Essay

Some of the names have been changed.

I am going to tell you a story about a beautiful, wonderful, excellent boy who ruined my life. He is the reason I tried to kill myself a couple days ago. I met Kyle my senior year of high school. We were in math class together. I had known of him before I met him. Everybody knew Kyle. He had an infectious personality and stood out because he wasn’t afraid to be himself. With a shock of red hair and soft facial features, he wasn’t exactly attractive. I, however, spent so many hours studying his face, tracing its lines, memorizing its shapes, focusing on the parts that were beautiful, disregarding the flaws, that he became the most gorgeous person in the world to me. At the time I met him, Kyle was going out with this girl named Melissa. I won’t go into detail about her, except to say that she hated me, because anything I would say would be unfavorable. Anyway, after the nasty break-up, Kyle and I began spending more time together. He was the biggest flirt you could imagine, but it still took him forever to ask me out. He did so by writing a poem and buying me a book I had told him I wanted to read. I swear I never meant to fall in love with the boy. I was engaged in a complicated, long distance affair at the time with one of my best friends. Joe was actually the one who made up my mind to say yes to Kyle. He wasn’t expecting me to fall in love either. But I did.
I remember one day in particular. We had decided to go on a walk in the woods, and were making out in his car. He pulled my hand down his pants. It was the first time I had ever touched a penis, and I made him come. It is a powerful feeling, and it makes me feel potent every time. There is no more vulnerable time for a man, and at that point, if only for one night, he is mine.
I had kissed Joe, but Kyle had the special privilege of taking my virginity. Honestly, I was so horny at the time, that I would have fucked anything. I remember the afternoon distinctly. We were watching one of my favorite movies, Gone With the Wind, and the sex was so awkward and humiliating and downright bad, that I kept watching the movie during. He was appalled when I told him this. I thought maybe one day we could use this story to gross out our kids and discourage them from having sex, but I guess not. I’ll probably use it anyway. Well, the sex got better, and I actually got pretty good at blowjobs, due to his inability to abstain during my monthly visits from the red monster. I hope I was good enough that he’ll be disappointed the next time he receives oral sex. I like to hope a lot of awful things happen to him, but I never hope he dies. The reason for this is two fold. One, I want him to suffer as long as possible. Two, I don’t want his family to have to go through that. Kyle has one of those families that you desperately wish you could have been born into. Kyle’s family is cool. His mom, Simone, is a kindergarten teacher with multiple piercings in each ear and who loves Alice in Wonderland—the book, not the Disney rendition. She uses the word “fuck”, as long as it’s not in front of her seven year old. She listens to good music and wears her pants at her hips, not her waist, thank you very much. Her only flaw in my mind is that she raised a son who can’t make up his mind. More on that later. Earl, Kyle’s father, has to be one of the most laid back people I have ever met. He’s a chemist and a great cook. I don’t know if those two are related, but I suspect they are. Iris, the aforementioned seven year old, reminds my mom of a pixie. She has energy to spare and is smarter than a lot of the people who graduated from my high school, in my opinion. One of the worst parts of the break up is I won’t get to see her anymore. With Kyle’s nuclear family comes a plethora of aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, great-grandparents, and great-aunts and uncles. A personal favorite of mine is the great-uncle who looks like he glued a carpet to his chest. He smacked me on the butt with a serving spoon at Easter. They’re some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and I had a great time getting to know them.
The first break up was bad too. Not this bad, because nobody caught me cutting and I didn’t try to die. It wasn’t good, but I didn’t want to die. It was a total shock. He was supposed to come home that weekend and we were going to go to the Renaissance Fair. But, a couple days before he was due to return, he called me up. I could tell he was sad about something by his voice. I babbled like an idiot about how much fun we were going to have that weekend. I was happy he was coming home. Then he said it. “It’s not working.” I’m not proud of how I sobbed. I cried like a baby whose mother had just stuck with a pin. It was mostly shock, partially rage. He asked me not to hurt myself. That really set me off. Who the hell was he to try to tell me what to do? I stopped crying then. There was too much anger. Then he said something that made me start wailing again. He said, “I love you”. A week later, he came crawling aback on his belly like a remorseful toddler. I took him back. Worst decision of my life. Sure, we had some good times after this, but the second time he dumped me, it was like he had strapped an atom bomb to my back and started running. It was at the worst possible time, too. Right before classes started. Indeed, the night before classes started. It was then that he killed me. I had been having a great day. I had exercised, met my nice roommates, and settled into my new home. I knew something was wrong by his voice again, but I didn’t put the pieces together until he said, “It’s not working.” Apparently, he felt apart from me, and this was his solution, to just end it. He didn’t even talk to me about it, just decided on his own that I was no longer girlfriend material. What really pisses me off is how he tried so hard to make it work with Melissa before they broke up, but with me, it was a snap decision. No second guesses. This time, he didn’t ask me not to hurt myself. This time, he didn’t say he loved me. It was over. For the next few days, I clung to hope that he would ask me back, just so I could say “no” and spit in his face. But he didn’t. Apparently, there is another girl who caught his eye. I promised myself I wouldn’t cut over him, because he wasn’t worth it. Then I started cutting again, not because of him, or at least that’s what I told myself. Then I stopped lying to myself.
I slept with a guy and told him about it to make him jealous. I didn’t do it to make him jealous, though. I did it because I wanted to and was horny. Anyway, when I told him, he called me a slut. We got into our first-ever fight. I pulled my punches, though. I didn’t tell him that every orgasm was a lie, or that the consensus among my friends here is that he looks like a child molester. I doubt he did me the same courtesy. Anyway, feeling started piling up and one day, I decided to kill myself. One more thing I fail at is suicide. I could see my veins, but I couldn’t cut deep enough to nick them. I told Kyle, because I wanted him to suffer. Instead of man up and deal with it himself, he called Ella. Now Ella and I are best friends, but didn’t want to talk to her at that point, because I knew she would talk me down. She wanted me to call 911. There was no way I was doing that. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. Then my roommate came home, and I was afraid she would send me there if she knew what I was trying to do. So I went over to Jamie’s dorm room. Jamie is my boyfriend, but we had only met a couple of days before and got into a relationship the day before. So he was skeptical when Ella called and told him to call 911. Then he saw all the cuts. He yelled at me and held me close and called 911. That was the first time in my life that the sirens were for me. Usually, when I hear sirens, I pray a little for the person they’re coming for. Even though I don’t really believe in God. When the paramedics go there, they decided I didn’t need an ambulance. There were about seven people in the room, and I asked one of them, “Why are there so many people here.” She said, “This is just everybody who comes.” They had me sign a form refusing service and left. I went in the back of a squad car to the hospital. The cop sounded exactly like Cleveland from Family Guy. He stayed with me almost the entire time. The ER Nurse referred to my cuts as “scratches”. That really upset me. I had tried to kill myself, and she called them “scratches”. I didn’t say anything though. That sure would upset them, wouldn’t it? “I tried the best I could, Nurse!” Cleveland and I got shown to a small room with two chairs and a hospital bed. We waited for about three hours. I don’t know why they make you wait so long in the ER for mental health related things. I suspect it’s to calm you down so you don’t attack them when they try to talk to you. Well, I wasn’t going to get committed that night, I decided. So I put on my best face and told the doctors I felt much better. That’s my one talent, is making people believe I’m fine when I’m not. Aly and Greg came to pick me up around midnight. Aly told me to call Dr. Natvig in the morning, and I did. Lo and behold, he said I should go to the hospital again. Aly came with this time. It took just as long.
Being in the hospital didn’t help one bit. They brought me in, did intake, and less than 48 hours later, I was free to go. And I still want to stick a fork in the electrical socket. That just goes to show you. The most therapeutic thing I did there was to start writing this. Well, there you have it. The story of the boy who killed me.

