feeling

Floating On

Above the clouds, looking down at their spiraling turrets and sweeping fields of snowy white substance, a soul flies. It is lonely, disconnected, lost. It is searching for something among the cool and constantly shifting vista below. A little while ago it passed above a hole that showed the brown and green of land. If a soul could blanch, it would have grown pale to see that. The far away land wasn’t what it was searching for. In fact, it was what it had fled from. The answer it was searching for was supposed to be in the clouds.

The soul floats on. Most of all, it fears the intrusion of loud and dirty airplanes, full of bodies with souls more or less trapped inside them. It doesn’t miss the weight of flesh, nor the noise of humanity. It wishes, sometimes, that it could have experienced the desert, seen the emptiness of the sand dunes and spent the nights gazing at the endless blanket of stars that hangs above the world like a soft dome.

But the life it was given was not such a calm one. The soul can’t remember it very well, but it knows that it never felt at peace, caged inside the coils and toils of the brain it used to reside in.

Freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either, though. The soul continues to float, and slowly loses its belief in what it was hoping to find among the clouds. It’s been wandering among them for long enough now to become disillusioned.

Next time it sees a hole in the clouds, it peeks down. If a soul could gasp, it would have. If it could have clapped its hands, it would have. Instead, it swoops down, faster and faster, the air drawing its formless vapor into a long and softly colorful streak. As it approaches the land beneath it, the heat and dust of a desert rise up to meet it.

Thin Disguise

The old building was cold, its concrete walls never absorbing the day’s sunlight. A small heater that sat in the middle of the room, its metal bars glowing a fiery, hellish red but spreading little enough heat beyond the foot or two of air right around it. The owner of the little room sat huddled by it, shirtless, with a sweatshirt draped over his back. The warmth on his chest almost felt as if there was another body there, pressed close to his.

He knew he should be working, spewing word after word onto the blank screen, crafting some sort of pseudo-intelligent babble that his dissertation adviser would eat up. A disturbing image of turds wrapped inside scones came to his mind; it seemed oddly fitting, though nauseatingly easy to imagine. He put his fingers up to the heater and marveled, as if he were four again, at the way the light shone right through his fingers, making the nails shine with the blood moving under it. The thought of blood always made him begin to hear his pulse knocking through his ears.

Her pulse had always been discernible in her stomach, right where his hand rested when they slept, curled up, their two pairs of cold feet trying to soothe each other in vain. That had been a long time ago. There had been others in his bed since, but they either didn’t spend the night or didn’t fit into the curve of his body quite as well. Besides, they’d all wanted to be the small spoon, and he often needed to be hugged himself, comforted in sleep by the presence of someone at his back. It was one of his only child-like traits. Otherwise, he was often too grown-up, he was told. Even in college, he’d never been as free as he should have been, as easy in himself.

The balcony door blew open and a sharp wind stung him. Getting up, his sweatshirt dropped to the floor, and he felt assaulted as he stepped over the heater, into the harsh breeze. He had to fight to close the door.

Spammers

I’ve had an upswing of spam on my blog recently. I even have a couple spam websites subscribed to or following my blog, which feels weird. I don’t think I have enough audience to be spam-worthy, nor do I write about subjects that seem to be particularly relevant to spammers, but I guess that really doesn’t matter.
The thing is, it’s getting on my nerves, because half the time when I get a fun email saying that someone “liked” a post of mine, it ends up being some spam-bot. Which is just kind of sad.

In other news, today, for the first time since NaNoWriMo 2011, I sat down and worked on a story for a while. It felt lovely. I’ve been writing in my blog nearly every day, true, but there’s a huge difference between my experience of putting down a short blog post and working on a story where I lose myself and end up with an hour and five pages behind me.

Weirdos of the World: Unite

fruit loop.

Read the post above, if you’d be so kind. Mckenzie, the writer of The Unabridged Girl is an incredibly talented writer. I mean it, she is. Whenever she’s posted fiction in the past, I’ve hungered to read more of it. In the post I linked, she talks about how she’s always been considered weird. I can empathize.

In elementary school, I was picked on a lot. The boys hit me, and even a couple of the girls. That was okay with me. It was better than the alternative. You know that old adage about sticks and stones? Well, If somebody hit me, I could at least try to hit back. Not the most peaceful or responsible way to deal with a problem, but self-defense was something I could do. It was the teasing that I didn’t know how to handle. My face would begin to redden, spurring on more lovely comments, and my brain would go blank as I tried to think of something witty to say. I tried the whole “ignoring” trick; I really did. But since I blushed furiously and teared up whenever anyone would tease me, I think that they realized they were getting to me no matter how hard I kept my head down.

I was called weird a lot. I wanted to fit in so badly that it hurt. I still get those moments of wanting to be popular, confident, blonde and skinny and pretty and perfect. I still get moments of wanting to be someone else, someone entirely different, and the urge to jump out of my skin in those agonizing minutes is overwhelming. It feels like there is literally something inside me bubbling furiously and wanting to erupt out of the flesh I live in and prove itself to be the person I should have, could have, would have been if only this, if only that.

But the thing is – I like being weird. I like the fact that I read while I walk. I like the fact that I have lip-piercings but don’t wear any makeup usually and don’t care about how I dress most of the time. I like the fact that when I do dress up, I sometimes do the goth thing and sometimes do the classy, white blouse and nice pants thing. I like the fact that I’ve read the Harry Potter books so many times that I remember that Nearly Headless Nick’s real name is Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington. I like the fact that I play computer games but am still a hopeless romantic. I like the fact that I find pleasure in being on my own with my books, curled up in bed.

