i've gotta stay high all the time to keep from missing you.

I think I cried in the bathtub again.
I never felt so clean,
yet still so caked in filth.

... I remembered a day in the forest, working on the crew with you.
I stood in the empty trailer of the work truck and leaned against the frame, heavy with despair that you would never be mine.

The night before I met the one who was yours.

You saw my sadness from where you stood, outside and in the group.
You climbed into the trailer and asked me what was wrong.
You took off my sunglasses.
You pulled down my scarf.

All of my naked sorrow for your golden eyes to ponder.
And I told you nothing.

Because it was not the time to tell you what the problem was.
That you would marry another girl and you would never see me in that light.

But that moment when you leapt into the truck, backed me into the side, and forced out my bare face for you to gaze into like a crystal ball; that's a moment I remember as one that told me you felt the same ...

The steam of the tub became the breath in my lungs and I came out soggy with dread.
Thank you for showing me real fear.
I have become it.

I wonder if you'll text again.
"I thought of you today."
Every time you say this is a knife in my side, though not steel like the ones I put in myself. It's the bone of your fingers, clutching my center and caressing my curves.
I tell you every time I see you how much I miss you.
Nothing ever changes.


I looked at my tattoos in the mirror to soothe the ache.
The way out is through.
I repeat it like I'm in church again, talking to an invisible, all-knowing presence with the same hope for granted goodness.
I look at the solar disk on my neck. My god is the sun.
All of my breath, blood and life given from this.

I drink some cool water from a tin cup.
The metal is familiar and draws me in a flashback to a moment of comfort.
It's the feel of the razor on my hip. It's my transformation of the dull pain to the euphoric release.
I need this.
I needed you.

sorry about the blood in your mouth, i wish it was mine.

I am just a worthless liar.
I am just an imbecile.
I will only complicate you.
Trust in me and fall as well.
I will find a center in you.
I will chew it up and leave,
I will work to elevate you
Just enough to bring you down.


I tried really hard not to feel anymore. Every time I have feelings for a guy, it hurts. It has never felt right or good. Usually I can get away with feeling bad by not caring. But when I have realizations about myself, my past and my future, I start to break down. I had another realization this weekend.

I've never not had to compete with another girl over a guy I had feelings for. I would not call myself competitive in the classical sense. It doesn't bother me to lose. But I always strive to be better than the masses. I want to rise above the horde and be seen. I want a guy to see me over this other girl's shoulder. I want to make you tilt your head so you're looking at me around her. I want to watch your head spin as you look for me in the crowd. I'm not going to fight her or put her down. I want you to make the choice of me. I want to see the gears in your mind wind up as you suffer through deciding. As you wonder what it could be like with me. If it would be better than with her. If choosing me will be the worst decision of your life. If you ask me, I'll tell you it is.

I don't believe you when you said you had a crush on me. I think you were just being nice. I'm sorry for coming on so strong. Maybe you really do like me. You asked to come over. Maybe you just want to fuck. I probably won't visit you in Costa Rica. That's beyond what I'm confident enough to do. I don't fear a lot of things, but I fear pursuing an attachment that only exists in my mind. Maybe I'll still like you in June. Maybe then you'll like me too. Maybe one day this will happen for me. And it won't hurt to want to love someone. Maybe it'll hurt forever. Maybe I'll stop crying in my car. Maybe I'll quit drifting into the oncoming lane. I had a fantasy that a cop pulled me over while I was driving, only to find me bawling as he asked for my license.

Prove that I exist and build a home with me.

jin rah me da

I need to know what I'm going to say to you before you go.
My friends at work made fun of me for liking you. I called you a sweetheart.
One said 'girls never go for nice guys!' And it's true.
You are nice.
And I never made a move because you deserve better than what you would get from me.
I destroy nice guys.
But I like you and never want to be the knife in your side.
I have no respect for men.
But I respect you, because all your other attributes make you admirable.

I saw a name on facebook and had a flashback of one of my worst memories. I had just turned 18 and went to work my first shift at a strip club. I somehow mixed up my days and was supposed to start the next day, so I called my friend to pick me up. He came with his girlfriend and we went to a party at his friend's house. He used to babysit me and my brother. His friend asked for my phone so he could put his number in it. I deleted it as soon as he handed it back. Another guy was there, he left the room because he liked me too and didn't like seeing this guy flirting with me. The guy who used to babysit me told me he's had a crush on me since forever. The girlfriend told me he's cheated before and her friend likes me. That was the last night I ever drank Absolut. I was the last one who went to sleep and I crawled in to bed next to the guy who gave me his number. He was passed out and wouldn't wake up, no matter how much I dragged my hands all over him. I roll over, defeated and disgusted, and sleep. In no time, I've woken up with the urge to vomit and run to the bathroom. I pass out there with my head between my knees until the morning when my friend wakes me up and drives me home.

I don't know why it tried to wake this guy up. I thought I wanted to fuck him or blow him or something but I don't know why. He wasn't cute. I was repulsed that he thought putting his number in my phone was a good way to hit on me. Maybe because my friend told me had a business and had money and he was good to girls. I'm glad he didn't wake up. I felt gross about this forever. I've never told this story to anyone before.

Anyway, I see this guy's name on facebook and he's engaged now. So in the five years since that dreadful night, he's found a woman to marry and I've still never had a boyfriend.

I hooked up with a guy last weekend that sent me text after text asking me to come over after work. I work 'til five in the morning. He asked me to come cuddle. I was nauseated. I might have hooked up with this guy again but he's getting too affectionate. And this is why I'm single forever. This is a nice guy who I can't respect and has no chance for me to feel anything for him. But I never really liked him, he just felt nice to be next to for a night. This is all he is to me. This is all any guy is to me.

