Aug 2015
i kept a calendar when i was younger. i filled the columns with big round handwriting and coloured them with markers. the page for 7th - 13th november looked like this:
SUNDAY: -
MONDAY: doctor's appointment
TUESDAY: -
WEDNESDAY: english exam
THURSDAY: -
FRIDAY: -
SATURDAY: i'm going to **** myself today
i chose a green marker for the background.
that morning i got up early. i brushed my teeth. i put on a warm jacket. i went to the pond to feed ducks.
the body is 60% water. i learned that in school.
the body is 60% water, 30% sorrow and 10% coal dust and i never learned that anywhere until it had already spread inside of me, turned all my organs brittle and grey.
the body is not meant for this. i learned that the hard way.
there is a point, eventually, after the hundredth doctor's appointment, after the fifteenth conversation where you bare your teeth like a snarl instead of a smile and you say you're fine and they say they're fine and you-
there was a point, but i lost it.
i spent two hours feeding those ducks. my face was burning from the cold and i couldn't feel my hands. it felt like they belonged to another person. it always felt like that these days.
i wondered whether other people could see the puppeteer's string they were all tangled up in like the world's most morbid arts and crafts project. sometimes it felt like a ****** up retelling of pinnochio, only i don't turn into a real boy at the end.
it's not that i wanted to die. it's just that i kept dreaming of drowning. the body is 60% water and i wanted to wade into it until the world around me had disappeared and my lungs were filled with the same stuff i had been swallowing in my sleep for years.
i was submerged halfway up to my stomach when my phone rang. i still don't know why i picked up. maybe it was the person my hands now belonged to who did. my mum's voice was far away like the world on foggy winter mornings. she wanted to know where i was. she made pancakes. she wanted to know when i was coming home. she loves me.
the leaves were tumbling around me like falling bodies.
the sun was hidden behind clouds.
my hands were shaking and the sky was howling at me:
live; live;
live.
SUNDAY: -
MONDAY: doctor's appointment
TUESDAY: -
WEDNESDAY: english exam
THURSDAY: -
FRIDAY: -
SATURDAY: i'm going to **** myself today
i chose a green marker for the background.
that morning i got up early. i brushed my teeth. i put on a warm jacket. i went to the pond to feed ducks.
the body is 60% water. i learned that in school.
the body is 60% water, 30% sorrow and 10% coal dust and i never learned that anywhere until it had already spread inside of me, turned all my organs brittle and grey.
the body is not meant for this. i learned that the hard way.
there is a point, eventually, after the hundredth doctor's appointment, after the fifteenth conversation where you bare your teeth like a snarl instead of a smile and you say you're fine and they say they're fine and you-
there was a point, but i lost it.
i spent two hours feeding those ducks. my face was burning from the cold and i couldn't feel my hands. it felt like they belonged to another person. it always felt like that these days.
i wondered whether other people could see the puppeteer's string they were all tangled up in like the world's most morbid arts and crafts project. sometimes it felt like a ****** up retelling of pinnochio, only i don't turn into a real boy at the end.
it's not that i wanted to die. it's just that i kept dreaming of drowning. the body is 60% water and i wanted to wade into it until the world around me had disappeared and my lungs were filled with the same stuff i had been swallowing in my sleep for years.
i was submerged halfway up to my stomach when my phone rang. i still don't know why i picked up. maybe it was the person my hands now belonged to who did. my mum's voice was far away like the world on foggy winter mornings. she wanted to know where i was. she made pancakes. she wanted to know when i was coming home. she loves me.
the leaves were tumbling around me like falling bodies.
the sun was hidden behind clouds.
my hands were shaking and the sky was howling at me:
live; live;
live.
