THESE ARE HARD TIMES FOR DREAMERS

sometimes______ @ 2012-01-28T23:30:00

2008-01-29T07:30:53Z

i don't have anything to say any more.

sometimes______ @ 2011-03-16T01:45:00

2007-03-16T05:45:29Z

oh yea, and i have an apointment for a portfolio review at tyler.
weeeeeeeeeeeeeee college

sometimes______ @ 2006-12-08T03:08:00

2006-12-08T03:08:15Z

can'twritecan'twritecan'twrite.
never could
i don't know why i can't bring myself to stop, why i keep trying to improve it. it's pointless. everything is, if you ask anybody, but who cares what anybody says, right?

mostly, because this is what it turns into. either a bitchrant in general, or a bitchrant about my own bitching and ranting.
gaaaaaaaaah let me out of these fingertips.

sometimes______ @ 2006-12-06T23:00:00

2006-12-06T23:00:34Z

drew has written a piece of poetry everyday for the past 3 years
and i can't write 1 in a month.

it's embarassing to realize your human. picking apart
slaving over?
fingers flying in cobweb movements, pulling apart the strings the hold me together. getting to the bottom of everything and looking up and being unimpressed. and looking down and feeling the earth give way and you're still falling.
i need to read more poetry so i can steal others ideas, inflection, styles. mine just not cutting it anymore.

sometimes______ @ 2010-11-25T05:20:00

2006-11-25T05:20:35Z

i need to take some intiative. i need more friends. or, even, just one more. or to better the relationship with a few of the ones i have. relying on one makes it all the easier to feed my anti-narcissism and all the easier to be forgotten.
yea i know, no i really know, and that's what i say, that it's no big deal, because it's not, it's fucking not; one night, once. all the other times she's been there for me, almost more than anyone has.
just right now. goddmanit. they have no concept of the word strong or it would never ever be applied to me. i'm so fragile; i just want to walk around with a handle with care sticker slapped to my forehead. you have no idea how easily i break.
made privately of porcelain.
for example:
forget about me. [one time. ONCE. that's all this was] keep me disposable or do nothing with me, please. don't make your best, don't place me above so i can watch my place slip.
ahhhhh pettypettypetty. too much of my self is based inside other people, where i have no control.vulnerable. and this is nothing, this is horrible of me. how conceited am i that i have to be the only and every? patheticpatheticpathetic.

i just. one of my biggest fundamental fears is to be forgotten. it lies at the very bottom of my being, it's why i'm afraid to die, why i revere Shakespeare and the like, because they'll live forever, and me; i'll just fall off the face of the census and be forever forgotten. maybe it has to do with living with 14 other people, with parents that forget you for hours [ ok sam, keep diggin yourself this pathetic hole. blame it on your upbringing now. you're disgusting.]

blahblahblahbitchbitchbitch.

so now i'm going to be petty and not call her back; i don't think i trust myself to be mature with her; and i'd hate myself so much if lost it over such a tinytinytiny meaningless moment.

switch lives with me. that'll show you what it's like to be overlooked. being regularly ignored. just gaahhhhhhhhh. this would mean nothing to anyone else and i hate myself for letting it mean anything to me. and it doesn't; come to me tomorrow and i'll have forgotten [how ironic] the whole ordeal.

and in the back of my head, something bitter whispers i told you so. third times the charm.
yes, i apparently i am that selfish. yes, i'm a terrible person.

this is so new to me; i hate that---
that's it. the end. you don't care anymore. you bitched and ranted and now you're done, right? you're going to stop typing and you're going to call her back and you're going to care a lot about what she did instead of being with you and you're going to happy for her and sympathetic because i know you're not this big of a bitter bitch, right?

right. good. now go.

and don't forget to smile.

sometimes______ @ 2006-11-25T00:44:00

2006-11-25T00:44:53Z

inadvertently isolated myself from everyone.
not really; no one wants me anyway.

three most important people in my life right now:
megan
julie
and tony

i'm growing. not getting taller or wider, but it's still an up and out, if you understand. becoming more aware of... everything. mostly things about myself, what i want, why i want it, and how fucked up i really am. it's pretty bad. i have a lot of things i can never share with anyone and sometimes i fee
fuck this
can't write right now. i don't ahve anything to say. it's like milking a dry cow; totally empty.

