Gray By Pete Wentz - Tumblr Posts

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.

driving an impala was so much cooler in 1958 (but so were lobotomies)

sometimes i have moments where i think no one could be capable of caring for me except you, remember that time you surprised me with london fogs at the park? yeah, no one’s ever thought of me like that before. and i know there are people that care for me but comfort radiates from you, like maybe you’re the only one that really truly cares about me. sorry i got so high the other night i said i was in love with you, which maybe isn’t totally wrong but you knew i was high. you never spoke about it again. but i so desperately want to tell you i deeply appreciate you so much i may love you. but i think that would scare you off. you don’t talk to me so much anymore, you’re so busy doing shit i tell you is stupid.

i want to believe you’re just busy but i wonder if you’re distancing yourself from me. it wouldn’t be the first time.

i miss you. but i’ll give you the distance you didn’t ask for.

i haven’t made any friends. i don’t remember how to and i don’t really care enough. its all fun and games until it's saturday night, i’ve got nothing better to do that to lay in cemeteries and get high until i’m too cold to take it anymore. i love the old gravestones. decomposing bodies are underneath me. i wonder what their lives were like. what they looked like. what they did. who they knew. what they believed. and me? i’m a loser with nowhere to go and no one to talk to. here i lay, pretending there’s another warm body next to me, hands interlaced, speaking to me. but i don’t get that. no, why should i? he keeps asking me if i’m making friends. i don’t remember how to make friends, all i did was get taken in and i lost people as i aged. kept in touch with people who could buy me drugs, kept in touch with those who would remember to invite me out for lunch. but what does it matter? i’ll be out of town soon.

this past weekend i thought about doing it for good this time. the fear right before i do it always sobers me up. i don’t know why suicidal ideation is such a concern with the medical professionals, i’m just a sad confused boy. forty five minutes isn’t enough for you to get to know me.

i hate it when i begin to notice parallels between you and all i want to forget. am i noticing red flags or am i being paranoid? am i asking for too much? are my standards too high? god, what’s normal? you know me better than i do, you spell my name out and all it means to you, to me. you give me words for the facade i’ve subconsciously fabricated. you help me realize i am constantly living in fight or flight mode. i’m so good at this, i don’t even realize i’m putting it up. maybe this is all the therapists want: to be so good at coping no one know it kills you every time you wake up in the morning.

she talked him into leaving me. she’s playing a popularity game, she’s so lost and confused. she does all these things and think’s she’s so good at what she does and believes her words are the only words that matter, boy she won’t survive a minute after graduation. i’m waiting for everyone to realize she’s fucking crazy. it sounds like i’m not the first she’s shunned, i doubt i’ll be the last. what goes so wrong in your childhood that you feel the need to overcompensate like this? i hate the sickly show you put on, you want the whole world to know you’re happy and in love, charming the whole goddamn world, but god, i know you aren’t anything you pretend to be. everything makes me feel so. goddamn. sick.

take another drag off this stale cigarette.

if college is about reinventing yourself, then god, i’m unrecognizable from two years ago. i escaped that hell hole, i never thought i’d see light at the end of the tunnel. the first round was just me trying to recover, but i got caught up in lust and depression. second round, i’ve never been better. i’ve never experience pure joy, this is all just an act. keeping up with lies because i cannot handle being caught in an act. i don’t know what next year will bring, if i’m surrounded by a bunch of dirty business majors, am i going to turn into a bootlicker too? will i be able to put up with another two years of alienation? i’ve never wanted to get married or have kids, maybe i don’t need $100k a year, entry level position. i’m going to be so far behind as it is.

i don’t know where you went or where these sentences were leading.

entertaining alternative pasts,

you left me chilled for the two minute drive home from your place. i tried to make a joke about the past but you shut it down, “cars have more uses than just for that, you know.”

i wish i could just talk to you like a big kid.

this fall just reminds me of getting sad and being in love or some bullshit like that. i’ve crossed out names and faces, quotes and stories, lists and reminders. and so i asked you, “are you a top, bottom, or switch?” so i could better replace faces in fantasies that take me nowhere, i fucking hate being medicated. i’m still sad, and i have no distractions.

hey, i started smoking. i guess we’ve both changed. its not enough to form a habit, but something to do with my hands without getting high. if nicotine is a regulated substance, how come caffeine isn’t? that shit gave me the worst migraines when i stopped drinking coffee. so you don’t approve, so what? i wasn’t asking you. just figured i’d let you know what kind of drive we were taking.

so i’m your happy pill, huh? i’ve heard that one before. we are everything we used to be and everything we will ever be. i half wonder if i cut you off now so you have time to heal before you move off to college. there is no good way to get rid of me, i’m a dying star waiting to explode, i’m the glowing canister of cesium-137 laying abandoned for a good reason. you say i’m nothing but nice, god, you’re just as blind as i am.

we’re inches from it. but maybe we’ll just learn to grow out of it.

i’ve been nothing but sad. is it the upcoming death of someone i’ve never known? i drop $10 a year to bring flowers to somewhere no one even remembers. and i pace cemeteries looking for one familiar name. no death has ever made my body go cold like yours did. i still know too much. it knocked everyone off their feet and i couldn’t help but laugh. i can’t help but laugh. i can’t help but laugh. i’ve been in and out of hospital visits for something i can’t bring myself to care about. my brain feels nothing yet my chest hurts and my eyes cry. how does that work? why does my brain cut me off from my own emotions and impulses? or am i just so fucking numb? you know i can’t even feel it when i slash my arms.

i hope i buy sketchy drugs in college and overdose on fentanyl. i’m terrified of death except for when i have control over it.

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.

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

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.

“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?

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.