thank you is never enough

I stumbled swaying onto cobblestone streets, illuminated underneath a flickering lamppost, and I saw twinkling stars dancing on the quivering water in a nearby canal.  Quiet was all around me, but it wasn't the dangerous kind, and it wasn't the Simon & Garfunkel kind, and it wasn't the desperate kind.  I could have sworn that just a moment ago, I was losing it back in the gnawing comfort of a too comfortable prison in the boundaries of Draper to Highland.  This felt so different, like I had walked right into a time warp. And I began to hear lingering voices around the corner of the dilapidated towering buildings.  I followed the wispy words, picking up the pace until I was sprinting.  There was something growing inside of me, but I didn't know how that could possibly be when I was so dry inside.  I kept running, but I could never catch up with the voices.  So I admired from afar and I craned my neck and strained my ears and I listened.  I listened and I felt.  I wrung my hands and I thought.  I heard the beating of hearts in the flap of a bird's wings and I saw the sorrow in the sky's frowning disposition.  I felt the tangled strings that connected me to you and you never knew it.  I crouched down to touch the dusty ground, wet with a single tear, and I knew I was touching history and stories and memories.  I was touching the steps you took just a moment too late for me to call out the name that you hid in.  I was on my own journey, wandering free with no one to tell me what to do.  And I learned how to come back to myself when it was the last thing I wanted to do.  I learned to read slower and over and over and understand before I spoke.  I learned to see without apathy clouding my spirits.  I learned that people care too much and not at all.  I learned that I'm even more flawed than I give myself credit for and I learned that I can change.  I learned that there's even more that I don't know and even more that I can't grasp but that I should never stop trying.  And I never wanted to see the Eiffel Tower or the Catacombs or the Louvre.  I wanted to see me and I wanted to see you.  I wanted to see the dark alleys only secret lovers jogged down.  I wanted to see the little struggling cafes and smell the coffee and hear the soft French chatter.  I wanted to ask a stranger for the answers and I wanted to lay down and sleep on a narrow street with the night as the best blanket.  All I ever wanted were the little things.

And now when I listen to The Cure, I think of Lexi, and when I listen to 17, I think of Addie.  When I hold my crayons I think of Sarah Loveday.  When I look at the moon and wonder what she feels and muse over the meaning of beauty, I think of Erin, and when I watch Andrea Gibson or see bleachers, I think of Sarah Matthews.  When I remember second chances I think of Gabi.  When I remember second chances and Dorothy and floaties, I think of Kenzie.  When I see sad blue eyes and worn out crayon boxes,  I think of Sawyer.  When I pore over sanity and living and fun, I think of Hannah. When I pass IHOP and remember Freaks and Geeks, I think of Taylor.  When midnight comes calling, I think of Elise.  When I reflect on annihilation, I think of Kelsey and when I reflect on worth, I think of Megan.  When I envision Salt Lake City walks alone and blasting rap music in the car, I think of McKay.  When I sort through the names of flowers, I think of Heather.  When I see discolored soles, I think of Austin.  When I imagine living for the moments, I think of Braeden.  When I want to watch Say Anything, I think of Chase, and when I recall 500 Days of Summer I think of Mikey.  When I'm about to take a risk, I think of Nelson.  When I ponder of Pluto, I think of Griffin and when I look for faraway planets, I think of Avery.  When I can't get up in the morning or I listen to Derrick Brown, I think of Roah.  When I don't know what's up or down, I go to Max Carol and I wish and wish and wish for him to come back.  But when I think of each of you, it's not just a beautiful song I remember or shaking the dust or looking up at oblivion in new ways or a classroom I stepped in twice.  It's not a false promise that I'll never forget you for so much more than that.  I remember poetry and discovery and passion.  And I love you.  I love you.  I love you.

Paris was never a time warp.  Truth felt so foreign to me that I'd forgotten what it was.  We were in the here, and we were in the now, real as real can be.  Terrified.  Lost.  Broken.  Regretful.  Misunderstood.  Restless.

We are in the here and we are in the now and we are full of stardust.

So long.  And thank you.

- Sam Tse

all in a day's time

There's a real possibility come summer, I'll read the Bible for the first time and get my blood drawn for the first time.

My head is slightly aching from the moment where all I could see was black.  It's nice to know that I can close my eyes to see more black.  It doesn't cost a penny and I can do it whenever I want.  If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.  Because the darkness behind my eyes is so much more welcoming than what I see with open ones.

Lone Peak's library has one copy of The Catcher in the Rye that has been checked out 38 times since May 15th, 1998.  I was one and it's been sixteen ones since then.  Well, I guess I wasn't quite one yet, but I'm going to go with it.  Which means that sixteen ones ago, someone walked the same carpet floors across the media center and picked up the book I was holding in my hand today.  I wonder who he was.  Or if he was a she.  What heshe thought about high school.  What heshe loved about craning heshe's neck up towards the starry night sky.  What heshe hated and made heshe tick.  Heshe must be around thirty by now.  I wonder if there are little heshes running around on hardwood floors and tripping over poodles and not contemplating the meaning of life.  My copy has a worn spine even though it's only been read two and a half times.  The reread now, the past read, and my brother's past read.  I don't like worn spines but I love them too.  My old guitar teacher said that his guitar is his because of those scars upon it.  He remembers most of them but not all.  Mine came with some and I like that it has a history without me and is now making steady history with me.

There was one copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  It's been checked out 52 times since May 5th, 1999.  That date is approximate.  I can't seem to remember immediate things too well anymore.  I wonder if the people I associate with the stamps of due dates read it because they had a teacher like Bill.  A friend like Charlie.  Or if they returned it without opening it because they didn't have the time.  If years later they came across the book again and read it.  And read it again.  I wonder if they regretted not reading it years ago when they were in an inferno filled with adolescent hormonal kids who walk past each other never saying hello.

There were three copies of Atlas Shrugged and one copy of The Fountainhead.  It kind of bothered me that I couldn't look up Naked Lunch on the computers without being censored and that there are no copies of Naked Lunch in the library.  I don't know what objectivism is but Atlas Shrugged; daaaaaamnnnn. That's a long one.  I'm debating whether I should make it another one of my firsts this summer because there are 84 $10 000 max scholarships being given away for writing an essay on one of three topics concerning the novel.  I'd be spending months on dissecting it, and I don't think I'd get one of the 84.  So I guess I'm just wondering if it would be worth it to win $0.  I'd like to read it for the right reasons and money doesn't seem like the best one.

