crying
guidance
charlie
stalling
draw in some dickens
pre-pubesent
me now?
who knows
who
knows
any
more

I'm ten years old again. My hair cut short so every day I would be welcomed with a rub of my soft spikes, and no longer am I troubled with the duties of keeping order to my cranium. The last months have been Hell.
Having not ever visited Hell, if I had to assume the appearance and the feelings that come with such an eternal vacation, it would resemble my home. The front door is my Limbo and the kitchen is the fifth circle. The threshold of my room secludes me from the wanton spouts of wrath, my Purgatorio. I dread when 5:30 comes around, because that is when my parents come home because who knows what I missed out on today, or yesterday or any second that I am not around to hear vital accusations that may make or break me.

It's hot today, as it is every day. My Dad is late, and as such Mom starts mouthing to herself furiously at the sink; needlessly scrubbing already clean coffee cups. My eyes make out "worthless". "Unbelievable".

This won't be good, I say to myself- God knows what would happen if I should voice any semblance of opinion or interest in my family. It doesn't have to be a slap to leave a mark, you know. And I already have marks all along my rib cage, my heart erupting from the inside out.
Receipts have always been a problem with Dad, I think. He always leaves them in his pocket and forgets to hand them to Mom and for some reason this sends her whirling inside herself, damning everything she sees. So of course it's a receipt for gas that he forgot to tell her about last week.
Of course he forgot.
Of course this could go one of two ways- tension and tension and tension until Mt. Vesuvius erupts under a roof and I can't get out of the way of the flowing ashes; or the road less traveled. The one that ends up with an "It's okay, hun, I know you forget sometimes." The one that I play out and pray for every time.
I guess that's why I stopped praying.

The normal road is taken, of course; and as I stand as an observer to what can only get worse, I can't take the insults. The back-handed commentary, the sarcastic persona in retort, the frozen glare from a wife to a unjustifiably wrong husband.
I take my leave to Purgatory.
A refuge is taken in my personal Garden of Silence where the lock of a door is no longer a practical safety device but is now a barrier between the good and the evil of everyday life.
After a few hours blocked out by a television wanning on and a pillow intentionally covering my ears, I decide to test the waters. This too could take one of two roads- either everyone is quiet and I am forced to walk on eggshells the rest of the night because Mom and Dad are doing everything they can to silence themselves "for the good of the children" or, miraculously, all is well and surely dessert is in store for yours truly tonight for the first time in a year.

I'll let you guess what road was taken.

I emerge and find Dad on the couch immersed in the newest reality show and Mom toiling away at chores which don't even need to be done: dusting a stove, washing a load of laundry thats contents include 4 pairs of socks and a washcloth, et cetera.
Eggshells again.
So I sit catty-cornered to my dad and sister on the newly polished leather couch. I think you polish it, anyway. I'm not good with verbs.
Did you know it takes all of 5 seconds for your brain-waves to slow down and enter a hypnotic state after watching television, given that this is not the first time of watching it in your lifetime? So in 10 minutes, I too am immersed.
It's blurry; my vision is in a terrible state but how should I know that this is not the norm? I get off the couch and scoot closer to the tube on the floor and continue pondering as to what would drive anyone to do the ridiculous things on this television show- but then I realize that if their home-life is anything like mine, escape would be so captivating it'd almost be worth jumping out of a 16-story hotel held on to life only by a three inch thick nylon rope.

I guess if it snapped, though, I wouldn't have to come home to this anymore, right?

My mom concludes her ritual of tediousness and excuses herself without a word to the back porch to smoke a cigarette, an activity that I have come to relish because it gives me about 5 minutes to pretend that everything is okay. 6th grade shouldn't be so tasking.

How she managed to get the gun I'll never know, because that would mean she'd have to sneak into the side door out back that leads to her room and unlock the safe, get the gun, and somehow go back to her chair on the back porch without making noise whatsoever. Or maybe she'd been carrying it all day.

The sound of the sliding glass door is nothing but a hum in my head- going out back was as common as getting a glass of water. But the smirk she made at Dad, her son and her 8-year-old daughter more or less stopped time. The sound of her voice has rang in and out of my dreams for 6 years since, and the chilling tone never will leave me.
"How about I end it all now, Steve?" She would always refer to my Dad as Steve when she was upset because I think she thought it would make him appear as less of a father to us kids, I don't get most of adult logic.
She pulls the gun out of her navy blue windbreaker, a gift from my Dad to her a few months ago when the wind chill was getting chillier still.
You know how in movies, when something really dramatic happens, everything slows down really slow and you say to yourself, That could never happen?
It happens, alright. My dad manages to yell "GET-" and I honestly blocked out all sound from that point on. Get down? Maybe. Get out? Also plausible.
My sister somehow travels at what must have been the speed of light to the hallway, out of reach from any bullets; should they stray from their original destination. As my sister is retreating from the room, Mom puts the gleaming revolver to her skull. How cliche, I guess.
My Dad leaps from the couch and I seem to be overwhelmed with adrenaline or fear or rage or lack of any rational thought because I am right behind him. He wraps himself around her, really. His left hand grabs her right wrist and the muzzle is now skyward, his right arm cradles her torso as he rushes forward, knocking her back like some sort of helpless linemen.
Mom slams into the wall of the kitchen and the majority of Dad is laying on top of her as she squeams and kicks her aging legs amuck against his spine.
Wretching the gun from her twisted, mangled hands, I am now the recipient of the one device that is responsible more devastation than anything else history- except maybe greed.

How's this for reality television, huh?

