One Day it is All Going to End

Fifty-three miles into Tennessee, the drone of the car engine is beginning to lull him to sleep. Mountains line the horizon, and he hasn't crested the biggest of them yet. He's passed the billboards announcing his arrival into hick country—buy ammo here; Jesus is LORD—but he doesn't know where he is yet. He's halfway between nowhere and somewhere else, approaching exit 74, looking out for the bridge lined with lamp-posts, and the Sonic, and the Walgreens. 

He will unfold from the driver's seat to stretch and gaze at the north Tennessee sky, because he didn’t crash his car into the embankment outside his neighborhood when he was seventeen. Maybe it’s a miracle he didn’t. He wrote lines that year, about how only God can decide it’s our time to die, when he knew himself to be the only being who could make it stop. Every day, numb hands on the steering wheel, he chose asphalt over oblivion. 

Two-hundred and thirty-six miles south of Portland, Tennessee, he could climb that embankment and lay down a bouquet of tall grass for the teenager whose dream was never realized. He could leave a memorial to the desire that ended as silently as it lived, without anyone taking notice of its disappearance.

One day it is all going to end. It will end quietly, marked by signs without substance. An inflatable rubber duck tethered at the side of the highway. Drive-through fries in the passenger seat. A left turn onto TN 109 north.

I am free of it

The best way to burn a photo is to start from the center. 

When lit from the edge, the flame burns itself out before it reaches her face, her eyes that shimmer at me on the other side of the camera. It cuts parts away but stops short of catharsis. I muster the courage to dip her back into the candle flame. The paper crumbles from my hand into tentative ash. 

I burn the next one from the center. It pops and distorts, beyond salvage long before it crumbles to ash. I light the rest off of that photo, one on top of the other like a palm-sized bonfire, my only source of light and heat. 

I get to the birthday card she drew for me, and then I say I can't do it. Surely, I have to keep this, surely, but the writing on the back makes my organs contort as much as the thought of burning it. I hold its edge up to the candle, memorizing her words as the fire consumes. It hurts. The flames reach my fingers before I let go. 

I cannot have this back. I will never get this back. Even if, somewhere, some impression of it remains, the thing that mattered is gone. 

Tentatively, I admit: I am free of it. 

New Year, I remain.

11/14/2024. 

If you kill yourself,

your cat will miss you.

And even if no one comes to your funeral,

She will wander the hall, 

Reaching under the bathroom door,

Crying 

Where are you?

I love you.

Come back to bed. 

 --

commentary on this one is that my journal fell open to this page while I was looking for my goals from 1/1/2025. I'm still recovering from the events that made me write this, but on the brighter side I still have a cat who loves me more than anything.  

It's hard to be open about struggling and having struggled. If I expose my weak spots, I fear people will come for them. 

In 2026 I'm going to write more. And get a glasses prescription that isn't five years old. And become something built from joy instead of living in the negative space of things I am not. And I want to find friends again. 

New year, and the central pieces of me remain.  

Love you,

Laine. 

Actually, I think the restless energy is trying to escape something else

Written 9/24/21

I'm here in a city now, in my little bedroom with my laptop, wearing my partner's hoodie, and the city didn't fix me. The music didn't fix me, what almost freed me held my lungs too tight and now I am coughing, dizzy-head-spinning and realizing that's the only thing I have left to escape.

i don't know how I got here 

i don't know how to get back

I speak evenly, I turn my head when I cry, the red on my cheeks is
just the acne medication but inside

I am shaking and my hands are shaking and
my eyes unfocus and why can I see my glasses I
usually don't see my glasses but my brain is seeing and
my skin is feeling and there are things
touching me and I want them
gone I want them to stop and I
shut my eyes and cover my ears and I
breathe and I cry and maybe 

it passes
I open my teary eyes
The sandcastle of my body is crumbling but
The sand is still there
I have some water and patch it back together

You're invited

You're invited to a hibernation party! 

December 1st, 2020 at my place. Everyone is invited. No RSVP necessary. Wear pajamas.

It's dark out. I'm wearing a sweater and jeans and listening to music that I stopped paying attention to a few ad breaks ago. I put my hands under my shirt and press my fingers against my bare stomach to warm them.

I look at my reflection in the darkened window. My idle thoughts ask why I'm here. 

I don't get a break from the worry, or the dread, or the fear of the days to come. I hold my breath for a second; my reflection blurs as I stare at it. 

My hands are cold. 

I take a breath.

That's what it was like: weeks of holding my breath until I remembered that I still needed oxygen, and staring while the world around me blurred, and trying not to feel the numbness spreading inward from my cold fingertips. 

My thoughts ask again: What are you doing here? 

I have an answer that I can't put into words. I pretend I don't hear when they tell me it isn't good enough. I am here whether they like it or not, whether I like it or not, because I don't know where I stop and they begin. Can I draw a line? 

Bring a snack if you can, nonperishable. We'll want them when we wake up. 

When? 

When I have feeling back in my hands again.

Nothing is real, but I think it's a Sunday

Written 10/9/20

It rained today. 