There's one copy of the English translated version of The Little Prince - checked out approximately 13 times since January 4th, 2000ish - and one copy of the original The Little Prince - checked out 6 times since October 15th, 2003ish.  I regret not having read it when I could.  Always too busy but I guess that statement has holes in it.  I was waiting for the day when I felt like I knew French well enough to read the original.  I didn't wait for that for The Stranger though.  By that time, I knew I'd never really master French.  I think in language jumping, you lose a bit of that something.  What that something is, I couldn't tell you.  I'm going to add it to my summer firsts; the English version.  But since there's more than one, the indecision's come back.  Instead of choosing a version to order on Amazon a few years back, I'm pretty sure I just ordered The Happy Prince and Other Stories and I never even finished that one.  Firsts are important, but I've got to learn to just dive into it without worrying about about how it's done.

You might think these numbers are pointless and I'd say my existence is pretty pointless and since I have a lot of time during lunch these days I like to spend them how I like to.

I've been thinking.  If I've ever wanted you to know one thing, it's that I'm a friend first.  Albeit, not a great one.  But if I'm not in a trance-like disorientation, I'm almost all ears.  You may have to snap your fingers in front of my face or say my name ten times - sorry Sasha - but I think I am almost all ears.  I may not look like it, but I think I am almost all ears.  I'm a friend first.  I'm not here to judge you if you pick your nose or like corny pop songs.  I'm not here for that.

I've been putting Fight to Keep on repeat lately.  I wonder why they changed their name.  I really like Monsters Calling Home, it's got nostalgia in the spaces between the letters.  I was just barely listening to John Hiatt's Have A Little Faith In Me.  And I know faith isn't only about religion, but I still can't help feeling on the outskirts if I use the word.

The biggest lie I've ever been told is that I'm here for a reason.  The name Nobody Owens has nice ring to it, I checked all three of my email accounts today, and I love my mom.

Tomorrow I'm the Cheshire Cat at a tea party in the house pulled right out of Up, but today I think Nobody Owens has a nice ring to it, I checked all three of my email accounts, and I love my mom forever.

things you probably don't want to know

Hi.  My name's Samantha.  But don't call me that.  Unless you're Paige or Mrs. Chambers.  I shrink from confrontation.  I've got terrible posture and a river of insecurity running through me.  I mumble, reducing people to think my name is "Sham" when it comes to introductions.  I'm crazily indecisive.  I'm intrigued by Trevor Richard and wish I could have a memorable conversation with him about the malleability of humanity.  I want to be like, "Where have you been all my life?  You're incredible.", but I think I'd get a weird look from that.  Half the time I'm carefree and careless and the other half of the time I'm tense and baffled.  I sneeze loudly but try to tread quietly.  I've got ridiculous ineptitude when it comes to common sense and chemistry.  I love fingerless gloves and music and learning new words.

I'm a 5' 0 Hulk.  SAM SMASH!  I get angry when I look in the mirror.  I get angry when someone asks me a question and I give them an answer and they don't believe me so they ask another person right in front of me.  I get angry when someone addresses a few people but only makes eye contact with one.  I get angry when people forget that a person is a person.  I get angry when people stand in the middle of a hallway like they own the place.  I get angry when people are unnecessarily loud.  I get angry with overuse of the pronoun "I", yet if you count the number of times I use it here, it's overwhelming and hypocritical.  I get angry when I say something to my dad and he doesn't listen to the whole of what I said, but takes one word that caught his attention and talks about something else entirely.  I get angry when people kid around excessively because it has never been funny on the receiving side and honestly I'm just a party pooper prude.  So many things set me off.  The smallest things.  Everything triggers the frustration that I take home with me because I'll never let it out in public.  I'm a freakin' 5' 0 Hulk.  Except there's no superhero in me.  Except a lot of things.  And well, I guess I don't turn green.

I'm a social misfit and I like it.  93% of the time, I'll choose books and music over people.  I wish my favorite authors and musicians were terrific friends of mine and I could call them up on the phone whenever I felt like it.  I like talking to strangers rather than people I know.  Every audition I've ever had, I messed up.  And I never want to give explanations because they end up sounding like pitiful excuses.  I've got eczema and I've got dandruff.  I've always had allergic reactions to prescription medications but you probably didn't need to know that.  Then again, you don't need to know any of this.

You'd never think I love dancing and singing but I do it on Sundays when I'm baking sweets and in rooms with closed doors and I feel safest when I'm in a rowdy crowd at a concert.  I think it's a good universal sign that I got my acoustic on Jason Mraz's birthday even though it wasn't a Taylor or a Martin.

I think I had more imagination when I was 11, but I've never been one for creativity.  I can't draw something unless I look at it and I can't alter it in a way that makes it unique.  I can't call the endless unfinished drawings a time when I had artist's block because it's been years and I can't call myself an artist anyway.  I can't freestyle or solo on my guitar, instead, my fingers play the same major scales I learned years ago.

I cried over an A- but by the time the B+ rolled by I stopped.  Don't talk to me about expectations.  Don't even get started.  I didn't try harder next term.  I like to call myself pathetic because it's true and if I stray away from the depths of indifference, it's not because I put effort into doing it.  I'll let people step over me and talk over me and not get mad about it in the now.  I save the frustration for later.  My passivity is detrimental.

I want to squirm out of most conversations and hugs.  I get "I didn't notice you there" a lot.  My favorite place in classrooms is the farthest seat back.  When I'm at school, I want to be anywhere else.  When I'm somewhere else, I want to be anywhere else.

Procrastination is my fallback for everything.  I watch too much TV; if it's not Chicago Fire, it's Orphan Black, and if it's not Orphan Black, it's The Middle, and this can go on forever.  It's my defense against thinking about deadlines and it's never been enough to know what I'm doing wrong, because knowing doesn't mean I'll do anything about it.

I take things too personally.  Like if the cashier asks the person in front of me in line how their day has been and makes light conversation and then says nothing to me when he or she rings up my items or if someone gives me a dirty look and has an irritated tone to their voice, I jump to the conclusion that they hate me.  Which is ridiculous, but I can't help it.  I get annoyed with sweat.  I work out like I have a smoker's lung.  I love seeing happiness in people's faces when they think no one's watching.  It kills me.

