i want you to slap me, but not in a sexual way
i want you to slap me around and tell me you hate me
so that i can hate you
so that i can leave you
sometimes i love people so much i want to destroy them
i want to wrap myself around them and crush them down to a powder and lick it off the floor
i want to be devastating
i am 21 years old and i sleep in my mother’s bed sometimes
i am an adult i am an adult i am an adult i am an adult
i work in an ice cream parlor i scoop ice cream for a living and i do not go to school
i am an adult
i am not an adult
when i am hospitalized i am hospitalized in adolescent units because i am not an adult
someone like me should not be able to vote
someone like me should not be able to buy cigarettes
someone like me should definitely not be able to buy alcohol
someone like me
someone who sleeps in their mother’s bed sometimes (~2x per week)
i am an adult
sometimes when i am sitting in my mother’s bed i think “i want to go home”
and i realize that i am home and i feel the kind of sadness you feel when you are a child, sadness that comes with realizing that things are much bigger than you think they are, and that you are still small, and you don’t really understand anything about anything
i do not understand anything about anything and i want to go home
i have people telling me that if i let god into my life i’d be happier, also that my sadness is part of god’s plan. let his will be done. radical acceptance. radically accept god’s plan for you. i tell them that’s why i’m mad, god is ignoring me, god is making me suffer, why would he do that. why isn’t he helping. then they tell me to wait. just wait.
and it goes on like this. “i don’t believe in god” leads to “you wouldn’t be sad if you believed in god” leads to “i’m sad because i believed in god and he didn’t help me” leads to “just let him back in it will help” leads to “but i don’t believe in god anymore” and it goes on and on forever and ever and ever
my dad used to say that the dent above your upper lip comes from god pressing his thumb there and it never made sense to me because wouldn’t god’s hands be bigger than that. especially if you get it when you’re a baby, a baby’s face is so little, god’s hand must be bigger than that. his thumbs must be bigger than a baby’s upper lip. but i guess god could change the size of his hands at any time if he wanted to. i guess he could do that. he can do anything he wants. he can change the size of his hands to stick his thumb in a baby’s face but he cant make me a little happier. i guess.
you started scrolling through the archives of the twitter of someone you don’t even know at 10:37
it’s 12:06
you’ve read every tweet she’s ever posted
she’s the classmate of someone you’re not friends with anymore
classmate of a guy who stopped talking to you because you wouldn’t have sex with him
you kind of feel bad because you had a date with him and fucked a practical stranger less than 12 hours before your date with him
you had four hickeys on your neck and he noticed them and stopped talking to you after that day
it was two months ago but you still feel bad because you think you hurt his feelings
but when people ask why the two of you aren’t friends anymore you lie and say it was all his fault
he was horny and only wanted you for sex and when you wouldn’t have sex with him he stopped talking to you
you pretended that the inappropriate texts were one-way
and the innuendos were unwanted and unsolicited
like you weren’t leading him on
like you didn’t trick this poor boy into thinking you liked him
for no reason
just because he’s in the same class as your ex-boyfriend
and you needed somebody to take it out on
and he was the closest thing that existed to your ex-boyfriend at that time
you fuck men that look like your ex-boyfriend and then never talk to them again
you find boys that look like he did or act like he did or are his age and trick them into thinking you like them and then never talk to them again
you are seeing a man who has the same name as your ex-boyfriend
he has nothing else in common with your ex-boyfriend
you don’t like him at all but you’re pretending you do so that eventually he will find out you’re fucking your best friend’s brother and another guy you met on the internet and your most recent ex (when he’s high enough) but not him
he’ll get offended and hurt and he’ll stop talking to you
and you’re only doing it because of his name
thats not a good enough reason but you need to take it out on somebody
sometimes when you see canvas sneakers or clothes that look like the kinds you used to wear when you were with him you get so sad you feel like throwing up
you used to wear a particular perfume every time you were with him
and when you smell it in magazine inserts you feel like killing yourself
last summer you found a bottle of it hidden in the back of your linen cabinet and smashed it and used the shattered glass to hurt yourself
