what is essential here

The sun felt so warm against my face, against my moist neck. The water that the rest of my body was in, was in fact part of, was not as warm, which was why it felt good. Differences are okay. I swam around, did handstands, then when coming out of them, glided against the ocean floor, feeling the sand rub, scratch my chest, making my way like a seal, one of the ones in the glass tanks at the zoo, moving gracefully through the water, turning my body, my seal body, looking at all the little kids with popcorn in their hands, kids who either look at me or at the scary picture of the stomach of a seal that died, filled with pennies that the seal ate.

Somewhere in the water, also floating around perhaps like a contented seal was, and maybe even still is (floating around like a contented seal, that is) Jamie's bathing suit bottom, free as a seal. Forget the birds. Fuck em. There's me and then there's you and then the seals. Everything else is useless, nonessential for our purposes.

I woke up at seven thirty, took the practice LSAT test with Sarah May, rocked it, then came home took a shower and in a pretend conversation, an imaginary one with other people while I was taking a shower, I asked whoever, you maybe, in a really bad British accent, "What do you live for?" And it's so easy to pose the question, to pose all these big questions, to say them ironically, nonsincerly in fake British accents - I mean we can live our whole fucking lives in bad British accents, making fun of things, everything, because we don't know how else to approach it, how to do so without sounding silly, without sounding like a person that we don't want to be, that person we also dread conversations with, hide from when we see them at the wall - but then, the British accent faded - the bad British accent - faded into me singing along with the Smashing Pumpkins, which is what I was playing in the bathroom, and the voice was gone, my Billy Corgan sincere voice emerged and the question was still in my head, the trails of it fading, and I asked it again to you, "What do you live for?" And then I did the big thing, tried to think of a response, to think how I would answer the question, how I possibly could, and I didn't know, I didn't have a fucking clue how to answer it, how to not defensively laugh at you, and I asked myself again, inspired by Billy, "What do I live for?" Told myself to just complete the fucking sentance, complete the goddamn motherfucking sentance, what could be easier: I live for __________.

And I am still thinking of an answer, of a way of living, of the life I want to live.