I have this pressing desire to write thank you notes to people.  It's cowardly that I'll write them in my mind and never say those things aloud looking into the person's eyes.  Kindness saves me and it's bad how surprised I get when I see it.  It makes it sound like I think all of you are bad guys and kindness is extremely rare.  But don't get fooled.  There's only one bad guy and it's me. Thank you to the person who kept me from getting trampled and offered to lift me up to see the singers even though he didn't know me.  The person who didn't walk past the girl struggling to pick up her things off the floor because she tripped.  The person who never walks away right after he asks "how are you?" and listens to the response without looking like he has somewhere else to be.  That pisses me off.  How someone doesn't really give you the time of day but it's just kind of a way to keep up appearances.  I'm tremendously more blunt in writing than I am in speech.  I'm really a fake if you think about it.  And I'm no better than the people I get pissed off at.

I want to be able to help others which is ironic because at times I don't like people very much.  Sometimes I dislike them and other times I think they're beautiful and complex.  I know they're beautiful and complex, but I've got an air of negativity that I can't seem to shake off.  I used to want to be a firefighter.  Then I wanted to be teacher.  Then a paramedic.  Then a nurse.  When people ask me the dreaded question of what I want to be, now I say "oncologist".  The occupation has turned into something that I say just to fill the space.

I'm not sure if this is what realtalk is.  I think I'm just rambling, but typing the words is comforting.  I'm sorry it's always too long.  Sometimes typing the words makes me want to pull my hair out though.

y'all. sophomore year to fourth grade

I remember when he stopped wearing tennis shoes and started wearing converse.  I remember how it kind of bothered me but all I could think about were how deeply blue his eyes were.  I remember ninth grade English with Springer momma, sandwiched between him and Alis Priddy.  Her favorite snack was goldfish and he ran cross country and played the trumpet.

I remember fighting the urge to keep my middle finger down behind people's backs and feeling wretched for even thinking of swear words I thought I'd never say out loud.  Ha.

I remember how I thought Lotus Sutra was the coolest, most chill girl I'd ever seen.  Her topic on the controversial English essay was legalization of marijuana and the only one I remember today.  I remember running into Sasha Fierce at American Eagle and talking about American Studies.  I remember when Austin Call beatboxed in our class.  I remember Ken Burns documentaries for extra credit and The Keeper of Time.  I remember the Mickey Mouse pants and our names being drawn.  I remember losing twenty dollars to amethyst wine for a sweatshirt I never got and holding a faint grudge for too long.

I remember moving to Utah and getting stares for saying "Oh my God" and being told to not swear.  I didn't understand anything.  I remember not feeling so judged or alone up until that moment.

I remember having the biggest middle school crush on Dean Wolfe and falling in love with Lloyd Dobler's voice.  I remember French class and how funny he was and how nice he always was to me.  I remember crushing hard on the guy with the kindness and the nose like a ski slope who didn't pick me last for soccer or ultimate on the Wednesdays we didn't have to do dryland.  The artist who I like talking to with a knack for being hilarious with a straight face.  The last still holds true.

I remember playing with my neighbor up the street everyday in the summers not caring about sunscreen or the time or really anything at all.  We made up dances on the trampoline to songs by Taylor Swift and Cascada and sang to Rascal Flatts and rocked Guitar Hero and laughed nonstop and watched movies and pigged out on Milk Duds.

I remember wearing my Green Day beanie to Westfield and Corrine Bailey Rae said I should wear that on St. Patrick's Day.  I remember Westfield singers and square dancing with girls because there weren't enough guys.  I remember track with Destiny Preach, the sweetest girl I've ever met.  Emma Kay, Destiny, and I ran with the cold and the wind then the sweat and the heat and our shin splints that I complained about incessantly.  Emma always ran alongside me even though she should have run past me.  I've never laughed as long or hard with anyone else since then.  I remember our underwear showing through our compression shorts and guys with see-through white speedos.  I remember the necklace that said "friendly" on it because I'm boy crazy and they're friendly.  I remember how her races were my favorite thing to watch, especially the last half. I remember confusing card games on the bleachers with Elijah Kimball.  I remember wanting to be kyyy's friend and the admiration I had for her and being in awe of her speed and dedication.

I remember singing "Tomorrow" in Scarlet White's room.  She sang "Picture to Burn" at Ridgeline's talent show and Charlie L Rose danced.  I thought it was the most beautiful voice I'd ever heard and the most beautiful dance I'd ever seen.  I remember walking the halls of Timberline with Charlie when the bus dropped us off thirty minutes before school started.  I remember how sweet she was and how lucky I was to have a friend like her.

I remember asking my dad for help on school art projects and him taking over.  I remember barely getting a word in and a grade I didn't deserve.  I remember when I stopped asking for help.

I remember LLACIE PAIGE and her glasses and Mr. Barker's eighth grade algebra class. I remember Krispy Kreme doughnuts and the Woodbury art museum. I loved Mr. Barker and Mrs. Springer more than anything but I haven't walked up those stairs to visit them in years.  I remember the first day of health class when we played the dreaded introductory name game and Sky Trillion said L for llamas.  I remember how Abner was nice to me.  I remember art class with Dora Wyatt and the masks we made with our Vaseline covered faces.  I remember when someone slammed a door and it crushed Sage's toe.  I remember the blood soaking through her Keds and how she stayed strong even through the pain.

I remember cheating on KUMON and crying from being yelled at.  I remember my best defense against hurting and looking into someone's eyes is silence.

I remember the first day of high school when a friend and I helped GRAY EVASION and his friend open his locker.  They made me excited about school because I thought that if everyday I'd meet people like them with the bright smiles I'd be so happy to wake up in the morning and go to class.  I remember the swing set and The Little Mermaid and comparing Tom Wallish to a Greek god and my friend saying how she wouldn't mind being licked by him like the dog in the movie licked the prince.  I can't believe I just typed that.

I remember when the local church came to help fix up our yard full of overgrown weeds and how I hid inside the house, terrified of talking to anyone and promising myself that I'd spend hours the rest of the summer working on the yard to make up for being a stupid coward.

I remember walking into Shep's room for the first time and falling in love instantly.  It was like a Disneyland of eccentricity.  I remember hating being drawn in figure drawing even though we all had to go up there.  I remember how Shep made us take off our shoes so we could draw our feet and discovering DiMiTRi Snow's fear of them.  I remember track with Wolf Boy and enjoying the times we talked even if they were few.

I remember listening to Tommy Miller's cover of Skinny Love over and over and feeling inspired.  But when I tried to sing along I ended up with a broken string on a guitar I didn't know how to tune alternately.

I remember yearbook with Ruby McCall and wanting to talk with her but never doing it.  She was pretty and kind and quiet and awesome.  I remember the beauty in pleasefindmehere's smile and how she played tennis with my friend at Ivory Ridge.  I remember Isla Kirie and her smile too and I don't know anyone who could forget it.

