Throw Up & Call It Hot.

It’s a Friday night and I really don’t know why I am here, in this nasty “club.” Multiple bodies are dancing around me and I can’t breathe. The lights keep flashing and plastic barbies dance on poles, but who am I to judge? I’m here just the same. Clothes really aren’t a factor.

The smoke that floats through the small building burns my eyes and lungs. I can’t really see that well, just blurry faces of men behind women– simulating sex. Pushing my way through the crowd I wonder if I’ll make it out alive. I see my friends in the sea of people and I don’t understand what they find so fun.

Something was not right with these people, the way they let go so freely. They get into groups of two (sometimes more) on wobbly legs because they’ve had too much to drink, and they throw up, only to kiss each other shortly after, calling it sexy. Sometimes I think about how awkward it must be to wake up in another bed with someone you met the night before, naked. I wonder if they still feel hot.

I finally get to the bar counter and sit on one of the old, rickety stools. My feet hurt from the high heels my friend made me wear and I want so badly to kick them off and rub my feet, but even if I am among animals, I refuse to act like one. So I keep my feet on the foot rod on the stool and tug my (friend’s) mini skirt down. I grieve that I do not have my jeans on, and wish that I had my sweater. I take my hand and run it through my hair, trying to push it out of my eyes, which is proving to be very difficult do to the sweat and mist that contaminated my hair. None of it being my own and I resist the urge to vomit.

I look up and across from me there is a mirror behind the liquor cabinets and even though my image is distorted I know I look rough. My eye make-up is slightly smeared, my whore red lipstick has faded (thankfully), and my hair is in all sorts of disarray. I want so badly to go home. Away from the drugs, the sex…

And the violence as a fight breaks out behind me. I don’t know who is fighting or why, just that there is fighting, I can see it in the reflection of the mirror in front of me and I resist the urge to turn around. If I don’t look, I won’t be in it, but as I subtly observe, I realize I am about to be put into a very painful situation.

The bar rings out with loud bang, a stool falls over, clanging to the ground and I am just short of catching myself as I hit my head on the edge of the counter and tumble down in a very undignified and very revealing heap. I close my eyes, bite my lip and try to count to three, willing the pain and the blood I feel flowing down my forehead to go away. Just go away.

But it doesn’t, and it’s like everything stopped. The music was no longer playing, the lights were only slightly flashing, and everyone had stilled. Silence over took and I couldn’t really move. I let out a moan of pain, opened my eyes and suddenly the world is in fast forward…

People are scrabbling to help me, the two guys are trying to get out of the club, but the bouncers have stopped them. Someone is calling the police and maybe an ambulance. Really, cracking my skull open is not that big of a deal. It’s a side effect of coming to this place. I try to fight off the hands that reach for me, as I struggle to get up, my friends…unsurprisingly, aren’t there to help me. I look around as I stand on shaky legs and see a good majority of the group passed out in the booths, and wickedly I hope they drank themselves to death.

With my hand pressed up against the gash that had decided to take up residence on the hairline of my skull, I feel someone’s warm and latex covered hand grip my wrist. I can’t see that well still, but I can see the sudden appearance and disappearance and repeat of a light. I try to pull my hand away but a voice stops me.

“Hey, heyyy!!! Relax! I just need to look at this. Seems pretty deep…Can you hear me?”

I assume, by that time, I looked pretty damn pitiful. Wild eyed, bloody, and barely focused. Even though I heard him, I couldn’t really answer, I was too worried about how much of me was covered, how much people had seen and how much I really just wanted to cry from embarrassment. A fun night indeed. I think, briefly (but not for the first time within the past 20 minutes) about how I really need new friends. Ones who are safe and like to play scrabble. I pull at my skirt once more.

“Ah, you don’t look like the type to be in here, ya know. Here, take this jacket.”

I feel something fall across my shoulders and it covers my arms, which gives me a bit of comfort. More comfort than I’ve had in the passed hour or so. I feel hands and cotton swabs and alcohol gently rub away all the blood, but I wince because really…a gash that deep is going to burn. I feel the breath of the guy blow onto the wound, trying to ease the burning. I feel like I’m 5 again and my mommy is trying to sooth a boo-boo. I also feel that perhaps that’s a bit unsanitary and wonder where he had his training.

