This is a very mature entry.
I just felt I should warn you; I've been wanting to write this stuff down for a while but I've been very nervous about it. It's controversial material, really, but here it is regardless.
So I've found a way to throw my empathy/catharsis through the roof.
Shock sites.
Yes, you heard me. But let's explain some history first.
Nowadays I am forced to spend my day working on computers, standing at a cash register for 7 hours, or researching subject after subject within voiceless pages. I often find myself listening to minimalist music until I lose track of time, getting lost in daydreams and altogether disconnecting myself from the world.
It's frightening, to be honest. I'll wake up some mornings and it'll take a while to realize that I'm actually seeing objects around me. I've been losing the feeling in my body, too. I'll touch things and the sensation is there, yeah, but I don't
feel it. It's hard to explain. I'm aware of my sense of touch, but it's so dim that it doesn't register. I hope that makes sense.
Anyway, because of that, I often drift through life in a daze. I don't feel, I can't truly see, I don't eat. I hear things and forget them immediately. The only redeeming factor of my senses is that I talk to myself often, which keeps my auditory recognition from falling through completely.
Long story short, I unconsciously make myself almost immaterial, haha. I exist on sound and mental sight most days.
But... I'll be honest. Sometimes I find myself completely enthralled with the experience of physical sensation. I find it almost alien; something delicately frightening and amazing all the same.
I'll lock myself in the bathroom some days, and I'll just... I don't know. Do things. Not bad things, mind; but weird things. I'll turn off the lights and open the window, and maybe I'll just stretch for an hour. I'll stretch every muscle I can find, sometimes contorting myself so much that I don't know how I'll get out of it. Sometimes I'll find glitter in my mother's drawer and just cover myself with it; methodically, but naively. Sometimes I'll find a comb with a sharp edge, or a new razor blade, or some scissors, and I'll use them against my skin in whatever way I think of. Tiny little cuts, maybe just a thin scraping here or there, just barely enough to leave a little red line. Just a surface scar... it'll be gone in minutes. Then I'll make another one. They originated as a way to quiet Laurie, and that's when I used to bleed.
I don't bleed often; no, not at all. I only bleed when I'm not looking... at work, I'll handle a paper bag a little too carelessly, and suddenly there's a thin line of blood on my arm. I'll tear out a hangnail and watch my nail turn red, wondering in surprise at the sting. I'll drag a razor across my leg too quickly-- which happens often-- and within seconds that familiar red will appear, seemingly out of nowhere. I'll sit and watch it blend with the water, maybe. I never bandage them. I'm proud of my legs; they have the most scars.
Laurie is different. She's not fragile, she's not curious or white. She loves the other end of the spectrum; the sharp points... and she's clever. Almost beautifully, frighteningly clever. Her greatest accomplishment, she laughs, is outsmarting the doctors. You won't find any visible scars on my physical exams, no sir...
I love scars, yes. But Laurie knows about how dangerous they can be, and she won't give them to me; pain works better. That's where the story begins, back when the war started, back in 2008.
Some nights she would become very angry, and at 12AM with only the yellow light above the sink, she'd quietly lock the door and tell me to find that purple comb. That thin comb with the bit of torn plastic at the bottom. She likes that one because no one would ever suspect it... and it doesn't cut; no, it drags. It bites just enough to set nerves ablaze, leaving barely visible crosses that cause me to flinch and bite my lip against the shock. She'd leave one, two, twelve, waiting until I had to stop from the burn, and that would be it. We'd put everything away and quietly walk back out, the skin of my abdomen on fire with those tiny marks. Concentrate on the burn, she'd say. Concentrate on it. It's fire; it's punishment. Think of what you've done that causes such pain, and never do it again.
It didn't work the way we thought it would. At first it was great; I wasn't used to pain and I was scared. Both her and Julie's attacks would leave me shuddering on the floor, crying soundlessly and wishing I could just sleep it all off. But sleep wouldn't erase the past, and Laurie wouldn't let me get away without a lesson or two. It worked, and for several months I remained strong most days, afraid of her retaliation... but as the incidents added up, a sick trend began to appear. I began to force myself to give in to Julie, no matter how much it hurt, because I wanted that other sort of hurt. I wanted to feel physical pain. My daily life was becoming so monotonous, so devoid of the vivid moments I thrived upon, that I was turning to desperate measures. I would willingly torture myself just to feel the bite of that unorthodox razor, just to feel real pain, even if it was fleeting.