I gently lay the gun on the counter, cradling it as though it will explode if not cherished like a cherub. My fingers graze the rubber-coated handle and all of a sudden I feel the fury of every murderer. I feel the just cause of every execution, the tears that fell every time the trigger was squeezed and the chamber drained into another ribcage. Guns are really heavy, I think to myself- I have completely blocked out the goings on behind me on the kitchen floor, but I can assume that it would be an impromptu Greco-Roman wrestling match with Dad the apparent victor.

I am told to call the police; so I float to the phone hanging on the wall just six feet away. I'm pretty sure my sister is screaming right now, but I can't be sure. I guess thats why I yelled "SHUT UP!" to her.
Dialing 911 is actually a humbling experience. You always envision yourself doing it, how calm and collected you'd be if ever put in harms away and and were forced to call. But in reality, you almost forget the numbers.
Maybe it's because my hands are shaking as if my house became an 8 on the Richter scale, but I can hardly hit the appropriate buttons. 911 rings. Isn't that a little ironic? I think it would be fitting if I were to hit the voicemail of the police and had to wait for them to call me back. Just to top of the moment.

But a voice answers me with the line I've heard at least 100 times in movies and the like, "911, what is your emergency?" So I told her my mom is trying to kill herself. I think she gasped, but I'm not sure. You'd think that working the phones for 911, one would become hardened to scenarios such as this, but maybe when a 10-year-old voice squeaks out something like that, a little pang hits home. Like I said, I'm not sure.

I tell her my address like I was taught in 4th grade, and she response with attempting to sound comforting, reassuring me that someone is on the way right now. I say "Thank you" because it must be tough to deal with screaming, crying, dying people on the phone all day, and she probably doesn't get thanked as much as she should.
My dad glances over after my conversation with the saviors of 911, and tells me not to touch the gun anymore. I wonder why, but I assume that this is not exactly an appropriate time to question the demands of a man holding his wife of 23 years on the floor by force, all the while his daughter is screaming in her room in hysterics and his son is fondling a loaded gun in curiosity and his shaking hands just may set something off, who knows?
It must have been an eternity before the door let loose a subtle rapid-fire knock, but as it came Dad asked me to answer the door, Mom still squirming like a freshly caught earthworm in the mouth of the Blue Herons that stalk our front yard on dewy mornings.

The two uniformed men don't even ask to come in, and I wonder how they except to be any help when they don't even have any manners. This is no time for chit-chat, I suppose. The sight of the policemen sends a shockwave over Mom, and she stops her flailing instantaneously.
One officer looks to be about 34 years old and has the generic crew-cut haircut like mine and it seems like we are connected through our short hair so maybe he actually understands what I feel. The other is older, maybe 50 with speckled gray hair tottering in his Clark Kent hairstyle. His hands help my mother to the kitchen table chair, the one closest to her and his hands are old.
Not wrinkly or full of veins like the elders shopping in Publix, but an observer can tell that they have been to more places than most people would like to go. Mom is crying now, I think. Or at least she is covered in snot and maybe I am mistaking the snot for tears but this isn't really the time for sultry observations, now is it?

I have never cursed in front of my parents. I have never let a "damnit" slip out on those dark, cloudy days that seem to love visiting me. I have never shouted "fuck you" to them in a fit of rage. I don't even think they are aware I use these words at all, but I do. It's my little secret that I curse like a sailor at school with my comrades and that is the way I like it.
But now, I could care less. I am stampeding around the house and I notice the red and blue flashes through the drawn curtains of my front window and it just infuriates me more as to how selfish a parent could be to take their own life and leave their own masterpiece to fend alone from there on out. On my tirade, I let loose a flurry of "Fuck you"'s, "I hate you, you bitch", and any other formation of vulgarities that seep into my vocal cords.

I am not thinking anymore, I am just there. I march about my living room and Dad is relaying the story to the men in blue and I don't care because how dare her, look at my sister! She comes out of her room and sits in the television room and is silent and that is the part that sends me up a wall. She is so scared that she can't even scream anymore.
I practically run up to Mom, seated comfortably in her chair with whatever bodily fluids covering her face and I let her know how much I hate her for this, and that she will never be forgiven for what she has done.
I have never told my parents that I hated them, either, but I guess tonight is a night for lots of new things to happen.

The police take Mom and I am crying because I don't know what's happening because only half of the events are registering and the other half are speeding inside of my chest and breathing is no longer natural but I have to force myself to inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
Dad takes his two children to the kitchen table and I avoid sitting in the chair Mom was just residing in. He explains that she is going to be taken to a place to get her fixed.
Fixed, he said; as if she was a new toy from the store that just didn't work the way I had hoped it would. Fixed.
I am not looking at him, or my sister but my attention is now focused on the counter and the gun is gone and I am scared because what if Mom took the gun somehow with her and the police are unaware and she shoots herself in the head in the back of the cop-car and I am once again franticly running around the house unable to convey my newly founded fear to anyone but my own head and even he is not listening to me the way I'd like.

The slow motion stopped a while ago but now, for some reason, everything is flooding back to me and maybe now I am truly recognizing the severity of the last 30 minutes.
Mom is going to get fixed.
Everything else is broken too, but why does she get to get fixed? If I put a gun to my head would I get fixed too?

Oh God, please fix me and make this house stop burning.

There isn't much to say after this. Dad says that the next two weeks he'll come home early from work and take care of us and there will be nothing to worry about, he promises.
But Mom promised she loved me and didn't that turn out lovely.
I tell Dad that I do not want to think anymore and he looks at the floor slowly and whispers that he too does not want to think.
I never ask him where the gun is, because he might get mad at me or think I want to find it to try and get fixed too so I decide it isn't worth it to get him so worked up for.

