I don't remember how to write prose anymore.
Styrofoam Cup Crisis
I came to college to study philosophy and ended up pursuing
economics with a minor in English—except sub-in “Creative Writing” for “English” to make up for the grammar I inherited from immigrant parents.
I came to college to study philosophy, am studying economics
instead, and while here, learned that Mormons can’t drink coffee. Mormons can’t
drink coffee; even if the sadistic fuck in me wants to be extremely satisfied
that I can be more efficient than a Mormon, I can’t help but cherry-pick all
the Mormons cut from paper, in God's image, who are more efficient than I, by
sheer force of will, aided only by the power of prayer.
I came to college to study philosophy but now I spend my time
thinking about how much time elapsed since I last thought about God. Wasted
time is the equivalent of empty space that even well-designed furniture can’t
fill.
These tremors of misplaced thought and insecurity match the way my
foot twitches while holding hands with a cup of coffee gone cold, pulling my
weight for the Mormons of the world, harbingers of mid-college breakdowns and
quarter life crises. Now, sub-in “vodka” for “coffee” as I witness the mass of
my twenties being carved into a painful facsimile of the suburban nightmare.
It is precisely this nightmare that I tried to run away from, but
have slowed down my pace since I bought four-inch stilettos. Now, I’m an
overconfident jay-walker, who’s convinced that cars don’t hit college students.
Looking both ways is an ineffective use of time, and moving forward is only a
lasso threatening empty space.
Empty space painted over by a palette of picket fence white and
overwatered lawn green, repainted with monochrome city—feeble rendering of
blank slate, only to find that the color wheel is a prism of monotony; my
college years are suspended in lime-flavored jello shots that harden in the
same shade of lawn and mold in the same shade of fence, spoiling in the sun
after my expected graduation.