Laurie caught on quickly enough, and in a fury, refused to punish me any longer. If I screwed up, if I kept giving in, my guilt would be the only retaliation I would receive. It took me a while to stop; I was still so blind and desperate, and I kept pitifully looking for the pain, the sick reward I would receive for self-destruction. It never came.
It took a long time to stabilize, and then when we thought we had finally made progress, the attacks became mental... severe. They began to hit from the outside. I had no way of fighting it; attacks would ravage me in the form of unexpected art classes, in my mother's words, in every corner of the internet, in the pregnant women that would appear at work. In some instances I could quickly turn away, heaving, shaking, my arms wrapped tightly about my stomach... but most times I would be trapped in a classroom for two hours with a promiscuous professor, forced to stand by a woman whose stomach bore the result of an act I had nightmares about. I was no longer able to escape, and it was slowly driving me to the edge.
I began to abuse myself again... mentally, physically, emotionally. Most nights I would be locked in the bathroom again, where no one could see me, where no one would interrupt. I'd kneel on the floor and quietly sob, uncontrollably, terrified of the mirror, terrified of the body I was in, of the thoughts and words and pictures and expectations that went with it. That's when I started having the nightmares and the breakdowns. I couldn't escape. Everywhere I looked there was danger, danger, danger. I refused to give in or give up... so what could I do?
Then one day Laurie took me aside and looked at me with tired, solemn eyes. She only said a few words.
If you can't escape... you need to desensitize yourself. That started it all.
It was hell; pure hell. I only wanted to run, but now I found myself with my legs chained to the wall, the horrors of the world directly before my eyes, and the only way to stay sane was to simply become blind to it.
Or so I thought.
I don't even want to talk about it here... but... I guess I have to.
It started very slowly; get used to mirrors. It made me so sick at first, but I trusted it would eventually change. What I didn't know is that in order to get through hell, I couldn't just turn around... I had to walk straight through the center of it first.
Julie saw her chance and became almost murderous. Her idea was that desensitization involved 'giving in.' She was wrong, but I was scared. I began to look at the dangers and wonder if maybe I was the one who was wrong. I was so painfully naive. I was too frightened to stand up for myself or fight back. I was so broken and had so little faith in myself that I figured that I deserved to suffer... so I did.
I began to force myself into the mindsets of others. It was so horrible... I began forgetting hours, days, sometimes weeks at a time just to save myself from the trauma. My self-image and mood hit an all-time low. I was almost chronically depressed, and for the first time in my life, began to honestly wonder if suicide was an option for me.
The most frightening thing about that entire time period for me, though, was that not only was I lost, but Laurie had no idea what to do. She'd scream at me, mentally tear me limb from limb, leave me crying and begging for another chance. Some times she'd ignore me, and leave me there to drown in guilt and desperation... but some times she'd listen. Those were the times that shook me.
Yes, I was hurting myself horribly. Yes, I was practically overriding my own moral code and personality. Yes, I was only doing it for the sake of 'fitting in to society' and doing what my family said was 'right' and 'normal.' But the fact that it hurt so damn much was scaring me to the point where I swore I'd never do such things again. Laurie would be silent, and then she'd uncertainly reply, well maybe that's a good thing. Maybe if you show yourself just how awful this is you won't have to worry about it getting to you? But there was no guarantee, and we were both at a loss.
It went on like that for a while, until the one night when I got so bad that I started sobbing again, asking myself why I was doing this. That's when Laurie showed up and told me she had seen enough. I wasn't desensitizing anything; I was causing myself horrid amounts of pain and compromising who I was. She then offered a different tactic: if I found myself trying to do that to myself again, I should run to her, and she'd take care of it. I wasn't sure if it would work, as I had turned pain into positive reinforcement, but... it did. Surprisingly enough, if I overloaded myself with the sharp physical pain I was addicted to, my sick need for the torturous mental and emotional pain would almost entirely disappear. I hit middle ground for a while, a sort of interim... I dulled my nights with pain until I couldn't take anymore, and I'd go to sleep dreading the morning.
