Movies and Shit
I really haven’t written in the longest time, and I think that the spontaneous hiatus was due to the belief that writing everything down forces me to think about it more, and well, I don’t want to think about it. And well, I still believe that. However, I’m thinking about it again anyway, so I may as well write about it. It. Nothing in particular, mind you, but rather, everything.
Anyway, today was decent. By decent, I mean that today had a few really great moments, but otherwise was terribly monotonous and sprinkled with more than a few bad moments. I’d like to say that the good moments are worthy of preserving the day in my mind as a whole, but that’s probably not true. Still, I’ll give you the good before the bad.
The Avengers was absolutely phenomenal. I had forgotten how much I enjoy superhero movies— and this one was so well done, with so many different characters, and so much glorious action, and it was completely satisfying. I loved it. I would go watch it again. I was so happy upon leaving the theater. I wanted to go home and tell my father how much I enjoyed these two hours and twenty two minutes of my life (no, I did not look up the time— Amanda had said it earlier).
Oh, but then comes the bad part. That was quite a short good part, huh? Yea, I know. Unfortunate. Anyway, the overwhelming bad began. Throughout the movie, I had sipped a Starbucks venti iced chai tea with vanilla. Though you may not know, I have this terrible reaction to large amounts of caffeine which includes severe nausea and dizziness, amongst other symptoms reminiscent of a hangover, or what I imagine a hangover to be like at least. And so, despite my excitement, the jumping around I was doing whilst leaving the theater, incessantly asking Amanda if she had JUST SEEN THAT movie that we just watched together, it was all a tad bit forced, physically at least. Yes, mentally, I was so excited. Mind-blown was the adjective of choice at the time. However, the jumping around was in part to try to relieve the dizziness— the energy that I could feel behind the back of my eyes. A temporary release of that bouncing back and forth. And that was all nice and swell until I came to the door of my house, and, having left the house key at home (Amanda was driving), I was forced to beat on the door over and over and over again, each time a little bit harder. Mind you, there was a pitbull right on the other side, but she’s so stupid that she didn’t even get up. She barked once, then realized it was me (or, I hope so at least— perhaps she’s just a terrible presider), and relaxed again, proceeding to drag her dirty self against the dirty carpet which her pounds of shed hair were already mangled into. Yes, stupid dog. And I tried calling, both the house phone and my father’s cell phone, but he was sleeping on the couch right by the pitbull and didn’t awake from his precious slumber. Alas, I beat on the door with the side of my fist hard enough to make the door seem weak and to make my hand ache on that side and between my knuckles. My father jumped up and angrily opened the door. With a smile I said “I banged on the door for like five minutes!” “SO WHAT” he screamed. I paused, watching him go lay back down on the old couch, let out the pinned up breath in my lungs, took off my shoes, and went upstairs.
I turned on the light, closed my bedroom door, and laid on the floor. I was so upset and mentally exasperated and drained that I didn’t cry. My body flat, I just stared awhile to my right. And then I realized this inability to cry, realizing how pathetic I was though simultaneously mitigating the genuineness of the moment, and in turn cried because of this mitigation. In that moment, my life seemed so obviously as if its only purpose was entertainment value, and that finally made my eyes water a little bit. I wasn’t crying, but the pooled water at the corner of my right eye finally gave and slowly crept down my face. And, mind you, the previously stated encounter with my father was not the only thing to make me feel this way. Things have been accumulating, but the one thing to have made me truly happy in a long while— this superhero movie, was suddenly stolen, and that killed me.
And so I laid there on the floor. I turned to my left and saw the shadow of my body from the light on the right. I hated it, and tried to hide it by crossing my arms, only reminding myself of how much I couldn’t wrap my hands around them and thus hated them too. I stared up at the ceiling, thinking about cutting myself. I do that often. Surprise? No, I know it’s silly. I know it wouldn’t do anything. I know writing that down isn’t probably the best idea. But so be it. I thought about it because I have some insatiable need to relieve the pressure inside of me. Do you know when you’re in love? Or when you want to fight? And you feel that feeling in your forearms, maybe adrenaline, but it’s as if there’s a buzzing of energy inside of you, and inside of your arms? Well, you also get that feeling when you feel sick to your stomach. And when you feel sick like that a lot, you want it to go away, because it’s not the in love kind which feels good. It’s the bad kind and you think about how maybe if you break the skin and have blood maybe come out, then maybe that feeling would come out and dissipate out of you. Maybe it would go away. It wouldn’t, but that’s what it feels like. And so the closest thing to doing it, despite the fact that it wouldn’t help, is thinking about it. Or scratching yourself with something sharp, or your own nails, so that the sharp aching pain of a scratch— though not breaking skin— would still centralize pain and distract from the buzzing in your sick arms.