“So, tell me, what’s a girl like you doing in a shitty place like this?”

My eyes are finally focusing and I’m able to see this man’s face. He’s in a paramedic uniform (surprise, surprise), messy, dark hair, scrawny, pale, brown eyed. Everything that screamed indie high school stereo-type and I wanted to half way slap him for it. I realized, though, that would be kind of childish and perhaps a bit psychotic. So I don’t and he continues to clean the gash.

“My so-called friends, brought me here…”

My answer seems to satisfy him as he gives off a smirk that says he knows more than he lets on. When he finishes cleaning the wound he decides that I should go to the hospital anyway, because it was really hard hit and from the looks of it, it might be a bit more than a gash. I agree to get into the ambulance only because my ride is passed out and really, I just want to leave. As I go to walk away, I slip slightly in my own blood and again, I resist the urge to vomit. The blood was extreme and I realized that it was probably the reason for my dizziness. The paramedic gripped my elbow tightly to steady me and I continued on to the ambulance.

The ride is silent, except for the sirens that wail all around me. I go to poke the gash, but a hand slaps my own away and I make a very unladylike grunt of disdain. I really don’t have the patience for this guy to keep touching me, even if I do think he is kind of cute.

I suddenly feel very sick to my stomach, the paramedic notices and quickly puts a bucket in front of me where I empty out the booze and food of the day, and I think I even see my breakfast from earlier in the morning. He gives a chuckle.

“Throwing up, now that’s hot,” he says sarcastically, while laughing at my expense.

We arrive at the hospital, he disappears as my doctor shows…They fix me up, four stitches in my forehead and I stand outside in the cold trying to figure out what to do next. A man stands beside me, but I can’t make him out. He breaks the silence, “Need a ride?” It’s my paramedic. I look over to him and suddenly I think that perhaps…I should have gone clubbing earlier.

Turns out, he likes scrabble.

Seducing Satan

Many people coated the floors of Francis J. High that mid-afternoon in May. Only one girl and boy stood, standing tall among the deceased. He was Satan and she convinced him.

It began with a simple hello at a park bench at the beginning of July a year prior. With gold locks that waved and tumbled around her, she could catch any eye– and with her own deep sea-green eyes, she could keep it.  She was sixteen going on seventeen and nothing in the world could stop her from getting what she wanted and she wanted him.

Why she wanted him, she wasn’t sure. He was just a plain boy, perhaps even a momma’s boy. Dark brown hair always neatly combed over, silvery-hazel eyes downcast, and pale skin that had never seen the sun do to the study and sleeping habits that had taken him over.

Despite the lack of time spent in the sun, she found him at the park on an old creaky bench that had fading paint, old chewing gum on the sides and underneath, and carved in I-love-yous. It is there that she approached him, extended her slender arm, reaching her delicate hand out and waiting.

“Hi, my name’s Renea.”

The boy at first did not, or simply could not, respond. He sat dumbfounded and nervous, putting the book he had in his hand down into his lap, staring at the girl with suspicious eyes. It is then he found his voice, stuttering all the while.

“Uh. Hi, m-my name is T-Tyler.”

The girl gave a cute little giggle and sat down next to the boy without invitation and proceed to play a game of ask-and-tell. That moment, he fell into everything she was. He never thought he’d meet such a beautiful girl who was so willing to converse with him without making mention of his flaws. It was liberating in that subtle way, to know that not everyone ignored him.

Soon after they were friends or lovers, no one could ever tell which.

Over time, the girl had dropped hints that perhaps the boy was worth more. That there was more to him…That he was God. She whispered words and gave small touches, her cold hands pressing against his heated flesh, and he had forgotten the morals his parents had worked so hard to hammer in. All of the hard work peeling off in little strips, the girl ripping it away as if she were opening a gift. She told him that she was.

The boy had no chance, he was so lonely and broken as was and as far as he could tell, she was something that fell from the heavens to glue him, fix him and remind him…He had power. The power to give or take life. The power to command. The power to be worshipped. The power to cause prayer. When he told the girl this, she gave a devilish smirk and kissed him on the lips, he returned the kiss willingly and happily. This was the moment the girl knew she had him.