I couldn't run forever, though, and I was still too weak to fight, so Julie took the most horrible route she could find... art. No, I had already run from the figure drawing classes, but she had a different idea. What if I
should take them? What if my teachers were right? I should just bite the bullet and 'get used to it...' besides, that's what everyone else is doing. Everywhere you look, that's what people are drawing. So you should too.
I couldn't see how painfully wrong that was. You forget, I wasn't standing up for anything at this point. I was so confused that I was simply following whatever orders were given to me, because 'maybe they know better than I do.' I didn't realize that some people are corrupt, that some people would send me into hell for fun, that 'everyone else' didn't have the right idea after all. I didn't know that then... so I forced myself into it.
This is going to be very hard for me to talk about.
Trying to get used to what I saw in the mirror was one thing. Now I was forcing myself to see things I would never, ever have wanted to see. I began trying to figure draw... but it made me horribly sick. I kept doing it. It was at this point that I began to think I was a lesbian, because although I was horrified of men, I wasn't so disturbed by women. I didn't realize that this was because I was 'technically' used to that already (not to mention that women couldn't hurt my current form in the same ways men could, if you get my drift), and began to warp my personality further. Eventually, though, there was one 'good' aspect... I did become desensitized, but in the wrong way. I became 'used to it.'
I didn't want to be used to it.
I don't know what happened then... like I said, my memory would regularly 'purge' itself so there are literally frighteningly huge gaps in my recall of the past two years. I do know what's happened recently, though.
A month ago, I tried 'traditionally' cutting myself... got a razor and tried that. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to do anything unless I literally 'shaved off' a layer of skin. That would result in a painless, bleeding line, about 2mm wide and almost 3cm long. I gave myself two on my right arm, and was sorely disappointed by the lack of pain (other than the vague 'sting' when the blade cut deep enough to bleed; I recognize it instantly) until I tried to wash them out. It was almost euphoric, I'll sadly admit, and they bled like mad. I watched them for about 10 minutes before throwing a large bandage over them for three straight days (it took them that long to stop bleeding on and off).
I didn't want to go through the whole bandage ordeal just for a good painshock whenever I was near water, so I gave up on that immediately... and I haven't cut my stomach in quite some time too. However, although I've been going for long stretches of time lately without feeling the directionless need to hurt myself mentally, some days I still force myself to give in. It's become so awful though that I rarely go all the way through with it... and almost every time, intriguingly enough, I am interrupted. I'll be forcefully abusing myself and suddenly someone will knock, or the doorbell will ring, or a bug will smash into the window, or I'll simply come to my senses for a moment and think 'wait, why the heck am I still doing this to myself?!'
See, at this point you might be asking yourself 'if you're suffering so badly, and hate doing that to yourself so much, then why don't you just stop??'
I wish it were that easy; I truly do. However, for some sick reason, whenever I get that destructive 'urge,' I go into a sort of locked-up mindset. All I can think about is what I'll do to myself, and often times I disassociate. I'll be destroying my body or my mind and the entire time, I'll be cut off from all my immediate senses, and imagining that this is happening to someone else, maybe in a completely different way. It's scary. I honestly won't see, hear, or otherwise notice anything that's going on around me unless it strongly catches me off guard, hence why it's hard to break out of those bad states, those 'Julie hacks.' Maybe I'll imagine some poor child being mangled by an attacker, who's telling him that unless he lets them hurt him, they'll kill his family. Maybe it'll be one of my characters, caught up in some nightmare they can't escape from. Maybe it'll even be me in another form, me as a Celebi, being ravaged by some brutal Pokemon-catcher group. God only knows... but either way, once I finish up whatever I'm doing, I invariably end up in one of three situations... 1, curled up in the corner and sobbing hysterically, 2, standing in front of the mirror and screaming at it... maybe picking up another 'weapon' and 'punishing' myself in a vicious cycle (sometimes I turn on the faucet until the water is scalding, then burn my hands several times... one time I even hid a knife on the towel rack so I could saw at my chest with it)... or 3, silently walking out into the living room, lying down on the couch, and blankly staring at the wall. Thoughtless, numb. Unwilling to even remember. When I wake up tomorrow I won't recall the evening at all.
