There's an exceptionally bright star in the sky this week, and you don't know exactly what it is about stars that make you feel small and bad at things like relationships and competence, but you keep looking at this star or this planet and it's haunting you or looking down on your control freak self with at least one eyebrow raised and arms folded with some serious chagrin. If you knew which way was east or west you'd look on a constellation chart to figure out who it is, because though it's no secret that you don't much care for the country, you sure can see a lot of stars out here.
And let's be honest, you were in therapy and learning about projecting and Dr. Freeman told you about her own desperation and how she would find herself leaning towards people just to feel their humanness, it was all very intense and maybe TMI at the time, but there comes a point when that star or somebody strips you of your clipboard and your duties and you're just you, embarrassed and cringing and startled when you accidentally brush your fingers on a boy's arm. And you can talk about fast cars and indignation and how you are burdened by all your hats but really you're busy building a little fortress and you hate when it falls down, limp and messy and like a bad photograph with blotchy skin and double chins.
And really, you think, if it was anything but Dulcinea you'd have been fine, but something's always wrong, right? And you are That Girl in love with C who now has three movies and a wife and you're wearing a bad flannel nightgown and pretending to be lots of things but you have an omnipresent memory of that night in the street when you gave him a stupid fuzzy card of cue balls on a pool table and fortune cookies that you stayed up all night making and then wrapped in saran wrap with raffia. And then you were both gone and here you are, almost old, with all these knives and pans and what passes for having it together, but really you're scared of animals with long pink tails and clearing your throat too loudly and of being scared, even, which makes you love television and strawberry lip balm and fake diamonds for a joke and listen to Ryan Adams because Love is Hell, not that you'd know, and you can really only handle the idea of things and carefully chosen conversations in which you pretend to be high above it all, maybe alongside that planet, and there's this enduring sense that the rotating is making you unravel.
