Things Fall Apart; the Centre Cannot Hold

Today is the 17th of September 2016. I am twenty-two. I woke up around one. Past the time of ten which the event I had wanted to go to had started. H— L— G— was talking at M—. I went to school, took a shower in the gym locker room, ate paella, and went on the computer. For fifteen hours. Playing pokemon. 15 Hours. 15. Fifteen.

When I got up to take a drink early in the day ≈ 2 I remembered a particularly embarrassing episode with Anna at dinner. I mimicked putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger. Saying "I hate myself, I hate myself" I had no fork or knife/spoon to eat the paella with so I just ate the chicken on top first.

Then when I got hungry again I went to the vending machine and got chive and cheese crackers (75¢) and a dr pibb (75¢). It said on the packaging it was spiced-cherry flavored. I never noticed that before. I thought it was interesting. When I got hungry again a couple hours later I used a paper plate to shovel the food into my mouth until it got too soggy and couldn't hold anymore food.

The reason I didn't have plastic utensils was because L— at the school was closed. They are supposed to charge 20¢ per piece and I thought that if they were open, I would buy a soda, something to drink and ask for a fork. When I got hungry again I got a granola bar (75¢) and pop-tarts (1.25). I used my spare change because all the bills I have are too large.

I ran into this guy who works at the library in the building. He stayed there until 10pm even though the place closed at ten. He startled me because he came through the door on the way to the vending mach. He ordered Chinese food. He said:
"You must be the only other person here" -"Yup"
"You scared me" I said. He laughed.

I kept playing and playing. Only stopping to eat. Go to the bathroom (twice). I ate the same plate of paella three times till it was gone. I feel sick. I've got this swollen lymph/tonsil on the left side of my neck. I think it might be a "phantom lump" though. Though that's probably because there's a pokemon called phantlump. I think it's supposed to be a pumpkin. I talked to L— and G— on the phone. About their days, movies, etc. Memes.

When I left an hour ago, all of the schools parking lots were dark and I thought "If I was ever to have been successful in anything I would have known or at least tried to work harder" sitting in bed I think about the people who are so ahead of me. Here I am. Wasting my time. I think past a certain age I didn't want to give up the things I liked, some of the only things that brought me any joy. Though that isn't so rare to find among people, I decided to keep both work and play. "When I was no longer a child I put away childish things" was what came to mind. All day I listened to (in order) to the best of my recollection.

Electric Light Orchestra
King of Limbs from the Basement
In Rainbows from the Basement
Justice's new song -which sucked
Prince -Purple Rain and 1/2 of 1999
Hotline Bling and D.R.A.M.
Hank Williams
Patsy Cline

I don't know why

A Mes Malheurs

F―――, I really want to see you, to talk to you.

Are you happier without me?

It's 5 in the morning. If you want to talk why don't you acknowledge my existence and just speak to me when you see me?

Fuck You. 

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

Cmoooooooooooooooooooooon. You want to tell me something? COWARD. LIAR. ASSHOLE. I say hello. When you come up to me I say hello. You fucking twat. I'm more angry about you wasting my fucking time. "I have something I need to talk to you about ehhnnnn" why don't you just fucking shout it out loud?

Saying something wasn't really my goal. It was more about wanting to have a conversation. I don't want to just say something and run.

You haven't really acknowledged my existence either. And the whole "fuck you" thing is exactly why I haven't talked to you. Especially because I don't really understand why you're so angry with me.

A CONVERSATION HUH? Okay what do you want to talk about?

Okay. Tell me. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT.

I wanted to talk about this. I didn't want to put you on the streets. that's why I ever asked you to live with me in the first place. I tried. I asked you if you wanted to stay at that apartment. If I'd asked you to move with me to my new place, would you have accepted? 

Ah bullshit. You don't exist for me. You're just a shadow I pass right through. What you're living on Wertland now? How you like the fucking noise at 2AM. Your daddy pays for your fucking condo you stuck up, self involved, idiotic girl. I'm happier when I don't fucking have to think about you. Yeah I'm happier without you, you fucking blight, you fucking walking depressive. Man even thinking about how empty your fucking soul makes me happy I don't have to come home to you anymore. Still at your job? Huh? Still with the same people? Got any friends yet? 