sometimes______ @ 2010-11-08T03:41:00

2006-11-08T03:41:59Z

columbia yesterday-SO GOOD.mmmmmmtimes square musty dusty halls and bathroom's peeling paint. fucking real,y'know. made me hate kids like me, who want so bad to be anywhere near good, that striving, that eager confidence. fuck you graey shirt. yea, you were good, but sit the fuck down, have some modesty. never mind. fuck me for being too insecure to even stand up once. i don't know. i'm a dichotomy, whatever that means, when it comes to my arts. to my scribbles and my ink, because awful as they are, i can understand wanting them to be public; scrawling them on restroom walls, leaving my notebooks out for you. there's that exhilaration of creation, of wanting to share your revelations. that's brief though; the shame and blushed cheeks don't take long to follow and that's why i'm left with cardboard to cardboard covers instead of piles of poetry. ripped out and shoved into my bottom drawer, where i hope my mother won't look.
and the CITY. fucking god, man. someday.
talked to howie and felt better. he remembers nothing of me and i love him for that, oddly. relief.
mother wants to adopt 3 more kids.
life is getting blurred around the edges, it's smudging into a territory i haven't been familiar with for awhile. it's simliar to where i've been, same hallways and doors, but they're leading me to different rooms, more dead ends. i keep rerealizing how much i hate who iam. not WHO i am; i'm fucking charming. sweet, lovable. amusing. not that bullshit. it's not a self-esteem problem. it's intrinsic, it's internal, it's what i've done what i'm doing what i'm not doing. it's the shit that i can't remember and it's why i've been drowning in saltwater these past few days.
joyce at one of the seminars yesterday told us to look to characters for poetry, to look into the great works, consider ophelia, hamlet, romeo and juliet. look at all the stories that have unfinished characters and finish them. and i picked my dad today, holed up in my room with headphones on and the window open, autumn rushing in on someone's bonfire smoke. his life is as far away from mine as any fairy tale i've ever read, any play by Shakespeare. and fuck did i cry. quiet gasps because the kids were next door. i don't cry pretty. i don't write poetry about my tears. my nose runs and my face turns red and splotchy and i just looked ridiculous, bent over my salt and pepper notebook sobbing.
into pieces. i want to be empty; morbid daydreams of taking a spoon to my insides, carving out my flesh like you would hollow a jack-o-lantern, my emotional pulp scraped from the walls of my body.
i never ever ever want to end up like my father and i love him so much because of that revelation. he hates himself, he hates his kids, he hates his life. and he doesn't even have the comfort of alcohol to ease the pain. he sleeps alot. works even more. and he loves us, and we (i) let him down time and time again.
julie's right. she should have been my father's daughter.
fucking julie. i hate myself for giving her my letter to megan. it had things in there i never would have given her.fuckfuckfuck. she knows all of it, and you have no idea how ashamed i them. to the point that i winced upon rereading it, but i knew megan could relate to it, that she is relating to, it would have helped her to know that i know what it's like to wear long sleeves in 90 degree weather. shut the fuck up sam. don't romanticize that bullshit because that's all it is. was. bullshit. same with the bruises, fuck you and your poetic attempts. shit. now she has that and it wasn't for her.
deep breath.
doesn't matter. too late now. just don't ever everever bring it up. and stop your goddamn crying, you pussy