But then there's you.
I want you to stay.
But if I make you,  I'll hate myself.
Because I'm going to ruin you, I can't help it.
I saw you with a girl at the show last weekend. When I saw you the next day you told me how you took care of her 'til 9 in the morning because she was losing it. I laughed because this is the second time I've heard your stories of a crazy girl. I laughed and said 'you and your crazy girls...' And it kills me because I'm not that kind of crazy. I'm the wrong kind that guys don't like, the kind that's self-inflicted and secret. There's girls are fine until they go crazy for a guy. And guys eat that shit up. I told you that. I told you that's why I've never had a boyfriend, because I can't be outwardly crazy for a guy. So I will never be looked to for attachment, I'm not equipped with the same emotional foundation required to love a man as to go crazy for one. I wanted to say how you should have hung out with me instead at that show, how I was planning on asking you but I couldn't prepare myself to. You should have hung out with me because I won't make you take care of me 'til 9 in the morning.

I feel sick.

Just a bad call, 
it's so funny
how you think I'm so serious, 
but that's not it
The thing is I don't give enough to give a fuck
You're just plain boring 
and you bore me asleep.



It happened again.
He's leaving.
And I'll never see him again.
I wish you would just stop breaking my heart.
But it's my fault for opening up.
I never should have let you in.
How could you do that?
I let you open my doors, thinking you would block the cold.
But you left the door wide open and swinging on its hinges,
letting the frozen winter inside after you.

The space you left inside me is shaped just like you.
When you were gone, you took my insides too.
The sides slid down the pit but still there stays a hole.
And now I have nothing to fill the gap.
Because you were like no other.
Thanks so much for being one in a million, man.
Now this void is here forever.

I can make up dozens of words for "void" without a thesaurus.
It's as a part of me as my ringfinger. It's my third ventricle.
I don't mean to blame you for the grave in my chest.
It was there before you.
But I was filling it before you came and when you left, you made it deeper.
The spade I used went with you too, so now I push the dirt with my hands.

i've gotta crush you now.

Sometime things happen in my life that just make me look at the Universe and go "are you fucking serious?"

Like this guy I've been thinking about. The one I should have spent more time with at the festival.
He's moving to another country.

Thanks life. This is the first guy in a long time I've thought I might be able to care about. The first time I've let my heart open to the possibility. I was passively reading facebook posts when I came across his that said he was moving and it felt like a train went through my chest. Tears welled in my eyes immediately. I wanted to laugh. It was so shitty but so perfect. Because every time I get this feeling for someone, something ruins it. I felt stupid. I thought it might be different. When I started crying, it felt right. Because it is the only way these things go. When the crying came on, it didn't shock me. It's all I know.

I thought I would tell him I liked him anyway. I have a month before he leaves. I saw him today at work. I couldn't tell him a thing. That I'm sad he's leaving. How I think he's one of the best people I know. How I love the colour of his eyes. And when he talked about why his nose was crooked from running into a shelf as a child, I wanted to tell him it was cute anyway. But I didn't say a word.

Then I saw my guy from Shamb. The one who broke my heart. I haven't seen him in ages. I thought I was over him. I walked past his desk to the truck in the back of the shop and barely uttered a word to him, just waved hello. Here I am, strong-willed and stoic. I know guys hate being ignored. I know it'll make him want me more.

Later in my shift, while I'm working on site, he shows up. He hugs the woman coordinating the show I'm setting up for. He reaches out to me next. He calls me 'doll.' He does this in front of my co-workers. It's like this and it doesn't matter because no one really knows but they can feel it, like a formless black presence beneath a wave. I smile and get back to work.

After some time, he comes to me again and we're alone. He asks how I've been, what I've been up to, what's new. I'm wondering why he's so curious. I think I'm an acting fantasy. He has a vision of what my life is and wants it to match to the reality. I'm not sure where we are at this point so I just talk about school. He asks if my weekend at the festival was awkward working with a co-worker he knows I hooked up with at Shamb. I never saw him there. It's never really awkward for me because I can't let it be. If I do, then I'm no longer capable of sleeping with my friends and not letting it become more. To do this, I have to be sensible enough to not let it feel awkward. It makes me laugh that he asks this. He doesn't know I've slept with that guy again. I don't know where we are right now, if it's still romantic between us or if it was a one-time thing. So I don't mention the guys I've hooked up with. We're staring into each others eyes. He keeps asking how I've been, because his rational mind is functioning below what is normal, and mine is too. It's what happens when you lock eyes with someone you love, you hypnotize each other. I looked at all the shades of brown and gold in his irises and couldn't keep up my conversation. He hugs me again as he's about to leave, he says he misses me.  He turns to walk away and I say "you should have been at the festival last weekend, I missed you too." He says something about how he was supposed to go and how he really wanted to be there. He steps towards me again and said 'I totally would have smashed you' before he leaves. My toes curl in my shoes. I feel it in my knees. My co-workers are ten feet away, the possibility that they heard doesn't matter to either of us. It's almost disgusting. Sometimes I wonder what makes me like this, why I like to be spoken to in such a way. Why I seek these situations and why they are in some way the ideal. On one hand, I want to be over this guy and feel nothing for him but on the other, it's euphoric when he texts me out of nowhere that he's thinking of me and that he talks to me with an honesty I've never heard before. I'm laughing in the back of my mind because I know the story of fucking a co-worker in the back of the truck would excite him, but I kept it to myself.

If anyone reading this doesn't believe in karma, my life is bona fide proof that it is. I do well in school and work because I'm a savage. I don't do well in relationships because of the same. At work, one of my bosses calls me into his office to talk about the festival. We had returned the truck a day late and not only that but so late in the day that it caused a hiccup with the rentals we had to return. It's not my fault because I wasn't the lead, but my boss wants to know what happened. He asks if we woke up late, if I was just waiting for the guy driving to wake up that morning. I say yes. I tell him he was falling asleep while driving so I had to drive half the way home. I throw him under the fucking bus. I make myself look like a star. I don't tell my boss it's because I fucked him that night and we hardly slept.

