

would you still
dance with me
if you could get
my heart for free


hadn't spoken in
days i was smoking in
silence here we
go for another
round the light it
remained

in the sky the
lightning barely
went by we would
talk of being ready
the promise of barely

remains & i wager
you'll come back
around an idea
more than just
to be found in an
age where we're
all coming down


can you feel the
lightning covering
your skin its
a nightmare 'cause
you're on fire

i'm having
visions infinite
visions the same
ones as you i try
not to worry but i
always worry till
all i can do
is wish we could

change it to
before we
changed it &
oceans have all
been dried up
& left they became
the skies & then
they all wept


you tell yourself
you'd walk away
if things went bad
if things change

but i know you
you can't see straight
i'm gonna hold
you in the middle
of the night


as the weeks
fade away i
still believe what
your eyes say i
still see you

illuminate as i
drop my guard
didn't think i'd
ever know where
your body ends time

slows for the last
breath while
everything
is shattering
start telling me
you'll meet me
there i won't make it
keep you too long

through the long
shadow we can't
see the road so
stop fearing you

won't be the one
can you just
let us grow you
won't let us grow


songs:
but i'll try by ainslie wills
deception bay by boo seeka
line of fire by junip
my own way by kita alexander
coming down by buchanan
feel the lightning by dan deacon
middle of the night by vinyl thief
illuminate by the kite string tangle & dustin tebbutt

timed morning improv

i have 15 minutes
to find a poem in

slept 1 hour last
night to keep nightmares
away, a week
they've haunted
me & my head now
my bed's comfort
suddenly discomfitting

here i am, awake
wading into 8 hours
of a work day

in my hour
of sleep i dreamt
i worked in
my own little office
no cubicle no more
& i got calls from
actual wankers
not figurative ones

i had a short gold
blonde undercut gold
fingernails gold
eyeliner &
no top on but i
tried to find one

i have 5 minutes
to finish this poem

i don't know what
any of this means if
it actually means
things & isn't just
a collage of cut images

my hair is getting
too long now, turning
silver instead of gold
i have grey fingernails
black eyeliner &

i am still afraid
of the dark.

nightmares

It's been a while since I had a dream I could remember. I must have had a bad one, because my sister woke me up last night to see if I was ok. I was calling out and crying, so much that she was scared. And when she woke me up, I couldn't remember why.

I fell back asleep had a series of dreams where I was responsible for things, children, possessions, that didn't actually belong to me, but that I cared about, That were... not important, important is the wrong word...precious? Precious, maybe.

A friend's baby from a bad birth. She was bleeding out and handed the baby to me as they wheeled her away to surgery. How could I take care of this? How could I keep it safe until she came back? I cradled it, called for help, regretted calling for help... a doctor from a competing hospital came, tried to take her away, saying he had to, he was the only one who could fix the baby's heart. I couldn't move as he left with her. Numb and panicking. Helpless. Distraught. Then her family finally showed up, and I couldn't speak to them because they only spoke Spanish. This huge barrier to understanding and communication as I struggled to tell them my friend was in surgery, there was a lot of blood, it was bad. Desperate. I watched their faces, as I tried to tell them. The confusion, horror, desperation. They wanted to know where the baby was. A doctor, I wept, a doctor from another hospital took her. I couldn't stop him. I just needed my friend and the baby back. I needed to fix it. I needed everyone to be happy. I needed to put it all back together again.

I panicked and wandered blindly out into the street, which was a church parking lot. I climbed tall steel rafters, in tow: a small Sunday school class of 5 young boys. Not mine, but, again...precious...and I was responsible for them. We were supposed to go to a certain room and wait for something. It was like herding cats. We were up like twelve stories. The room was unfinished, a wall missing on the side. Steel girders and beams criss-crossed the walls, the floor. I was trying to stay back from the open ledge, paralyzed by my fear of heights. The of the boys kept playing by it. One in particular kept hanging into a framing beam that went from the floor to the ceiling, and was spinning around it, out over the giant open drop. I was holding the other boys close to me. Pleading for him to stop and come back and wait. Trying to tell him how scared I was that he would fall, that we would all fall. That something horrible would happen. He swung around again, laughing. I lunged for him, but his hand slipped and he was falling. I had failed