you didn’t do that much damage and your bathroom smelled like that perfume for three weeks
he still has your two favorite books and your sunglasses and a bunch of other things that belong to you
but things that you can’t see
you might still be in love with him but you’d never admit that sober
you’re never sober anymore
you want to throw up but your stomach is empty
you wish you still had a stove with coil burners
so you could turn it up to full heat and press your hand on it and have part of that pattern burned into your skin
you wish you could make your face melt off
you want your face to melt off and slide onto the floor in perfect form
like a silicone mask you’d been wearing for 2 decades,
haha, now you see, there’s nothing underneath here
there’s nothing going on underneath
you keep clawing at your face but they just keep putting stuff on it
sisyphus
you look in the mirror and get so mad that you have that fucking face
you throw things at the mirror but it doesn’t shatter
every time you get a little bit closer to the edge they pull you back
every time you shave off a couple of years they tack them back on
sisyphus sisyphussisyphussisyphus sisyphus sisyp
their arms will get tired
“you will get tired, too”
that’s the trick: you’re always tired
caroline something
you’re in your car next to the girl who sits beside you in your history class
she has long brown hair and she smells like baby shampoo
you’re parked in the back lot at the school gym and she’s smoking weed and keeps asking you if you want a hit and you keep saying “no, thank you”
and she keeps offering and you keep declining
and she asks you “do you want a hand job”
and you say “no, thank you”
and she’s wearing a short skirt that rides up past the part where her thighs start to touch you know what she came here for but you don’t really want it as much as she does
you should have shaved your face
you should have worn cologne
you should be trying harder
she pulls out a cigarette and you go to protest because cigarette smoke gives you migraines
but she asks, “can I smoke this please” and it sounds really sweet,
not sexy, not husky, she’s not trying right now, and you like that
so you nod your head and she lights the cigarette and blows the smoke down at the floor
she says “let’s play truth or dare”
she’s trying to be sexy again and you don’t like it but you say “okay”
she says “you go first” and you say “truth or dare”
you haven’t played truth or dare since the eighth grade and now you remember why
because it’s a terrible game
of course, she says “dare” and you want to roll your eyes but you don’t
you say “i dare you to tell me your most embarrassing moment”
she scoffs and says “technically that counts as a truth”
you say nothing
she says “i’ve never been embarrassed”
you smile and say “everyone’s ashamed of something they’ve done”
she thinks about it for a while and you watch her while she thinks you think she looks like an actress, sitting like that, a cigarette in her hand and her head turned away from you and her hair all over her bare shoulders
she turns back to you and starts talking
“one time i got thrown out of a denny’s for making myself throw up in the bathroom. i don’t know how they figured out i was doing it on purpose, but this short, chubby woman who was the manager or something came in and said i was upsetting people, and that i had to leave. i don’t know who i was upsetting. for all they knew, i was sick because their shitty pancakes gave me food poisoning.”
you’re sad
that was a sad story
she puts her hand on your knee and you want to push it away but you feel sorry for her because of that story
she says “your turn”
you say “truth”
she says “why did you ask me out?”
you look up at her
she looks sad
she looks really sad
she asks “is it because people say i’m a slut?”
this is wrong
all of this is wrong you don’t like this anymore
you want to get out of the car
you shake your head and your face is really tight
you want her to get out of the car and walk back to her dorm
she says “i guess i kind of am a slut and that’s okay, if that’s the reason why you asked me out”
you say “it isn’t”
your voice sounds strangled
you cough and your throat feels exceptionally dry
she runs her hand up your thigh and you flinch and say “don’t”
and she says “just let me”
and you ask why
and she says it’ll make her feel better
your shoulders slump and you sigh quietly and you stop fighting her
you forget her last name
you always see it on her papers and homework assignments but right now with all the smoke in the air and her hand on your zipper and her chest pressing up against your arm when she leans in to kiss your neck you can’t remember her last name
this is sad
you are sad and you want to go home
on my first day a doctor asked me “do you come to the hospital to sleep?”
