i still can't drive, but i keep trying to tell myself that i'm willing to try. it's shameful and silly to sit behind the wheel and not know what to do, the instructor looking over, irritated and relieved. i can't drive means i can't leave her, not yet. perhaps i will always be her little girl.

little girls cut their hair with scissors sometimes and you get mad but how mad can you be at a little girl with a pair of scissors, hair all over the bathroom floor? little girls flinch when you come near, it's natural, being so small and the world being so big. little girls, importantly, stay quiet, don't talk. just watches you with those familiar yet foreign eyes, wary, like a hungry wolf. not ravenous, but scared of starving, begging. little girls can't drive, they can only run. little legs can't get you far. i accidentally brake a little too hard. an alarmed gasp. a relieved sigh.

i still write on the same website i did since i was twelve or eleven. maybe even earlier. like all the other kids, i have two parents. one is my mother, the other is escapism. nostalgia wearing a mask. desperation for another life. acceptance of the tragedy that it will never be mine. it's a little funny, trying to exist in the same world as my twelve year old self. i don't want to leave her and all the dreams she had. she's still in me, the small child in me that needs me, the fragile thing that felt invincible, the newborn that felt thirty five. her writing is still mine, no matter how foreign and far away. can we truly exist in the same plane? or am i here to love a ghost, nostalgia again, the masked figure in the field i visit in a hidden, tucked way dream?

it's a little bit of both, but it's mostly neither. truthfully, i am the twelve year old. i am the newborn. i am the ancient being that hides among leaves. i am my tired self and i cannot drive and i can and cannot do infinite things. i am here the same way i tuck myself away in a closet, hiding from the world. i am here the same way i am sitting by the lake on a summer night while the world sleeps. i am here the same way i am rereading, rewatching, retracing my steps back to myself as well as away. i am trying to be twelve again. i am trying to grieve, trying to hold on, trying to also let go. i am trying to understand. i don't know how yet. i keep telling myself i am willing to try.

how to drive:

1. sit and breathe
2. adjust your mirrors and seat. stay calm.
3. not too calm
4. switch from park to drive
5. you forgot to start the car dumbass
6. grit your teeth and close your eyes

you're still twelve aren't you? yet on the verge of being twenty. and you're so stressed out that you're on the verge of tears, but you don't remember how to cry. twelve year olds know how to cry.

who are you?

all things led to this, where else would it lead? you're still a baby but you have to learn how to open a savings account and write a resume, you don't have the time or energy to learn to walk or speak. the world is going to end soon and you never learned how to love anyone and you and the rest of the world will die alone together but until then you have to learn how to drive yourself to school to prepare for a future that doesn't exist. because there's no university that prepares you for a loveless death. if there was, you didn't get accepted. SAT score too low, probably.

so here you are again, on a timeline separate from the one where you are a scared little thing. you watch, like replaying a movie, your version of yourself growing up. you want to stay here. it makes you feel big. it makes you feel like you know how to love someone and that when the end comes, and it will, this will be the timeline that flashes before your eyes.

i am trying to learn to live while trying to hide from it. and i'm trying to get away but i have to know how to drive. this country is too wide and my legs are so small. it's pathetic. it's hysterical. it's beautiful. this is what living is. being torn and being tired. living in the past, fighting for a future. you don't know what day it is but you remember the birthday of the girl you haven't talked to in five years. the last three months have been a second and the events of two years ago is still dragging on. someone is dying and it might be you and you can't be sure but you have to remember that wednesdays are trash days and you end emails with 'best regards.' you want to curl up and be twelve again and you want to be turned to ash and spread into the sea. you want to sleep under a layer of snow. you want to become a tree. but you have to remember to start the car before you switch to drive and to turn your wheel quickly so you stay in your lane. how am i supposed to remember? i'm still in middle school and a new book in my favorite series is coming out tomorrow. and the world ends next week. and i still have to learn how to love. i don't know how. i have to keep telling myself i'm willing to try.

7. open your eyes.
8. start the car and switch to drive.
9. stay aware of where you are, where you're trying to go. wait until you know it's clear.
10. foot on the gas. reluctantly lurch forward. try not to be too reluctant. i know it's hard. but i have to be willing to try. i have to. god, i have to.