Shadow

My head's empty.
For a silent second, I stop breathing and close my eyes, in the dark of my bedroom, things are fine.
I forget my regrets, my fears, my worries. There's nothing in my head, things are absolutely still.

Darkness washes over my eyelids in a soothing motion: up, and down. Up, and down.
After four seconds (and counting), I open my eyes and breathe in, letting my lungs fill up with stuffy bedroom air that tastes like gingerbread oils and axe.
It's calm, until my brain kick-starts back into motion.
Then I remember all that's ever happened in the darkness. There's the anxiety, and the air gets too thick to fit in my lungs. My head starts feeling really heavy, really dense.
I cough.
Around me, the walls grow shadows and start moving in; closer, closer, 'til I'm surrounded.
The white faces touch my cheek, writing rubbing off and seeping into my head.
"And she was so quiet her head POPPED" the words say.
I immediately regret writing that.
POPPED, POPPED, POPPED, POPPED...

My head's too fuzzy to understand. The words start screaming. Shouting and bursting into fits of laughter in the pauses they take to breathe.
I can't stand it.
"ENOUGH!" I try to shout, but it comes out as a whimper and I almost want to cry.
This shouldn't happen. I should be asleep. I should be sleeping, and dreaming, and things should be fine.

"She was so QUIET," they shout. "So QUIET, her head POPPED!"
I squeeze my eyes shut tight and hum to myself. But the melody gets twisted and soon I've lost it.

"IT WASN'T MY FUCKING FAULT," I shout. "I was DRUNK!"
There's silence for a frightening second, and then the room bursts with it's dark voices, sickeningly angry.
"And the other time?"
I reach along my headboard for my light, trying to find the switch.
"AND THE OTHER TIME?"
My hand is slapped back with the lick of a knife.
"Th- that wasn't my fault..." My voice wavers.
"Wasn't it?"

The door bursts open to my cat standing there, meowing loudly.
I look at him, squinting from the light of the hallway.
"Shadow," I say. "Thank-you."
He meows and jumps up onto the end of my bed, just touching my feet. Once he's found the most comfortable spot, he lays down and starts purring, to ward off any negative activity.
He sleeps, and I close my eyes, once again ready to face the night.

"My Shadow," I say. "He's always here to protect me. Everywhere I go. My little warrior."
There's silence in the room.
Silent safety.

It's perfect.

When reality shifts

The world shifted up today. I couldn't tell; maybe I shifted down.
I was sitting in the subway station on a red bench, and everything was very dim. The lights flickerflickered and the room moved up a bit, leaving me farther in the dirt than I ever was before.

I just blinked and tried to readjust.

And again and again and again.

My world rattles, shaking under the pressure of--

The walls crackcrumble, falling in on themselves.
I hold my breath.
Close my eyes.
Go Somewhere Else.

--everything.

Mundane

What's on my mind right now:

The light shining in my eyes when I'm walking along the beach. At first, there's just seagull sounds and my feet padding through the sand. But I'm interrupted when I look up to see where I'm going by a distraught-looking girl sitting on the lifeguard's post.

She's smoking, but she can't be much older than I am. 

14, 15, and she's smoking. Out in public. 

She looks angsty, upset. Off-hinged. I glare, because I can't really see her all that well. The sun's still blinding.

"Hi," I think about saying. Or maybe, "Can I bum a cigarette off you?"

Both sound stupid, especially since I've got a half-full pack in my bag, so instead I put headphones in my ears and move on, watching seagulls fight over a pizza crust as I walk.

I think about the dead seagull I saw about 7 minutes back. The circle of rocks around him. 

But there's nothing particularly productive to say.

Nothing particularly important. 

I saw a girl and a dead bird today.

I took a walk.

I listened to music.

Even the most profound accomplishments, the most interesting experiences, can be broken down into mundane, every-day things.

Diary Entry

The rain gets louder; it's screaming. (4:03 AM)

It's the same with people

You silly flashy lights, you.
Please stop. It's so distracting because it's mesmerizing.
I can't, can't, can't look away.

And that scares me, because I should have control to shut off my curiosity.

Poison

Sweet strawberries when we want to starve. 

Further down into the crypt, my friends.
Words need to be more coded now.

It hurts her, I'm scaring Her.
So silent safety and it won't hurt as much.

Bloody writing

In case you were wondering, yes.
That is my blood smeared across the page.

Alien

Alien. 

It felt wrong.

Every time.

Alien, Alien, Alienated. 

Faster, Harder. 

Hitting up against all the places she wanted to keep herself, he asked her, "For starters?

I'm going to..."

But the darkening silence in her head was much more inviting. 

