Skydekkerix

I crawled onto hot, worn asphalt. Piles of ancient car wrecks surrounded me. Chunks of highway rained down nearby, shaking the ground. The rain stopped but the shaking didn’t. I heard stomping and metal twisting. I reached out and felt a tall malice picking its way through the wrecks. I knew it was a t-rex because I am psychic.

I ran towards a pile of cars. Stayed focused, watched the ground where I was stepping. Felt the malice speed up, taunting me with its mind. I leapt onto the roof of a sports car and slipped under the wheels of an SUV into a gap under the pile.

The menace hung over me and trapped my Vision to the gap I was in. I could sit up but the gap wasn’t long enough to stretch my legs out. There was enough space under a car to give me a limited view of the ruin beyond. I pushed my back up a bit further and the panel I was resting on popped. The t-rex roared.

A tiny silhouette moved in front of the space under the car. It stopped, then stepped under the car and into my gap. It was a small mutant about the size of my fist, with a bulbous beaked head and grey, oily skin. It held a nail in its oversized, skeletal hand. It kind of reminded me of that tweety bird cartoon character. Its eyes were filled with hate.

It climbed onto my leg and started stabbing it with the nail, unable to get through the denim of my jeans. I spoke “Tweety?” I said. “Can I call you Tweety?” I closed my eyes. “You do not care.”

“You do not seem to care.”

I opened my eyes. “Can you understand me?”

Tweety looked up at me, nodded, and continued to stab me. “Good.”

I pushed around the limits of my Vision. The malice hung over me like a heavy blanket. A fanged smile and a cage. I relaxed.

“Can you tell me if the world is broken Tweety?”

“Maybe you could. Maybe you don’t want to tell me. Maybe you do not know.”

Tweety was unresponsive.

“I do not know.”

“It feels like more things are broken. More ghosts. Less options.”

“People seem to be angrier than they used to be. You seem pretty angry.”

“I get being angry. I am angry almost all of the time. I don’t get being angry enough to, you know…”

The nail jabbed into my leg.

“Fuck”

I picked Tweety up and moved him away.

“Maybe I am just more angry than I used to be and it is effecting my perspective.”

Tweety moved around to my side and started stabbing my jacket. I didn’t care because I didn’t own it.

“Things seem to be worse when I am angry. As the king ails so does the kingdom.”

Tweety jabbed furiously.

“I am not trying to be arrogant I was just quoting a movie.”

“Maybe I am arrogant for thinking too much about big problems. Everybody wants to fix the problems that they see but the big ones are blocking my sight to the ones I can handle.”

The malice above me laughed. I heard a sharp twang of shame and then only the rapid grunting of Tweety.

“There is a t-rex in the way.”

I frowned and scratched the back of my neck. Watched Tweety for a moment. The nail was fraying the material of my jacket.

“You seem like a broken thing Tweety, but maybe you are not. Maybe you are meant to be this way. Psychics have as much of the answers as anyone else.”

The nail stuck through my jacket and scratched the side of my stomach. I picked Tweety up and moved him away again.

“Maybe less.”

I stared through the gap under the car. Tried to gauge the distance to the next pile of wrecks.

“Am I your t-rex Tweety?”

Tweety looked up again, crawled up the front of my jacket, nail grasped in beak.

“I think maybe not. I think I am something else.”

“I cannot tell if you want to kill me, or if you are playing a game.”

Tweety reached my neck. I placed him on the ground.

“I cannot tell if you love me.”

The malice grew angry, dust shook from the wrecks.

“I can only tell what I am.”

I whistled, shuffled around, started crawling.

“The world… Tweety… is full of many… t-rexes.”

I reached the edge of the gap. The malice coiled.

“Of many sizes. Everyone’s t-rex is bigger than they are. Now I must face mine.”

I turned back. Tweety was sitting cross-legged in the gap. His stare said death.

“I hope that makes sense.”

“Thank you for being here, Tweety.”

I turned back. Tried to figure out which direction to run. The malice laughed and I heard another twang of shame and then silence. I ran.

