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.