I remember cosmetic surgery and resistance to lidocaine.  Sleepless night guilt but going through with it anyways.  Never feeling better about myself before or after.  Making lists in my head of what was Before and what came After.

Sorry this isn't chronological but that's not the way memories come back.

I remember finding out your names and loving the small parts of everyone that I'd never realized were there before.  I remember the respect I felt and the love I wanted to send your way.  I remember Juliet saying "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" and reading a comment on the Prayers for Jordan Facebook page that said "She has touched my heart without ever touching my hand".  And it finally sank in.  Because I've always had the hardest time with people saying how much they love someone they never knew or know.   But it's never been about the degrees.  It's not a competition.  It's not a monopoly.  One of the weirdest things is walking past you without having the guts to say anything.  And I've wanted to say I love you since, but it's probably way too soon and too creepy and we've probably never spoken in years or ever at all. The love isn't like how I love my grandparents or how I love John Green or how I love Huntington Beach.  It doesn't have to be.  It's how I love you, and though I hate using the word perfect, it's a perfect kind of love.  A different, but perfect kind of love.

I guess I'm trying to say I remember y'all among the fragmented memories of my past.  And you're important to me, because in all the little things I remember, you've been in my life for better or worse.  The little things maybe you don't remember mean something to me all these years later.  So thank you.  It matters.  You matter.  I'm learning that I matter too.  We all do.  I know you've changed since then; gotten a little taller, a little angrier, a little wiser, more confused, more scarred, more sunny; that you're so much more than the little things I do remember.  I'm sorry I couldn't mention everyone.

All in all, sometimes the little things are all I need.  Because with them, I know life is good.  I know life is worth it.

young and unsightly

what am I afraid of?

boys and speeches

bees and leeches

rotting knees and hairy peaches

if I'm an anomaly for dreading high school

then I must be an Oompa Loompa in Oompaland

and the clouds must be raining skittles

what have I learned?

no one teaches you how to cope with yourself

the years in my years teared at sixteen

the sound was obnoxious

I've always cringed at loud noises

so I ignored the ripping

oblivious that small doses of arsenic

will kill a person slowly

sixteen just held such better days?

days when I still felt alive?

I'm a cliche of a vessel

and the nothingness inside of it

fluttering wingless in hours of wasted time

I'm a cliche of a forlorn teen

and the angst that rages inside like a misunderstood bull in a bullfight

yet it's not the red that's aggravating

it's the staged movements

I'm a cliche of a hypocrite

pushing for things I've never done, not likely to do

with my collection of inspirational quotes

a desire, and no willpower to change


and it's hard to remind myself

that I can be happy

Jimmy Ruffin makes me smile

but he tells me that happiness is just an illusion

everything good seems to be these days

I fell in love with Hate at sixteen

we flirted with each other for years

dancing around the inevitably in what was bound to happen

dancing around pretty flames hungry for more

"enough" a foreign word lingering on an itchy tongue


I fell hard

he quenched the lights so appealing before

made darkness my home and my refuge

kept me unmoving on a cold hard floor

licked my insides clean of sense

kicked the stomach I was sucking in

and told me I deserved it


I told him I hated people

I told him I hated school

I told him I hated life

I told him I hated the world

but he nudged me to tell the truth

so I told him I hated myself

that I loved him

and that's all he wanted to hear


everyone's always said

there's beauty to be found in pain of destruction

what an implicative black and white perspective


I was the record on repeat

and I listened to my self-deprecation all the time

the music was bloody and raw

I swear it tasted sweet

but it wasn't funny

it never was


my heart

my soul

that's what he wanted

it's what I wanted too

he left when he found out they were both missing

what have I learned?

no one teaches you how to cope with yourself

what am I?

still sixteen

falling out of love with hate for myself

a spoonful of truth helps the medicine go down

Sitting alone during lunch on a bench long enough for three people in middle school was a reason I loathed ninth grade.  Among other things and other lonely places.  It wasn't all days, but it was most.  And it turns out that high school would be much the same; except this time around, it didn't hurt quite like it did before because I'd been exposed to the negative negatives of myself already.  I used to hope with all my heart that someone, anyone, would come sit by me and we'd become best friends.  That we'd just connect.  I daydreamed about it a lot.  I don't hope for it anymore.  What I realize now is that the reason no one sat by me or sits by me, is and was because I never said a word.  I expected someone to come up to me when I never put myself out there or went up to others who I wanted to talk to.  Or at least that's what I tell myself.  The other thing I tell myself is that I'm so unlikable that it would be better if I was invisible.  Because then people wouldn't be uncomfortable with seeing me pretend that I'm waiting for someone or that I'm by myself for a reason.  It'd just be better. For me too.  It's kind of twisted, but I'd actually enjoy it.  I'm unapproachable and I'm afraid I come off as cold.  I'm afraid that whatever I say or do sounds pretentious or insincere.  Even my laugh.  That when I do say anything, it's an intrusion and I'm just tainting what I don't have the privilege to touch.  That's what this blog feels like.  Another place where I shouldn't be and shouldn't belong because I'm not supposed to be here in the first place.  One of my favorite parts about swim sophomore year was that we had to leave during lunch in order to get into the water on time.  Meaning I wouldn't have to try to be social.  I wouldn't say my voice is rusty.  Because rust is for things that were there before.  I'm a senior in high school and I still don't know how to speak coherently.  I'm afraid that when people try to talk to me, they give up because it's easier talking to a wall.  I'm afraid that people give up on me without talking to me at all.  And the thing is, I don't blame them.  Because I am hard to talk to.  And before anyone tries, I want to scream a disclaimer to them:   I'M NOT A GOOD PERSON AND I'M NOT WORTH THE EFFORT. Vagueness and repetition of simple words are not decipherable. I think when I think that people think of me I think too highly of myself. Goodness, there were four thinks in that sentence. I don't think that boy remembers the odd tone in which I said thanks.  I don't think that girl remembers that I forgot to say sorry when I almost ran into her.  I don't think that adorable boy remembers that one of my eyes sometimes looks smaller than the other.  I don't think that teacher remembers my name.  I don't think they remember that I didn't pronounce personable right or that I didn't know Brazil's official language is Portuguese when I should have remembered the Treaty of Tordesillas from two years of history with my favorite teacher.  I think they think I'm stupid.  I think they think I'm anti-social.  To an extent, I probably am.  I think they think I'm ugly.  I think they think I'm a waste of space.  I think they hate me.  I think they think I'm mean. I think I am all those things. Really though, they is code for you.  Even though I don't say much, I feel like I'm prone to saying the wrong thing everywhere.  In comments too.  But I'm tired of thinking of me, me, me in the eyes of others.  Or in what I think people see.