I know it's psychotic. I know I'm four-quarters evil. I know I'm a monster. I know that I destroy the men I fuck. But it doesn't matter and I'll do it forever. I'll do it ten times for every time my heart is broken and churn the infinite cycle. Because the reason no one has ever loved me back is because of how absolutely indifferent I am to the emotional carnage I've committed on people. I had this meeting with my boss, I raked the guy I fucked over the coals for my benefit. And now the guy I like is moving, and the other keeps dangling a bait of affection on a line and every time I'm lured. It's my fault this keeps happening. And if I won't change myself to make it stop, I have to harden my heart just a bit more so that while it happens, at least it won't hurt.

she's a giggle at a funeral.

I was outside my friend's house with a group when we started talking about love.
I asked if it meant that I'd been in love if I had my heart broken.
Because I've felt it.
They said yes because it meant my heart was in it.
I didn't tell them both times it was a guy who loved someone else.
Whether that makes a difference or not is irrelevant.
I've only been in love with guys who loved another girl.
Right when I thought my heart was back together, you texted me out of the blue.
You called me babe. You signed it with 'xo.'
I know your life is whole without me. I don't know why you did that.

I tried to erase you further by laying another guy.

Riding in the passenger seat of a five ton truck with a guy I just met, I went to work at another festival. We left on Wednesday morning. On Sunday night, I fucked him in the back of that truck.

I don't feel anything about it. I don't really like the guy. He's not hideous, he's not a model. But he had muscles. That's all that matters in the dark when you only see with your hands.

It might have been awkward the day after. I realized it only ever is because I wake up next to them. I promise myself that never again will I wake up in another guy's arms. Not any of these emotionally void hook-ups anyway.

I thought I had a logical grasp on my behaviour. I like hooking up. I want to fuck everyone in the world. And I'm subverting all the standards society has for me. The ones that expect me to preserve myself for deserving eyes, like some flower pressed in a book. But saving myself for special people... how does that benefit me? At the end of the day I still fall for guys who have already fallen for others. At the very least I can get some physical enjoyment from being depraved. And I'm not ashamed. I just feel a little sick because I might like someone else.

I finished my last shift at 8 on Saturday night. I was unhappy because the music was lame. And my brain was still adjusting from the MDMA from the night before. He gave me a bump of ketamine and I felt better. He gave me another and I k-holed.

We were in the green room which was basically just a tall tent. We left to go back to the sound board to sit but I couldn't walk. I saw a chair and hoped that when I dropped down I would fall into it. I wasn't certain I would.

I sat for ages. I tried to figure out where I was and couldn't place it. I saw the shelter that covered the sound board in the distance and I saw the shape of the stage in front of me. I wasn't able to make myself stand to walk to the sound board where I knew my friend was, but I kept trying to force myself. I felt like I was in an actual hole. Trying to figure out my setting,  I was only seeing in one dimension. It was like looking into a painting; no actual depth, just the illusion of it. I could see where I wanted to go but I knew if I stood, it would become infinitely distant. Another guy I had been working with saw me, and must have asked if I was alright. I think I smiled and said I'm fine, or maybe that I did too much of something but I would be okay. I remember talking about his roommate, who I knew. I remember him kissing me on the cheek to comfort me. He could tell I was a chaotic mess. He left and I stayed in the chair, clutching the cup that held my drink. It felt strange in my hand, like it would become soft and fall if my fist wasn't clenched. I spilled some of it. I had some strange thoughts about dying.

My friend came back and asked where I'd been. My mouth is numb at this point, like I'd been anesthetized. My tongue feels too big for my mouth, or like I have no control over it. He takes me by the hand and bring me back to the sound board. He has to pull me because I'm walking in zigzags and have spilled the majority of my drink as I do. We sit and I wait for the high to pass. People keep trying to talk to me and I make attempts but my paralyzed mouth is lagging behind my mind. I know what I'm trying to say but the words aren't quite spitting out. I decide to look straight ahead. I want to tell my friend to hold me, like it's the only thing I know will help. But I don't. A part of my brain is telling me how I don't need any guy's help. How I will always be there to save myself. And how being in a k-hole in front of my co-workers in not nearly as embarrassing as it would be to ask this guy to hold me, like a child.  I'm tired but I don't want to go to bed because I'm scared I won't wake up and I don't want to waste the last night of the festival.

It's about 10:30 when I start to feel sane again. Another good friend who I did the M with the night before comes over and asks if I'll come hang out with him. He's just done some acid. He's one of my real buddies. "I'll bring her back," he says to the guy I'm sitting with. We walk arm in arm to the other stage. We dance together in the crowd and I really start to feel better. When he wants to move spots, he grabs my hand and we walk. The way it feels when he holds my hand is healing a spot in my chest that's been black for years. The next time he takes my hand, I interlock my fingers in his. I think it makes him uncomfortable.

We go back to the other stage and I sit with my other friend by the board. It's cold, so we huddle up close with his arm around me. I want to go dance with the other guy, but this one is so warm. I kind of regret not spending more time with the other guy. He came by to talk while I was cuddled up to this one and I felt like an idiot. Because everyone sees me as being in love with this guy I work with, but I'm really just cold and maybe want to hook-up. We do eventually, the next night.