The world gets quieter and emptier when it rains. I drove myself to class in silence this morning. I thought about the rain instead of listening to music. Everything feels shifted, and I blame that on the fact that I'm the only person as far as I can see. I feel a little bit transparent. 

I step out onto the wet pavement and see no one on the sidewalks. The calendar says I'm supposed to be here, but my head is telling me I'm wrong. It's too empty here.

Isn't it Sunday? Isn't it the weekend? 

I had classes yesterday. It can't be. 

I am at the right school. I parked in the same place I always do. There's no other building I could be walking to. I feel lost.

I ask myself if I'm forgetting something. I'm not.

I lock my car anyway, swing my backpack onto my shoulders. I cut through the grass instead of taking the sidewalk and feel the wet grass soak into my shoes. While I'm walking, I have to check the date again, just to make sure that I'm not in the wrong place.

I sit through my class. We finish the movie we've been watching, and my professor lets us out fifteen minutes early. The world is just as empty as I walk back through the drizzle.

Isn't it Sunday?

I check my phone. It isn't Sunday. That changes exactly nothing.

No Stars

Written 9/3/20

How do your nights go?

Do you spend them staring at the darkness between your eyes and the ceiling like me?

I can't say I recommend it. It's one of those things: if you've never tried it, don't start. Think in the light instead.

Some people think you're never alone in the dark, but if you can't see it, is it there? Are you always alone in the dark until proven otherwise? In my bedroom there are no stars, and I am the only person in the universe.

Clap your hands if you believe in Lanie, the one behind the pen, always alone in the dark. She'll sleep. But Tinker Bell nearly died when children forgot her. I wonder if that would be me someday.

(P.S. I'm alright. I just get existential at night.)

Reality is Never So Peaceful

previous part

We've finished imagining. Stay in my head long enough, and you'll encounter worse than blackberry thorns. I say that as though I'm not about to look into my head again and write about thorny things with no fruit.

I'd like to cancel my subscription to life, thanks. I've given it a good shot, but I feel like it's not quite worth it. I was doing just fine without life in my— wait.

That's metaphor of course, because life isn't a subscription service and you can't just uncheck the little box so they'll stop sending so many damn emails and leave you alone. You're getting the messages whether you like them or not.

The world sucks! This year is especially bad, but 2020 is only a number that we can't blame for anything. I think this was just the next step that we were going to have to take eventually. I think that somewhere under the fire good things are happening, but I'm very afraid that we'll emerge from the flames unchanged, bandage the burns and brush away the ashes and tape it all into a box with "2020 - do not open" written on the side. The number isn't the problem; we are.

Things are bad, and I hear from every direction that I have power to fix them. I do not know what to do. But do I? I might. What am I waiting for? Fear makes me hesitant, and hesitance makes me feel guilty, and guilt makes me hate the world even more. I cannot, in good conscience, ignore current events because the people who aren't dying are being stupid and Black lives matter and queer people deserve rights and the Earth is suffering. This world isn’t very good for anyone, when you get down to it.

I am overwhelmed and tired! I want the easy solution that doesn't exist. Until we come up with the next best thing, we all get varying degrees of suffering. As far as suffering goes, mine isn't so bad. I can handle being alive and upset in my own home. It's not about me, but I am human and selfish, so the story can't be about anyone else.

"Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from all future communications?"

I am almost sure. Then I hesitate and decide that I am not.

I keep my subscription to society. I keep watching for the thorns to bloom and grow berries.

I am awake

Written 2/23

I don't want to get up tomorrow. A new day is a fearsome thing, too long and too uncertain. So I will stay stubbornly open-eyed in the dark, refusing sleep and refusing to admit that today is over. The clock on my nightstand blinks neon green and assures me that the future is approaching. I cannot fight that. But while I watch the hours creep closer to dawn, at least I can pretend.

Maybe I've solved why I like night hours so much.

A conclusion, but not really

Is it appropriate to conduct an experiment and present your conclusions in metaphor?

Written 5/7/20

Wordless

Written 3/17

I am tired of being talked over.

I'm a person, and as such I have a right to express myself. I have as many thoughts and feelings as you do. I recite them in my head, prune and perfect, until I have something to say. It's an important something. I raise it to my lips and wait for the moment to send it into being.

But my moment never arrives. There is no half-second of silence for me to speak in. I am too polite to cut someone off, because what if they spent the time I did creating what they had to say, and I interrupt them saying it? My words wait. They try to hide their disappointment.

Sometimes someone notices and saves me. I am grateful for those times.

But on the other hand, I want to speak without feeling like the whole world hinges on what I have to say. I don't like the stares and focus and silence after I've finally managed to get everyone else to shut up. I search for what I had to say, and the perfection slips through my fingers. What makes it into the world is a slim shadow of my ideas. I had my chance, and then it ended, and I am left wordless.

Pioneer Nights

Written 3/31/20

It's two a.m., and I can't sleep, so I'm going to talk about Welcome To Night Vale. I want to share some quotes from episode 143, Pioneer Days, which I listened to on Sunday.

"Habits are comforting; rituals are important. It’s what keeps us grounded. It’s what prevents us from shouting uncontrollably and clutching at our eyes."