Everything is still coming in flashes, and the clock on the stove tells me that it's way past my ordinary bed time.
I don't say anything to anyone, but Dad knows that I am going to bed.

He tells me he loves me and I lay my hand across his and start crying one last time. Crying in front of your father is one thing that makes you feel small no matter how old you are. He does not cry but I know that he is inside and that his heart is crying more than my eyes.

I walk into my Purgatory at last and the lights are off. I don't want them on.
I nestle into bed and know that I will not sleep the same way ever again, and a few tears drip onto the pillow but I don't mind because at least I can breathe now.


I didn't do my homework and now that is one more thing to chalk up to the list of misfortunes tonight.
I lay awake until 3 in the morning, not thinking. Or maybe I am thinking for the first time.


Or maybe I just need to remind myself that even though the world around me is falling apart every minute of every day of my life, if I crumble as well then I have already lost.





Dread is a funny word. Not funny in that it makes the listener laugh, or bring up good memories; but its just phonetically sound. Drop a 'D' and you have a word thats scholarly and informative. Drop an 'R' and well...thats sort of how I feel. Dead. Dead isn't as funny as a word as dread.
Don't ask me what makes a certain word funny. How am I supposed to know?

But, to the subject of dread; that thought was the conjuration of my not-so-sound slumber. To be completely honest, there was no slumber. I could lie to you as I write this and tell you I slept so well, that I dreamt of a world gone perfect, and that the enjambment of my night was completely resoluted. Not the case. At all.


You know the feeling you get right before your eyes finally snap shut? When your head is wrapped longingly onto the pillow and your legs have stopped rolling themselves around to find that cold section of the bed? I lay there thinking about that moment.
It is bliss, I'd assume. I've never been fully conscious at that moment, but if we could all take that moment and somehow, some way implement it into our wideawake days; it would be a miracle cure.

So there I am. I am Mt. Zion. I am emergency room silence. I am that split-second before the head-on collision. The sky was loveless. I didn't even check, but I knew- the glimmering waxing waning waxing moon that slid beneath the crevices in my blinds led me to that.
There I am. There I was. A ten-year old with the rapidity of maturation thrust upon him in the span of three hours (it might as well been fifteen).
I thought about sleep. I thought about how important sleep is, for the solace of the psyche. I knew a ton of big words for my age.


Sleep is a release from everything we're scared of when our eyes are open. We can curl up in our sheets of shields and safe-keeping to hide away every cut and open wound the day has left us with.
It is the cave to our rainy night, the sanctuary in the clouds.

We can dream of how we wish we lived; I know I do. Our heads nestled on the dream weaving cotton plush pillows that we just have to flip after it gets too warm. Dreams lead to inaccurate interpretations of our every day brains, and interpreting that will only leave us wanting more.
Dreaming of falling into a field of light and people that really do listen, or walking alongside a squiggle that really cant be defined as anything- except maybe that longing you've had for a year to get something done with your life. That's the kind of danger we get with sleep, nothing changes and yet I, you, everyone is under the impression that when you awaken to the dawn light, everything will be eradicated. That the shards of glass in your hands or in your heart will somehow have been removed solely by sleeping.

I wish this was true, that the phrase, "Let's sleep on it" really did work wonders. The sunlight radiating on our freshly reborn minds and bodies welcoming another day that we can break ourselves with; only to be sculpted back to life again in our slumber.
But wishing for that is even more absurd than dreams coming true.

Those last few moments before sleep the most nerve wracking moments of the day. Running over in your head, preparing for the day that lay ahead and dreading whatever problems you hope to outrun in Dreamland. Checking off everything you thought you had to do that day and always ending up with one more thing you deliberately put off until tomorrow, because we are creatures in need of stress and dilemmas.
I know this because everyone is really the same. I sleep just like you do, I know that I feel some irrepressible need to have something to complain about in my life. Something just barely bad enough to give me an excuse to cause a whirlwind of dilapidating friendships or what have you.

But sleep? We've all got that to look forward ,right?

I envy insomniancs for their perseverance. They face their lives head-on because they don't have the option I do, they can't run and hide under the blankets for 8 hours and hope everything is gone when you rise and shine. We shouldn't be shining, not us cowards.
Just because you close your eyes doesn't mean the world disappears.
Sleep, like heroin or painkillers or omnipresent sex or any other vice the cowards of today use to shade their minds from the burning, ticking timebomb we set off every day of our lives.

But maybe I'm dreaming.
Maybe sleep is the most glorious time we will ever know. No one can take our natural ability to sleep from us, no one can imitate our dreams, no one can sabotage us under the dim lights of the nightlights, no one can take away how it feels to lay next to someone until you wake up with them in your arms.

Stop dreaming, and start doing- even though you can, don't sleep on the things you dont have to. Take charge, stand tall and take your life back from REM bliss.
Let the light shine your eyes open to what really is going on, whatever that may be.

Until you can do that, until we can wake up knowing ourselves better each and every day, until we can dream the dreams that make life worth living, I am unsure as to how the progression of mankind will come about.





By any means, I didn't do that. If I did maybe things would have turned out better and everything. I guess not, though. It's funny how these things just slide through our eyes.
I think I managed to throw myself into a sculpted sleep around 3 in the morning. Did you know that the majority of the world is asleep at 3 in the morning? Thats the most slept-through hour. I bet if it had feelings, three in the morning would be pretty lonely. Just the junkies and the prisoners and those too drunk to drive home are there to spend that lonely hour awake. But I wasn't. Am not. I don't really know which tense to use, so forgive me if you get confused. I'm trying.