I'm glad you sent this now especially. WHAT DO YOU FUCKING CARE YOU FUCKING CUNT. YOU PUT ME OUT ON THE STREET LIKE I WAS SOME PIECE OF TRASH YOU COULD THROW AWAY. I SHOULD POUR SUGAR IN YOUR FUCKING GAS TANK FOR EVEN SPEAKING TO ME. 

COWARD. You couldn't even address something properly to where I live you...fucking asshole. COWARD.

SEND ME SOMETHING AT 5 IN THE MORNING

PIECE OF SHIT

DID YOU EVER EVEN ASK WHERE I LIVED NOW YOU CUNT? Not once, you don't have a fucking shred of humanity in that heart of yours. 

PEZZO DI MERDA. I hope you're looking at this on your fucking phone you were so happy to get you materialistic whore for a fucking dollar. 

Leave me alone. 

Go back to your house, with your like-minded people, who care about NOTHING. NOTHING IS ALL YOU ARE. You are a walking hole in the ground. Something to fill in with concrete. A pus filled sac ready to explode. 

IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO FUCKING SAY YOU BETTER GET SOME COURAGE AND TELL ME TO MY FACE. 

No matter what I say, you'll still try to use it to justify your hatred of me. 

Why do you care if I'm happy? Does it make you feel better? 

Is the guilt getting to you? Do you look back and see all the shit that piled up? How's your mother doing? Good? Your sister? She doing fine in her prison of hers? 

I don't get why you think I just tried to make your life miserable and ruin you. I really don't.

Of course you don't. 

How could you. 

I don't go around blaming all my problems on you, don't flatter yourself. 

You sure are acting like it.

I WANT TO TALK ABOUT WHY YOU TREATED ME LIKE SUCH SHIT AND THEN GOT MAD AT ME FOR DOING EVEN THE REMOTELY SAME THING TO YOU

HEY ASSHOLE, I'M JUST GIVING BACK THE SHIT YOU PUT ON ME SENDING ME SHIT ALL THE TIME.

MMMMMMM okay. Tell me. When did I treat you like shit. Tell me then. Tell me are you happier now? Huh? Is that why you send this?

You don't respect me at all yet you expect me to respect you. You call me a coward but you can't even talk about anything. All you can do is lash out.

Okay. Talk to me. Lash out? Am I a mad dog to you? Is that what you fucking think? I always treated you with respect when you talked to me after you moved out. 

I think you're lashing out right now, not other times. You call me materialistic but I wasn't the one who threw stuff at you when you denied me something. 

Yeah uh huh. I threw it because I'm a petulant child. I threw it because I WAS SO FUCKING MAD SOMEONE COULD BE SO HEARTLESS. 

I even tried to fathom what could be going through that colossally deluded brain of yours. I asked you a bunch, about if you ever did things for me that you didn't care for. You couldn't even answer. 

Yes I did! I explicitly answered that I did do things I didn't care for. Despite you being an ass. 

You've insulted me so much, cursed at me so many times. I never did that to you. Ever.

My self esteem was shit because of the cruel things you said. I took it all to heart because I cared about what you thought of me. All I ever wanted from you was your trust and your approval 

"I'm sure I did" is a definitive answer. Okay. Tell me why then if you want to talk you don't just TALK when you see me. 

I knew I would fucking cry if I talked to you about this and there's no way I'd want to do this in public so there you go that's fucking why I never talked to you

So what if you cry? Are you ashamed to do that in public? Does it even matter?

Yes I'm ashamed. It matters to me because I don't want to unload all my private shit in front of the world. I couldn't tell you because I thought you'd do what you just did, just unload a whole lot of cursing and spite on me. When I'd tried to talk to you before about things you'd just get defensive. It seemed pointless. I just gave up. Don't you see that? Don't you see how I progressively gave up? I felt like if you couldn't be honest with me, what was the point in being honest with you?

I lied to you is that what you're saying. I wasn't honest with you? I was so honest with you...always as much as I could express. 

You're punishing me. 