If I could turn off this horrid drive, I would have done so years ago. It's a day-by-day war for me.
However, two days ago, on Wednesday night, something happened. I 'lost' that night... I don't remember how, as usual, but I knew something had happened. Laurie confronted me later, she always does, but she wasn't screaming this time. She was tired, silently angry, and visibly determined. It's a hard expression to describe... the look you get when you've made a final decision on something, and you know there's no going back on it. Crossing the Rubicon. She told me once again to stop compromising myself, but then quoted FROST* at me.
"You're the one." It's a new mindset for me lately... it requires a huge amount of faith, not in my 'self' so to speak, but in my purpose as a single individual, as a single soul. I'm the one. Before I wouldn't have even dared think that I could be significant, that I could be important... I was too concerned in meeting the fleeting whims and perversions of every blackheart around me. Now I'm stronger. Now I know who I am, I know what my limits and morals are. But now I can't stop thinking about the lyrics of that song that saved my life... that song that lifted me up, that made me fall in love again, that kept me from ending my life when I had truly hit rock bottom, the worst night and the best night of my entire life.
And you know, you'll always be the first in line.
And you know, it's all about the life divine.
A hero's ending, all the signs... you're the one, and the one you must survive.
And you know, it doesn't matter what you do.
And you know, the luck you feel will pull you through.
The never-ending light you find... you're the one, the one who must survive. Faith, martyrdom, forgiveness, love, everything. There's no such thing as coincidence. I can't possibly begin to describe the multiple, deep meanings those lyrics hold for me, but the moment I first heard them whispered into my ears, on that black night as I contemplated the end, I knew more than anything that they were speaking to me.
To
me. Only me.
I stopped walking then, I did. I stopped and my eyes teared up, and I swore to myself in that moment that I could not give up. It was a prospect I had never dared imagine... but if I must survive, then survive I would.
Laurie spoke those words to me again, as she does so often now, and I found myself swallowed up in guilt again, the guilt that, months ago, I numbly thought I would never feel again.
Do you believe them, she asked?
Do you believe those words are yours? Yes, I do. Her voice hardened.
Then why don't you listen to them? If you're the one, then no one else knows what you should do. No one else's expectations apply to you. No one else can be you, and you know that. I thought about that for a while. The freedom that would bring to me was almost incomprehensible. I was so used to living by a pre-written script, so to speak, that I hadn't dared to imagine what it would be like to just toss it aside and ad-lib for a while. Would the audience be shocked? Sure. They might even be scared, furious, offended that I would do so... I wasn't supposed to do that, not in their opinion. But I'd stand before them, wearing the wrong outfit for my assigned role, and speaking words that no soul in the auditorium had ever dreamed I would speak. But I knew, despite the rabble and rage, that I was the only one who could do this, and if I didn't have the guts to do what I knew was right, then God help me but then all would be lost. That's the mindset I have now, and as I fell asleep that night, I wondered why I couldn't just live it and to heck with all this pain I was inflicting upon myself.
On Wednesday night I dreamed of hell, and it scared me more than any other nightmare had ever dared. I was safe that day, but only because I was shaking with fear, terrified of what I might inflict upon myself. It was a sort of sick drive... I was so shaken that I wouldn't let myself think of anything else. But I couldn't possibly go on like that forever...
It wasn't until I woke up Friday morning, my Celebi doll in my arms, that I found it... a working solution. See, I needed motivation. Not something fleeting and yet unrefined, like this basic will I had... I needed something else there, something better than scars, something more painful than blood, something I couldn't possibly break. That's what I realized when he spoke to me.
My guardian angel, Chaos Zero. He'd been showing up in almost every one of my recent dreams, always protecting me, always asking me if I was okay. It had struck me as unusual, as he's typically a rare sight, but it seemed this time he had a reason.
I have been thinking about him quite often lately... and always in negative situations. What if he and I were turned against each other? What if one of us forgot who the other was? What if he went Perfect again, and I couldn't figure out how to save him? The only solutions I could possibly imagine all centered around one thing, one final, desperate chance... and it was the same solution, the same final decision he confronted me with in those early morning hours, still reeling from my visions of hell, still desperately looking for a way out.
I know what you've been going through lately. I know how scared you are, he said. He's always known.
I know how much you hurt, and I won't let you do this to yourself any longer. But how could he help me? I've tried everything I can think of. That's when he looked at me, and I recognized the same expression Laurie had worn a few days ago. They had been speaking... they had thought of something. I knew it in that instant, and I was simultaneously full of hope and fear. What have you decided?
'If you love me, if you love anyone, you'll stop doing this.' An ultimatum. One I couldn't possibly break.
I wondered why they hadn't given it to me before, but then I remembered how weak I was, how willing I was to toss everything away. I remembered that day I decided my life was beyond saving, and I remembered waking up the next morning.
Patience is a virtue. It was a matter of waiting, of suffering, of not giving up until that exact moment, that last second when the light suddenly broke through.
Shock sites.
I started visiting them a few months ago, during the 'rebuilding' stage, when I was beginning to find myself again. The first step was coming to terms with what I truly wanted, and what the hidden motive was behind all this pain I was causing myself. It took a good deal of self-introspection and painful analyzation, but I think I've found it. Ironically, it's the exact thing that started all this.
I need pain. Oh yes, I need it. I need moments of extreme, gut-wrenching emotion, that shatter everything around you and force your perspective to change. Pain.
I was getting it confused with other things for so long; awful things that lied, that pretended to be what I needed. I started looking into 'dark' pages during my failed desensitization stage. I tried to force myself to take on the worst and simply get used to that. I stopped at Dramatica a few times, but always ran from there quickly... it was too dangerous. However, I did find Documenting Reality, and that helped more than I realize. It was a site full of blood and horror; awful gory things that I suppose some people get a kick out of looking at. Not me. For me, DR was a place where I could look into the darkest, most painful aspects of life and really think about them. That was not me suffering... that was some other poor soul, someone I had never met and now never would. There were men mangled beyond recognition... young women lying dead with blood pooling around them... suicides, murders, diseases, everything. I slowly began to feel again. No, I was not sickeningly amused, no, I was not looking upon their broken bodies just for kicks. I was actually feeling... empathy, pity, some sick sort of understanding.
Let's cut to the chase. There's no way I can tell you everything that happened to me over the past two years; like I said, most of that is now lost to me, scratched out of my memory in hysteric moments I'm ironically glad I've forgotten. But I can tell you what the end result was.
I was never truly desensitized, and I was never truly 'used to it' either.
Today I found a video of a man beheaded. I told myself to watch it, not to 'numb myself' to it, but to feel it. The exact opposite of my old method. So I watched. I saw the shirtless man bound, blindfolded, seated under a dim light and surrounded by four men... covered in black, holding guns, faceless. I could not understand their speech, but it continued, almost businesslike, for 75 seconds, as I watched anxiously. At 1:15, one of the men pulled out a knife, and suddenly the three others were holding the blindfolded man, pulling his head backwards. That's when the man began to plead. I don't know who this man was, what he did, or why he was about to die, but I could hear every note of fear in his voice, and my heart broke. I waited fearfully for a few more seconds, and at 1:23, there was a sudden movement and a scream. I won't go into details, no, but my entire body was frozen in empathetic horror... my muscles knotted, my knuckles against my lips, eyes wide and fists tight. I've seen many disturbing things at this point in my life, but I have never flinched so hard. I could barely watch the next three minutes, but I forced myself to anyway... not because I was expected to, not because I had been told to, but because this was real, this was wrong, and I knew it.
Catharsis. Extreme emotion. The pain I need.
