Classic Teenage Angst - Tumblr Posts

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.

yours truly

dear s,

i find it is so much easier to live when i “separate the art from the artist”. in this case, i imagine your kind loving words have taken the form of some anonymous, generic body, living in some anonymous, generic location, maybe with no face or anything like that. maybe you—

dear s,

don’t mind the blood stained seat, i slit my wrists so much the other night, i wanted to kill myself. i should donate this car to a forensics lab. cause of death: blood loss and chronic numbness. thank god leather is easy to clean. i told him about this. i don’t know why. i was dying to tell someone, like a sick victory. and he proceeded with caution, i could feel his concerned, almost disgusted look on his face, through the text. like maybe he could be angry.

“i’m sorry, i really shouldn’t have done this,”

“i would rather you talk to me and tell me the truth and make things a lil harder for me than for you to not say anything at all and i have no clue how you are”

how could someone genuinely care about me so much? i don’t trust this. feels like a joke, a game, something that will end in fighting and tears because that’s all i know how to do.

and dear s, the other day i cried in my car and i asked you to grab my stuff and bring it to me, and you did. and you stayed with me until you knew i was going to be okay. but i couldn’t stop hyperventilating, shaking, sobbing, it wasn’t a panic attack. i broke down crying in front of these three grown men. i don’t remember what any of them were saying, i don’t remember why everything ended the way it did, i just knew i was upset, and i don’t even remember being upset. but i felt pathetic collecting myself in front of them, so i made myself cry, but soon i couldn’t help it, and that’s maybe when i started panicking. when the shaking wasn’t voluntary, when the erratic breathing wasn’t a joke, something like that.

dear s,

i’ve recently started to realize my childhood wasn’t as golden as i originally thought. i didn’t think anything was wrong until my mother started to profusely apologize for being a terrible parental figure to me, for the awful things she did to me as a kid. and i didn’t get it until i tried to convince her otherwise, until she told me i hide my emotions, until i was on the verge of tears, screaming at her in a parking lot.

“you know the reason i hide my emotions? because when i was a kid, you’d scream at me and hit me if i cried! and you only got worse if i cried harder, and i’d cry harder because you kept hurting me. you know how many migraines i’ve had because you’d hit my head so much? you know half the scars on my arms are because of your own hands? so i cry silently, and i know how to zone out when you scream at me so i don’t cry, but sometimes you think i’m smirking, and you end up hurting me anyways. i walk on eggshells around you because i don’t want to get hurt”

quietly, she tells me, “see, i did mess you up.”

i don’t know what came over me but its all starting to make sense.

she tells me stories of how her father treated her as a kid, somewhat similar to my experiences as a kid. she tells me she was diagnosed with ptsd, but didn’t know why. and it wasn’t until i was in middle school that she started to understand it. by then it was too late to change the damage that was already done.

dear s,

i almost checked myself into a hospital. but what would they do? give me more meds, a slap on the wrist, and send me on my merry way?

“this has nothing to do with you,” you tell me, but i can’t help but feel that this is all my doing.

but hey, maybe we’ve changed so much we wouldn’t recognize each other if we saw each other again. nothing so special about “us”.

yours truly,

леви

how could i forget? you play sick games on me in my sleep every night. my body goes through the motions of being terrified (i wake up to scratches all over me, and the inside of my mouth chewed to shreds). my mind is blank, no matter what fucked up things you do to me in my sleep.

i half wonder if this is the end. i'm doing better now. i don't want to say goodbye, but i don't know when i'll see you again. i wonder if you feel used. i sure do.

lost cause

i mean it when i say i truly am a dead end. i don’t deserve the money and energy and relationships i destroy trying to get better. i’m doing everything i can. i do the talk therapy, i take my meds and supplements, i eat the right food, talk to my friends, go for walks, sit in front of sun lamps and tell myself i’m a good person yet i’m still fucking sad. my therapist says that really all i can do is find the right meds. vincent says my therapist is shit. he doesn’t get it. there’s nothing i need to talk through, i’ve written my way out of all my problems except this.

at some point, you’ve got to swallow your pills and accept that this is as good as its ever going to get.

