“You can’t change your situation. The only thing that you can change is how you choose to deal with it.”
— 50/50
Run.
It was dark. It just always has to be so god damn dark, doesn’t it?
It was dark and I was crouched in a corner, holding my legs tight to my body. My eyes were closed and I was holding my breath. My heart was somewhere in my throat and my stomach was in knots.
I was in a house. A big drafty house with a few too many staircases, closed doors and singular hanging lightbulbs.
Through my closed eyelids a light switched on and then flickered for a few seconds. That meant he was coming. I let out the breath that I’d been hiding in my lungs and stood up.
The light meant he was close by. So, I ran.
I ran downstairs to the empty kitchen and climbed into one of the open cabinets, assuming my original position.
I had just managed to slow my heartbeat when through the crack in the door of the cabinet I saw the lights flicker on and off and on and off.
Shit.
Again, I was running. This time I heard the pair of footsteps behind me. They were heavy and they were catching up.
This hallway is never ending. He was right behind me. I could hear his breath.
I gasped as I felt the toe of his shoe scrape the back of my heel.
And just like that, it was over.
no apologies
I’ve been looking for a change for a while. At first I thought maybe all I needed was a new theme, but the free ones didn’t seem to satisfy my need to break monotony. I realized the problem really wasn’t the appearance of my sparsely used blog but actually the title of it. Staying in tune just no longer seemed to apply.
Over the past year, each of my strings have been unwound. The wires split at the ends and fell off of my sturdy frame. Words, scary words like suicide, adultery, heartbreak, self-hatred, alcoholism, and even love sawed away at the once-taut strands and left me out of tune.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing, though. I used to, but not now. My world-view has shifted and I feel more than I ever knew I could. I feel down to my very core so much it sends a chill up my spine and down to my curling toes and I’m learning to embrace it.
I just needed a change. So here it is, raw and uncut. Nothing is sugar-coated anymore. I’ve seen the real world, and I can’t un-see it.
“Why is the world ugly when you made it in your image?
And why is livin’ life such a fight to the finish?
For this high percentage
When the sky’s the limit
A second is a minute, every hour’s infinite”
— Dear God 2.0 - The Roots
untitled experiment
I had to do an assignment for my English class where I “cut up” pieces of writing and then mash them together to see what I got. I pulled some tumbls from dirtygrammar, somewordplay, asardentasthey, houseindisorder (thanks guys), and myself. Here’s what I came up with!
____________________________________________________________________
Last night I awoke in a dream.
I opened my eyes and was surprised to find myself on the couch between indifference and all the difference.
Rain surged in through the roof, and the floor became a seabed and the staircase a raging way out, rejoicing until a rather nasty mix of low-pressure fronts and Pandora’s box swept through.
Buckets, sheets, oceans beat forcefully against the tired house from either the basement or the attic. One could never be certain what caused the thuds among the grave of splintered and misshapen tar, miniature streamlets of rain and a sad overflowing travesty.
Drip, drip, drip.
We clasped pinkies and you promised me you would never leave.
Half empty, half full irrelevancy broke up into radio waves and moon men.
The room spins dizzily between charged electricity and could-be-worse and could-be better.
There comes a point when you can’t keep living in one reality and rubbing heartstrings as tears fall along with the rain. The picture perfect present shatters, the foundation begins to chip and fissure pierced by conscious glances in darkened windows and bold declarations of rolled trousers…
Then came the noises. Northern winds pierced through the stale summer night, rattling your other half or third or fourth.
Write it all down before it disappears from the edge.
Ah to be seventeen, wild, drunk, sexy, and foolish.
He heard a storm very much like you, Irene, blowing and wailing and harboring no meaning in subtlety. Stuck wheezing into my shoulder until we run out of tears to shed and swap, weathering a storm of information from all directions.
A constant flow of convincing that nothing will ever change. To be drunk and alive with rippling tides of pessimism, optimism, or just doom.
But, your precious body image issues! Your precious salary! Your precious epiphany will have gone to dust. Smile, seventeen because you managed to wrest your hand from your dick and go looking for something real. You promised that you’ll have your first crush and kiss and heartbreak and love.
I want to see in your world, even if that means setting a virginal toe in a sea of peanuts. To stare into the iridescent sky with fearlessness and strength.
Ah, to be young and release yourself – free fall into the abyss, pass the shrubbery and swim into the arms of an eternal blend of all too-familiar colors.
The air smells and tastes like a worn out carpet.
In my attention I’ve been played the fool of a contagion, the symptoms of disrepair did not remain isolated for so long.
