I really miss the days of oddly placed self-control.
In other recent news, I have been drinking a lot and it’s been surprisingly okay, probably because I have been trying to be more aware of the people and places I’m exposing myself to. No UH-OH/OH SHIT/WAIT, WHO ARE YOU AGAIN? in the morning moments that I’m aware of lately, so I mean, who really cares. This is the part where I laugh at myself for writing about life events on the internet.
Her ears bleed nonsense and there’s not a thing she can do about it. Sometimes it’s the good hurt and she takes it, turning violent winces into forced smiles, but when that takes too much effort, she cries to herself in a desperate attempt to bleed gracefully, beautifully. She looks in the mirror and sees angry lines that refuse to disappear, a beautiful face that hides so much, tired eyes that beg to be rested and the bleeding ears that started it all in the first place. She feels betrayed and used most of the time, most of her life, a feeling that she used to be so dissonately proud of, the questionable decisions that forced her in this direction, the piles of paper that mark each major life change. From nothing to nowhere to something to someone to some place to everything that she wanted and dreamt of. The people who claim to love and cherish her, the girl that calls her a best friend, the liars that fail to shut their mouths, they all dig into her skin and tear it apart, leaving fragments of fragility and shards of torn flesh. Always bleeding. Red strips of anonymity fly off her calloused hands, the blanket fails to cover her feet when the night gets cold, and he smells like illegal staleness. Why aren’t you this, why aren’t you that, why don’t you want the right things for yourself??? The ten dollar bill and damp receipt are all the proof they need. Her refrigerator is full of food as she stares blankly at the wall, her face looking sunken and desperate, her mind full of thoughts and questions screaming at her, pounding for escape. Read everything you’ve written since the seventh grade, he tells her. What is a lie? And why is it so difficult for you to sleep at night? Do you suppress the thoughts you wish to dream about, the people you wish to fuck while unconscious? Did you just make eye contact with me for a reason? Did you let him violate the trust you had put in him because it made you feel something? Are you really that desperate to emote? Do you think you could be any more hypocritical?
There are holes in everything. You fill them up and they never give you anything you return – they’ll gladly take your most significant moments without thinking twice and will somehow find a way to blame you for their deceitful kleptomania. Try to figure out why you are so eager to label your folders and stuff them with what others tell you is important. Can you remember the last time you were pleased with the actions of the people that surround you? Being anonymous is like taking a white pill that your body forcefully rejects, but you enjoy the consequences anyway, sometimes secretly. It’s difficult because you’re so quick to associate enjoyment with the presence of other people’s fake smiles and embraces. In trying to figure out why your towel always remains slightly damp and refuses to dry, you may find that it’s not actually the fabric that’s soaking in the water. By the way, did you ever get what she promised you? Why do the bruises on your body consistently change colour but never disappear? Why is she still screaming? Did you fill up all the holes yet? Is your heart broken? Why did you sleep with his best friend? What is the definition of hope? Why do you bleed so much?
I dream of lost friends, violent acts, wet floors, seductive invitations. People who seem lost float in and out of this fast-paced life that I have slowly become content with. At times I get sucked in and have trouble accurately mapping out my strange evolution, a series of circles on the page – uncontrolled, imperfect, rough circles constructed from segments that drift in one direction, loop around and somehow always find a way back to their shaky origins. Regardless of these unstable spirals, I can convince myself that I am evolving, slowly, painfully, marking each step along pure white wall that screams to be marked with tears, blood, colour, skin, cartilage, muscle, hair, grains of illuminated neurons, slowly dying. The bottom of my legs are bruised and soiled as people run around me on the pavement and I walk slowly through the wet earth. Adults longing to be children, children pretending to be adults, loving, using, crying, laughing, remembering, touching, injecting, kissing, swallowing, bending, squeezing, living, breathing, suffering, dying, evolving. Running my fingers over four strings of gold-plated steel, closing my eyes, picturing a large stage, hundreds of people connected by passion flowing readily through veins, consumed by the major-minor switch, modal changes, dissonant chords, stylistic evolution. This is the only minute that I will be here, here, in this moment, breathing, wanting, being this. It has become all about the journey, the decisions I make, the people I choose to love, the evolutionary process that drives me closer to becoming somebody who will forever be remembered. I am terrified of dying, of being forgotten and my essence scattered over various landscapes but never thought about again. This is seemingly irrational- I am yet to be remembered for anything, but I am scared of not existing. I believe in constant evolution, a constant force that drives us to change, always striving for completion and wanting to be more, and I wonder if my past self was equally as frightened by the thought of never being this again, never breathing this way, walking this way, living this way. I watch the bright colours drip from cheekbones, down a slender neck, over bones that form a strikingly-defined sternum, bones that divide the colours into two streams, then four, then eight, ten, eleven, twelve, flowing down a chest, over a broken ribcage, bruised stomach, scarred hips, weak thighs. Incense burning, old tea bags scattered over broken wood, shattered glass in your hand ready to carve into broken skin, a pile of purple pills waiting to be swirled around in wet circles, torn wrappers that once provided protection, bleeding skin dripping onto thin fabric unable to hold life in, hair torn from drained bodies, a formation of broken bodies laid side by side, front to back, breathing life into those that surround them.
I remember returning to high school each year, surrounded by chaotic faces, anxious teachers, new and old, hair flying, arms wrapping around friends who had become strangers over the long summer, bodies squeezing through the eager nonsense that flooded the hallways. Returning for my senior year at college has been no different than that very experience that I eagerly awaited each year, then watched pass by much too quickly. I would like to go through life thinking, Never again will I be in this very moment, but such savory thoughts fail to resonate properly for me. At this point in life, growth is necessary, but like change, is often approached with gallons of apprehension.