I was in someone's basement. Well, not really a basement. The ground floor of a split level house. I went to open the door to a room, and realized I was in heels. But not just... normal... heels. Silver fetish heels. There were people upstairs who weren't supposed to know I was there. One hand was on the doorknob. The other was closed around something. I looked down at what it was. A silver riding crop. I was in black lingerie. I opened the door. The room was dark. A giant bed was in the middle of the room, but it was covered in all sorts of things that don't go on a bed, stacks of books and a trunk. A chest of drawers. Boxes of puzzles and games. Sealed boxes. I heard a low laugh and a hand grabbed at me in the dark. Slapped me. I turned and bit at the arm. There was no face, it was too dark, despite being able to see the things on the bed. I only saw parts of his body. Arms that pulled, clung, wandered, locked tight. I whipped him. He laughed, whimpered, enjoyed it, cried for more. I was weeping. I felt sick. But he wanted it and he mattered too much to say no. I was chased from the room by someone else, someone who was really going to hurt him. I was clawing at them, kicking, screaming to get back, to get in the way of him and the hurt. I was thrown to the ground, my ankles twisting in those stupid shoes. The door slammed in my face. I could hear him whimpering, pleading with whoever was behind the door now to stop. I banged my head against it. Pounded. Screamed. I had to stop what was happening. My legs wouldn't work. I was screaming. He started screaming. I was frantic and immeasurably upset, guilty, regret momentarily drowned out by panic and terror at what was happening behind the door.

I woke up.

too red

sometimes he takes me
too far back
& i'm forced to
wade through regret
shame silence guilt
stupidity
silly me

he'll resurface
just long enough
to pull me back in
& i drown in all my
obligations, all
my inanities &
real things i have
& haven't
done

why do i revisit
this labyrinth & think
i can ever find myself
or find the him i
left behind & still
look for on long nights

god damn internet
instant access to
insecurity &
idiotsyncracies

i've crawled into
a sparklehorsehole
to write this because
it is noise & comfort
& a self he doesn't
make me hate

for all the nothings
i have been
or am being

it was more
space than i
could handle
this time, the tide
is too far out

global warming
or some shit
made it so it
can't come back to
that line
that life

i got
old somewhere
along the way
been thinking
in lines too straight
for too long

& i don't have
time to be anything
besides what
everyone but he
needs me to be

he only ever
comes back to
open all the wounds
of what i've not done
& leaves too soon
leaves me
bleeding lonely
like it's actually
lifeblood these days

i had just circled
back to a little poetry
& felt pleased
with myself

now i'm only
undone, riled

naked with the ends
of what once was
a sweater
in my hand

trying to sew
my mouth shut
so i stop saying
so much to him
so much except
the everything i
could've would've should've
said

if only i'dn'ta...

up a rabbit hole
reading under a tree
alice grew up
got a job
got debt &
pretty sure they
paved over the way
back to wonderland

no rowed back
to someday isle

the nots in my stomach
keep saying so

to be born

well i had to start a war
'cause my eyes were raw
& my fingers sore
from clutching dirt 
& gaping at the prairie

hd radio bullshit

i want to be
so sincere
& still not
myself here

to set up
some actual
parenthesis
around him

a space to
contain a
reality that
won't spill-
over into
all the little
lives he hides
from in his
head

& i want to
create it be-
cause it's the
same kind of
thing i've been
looking for
forever, so
why not

make one
for someone
else in the
meantime

how can i
tell you to
tell things
to me?

