Thinking About The Dying Part Of Death

thinking about the dying part of death

someone new. new face. no face. i want to feel at peace. i know better. i know better. can’t think. frantic. switching between. switching. you’re killing me.

i want to be beautiful. i want to be a goldfinch that just slammed into a window, all i wanted was to be warm inside. i want to be the blood spreading over the tracks, all i want is to give agates their red hue, i want to give back to nature. (i want to swallow batteries, down blood thinners and sit in a garage with all the cars running.) disintegrate from the inside out.

there’s a difference between zoning out and derealizing. zoning out so bad you’re floating through life like nothing more than a ghost. can’t even force myself to stay present, to get out of my head. i wasn’t nervous, but i notice as i start to present that i (slip to the back of my mind) and my words became a stream of unrecognizable dialogue. i can’t stay here, can’t stay present, i wonder if my professor knows i’m not here, knows i’m at the back of my head. i’ve been told i’m a shit friend, he said he didn’t stick around because i was nice. don’t know what he saw in m((e if we hated each other) so m)u))ch.

time is of the essence, “well executed,” she tells me. thanks, you didn’t read my suicide note in the background. everyone’s been eyeing it up.

i keep dreaming of dying terrible deaths. homecoming queen dies in a tragic car accident (no details were given.) i watched rollercoasters fly off their tracks and crash into each other mid-air. gunshots go off in a crowd and everyone runs. (i keep all my secrets in parentheses.)

you used to think maybe i was happier if i was having dreams at night. this is all just one long fucked up drawn out entry in (dear s,)

i’ve taken the pills, i’ve parked by the tracks, but i’ve never gone through with it. my therapist knows i have these thoughts but i won’t tell her how i’ll do it. she asks all the wrong questions.

(i jerk the wheel of my car on black ice just to see if i care enough to live.) but who doesn’t? we’re all fucking miserable.

future past:

because its everything, no, everything was never the deal. shut the door on terrible times. my shoes are an altar: remembrance: the things i love. can i trust you? would you lie to me? i wish i could disappear into the ground. be wiped from everyone's memory. i was never here, i never existed. maybe i'll wake up. i don't remember my first out of body experience. i don't remember my last. its amazing, the things you miss when you aren't paying. paying attention. i'm not ready for the questions. the stares. the comments. i've faced enough alienation in my life, and i don't need more. i don't enjoy it. but i worship it: alienation. he gave me words, no, he took me by the neck, threw me against a wall, and shoved it down my throat. and i will worship it. do i tell her? should i wait until i'm older? would you lie to me? i run in these circles. its your choice: my diary is an open book and you can decide if you want to know everything about me. its a tv series, you can't miss an episode unless you want to be lost. i'm the only fan of this one, i may be the only one that fully understands my story. my references. i may be the only one to ever read my writing in its entirety. someday i want to help the kids. not because i am good at comforting, but because i can show them there is hope for the future. i want to be what i've never had. growing up is terrifying, and all i see are unhappy adults. not just you, mom. its everyone. everyone's miserable. i can't spend the rest of my life wandering dead mall halls, sunny "self care days" drag on for years, and before you know it, i've wasted my life on never growing up. they tell me to be a kid now. i'm already feeling the stress of someone far older than me. and all i can do about it is lay idle in bed. she says i'm depressed. its not something i'm new to, but its something i'm beginning to fully realize the extent of its ass kicking abilities. showering isn't a chore for everyone. getting out of bed isn't dreadful for everyone. friends aren't terrible. i miss that glorious time when i loved my friends. now it feels like haven't been loved in years: i don't know what it is with you and the joy you suck out of my life all while making me think you're the best thing thats ever happened to me. don't feel sorry for me, i've never been better. i feel exhausted just getting out of bed and crossing my bedroom. i don't know how i'm still functional. i'm barely keeping it together. but maybe someday i'll be something. maybe i'll look back on this and think: realize: i'm delusional. the most beautiful thing ever is how these words withstand the years of seasons changing, wind battering the shit out of me, golden, heat, sub-zero. these are just glimpses of feelings turned thoughts turned words. maybe this is who i really am. thirty years from now i'll be on the same hamster wheel in my head, running in these same circles. peace: is a boat on the atlantic ocean. 50°f. overcast day. me and kafka ride up the shore, canadian water. back home theres vinyls. stonewall. silence. but for now i'm a---

i find its a lot easier to understand my window of tolerance nowadays than i ever have before. i think its funny: i can look back and see when i was thinking rationally rather than when i wasn't. and its all thanks to different circumstances. being overwhelmed isn't an excuse to be an asshole, however, being overwhelmed is an excuse to be an asshole. honestly, i'm transcribing every word in my head as it comes. and you eat this shit right up. god, am i a disillusioned rockstar already? god, i'm so tired. god, are you real? rocks and stars, hell, the rockstars say you aren't. someone outta put a bullet in his head. for now i'm twenty two twenty twenty two twenty twenty two twenty twenty two twenty and its only a matter of time before you're crossing country borders to run from what you're doing. soon everyone will know. you go against all the ethos, pathos, and logos, or maybe just ethics. its. a grey conversation.