Quest for Beauty

Up till now, my life has been centered around my depression. I've decided to try something new. Now, my life is to be dedicated to finding beauty in unexpected places, just like in my favorite movie ever, American Beauty. I tried it today, and found myself smiling a lot more and noticing things that had before eluded me.

There is unimaginable beauty in heartache, for without sadness, happiness is less vibrant. Life is about contrast. God cannot exist without the devil, as my good friend Hannah Johnson once said in a spurt of genius.

Steven Cash once said to me, "Life is beautiful. Just fucking realize that." It took me a while, but I did.

Workshop: The Concept from Hell

As a general rule, I don't like it when people critique my work. I like for them to praise me as a genius, say everything is perfect, and be done with it. However, like every person, I am not perfect. There is always room to improve in my work. I am taking a fiction writing class this semester, and today my story was one of the ones torn apart by the masses. It's called "At His Parents' Gravesite", but I don't care for the title, so I'm going to scrap it. I suck at titles, so suggestions are welcome. I'll put the story up here when I'm done with the changes. I hope by then it will be spectacular.

Music

I have been drowning myself in music lately to get my mind off things, so here are some of my new favorites:

St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark)

I really love her. She has a way of making music that is beautiful, yet also disgusting (her word). She is also one of the most gorgeous women ever. I wish I could look like her, but I don't think I could pull it off. I am addicted to Marrow and Actor Out of Work. Steven was the one who alerted me to her genius.

Here's an interview:



And here's Actor Out of Work:



I've also been listening to The Juliets a lot. They're really small, out of Michigan, I think. But I really like the sound. The Sequel is my favorite. I found out about them through Jason T. Lewis, another amazing musician and writer. I was fortunate enough to bask in his Certified Master of Fine Arts-dom for a couple weeks one summer. His album has just been released as well. http://sadironmusic.bandcamp.com/

Here's The Juliets' Drive You Home:



http://thejuliets.bandcamp.com/

I got their songs because they were free, but now I feel like I want to pay for them. Maybe I'll find some more I can buy once I get my credit card set up!

Poem for David

Fill the page
Draw out
The poison
Turn it into
The Antidote

Once, I was happy.
Once, I was whole,
Then I realized
I needed
More
To survive.
Being happy
Is not enough.

When Steven Cash Is Famous

I will walk around telling random people in the street that I knew of him before they did. And I will get a false feeling of entitlement from it.