I don't know what I'd do without the library.  Nobody needs a weird girl always hovering around the perimeter of conversations or awkwardly standing just outside of the circle saying nothing.  Nada.  Never.  What an awful friend I am and have always been.  Because I haven't talked to mine in ages.  I know I've never had extremely close friends in which we tell each other everything honest and real, but I could have at least tried to be a good one when I had the chance.  When I had the chances.  Three Days Grace is in my head with, "it's never too late" because I can't think of the phrase without the song.  But I do pessimistically believe that with me, it is too late.

Give me a buddy to talk to.  I can do that.  Give me buddies to talk to.  I can't do that.  I shut down.  It's always in my mind that I'll say something unintentionally inexcusable or whatever I want to say shouldn't be said because the moment when I should have said it passed.  And it's this constant war in my brain that I've given up on fighting because I don't think it's worth it anymore. Convince me otherwise would take all night.

Before you walk away, there's one more thing I want to say.  

Our brains are sick but that's okay.  

Sorry, the line launched me into thinking about Twenty One Pilots.  I'm sporadically on the verge of explosion with the excitement that they're coming back.  Two weeks from today.  That's what I'm looking forward to.  Not fixing my four F's in time to graduate.  Not drawing thirty pieces of artwork by next Thursday.  Not driving when I've only driven once since I got my license in November.  Not hearing more about how I didn't get any scholarships because I didn't study hard enough for the ACT because the ACT is the only thing that matters and whatever else I did in high school doesn't mean much and my brother's got a full ride to college and I barely got accepted and I'm always a burden for my parents and they say money isn't the issue but I know darn well it certainly is one.  I'm not looking forward to graduation.  Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic to get out of high school, only, graduation's a reminder of how much of a disappointment I've become.  Concerts seem to be the only thing I look forward to anymore.  I'm flying solo again and I want to say that it's okay but I'm not really sure that I am.

Sometimes when people sit next to me anywhere, I scoot slightly away from them.  It's for the most stupid reason too.  I believe everyone's better off not knowing me and that movement has always been my butt's way of saying I'm not worth your time.  I know how silly that is.  I know how insecure it is.  I know how idiotic it is.

how to know the sound of silence

Listen.

darting, averted eyes aren't silent

glued lips aren't silent

wringing hands aren't silent

restless feet aren't silent

Listen.

eye contact doesn't mean seeing

brief, fleeting conversations don't mean seeing

touch doesn't mean seeing

walking alongside doesn't mean seeing

Remember.

sometimes all silence wants is to not be heard but heard

to not be seen but seen

because he has a heart too

Listen.

he doesn't want your pity

he wants you to be kind because you are

not because you feel sorry

Alone.

alone but not lonely

finally

repetition: bravery

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was open your eyes and let the dust fly away as you kept blinking.  Because blinking isn't natural to everyone.  Maybe the darkness of closed eyes is your favorite place to be when you're awake.

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was fall out of bed.  Because falling does take effort.  Getting up is a whole different heartache.

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was look at your reflection in the mirror.  Practicing your smile because you're not sure you're convincing enough.

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was listen to that song.  The song that isn't only yours, but someone else's too.  Maybe that someone else isn't here today and you haven't listened to it in the longest time; afraid that the next time you do is the first time you won't cry because of it.  

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was shove the urge to erase the words that can be erased.  Online, on paper, on skin.  You've been trying to stop dwelling.  Please remember that erased doesn't mean forgotten. 

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was say hello and please and thank you.  To a stranger or an old friend or a teacher or an old man or a thief or a misfit or a hero.  Maybe they were the same person.

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was put on your five inch heels because it doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl.  It just matters that it matters to you.   

Maybe the bravest thing you did today came from a line you read in a book that made all the internal and external clocks stop ticking.  "It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was play the strings you haven't played in days because even though music will piece you together, it tears you apart too.

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was stand up to someone with words to change minds and not fists to split skin.  

Maybe the bravest thing you did today was run that last mile alone because the race was over hours ago.  

Bravery is a lot of things.  It is pushing a stranger out of the way of an oncoming train.  It is speaking ten words without mumbling.  It is shaky but sure hands and CPR in triage.  It is speaking with your heart when you know no one has ever listened to you before.

It is real names and real faces and real words before and after you got the rug pulled fast from beneath your feet; breaking you ankle on the way down.  

It isn't me.

The bravest thing you did today isn't the bravest thing someone else did today.  Comparisons are not what we're here for.  

I'm sorry I say real names were maybe what you didn't know you needed when I don't know how betrayed or surprised or happy or angry or relieved or empty you might have felt.  I don't know how the skyline looks from your desk or what colors you see in the sunset.  I'm sorry I say these things when I'm still Icarus.

Something was written wrong in my history. But I forget that I wrote it myself.

Keep turning the pages despite however many past chapters of incoherence or frustration or sadness or blank pages there are.  Because sometimes, scrawling your black and blue ink on the five-hundredth-twenty-first page will be the bravest thing you did today.

give me flames

I'm spending so much time in Paris and wondering when I'll be deported.  If I'll leave because I was always a tourist anyway.  I'm missing so many pieces in the jigsaw puzzle I don't know what picture I'm supposed to piece together.

I'm trapping myself with my words and I will never tell anyone how I feel with my voice.  And how I feel is always changing.  I'm hiding.  I've built my wall of solitude high with the stars in mind.

I've realized I'm not alone on this off the radar street of confusion.  We're all lost. Not sure what we're looking for.  I guess I have to be grateful for existing even if I don't fit. And I believe that one day you'll find what you don't know you're looking for.  You might still be b r o k e n, but you'll be standing on your own two feet looking out on this world that doesn't owe you anything just to say I'm over you.

Maybe I can say something worthwhile.  So you'll know I hear you and that I care.  But I'm just me, and so intent on saying anything that I'm not taking enough time to understand.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry I don't have any medicine.  I'm sorry I wouldn't take it if I did.

I don't have any substance.  I don't want to fool you.  You shouldn't believe that I'm anything good.  I wonder if putting myself down is something that I've grown so used to that it's become more natural to me than breathing.  I'm wrong.  I'm useless.  I'm plain.  I'm slow.  I'm withdrawn.  I'm weird.  I'm credulous.  I'm stationary.  I'm inattentive.  I'm distant.  I'm uninviting.  I'm vague.  I'm annoying.  I'm insecure.  I'm closelipped.  I'm inconsiderate.  I'm volatile.  I'm indolent.  I'm contradicting.  I'm contrived.  I'm artificial.  I'm waste.  I'm terrified.  I'm sinking.

