And the poet says I’m
regressing
I feel him coming out
He says he’s tired
always tired
And I listen
And I obey
The poet’s skin is crawling
and he whispers
stay here
He whispers
sleep now
And the rain comes down
and it scares you
They walk past the window
and I
I can’t be like them
Because I’m the poet
and I’m the ghost
and I’m staying
right
here
The skin crawls
and it’s ugly
and it’s crawling
into bed.
I keep dreaming that my teeth are coming out, which is actually really common.
I’ll be in the dream, doing whatever, and then suddenly I’ll feel that they’re all loose. I find a mirror and start ripping the loose ones out, and I can feel the warm blood in my mouth, and the familiar sharp feeling on your gums as the roots crack when you twist the tooth around in a circle until it snaps off.
The entire time I do this, I’m bleeding and crying, because I’m 20 and I shouldn’t be losing teeth.
The weird thing is that, when I find the mirror in the dream, I see that some teeth are already missing - the ones I’ve lost in other dreams. I’ve been noticing that my brain has been doing that a lot lately: making old dreams carry over into the new ones.
It’s starting to feel less like “dreaming” and more like, “going to that other world for the other half of the day and picking up where I left off.”
I miss losing teeth. It was such a strangely enjoyable part of childhood.
I am overwhelmed.
The world is so vast. So many things are happening all at once.
And I am left with an infinite number of choices.
And an endless stream of thoughts and memories.
I greet each day with a racing heart and a desperate desire to know: what should I do?
But, who am I asking?
There’s no God, no guiding father that will answer.
There’s only myself.
And I am so brainwashed, so lost, so misguided, that I am at a loss for words.
So the only thing that I can do… is what I am told.
Erections are like fleshy rods of hot blood
And wow here comes the vomit
I have this disease
where I get completely lost
inside my head
and then
when I get out
it’s five in the morning.
So there’s a lot of conflict between “men’s rights” advocates and “women’s rights” advocates, but honestly, I am starting to feel that I am simply, what I am going to call, a “sex rights” advocate.
Basically, I think everyone, male or female or WHATEVER, has the right to refuse a sexual advance of any kind. An unwanted sexual advance - of any kind - is (obviously) inherently bad.
People also have the right to be whatever gender they please, and love and have sex with any truly consenting, happy individual that they please! Because there is LITERALLY NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT, and it’s hurting no one.
The problem is that people don’t fucking respect each other.
I mean, like, you can’t look at a case of an individual man raping a woman and then say: “All men are rapists!” You can’t look at an individual case of a woman molesting a boy and say: “All women are man-hating cunts.” You can’t look at a case of a man raping another man and say: “All men are victims, too!”
No. These generalizations need to stop. Your gender is not going to protect you from rape or molestation, nor will it stop anyone from becoming a rapist or molester.
The room is dark blue. There’s not much furniture.
I’m fiddling with my suitcase. I have an important document inside. It is a piece of loose leaf covered in words written in red pen. I see numbers, on it - the number nine is written very large. I slide my hand into the suitcase and I feel the smooth, coolness of the lining. I am checking to make sure the paper is there.
Rugrats is on the television behind me. There’s a montage of Deedee Pickles at a beauty pageant. Her face starts to fall off, and it is revealed that she is actually Stu Pickles in drag.
This is why this show scared the shit out of me, I think.
Mom and dad appear. Do you have the paper? Yes - I have it. It is a ticket. A lotto ticket.
My blood work says that I had mono at some point in my life. Who knew? Mono’s not really that special: apparently almost all of us will get it by the time we’re thirty.
Mono’s caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, and once you have it, the virus never really leaves your system. Once you recover from the initial blow, it becomes dormant, and stays dormant in about 90% of us. However, the infection might be reactivated due to various stress factors - and that’s what my doctor said is happening to me.
Stress factors, you say? Like what? What could possibly cause stress?
