A Dream I Once Had

Prologue: Seriously. I strongly advise you to not bring this up with me if we know each other in real life. If you feel extraordinarily compelled, do not mention this to me in person. Use Facebook messages or e-mail. 

I write for myself, and I am not ashamed of my writing. People have found out about my blogs by chance / accident / me forgetting that I actually do not post happy stuff all of the time. I am not going to stop you from reading what I write, but I want you to know that you are CHOOSING to read this and I do not have a choice when it comes to writing. If I have something that I really need to say to you, trust that I will say it in person. 

This is also unedited so there may be: spelling errors, bad phrasing and just weird run-on sentences. English nit-pickers be wary.

Alternate title: a series of small scenes outlining the deterioration of an unnamed girl


Remember that nothing is non-fiction.




I've gone back in time and I'm watching a fast forward version of us. This is what they meant by soul mates. I can fix us... I can fix myself in this version of reality. Everything in my life is happening out of order and in this chaotic shift in time, everything becomes clear and perfect. Your eyes are looking into mine. I thought you were beautiful the moment I saw you, but didn't quite process this beauty until I had ruined you and in turn, ruined myself. I want this flawless version of reality to stay with me. I want my ninth grade self. I want to call out your name one last time. I want to feel my tiny body engulfed in your arms. I will never feel safe again. I will never be happy again. You were my last hope at survival but as I feel a retrospective tear roll down my face, the vision unwinds. My stomach knots up into the sickness that now characterizes it. My smile is gone. My perpetual optimism becomes a heavily rooted misandry and unshaken cynicism.

 I'm so glad you found God. So glad you left me behind, leaving me to kiss my guilt for dying behind.

~

Months of monotony. A winter went by where I acted all right. I was strong.

I threw a party. I looked gorgeous and went all dressed up with a ghost on my right arm.

One look at you, and strength melted away. The presence of my ghost did little to comfort me. You were happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. And here I was smiling and laughing and saying why-i-hope-you're-having-a-good-time and taking pictures and being myself. I became obsessed with your happiness. I needed to understand why you were happy.

How could you be?

Take the crazy girl and put her in a gorgeous black dress and pin all her hair back. She's almost ready. Put a frail ghost of a person on her arm and send her to the party she planned. Send her there to see the love of her life (or so she thought) alone and happy and perfect. Send the crazy girl to the party and see if she will snap!

I had you sent out. Shaking with guilt. Shaking with regret. Shaking with the knowledge that I'd closed that door and locked it shut. Good bye. I loved you. Have a nice life.

I will never.
Ever.
Ever.
Send a crazy girl to a party ever again.

~

I don't know how to love.
I don't know how to feel.
Take a drink pretty girl. Light a bowl.
You do know you're pretty right?

At least I'm pretty.

It doesn't matter if you're empty,
As long as you stick a sassy little mouth on it
and call it cynicism.

If your God is so amazing...
God.
Ha!

Six mixed drinks and five cigarettes later,
I had my diploma
cum laude

Sadness is good for something.
"I love you, Thomas. I love you. I love you I love you."
All lies.

But maybe if I say it enough times. Drunk and sincere.
Maybe someone will believe me and love me back.

~
Three years ago I liked a tall boy. He was born and raised in the snobbiest state: a foot taller than me and so many pounds lighter. (This was when I thought that I had a soul.) I cannot really remember his face very much. He had a large nose and eyes that could be blue or green depending on the light and what color Ralph Lauren polo he wore. He was white male teenage angst, and a beautiful, displaced writer. He wanted to be good enough so badly and I wanted him to be good enough too. I read every short story, devoured every word.

Writers are good at seeing beauty in others.

