things I wrote while I was alone and abroad:

December 30, 2015
Mason is drunk and passed out in the next room. We shared a bottle of whiskey on the balcony and some cigarettes and soda and I forced him to drink water, he made me toast. It’s midnight and I’m listening to Mark Kozelek and the street sounds outside my window–cars and motorbikes and people smoking and drinking on their own balconies. They seem happy. Everyone I have encountered here seems happy.

December 31
The sky is turning blue and there are white clouds but bats fly across the sky and cockroaches across my floor. I can’t tell if I’m tired.

January 1, 2016
Awoke to pouring rain outside. It was a beautiful feeling opening balcony doors into pouring rain. It went on for awhile but I was back to sleep before it ended.

January 4
Leaving him on the subway, it was weird. Jumping into a sea of people and knowing I’ll likely never see the person blurring down the tracks behind me again. Spent a day with you, left you on the subway or metro or whatever they call it here.

January 5
To the boy I love: yesterday you turned twenty. I tried to get drunk but I cut my finger and ended up just thinking about you.

January 9
I wondered if I’d ever been so happy in my life.

January 12
The blue of the water with the white floating ice and the surrounding mountains and the clouds against a bluer blue. It startled me that something like that could exist.

January 13
Today I didn’t do much of anything. I bought a bus ticket to Puerto Natales and missed my chance to do laundry. Now I’m drinking a Quilmes. I don’t know if I’ve ever finished a beer in my life.

January 15
Looking at the mountains that surround this blue view, it’s quiet here. I have Sun Kil Moon in my ears. The sun is warm on my back and the breeze cool on my face. For the first time it’s just a breeze.

January 19
The parts completely alone were best, staring into a vastness I’ll likely never find an equivalent to. It was nice to sleep in a tent again, wish I had had a pillow, but it was nice.

January 20
Barely made it to Fitz Roy by noon. The sun was harsh and the temperature too hot and the sky a hard blue.

January 27
Late at night in Córdoba and for the first time since I’ve been here, I don’t feel like sleeping. Staying up late listening to all the songs I’ve ever loved. This city has made me so lethargic; some kind of heat stroke and a stomach flu and I’m still here.

January 28
4 days and I’ll never see him again but for now it’s nice to have someone to eat icecream and spoke spliffs with. I hate this city. The buildings are tall and the bugs are plenty but at least there are places to buy a smoothie.

February 3
This flat has a speaker and that makes me happy. Devendra Banhart makes me happy but also very sad. I like filling the room with mixed emotions.

February 6
Does a bathroom mirror surrounded by flowers make you feel more or less beautiful?

February 7
Slow beach days pass so quickly. Today I did nothing, consumed a peach, a banana, and a mystery fruit; slept a lot and bought more icecream. Writing this, I’m listening to Kings of Leon and remembering all the lyrics, watching the slow rain fall and letting it fall through onto my forehead.

February 8
I could feel myself not experiencing it in its fullness, like I was sleep walking through the night–a tired haze. But waiting for the bus afterwards, listening to Tal and Ina talk, I watched the cars pass me by in the night light and I felt a little more alive.

February 9
I wonder if the things I want you to love about me and the things you love about me are the same. I didn’t make it to the beach today.

February 14
Life is a beautiful thing, I truly, honestly believe that.

February 15
I think I could lie here all day and let these ants feast at my bare legs. In the shade, beneath a tree, in a park in Buenos Aires, there is nothing to be sad about.

February 17
Woke up in my own bed to a dark sky surrounded by pillows. Showered, curled my hair, put on lipstick. My writing is so scattered but for once my thoughts don’t seem to be.