Remember my birthday? The day you made me drive you to work and then made me pick you up (I waited more than an hour) and then called and said oh you'd gotten a ride home and showed no interest in wasting MY time AND not giving a shit about my birthday even though we lived together and ostensibly were still together AND THEN you got furiously angry with me the next day for not sharing the small portion of food from MY birthday dinner which you so courteously hadn't given a shit about until it affected your wants?

Yeah I remember your birthday. How fucking shit it was. Hope you had a good Christmas you hypocrite. I tried to make you happy. Cook for you, whatever. You wanted to watch television. Play with pets. Mmm I remember that day well. I had a fuckup day at work and I got a ride from someone I worked with. Yeah, I didn't have a phone and you were so mad. 

I was mad because you never talked to me. We'd been together all that time and you couldn't even talk to me about tiny little things. I don't know why you were so disgusted with me. I gave you everything I had! I tried I fucking tried to make you happy because I cared and then you have the gall to throw it in my face and say that I'm materialistic and spineless and it's just not fucking true

You're heartless for treating me like your fucking mother. Like some vending machine designed to just spew out good stuff for you with nothing in return 

What the fuck did you ever do for me? What big sacrifices did you make? What did you give up? When did you ever do things just for my benefit?

Are you delusional? I lived my life to be with you, you were everything. I poured all of myself into you. Ungrateful person. Big sacrifices? I did the same for you, drove, cooked, worked, listened. What did I give up? Well money which you cared more for than anything else. Hmmmm I would have done anything for you, drove you to Manassas. Gone with you anywhere. I did go places with you. That's why I asked if you did things you didn't want to. I always wanted to do things for you, get food for you, wait for you, see you, spend time with you. 

You're right, you did do stuff for me. I was wrong to say that

Okay tell me how you're not materialistic. Or how you didn't hide things. You couldn't even tell me you were jealous of Vickys relationship. 

I'm not materialistic because I let you have free access to everything I owned and made. The only reason why I wouldn't let you use my laptop/phone at the end was because you disrespected my request to not look through my stuff.

MMmm right. Even though at the beginning you were as free as a bird when it came to those things. And whenever you wanted something from me it was "here you go". I didn't mind if you looked through my stuff. I had nothing to hide. I wanted you to look through them so you would know what it was like. But you....well you are so afraid to do anything.

You were MY everything. My best friend, my confidante. Still probably the most attractive guy I knew. I was really happy with you. But you kept lashing out at me and it got me down. You'd rather scream fuck you at me in public and abandon me than tell me you'd like to keep seeing me on Fridays because it was important to you

Oh yeah. I remember that. Sure hurt didn't it? Well it hurt being fucked around being told I couldn't see you because of work was it? And then you went and saw other people. That was the fucked up part of it. I walked miles and miles to see you, to be with you. 

I saw one friend once for lunch. I didn't get a new best friend or anything. Not even two weeks had passed. Your response was overblown. I don't doubt you were honest. You just didn't TALK to me. You seemed to prefer throwing me out for a perceived slight rather than sitting down and hashing the problem out like you CARED about having me in your life 

Things were really really hard for me F―――. I have no friends. I just started the busiest semester of my life and moved out on my own out of a shitty living situation. You have no idea how much I hated livcing with nick and rhea. That was honestly the main motivating factor in my moving out. I couldn't fucking stand to be in the same place as them any longer

I was trying to be an adult for the first time and suddenly it was like I was a parent! Cook clean shop blah blah blah that's all I ever did and they never thanked me for it

J―― told me that you said he should ask me out. He already had and I declined because I was too hung up on you. I don't know what I expected--that I'd hunt you down and try to make amends like I'd done before? I was just so scared. I was a coward. I didn't think I could handle that at that time/

J――― isn't even really my friend anymore because I turned him down

No. I told J―― that because you fit well together. We do not. No longer anyways. By the time it was November just the thought of touching you repulsed me. I liked the way he treated you and was able to give you things that I just couldn't. Okay so you hated it. I know that. But you withdrew, became a shell. Overblown? Two weeks? I breathed you everyday, it was like being told to just get over it. No, you fail to understand. I did fucking HASH it out with you when I felt I could reach something that cared.