She made a suggestion one night in April, one that made the boy’s eyes slightly widen by surprise and then narrow in excited glee.  “Perhaps…” she whispered into his ear, “you could prove to the world…” Her hands trailed up his chest, to stop at his shoulders and gripped them tightly, staring into his eyes. He stared back, a grin starting to form then bursting into a smile that spoke in volumes of corruption.

During the time from then to now, the boy sat at his desk planning with the girl whispering in his ears about power, violence, and maybe a dash of love. The boy’s hands would shake with such excitement that sometimes he couldn’t write and he’d have to grip the girl under him, under sheets, on his bed, sometimes to tell himself that he was the one with all the power, not her. Never her. She was just the push that needed to shove.

When the day came, that very sunny May, they went to the school, as they did everyday. The girl walked with confidence and a mini skirt, the boy had an air of proud surrounding him. People suspected nothing and knew nothing until the first bullet flew, prematurely. Things did not go exactly as planned, because of an incident with another student who ran into the girl. He did not apologize and after the gun was pulled out, neither did Tyler.

So began the massacre of Francis J. High. Renea bounced with wicked glee as she helped pick off teachers and students alike, Tyler spun around in his own little dance routine, laughter beginning to bubble in his chest and spew out into violent fits, while the guns he held let out explosive rings and bangs.  Soon there was no one left aside from the two and a shaking girl in the corner.

Renea stood in the middle of the hallway, her last kill slumped onto the ground and bleeding on her new shoes, but she didn’t really mind. Tyler moved, though, towards the little girl. Sirens just beginning outside, a passer-by calling in the kills.  He stood in front of her, blood on his face and clothes and hands and shoes. She sat, big hazel eyes looking up at Tyler, her brother. He knelt in front of her, reaching out his hand, she flinched, not wanting to touch him. Not wanting to know him, not wanting anything to do with him.

“Take my hand…” He whispered out, his voice slightly husky from all the laughing and yelling he had done.

“No, no…No…You’re Satan. You’re evil. I hate you, I HATE YOU!”

The girl screamed out shoving Tyler away, yelling furiously. Tyler, allowing his younger sister to push him, fell back into a pool of blood, soaking the back of his pants. He stood up and stared at her. Something clicked in him and he turned to Renea. Renea stared back, her eyes narrowing at the little girl, aiming her gun and it clicking as she readied it. The girl let out a whimper, knowing her end was coming. A Shot rang out…

Renea fell.

Tyler’s sister stood, staring wide eyed at him and slowly walked over, as he came towards her. Men with guns and black suits and helmets suddenly came into the doors of the school. They turned towards the men, Tyler in tired defeat, and his sister in sad relief.

Tyler and his sister stood tall among the deceased. He was Satan and she convinced him.

Jaded Veteran

Keri sits quietly at the round, lime green (faded to yellow) table. Five other forms sit around it, she looks directly at the girl in the neon colored- on top of black, sweater. Her blond hair falls perfectly around her, framing her face that is already being framed by square, black rimmed glasses. Her eyes are a light green, occasionally blue (depending on the light), her nose is slightly upturned and small, cute on her features, especially with the freckles dusting across it.

The blond girl is named Megan.

Between Keri and Megan is an older boy (never a man, because his maturity level never allows it at this table), Mike. He is blond and blue-eyed. Overly excited about life and somehow knows a bit more to it than most. Keri is easily annoyed with the hyper active boy and bops him on the back of his head, telling him sternly to “chill out.” The boy pouts, but complies, if only for a second.

But Keri loses focus quickly from the boy and returns her attention back to Megan. She wonders what Megan is thinking, because Megan is always thinking. Keri assumes Megan is wondering why she came to school today, because Megan always mentions wishing she hadn’t. Keri doesn’t blame her.

Megan is quiet, though. She has no protests against school, nothing smart to say back to Mike’s wise cracks, and hasn’t even acknowledge Keri. The table quiets, with the exception of Mike because he never seems to know when it’s the worst time to speak, but they let him go, because what else will they be able to do? Keri decides that maybe she should break the semi-silence, because it’s making Scot, David, and Chris fidget. Mike is still blissfully unaware, or maybe for him this was just dealing with these kinds of moments. Keri could never be sure about him.

