Streams of Consciousness
They say if you have good fabric, it ain’t dirty. You have to soak it overnight. Ah, late night television- a boon to insomniacs worldwide. All the genius of humanity in just a few short hours. Tele-evangelists should burn in Hell. They’re singing. I guess it’s more like yelling random notes; it sounds terrible. Prayer Line: (800) 387-5475 Hi, I’m Amelia and I burn myself to earn God’s affection. He told me to tell you your music sucks. Bead Magic is a fabulous way to accessorize any outfit. I want to dye my hair blue and then dread it. Dumas said that if I did that he would marry me. At least they ended on the right note. Bad music makes me want to kill myself. Everything makes me want to kill myself. It’s all I can think about now. It has overthrown my mind; it’s an obsession. I want to tell Johnny, but his sister was just diagnosed with the same disease he has and his brother is having surgery this week. It would be unfair for me to do that. He needs me to stand silent and strong for him. My lips will stay sealed, even if it means the loss of my sanity- anything to make him happy. I turn the channel because this is giving me a headache. I hate having to hide it. Sometimes, when I’m driving home from school, I have these visions. I imagine myself cutting up my face, or something shattering into my face and doing the equivalent. It’s almost compulsive now. I see an iron and I think about burning myself. I see a radiator and I think the same. Every object I encounter, I scan for its potential to harm me. It pulls me away from God. I pray for Johnny a lot but I doubt it does much good, coming from me. My prayers are dismissed because I am unworthy even to grovel to God. Honestly, I think they’re the only prayers I’ve ever uttered that were unselfish, so maybe they do count. But I feel so… what word did I use? Filthy. No, I don’t think that’s strong enough.
Song #4
I retreat to my sheets like a crippled animal; eyes staring blankly at the wall. They are not blind but they do not see. Nothing registers in my mind. I lie, simply aware of the blistering future-scar under my fingertips, wishing myself to disappear. I am sick. I try to disappear because what I’m looking for, I know I won’t find here. I cannot escape the emptiness that is filling me- killing me. I can do nothing. I wonder whether or not I exist, and hope the answer is no. There is no one to fight for the soul I don’t have. Sanity slips through my fingers. I don’t want to speak or otherwise injure the silence that so lovingly cradles me. I melt into the bed and cry for what I am not.
Streams of Consciousness
So here I am at the beach high school. Good idea, Amelia; why don’t you waste your whole summer by taking Drivers’ Ed? I have three weeks of this course. Here. And there’s a wildfire so we’ll be outside in the smoke. I’m not really sure how all of the beach middle school people will react. I think I’ll be seen as a freak from the arts school. I guess that’s okay, because I am. I miss my school. I miss the attitude, the talent, and the people- especially the people. I have no friends. Well, no; I have Johnny.
I still haven’t told him. The last letter, I didn’t even mention myself. It’s definitely what you might call a “touchy subject.” I love him so much. I don’t think that I’ve grown enough, emotionally, to experience romantic love but I love my friend deeply. There’s a certain amount of trust that must be involved. I trust Johnny. He could do anything to me and I would still trust him because I know that his intentions and goals are always pure and true. But Johnny and I can never be together. It’s better now that we’ve acknowledged that. Freed each other.
Maybe if I close my eyes, I’ll disappear from here. That would be nice. It’s going to be a long summer. This reminds me of a certain hellish driver’s school I had to attend in order to get my permit. Hey, at least I get to drive. Yeah! Whoooooo! All right! Sorry, I was trying so hard to be optimistic. Oh well, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I suppose being a pessimist is a flaw, though it’s to your advantage. At least it means I get to be right a lot.
I had a really great conversation with Chris Miller last night. It was as if I were talking to an actual human being. I don’t know if we could click emotionally but we have incredible chemistry. I think that, from now on, we should use each other for sexual favors. Just kidding- I’m going to Hell. That would compromise my beliefs as a Christian and I’m not willing to do that. Not even for Chris Miller. I don’t think. Why do I even care about this guy? Because he’s sexy and mysterious. I hate it when I answer my own questions. He is beautiful, that’s why. And you know that I can’t keep myself away from beautiful things.