you can
talk to me
for hours about
anything, i don't
mind, i more
than don't mind
i prefer an
outside focus
a long draught
from a deep

well

all the
conversations
i want to have
don't know
i want them

so i sit here
fill my ears
with something
else & scan
the horizon of
all these empty
spaces

waiting
to be full of
reciprocation
& too much
truth

this dent is now a crater

we never get
our lines crossed

they run parallel
in the same
places
in the wrong
times

circle back
turn a rut
into a track

& never tell him
too far away
the want
in all the
having, or how

i retreat to
the comfortable
strangeness of him
if he lets me

my placeholding
subconscious

& now's another
time to lie in my
well-worn
one-man chasm
next to his
on this bedrock
tabletop

close but no
closer
survey the
topography

fingertips trace
strata, find
how often he
wound
words
around
& over me

angry, hurt
longing, sincere
bitter
bittersweet
sweet
words while

i would lie
& talk to myself
with my eyes
closed

it's this blink
& blanch
at what could have
been written
on my skin but
is left in lines
& layers

i press lips to
long ago & all
i taste is old dirt
dry on my tongue

so i believe in
fall but not
autumn anymore

there are motors
in the ground

but all i've
ever done is hold
on to another
thing or sound

feel the lightning

strands of september

pushed against
this word wall

in a slow
show dance
around tell
nots & knots

in tiny
spirals brick
by brick
to a long void
& low hum

poetry
a bird of prey
shrieked

sunk talons
through my shoulders
& flung me at
a halo moon

full of holes
& the hot
spread of my
own blood

too many
people say
all the same
things with
all the same
words

i want you
in these lines

not what you
think i want
in these lines

don't tell me
the heart
is heavy

tell me what
sound an
iron heart

away
from a
magnet
presence

makes when it
meets the ground

start putting
wrong words
together
instead

grey hours &
long breaths

find me regret
in being too much
of a thing
to hold onto

it's silent
& time dilates

as my last
words
edgeskirt
spaces where

it still won't
speak anything
beside that
blind stare

infinite hopes
scream
underneath
paper skin

crisp edges
of september
outline all my
pencil
possibilities

eyes
look like
they'd
look good
on me

they're knots
in all my
little nerve

endings
& bite marks
inside my

bottom lip

a diffusion
of self

across
every tiny
universe

each a tiny
stone, a
peace

pulled
from all
these places
where i lie

each a
little grey
good
bye

forever
echoing
low rumbles
of laughter

cups filled
with the taste
of my name
on other
tongues

just ash
& aches
of stars
between
sheets

listen long
enough
to miss it
entirely

only ever
effervescent

light in
periphery

last notes
hung on
silence

a timbre
i tell to
myself

roll me
thunder
between
fingers

all our
little ions
charge,
part, arc
electric

bare

against
black sky

a cloudburied
moon

pulls ripe
out to my edges

misseds

& mists

dark blurred
lines

slip sweet
to the end
of all my
sentences

lure me
with long casts

reel me in
by a gasp
hooked
in the back
of my throat

build me
in slow
curves

extend
me in
neverstraight
lines

pulse
on my lips
tremble
in fingertips

bury
bones
in me

don't let me
touch these keys
before 9

anymore

i'm serious
take this phone

hold back my
hands, cold

stab a bitch

something

oh help me
untangle

all the
explosions
beneath
those eyelids

study me
for what
doesn't waver

with devilish
glints over
sweet lips
holding
a sly grin

an eyebrow
to arch
my back

until i
climb out
of sleep

open an
eye &

decide to
fall back
into the abyss

where i am
a bedsheet
at 2 a.m.

when chill
& instinct
pull me
tight around

in sleep
with a slow-
turned shiver

today
i need

my empath
frequencies
set to white
noise & not

this hd
radio
bullshit

read me
in corners
where
you think i
can't see

& i feel all
my scars
start to burn

could i
beg to
be shown
devils in the dark
because i want
fire & horns
to hold onto

it's one
of those
mournings
where i woke
up a hundred
years older

tired of
constriction

& just
want to be
pulled
back
because
otherwise
i'll forever
slither
away

vaguery
stripped

seconds
bold &
underline
me

hands trace
void calls

i could've
left those
fingertips
unanswered

look but
don't touch

for the
longest
time just

to let me
stay
unreal
when i

needed to

looking glass

tired
of tech
nology
trying
to move
my life

further
&
further
out/away
of/from
my body

we are
already
ghosts
in machines

empty eyes
spark nothing
reflect
artificial light

fingertips
in prolonged
death rattles

across all
these keys

relentlessly
throwing
ourselves
at the void

mixtape xxxvii - a little list of runaways

the runner doesn't speak
he won't speak to me
pack a bag and fly across the seas
and don't feel a thing
do you know what it's like to be sober?

