today

today I got up before the sun and wore a jean jacket instead of legitimate jeans. I was too rushed to brush my teeth.

I wrote my first blog post exactly one year ago today. I was depressed and lonely, and lots has changed since then. Many things haven't, but I'd like to think I've experienced at least some positive character development. I'm still working on it. I hope to always be working on it. To keep trying to get better, and to find that sweet spot between arrogance and constant self-hatred. I think I've tipped too far to the other end of the scale, and it's ridiculous. I still need validation and things, I'm still human, but I don't hate what I look like. I know I'm good at some things at least. I don't know. It's frustrating watching myself try to navigate this new world of self-acceptance. I just want to be better.

Life is like one giant aviary, ya know? Those things full of birds, all flapping around in this contained bubble of reality. It hurts when you get too close to the edge because you can see just how small and insignificant it all is. It hurts to be one of many flying in circles until you die. But it's also beautiful to see so many birds all trying to live the best that they can with what they have. It's incredible, really.

everyday

Everyday, I feel like drowning. And everyday, I think of tomorrow. Just get through right now. Tomorrow this will be the past. And it is, you know? Like, the tests I have today are over tomorrow. The things that are due are past deadlines once the day is over. But also, it isn't. This test is replaced by that test. This deadline by that one. It's endless and it's exhausting. And you get through it because you have to get through it. That's how it works, you know? You scramble to get everything done because you have to. But I can't do it anymore. I'm drowning I'm drowning I'm drowning. No. I'm slipping. The ground is giving way and I haven't found a solid foot or handhold and I'm slipping. My mental health is all over the place, my emotional health is practically nonexistent, my grades are tanking, and life just keeps going. The carriage of life keeps racing across the countryside, dragging me behind it in the dirt. I don't know what to do.

So I guess I'm going to do homework now, and try to ignore all the homework I've missed and will do poorly, all the grades I've let fall beneath my past standards of excellence. What are standards anyway? Everything is relative. Who cares.

let me be your home

          Let me be your home.
I want to wrap you up inside me.
          Let me be your home,
          Where you can take off your shoes
                    And bullet-proof mask
                    That reflects everything I need to hear
                    Back at me,
          So I can see the soft wishes of your heart
          And hold them in my world-worn hands
                    Like blown glass, full of potential.
          Let me be your shelter,
          Let me be your roof and creaking hinges.
I will be the murmuring oaks beside the door
          And the books crammed together by time
          On friendly shelves.
I will be your safety.
          Let me hold you and keep you,
          Let me be your sanctuary.
I promise I will be a warmer home
          Than the one you currently keep.
Let me be your home.
          I ache.
          I ache for you,
          And I am sorry.

too much not too much

It is late and I am tired. I care too much and not enough about everything, which makes for an interesting juxtaposition of thought when trying to analyse emotions. Inconvenient. I really don't know how to get my life together.

mistakes and mistakes

I don't know what to say besides I let my emotions and need for validation get the best of me. Nothing happened, not really, I just let myself care a little too much. I let the analytical and careful part of my brain take the back seat for just enough time for the childish and gullible part of my brain to wreak havoc on my emotional stability.

It's fine. I knew this would happen and it's fine. That doesn't mean I don't feel dumb. For the sake of remaining vague, I'm just going to say I let myself think that a guy actually cared about me and that something might come of it. I fell for the compliments and trust and attention and whatever else. This'll be good for me, I said, and I guess it was in the sense of me learning new things about life and about myself. That was good for me. It's not good for me in the sense that I feel like an absolute idiot. It doesn't make sense that a guy would like me. Like, that doesn't make sense, I don't care who you are. Especially if you've got loads of friends and are good at stuff and whatever else. I'm not the type people go for. Statement of fact.

Anyway, I was too available. I tried too hard to be likable and quirky and cute etc etc. Finding out that the other party is devoting much less time and energy to you than you are to them is frankly horrific. When I invited the analytical part of my brain back inside to take a look around, she flipped. Nothing was as she had left it and thoughts and emotions were just scattered all over the freaking place. It was a mess, honestly. We're still cleaning up. It's just embarrassing, ya know? Like, ridiculously embarrassing to devote time and energy to someone who doesn't care. I was played. I'm sort of disgusted with myself for letting that happen.