sometimes______ @ 2010-11-05T21:58:00

2006-11-06T03:10:42Z

megan's mom has cancer.
leukemia. her dad's an abusive drunk and if her mother dies then she has to live with him and her two younger siblings.
she cried last night, at my last band competition, last one ever, she cried on my shoulder and left wet spots where her eyes had been on my uniform. and for the 2nd time ever, i cried in public.
the beginning of the end. i'm leaving high school this year. i'm graduating. but that wasn't why i was crying. and it wasn't band ending either. it was because my old best friend dropped out of high school last year to take care of her daughter. and because my dad's father was an abusive schizophrenic who he never wanted to resemble. and because megan's mom has cancer.
all of this pain, all of the torture we are put through and put ourselves through eventually and ultimately amounts to nothing. we die, and so does everything we ever thoughtfeltsaidwrote. it's not just our bodies that get burried.
but that's not why i was crying either.
it was because i'm a disappointment. because i'm the reason i never want to have kids. because i never gave my parents anything to proud of. and now i'm leaving high school and that's it. i pissed all these years away. i consciously, fucking consciously, screwed myself out of a future. next year i'm going to end up at home, taking care of my mother, who expects to be paralysed by MS by Christmas, and the children. i'm going to amount to nothing.
i never wanted to be mediocre. that's all i knew, know for sure. that i hated suburban boredom and desperation, clean lawns and clever mailboxes that hid dirty secrets. alcoholics and fist-fights. my neighbor huffs glue because his parents don't care, and megan's mom has cancer.
she'll probably be dead by next year.
and megan, fucking megan tried to console me. i don't deserve this, any of this. how can i be anything but grateful for what i have when my mother was raped twice and a man somewhere in Utah squeezed his 3 month old son to death. and i cried, and i was fucking consoled.
fuck me.
i'm disgusting.
i hate that i cried, because i'm selfish and disgusting and because when i was done sobbing, finished watering Pennsbury's football field, that 3 month old was still dead, megan's mom still had cancer and i was still a red-eyed failure, with a quivering chin and glittering cheeks.

sometimes______ @ 2008-09-23T03:52:00

2006-10-23T04:05:48Z

it's been forever, folks. summer ennded and fall's in full swing. i'm a senior. i'm feeling lower than i have in awhile. i feel fucking awful, all the time actually. the only thing that gets me out of bed sometimes is the promise of seeing what's left of my friends.
i'm so scared. terrified. of right now, and the next the moment. of tomorrow, and all the tomorrows that will follow. i don't know where i'm going, what i'm doing. i don't know what i want to, where i want to be. i've been lying and smoking and sleeping too muuch or too little or not at all. been bitching and whining and never solving anything. creating problems and feeding my anti-narcissism. daydreaming and nightmaring. i haven't been living enough. been living too much. i don't know how much longer i can function this way. nevermind. i'm not functioning. i'm losti'mlosti'mlost. parents, school, none of itmatters to me, i have no cause, no reason to be upset because i say they have no effect on me.

i can't keep this up. something's going to give.

bitchwhinemoan.bitchwhinemoan. repeat everysecondforytggfykchfcu

everytime i'm on drugs it reminds me of the time i OD'd and makes me reevaluate myself over and over again. because i'm not sure how different doing drugs and trying to kill yourself are. they're both an attempt to escape.
fuck i'm hysterical and delirious and ui can't even bring myself to type properly

i'm going to go lie in my bed and obsess somemore.

sometimes______ @ 2008-08-06T03:41:00

2006-08-06T07:41:24Z

ahhh. went back and reread my old xanga. ahahahahahaha i was suchaloser.OM-GEEEEE!!!11!!

EVERYTHING IS SHIT

2006-08-05T00:55:16Z

sixth grade was when i started phucking with pharmateuticals. a brisk fall morning and a bellyful of Benadryls, i went to go watch my siblings soccer game and all i remember is swirls of color. the grass melted and blended with the sky, the trees, my sister's soccer jersey and i ended up collasping dizzy behind a row of empty bleachers, a stupid grin plastered on my face as i laid there plastered. ninth grade presented itself in the soft blue cylindrical shapes of tylenol PM's, 12 of which made me sick as a motherfucker one day before school. i remember next to nothing about that save for vomiting in the bathroom, wavering concerned faces. eighthninthtentheleventh yielded copious amounts of alcohol, most of it yours, some (the jello shots, the baileys, etc) from *ahem*.... friends.

what i'm getting to, where this is going is that i've long since had a tendency towards masochism. you were the one who grabbed my hand in 5th grade and laughed at the immature star i had carved on the back. well, i've turned in my safety pins for shotglasses. so don't come at me fucking surprised when you find out that i've done drugs. don't bother caring now. i'm eighteen in a few months, it's little late. now i'm the one that doesn't care.