-

i won't go back home
i won't know my way
town to town i go
a new one every day
i'm looking for alaska

-

gods of iron clashing
wind in battle through the night
tears will fall and
strength is needed to overcome
this old house is full
of leaks and mold on the walls
dragons of the mind
are lurking in the shadows
torrents wash away everything
raindrops flowing all around
queen takes king
the pawns are falling on the ground

-

oh so cool you seem
blending with that scene
wearing what you think is hard
i can see you struggling
boy don't hurt your brain
thinking what you're gonna say
'cause everything's a game
always try to calculate

-

my eyes blew out i could finally see
warm magical tropical oceans
organs of people circle the sea
i fell back to perpetual motion
i opened my skull you were looking at me
we all howled a chord and extended the three
freddy was there and remixed it after

-

maybe there is still time
oh i don't know anymore
and i see the wonderous things
in what you could have been
you kept on hanging around
showing me the rough side of town
i said once, i said twice
but not again

-

pour your words out
come on, i'm not coming back
draw the curtains
come on, that old sun is back
my hometown has cursed me
lately
i'm not coming back
cause the last thing that i noticed
as that old train came around
was a city burning golden
as the sun came shining down
and i said they'd still be in my mind
as i screamed goodbye
farewell to my old town

-

a pair of lovers in the kitchen
it's a story to tell
they are wishing
they are waiting
for something, well
a pair of lovers in the night
you're a lover and a fighter
that's okay with me
don't need no money to have a good time
there's only one thing i need

-

taking steps toward your door
i hasn't let myself before
hear your name called
she screams your name out
as you take her to the floor
think she likes it?
and you found it
and you drowned it
and you washed it clean
feed me words while you had her
between the sheets
bet she likes that

-

all my life i've been waiting
caught up in nothing at all
i fear not what i have never done before
but what i've been until now
hear the sound of bright light
bask in the silence of dark
endless voices erupt inside my head
a flurry of fears and doubt
mind is poison
knowledge helps the pain
but sense can't help me out

-

we were young souls
on the junkyard
now we are stunned minds
full of junk goods
but i feel your heartbeat
just like mine
i feel your heart beat
all the time
and we were bound to the citylife
flashlights
when we were falling into the night

-

for some this is all a game
don't take me just a fool
from the sidelines to the front wide
i'll be saving up for them new shoes
all the while i'll be wishing it's alright
'cause my main man on the right
plays it cool

-

i feel the darkness setting in
and my memory wears thin
i know it's happened times before
and i'm preparing for a fall
i've started breaking ties i've made
expecting blankness on this grave
a dozen times i've felt this breeze
but now i feel it in my sleep
so much more behind my words
i miss myself so much it hurts
feel the same
be this way

-

couldn't find you honesty
all the blisters you were holding alone
couldn't find you honesty
were you water
were you breaking
my frozen bones
my broken mind
it pulls this frozen weight on us
now i've spoken what it meant to be
in your doorway
standing taller than those long shadows
couldn't find you honesty
were you water
were you breaking my frozen bones

-

tracklisting:

the runner by airling

1055 by and the giraffe

alaska by animaux

torrent by asgeir

brain by banks

tropical oceans by dd dumbo

rough side of town by eleanor dunlop

i'm not coming back by husky

a pair of lovers by the jungle giants

hide by little may

help me out by lucianblomkamp

flashed junk mind by milky chance

gold snafu by sticky fingers

stay by tully on tully

bones by dustin tebbutt

you don’t forgive the silence for not speaking up
no matter how hard we’re trying it’s not hard enough
your eyes before the lightning to meet it by yourself
you’ve been tired and a little sick

you’ve been trying to work with it
you drew your grave on every single map
you don’t plan on staying long
you plan on burning it

no matter how wrong it went
you don’t have much more room to forget
you don’t have much more room to forget
you don’t forgive even the lightning

for leaving you
but everything should try again
even you
you followed the train through every prairie dawn

said "i’d like to see ohio one more time before it’s gone"
you had your hands up high in a prayer to crush your heart
and every single heart
was that eight point star

ever been tired
ever been a little sick
ever tried working through it

everything should try again - jason molina

anneli rufus:

