Buried In Words
They Said...
1. "You did well" and I felt light and weighted all at once. Reward for catching a big fish but only bringing in a small haul. As an owlet's first branching, I was the disappointed coos that begged for one more try
He Said...
2. "Go kill yourself" and I felt the sensors around me turn off. A machine ran constantly, but without purpose. It ran angrily, defiantly, but the workers had all left the factory. It snowed all night.
3. "I want to help you" and I felt numb as the blood that has been cut of circulation. It did not matter how bright you shone behind me. I still felt shunned in your shadow, too close to reach
She Said...
4. "I'm worried" and I felt rocks being thrown at this wall I'd built. She tugged at my vines, trying to climb and enter a forbidden land. I felt trapped as rats, but Cinderella was coming to save me
5. "I am you. Live" and I felt sparks erupt from my chest into the thousand fireworks she lit. She turned a key and my spirit was unlocked, and all my pangs of hopes came pouring out
6. "My name is Vivian" and I felt water filling up inside. Her breath flowed in my lungs, blood filled my veins, course as I felt our hearts beat steadily. I saw our spirits intertwine, twins lost in an attic of a land that did not exist
Though I tend to venture and dwell on the past, I take it as a reflection, albeit the unhealthy mindset. But it's okay because I'm still alive. I can say that, and I'm glad. I have been considering conclusions; how do I write one? What sounds proper? Conclusions only lead me to more questions.
Phone Call - Ring
I sit alone, it's quiet
I'm not expecting anything
And then it rings
The sound is shattering in this silence
The phone calls me to it
But what for?
Do I have to answer it?
But I want to know who it is
I'm faced with a choice
You wait on the other end
Patiently, maybe not
But you have no choice
Maybe you'll hang up
But you don't, and it makes me curious
Why are you calling?
What could I possibly offer you?
Conversation seems impossible, for both you and me
But I sigh and go to answer anyway
I still don't know who "you" are
"Hi," you say; conversation can begin
Phone Call - Answer
How do you answer a phone?
Seems so simple, right?​
But it says so much about you
Are you pleasant, irritable?​
Should you snap at me... I won't think about it​
But answering the phone, though simple​
Says so much about you​
It's just talking to any other person​
Just without their body in front of you​
So if you snap, I am to assume you got bad sleep​
Or you're angry at someone else; or me​
I won't stop to wonder if you've had a really bad day​
If you answer the phone cheerily​
I can't help you if you're really sad​
Be truthful when you answer the phone​
It says a lot about you​
And maybe I can be honest with you​
After all, what will happen when you say that hello?​
How will I answer?​
It says a lot about me, too
The thing that keeps me up late at night is not sleeping and wondering why such sleep does not come to me easily. Though I assume it's because I'm facing the crushing weight of knowing I will someday die, and it this point of life, I still have a lot I want to do. Therefore, I lie awake and use up time because I want to accomplish even menial things, for when I sleep I lose that time. It's like an existential crisis where I have to consider that I will not experience anything until much later in life where I might have money, but no capacity to travel or drink in my surroundings.
Even if I don't like it, I need to take my happiness into serious consideration. What's the point of inferiority? Why do I get out of bed? Why do I get so stressed out? What is my happiness? These are all question I must answer but I do not have an answer to. Or at least, a respectable answer. It's not an answer I can be proud of all the time, and even if I'm honest, everything could be superficial. I said that my best friend and I are unalike, but he disagreed, saying our personalities are 1 letter apart from the Briggs Test. I denied it, despite no agreeing with that verdict, seeing as I do overthink and no matter what positive attitude I try to promote, I'm secretly just as negative. It's shameful, and incredibly deprecating to my self-esteem. But I have no idea how to actually fix it. I like to thing that I think positively, but what I write are my thoughts, and they tend to be very negative. As he said, "Self-reflection is a bitch sometimes."
Do not think you can reconcile with me everything I have lost, with everything you have gained. My family was slaughtered in their roots by your selfish people. But you were not alive then. How could I blame you? Then again, how could you hope to befriend us when I grew up in that cruel nature?
Jealousy... I don't even know what to make of it. I don't know how to express it. It doesn't make me upset with anyone but myself; just makes my own inferiority noticeable. "I wish I had her talent," "I wish I had his personality." "Her beauty and his popularity is something I could never have." "I wish I could experience their love." Regret also lies with jealousy, since I may miss chances or lack the money to do things others are priviledged to. People call jealousy a green eyed monster, but I find envy to be a black pit that sits in your stomach and churns, only to fester at dangerous times - when you are alone in your thoughts and are allowed to think negatively about yourself.