And for that night only, she felt...hope?

When she realized because this was happening to her, it WAS NOT happening to someone else.

Hope, if only for the fact that all the things she was enduring would not be things someone else ever had to. 

Still, Alien, Alien left bruises in places no one else could see.

"Oh, please," she thought. "Not again. Not to me."

Smokers

Sit around and chain-smoke all day?
Yes, please.

Text me.

When no one's looking, I place my finger's to my temple in a gun-shape, and blast. 

Out go my brains, perhaps. 

When no one's looking, I move my hands up to my neck and squeeze tight. In my head, I argue, "I just want something solid to hold onto." 

Tonight, we'll write the words we want to say on paper,

and burn it. 

It's funny, because it's not a joke, but people still laugh.

It's funny, because all of it's not really a game.

Bang, bang, you're dead. 

Or is it me?

Over the hum of the motor, I whisper "Sometimes, I really want to kill myself."
No one else on the boat hears me. The motor is so loud, it drowns out everything else.
The world is just the hum of the motor, ticked back and forth, ringing in my ears.

Usually, I hum along to whatever song is stuck in my head.
Whatever song I know I can get away with singing while no one is looking.
Usually, but not now.
I have a promise to keep.

I won't leave.
It's a promise I intend to keep, anyway. Temptation can fuck itself.
I'll be here.
I will. 

This is the poem that you couldn't read. With the face I sent you in that picture from my notebook?

Remember the days of wooden
swords, and faeries and
dragons and gremlins and
more? Remember the days of
treasure maps, and pirates
and ships and castles and
cats who stole all the Lady's
best feather hats?
Those are the days that are
long since gone, those are
the days that are lost. Play
pretend because lie through
your teeth, and treasure became
the cost.

One word.

Maybe. 

Corners

Can you, yourself, say you're happy enough as you are?

If you answered no, well it doesn't actually matter anyway.
Most people probably did.

And anyway, the only sure-fire way to be happy is to be safe, isn't to be that at all.
I don't know, it doesn't really matter.
Just...hide in those corners and keep your back against the wall.
Keep safe, keep silent, okay?
Keep quiet, and you're good.

I speak, but the words echo back in my head sounding automatic and empty.

I can't even bring myself to say it

I keep having dreams, see, or maybe nightmares, and they're haunting just as bad as reality.

I could hold my head and cry, screaming, biting my cheeks, squeezing my eyes shut tight,

but I won't.
It's revolting, really. Thinking about it.

My skin itches, my head aches, noisy little chatter won't stop, see, and it's really not fun.
So I scratch the itch, but that doesn't help. Deeper. I need to put pressure on it, right?
Put some pressure on, let some pressure out.

I could cry, and hold my head, screaming, biting the inside of my cheeks, squeezing my eyes shut tight.
But I won't, because I'll just stop thinking and it might go away.

Dc.3

It would figure, wouldn't it, that the people I care about leave me eventually.

Why don't you just kill me off, then?
Tear the skin off my bones and let the blood fall out.
I wasn't going to feel anything anymore, and then there you were. And you saved me, pulled me back, and made me smile. You promised me forever, but I didn't get very long, did I?

You are Fleeting.

Oh, you sad soul, you.
Haven't you heard?

It's the fearless man who jumps.

Explorer

Be cautious, there could be snakes.
And that's good life advice, right there, if you learn to look past the words. But not past them, rather, into them.

But don't

Yeah, whatever.
Go drown yourself.

I could walk away from it all, but not really walk away from it all.
I could be just another wanderer,
and on my own, I could be happy.

Could I be happy?

I wonder

When life gives you lemons, will you be happy enough to stop writing about them?

Absolutely everything

I wonder where your house went. Your homely dark cavern where we spent years hiding out.
I wonder where our lunches went. Noodles and Soldiers, all stocked up and ready for us.
I wonder where our favourite music went, where our favourite places went.
I wonder, you know, because they're gone.

I live in the same house, with the same schools up the street, and the same beach down the street.
I live in the same city, the same country, with the same people and places as always.
The same stores line the bottom of my street, the same buildings line the top of my street.

And yet, everything I ever had is gone.

Everything's the same, but it's so the same, that it's all completely different.
Funny how only one thing has changed.
I'm just not happy anymore, and everything is a reminder why.

Not at all

I'm not happy with this.

Forgive and Forget

I'm not forgiving anyone for anything and I'm not forgetting anyone for anything.

It doesn't matter.
We're all alone.
I love the world,
but it's down to bone.
It doesn't matter.
We're all alone.
It doesn't
matter
doesn't
matter
doesn't
matter
anymore.