Saturday, January 5, 2013

My Brother's 24

Gathered around the table, your family members laugh and talk wildly, drinks in hand, forks scraping the air in violent, humorous gestures. They look at you, they reminisce about old memories of you, of kid-you. Kid-you playing soccer ("she was such a 'scrapper!'") Kid-you in the elementary school play("oh yeah, that was her greatest performance!") Kid-you sitting on the couch upside down, watching Saturday morning cartoons ("she would spend hours like that!") 
Insert smile, insert laugh; what great times! 

You simply stare back, blinking and confused at those beaming faces (in your mothers you find a terribly sad nostalgia, like those memories have been lost to pain.) Like a newly born infant you are delirious from the light, crippled by the slam of existence.  
Living is painful, breathing is astoundingly hard.  Sometimes.  It's strange to think about life.  In a split moment, you become.  You go from zero to one million.  From nothing to something.  From silence to explosion.  It's the opposite with death.  Both are too incredible to fathom really.

I have the most faded recollections of moments but I feel nothing when I think about them. I don't feel sadness or happiness. I feel ...  What is it that I feel?  It cant be nothing.  You cant feel, you cant be, nothing.  If anything I am numb.  I am a flatline drone.  A ghost sheet on white wall.  A transparency.  


Slap that crooked smile across your face for half a second but even that's too much;  you give up and your lips falter to a simple and apathetic line.  You spend the next 30 minutes staring blindly at the table, shoveling caloric-restaurant-mush into your mouth.  Remember, take sips ever other bite, it'll come up easy; too easy.  You've given up trying to hide your gluttony; you grab from other plates, you ravage your own.  Fork to plate to mouth to plate to mouth to plate to mouth, ect, ect, ect.  
Suddenly, in that leather seat, in the middle of this happy family gathering, the terror hits.  The sweat starts to pour, hands are shaking, eyes darting here and there, resentment building, temper becomes short.  Suddenly the fullness is absolutely and undeniably unbearable.  In a foolishly obvious move, you shove yourself back from the table and stagar wordlessly to that horribly familiar bathroom.  
It's a fucking miracle, because no one is there; this never happens, there's always some bitch pissing in the stall next to you.  You hate them more than humanely possible in those moments.  The stall door clatters.  Next is the pacing.  Perhaps the worst of this 45 minute activity.  Here's where those inset thoughts come.  You're not going to be able to get rid of it all, you're fucking disgusting, what are you going to do if you can't get it up, why couldn't you control yourself, pig, whore, fat ass.  It's almost cinematic how these words whisper and reverberate throughout the tile room; a serpent hissing cunningly in your mind; it's fucking fantastic how typical and text book it is.  A shitty, low budget, college-student film showcasing mental diseases.  
Pacing, pacing, you begin to mutter to yourself until... there it is.  There is that familiar and soothing feeling; bile rising up your throat.  Here it comes, don't force it, and yes! Yes, it's reached the top of your throat! You run for the toilet and the food comes up violently.  It's sickening but you grow used to it, you grow numb to it.  
You're left gasping over the toilet; thrash at the toilet paper dispenser, grabbing far too much to wipe down that white bowl.  The tile, you notice, is so dingy and stained you begin to feel sick and the room spins.  Five years of this and that room spins every single time. Hush hush.  Just maintain, just cope for the next hour or two and you'll be okay.  You walk to the table, shame, more bile, fear in your throat.  Everyone is still talking, and you sit as unnoticeably as you can.  
You want to fall into the floor, you want to die.  
And then you feel nothing at all.  
Numbness, 
apathy 
again.  

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Waiting For...Something...

I'm sitting again on this couch, playing my favorite sitcom, trying to believe that tomorrow will be okay.  I suppose these past few days have been somewhat better.

New Years Eve was a flash of glitter and confetti and vibrant color.  It was an endless night of throwing back drinks and smoking cigarettes; of belting our favorite songs and dancing and a thousand and two clicks of disposable cameras(that were found littered through the house the next morning along with cigarette packs, gold stars, Diet Coke cans, and the remnants of good times.)  I remember vividly, laughing and eating and singing.  It was beautiful.  Of course the next morning was a wretched reminder that nights like that do have their drawbacks.  I worked a 7 hour shift the day after and nearly had a mental break down from exhaustion(I have been going 100 miles an hour on no sleep lately) and started to cry at the register.  The poor customer I was attending was probably incredibly confused, I have to laugh when I think about it.

I miss having drugs on me.  That little orange pill bottle in my purse, shaking and clattering around in my purse was such a comfort to have; I can only sigh when I think about it.  That ability to numb myself at any moment, at any point, god I fucking need it back.

Catharine and matches.


I like how she held it upside down... And I didn't notice haha.

I don't remember Christmas morning. 


By the sea. By the sea.




My love!

Me...