and yeayeayea, fuck the juvelnile stories of abuse and neglect, 'you didn't loved me, you loved me too much, you hit me and hated me and blahblahblah.' send it to chicken soup for the soul and get over it. i'm not going into details about what a shitty ass mother you've been because for one thing, it's a waste of my time and secondly, you really weren't that bad. you do love me and you've sacrificed your good health and lord knows what else to give us what we have. and i'm grateful. but i'm also painfully fucking aware of everything else and i'm beyond it all. i'm sick to fucking death of this bullshit. all i have left to say is i love you, but please leave me the fuck alone.

sometimes______ @ 2008-07-07T14:49:00

2006-07-07T19:01:10Z

recently realized that my self-esteem isn't half as high as i thought it was, meaning:
i like myself, but i doubt that other people could. or do. obsessobsessobsess. grow up and get out.

two days ago tony dropped me off at my house earlier than i could have shown up so i went awalkin' and ran into him again. went walking again, it was raining and i was freezing and i felt like the lonliest soul in the whole wide world. explored langhorne for hours, practiced playing nochalant as i passed police cars at 3 in the morning.

it's too late for me everywhere. i've fucked up my schooling to the point where it's truly impossible for me to get into anywhere other than bucks.

i've fucked up my life.

sometimes______ @ 2007-08-30T14:04:00

2006-06-30T18:04:33Z

it makes me feel like such a teenager, but i love that feeling, you know? like i could just take on the world, breath it in and have it inside me, conquered and resting in my lungs.

we long to be, close to you

2006-05-01T01:35:29Z

late night rainy drive to belmar, new jersey; kat's matching him cigarette for cigarette and she flicks the embers past my window;;;;;; and next to me she's screaming of how beautiful it is, of the rain of the trees of the road and i pretend i can hear her over the music. the beach: windy and lonely, my hair blows and my skirt blows and we play tag in the sand as he takes pictures. it's cold and the ocean leaves filmy salt on my lips on face on my hands; captains on the ship we race down the slides [memo to self: NOT in a skirt next time] and then stand in the sand and have various inappropriate conversations. rain pelts our shoes, the playground, his camera and we leave, go to a gas station. we leave, go to a diner. it's 3. she snores and she talks and she laughs and he drinks his coffee. we leave; go to his place to watch a horrible movie and pretend to be awake as the sun rises. fall asleep at 6 wake up at 7 and he's late for work. hug him too long and. leave.

sometimes______ @ 2006-07-19T21:31:00

2006-04-20T01:31:37Z

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd i still didn't do grad project.

STOP READING THIS

2006-04-17T03:27:19Z

elsewise would be wonderful if i could not be so goddamned ridiculous. and pathetic. and frustrated. [ridiculouslypatheticallyfrustrated]
i can't. calm. down. enough. my mind. won't. STOP. it loops and surrounds itself, tying knots in my thought fragments, stretching and fraying. and i get so scared, paralysed by Night, lying there pregnant, bloated with -fuck. just fucking stop.
i can't be left alone. that's all there is to it. without you or youoryou i don't how to behave; i need the boundaries of your company to keep me in check. otherwise my thoughts just grow and expand, breathing and pulsing till they fill up the room. if i'm outside, fuck it; my head explodes.
closing on midnight and saltwater i'm always struck by you; what you're doing. i still, me and my fucking ego, have trouble wrapping my head around your existence outside. i try and picture you, what your window looks like, what your morning rountine is. color of your sheets. the fact that away from me you're having a moment without me within the same.

middle-aged gas station attendants paint me pissed, tinged with pity and tom waits squinting through a haze of smoke, clutching a wine bottle dressed in a brown paper fashion. so fucking depressing, sorrowful even.

to sleep to sleep to sleep.

sometimes______ @ 2006-07-16T14:44:00

2006-04-16T18:45:12Z

essay on whatever i want. whateveeriwant. wahtver i whannt.
sure conrad.