Chronic stress (from sleep deprivation, rigorous physical and mental training, change of routine and diet, time away from family, and the pressures of public affairs) result in lowered immunity and the reactivation of EBV… exam stress (alone) results in lowered immune cell function and increased antibodies to EBV… many university students relapse during or after their exams.
Really? Well, it’s finals week! And I’m an insomniac studying chemistry and physics, who barely remembers to eat, has no routine to speak of, is living away from home and friends, and who is president of a dysfunctional student organization. Wow, the only thing that doesn’t apply to me is the “rigorous physical training.” Well at least there’s that one thing going for me, right? Wrong.
Lack of sunshine and inadequate exercise can contribute to weakened immunity and reactivated EBV.
Oops. The list just grows: in the past 5 days, I have had at least 10 cans of non-diet soda. Usually 2-3 cans a day. (Coke and ginger ale, specifically.) My Coca-Cola addiction is so obvious, that my new housemates got me a 12-pack of coke for a joke Christmas present. Let’s just keep that in mind, and read the following quote, especially the final statement:
Poor food choices, like excess sugar and processed foods, can weaken your immune defenses and cause a reactivation of EBV… Consuming a lot of sugar like that found in a can of soft drink, can slow down the activity of your white blood cells for a few hours. These immune cells are the ones responsible for killing and scavenging EBV from your body. The higher the amount of sugar ingested, the longer the white blood cells are slowed down for. If you are in the habit of drinking soft drinks or eating sugary foods throughout the day, then your immune system will never work at its optimal capacity.
Well, this is awkward. What amazes me is that I did not need these articles, or my blood work, to tell me any of this. I know that none of this is good for me. I know that I am sick. So why the fuck am I doing this to myself if I know that it is literally hurting me?
I guess that’s kind of a loaded question.
And it brings me to the mother of all my illnesses. The bottom line. Ground zero. The most poisonous infection of them all: DEPRESSION.
I can’t ignore it anymore. It’s not enough to vent about it on tumblr. It’s not enough to make jokes about it. It’s not enough to call up a friend once in a blue moon and say, “I’m really low right now.” It’s not enough. I can’t brush this off anymore. I can’t just say, “this is just how I am, I’ll deal with it later.” I can’t just say, “it’s reality’s fault.” I can’t just think, “it’s hopeless, you’re never going to get better anyway, there’s no use,” because that’s the disease talking.
I gotta talk this out with someone who knows what they’re doing. Who can actually provide useful feedback and give me a professional opinion. It’s just really hard to take that step, because there’s such a huge stigma on it. It’s hard to imagine the words, “my therapist,” coming out of my mouth. Because to a messed-up part of me, that just sounds weak. It feels weak to admit that I need help.
But I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t let myself beat myself up anymore. I need to get away from me! Cause I’m abusing me! And it fucking sucks.
I just gotta get through these next three tests. I gotta get through them, and then I’m back home, where I can focus on me (and work, and friends, and love, and life, but, we’ll pretend that it’s actually a real vacation).
Anyway, I think this is a great step for me. I think I’m on my way to getting better. Cause I gotta get better. Who will be supreme ruler of the universe if I don’t?
And in the face of disaster - in the wake of it - I realize that I am still a little girl, clutching a set of rosary beads above a white dresser in the corner of the room, the pink room with the roses on the walls - thinking so so loudly and desperately about God:
Why does God send people to hell? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to go to hell. Why would God ever take mommy away from me? Why would God take daddy away from me? I don’t want to go to sleep. What if I don’t wake up. I just want to be with mommy. I just want to be with daddy. I don’t want to die. I wish I was never born. I wish I was never born.
I wish I was never born.
In my fear of death, I wished for death. In my deep faith, I was truly faithless. I hated my God. I hated the God that was taught to me and I hated what I turned him into.
I wished for eternal youth. I wished for an end to time - I wanted to stay small enough so that my father could hold me. So that my mom and dad could tuck me in. So that I could cry without shame.
I hated my God because he was taking that all away from me. He gave me life only to give me death. Only death from that point on - death to youth, death to innocence, death to the people that I love.