I'm feeling like a candle that is only sometimes lit.  I don't remember the last time I said those three words I love you.  Every goodbye or goodnight used to be laced with I love you.  I don't feel very loving or caring anymore and it's scary.  Burning wax is dripping along the crevices of my body telling me to cherish every moment I have with everything and everyone I love.  Look outside.  Look at the clear skies and breathe in the fresh air.  Ride your bike like you used to without feeling too old to enjoy the little things.  Put your running shoes on and taste the sunlight.  Pick up your rusty instruments and don't worry about making the music sound nice.  Go break a window with the force of the trapped emotions crawling restlessly underneath your skin.  Hear the shatter and relish in the sound.  Do it again and again and again and again and again.  Let out the FREAKING FRUSTRATION.  Wrap your body around the shards and feel each vulnerable edge.  Those shards are you.  Stop being submissive.  Stop shrinking when anyone talks to you.  Stop being so annoyed with your family's quirks.  Stop telling yourself you're too busy for them because you won't always have them at the kitchen counter to talk to.  Next year, everything changes.  Maybe they'll change in a second, you don't know what time has in store for you.  You won't always have them so close.  When you yell at your parents you'll be left with a gaping hole when you're no longer angry.  You'll just add to the whopping disappointment you already have in yourself.  When you wake up melancholy and come home depressed and go to bed sad, don't sulk in silence.  Get over the irritating sound the blender makes and the constant ringing of the telephone no one ever answers.  Pause your music. Stop making eye contact with the ground.  Be brave, it won't obliterate you.  Don't care what others think about your uneven face or your unpromising outsides.  Relax.  Get out of the quicksand.  You probably don't have it in you though; too many flaws begging for air.  You're the one giving them oxygen.  Flaws are supposed to make you want to change.  They're not a warm blanket meant for you to envelop yourself in.  You must not want to be happy, you've grown to be comfortable in your despair.  You're going nowhere.

I'm telling myself these things in hopes that I'll wake up.  That I'll start living a life worth living.  But then the wax dries and I forget.  I need someone to set me on fire.  Please.



You can't start a fire, worryin' about your little world falling apart
This gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark

If I could dance like The Boss, my life would be complete.  I'm honestly not being sardonic in the slightest.  He is pure expression.  It makes me smile yesterday, today, and tomorrow and truly mean it.  Wherever I'm at, whatever place I'm in.

This song will forever hold a special place in my heart. My somewhere soulmate; this could be our anthem.

night running

Let's go night running.  Because I could really use someone by my side to share the silence.  You won't see my face in the moonlight and I won't see yours, because it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter squat.  I won't care that my upper arms are getting softer and squishier and you won't care that your face is scarred by acne.  Our breathing will be discordant and rapid, but we won't care about the fact that we have no synchronization.  We'll never be beautiful like the actors and actresses in the movies who can make sobbing look flawlessly perfect.  We don't need to be.  We're tired of adjusting unnatural masks.  We're tired of pretending to be everything we're not.  We're just damn tired of being.  So we're not running away from ourselves anymore.  We're not running away from anything.  We're running because bleeding rock embedded bare feet tell us to keep trying to fly and our mismatched hard heartbeats tell us that the faster we move the higher we go.  And the higher we go, the closer we are to the three-year old angel who died yesterday because cancer doesn't give a shit about age.  The higher we go, the closer we are to my uncle who smoked too many cigarettes like my dad does now.  The higher we go, the closer we are to the boy who took his life because people kept telling him it gets better but all he heard were empty words.  And the only reason we're not scared, is because we have each other.  As long as you don't look into my eyes and I don't look into yours, the fear is nonexistent because we can't see it.

We're still pretending, aren't we?  We think we're brave because we're pounding the empty streets while the darkness wants to grab us by our ankles.  Who are we kidding?  We're running away from ourselves and from dealing; like we always do.  And you say running away is never the answer but we sure as hell are going to try.  We wanted to feel free and alive and defiant in the beginning.  But then something changed and we remembered that the living become the dead and the dead were once the living.  We're feeling worse than we were when we started and we don't know how to talk to each other so we don't say anything.  We're not living while we're here, and the dead can't live anymore.  And we stopped digging for the why behind things that are impossible to understand.  So let's go running, imaginary friend, because I like it better than the alternative of sitting on a stationary lazy ass in a quiet house afraid.  Of the silence outside and the noise inside my head.

I'm not delusional.  There's just a missing puzzle piece I kicked under a couch somewhere forgotten.  There's a lot of missing pieces but that piece in particular said friend, and maybe if I looked hard enough, I'd find the piece.  But something tells me that I never had it in the first place.  I just make up a lot of things.  I don't imagine you as anything though, you're just a name.  Maybe imaginary friend makes me sound like a demented teenager.  But it makes me seem less alone.  I suck sounds a lot less harsh as I repeat it.  My mouth is still closed.  I didn't feel anything as I typed this.  Nothing makes sense.  My words are meaningless.  I mean, what in the world did I just write?  I'd like to believe that we're all a little unhinged.

just alright

Because Saturday mornings waking up before ten-thirty are the best mornings and I've missed a whole year of good mornings.  But right now, my morning is music and I'm trying to sing along like before.


Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry 
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb 
over my poems, then put the book back 
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Ted Kooser


I don't wish to have written this poem.  I wish to be this poem.

I want the words etched in my paper skin.  Not like a tattoo.  Like each word beats inside my heart, one after another until the poem ends but doesn't because it always goes back to the beginning.  As long as I'm alive.

I'm jealous because it feels like good Saturday mornings and the good kind of lonely afternoons and old bookshelves and memory-splattered raincoats and peaceful strolls and independence.  Kooser's perfect reader is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.  And I'm not there.  And I'm not her.  And I'm not words.

It will never end, but my Saturday will.

The words will never be erased, but I will.

Forever after I'm dead, please still let there be bookstores in the world.  Please still let there be these beacons.  Please still let there be these stars you can hold in your hand because you're just as burning and passionate and the heat doesn't faze you.

You're that star.


Dear Icarus,

You're not a white dwarf or a black dwarf or a neutron star or a black hole yet.
So stop acting like you are.

s                                       t                                       o                                       p

s                                  t                                  o                                  p

s                       t                      o                       p

s                                       t                                       o                                       p

s                                       t                                       o                                       p

s                                       t                                       o                                       p

s                         t                            o                      p

stop.

dig a little deeper

I ate asparagus the other night and my pee still smells funny.  The formaldehyde followed me after the cadaver lab field trip.  On my clothes, on my skin, in my nose, in my head.  The fear of not feeling enough fear that day is still haunting me.