I woke up like nuclear winter. When mornings are quiet; dead quiet, sulkingly silent, thats what really scares me. I am used to being shaken awake from slamming doors and my sister yelling about her hair imperfections. But there is hardly a morning where I am treated to the songs of birds on power lines. I must have blocked out everything from the night before, because it took a good five minutes for everything to come back to me.
Then the flood gates opened.
I feel like Moses. Except I can't part this sea, no, I am engulfed in it.

I threw up, I think. I throw up so much it's tough to really remember whether or not I do it or not. I'm certain in twenty years my enamel will be shot and my esophagus linings will be as thin as linen. I have been told that I "compartmentalize my thoughts and problems". I don't think that's the case. I just think I don't bitch and moan like everyone else in the country feels they have the right to do. Look at me now.

Today is the day for a trompe-l'œil.

I dressed myself in the usual attire; a skate tee and long pants, and I felt my shaved head again. Good luck(?), I suppose thats in order. Good luck for what, you might ask, and I don't really have an answer. Good luck for keeping myself on the ground? Keeping my eyes from swelling with the floodwaters? Good luck, break a leg, knock em dead.

I stood in my doorway, fully dressed, fully broken and I uttered the first ululation of the day.
"Fuck."
It's not often I begin my day with vulgarity, but, I believe this an exception. This part of the story is something literary critiques call foreshadowing. This is something that signifies the beginning of the end, in this case; or the end of the beginning or the end of the end or the beginning of nothing but the end. I hope this whole foreshadowing thing is not too hard to understand.

I went into the house almost frenzied, and a tad convoluted. My hands dangled at my sides and my heart raced because of the quiet and my dad was gone. I don't know where he went to, he didn't leave a note and his car was in the driveway still.

oh God oh God oh God.

Seriously?

Now the f-bombs were dropping like Hiroshima. Well, no, that was a terrible simile because I definitely said it more than once.
I opened the back door with hesitance because it was like the ghost of last night still lingered. Kind of like when you blow out a candle and the smoke still sifts through the room? Yeah, well, the screams were sifting alright. I opened the door and looked around and finally saw him sitting on the grass, smoking, with his head held low watching something in the grass. Catatonic isn't exactly it, but it's damn close. I turned around and took my leave; I might be young but I have learned when and where to do certain things. Being a bother at this point and time is certainly not one of those when and wheres.

I walked to school. It was cold and I didn't feel it. My hands were shoved so far in my pockets I could practically feel my knees shaking and I didn't care. I didn't care about much. I walked wantonly a little bit too far away from the curb, just far enough out in the street where cars had to jerk a little bit to the left to avoid me. I don't think I would have felt it if a car forgot to jerk a little bit to the left. Oh, irony.

I tripped on a stick half-way to school. It may not seem like a big deal to anyone, really; but that plight brought me to a conundrum. Do I stay on the ground until the Earth erupts around me? Or do I embarrassingly pick my crumbled lump to thrive in the humility as the high school kids pass me by? I got up, I did. I immediately wished I had chosen the latter and stayed in the confines of my newfound Purgatorio.

Oh, me, oh, my.

I picked myself up off the cold safe asphalt. Maybe that's saying something. Or nothing. This could all be meaningless in a few moments.

I got to school, I tolerated the cold, I didn't do my homework. I said so. I didn't tell anyone anything. Sixth grade is a tough year, and it's only getting tougher.

I didn't mumble a word, not a peep squeaked from my lips. Not a prayer. Not a whisper to any emanation. I thought about the Lord's prayer all day. I was not religious in sixth grade. I laughed at crosses tangled to the throats of phony poohah religious goons who squawk and flutter about like chickens with their heads cut off. 
O Father, who aren't in Heaven
Broken be thy name
Thy endtime come
Thine wilt be done
On earth as it is forever.

I would have earned myself a one-way ticket to Hell that day, writing that on my notes about the population of Brazil. I'd much rather alter a sacred reverence than learn about cattle herders.


I think there is a double-standard when it comes to crying. I didn't cry really, last night. A tear leaked out onto my mothballed pillowcase before altjeringa began. Or ended. One can never quite tell with these things. But nevertheless, a tear; a solemn, sole, wholly wanton tear trickled pervasively like the Minka bird down my rum-red, freckled and youthless ten-year-old cheek. When a man cries, it is majestic. It must have meaning, a deeper soulful recognition of something monumental shifting and shuffling through his life. When a child cries, it is normal. A scrape, a stub, a scab, a scornful cut, a calamity, a bangaroundfallupfalldown is just a part of growing up. His tears are wiped away by a smiling mother with her other hand offering a Capri Sun.

But when a prepubescent boy sobs, literally weeping in shambles- it is disdainful. Grow up. You should be acting like a young man. You should be.
You
Should
Be
Better.
I should be better so I am being better. I sat in class, in my oak maple evergreen desk and felt that disturbingly painful lump form in the back of my throat. And I swallowed and swiveled my tongue to and fro to try and wipe the weakness from the depths of my throat, of my mind and subsequently failed.
The bell rings at 2:30 in elementary school. I wish it didn't. Maybe it could have gone on until eight or nine at night, but 2:30 leaves seven hours to be home. Home is not where the heart is. Especially if your heart is skewed and spewed all over the imaginary wall. I don't know what is expecting me at my humble abode.