Scot nudges Keri, somehow knowing Keri was going to talk anyway. He’s blond too, and Keri asks herself how so many blond people could be at one table and it actually all be natural? She shakes her head and looks back towards Megan.

“Why so silent on a shitty day like this?”

Megan looks up, apparently she had been texting and she gives a snort.

“Guys are stupid, that’s why.”

Her voice comes out in a know-it-all tone. Keri gives a snicker while Chris wails about that not being true and how, “That’s not right.” His country accent slaughtering the poor sentence to pieces. But the people at the table have come to understand his less than pronounced words, so they roll their eyes and ignore him…Again, save for Mike, because he’s still dancing to his own beat.

Megan looks like she’s twitching, as she holds her palms flat against the table. Chris steadily grinding on her nerves, it seemed. David looks on in quiet contemplation…or stupidity. He had a habit of thinking about nothing. Scot’s slightly fuzzed face looks up, and decides it’s his turn to speak.

“Why are guys stupid, Megan?”

His voice is mocking and sarcastic, as it always is when addressing her. It’s a thing between them, Keri figured, because they always played around with each other so good-naturedly while still being able to use vicious words.

“Well, stupid whore…You should know, you are a guy.”

At first her playful voice had entered the scene, then faded into exhaustion. Scot claims defeat silently and agrees with her, willingly. Megan looks at Keri and Keri looks back. Both understand that Megan is angry and both understand that Keri is the one who should hear it.

So they meet up later on, outside the school, after school…The walk-ways and doors empty, the buses gone along with the cars except for a few of the faculty’s. Megan sits on brick wall that is barely up to their knees, while Keri stands against a red, metal column, one hand resting on hip, the other just lazily against her side.

The wind blows and her dark hair is slightly pulled out of the crude ponytail she had made earlier in frustration, her dark green eyes glance towards the bright sky, making her slightly wince. She returns her gaze to Megan, who is tucking her hair behind her ear with her long and slender fingers of her left hand, while her right one types away furiously on a cell phone, texting a stranger Keri most likely does not know or does not want to know. Megan finishes and puts her phone into her over sized red pseudo-alligator skinned purse. At least, Keri hopes it’s not real.

Megan looks up and Keri feels nothing but despair because she realizes Megan is not here to talk about her problems, she is here to make Keri talk about her own. Megan is jaded and torn and glued back together sadly. She is who she is and no matter what Keri can say or do, she can not fix what has already been done, because in the end, Megan is not broken, she’s just altered…Like a prom dress for the best fit.

& it fits Megan quite well.

Keri realizes there is no escape as Megan speaks slowly.

“So, what happened?”

Her question makes Keri want to crumble and fall and break and cry…But she does not. She stands firm and rigid and then slumps in a silent sort of defeat. Megan wins the battle, but not the war. She mutters under her breath a ‘damnit’ and let’s it out.

“I don’t like being in love, is all.”

Keri’s answer is not unexpected, but for the sake of this mental intervention, Megan acts surprised.

“Why is that?”

Megan knows why, but asking Keri seems logical because then she can have Keri’s exact words and figure out the best way to help. She does not think on if Keri will listen or not, but she hopes she will, if only to prevent Keri from becoming her. She’s made mistakes, mistakes she probably regretted, but she would never admit that. She didn’t want Keri to have to keep it inside.

“It’s full of lies and guilt and nothing other than trouble. I love him, I hate him, I can’t breathe with or without him…Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

Megan sits silently for a moment, gathering a response, Keri supposes, but it’s not so. Megan already knows what she is going to say, she is just waiting for Keri to relax for a moment from her thoughts. She wonders when Keri will reveal who this guy is, but she never asks anymore because Keri never tells.

“Well, …just leave it. Put it away, hide it. Pretend nothing ever happened. It’ll either grow or die, and if it dies, the better. If it grows enough for him to notice and do something about it…Then wonderful. But just…right now. Leave it.”

