i traced four loose "L" shapes. i rubbed out the lines, until the white cloth was gray with charcoal. i started to cut the shapes out. the linen frayed, i scrunched it up in anger & threw it in the vague direction of south, which was where i wanted to be. cleaner air down there.

purple boxer shorts.

i turned the power point on & after forever, i thought the material was aligned perfectly on the sewing machine. my foot clamped down on the pedal, & the two pieces of cloth began to ripple. the thread was looping around every millimetre of fabric. it took me 2 hours to unpick.

frustrated, missing "happy" by a small margin, i sat at the sewing machine again. zigzag. it was pretty. my mind began to wander. out of the room, into the forest beside my school. sleeping inside a hollow tree. i rebounded back like an elastic to a scene of blood & ripped skin. my finger was sewn to my shorts. to this day i;ve never seen a more complexly beautiful pattern than the way my blood was absorbed.

i went on to sew the rest of the fabric together. they were sewn diagonally, in reverse, & on opposite sides. but they were okay, in the end.

my teacher said that it;d be a good idea to tie-dye them, because the blood hadn;t washed out well & all the holes from where i;d unpicked threads were obvious. so i chose the most contradicting colour that was available.

purple.

i never finished my boxer shorts. i was too much of a perfectionist, & a perfectionist who makes mistakes is twice as likely to fail. a few months later, i thought they deserved to have a proper existence. i ripped a fat red cord out of a book & threaded it through the waist.

after graffiting the hems with lyrics, i thought they were fucking gorgeous. i can still smell my veins on them.

music: story of the year; until the day i die
mood: reminscent