I don't know, maybe I am reading into it too much. Maybe it turns out he does care and this works out etc etc. But if it doesn't, I'm already in the process of emptying my mind filing cabinets of him. Not to be dramatic, but he doesn't deserve my time if I don't deserve his. Analytical and Intelligent Kate has to take the wheel again, because Teenager Emotional Kate is going to be working overtime for a while to clean up this mess she just made.

no punctuation

I’ve watched you crumble.
Have you really? Have you watched me crumble because I’ve felt me crumble I’ve felt me spiral and spiral and trip and bruise my toes and bruise my mind I’m a punching bag inverted an inverted punching bag with blood everywhere everywhere but in my mind because inside of me the only things there are is broken things and gears that don’t fit just right and leaves all crumbled up together and I’m tired and I don’t want to say I’m stressed because there’s a point where you have to reevaluate and no stress is not the word I would use maybe I would mention it but no I am not stressed I am not stressed I am not stressed I am confused I am so confused and lost inside of my own head do you have any idea how frustrating that is how inconvenient that is when I’m trying to be my best person every day but I can’t be because I literally don’t know where my emotions are coming from and I try to separate them out like strings of beads all together and knotted together and singing together and clacking and sliding and tying and I don’t know what to do they all seem so familiar I should know how to deal with it I should know how to move on and how to take them in my hands and name their colors and lines and names and hang them on the wall in neat little rows and point them out like art in a museum that should be who I am that should be where I am but there are no walls there are caverns of jagged and smooth stone all mixed together and I’m in a hospital listening to the beeping of my own heart and the silence of my own brain and everywhere I look are emotions lumbering around and bumping into each other and crowding me back into my closet into my room beneath the blankets in the corner beneath the shelves full of things that used to make me happy but I don’t remember what that was like no I remember but I can’t fathom how I can’t fathom how she used to live life the way she did and these past few years I know she was empty I know I was sad and lonely and now I have friends and hobbies and the tunnel is lengthening and brightening but never ending never ending never ending never ending never ending never ending I want to get out I need a break but there’s no such thing ask anyone who isn’t dead I swear they’ll all tell you the same thing or maybe not I haven’t spoken to everyone in the whole world but I want to try I want to meet them and shake their hands and touch their faces and hold their stories in my palms and see the colours they use to build lives and communities and I want to understand I want to know what it’s like to care about things that won’t hurt you because I stab myself every day every day every day because I couldn’t love the things that are stable I had to love these shifting floating hard lined fleeting words who come and go and dance in circles around in my skull blowing flowers into the recesses of my mind and never giving me a moment’s peace I had to love dancing of course I had to love this art that made me despise everything I was and everything I have become and I still can’t move on it’s been months and months and I can’t move on and theatre only fills me up sometimes and it never gives me what I need it gives me opportunities to grow but not in directions I’m interested in and I hate that my scene partner can’t act I try so hard so hard to deal with it but he thinks it’s my fault he thinks all this is my issue and not tracing back to him like dotted red lines splitting him to shreds I wish I could tear him to shreds until he sees that he is nothing and her too I want her to sit there and admit that she is not the center of any universe except her own and to stop using her insecurities and shields and arrows and knives in my back because I just want to be useful I just want to be good at the things I do and dance is the thing that I do but I can’t anymore so I’m here memorising lines and pretending to think that these people are better friends than they are and I need the attention but not mass attention and not the expectations but they wouldn’t get it they won’t understand if I tell them I’m made of lightbulbs all lighting up at different times and I can’t focus and when I’m all glowing there is something inside of me short circuiting and smoking and burning and it hurts it hurts to set myself on fire it hurts to try and light up for other people when it’s too dark to see where I’m going and i want to know where I’m going I want to see who I’m going to be and know that I’m going to be okay and know that it’s all going to be okay and that I’ll find my path and that people will find me and lift me up and replace my lightbulbs with skin and blood and love and there are too many expectations and I’m trying to live up to every single one of them like trying to reach the top shelf of a cabinet twice my height and I’m going to keep reaching because I’m stronger than my problems I can to this I can prove them all wrong and be better and better and then once I am better then they will love me then I will have the adoring crowds of people whom I respect because right now I don’t have that but everyone are just people they’re just freaking people what should I ask of them besides their continued existence they don’t owe me anything and not everyone is going to matter to everyone else and I’m trying to be okay with that but I just need some constants in my life and everything is changing and I would be more okay with it if I were instigating the change but I’m just watching it change watching it shift around me like a sunset or those rooms in museums where the video is reflected out of all the walls and you’re there but you have no power besides to listen and to hope and I guess I could walk out of the room but I’m not ready for this video to end yet because what if there’s a beautiful ending where the girl meets the guy and they love each other and take care of each other and she finds where she belongs and she wakes up everyday breathing in the air gifted by the beautiful world who loves her and wants to protect her from the difficult things but she can’t because she’s just earth and stone and water mixed together and littered with people trying to tear her apart and i know how she feels because I’m letting myself be torn apart but I don’t know by whom I don’t know by what I don’t know how to get out I don’t know how to live through this without wanting to die every single day no that’s no it I don’t want to die I just want to get in a car wreck and feel physical pain and feel the edges of my life flutter like a cloak in the wind and watch everything swaying before me like a giant clock full of tiny springs and gears and I want people to tell me they love me and to mean it and I want to see the looks in their eyes because I was almost taken away from them and I need to know that they care and I need to know that I care about them and I need to not worry about school or the future or theatre or dance it would just be me and words and everything would be simpler because life is simple when you take away all the distractions from the things that matter and I wish I knew I mattered no I do matter I know that but I wish I mattered to certain people and I wish everyone was self aware and I didn’t have to lie to them or explain things they don’t get I’m exhausted I’m exhausted I’m exhausted wow life was so much easier when I didn’t let myself feel anything there were so many less bends and turns and dips and confusion