Keri seems bewildered about getting advice she doesn’t think she can take. She will, though…Later, much later than the conversation they are having. She nods and says her thanks and they begin to walk towards their ride, their destination being a restaurant of some variety. Megan is driving. Keri looks over to her as they turn and she gives a smile.

Megan could feed her a bunch of lies any day and she’d gladly have them— because in the end, Megan was always right.

Winter Owls

Summer ends early and Winter is always so long. Spring and Fall don’t seem to exist. I don’t mind. Abrupt change is better than no change and a slow progression would only kill me.

As I breathe slowly, deliberately…I watch as the warm puff of air from my lungs builds in front of me and dissipates, blending back into the atmosphere.  The trees around me are bare and I wonder slightly where the leaves went so fast. They weren’t on the trees and they weren’t on the ground. I look towards the light blue sky, the sun seeming farther away than ever…and I wish I could just float away.

I haven’t slept in two days and sitting on the tired ground, I am existing. Cold tinges my cheeks red, makes my nose feel numb, and my eyes feel watery. I snuggle deeper into my over sized coat, tugging the sides closer to me, dipping my chin down to try to bury myself into my turtle neck sweater. The red fabric does nothing to warm me, really, but the dark brown coat works well.

It isn’t until a hand touches my shoulder that I realize someone is with me. Looking up, surprised by the presence, I see Max. He seems less surprised that I am in the frigid air. Giving a small smile towards the dark boy (man), I look into his almond shaped eyes and wonder where the years have gone. 

He seems dressed for the season, just as I am. Deep purple sweater, a black and puffy coat, and a winter beanie. His hands are stuffed into his jacket, trying to purchase warmth for his fingers, but I doubt he receives any. I ask about why he is out here, in the cold…with me. I know the answer. It’s because of me, but I don’t say anything else. He blinks, gives a small smile. It has no warmth in it, but it’s not cold either–Just exhausted.

“I think, Keri…You really should get a life or at the very least…get back to your coffee inside. It’s waaay too cold out here for me to be draggin’ you out of whatever ditch you fell into.”

I don’t give him an immediate response or any sort of sarcastic reply. Nothing witty falls from my lips and I notice by the sudden drop of his shoulders that he realizes that this ditch is a little deeper than usual. With a sigh, he drops to the ground, criss crossing his legs, while muttering something about vampires and garlic based shampoo or lack of. I just focus in and out of the world around me.

“What is it?”

His voice is soft, light, and ready to make a crack at any moment, if only to save us both from this awkward heart to heart that we will probably have. It’s different now, I think…Because we are face to face and I can’t remember the last time I shared my feelings outside of font to font. I look at him and he stares back at me, not speaking, just waiting. I realize I should reply.

“I’m never going to be happy.”

I barely whisper it, because it feels wrong to speak in this season, this air, this cold. It feels like I’m breaking ice that should remain because underneath is a deep pond of lurking despair. I don’t want to drown. He’s still looking at me, with those deep brown eyes and a look that says he understands. Maybe he does, I say to myself silently, because he’s been around a little longer than I have…

“Oh, shut up. Keri, you’ll be happy. I mean, honestly. You’re a looker and you have the brains to go with it. You can accomplish anything with those qualities. So why the hell couldn’t you be happy?”

I smirk, giving a small snort. He always had so much faith in me, the kind of faith I always lacked. I think over it for a moment. It isn’t that I can’t accomplish things, it’s that the things I want most don’t need or want me. I won’t be happy because I won’t be satisfied with just accomplishing my life goals. I’m more worried about being lonely for the rest of my life. I would much rather have someone to hold my hand then to be handed a wad of money. It’s not the same. It can’t fill my heart, the heart that I sincerely believe to be most lacking at this rate.

But I don’t say these things to him, because I can’t. So all I do is shrug my shoulders, exhale, and fall back into the grass, staring into nothing but the space between me and the moon, because now the sun is fading and the moon says hello. Was it really taking me this long to have a conversation?

“I just don’t think I’ll find happiness in accomplishments. I want something more tangible. I don’t need a list of compliments.”

I think my words shock him a little or maybe he was just looking at something that was out of my line of sight.