And then, you see, I thought about how good this feeling feels when you’re in love. Quite the dichotomy of feeling, though the same sensation. Just as your hands sweat when you’re both terrified and happy nervous. Coincidentally, while thinking this, I happened to be looking up and there was the box of birthday cards I had received last summer. I wanted desperately to get up and read one of them, one particular one, but I restrained myself. I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t. I thought about how I shouldn’t have wanted to, and I shouldn’t even be thinking about it even though “he doesn’t know how lucky he is to have you think about him everyday.” Or maybe I just don’t realize how unlucky I am to do that. Or maybe I do, and I can’t really help it. Oh, but that makes me seem terribly pathetic. I should be able to help it. I feel like I can’t though. And here I am, rambling more about it. Other thoughts.
Other thoughts. And so I was still there, lying on the floor. I slipped my shirt off above my head, feeling the prickly carpet stab my back. That only lasted for a second though, and I laid there, feeling nude and cold and exposed and good. I slipped off my bra and felt even better. By this time, with the lack of love of any form and all of that having gone through my mind, my face was damp with tears and my eyes were burning with the mascara which was sneaking into them. Earlier in the day when I had teared up a few different times, I had proceeded to the bathroom to cake more powder onto my nasty face. For these few minutes though, I had let it be. I wasn’t crying much, but enough to where my eyes began to burn unbearably with the powder and mascara and strain of everything else ethereal. So I got up and looked in the mirror. I did a bit more hating before condemning this agony as ridiculous and useless, taking a quick and sudden breath to end the tears, and mixed them in with soap and water to wash off the makeup which I had so dutifully put on earlier.
And there you have it. That was my night. And I haven’t the slightest idea why I wanted to write about it, except to perhaps define all of the small moments which I feel so bothered with. Perhaps definition will mitigate them, or objectify them at least, so that I can detach from them, and push them far, far away. So that they’re only a story, or a part of a story, which I can leave behind me instead of unwillingly doting on them. Perhaps I had to get rid of these last few terrible moments because they would have been just too much, stacked on top of everything else which has been on my mind, and whatnot.
Speak Low, in the Haze of the Night
Between the night and the day, I much prefer the night.
The night is heavy with thought and feeling, and forces you to confront what you neglect in the day. Perhaps that’s because the night is meant for rest— hours of operation are put to a halt, and thus you really haven’t got much to do, leaving you to focus on what little there is to do. The only things left to do are not based on the business hours, but are rather those of thought and substance. It is a kind of claustrophobia that allows you to breathe only the right breaths. But, I think it’s also something more than that. I think it has something to do with the unseen dew of the night which makes it so distinct from the day. Things are quiet and calm and the breathing is slow. There is some comfort in falling asleep with the stars. Time goes by copiously when you can feel it and see it passing in front of you.
But there is no magical dew in the day.
In the day you cannot feel anything. The light is misleading. Light is the source of all vision, but it shows you everything and nothing at all. In the light of the day, you have the option of looking at every corner around you, and it is overwhelming. The light misleads you into the hasty exploration of too many things— as though bills, and traffic, and appointments are just as worthy of your time as thoughts, and sentiments, and desires are. It is the possibility of every thought and every direction to take, and the impossibility of conquering them all. It is the difference between our tendency to focus on what the business hours tell us to do, and what we should be doing. It is the impossibility of loving every moment of it, because you are incapable of grasping and feeling each one. They, the moments, are not in front of you to see, but rather scattered around you in the light to graze.
And so the cliché hustle and bustle of the day is not for me. Bouncing around like atoms in a gaseous state is not how I feel the world is best felt. In the night, you must take your time and there is time to be taken. The darkness pushes you only as far as your eyes can see and that is far enough.