Are we to evade what’s forbidden? Or is it better to affect the change you…
Burn, burn, burn.
Down right in between May and June. The frost snuck in beneath the crack in the door.
Who doesn’t love a good metaphor about porn addiction?
Between perfection and not quite you will meet people who become threatened by the very stability of the house, spider web cracks spreading out and reaching for us. We tried to hide under Freudian slips and errant apologies.
Pouring and pouring I watered it full. I curled up with my eyes closed trying to ignore the flames inside my chest and the pressure in my…
Inhale.
The smoke worming its way down my throat, filling my lungs, filling my head.
We’re living between vertigo and knowing-so.
Restricted section? Sometimes the idea of busting away from trepidation and daring mud to trickle, adding new notes to a song of conquest with every drop.
This is when I noticed that I had not fully woken up.
The knot in my stomach felt as similar as my disappointment in words.
friday the 13th
Maybe it was simply the ominous date. Maybe the stars were aligned and I was fated to crash and burn. Maybe it had simply been too long since the last time I broke down. Maybe it was it was the adrenaline-hangover after that all too familiar knock on my door. Hell, maybe it was the Svedka.
It could have been anything, I guess, but before the night even really got started I found myself sitting on the cold sidewalk with a friend a couple blocks away from the party we were supposed to be at. We sat there with tears filling our tired eyes. The truth spilled out of my mouth and into his ears. I confirmed what he didn’t want to hear. I confirmed what I never wanted to admit to myself.
We knew, I knew we couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help falling for the wrong people. Sure, he may be an ass and she may be a bitch but we fell all the same. I’ve known for a long time that nothing would come of it. Ignored the feelings I now know were there all along. And here I was sitting on the sidewalk my vision fuzzy a little bit from crying a little bit from drinking, drowning in the hopeless realization of the end.
We refused to allow our eyes to meet, afraid that if we did then we’d both see our own hurt mirrored in them.
After some time, our tears eased up. Deep breaths and some stupid jokes broke us free from our moments of weakness. We stood up and walked back. And by some stroke of luck, my night turned around. I ran into a familiar acquaintance and we danced to the repetitive music and we whispered confessions and our lips met.
The night came to an end and we stood in the street savoring the last few moments, his teeth biting into my lip a little to hard, and then I walked away. My eyes were still a little salty and my heart was still a little heavy but I smiled.
You can’t start one day without ending the previous one and the strike of midnight. There’s no way to write a new chapter, until you finish the last and are ready to turn the page.
I know that feel, bro.
Almost exactly a year ago, things were different. We were stuck in the heart of little old New York, caught in the shadows of doubt that were cast over our futures. We sang and danced and blazed through pages and musical numbers. Rain fell, pounding on each of our perspective windshields as we drove through the night as Mumford & Sons filled the small spaces of our cars and heads. As the words and realizations pulled on our heartstrings tears fell along with the rain. The picture perfect present shattered, the spiderweb cracks spreading out and reaching for us. We tried to hide under cool exchanges and costumes but soon enough we became heated and our makeup rubbed off after a long night. We were on the brink.
Soon enough in a dimmed corner that stank of stale coffee beans and past conversations we painted a new, better, and brighter picture. Even so, we knew our paths were about to diverge and there was no way of knowing what that would really mean, despite all of our fervent promises.
But here we are, one year later. We’re still lurking in the shadows of the high school parking lot, hoping not to be seen by those certain few. We still smell the same. Our hugs are just as tight and our gazes just as meaningful. We cruised and we discovered, the soundtrack was a little bit different but the safety passenger seat remained the same. We blazed through servings of mozz sticks and swizzles. We waited, sitting at a corner table at Katonah Restaurant, watching the trains come and go. Dunkies still gave us an escape and fed us hashbrowns and dunkachinos. While everything else seemed to be falling apart, the moon watched from above, shedding some light on the darkness. We had all of the conversations that needed to be had. We sat in the car in a fit of laughter, gasping for air. We are in tact.
There were other characters intertwined along the way, some of them expected, some of them not. But we remain to stand together to face what comes. In one year, so much changed. In one year, so much hasn’t.
So, sure, we had the small experience. But really, it’s so much bigger than that.
The RHS Genocide Assembly came and went with me slipping in the middle of the cafeteria. I forgot about the rest. But this is my second chance, Round Two, and I’m not forgetting this time. They’re making this second round the final round. I’m starting with this. You should, too.
(Source: steveagee, via asardentasthey)