I didn't cry until I turned the corner. I walked home with my best friend Charlie and told him what happened. He didn't say anything and maybe thats the way I want it. What can he say?

I am so sorry.


This is one of those times sorry just doesn't cut it. He looked at me with his scrawny, too-thin jawline and he gave me sort of a half-smile and let me know that if I needed to come to his house, I could. I didn't, and I wasn't. I can't leave; too many things can happen in my absence. But I thanked him, and turned the cold rusted doorknob right and left and right and left again and it was locked. Locked doors are funny.

Not funny like ha, ha, that is a great joke you ought to do stand-up because you could be on HBO kind of funny; but the kind of funny as to where you never know what you might find behind one. It could be something as harmless as a sleeping parent who just wanted to be safe and couldn't stay awake because he worked a double to afford that too-pricey stereo system for his daughter's 14th birthday because all year she has been talking and talking and talking and talking about it.
Or, it could be a child pornographer. Or it could be a scene of familial apocalypse.
Or some eldritch tonality.

I got the last one, the silent echo of the creaking hinges that my dad never oils. I bet I could fall flat on my face and have a stroke and not a creature would stir, not even a mouse. I won't have a stroke. Those don't come for a while. At least thirty years, they say.


Anyways; I'm no good with waiting. I sit down on the couch in the den and I twiddle my thumbs and I start humming some stream of conscious poem-song because I hope it will make the shadows disappear and I don't know where anyone is.

Here I am, on the couch
With both of my thumbs in my mouth
My feet really hurt but thats okay
Because the sun still came today

I said this a few times. It made me want to smile because whenever I'm really upset I make up songs or stories or something because that is something called a defense mechanism. Squids have ink jets.  Tigers have deathly sharp claws. I have songs and stories.

Which one do you think has a better defense?

I couldn't smile though. I bet I could, but I didn't. It hurt just trying. It feels like there is a clay mold placed on my lips and my muscles have been tranquilized and now I can't lift my cheek. Awaken, kundalini. I didn't smile but I wanted to and then the door opened and my dad and my sister walk in together and I am a little confused.

What is going on now?

My dad lets me know that we need to sit down at the table.
Red alert, my body says; time to implement the battening of the hatches. The lump comes, my stomach immediatly turns my intestines into sheep shank knots and I am trying my best not to wretch over the couch. I double over for a minute and then I catch myself and realize all I need is a mental theriac.

Beach. Boats. Sun. Ships. Grass. Girls. Time time time time water splish splash shaved head looking up looking down into the stars my mom looking at me with her kind eyes driving around driving around to nowhere watching 101 dalmations sleeping in sleeping in the parents room being able to have dessert no fighting no fighting no fighting.

It didn't work one bit.

My dad sits us down around him and the seats feel like that do not want to be sat in. I feel like I am a victim of chair mutiny. I can't hear what he is saying. My head feels like it is cleaved into a triumverate. My ears finally catch up to my dad. He is telling us that mom is staying under careful watch for two weeks at a place called Circles of Care. Two weeks? That's it?
Is that enough time? Is that enough time for me? Does she deserve to even come back? What's to stop her from doing the same thing the minute she waltzes through that chipped white door pretending nothing happened?
I asked my dad this questions, these queries; and I then realized that he knew nothing. He is as at a loss as I am. His hanging head swayed decrepitly and I noticed his lips were cracking and raw. I don't know if he was biting them or what, but that is definitely unusual.

So two weeks. Apparently she is under a lot of supervision. Apparently she is sorry. Apparently, she is making strides and cooperating with the wondrous employees of fermentingly sorrowful rehabilitation for the topsy-turvey middleaged minds. Apparently, I don't care. I don't.

I don't. I mean, what am I supposed to say? I am so excited, dad, because now I get to face the nightmares I have been seeing all day today in the flesh! In three hundred and thirty six hours, a woman who has just shattered every single fiber of trust, faith and respect I had in her will come flooding back into my now dried-up life. No.
She shouldn't come back.


Sound the seventh trumpet, for all I care. I think I should talk to someone. I open my mouth to protest, and to no avail. My voice has been eradicated by some unknown clencher; tightening the tracheal pipe tumultuously.
Great, grand, wonderful. I am now voiceless, tearless, and I am envisioning some kind of rocket ship to land in my backyard. To crush the trampoline my sister got two Christmases ago, vaporize the water in the pool with it's jetfire and signaling for me to crawl aboard.
Fly me to the moon.

Dad is still talking and I still am not talking and that's probably for the better. Suddenly, I start sweating and I am very curious as to why. I am not hot. It is damn near forty degrees outside and I'm not even wearing my jacket anymore. Am I so cold I'm roasting? Am I so lost I am melting from the inside? Whatever the problem may be, I decide not to let it linger for long for fear my innards really are bursting and bubbling. My mouth still does not produce noises, except for faint scratching noises.

I begged for the moon to fall, or something. I think my dad was praying. I have never, ever, ever never ever seen him do that. I know that he used to be a pastor-in-training, the word escapes me now, forgive me, but hearing him utter some cry to some heathen in Heaven was the last straw. His head bowed, my sisters tears streaming like some Amazonian waterfall still untouched by the filth of humanity, I sat. I sit staring and wondering what has happened.