There's one more thing I want to bring up, because it's what triggered this.
I've been accused of being sexual more than once, and I don't know why. That confusion is what played the largest role in my desensitization attempt, and it was difficult to deal with. Remember I mentioned the figure drawing? Yeah, I literally put myself through that. Art class forced me to deal with unclothed individuals, and I was terrified-- still am-- but at that point, I still thought it would 'help' if I forced myself to look at them regardless. Let me summarize that experience for you: I did not enjoy it at all, and there was no sexual anything. That's right, I'd be looking straight at some gal and I'd be wondering how the heck anyone would be attracted to that in the first place. At first I was fine with that. Then I brought it up to my mom and therapists, and they said something was wrong with me. So I started trying to 'force' myself (again; what was wrong with me??) to see something in it, although the very thought of it made me ill. That was the lesbian stage, yes. But then I discovered Jena, and something weird happened. Yeah, I could just barely handle the figure drawing thing, but I didn't know those people. The art objectified them, which I loathed. But Jen? Forget it; I love her, and she's not taking her shirt off around me. See the difference? Having that direct, intense conflict between what I was feeling and what I was being told to feel forced me out of that stage pretty darn fast. Sure, I'd still have my moments of 'but what if they're right?', I'll admit it, but ultimately it all came down to what I was unwilling to compromise, ironically.
I've discovered one other thing during all that nonsense, which is what played directly into my weird obsession with actual sensation lately. I am still oddly attracted, albeit non-sexually, to certain girls. I don't know why, but it might be that, with guys, it feels 'wrong' because that's the sort of body
I wish I had. So it's like a mirror, or something. I really have no idea. It's probably just aesthetics and not a gender thing at all. That sounds more accurate.
Still, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm omniromantic, meaning that I am able to fall in love with
anyone in terms of gender/species/what have you, but if you look into other aspects, things start to change a bit.
I am physically attracted to very,
very few individuals. Yes, I do think Celebi and metallic cyborgs are amusingly attractive in the physical sense. I'll also be brutally honest and admit that I find Chaos Zero to be one of the most gorgeous beings I've ever seen. However, although I've never felt any sort of physical attraction for men (when I see one I actually think 'I wish I looked like him,' instead), I still have this unusual weakness for boyish girls. Throw in short hair and a bit of boniness in the right places and I am literally hooked. It's really weird.
Personally, I don't know how you guys define physical attraction, but for me it just means I am aesthetically drawn to a certain body shape/ structure/ whatever. That's a given, I suppose, but... well, this is odd for me.
Yes, I am asexual. No matter how much I'm 'attracted' to someone, that will always come into play. I may joke about it, but it's the honest truth when I say that I probably could never realistically 'be with' a curvy woman, aka what I view as a 'typical' female. The whole chest size thing that some guys obsess over? It scares me. I can't handle sexuality, even if one doesn't act upon it. If you're visibly showing something that I perceive as sexual, such as a large chest or a promiscuous outfit or big hips, I will likely act a bit panicky around you. This doesn't mean I can't love people like that, I just... physically I'm going to be frightened. It's just how I run, sadly. Still, that doesn't explain the last bit of a problem I'm having.
I don't like being touched, but I make exceptions for friends. However, as long as I don't perceive a threat, my personal space can get ridiculously tiny. Even at work, if I have to get change at customer service and there's some other person standing there, sometimes I'll find myself three inches away from leaning on him/her, ha. The only way I can explain this is that, although I don't like things like primal instincts and all that, 95% of the time I consciously feel this very deep spiritual connection to all other people. I can't hurt people, nothing like that, no matter what my mind does, which is why I'm very scared of being hurt and tend to be obsessively paranoid about it outside of my 'safe zones.' It makes no sense to me, that a person could want to hurt another person. But I digress...
Here's the list. 1-I'm asexual. 2-I typically like boyish girls. 3-I have a smaller personal space (within reason) around people I trust or don't perceive as dangerous. 4-I tend to be slightly obsessive when it comes to actually perceiving the world around me (there's even an entire entry dedicated to that point in this journal). See all that? Put it together, and I guess you get what I've noticed.