Now I realize I might have fucked up this time. I think I might actually like the guy I held hands with. I think about him a lot. We talked about music and he told me things that made me laugh and realize how alike we were. The number one reason I think I might like him is because I don't want to sleep with him, because I know it will ruin everything. I need this guy to be my friend, he's one of my favourite people. If I fuck him, I'll destroy him. It makes me sad because he's seen me with the other guy and can only assume I've slept with him. So I can't imagine he would like me much after knowing that. This is my downfall. Of living in a world where men I might have a romantic interest in would look down on me for sleeping with a new guy every time. And for sleeping with several guys in our workplace. I wonder if it's possible that he might understand I look at sex like a game. I could only hope he would, being a weirdo like me.

I suppose it's fine if he doesn't understand because I can't be with someone who wouldn't.

she tells me "worship in the bedroom."

fuck the pain away

Every guy I've ever been with left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I'm stuck in a cycle of  using new guys to wash out the taste of the last one.
I realized why I've never had a boyfriend.
It's because every guy I've ever wanted to date was dating someone else already.
And all they wanted from me was sex.
Then there would come a time when they wanted more.
But by then I would only have one thing to give.
I'm on a mission.
I want as many people as possible.
I thought sleeping with guys once wasn't making me happy.
So I tried you twice.
And now I'm upset that I slept with you when I could have been fucking someone new.
I thought it would help me forget about him.
But it made the hurt come back.
I thought it would help knowing he was no longer the last guy I slept with.
Now I wish he still was.
I'm promising myself now that it's never happening again.
Because I'm weak and if I don't put it in writing I'll have another relapse.
I think I have a problem.
I have gone against my biology for so long that my body is fighting back.


Every word you speak to me is venom
And crushed is every piece of me beneath you
In your fists I am a sandstone cracking
Between the lines upon your palm I've stained you

i dont know what this means

I just wanna make it through one more night.

take this love and waste it
take this love and taste it
take this love and learn it
take this love and burn it
take this pain and use it
take this peach and bruise it
take this coke and snort it
take this babe, abort it
take this cig and smoke it
take this bear and poke it
take this cheque and cash it
take this head and bash it
take this wall and build it
take this lie and gild it

take this home and wreck it

take this road and trek it
take this smile and fake it
take this heart and break it
take this card and send it
take this tale and end it

If I had known that you were only here for the weekend, I would have been so much nicer.

I've finally started to put myself together after Shambhala. Every time someone asked me how it was I say, ``it was so much fun, but I had my heart broken and came back a disaster.`` My pieces are starting to come back together though.

I fell apart because I took on more than I could take as a person with the emotional maturity of a toddler. My success in separating the sex and love sections of my brain fooled me into thinking I could never be hurt by a guy I slept with for fun. As long as they  played the same game. But then they started nipping at my feet, yearning for more and pushing them away felt like kicking puppies. I had a goal to sleep with a different guy every night of Shamb. I only made it to two and it became too complicated.

My first guy was my consolation prize, because the one I wanted was unavailable. I met a girl who I thought was his girlfriend. She was gorgeous and she hugged me when she met me. I considered smashing my cranium into the wooden structure I was leaning against but thought better of it and went to go dance. I told myself I would cry myself to sleep when I got back to my tent and I`d feel fine in the morning. I forgot to cry.

In the morning, I ran the system for a yoga session and cried the whole time as I sat on the grass by my little sound board. I kept my scarf high and my sunglasses on and tried to breathe with the lesson. Some part of me still hoped someone would see and ask me if I was alright but as hidden as I made myself, there was no way in reality it could have happened. And it didn`t. And that`s sort of the way it has always been with me.

As I work throughout the day, I feel a little better. I see some awesome bands and do my job and get praise for my work. I take a shower in the Village and listen to one of my friend's sets as the water washes away the filth of the farm. I dress up nice and dance for a bit. The guy I like steps in front of me in the crowd so I poke him. He turns around and hugs me and kisses my forehead. Every time he does this it feels like there's a butterfly flapping around my stomach while a knife is being twisted into it. I walk back to camp to get my hoop. I walk past someone and he says "Wow, we have been graced with the most beautiful girl at Shambhala!" and I smile for the first time that day. I hoop for a bit then head to Fractal to drink a few beers before Excision. My guy is there. And he says "I'd like you to meet my fiancee..." This time I have no desire to smash my head into anything solid. I felt all the pain I could about this problem when I thought I'd met the girl yesterday. When I met the true girlfriend this time, I smiled wide and said "oh my god its so nice to meet you!" It wasn't fake. This is a girl he loves who I know makes him happy, and it made me happy. My more evil side showed when I realized I was also happy that she wasn't as pretty as the girl from the night before. I think about it now and realize I should have known then that I actually felt something for this guy and wasn't just trying to fuck him. But my consolation prize is here, so I chat with him to make the other guy jealous and down a few beers before going to Excision to throw my body into a crowd and stop thinking for an hour and a half. Someone walks up while I'm dancing and asks how I'm doing, I smile and say 'great!' He says 'just making sure, I haven't seen you smile all night." I go back to my tent to sleep at 4 in the morning and run into consolation prize. He wants to sleep together again but all I want is to sleep alone. It takes him ten minutes to finally deduce he can't shake me down. My status as an emotional bomb shelter remains. But it still feels like I'm using the knife that twists in my stomach to cut the guy I've been with before. I feel like crying but don't.