I am young, I think inside my probably melting head. My youthful superficies is probably gone. I mean, what can I say now? Even if my mouth did work; I'd be at a loss.
I hear dad say "Amen!" and I know the night has begun; there is nothing to eat. Not that mom cooked anyway, but usually my dinner is found in a bag handed out of a window by an unhappy slimy ball of acne and disgust. De-lish-us.
I am not hungry, I am a knot of fear and curious, curious questions. It just gets curiouser and curiouser.

The night begins and ends in sort of a blur, I am in my room the entire time, hoping to distract myself playing with a deck of cards. I don't know how to shuffle a deck of cards. A ton of my friends (if I have them) know how to and it looks so much fun. They play games like Egyptian rat-screw and Rummy and I sit and read books about nothing, or something. I sit on the dust-ladden carpet and try to trick my fingers into working well enough to shuffle the cards, the table riffle shuffle. I fail again and again and again, the cards slipping to and fro along the slick carpet and coming out of their neatly folding package.

Phooey.

I instead practice throwing cards like knives. That is something I am good at; but I catch myself. Midway through the unleashing of a ten of hearts, I realize that I dare not even emulate violence for if I do; I may subconsciously corrupt myself into some faint ghost of my mothers actions.

I put the cards away and I lay still. Lie still? I don't know the context of those two words. I like lay, so I lay still. I ponder if I possess the wherewithal to combat the agathokakological surrounding me. Where did I go wrong? An anathema is all I need I guess.

I guess.
Finally my eyes grew weak enough to hopefully seize the confines of sleep. My ears are ringing, my dad is still awake watching some godawfully loud show and the bass is booming booming booming all around me; how will I fall asleep?

I will manage, I suppose- for if I fail to fix myself an egress, then the woods will surely swallow me whole.

I pulled the blankets, the blankets covered in cowboys and cacti long over my shaved head and listened to the boom boom boom and I thanked whoever reigns in Heaven that the boom boom was not gunshots and I thought about my mom, finally.

She probably sat in the police cruiser quietly, rubbing her wrists with her thumbs and trying to squeeze one or two tears out so the young cop could see some remorse, something living within her.
Her mouth probably isn't working either. That makes me feel not so alone and I am glad but it still hurts to smile so I don't even bother. "Oh, bother", said Pooh, "I shall have to go on".

I shall have to go on, and not become assimilated in the 100 acre woods.
I tightened my grip on the blanket and hummed a nice sounding tune, thinking whether or not my mom was doing the same thing. "I doubt it", I think I said. I don't know why I said that out loud, but I suppose these things sort of just slip out. My brain didn't melt after all and that is most definitely a plus.
I doubt it because she must been so heavily doused in pharmaceutical fantasies forfeit all erudication of where I am in this big old bulbous Earth.

I didn't do my homework again but I'm sure that this will be some excuse and I grin at that.
I grin. I am alive and not melted and even though my mouth doesn't work, my dad is okay and my sister has stopped screaming and instead of sirens and profanities all I hear is the boom boom boom from the other room.

I finally fell into some serene ideal of dreamland, wonderland, down the rabbit hole of REM. Tomorrow the sun will shine and I'll shake and shiver and my mouth just might not work, but.
But.
But.
If all we have is lost, then that leaves all the more things to find.






The next morning I woke up to the garage door whirring up up up and open and the sqearrrrling of the pistons abruptly coming to a halt. I have learned that sound can either mean Hell or high water and neither of them is good because my Purgatorio is not watertight.

I get up throw myself up try not to throw up whatever meal I forgot I ate last night scrambled into clothes rubbed my heda again looked around looked around got lost in my thoughts checked the time grabbed my backpack its 7:49 and I am still home so. I take a breath.
When you breathe, it is a mini-vacation. It's like every single toxin in your heart head and lungs just vanishes into a wholly mix of carbon dioxide and frost. Then, upon galvanizing your lungs into making the sudden whoosh of inhalation, filled with fortuitous follies and occupational oxygen and then your brain and my brain and the blood vessels pulsating with the hunger ravishing around then all is at peace.
Peace at last, peace at last; hallelujah we all have peace at last.

I don't know where anyone is. My peripheral vision has been shut up or shut off. My observational abilities have been pounded away into a friable state. Oh well.
Who do I need to see anyway? As long as I don't hit my head on anything, I'll be fine.
I leave the house with my incomplete homework in tow, without saying a word.

I have yet to test my mouth and my voicebox's culmination of function. I kind of want it to not work. I don't feel like being asked what the matter is by the friends I think I have.

I think I have friends because I am not entirely alone at school. I talk to Colin and Dylan and Charlie, but I really don't think they would notice if I was entirely alone at school. I guess it beats being smelly.
I usually spend recess outside on the bench reading The Red Badge of Courage or The Westing Game or something, because I am really an egregious physical activity participant. Some kids are built for speed and agility; they play football. A few are just made to swim or hit a bat or a club or a racket or run in circles.
Me? I am built for sitting and sleeping and thinking. I am slower than molasses, less coordinated than an alcoholic in an archery contest and just about always the last one picked.
It's okay.

I think I have friends, but I don't want to deal with this.
My mom is gone for another 13 days. Peace and quiet is the only thing I have to look forward to.

I get to school and I sit again and unzip my backpack and take out my science homework I failed to accomplish and my teacher, Mr. Joyce humbles himself over and his hair gorilla hands are not planted on my desk and he asks in his oddly mellifluous voice why I didn't do it.

Mic test, one two, one two.

My larynx cracks and caves. My voice comes out like a timid geriatric lost in the park. "I didn't have time".