Most ironic though are my favorite nights.
My favorite nights are the ones where the clouds form such a low and heavy blanket that all of their dainty drips of water serve as reflecting cages for what bright light is left from the moon and the stars and the artificial street lamps, so that the night is just the slightest bit light. But this hazy light is not the same as the free light of the day. You cannot run into it without regard for what may be on the other side of the gauze, or for the strength which it requires to pass through its thick substance. It forces caution upon you. You must wade through its mystic mist, inhaling the transcendental vapor. It is a guide which leads you and teases you with adventure and passion and exploration. Its relationship with all of the other nights is the difference between the believer’s weekly trips to the church for prayer, and those prayers that the believer can hear God responding to him, answering him and leading him into some gracious abyss. That is the difference. On those nights when the light is faintly touched down upon you, the night is answering back, leading you into some worldly and holy abyss.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
—Jack Kerouac (via fuckbeingamrs)
(Source: voldemortswankbank, via fuckbeingamrs)
I Suppose You Could Still Call it Happiness
You know what? I’m really fucking happy. No, not happy, that’s a bit of an overstatement. I’m not smiling an unusual amount as I stare at this computer screen, but I’m content. I’m really fucking content, and it feels good, and when I think about it, I smile.
In 89 days I’m going to graduate. 89. That’s less than three months. It’s about time that I’m content with all of this high school shit. I’m happy with my friends, and the people around me in general. I think it derives mainly from the fact that I don’t really care anymore— I don’t have the energy to keep caring about the bad stuff in my life, but even so, there doesn’t seem to be much of that to care about.
And yes, there are points of strife in my life, as there always will be, but they really aren’t that bad. I don’t mind dealing with them and I know that they will pass. It’s comforting to know that the effects of what we do today, for the most part, are so temporally limited. If I want to do something, then I do it. If I don’t want to do something, then I don’t do it. If I want to say something, then I say it. It’s a widely applicable system which is so simple, and yet so satisfying.
I’m having fun while going through life. I haven’t actually felt that way in awhile. Fun, and I had forgotten what that means for a long time. My life is enjoyable right now. How absurd is that statement. We never say that. We never say that it feels good to be us. But it does. I truly am having fun, and laughing, and smiling. I’m wandering, and it’s great. It’s blissful, everything going on around me. It is.
Tell me, did you sail across the sun,
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded,
And that heaven is overrated?
Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star,
One without a permanent scar,
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?
Drops of Jupiter - Train
This song makes me want to smile and spin around in the sun.
Rock Candy
It’s quite ironic when people compliment your ability to articulate yourself and yet you cannot seem to even understand, let alone articulate with some magnificent precision, what you’re trying to say.
I have absolutely no desire to even try to articulate this anymore. None. My heart is filled with this densely tangled mass which is utterly impossible to sort out. I just want to give it to you. I want to be able to take this thing that I feel and give it to you to see, to experience for a moment. I feel like shouting nonsense.
Nonsense, you say. This is all nonsense and should be left alone. It causes you grief and you should just forget about it. But ah! Alas! You don’t want to, and there lies the problem.
But it’s not a problem! Because I enjoy it. It feels so good and wonderful and no, I absolutely do not want to halt the game. But I wish that I knew the truth. That’s all I wish. That I had the ability to sort this all out and play every card right.
But you’re so far away, and distance is the perfect poker face. I’m usually quite good at poker though, and if only I had read those two little green books about it that my father had told me to read years ago. No, this isn’t poker. I’ve got other things to read anyway.
But why must I still love you. Love. It’s come down to that. Oh, fuck that. Fuck. I shouldn’t, but I do, and I do so much. Oh, how pathetic.
Clearly you care. Clearly some part of you realizes too that what you have can never be what we had. Or perhaps I’m crazy. But I’m not, and I know I’m not, and you know I’m not, and I should not second guess myself. You don’t deserve that from me. I cannot modify my definition of love. I’m sorry if it scares you, but I’m really, quite honestly, actually not sorry at all. I love. And, I love you.