After a night of drinking with friends I decided to walk home. I could tell it made them uncomfortable. I kept countering arguments to crash on a couch at a nearby home with the long list of reasons why I prefer not to sleep in strange places. We settled the argument when I pointed out they didn’t have strong enough medication to make me sleep. The mind fills the night with dangers.

I walked through the night down a path of thought that led to time travel, mainly because I had watched back to the future the previous night. I remembered the exact moment in my life where I came to grips with time travel not being real. The realization hit me at the same time as a tennis ball hit me in the face.

I was in grade three and waiting for my mother to pick me up from school. A kid from my grade who looked old for his age and stayed in grade three for a year after us called out to me and threw the ball, catching me by surprise and hitting me square on the nose.

I had just watched back to the future for the first time and I thought to myself that when time travel is invented I will come back and stop that tennis ball from hitting me in the face.  Then I thought about how it had happened and nothing had stopped it. I thought about how there was no kind and wise future version of myself who would return and fix all my problems. I thought about how there would be no revelation of what would come in the future, just a series of days in ignorance of what lies after. I should have maybe thought more about long division and making friends.

A bat swooped me out of my memory and flew down an unlit side street. I stopped and rolled a cigarette, then followed the bat’s path.

I followed a route I had taken before. A memory from when I first moved out of my isolated home in the country and into an unfamiliar city. I walked home through the night from my job making sandwiches for loud teenagers in a shopping centre food court.

I had just closed for the night, working frantically to get my list of tasks done. I told my fifteen-year-old underling to deal with the unwashed masses and then I told her to wash the dishes. I walked through the winding streets to my house. I came to an unlit street lined by black twisted trees with no foliage. I saw something in the dark at the end of that path, some destiny or choice.

The year after I finished high school seems like one long nightmare. The lingering problem of a psychotic break is that you can’t be sure of what really happened; the memory remains unreal.

During that period some small, lucid part of me was aware of how my mind was breaking, of how the reality I was experiencing wasn’t true, of how the things I saw, heard and felt weren’t shared by the people around me.

As I stood at the end of that street I saw two roads ahead of me. The only information on mental illness I had gained was from the serial killers in thriller novels I had read and the barely told story of an uncle who had developed schizophrenia and died in his thirties.

The only future I saw was the dark end of a sad story I wouldn’t be around to tell. I could either give in to dark thoughts and become my own villain, or be consumed and become a victim of myself.

I chose the third road.

I got to my current home from my walk and rolled a cigarette, then sent a message back through time to myself. I spoke theatrically because I was practising for an event and it stops me from stuttering and because I thought if I made it lord of the ringsy it would have more impact on my younger self.

I said young me let this message come to you in some long-forgotten dream spaced between your nightmares.

Let you, for but a moment, behold your future, though you will remember it not.

See what you will become, see that the dooms that lie on your heart lie not on your path.

For you will create a path for yourself. Claim your own part in this ongoing story.

You will become a man, though not a man of some other’s definition. A man as you define it, a human being that exists in earnest, with struggles and friendships and stories realised.

Faith you have, faith hard earned. Not the words of faith forced into your mouth unconsidered and by the design of others, but faith that comes from the lessons you have taught yourself.

Love you have. Love not soured by desire or ignorance, but love that comes from shared roads and honest assistance.

Destiny you have. Not destiny designed by mad torturing gods, and not the destiny laid out for you by the machine of progress. A destination chosen by yourself, aimed for by your own heart.

You have problems and struggles and moments of despair. But every human being has a list of troubles so long they have forgotten its beginnings.

You realise your goal of becoming a real person and not the dark end of a nightmare.

You choose the third path.

May you find solace in some small moment in a dream that keeps you going and leads you down the path to become yourself.

My cigarette went out while I was speaking and gesturing. I sat down, relit and finished it. I turned out the lights one by one, replacing rooms with darkness filled by the mind. I took medication and began the long-forgotten journey that comes with each sleep.