Later that day, the guidance counselor rings the generic grey county-issued schoolroom telephones, and summons me down.
I think this is important. I float the whole way there on the freshly buffed linoleum. The guidance counselor scares the life out of me. Not because she is a scary, wretched old hag; but because I was running in the commons area one time, and she shrilly shot her warning of predetermined disciplinary action. I have not run (at least not so voraciously) in school since.

Her name escapes me. I'm sure that it may be a vital part of the tale, but I honestly don't remember. It has an E in it, I believe. Sorry about this, I hope you can just make up your own name for her. Envision the name of your choice emblazoned on the name plaque drilled into the white brick wall outside of her "office". That'll be the only time her name matters.

Not ever even had the pleasure of being guided by counsel, this was a first time experience for me. I don't think I was too thrilled. I continued to float into the door and I smirked at first glance about the room.
She appears to be a woman who tries her damndest to make kids feel at home. I don't really know a child personally that would feel magnamously comforted by shelves of Tonka trucks, abacuses disguised as playthings and assorted knick-knacks that gives off the scent of hers as a place of "fun, not sadness". I would not be surprised if only two or three kids got bored enough to even strain themselves to fake the pleasure of her lovely array of youthful adventure.

I sat on the chair. It was cold and it was hard and it reminded me of my heart because I think if I had an electrocardiogram it would show my heart as being exceedingly colder than the norm. Talk about when Hell freezes over.
She smiled and leaned in real close. Not too close, she wasn't a pervert or anything (that I know of), but just close enough where I could smell her perfume. It wafted into my nasal cavity and I bet if noses could throw up, my nose would have hurled right then and there. Whatever disgruntled employee of Macy's sold her this disaster in a bottle did an amazing job at codswalloping her. I commend you.

I wanted to leave. Just stand up, and rid myself of this odious encounter forevermore. Nevermore, though; I stuck it out. She told me she knew about what had happened to mom.
I said "Okay, then." That makes it easier on me. I don't have to explain how the sound of the sirens still blare in my ears whenever my eyelids wane shut. How I can still feel my throat hoarse from yelling obscenities at the woman that birthed me, and held the polished pistol perpendicular to her occipital lobe before her creation.

"Okay, then, is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

Yes, yes yes, yes yes yes yes, please, yes, yes. Why did she do it? What did I do wrong? What am I supposed to do, to feel, to want to think to dream to believe?

"No, ma'am."

She then went on a diatribe about how healthy it is to express oneself, that holding things in just make things harder; and that her door was always open. I thought to myself that she is a liar. Her door is not always open, it was closed when I first got here and even so; what about at night? She is here from 8 to 3 just like every other payed employee of the school. I didn't say anything, it certainly is not my place and I can't seem to adjust my butt accordingly to meld into the seat. I might as well be sitting atop a saddle.

She told me her door was always open again, and thus I stood up and arbitrarily opened the door again and shut it behind me. People should mean what they say. It confuses the rest of us.

The sky was a phantasmagoria that night. After school, I came home to my Dad. He had not gone to work today, I assume, and he was sitting on the couch. He put his feelings aside for the good of his children, I think; he quickly stooped to put his hand on my shoulder and ask how my day was. I failed to mention Mrs. Whats-her-name and her omniscient door. I told him my day was fine and he asked how I was doing otherwise. I looked at him slowly, real close and his eyes were drained- why make it worse. I brushed off the question like it was nugatory, and told him I'm hanging in there.

Hanging in there alright. Hanging by my toenails.

I went outside at sunset, and like I said; it was a beautiful night. I smiled and it didn't hurt and that made me cry. I hadn't cried in three days and I think I was supposed to be crying the whole time. My tears came in jumbled bursts, sporadic flurries of wet, sopping episodic lurching. It hurt after a while, to weep. But it made me feel so much better.
I am crying, my mom tried to kill herself but she didn't and I called the police and I lost it and my mouth broke for a little.
But I'm crying.
Being reticent has its perks.
I looked at the sun through tear-streaked eyes and knew, I knew that as I went back in the house wearing my rubicundity, I will lay in my Purgatorio and run my still-shaking hands through my shaved head and maybe do my homework.

Bawling is precipitous work. I am now wiped out, my muscles heave about their confines in my body and the tears are now only slowly leaking every so often. I crawl down from my perch in the backyard and rub my sleeve across my nose and wipe away any trace of what happened.

I hope you know how nice it is, to be able to cry. You should try it. I promise it doesn't make you a baby- I won't even tell anyone. You don't even have to tell me. But I just thought you should know, it really does clear the clouds and cobwebs.

I went inside, and I collapsed on the couch with my legs strewn over the arms and my arms strewn along my heaving chest.

I woke up again at three in the morning. I am now a member of those keeping the loneliest hour company. I guess dad let me sleep. He does things like that sometimes, I bet he knew I broke down. Some things go further than others.
I sat up, and I looked around and my eyes didn't focus for a while but my brain was a whirlwind again and then I woke up.

I woke up, I am awake.
Everything is dependent upon my actions. If I succumb to this, and let me be haunted by nightmarish scenes until the end of my days- I am more of a victim than she. I will live. I will flourish. I will burst and bloom and I will cry when I need to.
This
Is
Just
The
Beginning.

I am awake, and even if you are lost- you can be rescued by yourself.
Crumbling can be just another way of creating an entirely new portrait at which to beam upon. Everything is not okay, I still feel sick- but I know that this too shall pass.
The beginning of breath is the act of expulsion.