I wake up in the morning and can't figure out how to feel, so I cut myself for the first time in a year with my Leatherman. My pieces are falling further apart. That night I meet another guy at my stage. He says I'm doing a great job and asks how I am. I smile wide and say I'm good. He says "That's the first time I've seen you smile, you have a beautiful smile." I talk to him for a bit, I'm a little drunk and working through the last changeover of my shift. A girl asks him to sit next to her and he does but he still talks to me. Consolation prize shows up. I'm obviously annoyed that he interrupts me talking to a guy and give him short answers, and he goes "Good talk." I say something about checking the last changeover and bolt. I realized the only reason I feel guilty is because of how pushy this guy has gotten. I suppose there's something to be said for being straightforward with a guy and telling them they're only good for one thing, but I'm hoping he picks up on it instead. He tried to be a gentleman, thinking I'm the type of girl that needs to be doted on. But I take it as aggression. His pushiness really starts to irk me and I'm pissed that he's appeared when I try to chat up another guy. And the nerve to say 'good talk' with attitude, like I owe him a conversation right at that moment. I fucking hate guys.

I felt sad again yesterday because I had passed up on that guy I met at my stage because I was so enamored with this other one. I wonder what must be wrong with me to pursue an engaged man when there's a perfectly good available one plopped in front of me, like the Universe is saying "here! take this instead!" I really need to start listening to the messages the Universe is sending me.

Shambhala is a place you are supposed to go with an open heart, soul and mind. You're supposed to show your true self and explode outwardly. I opened my heart to one single person and he broke it. Technically though I broke it myself, since I never should have shared it with him. I hid my feelings from everyone and I felt lonelier than ever in a crowd of 15 000.

I really wish these snakes were your arms

What am I supposed to do with this pain?
One day, girl, you'll know what to do.
One day it will make sense to you.
For now it can become my stories, my movies, my songs.
But my art is dark and savage.
I take pain and turn it black.
It never gets used for good, so my pain begets more pain.
It never goes away.
How do people take pain and use it to grow?
Pain has only buried me deeper.
One day, girl, you won't be alone.
I'm tired of hearing that I am terrifying.
I'm a monster.
I need someone who isn't stricken with fear by my lack of feeling.
I make them all think I have no feelings and then they came out for you and I wanted to be sick.
I feel like I should tell you that my heart is broken because of you.
But then you'll know my secret;
That I do feel things.
One day I'll know what being happy means
But I know I'll never be happy with what I have.


I don't want to find someone I have to hide my demons from, I just want someone whose demons will play well with mine.

In my darkest moments, I held my own hand

What have I done
This is pain
And it is real.
Before I even did anything I thought 'This is gonna hurt'
And it did.
I hate being right sometimes.
But I deserve all of this.
I keep thinking 'one day, Kaylee, one day'
But what if never?
I'm prepared to be alone forever.
I've laid the stone and cured the concrete
My heart is hard and can't be touched by outside hands.
But I keep ripping into it myself.
And it's broken again, now what do I have left to put it back together?
I can write to get it out of me. To hem the frayed edges of my heart.
Then I'll stitch it back together and bury it again.
The problem with a buried heart is it never sees the light and turns black.
Though it will stay together and keep longer.
Which is really all I need.

carved carcasses in the garage; don't park in it

My trip to the Dominican changed my life. I saw my worst demons face to face. I had realizations about myself that were always there, just below the surface, and going on this trip helped me dig them up. Like realizing I carry much more negativity within me then I thought. To cope with my bad feelings, I became one with them. I turned myself into them so that being unhappy became my baseline. It was easier to accept being miserable than it was to fight it. After having my sanity turned upside down over the slightest bump in the road, I have come to know that the darkness inside of me is more than I should allow. This darkness isn`t me not wanting to go to parties or smile at everyone at school. It`s hating my body, it`s hurting myself physically, it`s making judgements on other people on a constant basis. It`s being unreasonably okay with the thought that I could die within any given moment. It`s thinking I can`t be social because I like to be alone.

I`m starting to make changes to get these things. I`ve been looking both ways before I cross the street. I`ve stopped trying to have a cute laugh or look cool in front of everyone at school, at work, everywhere. I`m smiling more. I still need to figure out how to stop hating my body. I`ll try to take better care of it and stop feeding it garbage. And I want to accept that it`s the one I`ve been given and only I have the authority to change it. Then there`s the fact that I have a debilitating obsession with having control. When I lose it in a situation, I get anxious and lose most of my functionality. There has to be a way to let go of this, but I fear it`s another personality trait that`s ingrained. I`m still working on it.

I`ve considered feminism my hill to die on for a while but haven`t done much to affect change in this area. I came back motivated to do more. For whatever reason, I`m very affected by other people`s words and their impressions of me. Some of the biggest turns in my life were catalyzed by the words of someone else. Someone on the retreat asked me what Canadians thought of feminism and I told them I wasn`t sure, but I certainly was a feminist and gave a few reasons why, off the top of my head. But I thought about it later and realized I didn`t say nearly enough that I wanted to. So I wrote out all the reasons why I consider myself a feminist and there`s a lot of battles on that list and I really want to start fighting them. I learned on this trip that I am capable of making friends and having a good social life while also spending a lot time by myself. I do want more friends. I just have to keep finding more people who won`t make me feel like I`m fucking weird for enjoying my alone time.

Night terrors won't leave me alone, although I love to walk you home

Having feelings is weird for me. I thought it was the way I had been made. But I'm coming to know it's because I don't let myself feel things. I get upset by being ignored. Then wonder if it's fair to feel that way. Maybe he's busy? Maybe he died? Maybe he just doesn't care but should I be okay with that?
I find myself googling questions to see if I can reason with myself what is going on and so I don't have to feel insane. 'Should I be mad if...' 'What does it mean if...' 'Am I right to be upset...' And then I realized I'm searching for answers on the internet that are already inside myself. If I'm feeling a certain way, I should probably just feel it and not try to correct or accord myself with a social expectation. I don't have to always try to be the sane girl. I should be the fucking crazy one, because it's the way I was born and there's no point in resisting it anymore. The insanity inside of me is the same fire that sparks my artistic mettle, I can't keep trying to smother it out for the sake of seeming okay or approachable. If I feel disrespected by someone, it's probably because I'm being disrespected. Such a strange thing to have to confirm with myself. People feel things all the time and it's normal and I've been thinking it's a personal issue that needs resolving the same way I fix everything else in my house like my electronics or appliances. It just really fuckin' sucks to think you're the kind of girl that all the guys would want.. I'm active, I work in a field that is male-dominated, I'm a computer nerd that plays video games and is really into violence, I practice contortion and will fuck without  obligations.   It just goes to show none of this matters in the end and as long as you're a fuckin' psycho, they'll keep you at a distance.