If you could only see the girls that just walked in. You could count their collective brain cells on your fingers. Shoot me. Shoot me please, I’m begging you- just kill me now before I do it myself. It kind of makes me more interested in things like domestic terrorism. Three weeks in Hell. Is it worth it? I doubt it. I don’t mind getting up at five a.m. for TAHS but not for the beach high school. That’s all I have to say.
Grievances
A restless spirit overtakes me. It makes me irritable, irrational, fatigued. I remember why I hated this place and these people. I have to wonder how I’m going to get through this day, much less this month. You know, the only drugs they talk about are ecstasy, shrooms, and weed. Amateurs compared to my friends at TAHS. I hate it here already. Ignorance makes them impotent. Well, their minds- their sex drives appear to be intact. Is this really worth the ten bucks it takes off my insurance? At least I can be alone. I don’t fit in here, thank God. If I were one of these idiots and knew it, I’d have to kill myself- no question. Hey, a corner! Yes! I’ve found my new lunch spot. Hum dee hum.
Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome: Reflections
Yes, you geniuses- exactly. Sometimes I mediate between them, neutrally. I know what’s happening. They are warring. They are fighting to see who gets my soul. The right side is my evil half, if you will. She is the addict and the whore. She gets power and I get pleasure. She is the masochist. She has evil in her heart and bloodlust on her lips. The left half puts it upon herself to bear the shame of it all. She is the Holy One. She is pure and sad, for no matter how far she separates herself from the right, she will never be free of her. She will always bear the scars that give away the other’s existence. She is weak. I fear for her.
I fear for myself- if she is overtaken, then so am I. She is dying and running out of time, for the other is still very much alive. The sinner has so much passion- a lust for life and a need for adventure. All of her senses are heightened. Pain sears into her, hurting so much that it feels good. She loves everything that is in excess or extreme. Like herself. I love her for it. I don’t know if maybe I should hate her, but I can’t bring myself to. I envy her. She has such passion for life, while I am apathetic and lazy. She wants to experience all of the extremes and everything in between. She lives her life. She loves it. Even in pain and sorrow, she still has the drive to go on. I wish I could be like that. I wish I could be in love with life like she is. And yes I realize that I’m talking about myself.
Untitled
A morning. That’s all it really is: a morning. I lost the letter I wrote to Johnny. Shame. It was four pages long. It’s so different here. I can’t seem to have an intelligent conversation with anyone. Speaking of intelligent, I talked to Chris Miller again last night. We kind of cleared up our differences, which I wish we would’ve done a long time ago.
It gives me physical discomfort to cross over to my evil side. I shudder. I’m not really sure what to think about that. I’m so tired. I was doing the stay up until four a.m., wake up at two p.m. thing but now I have to get up at five thirty and it sucks. We blocked a scene last night. I felt so incompetent. I just couldn’t get into character. Oh well, I always tried to tell them I couldn’t act. I’m a musician. I’m going to the community center today to bring treats for the kids.
Conservation of the Soul
Socrates says that those that die are reborn into the living again and that learning is simply a recollection of your past-life knowledge. I believe that our souls exist but did not previously exist. It doesn’t make sense when you add up the numbers of the rapidly expanding human population. I believe that souls are created by a higher being, and when the body dies they dwell in another realm of existence. When Socrates speaks of the soul within the spiritual world, he speaks of it as “dwelling” in a place and then moving on. He says that when we are thinking, we’re only actually remembering what we already knew.
I think we’re put on Earth to learn and explore- to gain knowledge to use in the spiritual world. What a mystery this life is. I’m never sure what to think of it. I figure that I can give a meaning to my life if I think about it enough. It is too depressing to think about the gaping black void where meaning should be. I haven’t prayed in weeks; I mean I haven’t really talked to God. I feel so distant. I just feel so very melancholy and listless.