We are still friends. But I haven't read any of his recent works. I dreamt that one day I walked into some Barnes and Noble establishment, hand in hand with soul-mate extraordinaire and we laugh at the days when I thought that writers could make me see beauty or that blue eyes were deeper or more beautiful than any others
~

My three sisters lived with me for a year. I was seventeen and just then learning about destroying my body. My three sisters are beautiful creatures, each one of us destructive in some way or another, none more unjustified than myself. And every weekend we would pick our poison and sit and sip our illicit materials under the light of a shifty colored disco ball. We learned things about each other and about women in general. They taught me how to have sisters outside of my family. They taught me about loyalty. They never spoke his name unless I spoke it first. They never spoke to him when I was around. They essentially killed a man for me. They killed an irresistible and utterly lovable  person for me, the decidedly unlovable and fickle child of depression.

My best friends killed the man I loved. My sisters killed the man I love. And they kept my secrets well.

~

Not even a whisper, to each other or anyone else: She still loves him.

~

I dreamt all the good men were a myth perpetuated by society and then I drowned in my unreasonable expectations. I woke up choking and grasping, reaching out for someone to "be different". But everyone knows you should remain calm when you're underwater.

So I drowned.

~

How can you be my best friend. I don't even like you? Do I?

I can't explain it to anyone.

But you are one of the closest people I have to a brother.

So even if I stop dreaming, I think you'd exist in the real world too.

~

I wanted it all to be a secret. I wanted to be perfect. I want to be perfect. Why can't anyone forget the stupid depression. Forget about it!

Don't let it control your vision of me.
It's a part of me enough as it is.

Fuck your pity.
Fuck your compassion.
Fuck your sad looks.

I don't need any of it.

I am not weak. I am sick.
sick sick sick sick sick sick sick
But I'll get better. I'll get better without you.

I hate men because they always think that the grace of their compassion will be strong enough to cure me. Your compassion hurts more than sadness. Your pity cuts deeper than any knife. And your sickening tendency to treat me like a poor-little-girl brings me closer to nausea than an unfiltered shot of gin.

~

I like when you notice that I haven't eaten in days. I want to force myself to love you. You are so weird. So annoying. You are the worst. "Tell him you have a crush on him. Tell him." So I do and of course it is a bad idea. the worst. But it's not your fault and I just want to sit and watch you and I know it's very odd but I can't help it. I wish I could write you into a book, myself. Authors have such intricate knowledge of their characters. Writer's block prevents me from getting past a thin caricature of a persona.

You're a little 3D puzzle and I can't figure you out and the more time I spend trying to fit the little pieces together, the more frustrated I get. And you, my little puzzle, want to flee from the probing hands trying to piece you together because maybe you want to be a mystery.

Half of what I know about you isn't real. I've dreamt it all. I've made our whole friendship up in my head and when you tell me to fuck off, I pretend not to hear it because I have embraced tenacity as a part of "myself." Every piece of the puzzle I hold between my fingers, twisting around my spindly crooked bones, the closer I am to waking up.

You talk a lot. I know. I know. But it's my dream and I can talk if I want to. And it's my dream so I can control what's happening and if I pinch down hard enough, I know I can wake up. My unfinished business doesn't matter, because dreams aren't real, and unsolved puzzles don't symbolize failure and nightmares always end.

~

She's loved him for five years and I don't know how she does it. My fourth non-biological sister. Sweet and perfect and everything I cannot be. She is patient. She is peaceful. She is kind. I am unruly. I am disorganized. I express rage. I can scream and stab things and rip bits of paper and write letters to boys I'll never see again and then watch flames lick up the sides of papers and laugh the way the nutjobs do.

I am inadequate. You always know what you say. You can make me feel better. You will listen to me speak for hours but I can't do the same for you. I always fall short and we both know it. But somehow you are still there, and I am still here.

I am forever inadequate, but it doesn't mean I don't care.

I don't know how you love him. How does your heart stand it? I can't stand loving anymore so I've convinced myself that I can stop. He doesn't deserve you, but I don't know how to express it any other way.

