it's just my luck to end up getting stuck to everything

after installing and updating a new virtual machine on junior, fitting it with an operating system i have never used before, and continuing with this semester's murder of the free memory space on my computer, the programs and plugins i need to do my labs are finally downloading right. i spend the time they are downloading alternating between watching the orange bar tell me how much progress has been made and doodling words and song lyrics in the notebook open next to me. i'm sprawled out across my bed on my stomach, the sunlight glares off my computer screen, and the hum of a soccer game on the tv reaches me from the living room. i rest my head on the back of my hand, my wrist bent, and i can smell the ink in my black pen - taken from mason's parking services a couple years back. it's almost sweet, and it tugs at a memory in the back of my mind.

and suddenly i'm in a different room, lying on my stomach on the carpeted floor, bathed in the sunlight of early spring. i'm scribbling furiously into a red binder, desperate to get this thought out before i forget how to word it perfectly. i could smell the ink then too, sweet with a hint of something else i couldn't take the time to pinpoint. my mind is lost in a world of magic and cocky teenage guys with perfect hair and rolled up sleeves. my sister pulls me out of the story to tell me i'm pathetic. i ignore her, thinking instead of the reaction my part will get tomorrow at school, at how my friend will continue where i left off. i put my pen down and flip back over the pages i had just written, my handwriting covering both sides. the stack of written pages is thick, we'll soon need another binder. i add the page number at the top outside corner of each page, circling it, amazed at how much we've already written. the thoughts that there are only a couple months left of school, that the story would have to end, that i wouldn't experience the thrill of seeing my friend walk in with the binder in the morning for much longer, that i would probably rarely see my friend at all anymore are pushed out of my head. there's still enough time left that i can ignore them for now. and i am happy.

*All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas