Three Of Thirty Nine And Counting - 2023

three of thirty nine and counting - леви 2023

you handed over pieces of yourself. i told you from the beginning, this was a terrible idea. imaginary friend perched on a stool in the kitchen, waiting for me to gather up the courage to choke down my morning pills.

i read the first five pages of the surrender theory and thought i was god

the timeline of this all is fucking pathetic. i’m sitting, chilled, at white table, white walls, white computer, white clouds, massive windows coated in dead bugs and old spider webs. there was a man sitting in front of me but he left twenty minutes ago. there was a woman with a kind voice teaching english to a group of,,, i don’t know. i couldn’t see but i could hear them. i have my headphones on, have mentioned that i’m cold yet? a year ago today i bought flowers, and then maybe i thought to text you. two years ago today, i let the day slip past me with no physical way of remembering what happened three years ago today, crash, bang, smoke. and i couldn’t help but laugh. twenty four hours ago today, she got discharged from the hospital. its crazy seeing someone so healthy, someone you thought would live forever,,,,, she struggled to get out of her bed, she needed help using the bathroom. she’s high on the same painkillers her mother was addicted to. great, if she makes it out of this alive, she’ll have dementia when she’s ninety. god, why must there be so much death in one life? god, i’m looking for answers and i’m finding them all in the things you told me were blasphemous. i won’t defend you any longer, you’re lucky i’m still keeping up looks. a year ago a week from now, i think i texted you. i don’t know, it was something dumb like that. you blew off a halloween party to clean my room. not sure why you felt the need to help me out. i wasn’t so depressed then, i was far worse when i was begging the universe to keep us together. but its exhausting begging you to be good to me, its exhausting waiting for you to come around. i spend all my time in the past, i can see all the symptoms of convincing ourselves it was worth it, i can see it in you still, now. i won’t let a round three happen, but i keep having dreams about you. but i have no way of reaching out, i deleted everything that has to do with you. and i will keep it that way. its all up to fate to get us together again, but i will have moved on to greater things. did you know your left headlight is out? its not, but i liked the way it sounded. “i love you,” written on the back window, i know it wasn’t meant for me but it feels like its taunting me. like i said, the timeline of all this is fucking pathetic. i like to think i’ve gotten over dear s, but this really is all the same thing.

the poet has a one sided conversation with their journal:

shit luck, i can’t align this to the left.

shall i fall into old traditions?

bottling and obsessing, bottling and obsessing.

he knows. he’d have to be fucking helen

keller to not know. but sometimes he’s

so oblivious. so maybe he doesn’t know.

he says things, like,

“i’m going to pretend i didn’t hear that”

so he knows. he knows.

he knows the way i look at him sometimes.

the things i say sometimes.

i love looking at him.

thanks for noticing it before i did.

you gave me words for something

i never needed to know.

god, maybe i should end it.

but maybe its not so wise.

thanks for telling me i’m good at writing.

even when i know you’re lying through your teeth.

are you okay? are you okay? are you sure? look at me. are you okay? hey, only me. its only me. thanks for noticing something in the way i kissed you, something i didn’t even notice until you gave me words for the pain in my chest, the,,,, for now i’m stuck, chilled, second floor of this god forsaken library. isn’t heat supposed to rise? i want you to read this, i want you to love me like i’m convinced i love you, i want you to see me the way i see you. its so much easier to love yourself when you know you’re capable of being loved.

so much of the “love” word. you know what you’re capable of.

we’re so close to it, yet you keep letting me drag you closer to it. i’m letting you read my annotated copy of the perks of being a wallflower. if that isn’t a giant “i’m madly in love with you” then i don’t know what is.

i don’t even know who s is. is it you? is it me? someone else completely? i don’t know who i am (addressing anymore). i don’t know where you went or where these sentences were leading, i just love to hear the sound of my keyboard clicking.

because here at uni, i’ve been static. no one knows anything about me. no one ever asked. i don’t know anything about anyone. my friends say i’m an alcoholic in the making. i like to think there is more to me than that. but i probably am. i think i just wanna throw my life away. its so easy.

squeeze all the toothpaste out of the tube. punch a transphobe. smoke a cig. drink just to feel. drive somewhere far away. sleep in your car. spend all your savings. and then die. i’d be happy then.

you cross your arms. shut down.

“don’t worry about me, i’ve got a lot on my mind”

i smile as i turn the conversation back around to you. its beautiful, all the words come pouring out of you. you sound like you might cry. there might be something wrong with me, because i want you to cry.

maybe i just want you to be comfortable with yourself around me.

you ground me.

i really do love you.

nonetheless, i listen. as i start to run through my thoughts, try to select an appropriate response, you usually end up speaking again. i hope you don’t mistake my silence for not giving a fuck. if i voiced every thought in my head around you, you’d never be able to get a word in otherwise.

thinking about the dying part of death

someone new. new face. no face. i want to feel at peace. i know better. i know better. can’t think. frantic. switching between. switching. you’re killing me.

i want to be beautiful. i want to be a goldfinch that just slammed into a window, all i wanted was to be warm inside. i want to be the blood spreading over the tracks, all i want is to give agates their red hue, i want to give back to nature. (i want to swallow batteries, down blood thinners and sit in a garage with all the cars running.) disintegrate from the inside out.

there’s a difference between zoning out and derealizing. zoning out so bad you’re floating through life like nothing more than a ghost. can’t even force myself to stay present, to get out of my head. i wasn’t nervous, but i notice as i start to present that i (slip to the back of my mind) and my words became a stream of unrecognizable dialogue. i can’t stay here, can’t stay present, i wonder if my professor knows i’m not here, knows i’m at the back of my head. i’ve been told i’m a shit friend, he said he didn’t stick around because i was nice. don’t know what he saw in m((e if we hated each other) so m)u))ch.

time is of the essence, “well executed,” she tells me. thanks, you didn’t read my suicide note in the background. everyone’s been eyeing it up.

i keep dreaming of dying terrible deaths. homecoming queen dies in a tragic car accident (no details were given.) i watched rollercoasters fly off their tracks and crash into each other mid-air. gunshots go off in a crowd and everyone runs. (i keep all my secrets in parentheses.)

you used to think maybe i was happier if i was having dreams at night. this is all just one long fucked up drawn out entry in (dear s,)

i’ve taken the pills, i’ve parked by the tracks, but i’ve never gone through with it. my therapist knows i have these thoughts but i won’t tell her how i’ll do it. she asks all the wrong questions.

(i jerk the wheel of my car on black ice just to see if i care enough to live.) but who doesn’t? we’re all fucking miserable.

clusterfuck

this is the first time in a very long time that i’ve felt okay.*

you know how long i’ve been chasing after you and there was no better way to end this era than a note passed on a phone, a sick smile, missed eye contact, slip away into the night. to never be spoken to again. i thought i could never be happy without you, but i realize you were what was holding me back. i’m not happy, but i’m content. i’ve never felt this before, (i’ve never felt more grey) like i’m somehow lighter. things flow better. i’m still slipping into this year’s depression, but its not as bad as it used to be. i’m hoping it stays this way. i really don’t want to live the rest of my life the way its been going.

things i like: everything that reminds me there is life beyond you and this godforsaken high school.

i hate that you’re better at writing than me. no matter how many compliments are showered over me, i will always feel inferior to you. i hope that someday i forget about you. hope eventually all my pictures of you are washed down the drain. this is final. like maybe one of us is in the ground, six feet under. thats the kind of final i want / feel ?. its late, i’m tired, the white lines slip under my car, my speedometer learns what exponential growth is, and god, i find there’s high beams flashing at me but i just don’t care that i’m driving into oncoming traffic. i love how final death is. you thought i’d come running back to you, you were even counting on it. i feel that i’m a hamster running on the same godforsaken wheel in my head, maybe i’ve twisted the story up, i don’t know where i got lost, what’s remembered and what’s forgotten. i just don’t give a shit. i’fe never been happier.

i don’t know what’s come over me. tonight i’m filled with far too many emotions. i feel like a cracked up bucket that can’t even hold water any more and the shit of life is still being placed in it and ugly brown sludge shoots out from this ugly cracked home depot bucket. tonight, maybe not, maybe all day, my brain has been running at 90mph. no breaks. (or brakes.) no proper way to slow down. i can mute it with music, its not enough to mute it. god, i just want silence. peace. predictability. the space to lay down and take a deep breath. or two. or three. or however long it takes to calm down. i want to lay down in bed and never get up again. i want to be nothing but tv static for the rest of existence, or some lights on someone’s ghost tracker bullshit. let it be known that i am happier than i’ve ever been, let it be known that i feel like nothing more than a ghost. just floating though the motions of day to day life, and the moment i feel like i’m something sorta living, i’m—

*i just got back from slitting my wrists, after i punched the wall and realized what i really wanted was pain. didn't do enough to make a mess, just enough for me to regret it the next day with every wrong move of my shirt.

i’ve stopped giving a shit of how long its been since i last did it. its not a nightly occurrence anymore. just enough to,,,,, i don’t know. just enough. maybe to maintain the scars. i wish i could stop feeling like i didn’t do it good enough when the scars fade. like i didn’t hurt enough, even though my skin may never be even again.

its the ultimate distraction, notice how i’m not overstimulated anymore? just focused on the sting, finding the time to buy a black crewneck sweater before work tomorrow. i can’t stand the staring.