It scares me to speak of the strange things I say and do to keep going. Fear that the very thought process that has kept me alive is what makes me truly alien to the world I aim to be a part of. Yet part of this world I remain, led on by a point to aim for, led on by a place carved out for me among others, led on through the darkest times by some small moment of solace unremembered.

I have forgotten which personality was mine. It happens; sometimes you get lost. Sometimes you spend so long looking at other people you don’t recognise your reflection. Sometimes you don’t speak your own voice for weeks. Sometimes you are a soulless machination of thought.

There is a cure for this.

Recipe for a Lost Soul

Ingredients:

Yourself

Oven:

1. Start sleeping around 8pm. Take medication if required.

2. Set alarm for 4am.

3. Wake at 12am. Hallucinate. Fight tooth and claw against monsters made of chemicals. Forget world exists. Fight for your sanity and fight for your life.

4. Wear self out, sleep.

5. Dream.

6. Dream about how you can fly but it means nothing because everyone else is falling in love.

7. Dream you are repugnant, that the words you say fall foul in the ears of others. That they balk at the sight of you. Dream you are alone.

8. Dream you are turning into a werewolf in front of your best friend. Dream that they talk to you, calm you down. Dream that being a werewolf is kind of like being a person. Dream you are two werewolves.

9. Wake at 4am. Get up quickly. Make coffee. Do not sit down.

10. Wander house with lights off. Make no noise. Sit in a closet. Remember that you are a part of the dark. Remember that the dark is nothing. Remember we are made of empty space.

11. Smoke and look at the last stars. Remember there are more stars than have ever been people. Remember that the stars make more beautiful art than we ever could. Remember that an alien probably knows you exist.

12. Listen to music and watch the sun rise. Remember that music means something to everyone. Remember that the universe is bigger than it was when you were a kid. Remember that you can fall in love any time you let yourself.

13. Speak. Let the world hear the voice you only use for yourself. Reply. No-one is awake.

14. Dig. Find every thought you ever had. Open doors and fight your demons. Find the point where your memories mix with your DNA.

15. Stand. Stand because you can’t contain yourself. Stand because you can’t remember the last time you were in your body. Stand because life cannot be still.

16. You are back. You are done. Get on with it.

17. Don’t forget.

Microwave:

1. Get high and listen to The Rain Song.

I woke. Mattress on the floor. King sized so my feet don’t hang off the end. Red sheets and pillowcases, dark patches from sweating in the morning sun. Pillows sunken in the middle. Large room with blue walls, empty except for the mattress, a chest of drawers and a stack of unpacked boxes.

I rolled over face down and reached to the top of my chest of drawers to grab my phone, pressed the button a few times until I realised it had run out of charge during the night. I stood up and took a moment to steady myself on the uneven floorboards.

The second door to my room had become unlatched. The door with the person sized mirror that I don’t open. I pushed it in until it clicked and pushed a heavy box up against it. Mainly out of habit. I used to be scared of mirrors and doors that won’t close, scared of what was on the other side. Now it was just an annoying portal to a main thoroughfare.

I looked in the mirror at my unclothed self. Watched the image reshape with my opinion, skinny then unskinny, brow furrowed then relaxed, tobacco stain on teeth growing larger then smaller. I bit my lip and balled my fist. I tore myself away and stumbled to the door.

I was hit as I walked through the doorway. Some kind of fit that I have forgotten the beginning of. My breath drew short through clenched teeth. Electricity shot down my right arm, locked the fingers into a claw. I doubled over and stepped back, held my left arm out in front, blocking my face. I pushed the electricity out of my arm so my hand didn’t cramp, pulled it into my legs. My legs locked straight and I took short steps out of my room, swearing at myself, fingernails digging into my palms.

I walked across the rolling floorscape, resting my hands on the nearest objects along the way. I sat down heavily on the back stairs, legs locked straight down across them. My eyes were slits in the sunlight. I spilled tobacco onto the ground, said fuck and punched the steps, then rolled a cigarette.

My mind raced with half thoughts, neck strained from some unseen weight behind me. I tried to catch a thought, feel its intent. I felt frustration build as I tried to focus. The sun rolled over my head and then back up again in front. I blew smoke out in short bursts. The wind took it and made it circle me.

I pulled myself to my feet with the door handle, swinging with the movement of the door. I climbed the stairs and into the house. The light of the morning sun turned red and drained out the windows. I zig-zagged through the house to the hallway. Leant on the wall halfway down, panting and frowning. I said fuck and then pushed off. Took a right turn, then a left, then a right. I fell forward against a door then opened it.

I stumbled into my room. Pale blue light and black in the corners. I crawled onto my mattress and sat down, back facing the second door. Head bowed and fingers rubbing forehead. I tried to make my eyes sting with tears, give myself some kind of indicator that this is not ok and not normal. I couldn’t. I swore.

I spoke to myself, my voice bitter and unfamiliar. I said what if this never stops. What if your hand is locked in a claw permanently, if you stumble down every road you walk. Cry. Get scared. Are you that dead already. I punched the mattress. The second door unlatched.

I heard music. Discordant keyboard notes, spaced one second apart. My eyes locked shut. My vision filled with yellow fire. I felt pressure on the small of my back. It stretched out to tendrils, wrapping under my armpit, my inner thigh, my neck.

A tendril pushed its way in through my temple. Slid along the inside of my cheekbone and up behind my eye. It pushed outwards. I felt my eye bulge. My heart shook the ground. I punched the mattress. I felt only anger. Not directed at the tendrils. Not directed at myself or anyone else. A solid knot of rage in my chest, like a shoelace left tied for too many years.

I let out a long breath that whistled through my teeth. Started listening to the music, following the notes, up then down. The notes drew out longer and my thoughts untensed and unravelled. The tendrils tightened around my body, started pulling. The mattress slid slowly across the floor.

I relaxed my limbs, replacing the electricity with warm numbness. I let myself be dragged, laid out backwards. Felt the sheet bunch up around my back, then cold floorboards. I opened my eyes.

My head was propped up by the tendrils and I looked down my body, pale skin and compass tattoo pointing North into the door behind me. Between my feet the mattress was askew in the centre of the room. Shadows rolled in the corners like smoke, broken by pinpricks of light. The curtains of the window fluttered inwards and the light drained out.

I wasn’t scared. I wanted to be. Wanted that flicker in my chest, a spark of energy, worth more than anything because it is what makes something worth it.  I didn’t resist as the tendrils dragged me through the second door. I wanted to see what was behind it.

The door slammed shut.

taking stock

twenty five

feel older

can’t remember who I haven’t told that joke yet

can’t tell if I am happier than I used to be

still hear voices, music, screams

still feel hands, tentacles, claws

deal with them fine

not a big deal

still get sad, worried, angry

still get happy, inspired, crazy

still three days and no meds away from wanting to kill someone

feel like a monster

feel like there is a wall in the back of my head I can’t see past

a door I don’t want to open

anger I don’t recognise still bubbles up

punch walls when alone

open and close fist, try to feel each second of pain

clears head

I want to stop

everything makes me sick if I let it

sex

violence

conversation

still think about walking to the bridge

throw self off bit over cement not water

instant out not drowning with broken legs

still will get turned back by lifeline phone

by thinking of family

people that need me

need me to talk them down off their own bridges

need jokes and tobacco stained smiles

need my name not to be a stab in the heart

don’t think about death

will come anyway

don’t think about future

will happen anyway

don’t think about monster at back of mind

don’t feel like helpless puppet

don’t think about vile cyst of evil thought

can stop anger

can fight war against self

can be person I decide to be

rouse self

punch wall

steel gaze

it’s all in your head

I am addicted to caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, olanzapine and mirtazapine, and happen to be in the lucky position of being too poor to afford anything else. I have a collection of addictions. I remember each point that they started, what drove me to them and how they affected my life.

I got addicted to caffeine when I was thirteen and started having bad migraines and sleepless nights. I got addicted to alcohol when I moved out of home and had my first psychotic break. I got addicted to olanzapine and mirtazapine when I dropped out of uni and had my second psychotic break. I got addicted to cigarettes after a breakup and a poor decision to spend a night with a bottle of vodka, a packet of Winfield blues and an album of sad western music. I got addicted to marijuana after a breakup and a poor decision to spend a week with a ping pong table, a bag of ak47 and Jimi Hendrix.

Addiction is not something that stops with a revelation or a decision. Quitting means standing on a knife edge for a long time. I don’t know how long. I have never quit long enough to find out.

I woke up on the morning after my 25^th birthday and quit weed. I wasn’t as hungover as I should have been and my mood was dark. I barely spoke to the remnants of the previous night’s party. Instead I sat and frowned and thought. I had been able to watch some tv lately and what I saw wasn’t good news.

I thought about how I was twenty-five and that I heard that was supposed to be the point where your brain is at its peak. I thought about how I was twenty-five and I hadn’t had sex in 18 months, I hadn’t been employed in six years, and I hadn’t been in an unaltered state of mind in twelve.

I said to myself “Three days”. Three days and it will be out of my system. Three days and my head will be clear. Three days and I can make a decision. I went to my father’s house for lunch. I slowly deteriorated into a shaking gagging mess. I got home and stopped quitting.

I quit until 5pm the next day, and then until 7pm the day after. Both days I spent on the couch, frowning and thinking. Unable to act or communicate. Drinking too much coffee and smoking too many cigarettes and struggling with inner demons. I couldn’t seem to control which way I walked or thought. My hands were alternately shaking or clenched shut. I threw up and got bouts of hiccups periodically.

I waked and baked on Wednesday. Tried not to think about how I had quit three times in three days and gone backwards. Tried not to think about how much control over myself I had lost. Tried not to think about what would happen if I lost the disability pension and was thrown back in the deep end of a world I was so far removed from. I did alright. I made a doctor’s appointment at 11pm.

I slept until the afternoon. I didn’t smoke when I woke up. I wanted to be sober for the appointment. Wanted to have a moment that was important to me, without intoxicants making me think it was. I was a nervous wreck. I lit a cigarette on the walk to the medical centre and bent over coughing and gagging half way through it.

I sat in the almost empty waiting room until it got dark and cold. I sat in the seat furthest removed from the other patients and in the best position to see if the doctor was calling out my name so I didn’t keep him waiting too long.

I said two sentences and one word to the doctor. I said hi when I walked in and he said hi and sit down. I said I needed a referral to a psychologist and he printed me a mental health plan. I said I had been having panic attacks and needed valium. He said yes of course. I shook and didn’t look him in the eye the entire time.

I stopped shaking as I walked out of the pharmacy, hand in my jacket pocket, grasping the bottle of valium like a stress ball. I stopped frowning. I lit a cigarette and breathed it easy.

I spoke to myself in the strongest voice my mind could muster. Ian Mckellen. I said this is not a cry for help. This is no plea for time or ground. This is me going down swinging. Fighting tooth and nail. I do not take handouts and do not let people fight in my stead. I take only the help I need from the people who stand on my side.

Weakness is the human condition. It is not a passing thing or a temporary fall from grace. It is the fuel for progress and the building blocks of triumph. It is the thing that connects us, the gap where other’s strengths fit in.

In a way my addictions have kept me alive. They were replacements for problems I could not face alone. I understand where my true strengths lie. I understand that trying your best can still fall short. I understand that every person has their own addictions.

There will come a time where I must stand upon the knife edge for as long as it takes. I never had good balance but that is what makes it worth it.

I am moving out of Snoop Dogg’s house. He hasn’t said anything while I am throwing my clothes in a bunch of garbage bags, he just stands looking down and smoking a joint the size of a chipolata. I am packing fast and rough because Slappy the dummy from Goosebumps is around somewhere. A tiny version of my little sister goads me as I pack. I decide to leave my furniture.

Snoop Dogg doesn’t like leaving the lights on so the house is dark and cold. Brown seventies wallpaper, brown furniture and sheets hanging off everything like dirty cobwebs. There is an icy knot between my shoulder blades. I am hunched and shaky. Snoop offers me the joint and I frown at him because he knows I am trying to quit.

I have piled up my garbage bags in the front room. The room is mostly frosted glass. It feels colder in that room, like I should remember something bad that happened in there. My pile of possessions looks like what it is, a bunch of trash I have forgotten to get rid of along the way.

I lift a bag and Slappy is under it, sprawled in the trash. His mouth is an open grin as if he just told a punchline. His eyes stare over my shoulder, begging me to turn around. I freeze half out of fear and half out of fury. He laughs at me in the way that only something that is silent can.

I ball the hand that is holding the garbage bag into a fist. I turn and take the joint from Snoop Dogg and drag from it. Snoop looks apologetic in a way that makes me want to hit him. My tiny little sister cackles. I don’t take any other bags.

I walk quickly through the lounge room, my footsteps shaking the walls. Slappy skitters out of the front room and under one of the sheets. I keep my eyes on where Slappy is hiding as I walk. The sheet slips down a fraction, revealing one eye and half a grin. I can still hear my little sister cackling. Snoop is gone. I break into a run.

The front stairs are slippery from dew and I slide down them but don’t lose my balance. My heart is pounding when I hit the bottom. The air is cold and fresh outside. Like the opposite of a cigarette. A white kingswood ute idles in the driveway, steam rising from the bonnet. I throw my one bag in the tray and climb in.

The door to the bottom garage is open. I never went in there and never will. I can’t see in because it is too dark. Snoop stands at the opening, smoking and looking down, flanked by Slappy and my little sister. My little sister says awful things in an awful voice at me as the ute backs out of the driveway. Slappy throws shit that smacks loudly onto the bonnet. Snoop doesn’t make eye contact. He doesn’t wave and neither do I.

I think I am going to smash my television. I did not pay any money for it so I guess that is why I think it would be an ok thing to do. My housemates are on their eleventh and seventh play-through of Diablo and the entire box set of Friends respectively. The tv is a constant. I open my bedroom door each morning and it faces me, a vortex, ready to drain my time and attention, challenging me to sit down and see if I can resist its enervation.

The idea of entertainment leaves me with a sick taste in my mouth. It is occupying the brain with no other purpose, leaving it stagnant and lazy. I am a man of many thoughts and I like to catch them, analyse them, steer them. The television is the slow heat death of my universe. It is white noise that makes me fade into the couch, a null person. I think therefore I am and when the tv is on I am nothing.

I despise that machine, with its frame rate that is faster than the human eye for no reason, impossibly skinny because skinny is in. It dominates the room even when idle; its silence presses in on me, begging for my attention, for precious hours of my lifespan. It is designed to kill my time. Leave me silent. Turn me into a freeze frame image, only stirring to snicker at jokes I have heard every day since the start of my life.

I long for a life devoid of entertainment. Where thoughts are acted upon and I am involved in conversations instead of observing them. A life where punchlines evolve and each day brings a new set of actions to go through. Plus Lord of the Rings and Skyrim are so much better than Friends and Diablo. They have elves and mountains and shit and way better soundtracks. I want my turn guys other people’s shit sucks.

So I was asked to do this thing by http://erinmichelleart.blogspot.com.au/

It is a thing other writers have done. I answer four questions about my writing process and then nominate another blogger to do it.

I do not have anyone to nominate yet but I will and then I will update this. If you would like to volunteer please do so in the comments section.

It will save me having to hook up my phone to my shitty laptop as a USB tether and then going over my download limit again. I have never not gone over my download limit but maybe one day.

Plus it is a fun thing to do.

Here are the questions.

What are you working on, right now?

I am just doing short stories at the moment, in the hope of getting enough together to put together a manuscript. I would like to try and win a prize with it but I am not going to get an ego. I have finished the first draft of the feature story Following the Light and I have a wealth of other short stories to go in. I am going to write some stories with a bit more meat in them and then try to fit them together. It is an exciting process, each story is kind of a door to another world for me. Not quite as good as an aeroplane but then again I don’t quite have the income of a pilot.