“I don’t know. You seem pretty distant as of lately. I figure right now you just need a confidence boost. So missy, you gonna bait that pole again?”

He is joking around now, like always, but there is something serious hiding under his velvety words and I look at him, questioning what he means. He is not like me, so he does not fail to answer immediately.

“The pole that you went compliment fishing with, duhhh…”

I let out a sigh and sit up. I know he is playing with me, but I also know he wants any sort of familiar reaction from me. I cross my arms and stick my nose in the air, crossing my arms in a huffy manner.

“Pfft. As if I need anymore of those. I know how awesome I am. Besides, I have a shit load of your compliments stocked. They’re all in  my closet in a just in case type fashion.”

What is so sad, is that it is true. I really do have his words stored into the back of my mind for those moments when I feel so low that I have to build a ladder from the praises he showers me with at an almost constant rate. I try to focus on something else, distract us both from the underlying serious conversation we are having.

“Let’s go inside.”

My suggestion seems to light his face up, most likely because he assumes that I feel better—and I do, but not completely. I give a smile and he stands, reaching his hand towards mine so I can get up. I grasp tightly and he pulls me up, like he seems to always do with moments like these. He gives a small chuckle and pulls me towards the house.

When we enter the house, he heads towards the kitchen. I take off my coat and I put it on the coat rack, not a moment later Max comes back to the entry way where I stand. This time, though, he is holding a steaming cup of something. He puts the cup into my hands and I realize it’s coffee.

“I figured you’d like some.”

With those words, I give a thanks and a goofy smile. I’m not so cold, for now. Maybe I won’t be happy in life, but I suppose Max could help me deal, so long as he kept the coffee coming.

He Was God, If Only For A Moment

People are people and habits never change. So I really don’t know why I was surprised when the man came into the store and began to pick off the people one by one. I know that I didn’t really react, that I stood and watched and thought to myself, “How beautiful…”

Beautiful, gorgeous, perfect. The shades of red splashing across the counter tops and shelvings, splattering uncaringly onto the glass doors. Everyone is dead, except me. I can feel their blood oozing down my face and it doesn’t repulse or frighten me. They are already gone, what would I be able to do at this point?

He takes cold, calculated, slow steps towards me. I stay standing, shivering from the cool air coming from the open door of the cooler that one man forgot to close on his way down. He looks at me, almost as if he were questioning my existence. I see his eyes, there is no guilt.

When he stands directly in front of me, with the gun to my face, I stare straight ahead, into his. He gives a smirk and goes to pull the trigger, but I speak first. My curiosity needing to be fed before I leave this world.

“Do you….feel like God?”

My words strike him, hit him with such a force he becomes angry and shouts at me, waving the gun frantically, still pointing it towards me, as if making a point.

“I AM GOD! DON’T YOU SEE!? DON’T YOU SEE!?”

I do see, but I do not see God. I see magnificence and anger and power. I inform him. His face unscrews from it’s angered position into a more calmed and amused one.

“But isn’t that close enough?” he asks me, his voice slightly shaking, as if he were to cry without an answer.

“It might be close, but you are still not God.” I say quietly, looking away, seeing a man laying against a chip stand. Doritos and blood spilled onto his belly. I think absently that maybe he had a wife or someone waiting for him. I wonder if they’ll be sad.

I realize the man is talking to me, screaming in all actuality.

“LOOK AT ME! LOOK!” and so I do and I think about how he repeats himself.

The gun is steady, back between my eyes. He asks me if I had any last words, speaks his thoughts out loud of how he really shouldn’t grant me any…He had been letting me live for too long as was.

“You didn’t answer my question.” I let annoyance slip into my tone, because if I’m going to die, I want to die with answers. So I repeat myself, slowly, clearly.

“Do you. Feel. Like God?”

He let’s out a noise that is a cross between a snarl and a laugh. A sound I didn’t know humans could make. “I don’t have time for this.” He says this to me as if he’s helping me learn something. Briefly, I think he is.

So he pulls the trigger, but no bullet escapes. There’s a blasting sound, glass shattering and the thud of his body falling. It’s then that everything catches up with me. I wished that he hadn’t been shot and that it had been me. That I would’ve died.