you know what i want? some motivation. some goddamn drive. to actually WANT something so fucking badly that i'd do anything for it. i don't exist in the future tense; i stopped making goals for myself in the sixth grade. sex talks, first bra, and the realization that nothing was worth working towards.
you know those pathetic teeny boppers, who go to concerts dressed as their favorite singer, who have posters and bumperstickers and daydreams about marrying their celebrity supercrush? i ENVY them. i wish i had that kind of passion towards, fuck. anything.
and the sad thing is, the really patheticly terrible thing is is that i don't doubt i could be great. not fantastic, but at least knocking on the door of above average on anything i wouldcould choose to do.
decided to go out for caricatures. i'm about 89% sure i'll get the job. i decided i wanted to do well, so i did. the fucking hell. and as soon as i got good at it, the job turned lackluster, and brass.

FUCK THIS.

i'm done.
i'm gonna go play.
be jealous. i rented a fucking MOON BOUNCE.

something brilliant

2006-03-28T02:38:38Z

collecting nascar models is symptomatic of a desperate life. same as owning too many shoes, or smoky sunday night bingo. yeeeehaw. stuffing our already bloated houses and bodies with everything but. and becoming increasingly aware of that gnawing hunger, clawing at the back of your throat for what's behind door number 2. flourescent lights sing their soundtrack. that lifeless humming. poor, sad saps. eat your ice cream and collect your tea cups because god can't help you now.
ha. god. joe ate, digested, and regurgitated all my philosophical and theological beliefs/questions into a deceivingly simple statement that, surprisingly, i have no trouble swallowing. i'm tired of it anyway, the doubts and the wrath and the god almighty and fucking seductive nihilism and blahgotohelli'llmeetyouthereblah. whatever. and his reaction fed off that exhaustion, which was beautiful.
ha. my asthmatic neighbor went outside for a smoke and caught me splayed, face up on my lawn, grass green and sometimes yellow round my ears. i could never kill myself. everneverever. fuck off drunken slurs and cliches but the winos and hallmark have it. it's too fucking beauuuutiful to let go. quit, let it go. shrug it off like snake skin and be reborn. that's the only temptation. not to end MY life. just THIS life. i'm soaware of my choices at any given moment. i get upand walk out of school, earl and percy chasing after me, his tie flying behind as he radios security. ha. kidding. just going to finish my math test. hohumho. twiddle my thumbs and wait for life to get more interesting on it's own time.
i'mgoingtodomyhomeworki'mgoingtodomyhomeworki'mgoingtodomyhomeworki'mgoingtodomyhomeworki'mgoingtodomyhomeworki'mgoingtodomyhomeworki'mgoingtodomyhmeworki'mgoingtodomyhomework. i'm NOT going to do my homework. instead, i'll go watch trainspotting and laugh at the irony. goodnight.

sometimes______ @ 2006-06-23T11:48:00

2006-03-23T16:58:55Z

i might not be back for awhile. writing, chronicaling,JOURNALING, sucks. each sentence feels loose, you know? the poorly stitched seams are falling out. like i'm trying too hard, or not hard enough, or the fact the it feels like it requires so much BULLSHIT infused into it. i'm not a writer. i did really enjoy it for awhile. now i think i'm done.

sometimes______ @ 2006-06-09T17:11:00

2006-03-09T22:41:51Z

it's ludicrious how something as simple as the weather could have such a dramatic effect on a person. walking home from school today i couldn't take breaths that were deep enough; i wanted outside inside me. you literary freaks speak of drinking in a sight; no. i just wanted to drink it. to have air and cloud and earth in me. so comfortable. [spring is my homeostasis.]

fetal position under cotton armor.

i want to be as self-absorbed as fucking possible. enough of this givegivegive. not even. i don't mind you taking/receiving. i just wish you wouldn't need so much. i need to go get myself. back.

sometimes______ @ 2006-05-27T19:03:00

2006-02-28T00:52:09Z

blahblahblahimageryadjectiveadjectiveadjectiveblahblahblahblahdictionaryvomitBLAH.

