Thursday, December 6, 2012
The Question
On Tuesday she asked the most peculiar question.
"Are you sick of dying?"
In a low voice, she added,
"Because, believe me, I'm not."
Yes, Tuesday she developed the terrible habit
Of saying to all she met,
"Are you sick of dying?
Because, believe me, I'm not."
Monday, November 12, 2012
My Heart has Seen the Ages
My heart has seen the ages
Flicking past
Like a passenger on a train.
The blur of trees and towns
Kings and queens
Castles and skyscrapers
Until nothing is certain anymore.
As a part of me, it wanders
Like a villain
Through these timelines
Never waking.
A somnambulist
Forever dreaming
Of what it let die.
Hannah and the Halo of Stars
When I was in kindergarten, first grade, and second and third, there
was one girl that I hated more than anyone else. Her name was Hannah,
and I remember that because she would make a big deal out of the fact
that it was the same backwards and forwards. She was the biggest
know-it-all you could ever imagine. She would spell the word
“exasperation” at you until you obeyed her command. She was
snotty and unkind, and she never had any time for me.
One Friday out of every single month, our school would sell crowns
made of star garland, with curled ribbon hanging from the back. I
wanted one of these more than anything, but they cost one WHOLE
dollar, and my mother refused to give me the money, on the grounds
that I wouldn't know what to do with it once I got it home.
Now Hannah got one of these crowns every time they were sold, and I
would watch her with extreme jealousy as she walked down to the
buses, her golden curls bouncing and mingling with the different
colored ribbons. I wanted so much just to BE her, to spell with
confidence, to know everything, to wear the beautiful star halo, and
to have those luscious curls to mix with the ribbons trailing from
the back.
One day I found a discarded star crown on the ground, and I carried
it home, keeping it safe in my room. It was my little secret from the
world, this small peace of Hannah that I got to copy and have for my
self. A while into third grade, or maybe it was fourth, Hannah moved
away, and I became the smartest person in class. I didn't have the
curls, or the money for a star halo every month, but I still found
myself with a joy that was all my own. I don't remember what happened
to that star crown that I stowed away, but I wish I could wear it
every single day.
The Chronicles of Spencer
These are a collection of stream of consciousness written poems about a boy that I liked in high school. I just dug them up and decided to share them here.
I think I love you
I think I love you
I think I love you
But you will never love me
I am invisible to you
You will never notice my face
I will write a thousand poems
Burning through and through
But you will never notice
And less still will you care.
I will haunt you from the shadows
A ghost you never see
But you will never love me
No you will NEVER love ME
I must get this through my head
I must get this through my heart
You will never want me
In this same way
Oh God my darling
A god you are to me
But you will never see me
No you can never know
I am so heartbroken
Heartwrenched
Heartfucked
Heartkilled
I just really really want you
Please
Come to me
But you never will
That is not my life.
I am a pathetic sea creature
While you roam the lands
Oh my Prince, dearest prince
I forgot I was unworthy of your grace
All I wanted was to know you
And you whipped yourself out of my
grasp
I wouldn't have tried to taint your
soul
And you could have told me
If you had a problem
Instead of just pulling away passively.
And now these words I say with dear
dear love.
“Fuck you. I will now pine more.”
I know I said I loved you,
But I think that I was wrong.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Him.
Today, for the first time in months, I looked right into the eyes of the man who raped me. I knew how I was supposed to feel, a terrifying mix of rage and fear, the desire to kill, a definite certainty that it was, in fact his fault and his fault alone. But what I actually felt was even more scary. When I stared down into those brown eyes, I felt...nothing. I didn't feel a damn thing.
I didn't really feel much at the time, either. It didn't even really feel like rape. Even though I said no. Even though I fought.
I guess, sometimes, that strong feelings of love and hate just cancel out automatically.
You know what the worst part of this is? No one knows. I can't tell anyone. We seemed too happy for someone far on the outside to believe me, and another close friend was raped by another man that I had close ties to, so I can't tell any of our mutual friends, my best friends, in fear that they would just think I wanted to sap their attention. I can't tell any of my new friends, because they would all have ideas of what I could do about it, actions I could take, getting police involved or my family. But I don't want to get anyone else involved. I don't want to alert the police. I just wish that I could tell someone, one person, so that one person could know, and one person could assure me, with complete and utter certainty, that everything is going to be alright, and that I will live again someday.
I didn't really feel much at the time, either. It didn't even really feel like rape. Even though I said no. Even though I fought.
I guess, sometimes, that strong feelings of love and hate just cancel out automatically.
You know what the worst part of this is? No one knows. I can't tell anyone. We seemed too happy for someone far on the outside to believe me, and another close friend was raped by another man that I had close ties to, so I can't tell any of our mutual friends, my best friends, in fear that they would just think I wanted to sap their attention. I can't tell any of my new friends, because they would all have ideas of what I could do about it, actions I could take, getting police involved or my family. But I don't want to get anyone else involved. I don't want to alert the police. I just wish that I could tell someone, one person, so that one person could know, and one person could assure me, with complete and utter certainty, that everything is going to be alright, and that I will live again someday.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Another anonymous letter
Fuck you, yes you.