He is breathing still, but barely and I know he’s about to die. So I kneel beside him, emotions in me that I didn’t feel just a second ago. I feel bad for him…I feel sorry. All he wanted was to be God.

So I whisper in his ear as he chokes and sputters on his own blood filling his lungs.

“You were God…If only for a moment.”

Because A Personal Apocalypse Is Still An Apocalypse.

It’s raining when I get the call, coffee held in one hand, some melody floating through the air. This scene is familiar, comforting, but at the same time intense and frightening. I remember not breathing for a moment, just a moment. Time was still, my heart silent.

Rain then resumed it’s beating against the foggy windows of the kitchen I stood in. Water drizzled down in dizzying paths and I sincerely believed I could hear the rushing sound of it. The lack of breathing catches up to me and I gasp, coughing, choking, feeling wetness fall down my face. I look up dumbly, thinking perhaps there is a leak in the ceiling, but I remember I live on the second floor of a three floored apartment complex and this water is hot.

It’s then I realize I am crying and that I’ve fallen into myself, collapsing onto the unforgiving ground beneath me.  It’s a moment, a frightening one, a lonely one, a painful one. My only company being the newly spilled coffee making it’s way towards me on the apparently uneven floor.

This moment passes, like all others. I am in the same apartment, same kitchen, same cup in my hand. The phone, thankfully, is no where to be seen. Music is floating through the air, as my habit of silencing silence takes control.  It is classical music, full of piano and violins and sadness. The tune is not a remake or even composed of any artist, it is something my mind has come up with and composed, just for me. Just me.

I look to my left, slightly curious as to why I’ve let my kitchen stay so white for so long. It reminds me of things I didn’t care to remember. The table catches my eye, white wood and glass top. Delicate and sturdy, telling me I’m missing my support. There are two plates, two cups, two forks, a whole setting for two. Only one plate, one cup, one fork…was used. The other set, untouched, sitting beautifully, mockingly staring back at me.  I fill with undeniable rage and swing my arm out, everything crashing to the ground. Falling, crashing, breaking…like me. This is a moment, too.  I blink and calm and wish…That all moments would end. The coffee touches my bare feet.

The moments continue, and it’s the same setting. I’m more tired than before. My hair falls around my face, waving and curling, having a mind of it’s own. I am pale, my eyes are dull, and I am alone still. My chapped lips move, cracking, bleeding, hurting…Spilling words to nothing and no one, the air being the only thing to absorb my wasted breaths. Something about wishing and hoping and loving and dying and the pain of it all. 

I move, muscles protesting. I sit down onto the floor, tracing unknown patterns with my fingers, pretending I’m growing roses for someone. The white tiles are surprisingly clean. Bleached and scrubbed by my own hands. The blisters are between my fingers to show of it. I think of how silly it is of me to forget.

I hum and hum, trying to drive away the silence, even though the music is louder than ever. Blaring and shaking and hitting high notes of pure sorrow.  But it won’t go away, the silence. It’s louder than the music, hurting my ears, cutting through my mind. I scream and scream. I scream until my throat is raw and my chest hurts.

The music cuts and the silence laughs in my face. I remind myself how to breathe. Licking my lips, I stand, almost falling. My energy is worn, my soul mostly gone. I look to my right and there is a picture, one picture…Hanging on a plain wall. It is of a man, faceless, but something stirs within me when I see him and life rewinds and I feel the crushing force of everything once again.  Another moment lost to the oceans of the heart ache that I am drowning in. The coffee, though, sits on the table.

Life throws something new my way, the setting is different. I’m in my bedroom, which is all grey. Grey walls, windows, bed, blankets, desk, pictures…I am laying in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I’ve been doing this for hours.

Breathe in, breathe out.

There is no music, no coffee, no phone, no pictures of the man. I am comfortable, rested. Pain still swims through my chest, but it’s less stabbing, more numbing. The silence is suffocating, but that’s what I’m waiting for. To be smothered out of existence. My breathing slows and with it my eyes close. I feel the corner of my lips tug upwards. Last breath. The moments are over and gone, just like this one. The silence stays, but the pain doesn’t.