I feel really lonely all the time so fucking sue me for wanting to talk to you, the biggest person in my life for years 

Listening to: A Moon Shaped Pool-Radiohead
Reading: A Dame To Kill For-Frank Miller

Lettres à une Femme Perdue

There's this subset of people in America that buy gifts. When coming back from places, or even just randomly. I'm not one of them, and I don't understand the need to buy something for someone even if it just means you're thinking about them. David Sedaris is one of these people, and his partner isn't but I can accept that he would be a gift-giver since his family and writing is so quintessentially American.
     Shot glasses, novelty license plates, bears, I would rather give someone something they will use rather than a trinket to hold on to the past. I made a mistake giving a book to someone a year ago. It was Anna Karenina and I thought because I loved the book so much that maybe it would resonate with them. Of course I was completely wrong, and when I found out that the person had read The Crying of Lot 49 just to appear interested in what I liked I grew tired of the ever trying-to-please personality. Understanding where such a person comes from is easy, their past is filled with having to live up to expectations or they were continually under the foot of someone else and sought to make themselves as small as possible. Small of imprint, small of mind, small of voice. Blame the person and you just get an emotional reaction of vitriol, that you are blaming them for who they are. Sure to an extent that makes sense, mental illness, abuse, they all leave imprints that last and are not easily erased. Covered up, but not erased entirely.
      When I left I took everything. Everything of mine. I scrounged through boxes with an anger familiar to me, looking for something that was mine. I found books, papers, what-have-you hidden away in the moving implements of a person who didn't even sleep in the same bed as mine for a month before. I tore them apart looking for things that were mine because I felt so ultimately separated and the though went pouring through my brain "all you have, all you are is mine" a sense of selfish possession of another human being. Where when I said do this, she was supposed to do it then. Anger, resentment, all were used in an effort to imprison and control her in my conception of who she should be.
     On the other hand, I accepted parts of her I didn't like, didn't care for. But when they went past the arbitrary bounds I set upon her then I would withdraw and refuse to emote. To relate back to her what it was that had set me off. One example was driving her from work, when I drove I didn't care to be told about what to do especially from someone so prone to cowardice and indecision behind the wheel. She could drive long spurts of open road, Richmond, Washington DC, but anywhere else she became paralysed. Unable to navigate properly. She admitted this and yet still thought to tell me as I was sitting at an intersection to "GO!" when the light had just changed to green. I had a mind to stop, to show her what her effort and exclamation had proved. Nothing. To just sit at the stop-bar with everyone blaring their horn behind me.
     Instead what I did was shut down think to myself "Jeezus" shake my head and drive the 1400 feet to home. Take the keys, close the door, run up the stairs, and go to my room. Either that or I would just sullenly sit on the couch wondering who the fuck I lived with. She would apologize for a while, but by the end she just accepted that no matter what she said I would remember it. I would remember everything because in a way I had poured my life sloshing into a jug with hers. Like blood and milk, it mixed and curdled. So when it came to leave I took all I could because her mind, her very being was mine in the sense that I created the person I lived with.
     This is all a very circuitous way of declaiming the common aspect of buying trinkets. Gifts. Cadeaux whatever you call them they are trash. They are thrown away like so when their usefulness ends. Diplomas, photographs, everything you take for granted as important belongs in a landfill to the rest of the world. So to fill your life with things is to become them, the collection of things you hold dear. And when you move house what happens to all the bijoux the detritus of your life? It is thrown away. It is spiteful in a way but if I give something I want that person to remember that I was the one who gave it to them, to remember why. Self-important and sadistic? I think so.

Listening to: Pet Sounds-The Beach Boys
Reading: The Sellout-Paul Beatty

Letter to a Lost Woman

I don’t understand. I wish I could nail this to your wall like I wanted to when I still lived with you. To take a heavy iron nail and hammer it into the fucking wall. How? How could it come to this? Was it you or me that birthed this abomination-farce of a relationship? I’ll never forget but I lost whom I thought I loved.

            Karl Ove wrote “How can we fight over housework? Over such inconsequential matter as housework?” And I understand why he writes that, even with a wife who suffers from bipolar disorder I understand that he still cares. You care about nothing. Money, things, base emotions and experiences. I read my journals again and in them I repeat how you chose material comfort over richness of life again and again. It takes two to make an accident and I lied when I said I loved you, because you changed so much. By the end the person I was living with wasn’t the same I met, whom I spent time with, who slept breathed the same air as I did.