Fuck you for everything you've never done for me.
Fuck you for all the gifts that you gave everybody else.
Fuck you for all the inside jokes you didn't share with me.
Fuck you for loving them all more than you love me.
Fuck you for not giving a shit if you lose me.
Fuck you for hurting me every single day.
Fuck you for expecting me to be there, but never being there for me.
Fuck you for all the things I did for you.
Fuck you for the time I've wasted.
Fuck you. Just fuck you.
Fuck you for everything you've never done for me.
Fuck you for all the gifts that you gave everybody else.
Fuck you for all the inside jokes you didn't share with me.
Fuck you for loving them all more than you love me.
Fuck you for not giving a shit if you lose me.
Fuck you for hurting me every single day.
Fuck you for expecting me to be there, but never being there for me.
Fuck you for all the things I did for you.
Fuck you for the time I've wasted.
Fuck you. Just fuck you.
Monday, August 6, 2012
The words I could never say
Are
clearly written here. I could never say the tiniest hint of this to
your face, ever, not even in the nicest way possible, because you
don't accept criticism. When I try to make even the slightest
suggestion, even when you're being a Class A jerk,
you freak out on me as if I've attacked you merely to hurt and in the
most brutal manner possible.
I cannot quarrel with you, because you are so “fragile.” All
attempts to do result in others coming to me and reprimanding me
because of your fragility. How dare I upset the one who is so easily
intimidated, so insecure? How dare I do anything but coddle and add
to the lie of a life you're building for yourself?
I hope it crashes to the ground around you. All the lies you've
built up to make yourself feel better. The fake friendships that
you've built with so many others. I hope it crashes and burns and I
hope you sit there, smudged in ashes, extending a hand to me and
begging me to come in and give you the smallest bit of safety. I will
deny that hand, I will scoff at it, and I will throw dirt in your
eyes.
I don't even know what you are, because you are so fake. As soon as
I try to sink my teeth into some small part that I think is really
you, I find myself spitting out plastic whilst choking on Styrofoam.
I'm done trying to know you, trying to trust you, trying to love you.
You can rot with all of the others now. I wasted so much time
thinking that I was special to you. I wasted so much effort trying to
make you love me. I wasted so many tears, trying to believe you every
time you lied and said you did.
No
one understands me. No one understands why I'm not the type of person
who can just let go and chop people out completely. I can't chop you
out completely. I can't cut anyone out completely. Once you enter my
life, you are a part of me. I consider you to dwell only in the
deepest, darkest, most hated regions of my mind. You are everything
that I hate about myself, rolled into a human being. And when I found
myself becoming you, I fought my desire to rip out my heart, throw it
into a fire and watch it burn.
Is this where we go on from then? You pretend to love me, I pretend
to want it, and we stand with each other, bound together by our
loathing, one and the same. I am you as you are me and we are we and
no one will ever be able to tell us apart again. Sometimes I daydream
about some magic man on a horse who swoops in to save me from you,
but those are really just false hopes now, because you really are my
past, present, and future. You are both the child in me, and this
foreboding, dark cloud of adulthood that hangs over my head, waiting.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
The asterisk in his eye.
I
had myself a prince. He was pure and wholesome, and all who knew him
thought he was the most magnificent creature they'd ever met. His
eyes were clear and brilliant. They always caught mine when I
suspected it least and held me where I stood. He was perfect. He was
mine.
One day the monsters came for him, but he didn't see fit to mention
it to me. He'd sold his soul to them in the days of his youth, in
exchange for a taste of a smile. In his childhood, he'd never known
happiness, and he'd given his life to achieve it.
The monster tore off to shreds the soul that I loved so much,
totally obliterating anything that I could have salvaged. I know I
should have heard when the castle walls split open, but I was
engrossed in a deep slumber. I was negligent. I paid no attention.
When I awoke, all I saw was the man, and I missed the beast that had
replaced him. In an ignorant daze, I opened my arms, but the man I
loved did not exist anymore. Instead, the creature pulled me apart,
digging through my chest cavity and rendering it empty. Heartless,
bloody, and alone, I wandered from the confines of the palace I had
once felt so safe in.
The wasteland beckoned me, and I took it as my home.
Dear You,
Yes,
you. It's me. I have something to say to you, so read it and take
heed. You can't tell me that what I'm about to say to you comes as
even the smallest surprise, from all the shit I've gone through
because of you. There was once when I wrote you a letter, telling you
that you found ways to solve almost all of my problems. In this newer
letter, an updated version of the other one, I declare that you were
the cause of all of those problems, both solved and unsolved.