Because it’s beautiful and you’re so beautiful and I remember everything. And if that is still true, then there’s no other name for it. And if there is another name for it, then we don’t know it. And love will have to suffice.
But on we go. Clearly you care. Maybe. It seems. And I know why it seems. I know that when I’m happy, and confident, and myself, you’re attracted. I can play that part of the game. I can be good at poker. You’re a loose player, Mr. Pocket Aces. Last time I checked, you only had suited 6,5.
But what do you want. What is this mess. This road that knows no East or West. Or rhyme. Or structure. Or articulation. Where are we going. I like the way it feels, but I liked the way it felt then. And then. Then, you disappointed.
So, say you care. Say you all of a sudden realize that, not even to say that it was a mistake, but at least that you want that for real this time. Maybe. Maybe I’m not that. But anyway, say you think of me too every single day of your miserable fucking life. Like I do about you. And don’t misunderstand— I’m neither infatuated nor obsessed, but I can’t help but to think about you. So. Say, it’s becoming a little bit reciprocal again, as a result of your increase and my leveling off. Say that.
So why would I trust that again. I cannot trust you to be there when there is any… challenge at all.
Yet, if this is happening, then you still care. You must. And considering that all too considerable gap of time, that means that your care must have at least started out strong, even if it’s not as strong now. For it to last, it must have been strong. But if it was so strong, you would not have disregarded me— us— like that.
This is too complex, and I think too much. But it doesn’t consume you like it consumes me. And I’m scared. I’m so afraid of what is to come. I’m scared of messing it up, and I’m scared of being wrong. But I shouldn’t be. You were wrong. You should be worried about being wrong.
I try not to question it. Instead, take it slowly. Get comfortable again. There will be some understandable explanation one day, and this is what you’re supposed to ride and enjoy in life. I’d really like an understandable explanation though.
So, I’ll go along with it. Follow you around all night. Maybe have you buy me some rock candy, and yourself some Cap’n Crunch. Talk about angel kisses. Maybe fall asleep when it gets too late in the early.
If You Read it, the Edges Do Not Hurt
Ameer used to make fun of me because I would get upset if “too many things were going on” around me at once. I would get flustered, especially if there was lots of noise, and I wouldn’t be able to think or anything. Though Ameer doesn’t usually make fun of me for this anymore (our banter continues from time to time but we don’t spend an enormous amount of time together), I still have trouble with overwhelming situations. A lot.
Oftentimes, the way I react to overbearing situations is less than ideal. I usually go crazy with frustration and end up yelling myself, ironically. Yelling is counterproductive, but it gives some sense of conquest over the other noise that’s going on around me. My mother once called me a crazy lunatic— that was nice. No, I didn’t appreciate it at all. I know she didn’t mean it, she’s a good mother. She’s a very good woman, and mother, and it was a very long time ago, and she apologized later. I tried thereafter to explain to my family this problem that I had, this seemingly heightened sense to noise. I can’t take noise. I can’t take too loud. I can’t even really take too much going on around me, too much so that I can’t focus on anything, it’s all overwhelming. But I really, truly cannot take noise. So, they tried to listen. And then once, I told Ameer. It became a “cute” thing when I got overwhelmed and flustered and frustrated. And then it wasn’t cute sometimes when it affected our relationship. It wasn’t cute when everything that I was so frustrated about was him and we were yelling and I didn’t know what to do, other than yell more. Then, I was being dramatic. He didn’t really believe that it hurt me to have so many things going on. He didn’t realize that I actually did become really anxious when things were crazy around me. So, when it was convenient, it wasn’t cute, but rather dramatic.
And understandably so. Ameer was as good of a boyfriend as he knew how to be, or anybody knows how to be when they’re 15, and that was alright. I’m not saying that he was wrong in the act of assuming (though his actual assumption was wrong). I realized this a few days ago in Spanish class, when I tried to briefly explain how the flood of excited, barely post-pubescent voices sounded like shrills to me. They made me anxious.