want the power to leave you

It is filled with fear that I find myself writing here again. I have never found myself so dreading that my blog entry might be seen by someone I hope will never find it. But I have to write. It needs to be freed from my chest so I can move away from it. So I can figure out what exactly it is I feel. Because I never really know. But it's there, and it's heavy. It's a shadow hulking in the corner, heaving every breath, never speaking a word.

Do I like you? Maybe. Maybe not.
Do I want to like you? Maybe. Maybe not.
Am I happy with this? Maybe. Maybe not.
Is this going to hurt? Maybe. Maybe not.

I hate it when contact stops. It means I've lost control. Which I hate more than anything at all.  I remember a time when this didn't matter. When I wasn't bothered. The feeling is gone and I need it back.
I'm way too strong for this. I've been so stoic about these kinds of things that I don't even know how to figure out what I'm feeling about it now. I need to remember that some people have real problems and that's probably all this is.

I keep a journal now that is entirely one line thoughts. It's like a private twitter profile. It's surreal and almost poetic when you read them in a row. I'm up to 50 and my goal is one hundred thousand. I think three of them are inspired by my fuck buddy relationship and it bothers me. I want this journal to be in my future applications for art grants and applications. It says things like "before you start thinking you might want to fuck me, you should know I have a lot of opinions" and "being human is a terminal illness" but the ones I don't want people to see are about my interactions and thoughts about a guy. It makes sense that they're in here, they are just passing thoughts that I commit myself to record but I'm ashamed that my thoughts are repeatedly inspired by this. I fear there will be more because I have sworn to input any decent one-liner I come up with throughout the day. I think I'll censor them out when it comes to showing this journal to people.

 I don't want to feel anything about you. I don't want to feel like I should force myself to feel something, simply because it would make me feel more human or correct. I'm not sad, or jealous. But I think I'll be hurt if we do stop talking. And I hope it's because I like you as a friend and need all the friends I can get.

The emptiness between us is palpable. I like knowing as much as I can about the people I care about. We know nothing about each other. We make no attempts to correct it. Is it worth correcting? Do we even care about each other? Is it better if we don't? Is there something here that even needs to be fixed?

The issue at hand is that I feel more about being ignored than it could ever make sense to.

only if for a night.

I just want it to be known that I was really excited about my life today. I feel like I'm steering in the right direction and I'm actually gaining some momentum in my life's progression. Number one priority for me for years has been my career. Pursuing a work life that would keep me satisfied for decades. Getting on the IA crew, putting stages together for huge shows as much as I can. Being on the City crew and putting up sound for events they put on for the people of Calgary. All leading to me being accepted onto the crew for PK Sound, where I learn more than I hoped that I could. Making friends with people there, talking about their lives on the road touring with the greatest EDM producers in the world. And I can see myself there in years to come. I can feel my dream coming true.

I've finally figured out what I want to be doing in school. It's stressful as always but I'm so satisfied to continue my learning. I know I have my whole life to work so I might as well be in school now. If I want to stop going one day before I've graduated, I think it will be okay. Because I'm learning enough to make it worthwhile regardless if I get the degree in the end or not. I don't feel boxed in, or caged.

I paid the deposit for a spot on a retreat when I finish this coming semester. Ten days in the Dominican Republic, all focuses on learning circus arts, my newest love. Being able to separate myself from my money is dramatically hard for me. I like to hoard it. But money isn't worth anything unless you use it, so I've forced myself to buy another trip. My Europe trip saved my soul and I wanted to go again but I need to save more money because next year I hope to do a semester abroad. I need these things to keep me motivated, to keep doing well in school, to pursue my dream job.

My career and my passions are hugely important to me and my friends are valued just as evenly. The three things that keep me alive, that give me a sense of happiness. I've learned I'm not quite as good at making friends as I think I should be. I really like to tear into people, figure out their life story, what they're about. Their pains and struggles, passions and fears. But this doesn't help me make friends, it makes it really hard. Most people don't like another person seeing in and finding all this about them. I don't actually have any casual friendships. So any friend I have is one I truly cherish to know. This thought has helped me a lot with accepting the fact that I have made no real friends in the year and a half I've been at this college. I have two that I regularly say hi to in the halls or class but have never seen outside of school. I hope it's because the school is so big that I typically don't have more than one class with any other person in a semester. I fear it's just because of me.

On the note of friends, I am ecstatic that I get to see one of my best friend's get married in less than a month. To be at her bachelorette party. A girl I've known since I was 13. It's kind of mushy but I think it's beautiful.

So much to be excited and happy for.

Maybe if you ask me nice.

My digital arts teacher asked our class if any of us had been in love. It`s a first year class, full of just out of high school students, so no hands went up, that I can recall. For them it made sense, but for 22 year old me, not as much. I thought about putting my hand up. I remember loving someone before, and him loving me. But he loved someone else too so I don`t define it as real love in the traditional sense. I remember a broken heart but I`m not about to declare I`ve been in love before based on a technicality.