And later in the episode, "But now that I think of it, we do spend a lot of our days distracting ourselves from physical reality. Maybe we really can use this time to experience life more solidly in the physical world, the way our ancestors did. Who needs modern conveniences when we have each other, right? Hold your loved ones close tonight. After all, you have nothing better to do."

I paused the episode before the end credits and proverb because there was a good bit to think about. Pioneer Days is one of my favorite episodes now, up there with Old Oak Doors, Toast, and Brought to You By Kellogg's.

Taken on their own, the lines I shared could offer some inspiration for the situation we face right now. In context, they're about an arbitrary holiday on which every citizen is forcefully immersed into pioneer life by having all of their utilities shut off. I think this episode can be fully enjoyed even if you haven't heard all the preceding episodes. I encourage you to listen to it, partly for the plot and partly for the odd nuggets of wisdom.

I Need A Minute

Written 2/8/20

Sometimes I listen to songs. Sometimes, instead, the music ensnares me until I memorize the feeling it leaves in my chest and the guitar sound and the lyrics. Sometimes when I take out one earbud, it leaves a song-shaped hole in me.

For some reason, I decided to listen to old favorite songs today. I played my favorites from when I thought everything besides Imagine Dragons was trash music (with a few exceptions), from before I discovered My Chemical Romance and my life was changed forever. As cliché as that might be, I'm not exaggerating.

Today, the song that leaves a hole in me is I Need A Minute by Imagine Dragons. I loved this song in middle school because it sounds cool. I managed to learn every word without understanding what the song meant.

Now that I understand the meaning, this song has landed right back in my list of favorites. It's a song about facing adulthood and not knowing what to do with yourself. "All the glasses in the world say come with me" because you don't know which version of yourself you want to become. It's a song about being young and needing to both change and not change at the same time.

Change is a weird thing. It's big and murky and looming, more like walking into a fog than stopping at a crossroads. I'm close enough to it now to see and anticipate it, but not close enough to step into the fog yet. I'd rather look back instead of ahead and let it take me by surprise, because that's how I am.

My expanding music taste was a good change, of course. Sometimes I wonder if the girl I used to be would recognize me as I am now.

I want to write a satisfying, determined ending to this, but I don't want to make promises while I'm still uncertain. I am here, but I am still thinking.

Heartbeat, stillness, right, left.

Written 12/25/19

I learned a few days ago what my heartbeat is supposed to feel like. When I can't feel feel it and I have to find the spot on my chest with hand instead of feeling it through the whole left side of my ribs.

I looked at my left hand just now and typed out "right side." I don't know my left from my right. I mean, I do, but in the moment whichever direction I think of first is left or right or whatever. I kid about getting it tattooed sometimes, an L or R on the corresponding hand so I'll stop confusing them. I'd make up some deep meaning for it so I wouldn't look stupid if people asked me about it. I don't know if it would help all that much.

Anyway, my heartbeat. It's just a pulse, a gentle one. I'm not supposed to be able to feel as much of my circulatory system as I can right now, I think. Maybe it's because I'm anxious and I'm trying not to move. I move my hands to type, and everything else is perfectly still, except I guess my chest to breathe. If I could be a rock, y'know? No anxiety, no left or right, no movement. Might be nice.

Stop Spinning

Written 11/18/19

It's hard to be on time when you don't care. When you're going somewhere you don't want to go, when the world is both too dark and too bright. When what-ifs come too easy. When something about how you exist feels wrong. When the world is loud and you are soft and quiet and calm. None of it settles in my soul the right way.

I spend too much time lost in my own reflection, not in its imperfections or lack thereof, but more in the fact that I am a human with a physical form. I stare at my face until it doesn't look like mine anymore, and then I start to question things. That's when I realize that it's too late, that I'm late, and run outside to my car and leave. I can't fix the problem, but I can minimize the damage. What even is the damage, anyway? Why do I have to live in my world and not someone else's? There are too many other worlds, in bound paper and film and neurons in my skull, for me to be satisfied with this one.

I'm not. That's the simple answer. Why can't I just melt into a puddle in the corner for a few weeks? I would miss things, but what am I not already missing? It's a fair question and you know it. I don't care about this, none of it, because it doesn't matter. It's hurting me, but getting rid of one thing doesn't stop the flow and all of it just keeps coming, a river that never ceases. Maybe it will someday, but right now it doesn't.

I'm rambling, the other world from my brain spilling over into this one in the form of words. It's almost the same world, but not exactly. If an eye is a lens and a brain is a filter, how could it be that two of us have the same brain, lens, and world? Impossible.

I notice that the world is darker, and the traffic lights gleam off of the cars and the wet street. I feel like I'm waking from a trance. I move my head for the first time in minutes and it feels heavier than it should be. Why is it like that? My thoughts are scattered and I don't know. I remind myself that I'm driving and need to pay attention, but the sky is pretty, and sights drag my eyes away and away. I'm grounded in air and the chill that makes it through my clothes, which is to say, nothing at all. The planet doesn't stop spinning and neither do I.