A first collection of things that made it feel better to be alive

By Mary Burgardt

One day I was driving my car thinking about this book.

I thought,

Who am I writing about?

When I write, who is my writing for?

Is there someone I am trying to reach?

Is there someone I want to persuade?

I said to myself, I guess I write for whoever is reading

And then quickly corrected it

My writing is for me and should only be for me

I am trying to reach myself

I write this to persuade myself

You may find some material sensitive and some material may offend you based on your relation to me and for that I embrace you with my arms

This book is dedicated to all the things I should not be doing

And the hope that one day I will do better things

I have to go now

They are deep frying testicles on Food network

I remember the night

In your always dark dark room you

Looked over me and stopped

Kissing me and said

You are very beautiful

You didnt contract your words, you didnt say it

To win an Academy Award you

Just said it

If we are just two hedonists

Meeting needs for each other

And At least we both admit it

Tell me

What need were you trying to meet

Sciatic nerve damage

Lumbar vertebrae disc fracture

Vitamin A deficiency

UTI that I never had that turned into a deadly bladder infection

Schizophrenia

Abdominal abscess

Ovarian cancer

Stroke

Heart attack

Lethal (???) cyst on the side of my hand

Hypertension

Ectopic pregnancy

Brain tumor

Concussion

Vertigo

I WENT OUT AND PICKED UP SOME VALENTINES DAY

GIFTS AND I WAS LEAVING A BUILDING AND I HEARD

SOME MAN YELL AT ME HEY SEXY AND I DID NOT UNDER-

STAND IF HE THOUGHT I WAS SEXY OR IF HE WAS MAK-

ING FUN OF ME AND I FELT BAD ABOUT THAT BUT I

LOOKED AT HIM AND SAID WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST

SAY TO ME I AM NOT SEXY I AM THE WAY THAT COFFEE

MOLDS IN YOUR COFFEE POT AFTER TOO MANY DAYS DO

YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO LOVE A PERSON LIKE ME

I AM NEON YELLOW PAPER THAT IS HARSH ON THE EYES I

HAVE LOVED PEOPLE MORE DEEPLY THAN CANALS KISS

MY BIG CELLULITE ASS I AM WHAT THE WIND IS MADE OF

I AM THE ATOM THAT STARTED THE BIG BANG WHAT THE

FUCK ARE YOU

I sat on your bed instead of my bed because it felt like a

better place to be to be reading and writing and trying

my best to be imaginative

I crawled out from under him in the middle of the night

because I was too hot and too restlessly uncomfortable

Sometimes life is like that

I slept in your bed alone because it felt like a better place

to be

The first time I ever felt a man's tongue

I had just turned fifteen and also

Had just been defeated in a life-changing game of Connect Four

in my bright yellow kitchen

(The same yellow would soon feel much less happy)

It was a little too wet and as expected

a bit unpleasant

It was self-doubt and lack of comfort

And I was a petri dish under a microscope

200x

I was unclean

I was ashamed

Christian Guilt was always

much more impenetrable than youd think.

This is why you've got to hold me in a way that is convincing

I've heard people sing "if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float"

But you are already an ocean

(I am busy teaching myself to drown)

He plays football two towns away and sleeps with his pet snake and

when he masturbates no one can be certain which NFL jersey he is

thinking of

He hasnt known what it is like to be alone in seven years

He is unable to be alone

But I can be alone

coward

There is a particular patch of road

On the Pennsylvania turnpike just after one of the

toll booths

Where I return to one of the most damaging days I

ever lived

My father is no longer a brother and no longer a son

he is not an uncle, my father is a husband and a true dad to

only half of the children which his sperm had ever evolved

to.

Mostly, he is a husband.

Sometimes your

fingers smell like

cigarettes and

then you put them

inside of me

I SEARCHED FAR AND WIDE FOR THE BIGGEST SNOW PILE

and I wanted to share it with you

This is the biggest snow pile

It is bigger than my average taco bell order

IT IS COLD AND dirty LIKE THIS WINTER HAS BEEN

When this winter comes to an end

I will buy a fresh cucumber and place slices over my eyelids

Reducing puffiness and pulling out all the toxins of the fear that these few

months have instilled into me

Hopefully

I drive miles on miles and I stare into your face

I could cry right now because you are too beautiful

You are small and full of things I am not full of anymore

Precious child you are growing

Precious child your homemade books that promote recycling and protect-

ing the world are beautiful and in my mind I make my homemade books to

remind myself of how I can best protect you

You do not understand what keeps your oldest sister up at night

Neither of us understand but we can

Still make funny dough by mixing corn starch with water

Yes I will play Mad Libs with you in your closet staying up too late

until both hemispheres of my brain catch fire thinking of new words

No amount of miles or dollar bills or cigarettes I am hiding for the

weekend or questionable old toll booth men hitting on me asking prying

questions about why my hair is blue could ever keep me away or keep you

away from this place in my heart that builds a fire only to make you the

perfect smores

Always remember that you can be whatever you feel like being. You dont

ever have to do what other people expect of you.

Sometimes I am afraid to grow up

Sometimes, I am afraid of it too.

I hate everything Ive ever written about you because it never does you justice

I am so nervous I could bite off my own arm

Can you see me walking already?

Where are you

Okay I better go inside now I wonder if youre already here

Try not to look around you want him to see you first

Is my ass hanging out?