"And have the courage to exist"
What if we're all just figments of someone's imagination
What if someone's pulling all the strings of our lives
What if in 2012 the world DID end and we're all just living as wandering souls as if nothing ever happened
What if
No one
Is real
Printed Figures
Vibrant colors dazzle my eyes, waving as the wind breathes gently. I hear the trickle of water landing softly into the rippling pond below. The sun shines brilliantly and white-hot rays beat down on us as we venture off the deck. Swings on a playset hang still, only a childhood memory. Chipped old wood gazes up to the sun, absorbing the rays. I plop myself onto the pulpy grass. It is surprisingly cool on my hands.
“What are you doing?” he asks. His hair catches the sun and turns a blinding gold.
“I don’t know, but join me.” A brief breeze scatters my hair in front of my face.
Sprawling on the grass, I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with heavy air of sweet scents of nectar and pollen. I close my eyes, blinded by bright blue cloth above. I hear a soft shuffle beside me and the grass settles in silence. A ticklish sensation suddenly crawls up my left wrist. The corners of my lips twitch and the air turns sharp and bitter in my mouth. I can already hear the cogs clicking in his brain, slowly analyzing the feeling of this specific hand and wrist. I fidget, anxious and impatient. His fingers halt at the shape of three ‘x’s. Sunlight tries to break through my closed lids and my muscles tighten. I know what he’s doing. I don’t like it, but I do not stop him; for us, it’s necessary formality. I exhale deeply as my hand is gently turned over and his soft touch meets the back where more rough marks are examined.
Our conflicting faces are exposed to the unmoving sky. “These marks are fresh,” he says plainly. His hand squeezes mine but I do not return the gesture.
I know all the lines in his fingers by now, and the familiarity soothes me as I trace them. I note that his skin is smooth and has none of the roughness that mine naturally does.
“I wonder if we’ll have stains after,” I comment, feeling the moist grass against my back.
He accepts my change of topic with a heavy, resigned sigh. Though separated as we are, with nothing to say, our cautious comfort still lingers and I cannot tell if the heat rushing through me is from embarrassment or the sun. Above, wisps of cotton float lazily by and we lie together in this small world we’ve claimed. It feels like hours until I open my eyes again. I carefully stand, and he senses the movement and follows sluggishly.
“Hey, look at the grass,” I say, grinning. There are imprints of our frames, and though we had been separated, I notice a flattened path where our hands had touched and smile inwardly. “Instead of the grass staining us, we--”
He cuts me off. “They’ll fade away, though.” In profile to me, his expression is openly troubled and lonely. “...one day,” he whispers.
I drop my gaze, suddenly irritated. “Does it matter?”
He hastily apologizes and smiles, the sun illuminating his face, scaring away the shadows.
We turn to leave that delirium to cool our heads and enter reality again, leaving behind our shadows. Printed forms will not last, of course, but I am satisfied to know that even if they fade, they still existed. Stepping back onto the deck, I glance back. The burning star is still high above as we stand like strangers, our familiarity of each other making it hard to connect.
Things Fiction Taught Before the Real World Could
1. There are such things as dwarfs, though they do not look like Dobby
2. Magic is real as long as you can believe in it
3. Abusive households do exist and can continue for a lifetime
4. Truth is a reflection of yourself. It is also God, and He reflects the world
5. Animals do have feelings, can understand intention and are more afraid of us than we are of them
6. Karma is a bitch
7. Symmetry is everything, meaning there will never be peace in the world
8. Exchange comes at a high price. You must be willing to give something up of equal value
9. If you can dream it, it may exist
10. Failure is absolutely unavoidable
11. There are some things we cannot truly comprehend until a certain age. I saw things I wasn't prepared for when surfing YouTube late at night
12. As a very smart, functionally disabled, fictional man from Ken Kesey's cuckoo nest said: "I'm tired! I'm SO TIRED!"
And damned if I don't feel that way, too. And shit, if that ain't a truth we can't accept, then what is truth?
13. Society is a conforming machine
14. "Guardian angels" whether you believe in them or not, exist. They've saved my ass too many times for you to call it 'luck' I've never broken a bone or been stung by a bee
15. There are actual creatures that suck your blood!
16. Friendships don't last if you don't make an effort
17. Facing rejection in any medium can feel like the end of the world, but you will get through it
18. Taking your own life is a thing that happens. It's called suicide, but despite the name, it's not a crime
19. Dying from exertion is a reality and happens casually in the world
20. The names and looks of way too many dinosaurs to count
21. Strawberry cake is delicious and can be treasured by even the hardiest
22. There are many types of drunk, all of which can be dangerous
23. There are some things too terrifying to put a name to
24. Monsters are real - they're in our hearts and manifest when we're alone
25. Though some people might not seem 'real,' they are real for the people who can see them​
26. Loss does not always happen with a frown or tears. People can die with smiles on their faces​
27. Love can definitely be as ugly as hate, but they can exist as one​
28. Music can look beautiful, paint life, and move souls
Smile for Inferiority
The day I heard them laughing and playing the piano so wonderfully
I'd reached a limit and a conclusion:
I was definitely inferior.
