2.35 Centimeters

             I don’t cry, of course, because I’m 22 and I only cry when I have margaritas. And when I say margaritas, I mean whatever affordable alcohol that repossesses my moral compass and all non-liquid assets I accessorize it with. But the thing is, it’s not just me (or all the collegiate seniors dancing with one foot on the roof and one off). It’s everyone. We fashion ourselves beyond the world of reason. Everything’s not that okay, in fact. People are afraid to be pessimistic. Everyone’s feeling it, most of the time (according to a recent study predicting the apocalypse following the assassination of SoapNet).

Just because I read a lot of shit that describes some of what I’m feeling doesn’t mean that the rotting apple on the side of my highway of hopeless emptiness, that skims every major vein and artery with the most painful kind of throbbing, that of mediocrity, is, by some sick stroke of karma, lifted and recycled, or at least knocked 2.35 centimeters to the right so that it can regally decompose in nature. Like what I imagine strolled through the mind of the former President of my University when he switched tanning bed levels and no longer ultra violated his skin five times a week, but two, because he moved to a warmer climate. We’re all rotting. And we have been for a very long time. Ever since we left the womb of creation and double clicked to enter the night’s womb, with breezy dispatch.
            Have you ever thought of that? That us standing in this fleeting world of woebegone wars and up-the-creek youth, is not standing at all. Who are we kidding? We’re tied to this womb, and while some of us have extension cords to bother and sponge up the rest of this place with, most of us don’t. Our entire existence, the oxygen we breathe, everything that we need, could be simply forming us into whatever we’re supposed to be next. And so yes, I’m floating in the amniotic fluid of Sophie’s Choice, either fighting the bottom line or accepting it (either way, donning a stellar Polish accent and stashing hams under my street-wear). I don’t know about you, but I get tired of fighting it, the inevitable unfolding heist of raggedy madness. No, I didn't choose between my children, throwing one, like a bone of humanity to the Nazi dogs. This false silence of optimism, that hangs on gangs of held-back tears, does not just decompose us that much more quickly, but does so while robbing us of the respectable 2.35 centimeters.

The whole point of this was not to disarm those rare, perfect roses of even one petal, it was to say that Meryl Streep is most definitely an alien. Uh-huh. You follow, I see. If identity theft is a crime, as some may say, then I don’t want to be law-abiding. In fact, we’re all probably going to exit this womb and enter the next as one of Meryl’s temperaments. Dibs on anything besides Mamma Meryl a la Mamma Mia.

Merry Christmas. Whatever the fuck that means.