I've seen girls without anything on, unfortunately (but not in real life, heck no). I don't like it. However, you know the andro point I keep bringing up? Well, if I see a girl with a small chest and no visible... um, femininity (in body shape or whatever), I will actually have almost no problem with it, as long as it stays nonsexual. I'm not 'aroused,' but I'm not numb, either. I get this weird thing; that perception thing.
See, I like the deepest elements of things, the most truly personal things. I like bones, I like scars, I like tendons and veins and freckles and eyes and the way people move. I'm asexual, but... I'm addicted to intimacy.
Extreme intimacy. You ever wonder what Chaos Zero and I mean when we talk about '2005?' Yeah. That's basically it.
I have this weird addiction to fragility, to things people take for granted, to hidden things, to secrets. I get it for most things, really, and sometimes it'll hit hard and out of nowhere. It's the reason why, when I got Apollo (my Macbook), I first looked through every file I could find on him, learned what everything on his keyboard was, put my nose up to his screen just to see the individual pixels... turned him off, turned him over, took him apart. Looked at every little piece. Put him back together and memorized every different texture on him. Details. I do it to music, too... I'll listen to the same song, over and over, for hours... maybe repeating the same two seconds just to hear a certain chord, or a certain echo, or the way his voice cracks, or the way she breathes in, or the way I can hear the musician's finger touch a string on that one note. Maybe I'll just listen to every instrument individually, maybe I'll just hold my headphones against my ears, close my eyes, and lose myself.
I'm not typically 'logical' or analytical about it. Sometimes I will sit and think about something small and strange until my head spins, yes, but that's an entirely different thing. I don't know what causes this addiction of mine, really, because it encompasses every sense sometimes. Sight, touch, and sound are
huge. They overwhelm me most days.
But... that strange need, sometimes I get it with people. I get it with those girls, the ones I feel close to.
I'll want to memorize the exact color of her eyes, the way her hair feels through my fingers. I'll want to run my fingers over her shoulder blades and feel her heart beat and listen to the way her breath catches sometimes. Is that romantic? I don't know what to call it; it's almost a drive. It's like I need to feel that even if I can't explain why.
It gets really bad, almost desperate, if it's with someone I love intensely-- although I do become more scared when I'm around them. I'm just so addicted to fragility, if that's even the right word. It's the same reason I used to hide a stethoscope in my room as a child, and when I was sure the door was locked I'd just listen to my own chest for a few minutes, until I was shaking from the overwhelming
being of it. Just the way it was, simply. I don't know how to explain it. To this day my heart is still the most intimate thing about me, ever. It's also an extremely meaningful theme in all my work. Look for it.
I don't know what I'd do if someone here felt that same sort of need with me, that innocent intimacy. It's always one sided.
Always one sided.
Maybe it's simply because I don't feel I exist in the physical world, not genuinely. Maybe it's because I don't see myself as a 'lover' or 'partner,' just a compassionate and selfless observer. But I don't want to be seen back.
I only want the other person to know that they are deeply loved, that's all.
Could I make the exception for someone else? Could I ever identify with this form briefly enough to let anyone else near it?
Perhaps I am destined to be forever disconnected by a thin wall of glass.
Something like that. What is it?
There's so much I still haven't said, which is beautifully funny. I've already said so much!
Still, maybe that'll be a topic for next time. Dreams. You never know.
I hope you all have a beautiful night.
Train whistles, a sweet clementine
Blueberries, dancers in line
Cobwebs, a bakery sign
Oh, a sweet clementine
Oh, dancers in line
If living is seeing
I'm holding my breath
In wonder, I wonder
What happens next?
A new world, a new day to see
I'm softly walking on air
Halfway to heaven from here
Sunlight unfolds in my hair
Oh, I'm walking on air
Oh, to heaven from here
If living is seeing
I'm holding my breath
In wonder, I wonder
What happens next?
A new world, a new day to see
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LAURIE UBERICH 
JEWEL LIGHTRAYE 
CHAOS ZERO