So, we were in Spanish class. Terrible, terrible Spanish class. And we were all about to get started on our terrible, terrible homework. And like every monotonous day, it was just the slightest bit…terrible. But we continue through. And there, we have Aaron Sampson and Stevie Cavallero and oh, how great those two are. They’re so funny, especially together. However! Their voices also belong outside, on a playground, ten years ago. This candid quality of theirs… their tendency to shout everything in the midst of exciting talk of video games and would-you-rathers… is quite… irksome, to say the least. So here we are about to work and then like horses out of some gate which has just flown open, they sped onto the racetrack and I just couldn’t take it. And as a disclaimer, let me point out that they are very loud, but this story is more a commentary on my unusual intolerance for noise, not their unusual tendency to make it. So immediately, before they even get to the climax of their first conversation, I stop and ask them to be quiet, because I know it can only get louder from there. And then, there’s an awkward silence.
You see, I tried to explain to them how I could feel their voices on my shoulders. I glanced to the rest of the class for help, but they didn’t seem to get it either. I knew that if anybody got it at all, it would be Max, but of course he didn’t say anything. I thought I could feel him looking at me, thinking about what I said and how I explained the noise, but he sits behind me, and I didn’t turn all the way around to see. So, onward I went with my insufficient explanation. I tried to explain to them how I could feel each word in the moon-shaped space on either side of me, lined by my shoulder, neck, and head. I don’t usually tell people this (in fact, I’ve only told a few), but I tried to quickly recap it for them, just so they would know that my main goal wasn’t to be a bitch. Whether they understood that or not, I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s this heightened sense of sound that I get sometimes. That’s the best way to describe it, I think. As for the feeling— it’s as if I can feel the edges of each word, and it’s painful, because they’re sharp, and I can feel their weight inside my ears and my head. It feels as though they actually pierce, actually stab, the space in my head and ears. And too much of it actually does hurt. I’m not exaggerating when I say I can feel it. It actually feels sharp, and I actually do flinch. Visibly. I literally and physically flinch when it happens. And for the most part, I can take the rowdiness of people around me. It’s normal. I have no choice but to deal with it. But sometimes it gets too loud, and too overbearing, and I flinch.
So, Stevie and Aaron— if you ever read this, I wasn’t trying to be a raging bitch. But that’s not the point of this whole thing. Well, I can’t say that for sure, because I’m not sure what the point of this whole thing actually is. I suppose it’s simply for expression. It’s simply to articulate, and maybe have somebody begin to understand why I seem to get frustrated so easily sometimes. Granted, most of my frustration does derive from pure stupidity, but in certain situations, noise makes me anxious. And the sounds hurt. And that’s the only way I can explain it.
She went up the stairs on the other side and into the vegetable garden; she walked rather quickly; she liked to be active, though at times she gave an impression of repose that was at once static and evocative. This was because she knew few words and believed in none, and in the world she was rather silent, contributing just her share of urbane humor with a precision that approached meagreness. But at the moment when strangers tended to grow uncomfortable in the presence of this economy she would seize the topic and rush off with it, feverishly surprised with herself— then bring it back and relinquish it abruptly, almost timidly, like an obedient retriever, having been adequate and something more.
—Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Falling into the Cinquepace
I’ve spent the last five months or so sorting out emotions that don’t have names, emotions which refused to be named, or sorted, or ignored, or fixed. I don’t think they can be fixed, or need to be fixed, but they do need to be fixed. I need to be fixed. I need to understand that every moment is just a moment, as is the last one and the next one. I need to understand that all of the moments are happening, have happened, and will keep happening. I need to find new moments and take solace in the fact that I have the old ones, just like I have the new ones, just like I have the one that is right now.
This isn’t only about love. It’s about more than love, because I can’t define love. To define something is to narrow down what it means. To streamline the things which you associate that thing with. That thing is love, the thing which I write about. I cannot define it, and thus, whatever I’m talking about right now— all of these emotions— it must be bigger. It is lots of things all mixed together and shoved in the rounds of three hundred and sixty five days that we classify as years. It is the relationship I have with that boy and that boy and that one friend and those other friends and those girls and those parents and those little kids and that sun and that wide, gray road that I walk across every morning and that window that I walk past every night on my way to the shower whose blinds are slightly open so that I see the dark night and am just the slightest bit frightened at what may be looking back at me every night when I go naked through the room, but never walking over to the window to close the blinds because that’s what I do and that’s what my life is and that’s why the blinds are there so that I can feel that emotion too. That’s what it is. It’s things that I can’t define. It’s the stuff that I ramble about to nobody now, and only a few people before. It’s all of those run-on sentences right there.