She said one day we would all know love, it`s the greatest thing there is. I believe for some people it can be, but not everyone. It`s just another thing, just like not everyone writes songs or plays basketball. Love is just another hobby. I remember the moment when finding love stopped being a priority. I was in my first year of high school when someone told me to just stop looking for a boyfriend. He said if you stop pining, it'll eventually just happen. So I did. Years went by and nothing happened. But by then I had realized I wanted my dreams and desires to take a front seat. My career has been my priority ever since. I've been spending all my time and energy in building my foundations, my knowledge and skills. I've been creating, I've been making myself into something I want to be forever. I never found the time to look for love. And now I'm in this sad spot of not knowing how to want it enough to start. There is a real fear that one day I'll have the success I wanted but I'll be old and to enthralled with my work to be appealing to any man. I've heard a lot about how the majority of men want someone to care for, not someone who is so independent they wouldn't feel counted on. If I make myself into that, I will have wasted all this time becoming a person who didn't need anyone else. But I guess that's what love might be?

Then my teacher said love drives the world. She asked me if I believed in love, which is such a strange way to phrase the question but it`s how most people do. Of course I believe in love, it`s a very real, indisputable thing. How could I say no honestly? I said I did believe but not that it drives the world. I thought about what I believed drives the world and realized it was sex and money. Prostitution is regarded as the oldest profession in the world, though likely isn't. Nevertheless, it is widely assumed and with good reason. Sex was one of the first things man found he was willing to pay for after maybe food, a vital necessity. Today, people pay out of this word dollar amounts for men, women, even kids to fulfill their most depraved fantasies. Or even just nominal fee for a regular physical experience that most people partake in without any exchange of goods. 

Then there's money. I always hated the stories of people who left all their belonging to live in the woods and off the grid. Their stories were told with a disgusting air of self-righteousness. Fuck, what makes your choice to live in the woods so great? Good for you, you don't have to work, but technology will save your ass one day when you get sick or you'll just die. My life is greatly fulfilled by my access to technology and not because I get to waste hours playing video games or watching cat videos but because I get to communicate with the world, I get to learn about the universe and answer every question I've ever had. Perhaps without the technological advancements within reach, I can understand how living off the grid would be a viable option. It is as liberated as anyone could possibly be. It awed me how so many people suffer through menial work their whole lives. They have to make money. I thought about what kind of work someone might do for free, if there was a job in the world so great anyone would do it for free and I don't think it exists. People say it all the time, but take their paycheque away and they'll be foaming at the mouth, guaranteed. Money is just a chain. It keeps people locked to their shit jobs and even those who have their dream careers. We're chained by items, we work for money to buy things to fill our lives. You can put a price on anything your heart desires. You can buy someone's life, someone's death, sex. You can pay someone to own space on the earth that has existed for billions of years before the first human walked it. It's money and it's sex that drive the world; love is in the backseat.

Liza's first day in the lab was exhausting. The clinical trials were going well but the work was nevertheless draining. Her last subject, a man in his late 30's though already balding, collected his pay from Liza and left, leaving the door slightly ajar. Liza tried to finish her notes as quickly as she could so she could rush home to bed, but a high pitched whistling stung her ears at their deepest points. The whine sizzled in her brain. She walked to her office door and the sound abruptly stopped as she shut it, as if it were sucked out of her ear canals by a vacuum.

Liza made some notes on a few more PET scans before heading home. The brain images were by far the most fascinating part of her research. The study picked up where Tsutomu Oohashi's left off, considering the hypersonic effect. The concept had greatly enthralled Liza, how frequencies inaudible to humans might affect our brains. There were all these sounds in the world that our eardrum's measly range of 20-20kHz could not perceive. But what do the frequencies outside of that range do to us? Can we feel them in our bones, on our skin? Do they beat around our brains to make us feel something we aren't consciously aware of? Liza wanted to know and she was going to. Today's images were wonderfully enlightening. Liza played music for the subjects that contained frequencies up to 30kHz and the brain scans started to light up. The frequencies were doing something, something never researched before, and Liza was elated that she would be the one who found the answer.

The next seven days of research went by without a hitch. On the eighth day, three subjects had opted out of the research. Reasons varied, one had a daughter who had fallen ill and no longer had time. Time was also an issue for the second subject who had just been promoted. The third had a stranger story. In writing, she gave her reasoning:


"Henceforth, I opt-out of the research study taking place at ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories on  the topic of the hypersonic effect. I wish I could continue as I feel the study truly need to be carried out but I fear for my health. I have been fraught with night terrors of a demonic sort every night since starting the study. I have seen Hell in its entirety with vivid clarity. I could replicate my visions with great detail but on nothing less than a massive brick wall and painted only with blood. Creatures that had human features melted and pressed onto rigid black forms. They were shaped like the rocky cliff sides of mountains and bolted to the ground. They had eyes that leaked out of their sockets. I have memories of fire, spouting from their cavernous mouths and a scream that sounded like it came from a thousand throats in sequence, passing through one and feeding into the next. I only hope these sights fade but a part of me senses they will be forever etched in my soul."


Liza read the letter at her desk and shut her eyes. She tried to visualize the nightmare from the letter and was certain she could only comprehend on a level that a toddler could understand calculus. She could picture the scene but couldn't feel the fear that was obviously evident in the letter. Liza couldn't stop her research on this one slip and hypothesized that the woman might have some underlying psychological issues. As she considered how to get around this complication, a new email flashed on her computer screen. Another subject was dropping out. The message was nearly identical to the other subject's letter. The man described a scene of fire burning across a rocky field of hardened corpses. Screams that came from a feedback loop of deformed mouths, agape and contorted. He too mentioned a fear that the images would never leave his memory, mentioning how they had "crystallized in his mind, a permanent structure until his death and maybe after." Liza's eyes welled up with tears, she saw her research slipping away. The board would see it as dangerous and the grant money would dry up.