That’s when I bolt up from my bed, eyes wide, hand to chest, breathing and gasping and wheezing. I look around. I am in my bedroom of my house where I live with my family. My room is green, not grey, my home is a house full of people, not a cold, empty, white apartment on the second floor of a three floor complex.

There are voices and noises and the TV going. Silence is unable to find it’s way. I remember something a woman had said on a cheesy Disney movie and I hoped that it wasn’t reality…that, “dreams really do come true.”

Driving In Silence

It’s the kind of thing that happens a lot more often than one would think. You assume you are done with someone, you pull apart, you scream at each other, you hate each other…But there is always that pull that brings you together in a violent type whirl wind and you spin around, repeating words, phrases, behaviors…

& honestly, you don’t understand it. Perhaps you weren’t meant to. We fall into a habit, a ritual of despair and you can’t quite get a nice grasp onto reality anymore. You don’t know who is lying. You eventually do everything with a numbness that starts in your chest and spreads–like a disease. Your brain screams for you to stop, your common sense pounding on doors, trying to get to you. You ignore it, like the pain that is becoming less and less noticeable.

I understand, I understand, I understand…

It’s a broken record, really. The things you do. Wake up, get ready for the day, exist. Existing seems kind of silly, now that you don’t really think about the things you do.

Repeat, repeat, repeat…

Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and years into your grave. Was it worth it? Living the same day over and over again?

I know my future, I see it everyday. I see it well…Five years from now, I’ll drive in silence with an equally silent partner…Because we’ll both realize–You shouldn’t waste your breath for words you’ll want to take back later.

Socialism

It seems like a good idea. I think I’ll look into it more.

“It’s good in theory.”

I want to test it.

Color Me Grey

It’s March 23rd when I have a dream. It is frightening but at the same time peaceful and everything I wish I could be brave enough to face.

The dream is hollow, like most are, but has a feel of reality to trick you and reel you in without your knowledge. Somewhere in the back of your mind, though, you know what is happening and you wish that you could get up and not finish the nightmare.

In this dream I am in my kitchen, I am the age of twenty or so, and somehow everyone in my home has died. Buried years prior; I do not remember the events, I just know that they have happened. Dreams give you knowledge of lies when you can’t see the truth.

The kitchen is dark, quiet, suffocating. I am wallowing in my own miserable loneliness, cooking a meal that I won’t finish. I hear something, and for whatever reason I react in panic; I know something is going to happen. I get a sense that I have been warned of this event by someone on the phone. This memory comes out of no where and I run to my door, my English-Springer Spaniel barking wildly, but doing nothing else.

I rush, trying to lock the door, but it only results in failure as the door is shoved violently open and I am pushed back into the wall, onto the ground—beside the fire place. I fill with dread and the intruder who barged in is a man. He is faceless, but I know who he is. He pulls out a gun, puts it to the side of my head and whispers something about love or lack of and I feel nothing, but I hear a bang, and I hit the ground.

I watch his feet as he walks out, and I watch as my blood pools around me. Eugene, the spaniel, lays next to me, whimpering but offering no help, and I want to reassure him, but I can not speak. I feel like I’m fading but not quite. I touch the wound on my head and let myself fall back into place.

I am dead.

Invisible Milk

Time has passed, like it always does. I don’t remember how long it’s been, but it’s probably irrelevant. I hurt myself maybe a day ago, but it wasn’t so much hurt as it was having a new and temporary flaw added to my skin. I didn’t feel it, but it was there, and it was bleeding, like most wounds do.

It had me thinking about how maybe being hurt physically is the same as mentally. It’s there and bleeding and obviously ruining what had once before been perfectly okay, but you can not feel it. Maybe this can explain so much more about people.

Being emotionally scarred on an obvious level and having it actually effect you is okay, because then you can target the wound and heal. However, when it’s something you don’t even realize or feel, it could begin to become infected and ruin you and you would never realize it until it was too late and you lost a piece of yourself.

It would be a little time bomb in the back of your mind that you never notice and even though something happened that everyone can see should have damaged you, it’s untraceable, you’ve been cleared.

Perhaps we should all be more aware of ourselves instead of each other, eh?