My ears bled with beauty.
My skin burned with shame.
Where everyone could play a symphony, but I
could not make the same sounds with my hands.
Where I was so under-skilled that as I heard footsteps, I stopped,
for fear that I was not good enough.
But who was I kidding? I needed that validation.
My dad says I'm changing,
I'm not changing, I'm shaking!
shaking to my core with this inferiority complex!
They call it a complex but the only complex thing I feel
is the suffocation of collective fingers on my throat,
telling me to "get over it! Tell me about what you're feeling."
And then, "other people have it worse than you."
"Stop whining. Be grateful."
So what the hell do you want me to do?
I am an inferior child,
plastering on a sardonicus smile
that has been machéed too wide to even be called a cheshire.
When the cameraman tells me to smile, I can only think of
holding my mouth closed to not expose little-less than
white teeth. To make sure
my left eye is not looking somewhere else,
because I've left that thought for my left brain,
left in the back of my mind so I can be right here, looking
right!
Yeah… "looking right?"
That never works, because the face I see is always blurred,
no matter how many times
you release the shutter.
There are so many people around, but no one will come say hello.
I'm sorry I'm not good enough for that.
"I'm sorry for complaining."
I'm sorry for being so carcinogenic.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so bloody sorry!"
I'm sorry I annoy people with all my apologizing
I am... tired, SO GOD DAMN TIRED!!
But I must put on this happy smile,
no matter what, yeah? It's how we like living.
How we dictate living.
And- ah shit! I've forgotten where I am.
I am so damn forgetful. I mean,
Mom says I'd forget I was forgetful if my head wasn't screwed on,
or maybe it's if my soul wasn't forced to stay inside
this stupid body, this cage of a dumb heart-
MOM!
I don't know how to function! But "it's not your fault…"
How many times do I have to tell you?
I talk loud, but I was quite quiet, then.
Taking silence for granted, I wrote instead of saying what I wanted,
keeping the words trapped in a note,
I was too considerate.
There's another failure.
On the scale of confident to inferior, I am somewhere floating,
heart in the sky and head in the clouds: crying,
wandering alone with all the friends I could want and still feel rejected
because I hate to disappoint.
When I say I will get something done, I will get it done
Mom still regrets not seeing it sooner but I wish she'd stop saying that!
I wasn't even concerned, feeling
a numbness that could not be fixed with 'x' stained tissues
on the scarred tissue of my wrist.
'X' marks the spot and as ink mixed with scars, both seeped into my skin.
My friend, "I am so sorry" for making you suffer
when I could not get it together and selfishly let you know.
But I'm still smiling,
cracking this twisted grin.
Did you know?
I got lost at "home" when I left from the middle of nowhere.
I could finally breathe, staring at the ceiling, as I lay on the floor,
asking it to give me advice on how it survived
being walked on day in and day out or even the room it occupied,
being forgotten about and disregarded for weeks at a time.
Dear Floor, I wish I were you,
for I could finally escape this feeling of constriction
that I've called inferiority too many times.
​
He asked me: "Do you know more now than you did last year?"
Of course! I said "yes."
He said: "See? You smiled. So when you feel inferior
ask yourself the same question in front of the mirror,
and you will find yourself smiling again."​
I forgot to ask that question for a long time, but I never forgot those words.
I make sure to amile every day,
because I am not inferior.
You see my actions as kindness, but isn't that in the eyes of the beholder? I just want something in return, because I can't admit to myself that I hate eating alone. And you hate being alone, so we're not so different. But sometimes being with you is draining, like you've collapsed and are unresponsive to me. But if I'm asleep, you'll carelessly say words that should be said to my face. Or at least, that's what I've heard from my friend that distracted your focus to keep quiet. You've let things slip once or twice. I've seen parts to your personality no one else has, or maybe you've been lying to me about everything, and all I really know is how you are with other people. For I am clearly just an onlooker.
To The Ones I Love, And Shall Love
I know it's you. I'm pretty sharp with details, you might have heard. The way you walk, how you move your hair from your face; your voice, the shape of your silhouette, even the way you hold yourself depending on who you speak to. I notice all of it. Even if I say nothing, it is how I love you and will love others to come, platonically or otherwise. I take great care in knowing how I love you, especially in small moments of looking across the room. I am a romantic and someone who expresses more beautifully in writing, but my love is in smiles and glances, in the laughter that travels in a room, and in the quiet moments we might share next to each other. Perhaps I have met you, and maybe I've yet to meet you, but I will love you in all the little details I can think of.