Acting and Eternity
I’ve had fifteen minutes of sleep. Me, Andrew, Michelle, Anna, Josiah, and Blue St. Claire all went to the Drunken Ape to sing karaoke last night. We had so much fun! Actors will do anything for a laugh. We got home somewhere between midnight and one, then talked for four hours. Ugh; I’m talking about sharing my feelings. We discussed religion, climbing towards success, backslides, and our pasts. Why do we always look to the past instead of the future?
Eternity grieves me. Not really- I just couldn’t think of anything else to write after “eternity.” I suppose I didn’t have to write anything. I like to think about things- to just sit and be with my thoughts. I think I’m supposed to be doing something. I like having my mouth open. It helps me breathe. “I’m not sick, but I’m not well.” (That’s from Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger.) You don’t know me. Ooh, a tennis ball! Don’t you find it odd that there are one-word sentences? For instance: “Yes.” I need a massage. “I want to pierce my tongue; it doesn’t hurt, it feels fine.” I hate the paint on the wall the paint that peels.
After Thought
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you; I did it again. I did it to my right hip because it looked so beautiful. Then I did it so much that it looks like a maze of scars now. They look nice on my stomach. No one will ever see them there. I must be careful not to over-do it and ruin everything. But it makes me wonder: what comes after this? I mean, really, then what am I going to do? I hardly feel it anymore, so it will have to be even more extreme. I take great care in making them perfectly, beautifully asymmetrical (but balanced). And always, only, on my right side.
Letter to Chris Miller
What are you? No, that didn’t come out like I wanted it to. Actually, now that I look at it, it’s exactly what I wanted to say. Why do you do what you do? You say you want me to trust you when every single person I know has warned me about you. You have warned me about you. I can’t take a shower without feeling your hands in the water. I can’t think without my mind churning out all sorts of compromising fantasies. I can’t think about anyone else. I know I should not flatter myself by assuming you would like me.
A Gallery of Wishes
I can’t remember how it felt against my face. I want to be able to recall every second of that hour as vividly as if I were feeling it for the first time. I can’t remember the water against my skin, or the lyrics to the song I choked out through the streams of cold liquid, or the sound it made when I slapped myself back into reality. I can’t remember how I shivered when I realized that it really did cut me.
I want to live life. I want to know sorrow. I want to be acquainted with grief. Anything but this hollow vacuum. I almost wish that my evil half would join me right now, just so I could remember what it was like. But it’s just me: cold and heartbroken on the floor. I’m bleeding and beaten at my own game. And not caring. Or feeling. I want to breathe in the rain. I want to smell of the wind. I want to see light and color, and taste my food. I want to listen to the song of the world- of the Earth and all that is Hers. I want to sing and play with it. I want to know the thoughts of God. I want to love. I want to live. Ho voglia di vivere.
But most of all, I want to feel the touch of his skin. I want to be kissed so that I know that I’m not simply suspended in the air with my imagination. I want to be slapped and to feel the sting. I want to gasp when I burn my hand on the stove and wince when I cut myself. I don’t remember life with touch. No one ever touches me. I don’t let them. What have I done to myself?
Last night, in the darkness, I wished as hard as I could that I would die. I believed with my whole heart that I could will myself to death. I prayed with every fiber of my being for God to show mercy on me and end my life. If you can lower your pulse just by thinking about it why not stop it altogether? It was so black and so silent that I listened to my body very closely for the sound. What a pity. Still ticking away.
Think Wind
I can smell the rain. Everything speaks to you if you listen hard enough. If you suck up phlegm into your mouth and chew Winterfresh gum at the same time, it tastes like dishwashing detergent smells. The rain talks to me. It whispers to me images of the past that is familiar but not mine, and hints to a future that happened long before this age. It cradles me in its voice using the winds as arms. I am part of the wind. If you listen hard enough, you hear no words, nor music, nor anything that is definitive. You hear only faint voices speaking vaguely of images, painting pictures of feelings. It produces conglomerate emotions dredged from the depths of your soul, with no regard to whether or not they are true; will ever be true; or are simply ancient fantasies you’re trying to forget.
I hate that there are random dark bricks.
