Memorial Day

You naive, foolish girl. I can't believe you're sitting here crying because you got offered a job. But I know why. You are allowing the world to sell you its products because you're too weak-willed and weak-minded to realize that it's lying to you.
You're destroying your relationships with others, even your own family, because you're too caught up in your own problems to be mindful of their feelings. 

You stupid girl, are you listening? 
Stop caring about the money and focus on what really matters. People. Don't jeopardize your relationships with others simply because you're desperate for money. In ten years, what will matter more to you, what will you remember, the adventures you had with the people you love, or the amount of money you made that week? I can already tell you the answer to that.

Don't sacrifice the relationships you have with people because you're desperate to pay for college. You're already ruining them, because you don't have the courage to go be happy at the various parties and barbecues you could go to. 

Just pray, hon! God is there and He loves you. Don't give up. He's sent people to you who love you, but you have to let them. He'll still be there if you have to work through college, but there are other people who may never take the time to care if you don't take the time to care about them now. And even though God is always with you, it feels awfully lonely when He's the only one.

Grow up and get a hold of yourself. Stop acting like it's the end of the world. Dry your tears and go have fun because you're wasting time you could be spending with people just sitting at this computer feeling sorry for yourself. It's not the end of the world. You've got three weeks to have adventures and make decisions and there's still hope. Apologize to your brother and move on, you hear me? Or else years from now, I can guarantee that you will regret it. 

Real Talk

Graduation is in eight days. Graduating is harder than I thought it would be, though. For that matter, going to school is harder than I thought it would be. I never thought I'd be the kind of person who got senioritis, but I did. Last week I counted up my absences to see how many classes I could still miss without needing to go to attendance school. 

I don't know where I belong and I'm stuck between two different worlds on multiple levels. The reality and the fantasy, the high school and the college, the child's and the adult's. It's kind of confusing.

I don't know if I'm happy or not, which makes me sad. But I continue to put on a mask of ignorance when inside I'm falling apart, and even though most of you know who I am, I still operate as if I'm protected by the guise of anonymity. 

I keep wondering if I will ever fall in love, if that person I probably haven't met yet could fall in love with me back, if I'll ever get married. Except I don't want to be a mother right now. Is that even allowed? I can't stand being around little children for a long time, and I don't want to be treated the way my siblings treat my mom.

I have a tendency to find scars on my arms and legs and hands and feet but I don't know how they got there, and a solid month after prom I was still hoping I'd be asked.

I love listening to Josh Groban's voice, especially when he sings in Italian. It makes me want to fly to Italy, but I have a little sister who broke my heart last Saturday when amid angry words and frustrated voices, she said, "I don't have a safe place."

I almost went to a different high school. Twice. But I stuck it out and now I can't seem to stop wondering if I'd be happier right now had I made the other choice. In the end, I can't say I regret my choice, but I still wonder.

I have horrible allergies in the late spring and early summer. My hair is brown and curly and I've been led to believe that it's my one redeeming quality. There is also a special place in my heart for the number 10.

I have fallen deeply in love with Earth and been heartbroken because it's rapidly disappearing in light of something called progress. I'm in love with the feeling of wind in my hair and wet sand between my toes. The smell of summer. Cold rain at night and warm rain in the middle of the day.

I miss the feeling of being in love with him. I got carried away but I forgot my heart and it still hurts sometimes but I think it's a good kind of hurt. For some strange reason I still refuse to give up on magic even though it's been proven again and again that it does not exist.

I'm terrified of spiders. I'm even more terrified that this post just sounds like me complaining and none of you are going to want to be my friend if you read this, because I don't think the real me is someone people are drawn to. Not very many people will really remember me in ten years. I don't show up in other people's posts and I know I shouldn't care but I kind of do. I'm not trying to make you feel bad for me, I am just trying to be real, because once upon a time I prided myself on being real and lately I only see the falseness in myself. Maybe I'll just delete this whole post. But probably not. Is this real enough for the world, or do I need to try again? 