and i felt guilty for thinking it but the answer was yes
i go months at a time living like a normal person and then it gets overwhelming and i start to have obsessive thoughts about suicide and my parents send me to the hospital
and i sleep the entire time i’m there because that’s all i ever really needed
was to be allowed to sleep 18 hours a day for 2 weeks and have nobody say anything about it
but anyways this is the best place to be when i want to kill myself
because i can’t do it when i’m here and i mean
i mean if i’m being honest
no matter what i tell everyone around me (i tell them i’m not afraid to die)
i have held a suicide weapon in my hands three times since october of last year and i haven’t done it yet
i always end up crying for like a half an hour then putting away whatever weapon i chose that time
and washing my face and going to bed
i think i’m afraid of dying
but i’m also really sick of living
so i’m not sure what i’m supposed to do
so i come to the hospital every few months
i stop eating for a few weeks or start hurting myself again or stop cooperating with my doctors
and somebody decides that i need to be taken care of and i come here
and it doesn’t make me want to kill myself any less
it just takes away the means for a little while and gives me some time to sleep
proctor 2, visit #2, day 3
this lady just walked in and asked me if i ate breakfast and i said no
and she looked down at the carpet and said “why not”
and i said “im not hungry”
and i really should have said “i just don’t feel like eating” because actually im very hungry
but i’ve gotten so hungry now that the thought of food repulses me and i don’t feel like eating anything
my roommate is on the phone with someone talking about payments for something
she says she’s trying to get her daughter home for spring break
her daughter goes to school not far from where i went to school and it makes me angry to hear the name of her daughter’s school
and it makes me angry to have to say the name of my old school
i hate the way it feels to have to move my lips and tongue and throat in the right way to say the name
i hate picturing the ugly concrete campus
i hate remembering sleeping in the library because i was afraid of my roommate
i hate remembering that i was supposed to be the editor of the school newspaper but i’m here instead
i hate remembering the food and remembering not eating any of it
i hate remembering trying to kill myself in my friend’s apartment
i hate that school
and it hated me
people on the internet tell me im pretty and i don’t answer them
i only answer mean comments about my weight and my writing
it’s easier to accept insults than to accept compliments
my roommate is getting very angry with the person she’s talking to on the phone
someone walks in and asks me if i want to go to group but i can’t hear her over the sound of my roommate on the phone
it all sounds like a mixed signal on a radio or bad feedback on a microphone
i want to shut it all off, there’s too much sound all at once, the sound of my roommate yelling at bank of america and the nurse asking me to go to group and people across the hall in the kitchen talking loudly to one another i can hear their forks hitting their plates
that’s impossible, the forks are plastic and the plates are styrofoam
but i can hear it
i close my eyes and it doesn’t make anything disappear so i mumble “i’m going to sleep” and i lie down and i lower the shade and cover my head with a pillow
and i wait for the nurse to walk away
a stranger just tweeted something i wrote and pretended they didn’t take it from me
i want to punch through the computer screen
i want to watch my knuckles bleed
BLOWING THE “(NAME WITHHELD) FUNDS”
I was planning on visiting you for quite some time so I took this empty can of crushed tomatoes and washed it out and took off the label and wrapped a giant piece of tape around it and wrote your name on the tape in bold capital letters
And I added small (≥$20) bills and loose change to it for a few months
I saved up just enough to see you and then something happened and now you won’t talk to me anymore
(I’m not surprised–you’re the type and I’ve been around your type for plenty long to have been able to seen this coming)
But still
It was getting too sad to look at the can full of money and look at your name and then picture your face when I saw your name and know I’d saved up for nothing
So did the only thing I could think to do:
I spent all of the money in one day
I spent a hundred and fifty of it on clothes and fifty on these overpriced bath salts that smell nice and have glitter in them and fifty on makeup and the last fifty on weed
And I smoked all of the weed one night in the bathtub after I poured all $50 worth of bath salts into the bath at the same time and I stared at my faucet until it didn’t look real anymore and I said your name over and over until it didn’t feel real anymore and I tried really hard to cry but I couldn’t
All I could do was listen to the faucet drip into the bathwater and try not to fall asleep
I was talking to my friend the other day and he asked why I’m so hung up on you
What it is about you I like so much
That’s so special
And I had to stop to think and I couldn’t think
Of a single thing that would keep my stretching out for you
I couldn’t even remember the color of your eyes
I had to look up a picture
Because I couldn’t conjure up the image on my own
How sad
How sad is that
To put it simply, to answer my friend:
I loved you because you were handsome and you paid attention to me
And no reason beyond that
And now that you are gone I feel no great loss
I hardly notice your absence
And sometimes I begin to feel bad about not feeling bad about not having you around
But then I remember that you most likely don’t feel bad either
So I go back to feeling nothing.
I want to miss you but
I don’t.
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like a disaster.- Elizabeth Bishop
Part Two Ending In A Haiku
I am awake an hour and twenty minutes before my alarm
This is the new me
This is the new life I agreed to
I smoked a cigarette last night with my mom and she cried and said she hates her job and wishes she could quit
I said I hate her job and wished she could quit too but we both know she can’t
I got drunk off of two glasses of wine at a party with my parents’ friends
I even threw up in the parking lot
I’m not a lightweight it’s the medication I’m not a lightweight it’s the medication I’m not a lightweight it’s the medication I’m not a lightweight it’s
The medication makes me dream. I hate it.
I hate it here. I should go back to the hospital. I should move to Texas. I should dye my hair. I should redo my room. I should change who I am. I should redo my life, it’s not what I wanted. This is not what I wanted. I’m not what he wanted and I didn’t get what I wanted and I did everything I said I never wanted to do and this can’t be my life. This can’t be it, it’s not what I wanted at all.
It’s the damn clock. I can’t sleep because of the damn clock. Why did I buy that stupid thing? I didn’t want it.
Don’t laugh at me, don’t laugh at this: I miss the sound of breathing in my room at night.
All the snow has melted.
The sun’s coming up
I have been back for five days
I want to leave home.
