I only pretend to be a writer.

I understand that, because I do string together these icons, I am in the strictest sense a writer. But take my consciousness of that logic, and the fact that I say I only pretend to be a writer, and you'll understand my point. At least partially.

Yesterday I am going to the laundramat to fulfill a long-overdue need for the presence of the laundramat feel. I go to the one on fourth street, Spic-N-Span, near an old girlfriend's house. It is open the latest. It isn't empty, though. In particular there is a girl sitting on one of the tables with the signs that say "please use the tables for sitting," staring imploringly at her clothes in the large dryer. I can see her from my position outside, from far enough away to avoid being seen myself.



Round and round and round is what she would think in my pretend writing. She would wonder about the ups and downs and she is twenty-something and can't that guy just love me? We're wasting time, you know. Round and round and round and going nowhere. That's what she would think.

The clothes stop and she prepares for her departure across the street to her house. It is an old house, with a very gothic feel to it, despite the Wyoming territory. There are windchimes hanging on the second-floor extension that she would have made herself. She doesn't play with them when she walks by, but she would have if she were mine.

Her basket of laundry is in her hands. It is full. With difficulty she maneuvers and plays with the lock and the door opens. I am sure she probably would have forgotten to lock it.

Now I am skulking outside. I have a pen, although it is really just a blade of grass. You know how it is, not seeing what you want and need to see when you want and need it the most.

Inside she begins the ascent up the staircase that swirls slightly, passing too many windows for a staircase. Halfway up, though, she would trip and land lightly on the step she was about to touch gently. The laundry falls all over. The basket was full, you know.



And she cries, but it's not the clothes. It's something else, like always.

Always something else. She is twenty-something.

She would move upstairs and leave the laundry on the steps. She would go to the bathroom, since that is the place to go. She would do something meaningful, and it'd be astounding. She'd look in the mirror; she'd look for that journal behind the towels in the closet. She'd rip the pictures off of the walls. They'd have familiar faces on them.

She'd tear the place down, the place I would put together for her. It'd be mine to share and explain. I would say "this is beauty," and it would be just that.

But I don't have your time to waste. I don't have that.

Because I only pretend to be a writer.