its dumb, how much emphasis we put on meat.
layers of living tissue, breathing flesh, bulging veins and bloated organs draped over tired bones.
oh what beauty.
and there is. honestly. there's less sarcasm there than you think.
[are you ever surprised by what's looking back at you in the mirror?]
and shut up jane teenager, 'OH EM GEE, I LOOK SO MUCH FATTER THAN I THOUGHT I LOOKED. LET ME GO EAT A SPEED AND LAXATIVE COCKTAIL SO I CAN WEIGH .3 POUNDS '
nope. sorry. try again.
what i mean to say, what i meant was: i recently realized that i have a face. staring at the mirror and understanding that this is what i am to people. blue eyes and chipmunk cheeks and tootoolong blonde hair attached to a pear's body.
and it's not bad. i'm not being self-deprecating here. GOD NO. PLEASE. but i associate myself with too loud and laughing and awkwardawkwarawkward and broken headphones and tries too hard and not hard enough and black pen lined paper drawings and wannabe wit and the phantom tollbooth and inherent catholic guilt and stupid arguements and talks too much.
not red cheeks and wild eyebrows.
this body isn't me. a warm, hollow shell, pulsing and living and moving around me. i'm somewhere inside.
don't get lost in your vanity; your beauty isn't your fault. you got lucky in the genetics lottery, piss off with your egotrip.
and maybe if i was uglier and maybe if i was prettier.
but i'm not.

and its a personal misunderstanding. i love you, and your body, and the way the light hits your face. but the ugly people's adage is right: looks aren't everything. they're indulgence, a chance luxury, delegated at random. and that could be why i'm don't believe in the cardboard beauty that the media shoves down my throat. photoshopped and mirror tricked and drowning in foundation. symmetrical beauty gets boring after awhile, turns to flat soda.

....a wonderful world.....

2006-02-27T04:46:14Z

[to get lost in your tangles
and to sit in your cupped hand]

i could live through your voice, breathing in your lilts and throaty inflections
[preposterous]
dangling on your question marks and resting in your suspended commas.
[ridiculous]

the tired clouds' breath fogs my window
as the suns stretches his tired fingers though my thin curtains.
[good morning. good morning. good morning.]

being alone but realizing [movie montage style] that you're sharing this moment with everyone.headphones whisper static mouse's lyrics as a desperate buisness man chokes down coffee and a lonely lover wakes up to cold sheets and a mother of four shakes her husband awake, its his turn to get the kids ready for school.

[music and bus window reflections and sleepy eyes make me feel DISGUSTINGLY teenage, music video style]

classrooms are closing in and the flourescent lights are buzzing louder and my middle class white trash percentage is gradually increasing with each passing day.

and fast forward to a settled moment, to wallowing in small town grey again.
[ i crave screaming daytime colors.
of orange and turqouise and lime.]

sometimes______ @ 2006-05-23T19:13:00

2006-02-24T00:13:14Z

choking on recycled air and wishing for refreshing tree sighs.

creating my own private stereotype, of the dirty and the gritty and grey and sepia overtones. fuck off 'urban', fuck off 'trendy,'fuck off 'indie.' it's none of these. it's the private and the personal and the metallic clouds overhead, damp earth beneath your feet, drinking in the sweetsweet air. it's kinetic poetry and the beauty of an oil puddle and the beauty of crooked teeth and the beauty in all that isn't beautiful.
words like hollow. lonely. stale. static. holes. empty. quiet. bleed. thick.
it lurks behind you on morning walks and sits next to you on late night drives and rests solidly at the bottom of your glass.

[she's in love with loving, a secret romantic who worships at smoky diners and empty train stations, who prays to the god of transportation:
may he forever keep
her restless feet
pounding
on the cracked and broken
sidewalks of the world. ]

wonder-wonder-wonderfully tangible.