apathy

I have absolutely no motivation to do anything, but I will continue doing everything because life doesn't exactly give you options. It's sort of a "do it or leave" situation, and I'm not in the mood for suicide so I'm gonna have to "do it".

I feel like a spiderweb, all thin and stretched out too far. Tethered between things that should matter to me, but don't. I'm getting wispy and tangled; I'm weighed down by so many water droplets sliding between the different strands in my life and collecting in the center of my torso. But all the while I'm also somewhere above me, watching it all play out, watching this spiderweb spin herself into oblivion. I wish I could help her, but in her foggy state she has decided to decline assistance.

hmm

I was feeling off, but unable to put a finger on the specific emotion. It was a late afternoon and I was planning on going to a theatre show at a different high school with some people from school. They said they could give me a ride and the show was at 7, so I assumed they'd be by no earlier than maybe 6:15-6:30. It was around 4:30 when they arrived in my driveway, so I had to scramble around trying to grab my money and chapstick and everything, knowing I'd probably lose my ride if I told them I couldn't go yet. So I grabbed my shoes and walked out the door to pile into the already full car.

It turned out we were going out to another friend's house to hang out before the show. I guess I should have been excited about this, or at least mostly alright with it (since I made a pact with myself at the beginning of the year to try and hang out with people more and be less of a hermit). But I was irritated, frustrated even. I went along with it. We hung out I guess, talked I guess, watched TV I guess. I pretended to be social while internally stressing about homework I was neglecting and how much I wish I were home still. I had no one to share this sentiment with; even the most shy person in this friend group loves being included and hangs out with people any time she can. I can't begrudge them enjoying each other's company. They showed each other social media posts on their phones, made the same jokes that had been made so many times before it's a wonder people are still laughing at them.

It wasn't until we all got back in cars to go to the play that I realised how I felt about the whole thing. It felt like a waste. It felt like a waste of an afternoon. I didn't care about what they were saying, had no inclination to make future plans with them for a future date or time, felt less than connected to any of them. It felt like a waste of time, and I was irritated that none of them seemed to feel the same way. And as soon as I identified these emotions, I felt an interesting mixture of things. I shouldn't feel bad for not enjoying their company, but also they'll never know so technically it doesn't matter. Why can't I just like being around these people without a purpose? I know I must've spent time with people before without a purpose that I enjoyed. The difference, I suppose, is that up to this point I never really hung out with people. I got together with them for purposes, and sometimes I had a good time, but it's difficult to have a good time when there's no purpose and no end game. Why does spending time with people without a concrete reason always feel like such an inconvenience? Is it something I should keep doing to either keep myself from being too isolated, or is it something that will, over time, grow me into someone who will no longer despise spending time with people for no reason other than to "have fun"? I don't know. I don't know, but I'm tired of spending all my time wanting to connect with people but deep down knowing that I don't know how. I want to know how. But I also just really want to be alone because it's easier. At least alone I don't have to pretend to understand.

a different sort of isolation

People are so afraid of being alone. They hover in groups and hate goodbyes to the point of never saying them at all, even when farewells are more than called for.

