i'm waiting..

some days it really does seem like it happened just yesterday. i'll google the date and the news report will come up. i'll read the words and be sick. how could this have happened to them? i'll think of the wake. i'll remember being so far away, across the room. i'll say to the person next to me. "it looks so much like her. it can't be real." and then tears are coming down my face and then there's my sister, with her curly red hair and 16 year old face. she says, "it's ok it's ok it's ok it's ok." but it's never ok, is it?

but then i get up there and it looks nothing like her. her makeup's all caked on and she's got on this horrible pink lipstick and i say, "jenessa?" there's rosary beads in her hands. when was jenessa ever religious? there are cards and gifts. soon we can barely see her under the mess. what did i put in there? i can't even remember.

she's got a bruise under her right eye. broken eye socket, we found out later. along with the broken collarbone. her eyelashes are long as usual. but her skin is such a weird gray color. her chest looks weird. not like two normal breasts, but like...one big lump. it looks like they stuffed her. this can't really be her. where is the real jenessa? she must be outside in the brushes somewhere...scheming. right? she's gonnna pop up and scare the ever living shit out of us and we are going to scream and say, oh! you had us so horribly worried! but. jenessa?

i'm back here again, and there are pictures all over the walls. collages that friends made. oh, look! there's me. but this was taken only last week. can this be? someone took the lyrics to "i miss you" by notorious b.i.g. or whatever and reworked them so they fit our lives. i can't even read them without dying inside.

that morning i cleaned my room like crazy. there was nothing to do but clean and cry. i cleaned so much that there was nothing left to do. then i went outside on the curb with the roll of paper towels. on the phone with curtis. "am i still alive?"

sometimes i think if i got through this i could get through anything.

i'll never forget the literal way my life split into two parts. two distint halves. everything became either, "before the accident" or "after the accident."
"do you remember that party at matt's?
"i don't know...was it before the accident or after the accident?"
who thinks like this?
every song had new meaning. i felt pulls on the ends of my hairs.
i felt like they were there, always. watching me.
guilt.

i don't know.
i guess i expected it to be better by now.

last year was ok because i was moving to LA, and burning man... i had so much more to think about than this. but this year. the fall. the smell of the leaves. i can't be here..

klono?
taken.

should i use the phone? or just iron and sleep?

xoxox
larisa