sometimes______ @ 2006-05-20T12:12:00

2006-02-20T18:14:00Z

and as the world slowly turns golden the flowers melt and blend into a pastel landscape.
stop
stop
stop
and in this quiet moment of a pregnant silence i find my own selfish relevations with cute subtitles. this is foryouformeforme. and we'll talk talk talk forever until our throats bleed onto the white carpet and stain my upholestry.
blinking flashing lights and a head full of static; words that sparkle and shine and are high in calories, low in sodium. on a diet of semicolons; i'm trying to cut down on my period intake.
stringing together a necklace of friends only to discover they turn my neck green. washing my hands and running in the pink, silver rain and falling face first into crystal snow isn't nearly as refreshing as talking to you.
hollywood's movies and pornagraphic novels [joyce not playboy] have ruined my life. similies and metaphors and literature textbooks have claimed my conciousness. it's likelikelikelikeasif.
liquid limpid pools piercing straight through my head, laserbeaming to the other side, cutting into the inspirational poster behind me. shutupshutupshutupand stop.
my strokes hoodie that i stole from my brother is my favorite thing in the entire world. i love it more than i love my cat.
hello, my name is unimportant and i,
i

sometimes______ @ 2006-05-05T22:43:00

2006-02-06T03:43:36Z

saturday morning. faculty 1, second door. [first door's always locked]
i'm a giant lung, standing in front of the humming vending machine, pink and quivering and gasping, but the glass argues differently.
{pale and painted, yellow lion's blood smeared across my cheeks}
the damp dollar bill in my hand is exchanged for a diet coke and i take a seat at a sterile grey table and try and calm down.
the burning word 'freak' slips in and out of the wrinkles and creases of my brain, finally burrowing deep into the base of my skull and i realize there is no glamour in this.
my soda hisses in arguement as i open it, begging me to reconsider.
and i do, instead resting it's cool body against the nape of my neck
as i watch ghost teachers filter into the room.
{when i was younger i used to wonder if teachers had pseudo-intellectual graffiti in their bathrooms, like 'i love pi.'}
but now i wonder if they're as petty with the seating at these tables as we are in the lunchroom. and i can see someone sleeping off a hangover in the corner and two teachers bitching over the same shithead student.

do i want this? thisthisthis perpetually teenage, highschool drama to be where my life ends? forever stuck {if not mentally, then physically} in this rut of broken promises and unfulfilled dreams and dramadramadrama. where suicide is a viable option and ignored potential is expected.

when i was little i was always sick. and when i wasn't i pretended i was. i loved the culture of victimizing myself to an illness, imagined or real.
soft, white hands on my forehead and pale, colourless ginger ale next to my bed. the comfort of cool sheets and the knowledge that i would be taken care of. {always}

other children played doctor; i played patient.

but then anthony got sick. for a long, long time.
and i remember one night, long ago and hazy, when i couldn't sleep.
searching for that familiar comfort i approached my mother's bedroom [softwhitehandsandgingerale] and i heard her...crying. and i walked in there and held her against my undeveloped seven year old chest and i knew that it wasn't my turn anymore. from nurtured to nurturer.
and i never went back. i learned to stifle coughs and feign wellness and ignore fevers unless they belonged to someone else.
and i never played doctor.
i was the doctor.

years dropped to the floor like flower petals like tears like sand in an hourglass and i was in seventh grade, staring at the big beautiful F [for fuck-up] printed neatly next to the Math category. feet shuffling reluctantly off the bus i learned that the rest of my life was to be spent flipping burgers and struggling and tears and nevernevernever a doctor and pregnant at 16 and sentence after bitter, acidic sentence dripped off their tongues into my thirsty ear. that night alyssa whispered soft consolations in my ear after my wet pillow told her that i didn't want to be a manager of mcdonald's when i grew up.

'you can still be whatever you want, sam.'

whateveriwant. whatever. i. want.
.....what the FUCK do i want?

ninth grade Ms. Hanson asserted that i wanted to be an artist. Mr. Howie claimed an english major. my dad still preached that my true ambition was to be a burger queen. the only thing i knew i NEVER wanted to be was a mom. friends offered their opinions on how my life should be spent: thereapisttherapisttherapistMOMsocialworkerpsychologistteacherteacherteachergraphicartsadvertisingteacherMOM.
and my juvelnile teenage head was ready to explode,
so i took the low road.i settled.
english teacher. alright.

but as the humming of the vending machine grew louder i could feel myself drowning in this horrible suburban mediocrity.

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE, SAM?
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO?