Article and Art by Margalit Goldberg

Today the sky is heavier than usual. It is holding its weight in stillness and my bangs are where I placed them before I left the house. The sun is not skin-melting, which makes me believe that fall is near — despite the fact that I’ve lived in Colorado all my life and know that there will be more 90 degree days before it finally cools. In my memory, the weather on the first day of school is always stagnant like this, familiar and unremarkable. Except for the first week of 5th grade when the heavens opened and the rain didn’t stop for a week. That was the most rain I had ever seen in my life.
“Take out the trash on Tuesday nights/Seems like the small things are the only things I’ll fight,” sings Liz Phair in “Gunshy.” I don’t mean the second line to offend my roommates, but don’t you think I’m so Liz Phair!? I do love to take the trash out every Tony’s Tuesday and disappear the evidence of our wasteful existence. Liz Phair is so me again in “Extraordinary” which goes like “You may not believe in me/But I believe in you/So I still take the trash out/Does that make me too normal for you?” However, my excitement to take out the trash I think in fact makes me not normal but an “average everyday sane psycho supergoddess.”
Somedays I feel like I’m standing on a precipice. Where can I put all this shame instead of letting it convince me I deserve less? My friend once described me as a messy bookcase of a person. Constantly out of place. I used to hate this feeling. Now I see it as a way of being, becoming. Unhinged. Can’t keep my mouth shut. Long winded. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’ll dance anywhere and in front of anyone. If there’s one thing that belongs to me, it's the words I write.
The folding table in our backyard, which came with the house, finally got washed off yesterday. The dirt sloughed off satisfyingly and revealed an archive of painted names and messages. Many things have faded but you can still read some: “This belongs to Mathias 461”. They are names of people who were Seniors when I was a First-Year. “Table established 2/16/2020” is written neatly on the side and I appreciate that the author had a penchant for marking dates. Secretly, I think about the people who’ll live here in four years and see my name signed on the walls of our garage and maybe they’ll remember me like I remember the people attached to the names on this table.
The red leather recliner on our front porch is starting to become my most beloved piece of furniture. The color is somewhere between dark brown and ketchup. It’s just the right amount of pre-loved that you sink in so much it's almost impossible to get up. The loveseat has two leg rests that fold in and out with a lever. We’ve been having a lot of porch time in the waning weeks of summer, on nights when we don’t want to go out. So we'll just sit out on Wahsatch.
I can recommend the Pikes Peak Trolley Museum a million times more than the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. There was a “100 things to do in Colorado Springs” book in the gift shop. I felt like I had done them all by now, most of the touristy things when I was a kid. I’ve done almost everything on my CC bucket list. Spend the night on Tava quad. Throw a Bar Mitzvah in a dorm room. Attend a mass wrestling event. Create super long straws to drink out of other people’s drinks. Here is one thing on my to do list I’ll have to leave undone: Naked Rastalls. Unless there's an underclassman who wants to swipe me in.
I want you to be able to tell me when you want to take your brain out from your skull and slam it against the wall. Cry in my arms and I’ll cry in yours while we think about who we think we are and who we think we want to be. The XXL Yankees shirt you gave me, which I sleep in most nights, has a hem that's become loose. Every time I cut the loose thread it pulls and pulls again, unraveling itself to a raw edge. I could decide to cut you off and you’d still be unraveling me. You don’t think I treat you like a bus stop, right? No, I treat you like a college house. A place to find home until it’s time to move on. Can I write you a letter? I want to make you feel free.
I have eaten too much beef. Tonight I ate a beef tube. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy. So beefy.
Yesterday I ate a $1.50 ¼ Pound Hot Dog from Costco. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef. Too Much Beef.
Beef Limit Reached.
The porch light is on and there are dragonflies swarming. They are pale blue and about two inches long. They are dive bombing at us like they’re out for vengeance but they are without any attack mechanism. The poor things. I turned the light off and went inside so they could find the moon. I’m not sure if they even fly by the light of the moon.
Here are some things I hope will remain unraveling and revealing themselves to me besides the nature of the universe. Where the heights of my pleasure can take me, spinning me into my body so fully. The contours of relationships in all their love and hurt and confusion and joy. What power can come from opening yourself up to another. The things I will be willing to leave behind when inevitably I am swept up and carried to the next chapter of my life. How much discomfort I will be able to put up with until I can’t keep it to myself anymore and my feelings must spill out onto my life, staining everything in their path. If I am too easy or too hard to love. Or both.