Her decision to shred the letter and delete the email was not an easy one but it was necessary. This was not a time for a moral debate, she was on the cusp of discovering what could be perceived beyond what we know is humanly possible. This research was going to make great strides in trans humanist technology, and she needed her name on it. She needed to be part of the pantheon that told people they were not limited by their senses. That there was more to being human than what only our senses perceive. We could be more than human.

The next three days of research were rife with more letters of subjects dropping out. They all recalled hellfire, and the smell of ash so thick it coated the sinuses and let through only a sliver of lava-hot, black air. Liza tore up every one.

On the twelfth day, Liza was brought into a board meeting where she was questioned by her colleagues on the rampant drop-out rate of subjects in their study. It was severely hampering the research and it needed to be known if there were reasons to stop the work altogether. Liza put on her best face and explained the subjects all had time conflicts in some way or another. One of her colleagues pulled out a letter from a stack of papers, slid it over to Liza, and asked her to explain it. It was from one of the drop-outs from day eleven. They had sent a copy of the letter to every researcher, desperately asking for the study to be put to an end. They went on to describe their decimated life. His wife had moved out from the fear that her husband would  slice off her face in her sleep. She had awaken to him one night standing over her in a trance and holding a kitchen knife, pressed hard against her lips. Liza saw no way out. This man had been perfectly sane before the study and eleven days in had gone mad. She had no defense. She was let go from the research that day and would be facing a hard road if she wanted back into any sort of research. She would forever be known as one who did not work within the scope of morality, she would be admired by few and spurned by most.

Liza made her way home, her mind cloaked in despair. She never felt desperation like this, the want to go back in time, to not tear up the letters. To face the facts that there was something dangerous in her research, in exposing people to great amounts of frequencies higher than their ears could perceive. Maybe that would be her next endeavor, to learn what sort of devil hid in those sounds. But did she dare? The fear the subjects felt, the sick states their minds had been left in... did she dare expose herself to even more of the trigger of these experiences, in the name of science? She questioned why she had been safe this whole time, why she never had the nightmares. She went through the experiments too, as she applied them to her subjects on a daily basis.

More fatigued than she had ever been before, Liza collapsed into her bed, weighted down by the sorrow of losing her future. She switch the bedroom lamp off, but didn't close her eyes to sleep. For in the shadow of her room that should have been tinted black was a sea of grey faces. And Liza knew that darkness would never be dark for her again.

I had to kill the new sheriff in town.

For me, happiness has been a very alien sensation. I don't have a single memory of being happy down to the core, ultimately free of sadness, fear, or anxiety. This year I've suddenly started to love school. I hated my first year. It was kind of a mystery how I ended up in art school, and by means of trying to explain it, I told myself I owed it to art. I owed it my life because it saved me so many times. I've wanted to die probably more than I wanted to live and no friend or family could keep me in this world the way music, poetry, and theatre did. While people go through bouts of depression,  I was having intermittent moments of contentment in a regular state of debilitating misery. I wrote, listened and drew to fight the demon within me, while my self-destruction fed it all the while.

I've learned what is important. I'm teaching myself how to care about things and to accept the disappointment that comes with doing so. I'm feeding my mind instead of destroying it and it is happy. It strikes me with fear that my creative pump might clog, I can even see how boring my writing becomes. I'm in an animation class that renewed my faith in going to this school. Now all my sick ideas can be manifested without me needing to be great at drawing or painting or writing them out in a state of practical psychosis. I don't know if I'll be an animator or what I'll pursue after year two of art school. That would have terrified me before. But I'm satisfied with what I'm learning now and living in the present instead of the future has really given me a chance to like being alive.

I died tonight.
He killed me with his bare hands. I didn't feel a thing until I was almost dead. I was too high on the chemicals, far inside my mind.
I felt my mouth go numb as he pushed his fingers into the flesh of my neck and squeezed.
Under his grip, my throat collapsed and the shutters of my eyes flew open, throwing off the dust of the night. The greens rolled forward, once magnetized by the black hole of a destructive ego, now locked into a blue murderous gaze. I saw a fire burning so furiously that the whites of his eyes fluoresced and I was blinded.

I knew this would happen. Just never this way.
He had knives. He had guns.
But here he was instead; on top of me, knees on each side of my ribcage, using only the clench of his knuckles to force the life out of my body.

I was pressed up against the gap, seconds between a ceased existence and life. I thought I would see my memories flash before me but all I saw was sand. Falling. One minuscule grain at a time.

I'll have you just the way you are.

I'm starting to realize how dire it is for me to have a plan. If the plan falls apart, I fall apart. This is not any way to live, but it's the only way I keep myself together. A rigid sheet of steps to solve all my problems. My newest problem is being interested in a guy at work who is so beyond realizing that I like him that this wheel won't turn at all unless I force a move. But it's a concept utterly lost on me. I'm certain he thinks I hate him because I shut off into a silent being around him. Because I say dumb awkward things that he makes fun of. Maybe he likes picking on me like a school boy, it's a treatment I understand and am somewhat fond of. I hate being fawned over. The fastest way for me to lose interest is to pester and baby me so that he's sort of mean and careless is endearing. I am planning my way to this one. It's another thing where I want my way with a man and to forget about him as soon as I know for certain that he feels something for me. That's almost all I need to know. I set out on step one yesterday. I told a co-worker I was interested in him, now hoping maybe she will tell him to get the gears rolling. She said she thinks he has "issues." That wasn't part of the plan and I forgot to ask what she meant. I have other steps. Ask him where he got his bracelet. Tell second male co-worker about crush, hoping he might give up the secret but must confirm the first hasn't. Get him to talk about music, drugs, science, any common interest to get him to fucking talking to me. Stop being offended by hearing he goes out with other girls. It's just time to get competitive.