Cracks in the Screen

I'm cracked. I've been injured and damaged and fractured but I'm still not exactly sure why or how and I'm trying to figure it out.

I'm crazy. I have too many homeless words and not enough people to tell them to.

I'm lonely. I have made and lost friends my entire life. I haven't spoken to some in years, but I still remember them and I always will. I miss them.

I'm broken. He may have broken my heart, but I'm trying not to let him break my soul. I know he never meant to hurt me, but he did. He held my hand tighter than necessary, enough that for the tiniest sliver of a moment I let myself believe he might feel about me the same way I feel about him.

I'm defeated. They tell me I've never seemed this defeated before, but I've never felt this defeated before.

I'm scared. I don't know what should happen after my worst nightmare comes true. My dreams have all become nightmares, so maybe I'll just say good night to my dreams.

I'm masochistic. Being near him is the most beautiful torture I've ever experienced. Why do I keep hurting myself? 

I'm poetic. Because poetry is really just words bleeding from a pen onto paper, and these words were written with my blood and sealed with my tears, and I think I enjoy using metaphors and run-on sentences.

I'm defiant. People keep telling me that it's wonderful to get older. From my experience, all I've noticed is that the older you get the grayer your hair is and the more dead people you know.

I'm uncertain. Sometimes I wonder who I pray to every night. And I wonder if He still listens to people who call Him by the wrong name. 

I'm conflicted. I wish you would stop, because my heart is breaking, but I want you to keep going, because I like the feeling. 

I'm alive. I feel like I'm on fire at the thought of him ever loving me. But I know that will never happen, so I need to stop thinking about it. 

I'm distracted. Because there are some things I just don't want to remember. I wish I could forget the confusion and the hallucinations and the heartbreak and why are the memories I still have the ones I wish I could forget? Because you forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

I'm timeless. I feel younger than my body but older than my soul. So disjointed and out of place within myself.

I'm lost. I'm floating in an endless sea with no idea where the shore might be, and I can't stop using these metaphors.

I'm childish. I don't like being alone in the dark. I think I still believe there are monsters under my bed.

I'm pensive. I can't stop thinking about how much I miss what I never had, what could have been. I didn't realize how much the smell of summer makes me sad. It makes me miss that something I can't name.

I'm delusional. I have conversations with him in my head all the time. I should stop doing that. I probably won't.

I'm serene. It's silent, and the best kind of silence is when you're with another person but neither one of you feel the need to fill the silence.

I'm afraid. I'm terrified of being with someone, but honestly, I'm even more scared of being alone.

I'm hurt. A scream tears itself from my throat when I see the scarlet blood running in streams down my arm and I'm still stuck on these metaphors because the blood isn't real but I feel like it is and all I can smell is the metallic scent of blood.

I'm cracked. These are the cracks in my screen. The cracks in my sanity. The cracks in my soul.

How To Forget

Don't turn off the lights. Imagination runs more wild in the dark. When the lights go out, the memories flood in, and if you let that happen you won't ever escape them.

Don't close your eyes. Same principle. If you allow yourself to sleep, the nightmares will wake you up anyway. It may seem impossible but all it takes is focus. Focus on a tiny sound- the ticking of a clock or the whirring of an air vent. Concentrate on it as if losing your concentration means the end, because sometimes it does.

Avoid people, places, music, everything that reminds you. Sometimes everything does remind you. In that case, you simply have to become a recluse and take up knitting while you watch reruns of Star Trek and eat whatever happens to be in the pantry. It'll keep your mind off it.

Don't talk about it. Talking will only make you remember. Push it to the back of your mind and build walls of fake laughter and forced smiles around it. And if all these things fail and you still can't forget, you'll just have to find something else to break your heart instead. 

These methods work. Usually. The problem is that if you do this trying to forget the past, you'll forget yourself and end up losing the present as well. 

You never really forget. Even if you don't let yourself think about it again for the rest of your life, deep down inside you still remember, and there's nothing you can do to change that. The only way to forget is to realize that you can't. 