lost cause

i mean it when i say i truly am a dead end. i don’t deserve the money and energy and relationships i destroy trying to get better. i’m doing everything i can. i do the talk therapy, i take my meds and supplements, i eat the right food, talk to my friends, go for walks, sit in front of sun lamps and tell myself i’m a good person yet i’m still fucking sad. my therapist says that really all i can do is find the right meds. vincent says my therapist is shit. he doesn’t get it. there’s nothing i need to talk through, i’ve written my way out of all my problems except this.

at some point, you’ve got to swallow your pills and accept that this is as good as its ever going to get.

but i can’t help but whine, “it’s not fair!” that everyone else can talk their way out of things and i’m left stuttering and desperate sputtering out sophisticated words in a pathetic attempt to get my point across.

but i can’t help but wonder if killing myself isn’t a bad option. i mean seriously, what else is there left for me? what’s the point of this shit if i’m just going to be a shaky grey line, a greasy 6B pencil held at a 170° angle, down a newsprint pad held in your non dominant hand, shaking because you haven’t eaten in a day or so and its starting to show.

and sometimes i wonder if tonight is the night. but it never is. but sometimes i wonder if i’ll man up enough to do it.

“i love her,”

you do? those are words you threw out like candy at a parade until one day i noticed you stopped saying it back when i said it. did you know i had to force myself to say it? because i didn’t believe it, but it was easier to say it than to deal with the consequences of silence after you—

sometimes i find myself getting wound up about all that happened but i have to remember to take a step back. nothing about you has changed, she’s getting the same treatment as me. (it was shit,) and part of me wants to cover her ears and eyes but i don’t know what good that would do when the chemicals are already doing it. but maybe an absence of it would force her to stop and think. but even then it would take months for it to clear out, so there’s nothing i can do because i can guarantee you, nothing will get through to her.

i’d like to be there to pick up the broken pieces. i can’t put them back together, but i can let her know it was okay, it was an ugly vase anyway. the sentimental value will eventually fade away and you won’t even remember anymore. we’re too young, do you understand what you’re doing to her? this is manipulation, this is being taken advantage of, but you don’t even realize it.

be pissed at me all you want, but all around this is pathetic. what brings you here? the same reason as me?

disintegration of platonic love

for now, the day i’ve feared the most is here. i’ve tried not to think about how college is the end of high school friendships, how the moment i realized i could love again it’s about to disintegrate, how i cried on the phone with you six hours away, how nothing ever lasts. i’m not homesick, i am home.

i miss you.

the face and the body doesn’t count, i want the thoughts in your head and the feelings you experience and the shit you say to be closer to me. i want you in my passenger seat again.

i worry about him. i wish i didn't but i care too much. and i didn't know someone could care back.

and i should know better.

maybe he was right, love is the worst but its worth it for the good things it brings you.

you’re a secret my peers don’t even know about. i mean sure, “i write on the side,” “i’m really more of a poet than an artist,” and all that jazz, but they don’t know shit about this. i like anonymity. nameless title cards. clipped out faces, blurred hands, and trailing frames. unfinished indesign files laying around my hard drive. the art of dragging things out for as long and as long and as long as i possibly can. i can break my work up into shows. but poetry doesn’t work like visual art galleries unless i give it visuals. and i try, all i’ve got are half finished sketchbook pages and notes crawling with ballpoint pen ink. and this isn’t even poetry, god, its just writing.

i think i’ve found my passion or some shit, less terrified for the future but still willing to let someone discover my cold body hanging by a rope. i’d be perfectly happy being an artist for the rest of my life but god, i don’t want to deal with the uncomfortable parts of life. i want words to flow from me not like they are, i want beauty dripping from my fingertips and i want people to like it. i want a fucking pat on the back. i want a hug. i want to be comforted, to be loved, which leads me back to why i do all this shit anyway. but it sounds pathetic,

Artist’s Statement:

I create art as a means to express my longing for emotional intimacy and desire to feel cared for. In “Seventeen” I depict my journey getting over a breakup that happened forever ago but please keep reading, there’s so much more you just don’t understand, i can give you receipts, quotes, i want you to feel what i feel, i want you to know that i— but i— i hope that you’re—

so i don’t know where these sentences were going or what the point is. the only reason i didn’t kill myself was because i wanted to graduate on time. well shit, i’ve got six weeks before i can officially fuck my entire life up. but i’m happy, right? i take long drives because the sunshine leaves a gentle smile on my face, not because i’m desperately searching for a distraction or a reason to keep going.

i don’t think i’ll ever find another person like you. i hate to quote that song that’s like “you’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you,” cuz fuck, that’s exactly what i’m trying to say. kicking, fighting, biting with the brick wall with absolutely clue i’m even here. well, it does, its fucking ignorant as shit. but that brick wall “loved” me, right? it “loved” me. it made me feel “loved” or whatever chemicals come with that. and that’s what i want again. he’ll take you in and make you think you can stop taking your antidepressants and then he’ll absolutely fuck your life over. and he just. gets away with it. and it comes out in all the worst ways possible. can you tell i’m resentful? its because i love dragging things out but i try to blame it on a desire to be an artist. some shit i’m not even good at.

this was supposed to end forever ago. but you don’t even remember. was there a point? was there a reason? no. you wanted to be beautiful and this is what you got.