Oh my god

Is that

That is him, that has to be him

He looks nervous too he looks like an angel

He is super-human and beautiful look at his arms

Why does he need to meet girls from the internet like me

Probably would pay him $30 or something to play Tony Hawk pro skater together

Is this the same person I have been treating so apathetically and now, just wow

I want to sit on your lap someday and be something that matters

I am in the throes of you

I am a soldier ready for combat standing in a trench scattered with knives

I am trudging through the mud without even wearing my boots

I smile and think, I love this dirt between my toes.

It is 6 in the morning and I should be at the factory, working

We are too busy deciding whether or not we are humans.

I am allowed to love you before dusk at the times when we are still invisible

Before the haze of transformation twirls us around and we are ugly ducklings again

I always wish I can love you in the morning

With your anime turned down just so low

The first night we kissed you looked at me and said KISS ME STOP BEING A PUSSY

But my lips were too soft

And you were looking for something to destroy you

Well

I love you too much to do it

In this place where I am, it has been a dismal room and most things are scary

For every time I have felt full, you are what makes me feel that I am overflowing

You and I

We are rough and tough and we were cut from the same jagged wood

(you know how they say)

You will always be warm to the touch

If you are ever confused by your influence,

If you ever want to reject the love you are given,

When you say, Im nothing but a liar and my life is covered with ugly

Well

You are loved

Because it is easy to love a thing

After watching it die and spring back to life

A Stream of Consciousness Writing About My First Love

The color blue

Alice in Wonderland

Gun enthusiast (the first in a chain of probably 10 more)

Bad Religion

Geometric bed sheets blue and black

Amazing atheist videos and Zeitgeist

You are an idiot oh my god

But also I tried to get you to go to church and I still feel sore about it

Swastika tattoo

but it isnt for Nazism its for Hinduism and nobody understands

Everything is painful

Even happiness is painful

Car crash

Big huge plates of pasta with warm breadsticks

Plan B

Am I allowed to call it love if I was still a child (not by state law but in my mind)

I still listen to alkaline trio sometimes

Zelda and Nikki

I sat and sobbed in the rain in your backyard for no real reason

Wish I wanted to shake your hand like an adult at some professional mixer

But in all reality would switch my ass down some imaginary runway and hair flip until whiplash

Raspberry ice cream

Bet you never thought I would watch this much porn (found joy in being me)

Youre an idiot

Whatever

It is known among the "psychology community that .2 percent of people

in the United States will experience a fugue episode in their lifetime

.2 percent of people dont know who they are, and start new again

Ever since learning this, I have become terrified of fugue

We learned about a father of 6 named Gary

Woke up one morning and started a new life as a woman named Mary

Well Im a woman named Mary and I cant help but to admit

That it doesnt seem like much of a vacation for me

Forgiving myself

requires making

excuses that I am not

willing to make

anymore

Damn, my butt looks really

good today. Look at this butt.

I looked into the mirror and stared into my own eyes for what seemed like an eternity. Im

telling you right now, I was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I was tossing back and forth one night until I

reached over and grabbed my own hand with my

other hand and held on gently. I sang a soft song

under my breath and my worries fell through the

threads like water seeping through cracks of the

sidewalk. I soothe myself. I am here as a gift to

myself instead of a hindrance, finally.

Our hairs are made of tinsel and our bodies are

casted of chocolate and this is why you remain

sweet as sugar even when you feel like the hardest

piece of stone to be chewed up and spit back into a

napkin. Youve got to love the home you keep.

Actually I just wanted to include this guy in something

Heres your 15 internet minutes of fame

Dog Dad

Monogamy is really fricked up

And polyamory is really fricked up

Thats where I am right now

But one time I was at this party and there

were kittens in the bathroom

This one sat on my lap while I peed

It made me feel like some things are

innately good without doing any work

The order in which this book has come together over these weeks is not coincidental,

and tells a story whether I intended on it or not. I cant write stories or poems or anything

about love when it is real and relevant and staring at me blankly. Thats how I know an

emotion is fake, when I can write about it the most. When love is real, all it has to do is exist.

Contrary to what I told myself growing up, love isnt one specific thing or formula or set of

directions. There is no love you can buy from Costco that comes with a little hardware packet

straight from the factory with directions in 3 or 4 different languages. Its nice to say you love

something when it leaves you with nothing to prove at the end of a paragraph. Thats the

thing about the places that writing can take us to; sometimes, for me, it can be difficult to

clear the lines between what is real and what is imaginary.

Writing doesnt require us to prove anything.

There are more important things than romantic love, and truly I believe that other things,

perhaps all other things that exist will always be more important than romance. To be honest,

I would never want to live in a world where romantic love was the most important of all the

loves. There are more important things than your lover or the lover youve had the chance to

be.

Over the past few months I have come to realize for the first time the power of self-deceit,

and the joys that are brought with overcoming it.

Push yourself around

Punch yourself in the face in the most respectful and loving way in which you can

muster from the bottom of yourself

Splash your face with water until you cant find your own tears anymore

You are powerful and you have the ability to make or break yourself

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Dog Dad

Kaylas printer-scanner

All who submitted photos

Pornhub

Patricia Stacy

Hypochondriasis

Babybel cheese wedges for keepin me on my game

(-: (Ooh, this my shit) Please do not copy or redistribute without permission from the author :-)