How I Started to Cry

How I Started to Cry: a  Somewhat Poetic Rant

I am not special. I am not beautiful. I am not happy, and I may never be. In fact there’s a great chance that I wont be. I won’t be where I want to be, ever. I will never leave an impact on this world. I am not driven. I am not talented. I don’t want to try. to be useful. or productive. I want to abandon every project or endeavor I had ever begun or planned out. I am no writer. Everyone is a writer, no one is discovered. I may never love the way I dream to. I may never love at all. I dream too big, yes there is such a thing. The floorplan of my life is imaginary, it’s based on other people’s fiction and realities. I am not a good human being. I am a lie. I am the façade. I do well to rack up karma points that I hope will one day buy me the life I’ve spent too much time fantasizing about. I’m beginning to doubt my potential. I have not yet succeeded at anything. I am not noteworthy. I am not memorable and no one will remember me. I am nothing BUT a memory. A face in the crowd of someone’s life. The girl I knew in 6^th grade. I haven’t cried like this in a while. I have not sobbed. I have not curled up in a ball, kneeling into the floor attempting to degenerate myself into matter. It’s been some time now. The things I worry about are absurd. Will I have money to buy toothpaste, or shampoo, in the next week before college starts? Will I be able to afford getting my sheets laundered and my jeans altered? I am not noble, and I have no story to tell. I suck at fiction. I do not want to try so hard, work my life away to be a writer, or a doctor, to revolutionize fertility, or be an activist, I don’t want to bring a voice to anyone… I barely have my own. I can’t live with myself as being the person who sits on the couch marathoning decade old television episodes. being a spud. I am inconsolable most of the time. I have used up my free sympathy passes and never truly have anyone to turn to, that I will not regret the next morning. I am not great. or good. I can’t breathe through my nose. It is stuffed. I have been alone for too long. I have nothing of my own. I have not been inspired. and I am not inspiring. I am selfishly kind, if at all. I am prettiest after I spend my time crying. I am trying to ignore the fact that I have not and will not shower today, lie it away, believe my own lie and make it disappear, not because I am depressed but because I am lazy. I am running out of words, my attempts are getting shoty and way too calculated but I can’t stop typing because the lifeless, worthless, not empty per se, more like decrepit, feeling is still there. I firmly believe that I am too difficult to love and that those who may begin to explore feelings for me will find that I have standards that they shouldn’t try to live up to. Yes, I too have standards, while I don’t have the right to. I expect to meet my ideal and for that I may be foolish, no, I most definitely am. I am tired to of being relied on but I am good at nothing more. I spend my time proving myself to someone who isn’t there. And what for? To be remembered by few, and famous to virtually no one. To leave nothing behind. Living life as merely going through a series of motions. a procedure with no wealth. I saw the sparkle in her words as they surely were in her eyes when she wrote them and realized that to some she was an idol, while others had never heard of her and that’s how I started to cry. I would never meet her or get to love her. I would never be her. Her optimism soars and she believes in the best in people and in art. She herself is an artist. She has the luxury of being herself and loving it, even when she doesn’t know it. And I fear I will have none of that.

I have a hard time believing that you can mean everything to some people and still mean nothing to others. What does it take to live happily and what can we teach the world?

Remember?

This was actually written more for my own sanity than anything else.



Remember?

Remember?
Remember when I sat there waiting for you at the benches by the tree?
Remember when I read you my writing and you read me yours?
Remember nights sitting on couches or beds watching television series?
Remember Gumi-Gum ice cream with the gummy bears in it
and how we'd count them to see who got the most?
Remember scribbling on scrap paper, using the products as visual aids?
Remember the birthday gift I gave you?
It took me three whole months to plan out:
Michal Negerin earrings and a personalized journal.
Remember sending me weekly text messages with short story prompts?
Remember my piece about Heaven?
Remember one-on-one talks that made us cry sometimes?
Remembering teaching me everything from numbers to what really counts?
Remember forgetting to keep in touch?
Remember telling me that salmon-pink was my color?
(I still love my salmon-pink backpack best because of that)
Remember doing wake-up duty wednesday mornings and finding me already awake to greet you with a smile?
Remember the one time I ignored you and stayed in bed grudgingly?
Remember the morning of Valentine's Day when you found me waiting for you at the bottom of the stair?
Remember the first time I showed you something I had written of you in my journal?
Remember all of our talks about boys?
(who knew I wasn't into that)
Remember the time Shani and I offered you chocolate balls and you looked at us longingly like you were truly proud of us?
Remember all those times you spent reassuring me?
Remember calling me "little sis"?
Remember sitting on the porch of your tiny apartment?
Remember all those unexpected visits of mine?
(I couldn't wait to see you)
Remember the stray cats? Remember Checkers the cat (how you called him Twix because you couldn't say it) and his fucktoy Chess?
Remember when Sonya had yelled at me and I was so upset and so we went out for strawberry icicles as a pick-me-up?
Remember doing my Purim makeup?
Remember Jungle Speed?
Remember the night you left?
Remember how disappointed you were that I skipped ecology class to sit with you and Noa?
Remember sticking our notes in the Western Wall together?
Remember our silly emails and how we used them to get to know each other?
Remember how you said repeatedly that you'll ALWAYS be there for me?
Remember letting me play with your hair?
Remember back when you caught Noy sleeping in our room?
Remember showing me your high school final performance?
Remember "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?"?
Remember telling me that I give to others sometimes more than I give to myself?
Remember me?
Remember ME?
I keep all of these sealed away,
in a compartment of my heart
where no one can reach them
and occasionally
I bathe in the great misery they leave me with
as you succeed to move on.

The Killing of an Optimist

I wrote this piece sometime in February of 2008. I am posting it up now for two reasons. Firstly, because until this day it remains among my prized pieces as it holds what I consider to be one of the best lines of imagery in my writing thus far. Secondly, this piece is now resurfacing, as many of my other pieces previously had, due to the fact that I can once again identify with the topic I had written about back then.

The Killing of an Optimist

I feel like a part of me is dying here
And it hurts more than you can possibly imagine
Like shards of glass secreting from the pores of my bare skin
I want to shout
but I have no voice
I want to cry
but there is no one to hear it
My powers have faded and I can no longer break out of this cage
With every passing moment my heart sinks lower and lower
It's a feeling so sickeningly painful
that I feel myself deteriorating from the inside out
and as I cling on to the very last strand of hope,
constantly thinning as we speak,
I realize two very important things:
that any and all sorts of attempts are useless
and that instead of standing by,
allowing the infliction caused by others to devour me,
I find that infliction of self offers an oddly comforting sanctuary that I can hide in
'til there is no more

Something You'll Never Claim

An old poem from my the end of my junior year of high school (aka about two years ago). I'm sharing it with you because it has a lot to do with a great deal of what I'm going through right now.

Something You'll Never Claim

These scars,
They belong to you,
From all the times where I felt as if I was dying,
And you were too busy placing blame to be there.

These scars,
It may even sound ridiculous that I own them,
But when blood is boiling and tears burn like acid,
Sometimes you need to rip skin in order to vent the steam.

These scars,
You get to walk away from them,
Pretend they never had anything to do with you in the first place,
But I,
I am forced to wear them for as long as I live.