“We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to create. Loners, by virtue of being loners, in celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave—like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels, and sole survivors. Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before, and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the cabalists. Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarified. Innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, inner discipline. A knack for invention, originality, for finding resources in what others would call vacuums. A knack for visions.”

just ash

this is only
a smoke trail &
long-licked sky
burns far ahead.

watch how flame
curls on the edge
of all that comes
first.

sun gleam
weaves a liquid gold
line & cartographs
clouds or
progression or
progress through clouds.

like violet mountains
bite into sky,
snaggletoothed
through everything
insubstantial & just
insist on their space,
daring anyone bolder
to claim it.

you can climb
a mountain if you
must, but
can you move
a mountain out of
need?

until all its height,
heft, substance
& stubbornness
sit beneath the very
balls of your tiny,
tired feet.

because sometimes
faith is there
to move you
up the mountain, or
to move the mountain
beneath your work
& willfulness.

i just want
to peel these
peals of laughter
from the sides
of this ribcage
set them free like
so many birds
from this mountaintop.

watch what’s most
me, but not me,
climb higher if i
let it go, if i
don’t have to worry
about hanging on.

echoes of all
my inside selves
reverberate from
canyon walls, skip
across the tops of
douglas firs & shake
all the little aspen
leaves.

coyote chased
me up a mountain
to make me
love it, to make
me stop faulting
it from so far away.

the belly of the valley
is for low-slung
spirits who
neglect their wings &
the proud vault of
a howl flung moonward.

coyote snapped
at my ankles, tore
my achilles until i
learned to run
without it, until
hurt and impossibility
became new legs
i climbed into &
made work for me.

coyote bit
the flesh from my
back until all i saw
was spine & i
found a backbone
to build a new
body, or a new
being in the body
i already had.

coyote laughed
& i recoiled, until
the hiss & hackles i
raised became
breath through sharp
teeth & matted blond
fur that smelled
like leaves &
late october.

Compliment

  "Oh get OVER yourself. You want to know what the main factor was in all of this? Why I even agreed to go out with you? Because you liked me. That's it! Honestly! Like going out with you was some ridiculous obligation because you said I was cute and funny and you wanted to. That's how it is with every boy who comes along and asks me that. So yes, that's fair, I am psychotic. You're totally right. Psychotic for thinking that I'd be happy when the only reason I said yes was because of some irrationally screwed up sense of gratitude for your compliment of liking me! I dated you because you were the only available option, and because I just wanted to be nice and pay you back for your attention!"

The spatula hit the wall behind him. I wasn't even aiming anymore. I was just throwing things to distract myself from crying. Since I only cry when I'm mad, and I was furious. He jerked his head around anyway, even though it had missed him by a good two feet.
     
...Of a beautiful calm. Can you see this disguise fade into a resolve? The stereo was blaring still from the bedroom.
     
"Bullshit. BullSHIT, woman!" He put on his overdone, affected falsetto imitation of me, "Ohhh... you're so gorgeous... it's amazing... you look just like the picture of my ideal man that I made up in high school. So don't, JUST DON'T give me any other line. Throwing out lies like you're throwing those fucking utensils that aren't landing in the right places either. I'm glad you agree you're crazy! How I put up with this shit for so long, I'll never know, and not even just the shit that you toss my way..."

"Don't you go there. Don't even go there you, asshole! You don't have to start being a dick just because - "
     
  "IT'S THE SHIT THAT YOU KEEP FEEDING YOURSELF THAT I CAN'T DEAL WITH!"
     
Hesitation complies. I've nothing left to sustain. My worries here have allowed a momentary refrain...and there it goes, my innocence, while gathering up a compliment...
     
  The strains of music interjected as he crossed the room quickly enough that I didn't even remember him walking, and holding onto my shoulders he started shaking me. Words hissing through his gritted teeth matched the frenetic pace of his dark eyes as they scrambled to keep mine attentive.