Now I hide from it, sheltering myself within walls of what we might call “intellectual cowardice.” I have to keep away from this ancient cousin of reality I haven’t been confronted with in millennia. Reality is no fun. It cannot grasp me from here. It seeps through the crack between the door and the filthy tile, and steals into my lungs- victorious, but powerless.
Letter to Chris Miller
Now that you know, I feel so vulnerable and naked. I’ve never felt comfortable with anyone. I don’t know you very well. I can’t figure you out. Are you real? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, with a face and no heart? It’s enough to drive a mad man sane. You make up your own rules to your sick little games, leaving me helpless. What irritates me the most is that you’ve got me right where you want me. However, I do have to commend you for holding my attention. A razor. How appropriate.
Dream
I had a dream that I was sick and in the hospital. I had some sort of disease where I knew exactly when I was going to die. I remember being in the hospital and telling Hannah, “I’m dying today. You understand that, don’t you? That by six o’clock I’ll be dead?” She didn’t say anything. She just stood there and I was so upset. Before I died I got really scared. I had doubts about God, Heaven, but most of all I was afraid my soul would disappear into nothing. I got three other people to pray with me, and then I died.
I stayed on Earth. I’d left Chris Miller a note saying “Meet me at [such and such restaurant] at nine.” So, apparently, I knew I would not be going to Heaven. I just kind of hung back and wandered around the earth. I was shocked. No mourners wailed; there was no funeral; it was like I had never lived at all. It was the most horrible feeling I have ever experienced. And the most wonderful feeling I have ever experienced. I mean, like I had never existed.
Apology
I’m sorry I can’t be what you need me to be. My hands are empty. My arms are tired. My knees are shaking and my back is weak. My feet are weary. My tears, spent. And my heart is empty. I give you whatever is left. Do with me as I have done with you. I just wish I was enough to make it all worthwhile; to find some meaning.
Letter to God
Who am I that I think I can even wear Your symbol? I fail You. This thing is snatching me away from you. I haven’t prayed in almost a month. Look at what I’ve become! I deserve to rot in Hell. You would be doing Your Kingdom a disservice by allowing me in. I’ve gotten so low that I can’t get high.
I told Chris. He didn’t care. I find that odd, but am eternally grateful for his lack of reaction. Maybe we’re both screwed up because he didn’t see anything wrong with it. I’ve kept Johnny in the dark. I don’t want to get him dirty. I wish I could give my long life to him so he could use it; he deserves what I despise. I wrote him a six page letter but Dad accidentally threw it away.
God, all I can ask of You is to keep me from screwing up someone else’s salvation. My own is irrelevant. I couldn’t mean less. Look at me- I’m nothing. Just as long as I don’t hurt anyone, I’ll survive, I think. I’ll be fine in a while. Well, maybe not fine. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t think anything does anymore.
Thinker’s Cube
There is a thought. Right there. Behind my tongue, avoiding my lips, and dodging that which ushers it to consciousness. I just cannot grasp it. Oh, it is so frustrating! It’s like people are whispering too softly for me to hear. I can hear voices but can’t understand the words. It hurts! It’s like writer’s block, only worse. How am I supposed to write if I can’t even think? It’s like a fish that I’m trying to catch with my bare hands; no matter what I do, it wriggles out of my grasp and back into the dense muck of my mind. Back in the mud. Sometimes I run over there and try to pull it out, but it’s stuck so far deep down in the mire that I don’t stand a chance. Why can’t I think? I must have something I’m trying to keep from acknowledging and it’s blocking everything else until it gets through. I suppose I will have to let my mind wander so it will find its way out.
1:56 p.m.
Four minutes. Four of the longest minutes of my entire life. Why won’t this stupid clock move faster? I don’t believe in time, and resent that I have to obey the representation of it. I wrote Johnny two letters and I hope Dad didn’t throw them away. I’m glad we’re still friends. We complain to each other about our love lives and I hope he’s not as jealous as I am. I have to settle for less. For him, any woman is a step up. We no longer write about our feelings for each other.
Chris pisses me off. He won’t call me. Here he is saying things like, “I’m jealous of your walls because they get to see you. I’m jealous of your sheets because they get to touch you,” and then we don’t speak for a week. Why do I even put up with this crap? Well… I like beautiful things. Can’t keep my hands off them and I can’t stay away from them. All beautiful people are screw-ups.