but i can’t help but whine, “it’s not fair!” that everyone else can talk their way out of things and i’m left stuttering and desperate sputtering out sophisticated words in a pathetic attempt to get my point across.

but i can’t help but wonder if killing myself isn’t a bad option. i mean seriously, what else is there left for me? what’s the point of this shit if i’m just going to be a shaky grey line, a greasy 6B pencil held at a 170° angle, down a newsprint pad held in your non dominant hand, shaking because you haven’t eaten in a day or so and its starting to show.

and sometimes i wonder if tonight is the night. but it never is. but sometimes i wonder if i’ll man up enough to do it.

untitled no. 17

i just want to scream. i don’t have words. trying to figure out songwriting when i no longer write like i used to.

“chronic: can last for years or be lifelong.”

little snippets from middle school and lives that no longer exist, at least the way they used to.

picked up a guitar again, started carrying stickers and a white lighter with me wherever i go.

i am growing into a sad child.

its a shitty collage of words, it forms a picture but it’s not a pretty one.

and yet i can’t put my finger on what makes me sad and empty, which is perhaps what sets me apart from people who are just sad.

thirty feet below me are theatre kids projecting their shitty transatlantic accents out to an old theatre with nasty orange seats. i can't understand what they're saying but the audience laughs occasionally. something interferes with my headset and buzzes data indecipherable to me.

i’m laying, staring up past the black light into the ropes of our single purchase system, contemplating the consequences of climbing a little higher and falling a little farther.

it follows me everywhere.

or maybe i drag it with me without even realizing it. like we’re chained up, unsure, terrified, unwilling to know what life is like without it.

(i make it so obvious for anyone with any clue about me. i wonder what you think about it.)

double mastectomy

i don’t think i’d fight it. what’s the point. why prolong the inevitable?

i don’t think i’d fight it. the worst part is i feel jealousy. how does it feel to have a reason? a chance to feel at home in your dying body? why couldn’t it have been me? i’ve dreamt about this for years and someone who is unwelcoming, undeserving, beats me to it.

and the comedic timing, god, i’m rolling on the floor, hysterically laughing (out of my mind,) it only proves that this is a

Sick Fucking Game

they’re playing on me. couldn’t even make it four months. i’m not sad, i’m upset, i don’t give a shit about her. but there are people this affects. maybe it happened by complete random happenstance, things like this happen everyday. just happened to us again. sometimes i feel completely out of my body. i go to scratch my nose and i can’t feel my hands against my face. the ground under my face. the movements i make are not mine, the words i speak are not mine, my vision sits at the back of my head and i don’t remember anything at all,

do you think she remembers?

all eight minutes and forty one seconds pumped out in waves on a frequency, data transmissions indecipherable to me.

what do you think she’s told her kids? that this means certain death? what happened to aunt jenny is what’s going to happen to me? do you think she’s scared? terrified? what has her life been like? would she fight it?

a double mastectomy,

would she welcome it like i’ve been yearning for years?

she’s dying. and i’m selfish enough to wish it was me, even when i’ve seen arteries beating out of her neck, sickly yellow skin, incoherent strings of words, aging twenty years in a week. and another twenty in the next week. until she’s sixty years old, my final words are “see you tomorrow,” when i should know that tomorrow was never guaranteed.

but i never thought any of this would happen.

and now i’m hysterical(ly laughing) on the floor promising to never fight it.

“i love her,”

you do? those are words you threw out like candy at a parade until one day i noticed you stopped saying it back when i said it. did you know i had to force myself to say it? because i didn’t believe it, but it was easier to say it than to deal with the consequences of silence after you—

sometimes i find myself getting wound up about all that happened but i have to remember to take a step back. nothing about you has changed, she’s getting the same treatment as me. (it was shit,) and part of me wants to cover her ears and eyes but i don’t know what good that would do when the chemicals are already doing it. but maybe an absence of it would force her to stop and think. but even then it would take months for it to clear out, so there’s nothing i can do because i can guarantee you, nothing will get through to her.

i’d like to be there to pick up the broken pieces. i can’t put them back together, but i can let her know it was okay, it was an ugly vase anyway. the sentimental value will eventually fade away and you won’t even remember anymore. we’re too young, do you understand what you’re doing to her? this is manipulation, this is being taken advantage of, but you don’t even realize it.

be pissed at me all you want, but all around this is pathetic. what brings you here? the same reason as me?

you’re a secret my peers don’t even know about. i mean sure, “i write on the side,” “i’m really more of a poet than an artist,” and all that jazz, but they don’t know shit about this. i like anonymity. nameless title cards. clipped out faces, blurred hands, and trailing frames. unfinished indesign files laying around my hard drive. the art of dragging things out for as long and as long and as long as i possibly can. i can break my work up into shows. but poetry doesn’t work like visual art galleries unless i give it visuals. and i try, all i’ve got are half finished sketchbook pages and notes crawling with ballpoint pen ink. and this isn’t even poetry, god, its just writing.

i think i’ve found my passion or some shit, less terrified for the future but still willing to let someone discover my cold body hanging by a rope. i’d be perfectly happy being an artist for the rest of my life but god, i don’t want to deal with the uncomfortable parts of life. i want words to flow from me not like they are, i want beauty dripping from my fingertips and i want people to like it. i want a fucking pat on the back. i want a hug. i want to be comforted, to be loved, which leads me back to why i do all this shit anyway. but it sounds pathetic,

Artist’s Statement:

I create art as a means to express my longing for emotional intimacy and desire to feel cared for. In “Seventeen” I depict my journey getting over a breakup that happened forever ago but please keep reading, there’s so much more you just don’t understand, i can give you receipts, quotes, i want you to feel what i feel, i want you to know that i— but i— i hope that you’re—

so i don’t know where these sentences were going or what the point is. the only reason i didn’t kill myself was because i wanted to graduate on time. well shit, i’ve got six weeks before i can officially fuck my entire life up. but i’m happy, right? i take long drives because the sunshine leaves a gentle smile on my face, not because i’m desperately searching for a distraction or a reason to keep going.

i don’t think i’ll ever find another person like you. i hate to quote that song that’s like “you’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you,” cuz fuck, that’s exactly what i’m trying to say. kicking, fighting, biting with the brick wall with absolutely clue i’m even here. well, it does, its fucking ignorant as shit. but that brick wall “loved” me, right? it “loved” me. it made me feel “loved” or whatever chemicals come with that. and that’s what i want again. he’ll take you in and make you think you can stop taking your antidepressants and then he’ll absolutely fuck your life over. and he just. gets away with it. and it comes out in all the worst ways possible. can you tell i’m resentful? its because i love dragging things out but i try to blame it on a desire to be an artist. some shit i’m not even good at.

this was supposed to end forever ago. but you don’t even remember. was there a point? was there a reason? no. you wanted to be beautiful and this is what you got.

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.

its not all about you, now, is it?

“i am almost completely soulless,”

i need to throw away everything in my room, throw away all my plants, throw away all my clothes, all my art,

“i am incapable of being human,”

i’m not thinking straight and i don’t remember how to calm down because everything i’m doing isn’t helping. i’ll try a different song, hell, an audiobook, deep breaths, god, i hate the feeling of coming down,

“i am incapable of being inhuman,”

why do i do this to myself again? its not unlike you to shit talk me backstage, and i’m sorry no one told you, (i thought someone would,) and its not unlike you to think everything is about you,

“i am living uncontrollably,”

(i watch your hair fall all over your face and i’ll look away and i’ll swear to never think about you like that again) and you’ll think that secret’s about you but its fucking not. i don’t think about you as much as you think i do.

(i’m lying to you and i’m lying to me,)

you, of all people, should understand, right? you should see through this, but you fucking don't.

disintegration of platonic love

for now, the day i’ve feared the most is here. i’ve tried not to think about how college is the end of high school friendships, how the moment i realized i could love again it’s about to disintegrate, how i cried on the phone with you six hours away, how nothing ever lasts. i’m not homesick, i am home.

i miss you.

the face and the body doesn’t count, i want the thoughts in your head and the feelings you experience and the shit you say to be closer to me. i want you in my passenger seat again.

i worry about him. i wish i didn't but i care too much. and i didn't know someone could care back.

and i should know better.

maybe he was right, love is the worst but its worth it for the good things it brings you.

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.