Free write, August 30, 2010

In the off chance that you're reading this, the world looks funny today. Green looks like red and yellow looks like green. And in the off chance you're hearing me, the sound of your voice reminds me of a pickle. It's sour and briny with just a hint of tart, the perfect beginning to a late afternoon meal consisting of sour cream and nachos with a pitcher of tea that's been brewing all day to wash down the acrid words. And in the off chance you're not listening, I'm not hearing you quite correctly because everything sounds like it's underwater and you're muffled and funny and not quite right but I love you anyway. And in the off chance you see me, consider carefully that you just don't look the same. Your ears are too big for your head and your head is too big for your neck but the whole thing is dwarfed by the rest of your body so it doesn't really matter anyway because your ears are proportionate with your torso but not the rest of your head which is too tiny to fit anyway so it never looks like it quite belongs, kind of like you and me because we're never sure we quite belong so we sit and we think and we plod along the edge of a ballfield or the public square, wondering if we should be here or go because we never feel like we quite belong but for different reasons, you and me, we feel both awkward and entitled. You feel different like you don't belong because you do belong here - you've belonged here all your life and know the ins and outs of the system, the basic hustle and bustle of the everyday life of the general Nelsonville native. I feel like a big fish swimming around in a tiny plastic bag - both too big for the bag and the small supply of water that's been dumped uncerimoniously in here for me to swim around in but also like i might suffocate to death very slowly if someone doesn't let me out of this damned plastic bag soon. I feel like a goldfish because my memory is failing me, baby. I can't quite seem to remember - is it me or is it you? Do you remember the first night we met? You said you'd never met anyone quite like me. I'm telling you now, darling. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone quite like me because I'm a genetic abnormality, an abberation that never quite should have happened and doubtless will happen again. I'm more than one but less than nothing and everything around me seems to suffer in the process. It really is just better if you put me out of your mind, out of my mind, and cease thinking about me altogether because when people get involved, people get hurt and when people get hurt it's usually my fault even though I don't mean for it to happen, I'm just off like that. And even now, when I'm trying to write, have BEEN trying to write because writing is what pays the bills, even now as I try to write and keep my INTERNAL EDITOR out of it all, I can't quite seem to manage. I tell myself to just keep typing, just keep going, just keep writing but I find myself going back to fix glaring mistakes in the words, fix the words that aren't right because I edit as I go. But the problem is I keep miswriting words because my brain moves faster than my fingers and I can barely keep up with it - if my mind starts plodding along at a soothing 1000000 billion million gazillion miles an hour, I can't stop it, can't shut it down, but also can't keep up with my fingers. I leave out words, letters, I get sloppy and the meaning is changed. And it's all about the meaning, right? So if I leave off the words at the end of a paragraph, forget the articles and helper words and leave off the letters at the ends of words, does it really all still mean the same? That's why I get pissed off when you half-ass your way through everything and everything still manages to be okay - because I can't just skip parts and leave them out and have everything be okay - it bugs me and irritates me and I end up ripping it all apart to do over again 100 percent, but you take shortcuts and everything's alright - just ask little red riding hood how taking shortcuts ends up.It isn't good man, and one of these days it's gonna kill you. If I don't first from the frustration of it all. Does doing a good job matter anymore? Does doing things right, taking your time, putting yourself into the work, putting pride in your work and actually WORKING matter anymore? Or is it half-ass slacker city where the bums rule the show and those of us who actually give a toss about anything get slobbered on because we're the ones in the wrong? Tell me, why don't you?

My Internal Reporter's Questions and Answers

Do you know who you are - you, who whispers so silently among the trees?
Do you know where you go - where, in the light of day no footfalls can conquer?
Do you know how you work - the ins, the outs, the inbetweens?

I don't know you anymore, the faded echo of a broken dream
I don't know where you have gone, except to say you're never here.
I don't know how you work - you've changed the rules on me, it seems.

How did we get so far from here, our mouldered slice of the American Dream?
What did we do to earn out share, a piling heap of misery?
When did I cease to know you anymore?
Who did I become, when I failed to know myself?

I don't have all the answers - I don't know how far we've come.
I don't know where we are anymore - I didn't care to look.
I don't know how time crept upon me, obscuring my line of sight,
I don't know what I was thinking, when I let my mind take flight.

Where are all the answers? I truly want to know.
How do I find the source of these pains, the ones I can't even show?

Don't ask me. I'm just a girl with some questions.
But if you'll oblige, I'm dying to know.
Let me get a pen....

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to just not care any more? Wondered what it would feel like if just for a moment you could let go of it all - your school, your work, your family, your friends, your pets, your obligations, your responsibilities and your restrictions - if you could let go of it all and do something entirely unthinkable that would send everything up in a cloud of ash and smoke?

I do.

Did you ever wonder what it's like to have something, some big giant glowing sign that tells everyone else to back off? That you're trying your hardest? That you feel like a drowning man trying to grasp air, breaking the surface for a mere fraction of a second before being pulled down again? Did you ever wonder what it was like if you didn't have to maintain decorum and just tell people what you really thought? How you really felt?

I do.

And did it ever occur to you what you might look like if you finally let what was on the inside show through to the outside? Did you ever want to express all the pain, hurt, rage and uncomfortable, angry truths that are boiling inside because it wouldn't be okay, wouldn't be polite to let them out?

I sometimes think of it. And I'm pretty sure I'd look just the same as I look now - worn out, tired, scarred. Scared. Miserable. Feeling lost, hopeless, alone and without a friend in the world. Because the people I thought were friends really aren't....the people I thought I could trust really aren't trustworthy. It's something I've been learning over and over again for the past four...five...six...seven...eight years now. Because just when you're certain there are people you can rely on, depend on, count on, trust and confide in.....it all goes to shit.

And you're left standing alone. Labeled. Put into a nice neat little box and forgotten about because you aren't worth their time unless there's something wrong.

Maybe my problem is I've been valuing the people in my life who are worthless and not paying enough attention to those people who, time and again, have proven that they're with me for the long haul. Maybe I need to open my eyes a little more and figure that out.

Maybe I just need to wave a big fuck you to everyone and jump off the face of the planet for a while.

How can I trust myself to figure out who I can trust if I can't even figure out the simplest things any more?

How can I trust you if I can't trust myself? How can I trust myself if I am continually let down time and again by those I put my trust in, making me question why I trust in my own judgment ever?

Why does it feel like a big, cyclical, circular logic puzzle that I'll never figure out. The same phrase bandied about by angsty teenagers time and again, scribbled in the back of notebooks and posted on bedroom mirrors - people are shit and the only person you can trust is yourself. So why am I trying to pull other people out of the mire? Why am I trying so hard to keep ahold of the things that are hurting me?

Seriously, why?