The Things You Heard

-28-08                                                                                                                                     3

on’t picture me. Don’t put me in your mind and manipulate me. Don’t build me up or break me down. Don’t have expectations of me. I like to break your ideas. I am a dream crusher. I will stomp out your labels. Stomp out your head if you try to stop me. Don’t ever challenge the girl in combat boots. Your eyes flick to me like lizard eyes on your squat, toad face. I narrow mine. I despise your shapeless purple dress that you wear each Friday like clock work like you anticipate each week to be the same. I am dulled with my hair mused back hurriedly behind a jeweled and shining tiara. I dirty all dark clothing and tap my shiny boots together. The look on her face says it bothers her. This pushes me to tap louder like the hum of a fan late at night. Go. One simple word. I ignore the command and analyze it. Lay it upon the table and pick it apart. Go. One meaning? The shortest sentence in the English language. Spoken by my English teacher. In an English classroom.  In a white, English town. In this English country. This is America. That’s all I said. Well, not all. But that was the Thesis Statement of my rant. And now I had to Go. We’ll see. But away I went. Go I did. Now is when. I stood up and spun my cape, black and shimmering and strutted through the class. That’s right. Strutted, bitch. Right out the door and down the hall. And down the hall. And down the hall. There is the office. The principal stands in the doorway, hands on his hips, eyebrows raised behind Happy Potter glasses but he doesn’t say a word to me through stupid, chapped, pale lips. I walk through the door. No alarms. No police. No trouble. Right down the drive onto the road. I head towards the sun, having a corny stuffy sentimental moment. Realize the sun is in the direction of the next town over. The town with intense drugs and precarious fornication. Only a mile from my high school, in the direction of the sun. A drip. Right on my nose, a drop of water. And another. In just ten seconds it’s down pouring. Like the sky finally realized what a horrid place it’s forced to light. Forced to fuel. Forced to watch unfold. I keep my head down and watch the dirt become mud and cake my shiny, black, combat boots. I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel the day relay itself onto my shoulders and upon my head and build pressure and I start to cry. Single floods of tears run down my face and mix with tears and they lied to me. It’s very possible to tell when someone cries in the rain. It doesn’t hide a thing.

4-22-08                                                                                                                                   2

ou feeling any better?” The emotionless wonder never ceases to amaze me. It was purely a question. Merely a statement, but I felt it none the less. It poked like a shot through years of teasing prodding punching. Kidding and joking. Flirting. Like friends of the groom. I’m always surprised he cares. My feet swing over the open air. My bottom scratches as I shift on the rough rock and my dress flows over either side. My front facing the chill water that rushes down with rocks sticks dead things. My back to the new ugly ass dark tar still bubbling on the dirt. He plops down next to me and latches a strong hand around my wrist. Paper white thin wrists that I can’t pull away. He’s a friggin mind reader. His face is nearly void. I only ever see it crease with happy, laugh, love. Void is like nothing. Feels harsh. “What are you afraid of?” Nothing. Everything. My answers scoff and burn him, but not close to as bad as I’d like. I toss his question back. “Of not having a purpose of doing. Of not feeling like I belonged there that moment.” Innocent words. Somehow they melt me. I am stone to his rock emotionally. He always ties me up and I rewrite my plans. I guess that’s his plan. What a sucky job looking after me must be. I sighed at him and the water and the trees swaying in the mist, taunting my weakness. Numb toes. It’s overtaking my thoughts. I close my eyes and through my nose I fill myself with the cold pure river air. Against my better will a smile fights onto my face, I hear his beautiful laugh. Not helping. He still hasn’t let up his vicious grip around my wrist. I presume he isn’t going to. With my right hand I tap my nails. Ruffle my skirt. Attempt to tuck my hair behind my ears. The wind is stubborn. We do not talk. He simply holds on. The moment he arrived I looked calm. Serene, even. Not frustrated to the jump point. Yet he knew and prevented. Like patching the roof before the big storm. It’s three hours before my body is tired of fighting. I chuck my dignity out the window and step back off the wall. He follows like he knew as this moment I would. Like he knows anything. His grip loosens but he still leads me by my wrist down the ugly tar, and away. I am grateful.

4-18-08                                                                                                                                   1

hrill, tapered voices. Bullets to my brain and I express that. I show you with my black bowler turned down to soften my appearance with my sunglasses, big and faux, to hide my razor gaze. It’s eyes you don’t deserve to look upon that would tell you the knowledge you starve for. Eyes I pinch shut in disgust. Disapproval. Disdain. Worlds flow up into my mouth. Bile, foul words that threaten to spill all over and break your precious hearts. Red and fleshy, luscious and developed, your lovely hearts; do they ache with memories you’ll always keep close? Pursed lips of quiet souls. Shut out your thoughts. Push back. Step up. Step down. Fall in. Fall under. Under the table. Where you’re hidden. Where you’ll always find me silently watching. Listening. Soaking up the things we say when you believe nobody cares. Storing all for later retrieval. Observing, not sneaking. Ask and I’ll denote my presence. Lie to me and I’ll treat you as such. Careful- it’s an ankle biter. Small and sake and longing, begging, yearning for nothing. Nothing to fill the void that sews your mouth shut. Loop, loop, loop and pull the black double thread along as you know I have no contribution to society. I watch the skies absence because all my looks meet is the angles of my sanctuary. Dark and warm. Small and protected. Silent and calming. I breathe deeply through my nose, relaxed. You breathe deeply through your nose, frustrated. Call me out on all my bull that I dribble into your ears as you sleep because I’m watching your chest rise and fall and I can feel myself falling in love with the rhythm, but not with you. You and you’re only human and you work for the medium expressions on your soft, scarred, simple face. Two slim fingers to your squishy, red, dry lips. Once again. My fights will peter out and salty tears will slip down my own flushed cheeks and I’ll fall to the ground. I’ll fall to the ground and as you turn to throw your fists against the wall I’ll crawl quickly under the table and you’ll never find me again. If only you were looking.

       Mirror image

          Can't see you

                    Find you

                    Need you

                    Want you

                    Lose you

         Gotta have you

         Gotta get you

Flesh on flesh
      My warm chest to yours

Yours;
              Perfect
              Flat
              Bones

Mine; 
              Flawed
              Round
              Squishy

I only worry about what I can't see with my eyes closed.

LETTING GO

 

• To Let Go does not mean to stop caring. It means I can't do it for someone else.

• To Let Go is not to cut myself off. It's the realization that I can't control another.

• To Let Go is not to enable. But to allow learning from natural consequences.

• To Let Go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.

• To Let Go is not to try to change or blame another. It's to make the most of myself.

• To Let Go is not to care for, but to care about.

• To Let Go is not to fix, but to be supportive.

• To Let Go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.

• To Let Go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their destinies.

• To Let Go is not to be protective. It's to permit another to face reality.

• To Let Go is not to deny, but to accept.

• To Let Go is not to nag, scold, or argue; but instead to search out my own shortcomings, and correct them.

• To Let Go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes, and cherish myself in it.

• To Let Go is not to criticize and regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.

• To Let Go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

• To Let Go is to fear less, and Love more.

I threw up. This fucking sucks.  I feel horrible. Steve's gonna be so dissapointed. God's going to literally kill me. He reached his last straw with me a few months ago when I pierced a hole in my own body and as it would turn out there was more than a 50% percent it would get infected and kill me and I prayed and prayed and he forgave me and he told me I had to be good to my body, no more hurting it.
And since I've thrown up twice. Once at my nieghbors' funeral, once just tonight. I have sliced up my thigh, just for old times sake, to see if it still felt numb. Instead I found the prickle enticing. Steve was upset.

Really now, he keeps me safe. No one truly understands the magnitude at which I owe him. Literally my entire life, becuase I was right at the brink of suicide. I had the day and all, but I didn't do it. I didn't do it because I had plans with him that day. I decided to live, becuase we had plans and hell, they actually sounded like fun. For once something sounded like fun. Even before he was my boyfriend, my love, he was so important to me. Something about him just drew me to him, I just wanted to be around him. Even if I looked stupid or said everything wrong, it didn't matter. I just wanted to be with him.

He's the one who told me fucking straighten up. I was head over heels in an eating disorder cutting me off from life itself and preventing me from giving him my all and it was more or less ruining every inch of my life. And he showed me that, and told me this was all going to end if I didn't get my act together. So I got help.

And tonight, tonight I flipped that over. And I want to starve and puke and hurt myself. I just need to hug him. To feel he's real. To prove to myself I havne't imagined him. Haven't imagined the last year, like it feels life. This has all been too real for me to comprehend. I can't wait for school tomarrow, to hold him and breathe clearly and see his smile and hear him tell me it'll be alright, everything will be alright.