            I felt so betrayed when I learned you only humored my friends when you met us. You lied to them and to me by smiling and going places with us. Insidious as it was, when I learned that I had not a single connection with you I saw we had no common friends. I was only linked to you tenuously. You didn’t like a single person I spent time with and the same became true for me when you got friends. By the end I questioned how you could meet a person in your class, dislike them immediately and then reverse your decision weeks later. Even the people we lived with! What did you do to them? You retreated into yourself and in a second decided to hide everything true, everything integral to yourself. So you could please them. I wish you could have told them and me form the beginning that you breathed a lie between your teeth, that you didn’t care for any of us. You didn’t care the least about what I thought, liked, wanted to tell you. You told me what I wanted to hear so as to be as unobtrusive as possible, as impersonal as a wall. There’s two people now. One I knew and the one that exists now. Which is the truth? The dream hopelessly built upon the past or the misshapen miscegenation you are now?

            Under stress and need without seeing any other way forward I would break down. Do the same and tell you what you wanted to hear. You deserved a better display of car and love and I said it many times. Someone who would be there to give you everything you wanted emotionally, materially, physically. I want to say no one will ever give you all that you need and never expect more from you but only a person desperate enough and without self-respect would. It’s not much to expect from a relationship, caring and understand, we’re led to believe that is what health and longevity are built upon. The kind and degree of caring are important though. I remember you coming home tired and sad, drained by all the terrible things that happened during the day. I would hold you, comfort you, talk to you, and do all kinds of things for you if only to salve the pain a bit. To stave off the end a little bit more.

But you never raised your voice at me, and always sat and stared ahead whenever anything I did or said displeased you. The same to people near to me, whether old teachers of mine or family friends. You would sit and stare ahead without a feeling in your soul. I didn’t expect you to pretend to like them or enjoy their company but when I went out of my way to introduce you to them and to have you reject them so soundly hurt me as a part being rejected of me doubtlessly hurts. To you it meant nothing, you simply wanted to endure it. To get through it, to be somewhere else where nothing would be expected of you. I understand the world puts a magnitude of expectations upon you, familial and societal, piling on their dreams and problems until you collapse from the weight of the load. You make choices about what to worry about but I still look back and don’t see a single thing you cared about. You must be screaming and I’m deaf, so beat upon the ears I can’t fathom a single word-emotion you try to convey. To me you’re steel. Cold as a cage.

            I would ask and ask, about what you cared about and you would retort television shows, guinea pigs, mushrooms. Did I stomp on your dreams? Did I ever tire of hearing about the different species of mushrooms? Or when you would stop and go out of your way to inspect one in the middle of the national zoo? No. I brought up once you were obsessed with Kitchen Nightmares and you dismissed it and me. Even further you were hurt by the insinuation and sought to exact a reason why I had said it upon me. You pleaded and questioned as to why I would say such a thing. Why would I say such a thing if it were not true? If I didn’t believe it to be true? When it bothered me how you referred to your pets as children, substituted their lives for people, I spoke not a word. I never said anything because I accepted it. I didn’t care because it didn’t change what I thought of you. The rest did. The hiding of everything from me, your inner life, thoughts and emotions. You stole them away when I lived and breathed them, starving me of all I ever cared about you. Sure you said you had never a thing in this world to yourself. But you were supposed to share yourself with me. You did. Once.

            And now you are still indebted to your family. Who pays for you to go to school and live where you do? I know for a fact you don’t make enough to afford that neighbourhood. When I see your Hitler hair-do it really does make me feel ill as to think I ever saw that coming through the doorway. How when first I met you your hair was long and beautiful, with you wearing a flimsy plastic choker. The index finger of my hand in between the plastic and your throat, the ridges on your neck, sweat and anticipation. Now the color is the same generic shock I see everywhere standing for “I need something to replace my dearth of a personality” the instability of hair colouration. I don’t know what you are anymore, half a person perhaps though to say that and have you disprove me with popular acclaim and success would be irony itself. Presumably you bleed, hurt, and your heart still beats but I haven’t found any evidence to that end. 

Listening to: Exile on Main Street-The Rolling Stones
Reading: Invisible Man-Ralph Ellison