Are there things I regret about being weird? Sure. Of course. Do I still have issues? Oh my goodness, yes. If you could hear the inside of my mind, the extent to which I feel guilty about things that aren’t my responsibility, and the amount of time I spend judging myself, you might just go crazy yourselves. And yet… And yet I’ve come to accept that I wouldn’t give up the joys I get in my weird pleasures in order to be “normal,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I also realize that I’m incredibly lucky to be going to a university where being weird is encouraged and that I live near New York City where being weird is a much coveted quality. Maybe there are places where I would feel much less secure in my weirdness.

Have you been called weird? Do you embrace, shun or hide your weirdness?

Drip Drop

Drip. There is a computer screen in front of me. Drip. There is a glass window behind it. Drip. There are drops coming down from the roof of the library behind the window. Drip. There is a gravel yard beyond the water. Drip. There is a brick wall beyond the yard. Drip. There is a tree behind the wall.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
The sky is one long unbroken shade of gray, which seems to be fitting for the kind of day it is. My mind is not at peace. My soul is not at peace. My heart is not at peace. Peace is close to the word piece, which makes sense, since they’re all in pieces right now.
Drip. There goes a tear. Drop. There goes another. Drip. The smell of wooden paneling makes me cry. Drop. The thought of thousands of miles makes me cry. Drip. I feel far away. Drop. Everything is pressing too close.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.

Cultivate

Conserve your energy.
You never know when you may need it.
Keep the waters above the red line.
You don’t want to dry yourself out.
Remember to switch the lights off.
You shouldn’t be wasteful.
Your resources are limited, you know.
Do you feel trapped?
Do you feel strained?
That’s okay. Life feels like that,
Sometimes.
Remember, even that which you hate
Must be cultivated and taken care of.
You never know when you’ll need it.

The Process

One strand after another, something is woven. Slowly, painfully, maddeningly slowly, a pattern begins to emerge. Sometimes there are stray hairs that creep into the fabric and need to be picked out. Sometimes a mistake is made and you need to go back, to destroy some of the careful work already finished, in order to fix it. There might be a change of heart – you might decide that the blue corner should actually be red because it looks nicer with the brown beside it.

I learned how to knit many times in my life, but am finally trying to take it seriously now. And one thing that I’ve learned from it is that mistakes are not irreversible, that you can always take out a few rows, that people will always be there to help you correct something you’ve done, and that there’s a joy in the process.

I’m in a corny mood tonight, I guess, which is odd because I feel far from being comfortably settled. My mood is flip-flopping irritably. But knowing that the process is important helps, and knowing that there are few things that can’t be fixed in some way or another is also an important fact to remember.

I’m all over the place today – forgive me.

How do you deal with weird moods? Do you remind yourself of the good things? Do you try to be intrigued instead of uncomfortable and investigate what it is that feels not quite right? 

Everything Unlike

Rhonda appeared unconcerned. Her hair looked particularly well that day, and she knew that everybody in the restaurant must be looking at her, arching their eyebrows in jealousy or appreciation. The person across from her was arching his eyebrows to, but with anger.

“So you’re lying to me,” he stated.

“No, William. I’m not.”

“Then you’re lying to yourself.”

“That might be a possibility,” Rhonda admitted. She didn’t think it was so, but if she were lying to herself she probably wouldn’t know it. She was an excellent liar.

“What on earth can you want with me? Why do you keep toying with me?” William’s voice was still barely above a whisper. He had an impeccable sense of propriety, and he disliked having this conversation in the crowded eating-house, but she had brought it up.

Rhonda knew, of course, that both the subject matter and the setting would pain him, but for some reason she didn’t mind. It was odd, especially since she was so incredibly convinced that she loved him again. She had changed her mind various times, but she’d never seen herself as cruel for doing so. Even William didn’t see her as cruel. He saw her as Rhonda – nothing more, nothing less, and he didn’t really understand what he meant by that, only that it made sense to him.

“I’m not toying with you, dear, I really mean it this time,” she said.

“You’ve meant it before.”

“True.”

Rhonda patted her hair delicately, making sure that the tumble of curls at the back was still only half-collapsed, looking as if it had fallen out of an arrangement and just happened to rest so beautifully on the nape of her neck as it did. She adored this sort of pretended natural style. Her clothing was similarly on the verge of looking windswept and rumpled, and her face was made-up very lightly, as if she hadn’t finished applying the proper cosmetics before she’d had to rush up and go somewhere.

William loved all this about her, no matter how fake it was. He often convinced himself that there was no artifice involved at all. He thought that she was so consistent in her inconsistencies that they must be genuine.

She read him like a book. Though not exactly cruel, she had a streak of playfulness that made her fickle, and there was no one who could stand it in her the way William did. So Rhonda used him. She knew she used him, but she also knew that he enjoyed it on some perverse level.

It never even occurred to her to feel guilty.

You Said

“I’m going to take a trip towards the light,” you said, and watched me with large eyes, wet with unshed tears. What am I talking about? They weren’t unshed. They were simply suspended, on a break. There had been plenty of them before and I knew that more were to come.

“Don’t worry,” you said. You thought you were comforting me. You really did. I didn’t understand how it was possible that you could think that anything you said would be a comfort. Comfort wasn’t possible. Comfort still isn’t possible.

“There’s someone waiting for me there, you see,” you said, and you smiled. I wanted to gag you, to make you stop spouting useless platitudes. You’d never spoken this way before. Something about this situation, about this departure, made you different. You were still you, but you’d changed.

“Don’t cry,” you said. “You’ll see me again someday.” You died, and I didn’t have the time to tell you that I didn’t believe it. I didn’t have time to say goodbye.

Dissasisfaction

Enjoying the taste
of stomach fat and acids,
It curls up snugly,
Waking up every few hours
For a meal.
It eats away
(though ingesting nothing)
and creates a pain.
It climbs up into
the chest when It is sated
and weighs down
until It grows hungry again.
It is insatiable.