I am not afraid of being alone, not particularly. Because of this, I have found it almost painfully easily to slip out of the vast matrix of social connections and simply drift, untethered by nothing but my own unrealistic expectations for how the play of life ought to be executed. There is a simplicity in isolation that I find dearly fascinating, though recently I have found myself more and more attracted to the complicated glow of friendship. To those sparks that leap between eyes and spark up in sharp bursts of laughter. I have watched friendships play out, have observed how people interact with one another, and have tried to attach something quantifiable to the things that connect them, but I seem to be incapable of recreating those same things in my own life.

Human connection is such a delicate thing; it is a plant that will die if transplanted into unworthy soil. Genuine ties between souls refuse to be artificially manufactured with some ulterior motive in mind, but my only motive is to be loved. I don’t understand how connection has evaded me for so long if not simply because of my own lack of willingness to trust my well-being to another. I do not believe that to be a crime. But I have seen less trusting people than I form fully functional and long-lasting relationships with relatively little effort that I can see. They just spin themselves into groups, cocooning themselves up in these lovely warm pods of mutual good will. Pods break apart and splinter before drawing back together, sure as sunshine. It is difficult to quantify something that holds such complex motivations yet such simple outcomes. It’s such a joke, really, some endless jest with the punchline all wrapped up in the question. If I pay more attention maybe I’ll catch it. Maybe then I’ll finally be in on the joke.

1:11 am

I feel empty, but differently than I have in the past. I'm not depressed, I'm not isolated, I don't hate myself, I just...I don't know. In talking to other people, especially people whom I would consider to be my friends, I've come to realise that talking to other people about their problems and being there for other people, while it is lovely and I enjoy being useful in that regard, it drains me in ways I can't describe. No matter how much I try to confide in them as well, I find that I can't. I find that they won't understand what I'm trying to say or that they can't tell me anything I haven't already told myself a thousand times. It's frustrating because, in them telling me about the things bothering them, if they are talking about problems that have ailed me in the past or present, I am able to help, but it also grates at me because often the degree to which they are feeling certain things relating to isolation is still better than what I've been through. Does that make sense? Like, I understand that comparing problems like that is completely ridiculous and that's not what I'm trying to do, I promise. But when people say they feel isolated because their friends are feeling more distant than usual, I want to be like at least you had friends to begin with. I had a couple when I was like 9, and even then we like never hung out or did anything. When they talk about having their friends have deeper connections with other people, I want to point out to them that the majority of my friends are closer to you than to me, and I've just had to accept it. When they say that they don't ever get out with people, I am very tempted to point out the difference between my staying home literally 98% of the time I do not have school or rehearsal, and how much I see them on other people's snap stories all the friggin time. It isn't fair of me to think things like that, and I know it's not, but that's how I've been feeling. I don't feel isolated but I feel detached. Lonely, I guess. I dunno. I have to get up in about 4 hours, so I'm going to try and sleep. Maybe someday I'll find someone who will cure me of this issue and all will be well. Hopefully.

let go

As I've established before, I find New Year's resolutions to be arbitrary in the way that they are attached to a specific day that only comes once a year. Also, I think growth shouldn't be dependent on whether or not you wrote it as a goal on some list you maybe taped to your refrigerator for a couple weeks in early January.

Well, despite ignoring the call to action on January first, there are things I've been working on. Or rather, things I've been aware of that I need to change and that I am in the process of addressing.

Area the first:
Comparisons. I understand that people compare themselves to other people, and that it's essentially built in to being human, but I've been trying to do it less. I grew up in dance, where you literally cannot go a single day without comparing yourself to someone else in some way (talent, body type, prettiness, flexibility, etc). For years, my only images of myself were what I saw in the mirror and how I lacked where other people did not. It wasn't until this year that I finally started trying to really force myself out of this mindset. Any time anyone is praised for writing, I feel inadequate. Any time someone succeeds in theatre, I am confident that I will never make it. Like what the heck, other people's success is not synonymous with my downfall. It's a weird concept to me, and it's weird that it's a weird concept to me. I don't know how to quantifiably judge myself as a person any more. But I'm trying. I'm bad at it, but I'm working on it. I'm not there yet, but I'm going to keep going until something changes.