This is my expulsion.
And I sat there, on the couch, running my no longer shaking hands through my shaved hair.

then there was solace


and slowly but surely everything can slow down.


i dont know if i want to go to harvard
its cold and far but holy crap my opprotunities would BE ASTOUNDING.

whatever that means.
what can i do?
idk


im tired
meg is bundled up
oh boy
ahhaah


sleep well, readers

megan is one of the strongest people i know.

she might get wear and tear, but by God she never ever crumbles.
thats one of the reasons im so attracted to her.


she is inspiring, almost. it makes me want to be better at things i do, and not let things bug me.






what would i do without her?
I DONT EVEN KNOW



anyway, meg, if youre reading this- i love you

looking at weird modern/pop/performance art.

this is definitely odd but moving in some weird sickening way.

the physical possibility of death in the mind of someone, something living.


anyway, hello world.
im still sick, going on four days of a nostalgic depression intertwined with a devious cold that is seemingly immune to any and all bedrest medication combination.

megans family is up in ohio, the same and very true family that decides our(?) fate. my fate, i suppose. thats how i have to look at it. we've talked about it but nothing comes out of it. what can be done? the only action we could take now is to break it off. i am not going to be the one to do it. i will sit by and take whatever decision she gives with open hands, and closed eyes. if she thinks it best to break it off, at some point- im not going to fight and beg and plead for my heart to be crushed. ill say "okay" and probably go cry in the shower like a buffoon.
i dont know, thinking about it makes me nauseated. i dont know if id be able to say goodbye if that happened. i think id just hang up the phone and shake and throw up for a little bit. i dont see what the problem with me is. its like i cant really do anything correct. i get a girl i am head over heels about, mad as a hatter about; and her parents think im too young and therefore interfere with a 19 year old girls relationship choices.

if i made her sneak out and smoke bud and drink and stuff with me, im sure id be more tolerating of this.
i dont. i keep her on her damn toes every day. make her do her homework, make her STOP TALKING TO ME and go study, or call her mom. HOW IS THAT YOUNG, HOW IS THAT IMMATURE.

am i missing something?
this is bullshit.

i think thats why im not getting better, because theres so much running inside this beehive i call my brain.

i miss music, i need to find some more bands and stuff.
im listening to trophy scars new songs, i dont like when jerry uses his gruff voice and its a common trend on the new stuff. oh well.
laura stevenson is cool though, i like her. she is a very good singer.


i dont want this to keep happening.
thankfully ill be gone all night tomorrow and i dont have to sit in this god damn room thinking about who knwos what.
i dont know why UCF or USF havent given me decisions yet. its been about 5 weeks. im kinda confused, i went online and everything is in.

i dont know anything.
i need to hear megans voice
or at least have someone call me right now, "just to say hi"
that would make me smile, i bet.

anyway
i love being alive and its useless to complain, i need to pray.
i saw james todd and paige tonight; maybe that was a sign i need to start praying more or something.
i remember on the plane rides to and from europe, i prayed every minute or so that i didnt land in the ocean and become a number on the death toll. that was scary.


okay if i dont go im going to  keep typing for an hour.

have a stellar night
aha i remember one time hanshaw was on the phone with his friend in class and he called him "steller fella". we busted his balls so bad that day for that.
hahahahaha
i miss that class so much. it was like a little bubble where NOTHING mattered, except laughing and having fun and intellectual productivity of the social discord.


okay bye

today get any worse?
i cant date megan because im too young
her grandpa died, which has been coming for monthes, but still.
im sick.

this
is
not
the
way
i
should
be
living.


RIP grandpa steiner,

for someone to drop what THEYRE doing and care about me?

i mean, is that selfish?
i sympathize with everyone, constantly, all day about their problems..yet when ive got something going on, everyone still expects me to help them.



i cant do it
i have a life
i have things going on.


why doesnt anyone listen, or come take me away
i dont even have friends
this is the third weekend ive been home ALL WEEKEND.
all weekend.
i need something drastic to change
BUT IF I DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
THEN IM IN THE WRONG



i seriously cant fucking win and im so damn tired of it
 

in the count of threes the crows come out, please
of hands and held regards gallantly teeming to seize.
Of naught desires and crippled lung fortitude,
castigated until castrated doth cause vine attitude.

And let loose the vines upon those still home
Whom cannot stand, let alone climb the whisper dome
Hands held, regards to the postmarked sensuality
One would suppose to be contrived of a certain modality

The scarring of ships! The land once hoed
Now sleeps unabated with simple dreams of whether to explode
or rather to concave into the valley of unforgivable calvary
while mountains are streaming, screaming for their calvery.

welcome home, slid the snake, up to the leaves
this was once lost but now 'twas found
and shall we make up our found leaps and bounds?
or may we become once more a length of the ground.

you all make me fucking sick. i seriously cannot wait to leave all of your lying asses so far behind that i wont be able to smell the beer on your breath. how dare you commit yourself to anything. and how dare you be so damn unappreciative of everything i do for you.

i care too fucking much.



i feel unappriciated by everyone, mostly everyone.
do i have to scream it in your faces?



listen to A Flock Of Weatherboxes.


i hate cravings

stream of consciousness? why cant i have a river? or a lake? or a bay, harbor, dock, puddle of consciousness?
i would like to have an ocean, or a sea of consciousness. one where the waves can send me uproaring to heaven and back down to the unshifting senseless flowing to and fro, back where the ships doth sail and the wind doth waver. My ocean will be a port.
My sea will creep softly along sandy shores and wave slightly at the happy-go-lucky children learning for the first time what exactly sand tastes like.

Consciousness.
Pft.
I'll show you consciousness.



i wish i had plans on weekends
i wish i could help