And even death to the things I love, the places I love. Next to the rosary beads was a bar of soap wrapped in tin foil. It was saved by my mother because I had tried to eat it. I was too small to remember that. But I kept that little bar of soap because it was a part of me that I had already lost. A memory lost with its creation, like so many others.
When I lost my youth entirely, I killed my God. I grew breasts and bled from between my legs and I killed my God.
I took on more responsibilities, more work, more misery, and killed my God.
I am still the child by the dusty library shelf reading about dinosaurs and starfish.
I am still the girl closing her legs tightly and crying herself to sleep because she learned what sex was from a rape scene on the TV.
I am still the child with heavy tears in a rose covered blanket, praying to her God that she will actually wake up when it comes time to wake.
![So.When I was a kid, there was this huge field right next to my house that only had two big trees in it. There was one near my neighbor’s yard that someone attached a swing to. We’d run through the tall grass and play by the tree, and one day, my neighbor’s father built a ladder, just like this, into the tree, since we had the idea to start a tree house.[[MORE]]He got a few beams in, but it never got finished. I’d climb the ladder a lot anyway, just because the tree was impossible to climb, otherwise. I remember getting scared shitless up there, but it was so cool to see the whole field from up high.There was a huge slab of wood near the base of the tree that would’ve, ideally, become a floor to our little tree house. Instead the grass grew taller around it and a family of field mice made a home under there.I remember when I first got word that there was going to be houses built there. And I guess that my neighbor’s dad, heard, too, and never did bother to build that tree house. I remember when the first surveyors came and left little markers in the grass and on that tree. I would steal them and put them on my bedroom wall.And then the trucks and the machines came. And the nearby forest came down. And then the field got all dug up. And that tree came down, too.I remember intentionally getting off at the wrong bus stop with a bunch of friends so I could cut through the (former) field. Now I was 13 years old, and I remember listening to The Kinks on my CD walkman as I trudged through the snowy mud of the now-construction site, happily destroying my navy blue converse in the process.
That day, they were cutting dozens of trees down. And digging holes. And making everything ugly. I remember “Father Christmas” playing as I kicked the filthy snow and wished that I could stop what was happening around me.Years went by, and now there are ugly mansions there. Carbon copies of one another, too close together, parts assembled in a factory.I miss that tree. I miss all that space. I miss having somewhere to go when I was sad. Just to sit by a stream. To imagine a new world for myself everyday with my friends. To pluck plants from the ground and to lay in the tall grass. To go on adventures that would last from morning to dusk. I felt freedom, then. I felt carelessness. I felt peace, and I felt whole.Watching that place get demolished did something to me. I sit here now as an environmental science major who (apparently) aligns with the Green Party, overwhelmed with emotion from this silly photo.I sit here now, missing a time before I saw two towers come down, before that tree came down, before my world turned upside-down, before my naive innocence fled from me - a time when I believed that the world was entirely beautiful.I hope that it will be again.I am very emotional today.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx8wffdTNF1qfh2sbo1_400.jpg)
So.
When I was a kid, there was this huge field right next to my house that only had two big trees in it. There was one near my neighbor’s yard that someone attached a swing to. We’d run through the tall grass and play by the tree, and one day, my neighbor’s father built a ladder, just like this, into the tree, since we had the idea to start a tree house.
I don’t know what I am. All I know is that when I wake up in the morning, I don’t want to be awake. When I am eating, I don’t want to be eating. When I am sleeping, I don’t want to be sleeping.
When I am sitting in a room with other people, I don’t want to interact with them. Unless I’m with someone that knows me intimately. But when I’m with acquaintances, or strangers, or even “okay” friends, socialization feels like a chore.
And even when I’m with those intimate friends, everything feels wrong. Because these words come out of my mouth that aren’t really mine. I lash out and push people away. I feel like a burden to everyone, so I scare them away, or retreat into my shell, because I feel like they should stay away from me for their own good.
I can’t go three minutes without thinking about how nice it’d be to not have to deal with another three minutes. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” is a thought that obsessively enters my mind literally every day, pretty much no matter what I’m doing.
What the fuck does excitement feel like, again? I hardly feel it. I get this sort of pathetic, desperate excitement from the thought of being with people who know and love me and who will listen to me vent my thoughts, but that’s about it. For now, I am trapped in this room, and I am trapped with myself. And for now, nothing excites me.
I don’t know what I am, but I know my memory isn’t working. It’s blurred and blotchy. I am missing pieces. Day-to-day things. Did I see this already? Who did I watch that with? When was that? I don’t know, I don’t know. When is that? Yes, no, yes? What day is it?
I feel useless. I can’t bring myself to do… anything. I’m not entirely sure where the last several months of my life went. They’re lost. I can barely remember them. I don’t know how it’s more than halfway to December. I don’t remember when November started. I don’t want to do this anymore.
I am wasting everything I have because I don’t know how to think anymore. I don’t know what thoughts are really mine. I don’t know what parts of me are really me.
What’s me, and what’s… this… virus?
By random chance, I was born a healthy, middle class, white American who, in my short life, has had the opportunity to live more comfortably than the vast majority of the human population.
I did nothing to deserve this. I was just… born here. Born into a body that has a pretty cool brain, born into a family that is loving and supportive, and born with access to a bank account that has been able to provide me with the things I need, and even want.
Speaking from experience, Sandy is a much different storm than Irene was. Irene hit inland places HARD. It hit my home town and college very hard, despite the fact that we’re nowhere near the ocean. It was the rain that got us - the over-saturated ground, the flooding.
With Sandy it’s very much a coastal storm. It’s HAMMERING the coast. The inland places are getting the wind, but not the water - not like Irene. It’s hitting New Jersey and New York City so hard.
My entire family in the Bronx (in Edgewater) had to be forcibly evacuated. Most of them are staying up at my house in Orange County, NY, safe(er) from the water, but not from the wind. They lost power in Orange County. I’m in Dutchess County, and even though the winds are visibly strong, we still have power, though the lights have been flickering.
My friend, up north in the Albany area, lost power. It’s crazy how far-spread this is. Also, apparently West Virginia is getting 2 feet of snow right now. Madness. Classes have been cancelled for today, as well as tomorrow morning at my college.
According to the news, people are getting stranded in their homes because of the water across the state, and climbing up on their roofs awaiting rescue, like during Katrina. Terrifying.
I have been worried all day that a tree is going to fall on my house and kill my family… Several people have been killed by trees so far during the storm, including two or three children under the age of 14 who were killed by a tree that fell on their home.
This shit isn’t trivial. People are losing their homes, their lives. I saw this first hand when I saw the devastation in my hometown during Irene… I would go on a rant about climate change, but no one wants to hear it.
I feel like it’s like:
The more anxious you are
the more neurotic you are
the more neurotic you are
the more negative you are
the more negative you are
the more “addictive” your personality is
because you desperately cling
to the little, stupid things -
the stupid
rare
shiny little things -
that make you just a
little
bit happy
despite everything.
Most people go to bed and they are suddenly transplanted to a world where their living room turns into their 3rd grade classroom, someone turns into a goat, they mack it with their crush, and then they wake up.
I get transplanted to a lovely park. And I’m surrounded by all these people, and I’m at ease, and everything’s good. And then suddenly a dark blue car pulls up, full of young guys. And they’re all grinning! So happy. Everyone’s happy. This is awesome.
But I hear snippets of their conversation and it’s all sounding a bit off. And the sound system in my head is flickering in and out and I don’t really know what any of them look like, and images are flashing of mixed up faces, and then I see that they’re getting out of their car…
But the world is spinning. My focus is always completely off, yet I understand that one of them, still grinning, just took out a gun. Oh they’re just so happy! With their assault rifles. And things are buzzing and flickering in and out of focus, and my consciousness has now spread out over the entire park - they have guns, this is a joke, this has to be a joke guns this is not real this is not it can’t be - but it is very real, and I decide that it’s so, and I start running through the spinning world with that thought.