I want my life back from you. You swallowed it before you even knew
me. I still remember, when we were in middle school, and you were one
grade above me, passing you in school and trying to catch your eye,
sometimes lingering at the end of hallways just to watch you round
the farthest corner. I loved you before I even knew you. And you
ignored me years before the first time you ruined me.
The first time you broke my heart, you were the first man I ever
really thought cared about me as a person. It was a time in my life
when I felt like I had absolutely no one, except you. You were always
there, squeezing my leg seductively under the table to distract me
from my loneliness, pulling me into your lap when I cried, kissing
every line of story that I cut into my arms. Do you remember how that
ended? Do you remember how you betrayed me? You were sleeping with
another guy's girlfriend. You couldn't even leave me for a girl who
was less despicable than you.
I pined for you, tried to stand up to you, but always fell short. I
cried real tears, all the time, curled up in a ball so many times
just trying to banish all those memories of you away. Memories of
when you gave me your sweatshirt on the first day we ever talked,
simply because you found me crying in a back hallway, and when you
sang The Partridge Family's “I Think I Love You” into my ear.
Against my better judgment, I forgave you, let you back into my life
in what was almost a friendship. We had a few encounters, like when I
interviewed you in a room where her clothes and artwork were tacked
up all over the walls. You were twirling a knife around your finger,
smiling your most beautiful, crooked smile. My body didn't stop
shaking the entire time I was there.
I dated you again, a few months later. This time, I spent most of
the relationship in tears. You ignored me, only visited me
occasionally, and never answered questions about what activities
you'd been engaging in. Once, you came to see me, and all of a
sudden, your face went blank and your hand shot out, closing itself
around my throat. You lifted me up so that my feet almost did not
touch the ground, with a look of nothingness on your face. I wasn't
afraid, the entire time. I know it qualified as abuse, but rather
than be as terrified as I should have been, I laughed at you. I
laughed at you as much as a person can when they have almost no air
in their lungs. I think that was what shocked you into dropping me.
You were pathetic. You think that hurting and choking a woman is
what makes you a man? You think it makes you tortured and
interesting? That's what was hilarious to me. And, isn't it insane,
it made me love you even more?
A
few weeks later, I found out through a friend of my brothers that you
were cheating on me. I left two angry messages on your Facebook wall,
but to be truthful, they were halfhearted at best. I said what anyone
would want the scorned woman to say. I said what I thought would hurt
you least and thrill my feminist friends the most. And then you were
gone.
How I missed you so.
You went through a friend, of a friend, of a friend to tell me that
you really really wanted to be friends. I had to believe it as truth
because of the trouble you went through. I reconnected with you. We
dated again. It didn't work out. Again. Big surprise, right? You
should have been paid for every time you broke my heart.
And now you're back. You want to be friends again. We only talk,
when you talk to me first. You're in my phone as nothing but a
number. But I love you still. And I always will. If you had any
decency, you would let me go and never talk to me again. If I had any
self respect, I would do the same to you, tell you to back off. I
guess we're much more alike than I previously thought.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Making Change
We were picky children, bratty as hell
Though we thought ourselves divine
When our pennies failed to preform
We cashed them in for dimes.
They were melted down and put away
In a solid chunk of time.
Saved for the rainy day we learned
How to grow to proper size.
Friday, May 25, 2012
The monster at the end of this book.
I hate diaries. I hate them
more than I hate anything. Why? Because everything has to be
chronological and neat, placed precisely in the correct order. It's
the opposite of the inside of my head, which is a disaster zone
(trust me). What is this then? A random document I opened up on my
computer to spill my heart and soul into when no one else will listen
to me? Well, that's exactly what it is. I give no guarantees as to
content or accuracy, and I will do all that I can to establish myself
as an untrustworthy narrator. My inconsistencies will blind you to
believing my every word, and the less that you trust me, the more you
will love me and want to believe my lies as truth. Or perhaps it is
the truth. Perhaps I'm just being modest, because I want you to seek
your own answers, but I'm really telling you everything image for
image, exactly as it happened. You decide.
All The Good Girls
He saunters down the hall
With that heinous, charming glow
He cradles his unsafe gun
Because a touch can make it blow
While unfailing and stealthy
With the flattery he throws
He passes over all the good girls
And the parts they never show
I'll be bound forever
No matter what he does to me
For the way that he seduces,
The way that he retreats,
And the crocodile tears
Pouring from tales of disease
Lamenting all the good girls
And how fragile they all seem
He rips out flowers by the roots
Even though we'd rather grow
And after he ate my heart
He left me in the undertow
But when his feet bring him back
And there's mutany down below
I spare a thought for all the good girls
And the pain they'll never know
For all his poorly written lies
I still accept the apology
Because no matter where he goes
I'm still swallowed in the sea
I hope I'll someday drown
Because I know I'll never breathe
And I pray for all the good girls
I hope they'll never be
Me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)