I am becoming my sweatshirt, and I’m fine with that.

When I was but a wee little senior in high school, newly admitted to Columbia, I bought a sweatshirt. It was grey and oversized and overpriced. Bold Pantone 292 letters spelled “Columbia” across the chest, boldly declaring me the property of the school to which I will forever be indebted. No, literally. Tuition is expensive.

This sweatshirt soon became my home. Though its soft insides turned rough after months of wash cycles, the oversized sleeves became caves from which my hands rarely emerged and the torso is my eternal source for belly button lint. 

I never leave my sweatshirt. I prefer it to fancy clothes, workout clothes, pajamas, and even to nudity. Sometimes I wear the sweatshirt for days on end without washing it. And by sometimes I mean every week. 

My presence is my sweatshirt. My personality is my sweatshirt. My happy place is my sweatshirt. My essence is my sweatshirt.

I am melting into my sweatshirt. I do not want to be seen. Just perceive my sweatshirt–that will suffice. 

I am physically becoming one with my sweatshirt. A few days ago I scraped my arm, and the resulting scab has literally attached my arm to my sweatshirt. We are literally inseparable now.

I tried to eat my sweatshirt once. That didn’t work too well. Now my sweatshirt is eating me. Yummy! My sweatshirt is a cannibal.

My sweatshirt covers my butt. It covers my collarbone. It covers my elbows and fingertips and shoulders. I wish it extended past my toes so I could mark the ground beneath me with sweatshirt. 

I smell like my sweatshirt, and my sweatshirt smells like me. We both smell like student tears and pages upon pages of reading and….haha just kidding. We smell like body odor because we are dirty. 

Do you see my head or my hood? Is there a difference? Maybe they are one and the same, my face hidden in a hood for all of eternity like a Columbia themed dementor. 

Now I am the sweatshirt. I will swallow the physical world, subsuming it into my cozy confines. My body is invisible. Tangibility is gone. Reality is gone. All that’s left is sweatshirt.

Everything is sweatshirt. Sweatshirt. Sweatshirt. Sweatshirt. Amen.

A Different Columbia Sweatshirt via Bwog Staff