“That awkward moment when…” when you realize that your moments aren’t really all that awkward and that you’re just a teenage girl who narrates things in her head with that stupid prefacing phrase written in your mind before everything that happens. You’re right, Max. I do use the word “awkward” too much. And you’re right, I do say “good job” too much. I’ve never actually used the phrase “That awkward moment when…” I don’t think, but I mention it now because it does annoy me. It’s overused, as is the word literally, as are Starbucks orders and bows and Mean Girls references, and as is kissing.
But now, in effort to embrace this flood of emotion which seems to be nothing and everything all at the same time, I’ll say— That awkward moment when you realize that you have absolutely no known direction at all. That awkward moment when you realize that not only do you have no direction at all, but you also have no idea what you’re doing. What am I doing. That awkward moment when your English teacher sums up what is, and what is to be, your life, in the matter of five minutes.
Love. Let’s work on defining that for a second, or a minute. For a moment. That’s one and a half minutes. A moment is defined as one and a half minutes. Ninety seconds. The amount of time it took for somebody to say that he loved you, and for you to understand it and respond with the mutual ability to dive into some obscure claim about what you think you may be feeling at that moment. Love. Love, and you look up at him and you turn around on the couch and you smile and you stutter and you think and you say I love you too. And then that moment is over. But it isn’t over. For the next ninety days, then, you say I love you over and over and over again and you keep saying it because you keep loving and you reach this climax, this peak, this mountaintop, this summit, this apex, this every synonym you can think of for the feeling of love. And then it’s gone and you realize that the love of your life— quite literally, what you loved most passionately in the world, is gone. And then five months later you’re in an English class and you may or may not be okay and you compare the idea of a “love of your life” to an enduring love, which Rosemary and Dick Diver will never have. But even your English teacher tells you that that love of your life— that one that you feel so passionate and impulsive about— that is the height of it all. You will never get another like that.
You will end up with the kind of lasting love. The marathon versus the sprint. And you’ve loved a marathon before, too. And you’re still loving the marathon some days. But you wonder maybe if Karl Marx was right in his idealistic Communist Manifesto. Why can’t your job be what you love to do. Why can’t you have the passionate love of your life be not only the love of your life but the marathon, too. Why can’t the love of your life be your lasting occupation. Why can’t you maintain this full and fantastical Scotch jig forever, with that person who dances oh so well. Why can’t that last.
And if it absolutely cannot last— if you absolutely cannot find a way to maintain some grand definition of feelings and call it love— then why must you mull over it every day. Why does it still thrust you into this strange abyss over the cliffs of every other possible runner.
I am so bored with everything else, emotionally. I’ve felt nothing comparable, and until I do, I’ll be floating through this utter nothingness, tracing my hand along the wall to feel its bumpy texture, sort of like you used to do.
Piece of Paper in Pocket
The other day, one of my teachers took a class period for everybody to reflect on the tragedy of death, and more specifically, our experience with Mr. Torch. After much discussion and abrupt, tearful exits from the room on my part, the teacher told us to take a piece of paper and write what we needed to say to any person who meant something special to us. He told us to write down the most important thing that we needed to say to them. He told us to write down what we wanted them to know. He told us to keep the paper with us, in our pockets, and look at it from time to time, each time remembering what it means. Perhaps one day we’d tell the people on the list the things that were written down. Perhaps we’d never get the chance to. Perhaps we’d never feel that the time was just right to walk up to those people and tell them the most important things that we wanted to say.
So, I took my pen, and I wrote. I wrote to eight people. Five were my immediate family members. They were mostly I love you’s which were backed by different feelings, relative to each family member. Each person on the list only received a few lines, at the most. The person with the most amount of lines was the person who I have the most complicated relationship with. 111, the letter was addressed. One, eleven. I wrote it, and moved on. It was a little bit funny writing to the next person. Oh, the awkward. Oh, the irony. But oh, I just wrote it and moved on again.
