At some point, lil bro cut in like “Yo—you sure you not tryna shoot this vid? Freed up space on my phone and everything.”

“What song were you even tryna shoot?” I said, humoring him.

“The best one. ‘Moves.’”

“Moves” was about Making moves.

About Having all the tools / Cooking up all the foods.

“That one’s the best?”

“Yeah dude,” he said. “Hands down.”

“Moves” was the one track I’d removed from SoundCloud. Had made ‘private.’

It was still on the YouTube version of the album, which we’d uploaded as a single, full-album track, probably precisely so we wouldn’t be able to do what I ended up doing: losing sight of the vision and nixing the more aggressive tracks. Pulling out after the fact.

Going all the way in, planting the thing, and then not following through with the watering / tending to.

But I’d deleted it because it was on some ‘I need this / I need that’ ‘I do this / I do that’ braggy flow I cringed at whenever I imagined specific people entirely outside of my target audience, like distant family members, potential employers, or reviewers of my literary submissions, hearing it.

“Yeah I was looking for that one on SoundCloud, on the drive over,” lil bro said. “Couldn’t find it. You change the name?”

“I didn’t change the name,” I said. “I took it down.”

Lil bro looked at me like Tf is wrong with you. Like Why would you.

“I don’t know dude,” I said. “I just. Thought it sounded sus. Thought people would judge me.”

He stayed silent, listening face on. To see if I was done. Then said,

“You should put it back up.”

I thought about this.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll put it back up.”

5

LIL SIS

August 2018: Week Four

Lil sis got back from her yoga teacher training and we had some killer hangs at the spot she’d just moved into with M in the Canyon.

Hitting the medical trees, kicking it on her back porch, shooting the shit.

Dr. Botox’s roid regimen, combined with M’s edible-induced sedation and my mama’s immaculately clean living quarters had me looking pretty again.

Ankle bones and foot veins visible.

Greeting the world with a brand-new, hyper-sensitive, infant-like layer of skin.

But there was still something wrong with me.

Still not eating, or for that matter sleeping right.

Every third or so night I’d get overwhelmed by what a piece of shit I’d become for, at 27, living on the ma’s pullout futon, utterly unable to support myself.

At which point I’d slam shut Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book Five (2017), don the Birks, and walk somewhere that was open in the wee hours.

CVS, Rite Aid, or this 24-hour donut shop with all sorts of wild flavors like green tea and Oreo and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.