You think this is a metaphor.

My mom bought new mouthwash.  It's green.  It will kill the germs.  I want to swallow it and not call poison control.  Feel it go down like cool peppermint.  Invigorating clean.

Lavender walls and seven year olds who make bad decisions.  Lavender is the color of prancing through daisies with unicorns and rainbows.  Not of lonely nights and boiling frustration and walking nightmares.  Or for girls who despise being called girly. Or for girls who are sometimes incidentally sexist toward their own gender without meaning to be.

The Doctors Without Borders world map I opened with adventure and hope and happiness flowing through my veins; never hung up.  Folded with the Arctic ocean and Alaska facing up.  It wasn't always folded.  The world wasn't always this big.  I wasn't always this worthless.

Bob Dylan's in the dark, looking up at the bottom of the dresser.  He was a dollar off at Amoeba because of his folded corner.  He was on the wall before I knew that tape is too weak to hold things up.

Three photos pinned to the bulletin board.  Seven concert tickets.  Sixty-two empty CD cases.  A yearbook with less than ten signatures and braces for four years.  The books don't fit on the bookshelf.  Holden's next to Dorian next to Quentin next to Eleanor next to Meursault and they don't like sharing the tight space, but it's better than being Jane next to Kip next to Conor next to Puck next to Pudge on the floor.  Paperback, hardback, paperback, hardback.  Dust, dust, dust.

Snoopy's growing old.  Conch shell's losing color.  The Circus Circus animals I won in Vegas are feeling like they were cheated out of a good owner.  They're right.  Five year old jeans and ugly sweaters.  Black shirt, gray shirt, navy shirt.  Recycle.  One formal dress.  Zero dances.  Give me a trophy for keeping that record for six years.

Three blue wristbands.  Kill the Cancer Man, Kill the Cancer Man, Kill the Cancer Man.

Dreamcatchers are supposed to make the bad dreams disappear when the sun comes up. Annie sang and I listened.  But the gray days are mushed together, the fog is too hazy, and there's snow outside.  At least defective dreamcatchers are pretty to look at.

Two laps behind on the track.  Shiny new spikes don't give you what you never had. Five laps behind in the pool.  Slow times, sucky starts, dizzy swimming.  Ten minutes late to first period.  Always waking up like a wrong answer.  Maybe it's a reflection of the rest of my life.

The alleyways in Mission smell like foul urine.  A disposable Kodak camera and magical, beautiful, meaningful, illegal graffiti.  Sketchy neighborhood.  Mom and brother locked the car doors.  The pavement felt solid and I felt grounded.  I felt alive.  They told me to hurry.  The photos were never developed.

The dented can of spam in the shipment, the cracked brown egg in the carton.  Different, but damaged.  No one buys different, damaged goods.  Dig a little deeper.  

Dirty mirror, dirty face.  

Dig a little deeper.  

Dirty mouth, dirty hair.  

Dig a little deeper.  

Dirty feet, dirty soul.

D       i  s      c   o     n  n      e  c   t e     d.  

There's a tenor wannabe alto sax in the basement, a broken stringed violin, and a forgotten clarinet.  There's a capo on the carpet in my room.  Change the key.  Lock the door.  Seal it shut.  Lose the key.  Hear the muffled beating inside. Tachycardia. Bradycardia.  Silence.

You think this is a metaphor.

for you in the dark, for you with the sorrow

I think I see hope

when the cold inside of me escaped
the ground beneath my bare feet froze
I kept tripping and slipping on its mirror of a surface
as time passed the fall didn't make me stronger or tougher
at first it made me cry
down on my knees with open bruises and cuts and burns
but then it made me hard
it made me indifferent
it made me numb
I'd rather be spiteful
because at least then I'd care enough to be spiteful
at least then I'd feel human

the ice is getting thicker
my skin is turning blue
but I hadn't really noticed
because this tedious snapping of branch after branch
has grown on me like moss
this fall has become parasitic and ugly
it wants me to fail
it wants docility
I'd be lying if I said I didn't want that too

the drop, in its agonizing wait for the hit is taking longer
the impact is jarring my bones with growing intensity
like the moving shadows that loomed over my bed as a child
threatening to take me away from the comfort of what little I knew

there's a part of me
hidden fearfully and defiantly from my black nightshade of indifference
making my heavy lifeless body rise and rise again
trying to be the phoenix
it wants more bruises and cuts and burns
because maybe if I fall enough times



the ice will break



the Richter scale will read a magnitude of destruction and freedom

from the bloody mess on the ice
I think I see a crack, fighting to emerge
stubbornly going against a force that is bigger in size
but so much smaller in heart

I think I see hope

sometimes stories are easier to live in

Their smiles could be found in the colorful radiant balloons that every little kid believed could lift them toward the why is the sky blue sky and the I want to eat those ginormous balls of cotton candy clouds.

The countless balloons are pulling the youthful vagabonds along, catching their restless eyes and minds and hearts in different ways.  They don't know why they're gazing but they can't break the trance.  There are too many strings slipping from their grasps.  They never meant to let go.  They can't grab the fading colors no matter how desperately their little feet pound the earth or how far the wind carries the symphony of their sorrows.  They can't fly because their wings haven't grown in yet.  And they never will. Growing up will keep them from ever spreading open.

Their hearts are heavy with unbearable sadness.  Slowing them down until they stop running altogether.  They stay rooted to the ground looking up at the sky. They watch the sky as light fades to dark.  They watch the sky as the sun and moon try to talk with each other as they pass because the planets and the stars don't make it any less lonely up there.  They watch the sky as the rain drenches their clothes, as lightning strikes the trees, as leaves fall to their feet, as blizzards build snow drifts around them, as puddles form, and as flowers begin growing again.

Long after the specks of colors have disappeared from their sight into somewhere else entirely, they still stay; with their eyes glued to the sky as the occasional hawk circles and the occasional star falls.  After a while, the kids begin shifting their eyes toward the ground.  One by one, they walk away defeated until I'm the only one left, wondering when my balloons will come back.

"Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful." - Looking for Alaska.

walk over me, I don't mind

 

Adventures of the sadist and the lost soul

a cunning sadist stitches my lips together with a needle as sharp as his twisted insanity

his imprecision stems from his hate for imperfection

he lives in a disturbing meadow of burning flamed abandonment he calls home

he thinks no one can understand him so he doesn't speak a word

his fingers are cold as a blizzard when they brush against my cracked lips

his insides are leaking rage

he hid his face of broken glass until he picked me

a lost soul craving intimacy crushes me with a heaviness of whirring despair

he feeds me his weaknesses so he doesn't have to feel alone

he paralyzes me because he can

his bitterness has become the wrong motivation

his coursing veins of blackened blood stick sorely out

his eyes are empty holes he forces me to fall into

he crept up from behind so I couldn't run

there is no cunning sadist

there is no lost soul

they can't be saved because they're just excuses

so I open my mouth

breaking the poorly threaded strings of misunderstanding

but no sound comes out

I push the heavy weight off of me

but there's no strength left to move

I lay in the abyss with my thoughts

watching people far above me as they walk past

I can't remember

I'm afraid I won't remember everything that has made an impression on me.  An impact that jars my bones.  Things that have made me think and feel.  People who inspire me and make me feel alive.  Actions that bleed hope.  Songs that I listened to.  Your words you write so honestly and courageously.  I'm afraid I'm not taking the things I'm learning and living life with them in mind.

I can't take everything and store it in my brain.  In my heart.  Not in the way I want to. I'm afraid your hand prints will fade from my skin because I can't remember it all. Even though I want to.  I want to hold onto your words but I'm swinging on the monkey bars on my favorite childhood playground, my hands getting sweatier and more tense the harder I try to hang on.  It's only a matter of time until I slip and lose grip.  I can't even remember a lot of my childhood.

But I remember the essence.  And even though I can only describe it in clipped words like "happy, carefree, and naively ignorant and innocent", I remember it as something good.

I'm afraid that's not enough.  I can't think of all the specifics I need.  Although the details I remember make me smile.  They make me happy.  And then bad memories always intrude because I can't let myself enjoy the good ones long enough.  But if all I have are words I'm not completely sure are true to describe a beautiful memory I can't really remember, it's not enough.  The memory is the essence.  The memory is the truth.  The memory is the lie.  It's all three of them.  It's none of them.

a monster sleeps on my chest

I used to not think about sleep.  Sleep was good.  Sleep was very peaceful.  Sleep was nice to me.  Then the thought of dreaming started to terrify me because of the possibility of nightmares.  I was scared that I'd do something awful in my dreams.  I am scared. Human capabilities to do bad things makes my blood run cold.  I try not to think that murderers are real, that people actually kill people.  I want to live in a world where all I knew was Eminem blasting through the car speakers, the uncomplicated love for my family, and how fireworks were my worst fear and I didn't like playing with dolls. That world is buried though, six feet underground like it never existed.    

I'm afraid that someday I'll dream a dream in where I'm a bad person.  It's ridiculous, they're just dreams.  But people say that dreams are your subconscious trying to tell you something.  I'm frightened that I will be a monster in my dreams.  The thought alone keeps me up some nights refusing to sleep.  But sleep always comes for you anyways.

One night, a demon sat on my chest and I couldn't breathe.  She reached for my neck to choke me and I couldn't move.  I couldn't scream.  It felt too real.  My room looked like my room.  I woke up and it wasn't real anymore.  I lay alone with just a fading image. I wanted to turn every light on in the house so there would be no darkness around me. It was too quiet and the moon and stars were too far away to comfort me. The sucky thing about sleep paralysis is waking up and then wondering what's real and then going back to sleep because you were never fully awake and as hard as you try you can't keep your eyes open so then it happens to you again and again throughout the night.

I'm lucky that the demon only came once.  But being paralyzed came over and over again for months after.  I didn't know there was such a thing as sleep paralysis until I looked up the visions on the internet.  And I mean, if it's on the internet it must be true. At least; I needed to give it a name so I wouldn't feel so overpowered.  It helped knowing that it was just that my brain had woken up to reality while my body hadn't. That explained why no matter how hard I strained and concentrated I couldn't lift even my pinky finger.  I learned with time that struggling only made it worse.  Struggling made the panic gain weight.  I stopped fighting and started holding onto hope that I would wake up soon.  But the sleep world is so disorienting it's hard to hold onto any thoughts without them slipping away like you never had them at all.  I forced myself to give in, give up.

Giving in and giving up terrifies me when I'm asleep.  But more so when I'm awake.

thank you is never enough

For a few months, down in the dumps was I.  Beneath the rotten banana peel, beneath the forgotten toy soldier, beneath the sticky spilled Pepsi, beneath the shredded paper I hid decaying.  I was indifference and sadness.  Desensitization scared the living colors out of me.  Callousness scared the living matter out of me. Everything scared the living shit out of me.  It was the first year since I learned to draw that I didn't make my grandparents a Christmas card.  I didn't care about turning assignments in or applying for college.  I didn't want to be friends with my friends who could laugh with each other so easily.  I didn't want to talk to my parents because sometimes my words would literally go unheard and I would walk away like it didn't hurt.  I felt invisible even at home.  I stopped trying. Trying was too much effort that I didn't have in me.  I didn't want to tell anyone how depressed and heavy with shame I was because I had no reason to feel that way.  How I was feeling was so insignificant to the terrible things that I saw everyone else going through. My mind told me "get over yourself" and my heart was silent.  No matter how long or hard I knocked, the door never opened.  The worst part was how inhuman I felt.  I wanted with every fiber of my being to feel more.  But forcing it felt crushingly uncomfortable.  I wanted someone to yell madly,"snap out of it". I wanted to drown in tears I never cried, scream at the top of my lungs with sound that didn't come out as a whisper, and be so happy that I'd forget that happiness is momentary when you're draining like me.

Dr. Seuss wrote, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It's not."  I was my problem so I had to be my solution.  I wasn't thinking straight. I forgot that people get by with a little (understatement) help from those around them.

Then my Lit teacher stopped me smack dab in the hallways between class bells, telling me she saw me. Then my friends gave me perspective on fifty shades of pain. Then I went to SFYS and heard, saw, truly felt: passion, courage, heartbreak, strength, and vulnerability.  Then I became a stalker on writers paris where I could open a thousand doors.  Then Nelson took the time to listen. And I found you; anon brave bloggers letting it out.  It is everything and anything your thoughts create.  It is your scarred insides showing.  It is being real as pain.  It is the raw connection between strangers.  It is being different while agreeing and disagreeing with ideas.  It is liberation and truth in writing.  And Madonna sang through me from the skies above that were blue at last, blue at last - "like a virgin, touched for the very first time".

I'm afraid I may have used that out of context.  Sorry... and thank you.  For touching me.