“I like to see people reunited, maybe that’s a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can’t tell fast enough, the ears that aren’t big enough, the eyes that can’t take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

I need someone to save me from this self-inflicted madness.

I need someone else in this room, speaking to me, distracting me.

Listening to this "loneliness" themed playlist isn't helping.

I should be thinking up prose but instead,

I'm fingering through my grandmother's old jewelry.

All I contemplate and fear is that man leaving me.

Stagnant

Sitting within this tomb which I wish to have one day. The walls around me made with books. Tightly pressed against each other, cover to cover. But the book I'd like to absorb, slides out effortlessly with so much ease I need not flex a single muscle.

This is so raw.

It's 5:53pm. I'm sitting in this library wondering what I'll write about for my next piece. Finding the ingredients isn't the hard part. Putting them together so they become something, anything worth while, takes time, talent, patience, which I don't have. I fear writer's block. I fear I may one day experience sixty years of it as Henry Roth did. But I won't come out of the sickness and spew out four volumes of work and die famous. I hope I can get something out, anything, and I'll take whatever they want to give me for it.

At this moment

Oh what I'd do for a meaningful conversation with a stranger.

Deception

Another person I can add to the list of people who don't trust me. Am I really so deceiving? I've been nothing but honest but I guess it isn't enough.
I took that long walk to my dreamhouse this morning. The house I hope to one day find someone to replicate for me in my ideal location, our ideal location. The house I saw and knew is exactly what he also wants. The place I hope to spend the rest of my life with the person I currently love.
It is becoming more difficult to get out of bed every morning. I wake up and remember what so many people want from me. All wanting the same thing, the rest of my life.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9mYwvS_7o

Wrong

I completely enjoy my father telling me all the mistakes I've made in the past and what I am doing now is also wrong. He tells me to rate myself 1-10, 10 being the best kind of person and I give myself a 3. He laughs and says, "Ha, you're a 1!" It is so rewarding when he begins to tell me about his chest pains and my mother's insomnia and that one day he may spit up blood. Am I driving my parents to the grave, early? If me doing what I want in the pursuit of my own happiness costs them their's, then I'll give up. I don't need happiness, just distractions. But I'll always stop to think, when will it be my turn?

Letter

Jon,

I’m surprised you made it close to engagement. I can’t imagine anyone putting up with how controlling you are. You say your biggest pet peeve is ignorant people but you only don’t like people who don’t listen to you. You don’t have any regrets because you have so much pride and confidence in yourself that you do everything right the first time. Relationships haunt you because you’re afraid of being in love and fear the other person will leave you and you can’t deal with someone having that much control over you.

You’re scared of drowning because you don’t want to experience the feeling of the water engulfing your body and entering your lungs and restricting every bodily function you need to survive because you can’t escape it.

You’re scared of loneliness because then you’ll have no one to listen to your thoughts and incoherent rants. You would rather die slowly because you want the time to reflect on the great life you thought you had. You must be incredibly sad whenever you look at yourself in the mirror seeing less hair on your head and realizing you are slowly being shaved of your youth.

Sincerely,
Jennifer

I haven't seen these droplets for a while. They roll down my face slowly sticking to each cell on their way down. I wipe them off and the salt in them makes the cuts in my fingers sting. Extracting more liquid from my body, drying me out. I'm almost numb from the pain of so much leaving me at once but then I remember; the Summer will end, and so will this heat.

The Crow in the Cardinal's Nest

I look at the clock and count down the minutes till morning. He lies there and I lay on top of him, face to face. My hair falls and molds to the side of his face. I give him an innocent smile and the o.k. He wastes no time. He gently peels off my jeans to expose my frail legs and feet. I giggle as he brushes his mustache across my thigh and the tiny whiskers dance on top of my skin. He looks up at me and gazes into my eyes. He senses my fear and hesitation but assures me everything will be fine. I can feel sweat seeping through my tight pores and creating a layer on moisture on top of my skin. He moves toward my upper body preparing to remove my top but I stop him. I don’t want him to see what puberty hasn’t finished yet. He shoves his engorged weapon through my patch of hair hoping to enter fully. I let out a gasp as he pierces himself into me. I feel the pain shoot down my legs. He removes his weapon and continues to force it inside my soft and sweet cherry. With what I think is the fourth attempt, I feel him fully inside me with each wall clenching it tightly. He climaxes and I feel his warm liquid erupt, gushing inside me. I watch as he cleans himself off. I lay here in awe. Everything below my waist is burning.

Bone

Graphite, charcoal, and a mars plastic eraser.

Chance

A woman steps on to a crowded train.
She squeezes into an empty seat between two hefty men.
Their body heat soothes her frosty sides.
She absorbs the music coming through her headphones; every note the piano releases.
She shuts her eyes. Darkness.
As she rests her eyes a man boards the same train.
He searches, finds her, and and approaches.
He pulls out a gun from his back pocket and tells everyone aboard in a whisper,
"If you wake her, you're dead."
He stands in front of her, holding the gun two inches away from her face
and waits.
Passengers slowly move to adjacent cars including the two men next to her
but some stay in curiousity.
The train pulls into the station and the woman opens her eyes.
She looks down the barrel of the gun in front of her but never once at the man.
She imagines seeing the bullet slowly making its way towards her pushing through her skin into
her brain, taking over.
But she shuts her eyes. Acceptance.
The woman's head makes a loud thud against the glass.
Then, silence.
He smiles and runs out of the train,
laughing.

Skin

The cracks form in my skin like the ground during an earthquake. Gradually growing longer and wider. My raw inside becomes exposed and I feel the sting of the air rushing past it. The air robs its moisture and dehydrates it. The edges of the cracks start fraying like paper and begin to flake off. I pick at them but I only open the wounds quicker and I continue to shed. Some cracks are just deep wrinkles fooling the eye but they are dead ends.