I used to have a recurring daydream of a man trapped in a glass box while it slowly filled up with blood. This was during my goth Batman days. I still wake up some mornings, some nights go to bed, feeling like I’m in a glass box that walks along with me. I’m constantly trying to find a way out but never find one. I get paranoid that no one can break it but I know that it’s just me, just my box. People live on the other side and carry out their lives outside of the glass. I guess it’s just a feeling of being left out ever since I was born. My parents filled up the tall above-ground plastic pool with a few inches of water and set me in there alone, as if recreating my solitude will solve the problem of solitude. That solution works often, more than most, though it never really does. The outside saying, this is how it works, you can never solve anyone else’s problems. Some days we just get sick of ourselves.

My roommate is cooking with vinegar and the smell reminds me of when I used to dump it on my hair, and swim all day and watch MTV and paint my nails and drink orange soda and play Monopoly and watch Dobie Gillis and Patty Duke with my sisters. I love all of that, except the smell of vinegar. I wonder if still remembering that means that I haven’t grown a bit. I live in the past all the time, or some other place I’ve created.