somewhere not here | Mallory Smart

Somewhere, not here, Elle is on her computer thinking about how to go about her day
she dwells on her life and her relationships:
go-to friend: julien
boyfriend: brad
crush: billie
guy who hits on her: liam
guy who wont leave her alone online: joe (not really but lets just go with it)
her coffee buddy who loves twin peaks:  lets call him "Cooper" for fun

and so on...

she wanted to see if there was some kind of weird common thread amongst them all but she could only find the love and support that they all showed her
fucked up right?

she so casually dissed so many of them but they would go to great lengths to help her through life

be her 2am ride or die ppl

ppl are important

one of her ppl died recently so now she didnt think of him

another one of her ppl became someone who would never be her ppl again

so now she just sat down in Chicago and questioned her purpose

for 10 years she had been doing little else than being a quirky human who wanted to pursue art but now getting harshly close to her 30s she decided the jig was up and shit had to get serious now

amen, right?

also, wtf close to 30 is terrifying...lets all hope she gets her shit together because after 30 you only have death

she began to make a list of things she currently loved, things she wanted to have done in the next 5 years, and things she needed to have done before she died

here is that list for the next 5 years:

-meet david lynch and play video games for 12 hours

-hide communist propaganda in all the aisles in all targets in all the world

-sit at a park with a typewriter and pretend that that was an original idea

-hit up all 50 states without thinking about death in all of them

-meet every single online friend before they reach their untimely end which is becoming a somewhat fucked up thing at the moment

-get wildly drunk and not get hungover

-magically learn how to play guitar and wow Sarah Paulson with her amazing guitar playing skills (why not?)

-become a rock star, director, actress, and professor and then complain about how its hurting her identity as a writer

-actually be a writer

she sighed with relief that she got that all out

now she could go and make some coffee and pretend she did something real with her day

watching Twin Peaks didnt count

Mallory Smart is a Chicago-based writer and Editor-in-Chief of Maudlin House.  She is also the host of the brand-new podcast, Textual Healing with Andrew Tran. Find out more about her and her writing at mallorysmart.com/. Twitter: @malsmart