In the Dark: Part II of Voices

In the dark, I leaned my head against the glass. I wanted to break it. I wanted to feel close to you. But I've never felt so far away because that glass was harder than steel. 

In the dark, I tried to hear you breathing, wondered if our hearts beat in sync. There were less than inches between us, closer than we'd ever been, yet I felt as though we'd never been further apart. 

In the dark, you found me and held me. With your arms around me, I felt safe, but it wasn't real. It was just another one of my fantasies. 

Still in the dark, I pretend I hear your voice calling my name. I know I'm deluding myself, but I answer back anyway.

I lose track of time and space and light as I sit silently, helpless to stop the invisible spiders from crawling up my back and filling me with desperate terror.

I lie awake at night and wish that I could see the stars, but there's a ceiling there instead.

In the dark for too long, I'm trying to find some light, even a flash of lightning. 

But after spending too long in the darkness, the light hurts.

So I'm still in the dark.

Dear You,

I am inexplicably fixated by you. I am morbidly fascinated with you. I am gruesomely tempted by you. As expected, I'm also furious with you. Thinking about you makes me angry and afraid but also fills me with a sense of closure. 

I keep imagining your embrace. I think of going into your arms with my eyes closed and never opening them again. You are light and warmth and untroubled peace.

But I've seen what happens when people touch you. Or you touch them. I'm furious at you for touching the people I love and taking them away from me. Sometimes I'm ready to touch you and follow them. But usually not.

I know that eventually I'll have to touch you, and if you get impatient or think I'm taking too long, you'll just touch me and it will all be over. You'll touch me and I'll lose myself to you forever. I don't know when it will happen, only that it will. Until then, it doesn't make much sense to be afraid of you.

But I am anyway.

Love,

Midnight

Unexplained Fears

I looked out over the valley and caught sight of 

something I might call forever

and in the dark I saw the streetlights and houselights 

and the headlights on an endless string of distant highway,

waiting to be severed.

I didn't want you to see them,

but they were there in my eyes,

all my hidden tears

as inside I cried for how much I have missed 

because of all my hidden fears

that have held me back for all these years.

It still echoes in my head, that simple prayer

that caught me in in its glare

and forced me to care

because I can't get this feeling out of my heart

and I don't really want to.

I want it to stay there with me and you

Until the string of lights is broken

and forever can be spoken

Until my hidden tears have dried

and my lying fears subside

And I name this feeling and learn to cope

But I'm pretty sure I'm feeling. hope.

Spent so long believing I never could heal,

spent filling the cracks in my soul with steel,

fighting back doubts, unsure what was real,

I thought I had lost what it takes to feel.

I didn't mean to write this much to you

but we know where we stand

so I'll tell you the truth-

Because of you I counted to ten

and all of a sudden I trusted again.

You came and offered me reprieve,

you came and somehow made me believe.

I think you might be good for me,

and I think you've finally set me free.

I'm trying to say that you pulled me ashore-

and that because of you, I'm not afraid anymore.

Locked

I want to slap the smile off your face, but that would only give you pleasure because I'm fighting back.

I want to tie your hands behind your back so you can't hurt me, and lock you in a closet where you can't hurt others, until you understand what it's like to be lonely. 

I want to duct tape your mouth so that you can't say any more hurtful words, because that means I no longer have to pretend that they don't hurt me. 

I want to find out what's important to you and use it against you, and I want to destroy your twisted heart that will only get more crooked with time. 

I want to scar your face so people won't be taken in by your innocent looks and constant lies.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tears sting behind my eyelids, but I won't cry. I won't cry. I can't give you the satisfaction of seeing me cry, letting you know I want to run and hide where you'll never find me. 

I never want to see you again because I loath these feelings you arouse in me. I hate feeling this much fury, this much rage, this much pain, this much misery every time I see you. 

I hate being scared of what I want to do. I hate feeling this way. 

I hate what you're turning me into.