How does your work differ from that of other writers in your genre?

I am not sure if I really have a genre. But that may be because I dropped out of university. I guess I try not to think about how different my writing is. I just write me, what feels right. No-one else writes about me so I guess that’s what makes it different. That seems like a really bad answer. I have a strange perspective of things. My brain works in symbols and rituals, and I try and bring that to my writing. I write about weird things and situations because that is what life is like for me. Just a bunch of weird things that I struggle to understand.

Why do you write what you do?

Each piece I do for different reasons. It can range from me thinking I have the meaning of life figured out to just wanting people to say nice things about it on the internet so I have enough self esteem to make it through the day. I write to solve all of my problems. I kind of just work everything out on a page and at the end I have a story. If I don’t write I get terribly depressed. If I do write I get stupidly anxious. I guess the reason why I write a piece really boils down to having something to show for the unhealthy amount of thinking I do.

How does your writing process work?

It is all hoodoo. The process changes every time I write a story. Here are some things I do to try and write:

– Walking. A stupid amount of walking. I seem to write better if my legs are moving, even if it is just pacing around the house. I will pace for maybe five minutes then write a few sentences then repeat. If I am really stuck I will walk around my neighbourhood for an hour or more. It is good for the brain and keeps me worryingly skinny.

– Weird things. I like to push my brain to weird places. Follow any line of thought to its extreme. Sometimes I will talk to objects, or meditate until I see things. I don’t really know how it works, but I understand it is part of the process. I guess I just have to push my brain to see how far it will go. I wouldn’t recommend this mental health-wise but it seems to work for me.

– Stupid things. Sometimes I get blocked up. I will fall down a hole of thinking and can’t dig myself out. To fix this I usually need to do something I know is not good. Like drink a whole bottle of vodka or tell a girl straight up that I like them. Stories come from stupid actions that have consequences, and if I don’t have stupid actions to define what is going on in my life then I don’t have material.

I know I am probably not doing this right by not nominating a person straight up. I will add it to the list of things I done wrong.

On Friday night we built a blanket fort for ventilation purposes. We tore apart two fitted sheets to make it. It was propped up by half a christmas tree. My housemate reminded us that he was an engineer as we pegged it to the couches. It hurt my neck to sit in but it had the air of magic inside it.

I spent all of Saturday lying in it. In it I couldn’t hear the dog barking or the lady that always screams fuck you when the dog barks at her. I couldn’t hear the cars turning on the corner, every time sounding like they are pulling up in front of our house. I couldn’t see if the sun was up or if another day had slipped passed me.

It had been nearly two weeks since I had written something. I had creative blue balls. I had other blue balls. I bought a bottle of expensive vodka and a bottle of cheap orange juice. I told the internet I would write it a poem.

I woke at 5am on Sunday. I was face down on the floor. I stunk of chocolate and my clothes were sticky. I had a hangover like a nerve agent. Next to me, in an open skyrim notebook, was this poem; born of a night of honest sadness that only vodka can produce. The night escapes me, leaving only the smell of ethanol, the taste of acid and a life lesson. I slept from before sunset yesterday to sunrise today. I got some writing done but.

Story

I would tell you the story of when we first met

I should have maybe told more stories

I had plenty of other ones

But that one was my favourite

We smoked a lot of cigarettes that night

I feel bad because that was not good for you

We were the last two standing at a party

We drank other people’s booze till early in the morning

It was the perfect way to meet you

We played each other music

You played me some of my favourite songs

I made some bad choices

But I was being honest

I guess that was what was special about that night

I said all the things that I thought would drive you away

I wore my favourite and worst looking clothes

I smoked and I drank and I swore and I laughed

I should have stretched that night on forever

Lived on laughing and saying stupid things

Now the stupid things I have said claw at me

Make me swear and swing at empty space

And the night is just a story

That I am too scared to tell