caretaking and grief (i’m the victim, i’m the saint)

jumpy jittery like i have really bad anxiety, shaking and feeling weak like i have low blood sugar. i’m drinking milk tea, 268 calories. what a specific number. 55g carbs. can’t imagine i have low blood sugar. but maybe its something else, like the first three drags off a cigarette, the first three i’ve had in a few days. i’m not supposed to smoke on these meds, i wonder what high blood pressure feels like. i just wanna go for a walk and feel stupid dizzy, stupid head spins. but i’ve got to go to class. my lips bleed when i speak, they’re so chapped. and my kidneys are in agony, i don’t remember the last time i had more than a sip of water (just to down my pills).

but maybe its something else completely.

i woke up this morning to a winter wonderland snow globe scene outside my window. there’s a tv in front of my bed now. new old clothes in my closet. i will not remember how they got here until a few hours later. and my mother walks in, asks where the usb is. i will not remember why she needs it until a few hours later. she goes into her office, and i turn on this new old tv. i’m still figuring out how to connect my phone, or what i should even watch. but my mother comes back in with tears in her eyes and asks me to test the usb. i will not remember what i am supposed to be testing until few hours later. the snow isn’t letting up so i better get going. roads are slick, car is light, car starts slipping, i slow down. i make it to campus without crashing. i’m frigid on .4 of my walk, i cut through a building, make it to class. i’m so distracted, i barely take notes.

i walk down three flights of stairs. take a right, out the back door. my legs feel shaky, like i may buckle and fall down, down, down, two blocks until my next building, where i climb up another three flights of stairs. it's bright white in here, probably painted within the past year. the stairwell reeks of fresh paint. at the top of these stairs is a waiting room. no one hardly comes up here.  there’s three massive paned windows, and there’s my beautiful snow globe scene. its the shitty type of scene my grandmother would take a picture of and cherish. i start to grab my phone to send her a picture,

and my body goes cold.

she’s dead, remember?

its only been a few days and i’ve been,,,,, i’ve been gone. i don’t think i’ve had a single thought in my head since wednesday after 10:45am. and i’ve been running nonstop. i listened to you screaming for the last eight hours of your life. and i never got to say goodbye. i don’t think i ever would have. i would always tell you, “i’ll see you when i’m back tomorrow,” but this time there was no tomorrow. you were still breathing fine when i left you. sure it was slow, almost erratic, and in so much pain. i remember the last time i hugged you. you weren’t speaking anymore, but you had enough in you to gently squeeze me when i reached down to hug you. and the last thing you told me was that you loved me, but that was far before you hugged me. i miss you already. today i snapped a picture of that window scene and texted it to you, knowing fully well my mother had your phone. and i started to cry. people saw me, i know they did, but they must understand. everyone’s dealt with death. and if they haven't, they will. my god, i miss you already. god is a little bastard, the universe know exactly what it was doing to spark this chain reaction of events that ended in bittersweet memories of seventeenths and weekend trips to a clinical spare bedroom. its only been four days, is your body even cold yet? i’ve been told you don’t even look like you in the casket. they say you look good but its nothing like you. i want to see you again but i guess all we get is body that once possessed you. i wish this, i wish that.

today i watched them open the casket to reveal your deflated hands, sunken in eyes, skin i could (pull just like clay). gums sewn shut. body drained and pumped with chemicals. your once yellow skin turned “normal,” i don’t want to look, this isn’t you. i don't want your face in my memories to replaced with this lifeless thing in a rented casket. i don’t remember other bodies looking as dead as yours did. but now you’re being incinerated in some oven, mixing ashes with remnants of someone else’s loved ones and past pets. today it maybe started to feel final. it came over me for a second or two, tears started to well up, but the antidepressants kicked in and worked their magic. i don’t feel real, i don’t feel like this is really me. not really you.

i was never going to say goodbye. i expected you to live forever, that was the expectation everyone had in mind. and no one had time to grieve. there’s a difference between watching someone die over the course of six weeks, and watching someone slowly lose themselves over the course of twelve years. three years on hospice. my name is cathy, my name is ann, my name was everyone but who i am. i have four dogs in a world i do not live in. we’re at the park in a bedroom. there’s these really good orange towels in the laundry room. and now her apartment is collecting dust while we wait for the heartlessness of a judge to hear us out. like their first day on earth has never happened, yet they have eight years of law school programmed into their tiny little baby brains. but besides the point, i miss you but i don’t know if this is really happening or not. and it doesn’t hurt until i’m alone, or with people. so it really all hurt but doesn’t hurt. and no one knew what to expect.

today i watched them put your rented casket in a silver hearse. bells ring. it snows. i notice its a cadillac, with a leather exterior. where does one find things like this? and what happens if a hearse crashes into an ambulance? and what if they all die? what’s then? i try not to think of all things that could possibly go wrong, ever. the bells switch from the hourly tune, to background noise to send her off. who thinks of these things, and who controls it? the funeral director smiles and tells us to go inside, enjoy the catered meal my family put together and payed for.

none of this feels right, none of this feels real, but i doubt it ever will, unless i am in the industry of loss.