How can I reflect how different your souls are? You soul is a perfect sphere, Plato's sphere. You are the ideal. And he is an (originally) spherical lump of Play-Doh, handed off to a three year old and twisted and marred so far out of shape, and mixed with all the other Play-Doh lumps to become a hardened, out of shape brown blob. He is indistinguishable from his original beauty and you are still a floating angel untouched by evil.

Maybe you don't believe that you are perfect, but your only flaw is loving too much. Arguably, that is not really a flaw. Maybe I am blinded by sisterly loyalty, perhaps a flaw of yours lurks in some dreamy shadow-land, but in the present I see nothing that ruins you.

I worry that one day you'll wake up and you won't be you anymore. I don't want him to take away your kindness. I don't want him to take away your naiveté. I want to scream at him to let you be and I want to take you and shield you from ever loving boys. I can't protect you, my dear. I can't control everything. But I can write, and wish for you to realize how much better you are than he. My lips are sealed and I am quiet as a mouse, giving weakly supportive opinions because I care so deeply for you, I fear if I allow myself to speak freely, I will terrify you and you will leave me too.

I cannot be short a sister.

Look at me: sweet mix of selfishness and selflessness.

~

Maybe you are thinking it doesn't matter how imperfect he is.
Maybe you love imperfections.

It would explain a few things.

~

There was a moment over the summer when I lay in my bed late at night thinking. It was an odd thing to dream, I admit. My soul-mate extraordinaire popped into my head. I hadn't thought of his name in a month and I was happy. I fell into a deeper sleep, and didn't think of him again for another two months.

~

I have a Smith & Wesson knife in my room. I thought they made guns? Although it is silly, I sterilize the tip of the knife and hold the index finger on my right hand over my knee. I grip the knife with my left hand and try to draw blood with the knife's tip. It isn't sharp enough to make this painless. So I put the knife down and wash my hands. I close it up tight and promise I won't try to do something so stupid ever again. I mean, would you try to draw blood with a spoon? It's the same thing.

~

I had a dream that I liked a boy the normal way and everything went well. It was a nice dream, where things fell into place without me ever trying. And no one had to find out that I hate my New England world and on Friday nights I write and think and try to stab my fingers with dull knives.

~

I'm trembling
It's happening too quickly

But I like his hands

And soon I like more
and more bits
and here I am
stuck liking

I don't know
how to hide
Real me (TM).

Here...
I don't need to

I'm warmer
when he's here.

It makes
no sense

I barely know you.

I don't know
how to be a woman

I can be a girl,
Naked
And craving

Stop shaking 
Little girl

She steadies my body
Calm-me
calms me

Or is it him
The Stranger

I'm shattered
too quickly
for a "sick cynic"

~

How can I think that I am the only girl.

~

Being beautiful isn't enough. Being pretty isn't enough. I am not smart enough. I am not loving enough.  I am not girly enough or sweet enough or innocent enough. I am bombarded with not-enough all day. There is no one but me yelling the repetitive message, but somehow, my worst critic wins.

I can acknowledge things that I can prove. I can prove that I'm pretty. I like my face. (Except when I've been crying.) My hair is long and colorful and I can change it from curly to straight at my whim. I'm small and have just-enough fat in just-enough places. There's your proof.

But bad thoughts crawl into my brain anyways and I see inadequacies everywhere else.

~

I think he likes other girls and I care. The fact that I care scares me. It's not like I don't  start off  thinking the worst of men. I cannot be fooled. I am the misandrist who knows her men well enough to not be tricked by them.

It isn't good that I want only him. Want him for what?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I try to force my mind to recollect soul-mate extraordinaire, or conjure images of different ghosts, but I have moved on from them, except to emotionally ponder them on Friday nights when depression overtakes my mind. They are not my present, though. For once, I finally want to be in the present, but I feel I am alone there.

Always alone. Forever and ever. Amen.

~

I can't stop thinking about him.
I want him out of my head.

I can't forget what pain feels like.


I need to dwell on the past again
to remind myself that

I am a footnote.