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.

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.

Morning

previous part

You can decide how the weather shifts overnight. In the morning, you find a blackberry vine.

You could wake up chilled. The clouds have thinned, but they still conceal the sun behind them. The air is warming, but you shiver. You pick a blackberry, cool and wet with last night's rain. It's mostly ripened except for a patch of purple one one side. You put it into your mouth, and tart berry juice mixes with rainwater and runs down your throat. It stings a bit, but it tastes good. The next one is sweeter.

You might wake up warm. The sun is bright, and the sky is clear. The heat and humidity are nearly unbearable, but you discover the blackberry vine growing in the sun before you retreat into the forest. You choose a berry that falls off in your hand. It is soft and warm, and you think for a second that it tastes like sunshine, before you remember the real sun beating down on your face.

You pick berries until you can't find any ripe ones. The vines don't let their fruit go easily. They catch your hands and arms with thorns, leaving behind stinging scratches as a warning that you choose to ignore. You stop, finally, take a breath and absentmindedly pull a blackberry thorn from your hand.

The pain startles you. A trickle of blood starts to flow down your hand, and as you move your other hand to stop it, you forget where you are. You open your eyes.

The thorn is still there. The blackberries aren't.

part 3

Close your eyes

Imagine for a second:

It's a summer evening. You find yourself in a forest clearing. The air is still, warm, and heavy with humidity. Thick clouds cover the sky, and if you stand still enough, you might notice a raindrop on your face.

Close your eyes. The last hint of sunset has disappeared from the sky. It's dark in the shadow of the trees, but here there will be enough light to see for a while longer.

You step into the wet grass, and it sticks to your feet. You reach for a green leaf laden with water droplets that roll down onto your hand when you touch it.

You breathe in the smell of the rain, listen to the rhythm it makes on the leaves. No other sound interrupts it. The world is quiet.

Now stay there. Drink rainwater from your cupped hands; sleep in the grass until the sun rises. Don't open your eyes again, because when you do, you'll remember that reality is never so peaceful.

Part 2

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.

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.

To my favorite liar, to my favorite scar

A short piece based on Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today by Fall Out Boy
TW: car wreck, blood, death. This is dark.

• • •

In the silence that follows, you stand up from the guard rail that you've been sitting on for two hours. Warmth and feeling returns to the back of your legs in a rush, rendering you dizzy for a second. You step over the rail to the side away from the street. The land drops away next to you, maybe fifteen feet down to gravel and sparse grass. You stop a few inches from the edge to look down.

There's a lot of blood. You can't see that as well as you can the shining red exterior of the car, though. Broken metal and glass holds two people, now nothing more than broken skin and shattered bone, blood and more blood.

You can't help feeling satisfied.

In the passenger seat, without even the idea of a windshield separating her from you, is the girl. The one you almost pity. The one you had no chance with and never will. Nothing about her has changed but her appearance, as far as you're concerned. She picked someone else over you, but you could have lived with it if the thought of her boyfriend hadn't made your stomach so sick. She gets almost-pity because she was almost-innocent.

The boy with his limp fingers still on the steering wheel meant nothing to you, never did, and he deserved it. You wished with your whole self for this to be his fate. Dreams come true, then. You don't think about his dreams, what he might have done with the rest of his abruptly ended life. You don't think about what his last thought might have been. You don't think about how young he was. You stare at his frozen, bloody face instead and feel your satisfaction.

Then you realize how stupid it is to still be staring at this mess. It's disgusting, and you see nothing that you didn't expect. The girl and the boy aren't the first to skid off this corner, victims of a guard rail that ends a little too soon. The allure comes from the fact that you witnessed it, which was a miracle. It's not every day that you sit on a guard rail at the edge of a quiet back road wishing someone would die, and then they show up and do it.

You don't think the boy even saw you.

So you turn your back to the scene and walk away. Someone else will find them, eventually, and you don't want to be a witness. You'll keep this moment to yourself, the sort of perfect satisfaction you shouldn't harbor. No one will think you had anything to do with it, because you didn't.

Everything about this was an accident.

• • •

I've been drawn to writing darker things recently. I'm not sure how to feel about that.

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.