Speaking of beautiful screw-ups: Ryker called me last night. He told me he loved me because I’ve always been there for him and I wanted to know him as he really was. He said that what I want to do is my choice. I’m not really sure what is going on. If I do decide anything at all, I don’t want my parents to know. He’s a bad boy- shame shame. No games, no walls, no crap- just him and me? Sounds like a disaster.
The Debate
I want to live the night life. I want to party, do drugs, play the Masquerade- anything to put definition between the days. I yearn for my old life in all of its raw anguish and ecstasy. My outward life differs too much from the life I lead in my head. It’s been almost a year since it originally happened.
The last time I did it, I held it there for so long that the welt is grotesque and distended. This is what I was talking about when I said I can’t let myself get carried away. I want to live my life. I am one acquainted with the night. It suits me. I borrow the hallowed darkness to suit my own purposes, slipping in and out of the shadows from the moon.
Silent and unseen, a black image on a black background, I claim a counterfeit cloak of protection. A fraudulent silver grin, shimmering in the moonlight gives me away. I am a piece of Heaven in Hell. Where did that part of me disappear? I vaguely recall it being difficult for me, but only because of faults on my behalf. I’ve learned from my mistakes. It’s the point of no return. Whatever I decide now will change my life. Well, in the same way that every other decision I make changes my life.
To Be Continued
I feel a distinct taste of… ‘inconclusive.’ As if everything just stopped but never quite ended. I’m not sure how to take that. If it’s been so hastily cancelled, should I even attempt to prod it back into momentum and force it to conclude itself? Should I let it alone and take it as it comes? He does this on purpose, I’m sure. How odd. What an odd character. That’s all he really is: a character. I know he’s never been who or what he claims to be. Similarly, neither have I. It was a relief when I told him about my addiction and he didn’t care. That’s what I need: a minimal response. But since that night, he has faded away from me and I am not dumb. I will call him just to be clear about this. I need black or white and nothing in between, but this is smack in the middle of grey.
A Comment on a Previous Commentary
I make too many assumptions.
Hear Me, Now
It’s times like these that I’m glad to be a woman. I love having the body of a woman: the hips and breasts, strong shoulders, a thin back, waist-length red hair, smoldering hazel eyes, pouty lips, firm legs, and a lethal smile. Being a woman is so sexy, in itself. I believe women are more beautiful than men and don’t mind admitting that I’m attracted to them. Our bodies are soft and tender. We are made to be looked at and fucked. Oops! I wrote the f-word!
We are powerful. “Beauty is a powerful thing just like a loaded gun is a powerful thing.” I read that in a Chuck Palahniuk book but I don’t remember which one. We hide sharp minds within ‘helpless’ loveliness. A woman’s body: the original aphrodisiac. It’s such a shame that society has taught us to hate our bodies and our softness. The world would be a better place if women appreciated breasts and hips as much as men do. Sometimes I wish men had their own so they would leave ours alone, but then I wouldn’t get free bagels at Panera.
Last Meditation
Do you ever feel just not completely there? I sit here and look around, and I don’t belong in a church. I am not like these people. I am not a part of this. I give a comment and I am ignored. That used to make me angry. I can just stare at the wall. I like the wall; it is just as out of place as I am, a half-sleeping fixture. Not only here at youth or church in general, but in all of life. I am so distant and so unwelcome. I’m burnt to a crisp and craving more. I’ve got to finish it.
My good half is dying. I feel her dying. I sense it. The right only grows stronger, and I fear that soon she might take over. Two twins forever warring. Evil, Evil, Evil is gonna win she taunts me. Do you hear that? It looks like melted skin is what it looks like. Eternity is a long, long time. I don’t know how to stop. I suppose I could try again, but when I do the temptation just gets worse and worse until I can’t take it anymore and I have to. If I treat it like a habit and just do it, it’s less extreme. My new burn is hideous. The result of pushing boundaries. My depression does not come from events. You could never understand. Less vulgar.