No2: ODE TO SUBURBIA

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

IZZY STER

This White Claw tastes stale. It tastes like La Croix and water from Flint, Michigan had a love child. I hate everybody at this party. The music is too loud. That kid who sits behind me in my geometry class has played Sicko Mode for the twentieth time. 

Sun is down

Freezin’ cold

I’ve been nursing this White Claw for the past hour and a half. It’s lukewarm by now. La Croix and bathwater that has sat too long. It’s giving my thumbs something to do. I decided to turn off my phone after receiving a photo from my best friend’s ex earlier this afternoon. I’m going to deduce that it wasn’t a banana in his front pocket.

home alone...

opened 

My stale White Claw is almost gone. My best friend abandoned me at this party an hour ago. The music sucks. I abandoned my Doc Martens at home and these Vans I borrowed are a size too tight. I wish I was watching a movie in bed. Something off the wall and underground. Like Wes Anderson. I could have posted it on my Instagram and waited for a self-proclaimed film buff to swipe up and compliment my taste in film. 

My favorite is Pulp Fiction, if you’ve heard of it.

That was my guess.

My stale White Claw is almost gone and I can feel the artificial blackberries dancing on my tongue. A girl from my chemistry class just told me my best friend has had her tongue down her ex’s throat for the past hour and a half. They’re going home together. She was supposed to spend the night. I suppose I’ll just have to lie for her. Stack some pillows in my bed. Send a reminder to turn off her Life360. 

can u cover for me? im w him

ofc 

My stale White Claw is now sitting in my stomach. It’s accompanied with the iced coffee from when I did my SAT prep assigned by my tutor earlier at a coffee shop. I made pretty notes with colorful pens and put it on my Snapchat. My score is 1350 and I can not recite the quadratic formula. But my parents are legacy at UCLA. I want to go to the city and get lost in masses of people on the subway and drink good White Claws at rooftop parties and write day after day at a library and wear a trench coat in the winter and meet the love of my life while reading in Central Park at dusk. There isn’t In-N-Out in New York, though. UCLA it is.

“What a great school!”

“It’s alright.”

My stale White Claw can is in the trash. I navigate through a sea of striped Brandy Melville crop tops and pastel Vineyard Vines crewnecks. My shoulder is wet from cheap beer some idiot splashed on me. I hate boys. Maybe Lizzo has it right. Or not. I want Frank Ocean lyrics. World War II letters to wives. Necklaces in tiny blue boxes with white bows. Butterflies in my stomach that make my stomach turn in on itself. I want to know a mother’s favorite flowers. My boyfriend of three months broke up with me last week. Called me too needy. Annoying. He wants to get back together. I said no. 

whore

opened 

My stale White Claw gave me a stomachache. My best friend is gone. I don’t have a boy breathing down my neck, yet a boy got to second base with me, accidentally. I think it’s time to go home. I can only sit on this couch for so long, sandwiched between two couples shoving their tongues down each other throats. Somebody said the parents should be home any minute. Is that a siren? The beer pong table is right in front of the door. I remain on the couch. The body warmth from the couples is numbing that voice in my head.

No one knows who you are. 

Alone again. 

The keys to my Jeep fall onto the hardwood floor. I grab a handful of dry pretzels and slip out the back door. Two girls are making out next to a garden shed. A girl is screaming at a boy over some “some slut” from the high school down the street. I think I have a migraine. A kid that got hazed from the baseball team is puking his liver out on the front lawn. The neighbor’s lights flick on. I see my white Jeep parked haphazardly on the curb. I feel numb inside. A girl grabs me by my shoulders. She smells like a blunt and Pink body spray. My stomach lurches, so I sit on the curb. I failed my driver’s test the first time. I can’t drive other people for another five months. Can’t roll the windows down with my best friend while blasting Tongue Tied as we watch the sun disappear into the ocean. Can’t makeout in the backseat with some boy. My stomach hurts. My head hurts. I don’t remember how to get home, I’ll have to use my phone. Curfew’s in ten minutes. 

i’ll be home in ten

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