"You think that the key to coping with your problems is shoving me away and it's not, and right now I just want to strangle you for it. You use the bullshit fucking chip on your shoulder to just beat to a bloody pulp everyone that tries to get close. For all your lines about forgiveness, I have never in my life, NEVER IN MY LIFE, met someone who holds a grudge like you do. And I am done trying to fight back the blows just to get close to you. No, look at me. Until you fix whatever broken, snapping wiring is sparking bullshit in that overinflated, self-deprecating head of yours, you'll never get close to anyone. I am done having to pin the arm behind your back that you default push everyone away with, only left with one arm to show you how much I cared. You, YOU -"

At this point he jabbed my head with his forefinger, it was hard, and it hurt. I felt the blood rush back into my arm.

"- You crippled me before we ever started. You did this, not me. And I've been a giant ignorant fuck to have spent so long trying to rationalize to myself that I was helping. That somehow I was unbreaking you, and that things were going to be fine in the end. Fuck the end. And fuck you for never giving me a fair chance."

The sincerity in his eyes, and the sudden unmasked loathing and regret barreling its way through that sincerity, was going to crush me under the weight of my own guilt. I wrenched away from him, hitting my shoulder hard against the wall behind me. I hit his chest, pushing him back with my fists. Hot, familiar tears boiled over my lashes, blinding me. The scene in front of me swam.

"I'm glad," I choked out, trying to hide wet, wild sobs and rushing over by the sink to jerk a drawer open and disembowel it, I coughed loudly, "I'm glad that you've finally found some way to verbalize your emotions like this. Glad to actually know from your fucking words how you feel. You've never been much capable of that before. Not when there was anything good to say. So you're welcome, you bastard. You're welcome for giving you something to despise so much that it's rendered you nearly eloquent. At least this is a true feeling, and not some retarded internet poem that you found and tried to pass off as your own to impress me. Hate me then. It works for you, looks like it's made you more of an actual person and less of a giant bumbling caveman."

He stood there and took it, wincing, I wanted to imagine. I don't know, I wasn't looking at him. As I rambled out that bitter tirade, I had gone back to upending the kitchen, pulled out all of his things, dumping them into the box on the floor.

"...And you're an idiot to have wasted so much of your precious, precious time on me, when I was clearly so broken and delusional and since it took such heroic efforts on your part to love me. I'm so sorry that I made it sooooo difficult for you, so sorry that you've clearly had to mentally manhandle me to get me to bend to your affections. But I'm even sorrier that you never said any of this to me until now. Mostly sorry for that, really."

I jerked the box off the floor and flung it toward him, urging it into his arms.

"So take your shit, and go. You'd think we could have made something work, with the giant axe to grind that you've been hiding for so long, and me with my chip. You couldn't have hacked away at that the whole time, instead of starting today?"

Marching into the living room, I grabbed a stack of his folded laundry from the couch, and brought that back to cram into the box with the kitchen crap.

"Just get out of here before I do something stupid, like start aiming. Take that box and go. I need to just scream incoherently and box up the rest of your shit without you deciding to butt in with your psychoanalysis and your grabbing and your bitching."

It was a vain attempt, but I was actually trying to push him towards the door and not look at him. After half a moment he went to it all by himself, nearly tearing it off its hinges as he ripped it open.

  "Look, I - "

"No, you're done. We're done. This is so fucking done. Get out now. I'll call you in a bit after I've packed your shit up for you to come back and get."

I turned around and went back to the kitchen, without another glance at him, and didn't look up until after he'd slammed the door.

"Yeah go, you huge fucking jerk! Go on down to the gas station and pick up the smokes you're gonna run back to now! I hope you fucking die of fucking lung cancer! I HATE YOU!"

  I threw a fork at the door and screamed.

  ...do what he says. One little girl, taught that she is small. Taught that she is less, and man's decree is law. One little boy who'd know her too well. But that one little boy could send her to hell...

The stereo called out; Toad the Wet Sprocket mocking me.

And he didn't come charging back in. And he didn't stay there and pick me up and hold me after I crumpled into a sobbing heap against the dishwasher.