Dragging the Archive Submission

Early January, after coming down from a medically induced state of euphoria, I booked round-trip flight tickets along with a four-day hostel stay in the Bahamas. My plane left NYC the next day. Having little knowledge of the Bahamas, I was struck by the thorough exploitation/ privatization of natural resources and human labor/servitude, as well as the tacky display of foreign wealth juxtaposed with  local poverty. During my stay at the hostel, my interactions with the hostel manager O'Neil harbored tangible, yet incredibly passive-aggressive sexual tension. In dire need of sleep & a hot bath, I decided to spend the last two nights of my trip at a resort (grotesque!).

 On my very last day in the Bahamas, I sat on the balcony of my room, my heart seized by disappointment over this Bahamas trip, self-hatred produced by resorting to a resort, and lots and lots of longing. I longed for O'Neil (although even at the time I already knew that this longing was a faulty projection). I longed for a certain set of life conditions I couldn't quite put my finger on. All the while I dreaded coming back to NYC: east-coast winter, stupid urban landscape, social scenes, my upcoming graduation, life post-undergrad… I sat trapped in the regurgitation of all these obscure feelings, until I (organically) started writing on my boarding pass. There was a  scarcity of paper at the resort, so this souvenir from my flight would have to do :’) … The writing process was intuitive and cathartic; some might call this consciousness stream writing, or vent journaling. After I finished writing, I felt as if I had put away (/archived) my insert missing noun here. Once I put away this writing, I felt  light, as if this process of externalization had transformed my 6-day trip into a physical place and that I had left that place behind.