The last person, who was actually the first person I wrote to, was Torch. The first line of the otherwise clean paper said “Mr. Torch,” in black, cursive script. I took a few moments. I didn’t know what to write. I didn’t know how to tell him what he means to me. How do you write a feeling. How do you describe to somebody that they’ve changed you more than anybody else has in so short a time. How do you tell somebody that you don’t understand how they can die because they gave you “that great consciousness of life.” How do you tell them that, more than anything, you hope that they’re okay right now, and not scared, because they don’t deserve to be scared and alone in something that they worked their whole life to understand. How do you say those things. I didn’t know how to say them. So, then. I picked up my pen again, holding my tears back with a scrunched up nose and strained eyes, and wrote one line to Mr. Torch. It read: “I want to be like you.”
I want to know that I’m living. I want to know that I will die. I want to look at death and laugh. I want to be “one tough son of a bitch.” I want to smile at what makes life so good, and smile at what makes life so bad. I want to change people. I want to show people the value of every breath which brings us closer to the end. I don’t want to be fearless, but rather to embrace my fears and walk strongly toward them. I want to notice things. I want to know what it’s like to love and see the world for what it is, or at least try to. I want to see white dynamite at the edges of somebody in a coffee shop. I want to look at people in the eyes when I talk to them. I want to be able to make people uncomfortable with the intensity of my gaze. I want to be raw with thought and purpose. I want to understand all that I can. I want to say fuck and sex and spend a summer listening to Coltrane, nonstop. I want to feel it, and I want to feel it all, and I want to know that I’m feeling it all. I want to know my power, and all the while know how meaningless I am in this vast world.
So there it was. I wrote that line which seemed to be the one that best summed up how I feel. I put it in the blue folder that I carry around to every class. I put it in a pocket of its own, toward the back. I didn’t really give it much thought thereafter. It was a piece of paper that had a few words written on it, to a few important people. In fact, it’s still in that pocket. It’s in the pocket of the blue folder which is thrown on my bed behind me. I don’t really know what to do with the piece of paper yet, so there it will stay. However, this morning, I was in that same class again. I was staring at my teacher blankly, as he was lecturing on things that he would lecture on at least a few more times. Stare. Think about other things. And then I noticed, in his pocket, a folded up piece of notebook paper. I realized instantly that he actually was carrying around the piece of paper that he wrote on. I was slightly impressed, but less than surprised, considering how enthusiastic the teacher is for everything that has to do with sentiment and what’s “important” in life. He was wearing a white dress shirt, so the rectangle of folded paper with its blue and pink lines was plainly visible through the sheer material. I wondered what he’d do with the paper. I wondered what I’d do with my paper. I wondered if, at the end of the school year, would I keep it in the blue folder, or take it out and do something with it.
I’m still not exactly sure what I’ll do, but I figured I’d start with this.
I Do Not Know the Word for This
I want to write about this so badly, but I don’t know what I want to say. I’m not even sure about how I feel. About anything anymore. Ever.
This weekend deserves to be reported on, as it was beyond interesting. All I can do is smile and sigh and breathe in and breathe out and live and think and look away and smile some more though. It’s like a flood of emotions which I can’t even begin to articulate. I just know how it feels. I know how heavy it feels. I know how sweet the silence and the longing and the despair are. I know how good it feels to revel in the fact that there’s this beautiful thing. And it’s beautiful. And you don’t have any control over it. And it has torn you into pieces. But you can still feel all of those little pieces in your chest, shooting through the veins in your arms, and fluttering in your stomach. It is the worst feeling, but it is the best feeling.
Last night, after I got home, I watched Pulp Fiction. It was really good. Then I went upstairs. Read some texts. Responded to some of them. Laid down. Stared at an isosceles triangle of light on my ceiling. Turned left. Turned right. Took away my pillow. Curled up in the very center of my bed. Pulled the covers over my head. Waited till it got stuffy enough. Breathed in the recycled breath. Pulled the covers back down. Put my pillow back. Turned left again. Fell asleep.
This is the way you left me, I’m not pretending. No hope, no love, no glory, No happy ending. This is the way that we love, Like it’s forever. Then live the rest of our life, But not together. Happy Ending - Mika It’s funny, because this is the last song on the first CD. How perfect.