Area the second:
Just-World Fallacy.(JWF) This is the is a cognitive bias wherein someone feels essentially that the things that happen to people are deserved. Good people should get good consequences, and bad people should get bad consequences in life. Karma, essentially. And it's not that I have it because I understand fully that life does whatever the frick it wants regardless of the kind of person you are, but there are elements of it that definitely sneak their way into my thoughts. And it makes me bitter, I think. I've been trying to take the emotions and distance myself from them so I can observe them under glass rather than through flesh, and I think there is just enough JWF in me to build resentments towards other people. A specific instance, and I apologise for referencing an event that occurred months ago, but the situation discussed in my post "sucker punch". Yeah, sorry about that. I swear I'll move on eventually.

But it's not even that I haven't moved on. I'm nice to her, I talk to her, I accept that she is a fully intelligent human being who has loads of emotions and reasons for doing things that I will never fully understand. I've accepted that, and it's fine. And I dunno what I was thinking really, but I guess JWF got me feeling that because I've been actively a good person toward her that I deserve some sort of reciprocal actions or something. She ignores me unless I specifically address her, and I can tell that she still finds me annoying and wouldn't mind if I were to leave the country or something. I'm sure there's more going on than that, but that's what I've picked up on. But that's not that that I really want to talk about. It's that I'm bitter about other people liking her. Jumping back to my issue with comparisons, I know logically that people liking her doesn't affect me in literally any way, but it feels unfair. Like, when teachers whom I know knew what happened back in February have her as their favourites or congratulate her on things and whatever. And that's good, I know it is. I'm glad that she isn't being treated differently for something that happened months ago, but goodness it hurts. For no apparent reason. 90% of me has moved on, but 10% of me is determined to continue disliking her and wants her to not be successful or liked by anyone or to get accepted into the colleges she wants or to find anyone really neat to marry and have a good life with or anything.

And that is not fair of me. If she works for things, she should get them. If she wants to not speak with me, that's fine, that's her decision. I don't know. I'm trying to let go. It's hard because there is this bitterness planted so deeply inside of me I'm having trouble even locating it to begin with. It's hard because I have basically no anger or bitterness in most other areas of my life, so I feel somewhat justified in harbouring this one tiny thing. It's hard because I know I need to just let it go and move on with my life but I don't want to let it go I don't want to let it go I don't want to let it go I can't seem to let it go because people are acting like nothing ever happened and like she has been completely justified in everything she has ever done, but that encounter ruined me. I mean, it tore me apart in ways I didn't even know were possible, and I'm still suffering from the residue of it that I haven't managed to scrape out of my mind yet. But it's fine. I'm learning to accept it. I'm trying to move on. I'm trying to let go.

solitude

waking up in the semidarkness
wondering when someone last held my hand
walking these deserted streets
half reflections watching from frosted windows
blue fingers trembling against fleece
breath crystallising in frigid air
swirling like some ethereal apparition
glowing light from between heavy drapes
the warmth of which
is too bright for my wandering soul

courage, dear heart

So. We've had this discussion already, at least partially. The one about The Future™. You know, that gibberish I spill into my computer and call a blog. We've had this discussion. And as ever, I don't know how to structure this, so we're just going to jump in.

I'm pursuing theatre. I guess, since I'm not a seer or anything, I don't know what the future holds and I don't know when I'll change my mind about which things, etc etc. But as of right now, I'm the most sure I've ever been in recent memory about what I want from life. I'm tired of pretending I'm going to be a scientist or teacher or something. I'm tired of thinking I'll just go to school and see where I end up and with what job. I let go of dance as a profession, but I can't let go of performance as a lifestyle. I can't let go of sweaty dressing rooms and stage lights and filling up stages with hard work and love. I can't make myself walk away from that and pretend that it isn't sewn into the lining of my bones and coursing through my veins with every beat of my heart.

I know it'll be hard. Like, it's going to be hard. I know it will, but I'm also willing to work so hard for what I care about. I love acting so much I can't imagine dropping it just because I feel like I need a stable career. I'll find a way to make it work. And, you know what? Maybe it's not for me. Maybe I'll get into it and realise that I hate it or that I really want to do something else. But that's fine. That's a risk I'm willing to take because I've finally reached a point where I'm willing to throw myself into something because I care about it that much. I'm finally willing to sacrifice worry for passion, and it feels amazing. Amazing in the way that I get flurries of anticipation in my gut when I think about it. In the way that I'm terrified I'm making the wrong choice or that I'm not good enough or that I'm deluding myself into thinking that this is what I want from life. In the way that every time that doubtful voice speaks up about how I'm not ready to commit myself to this or that this isn't the right path for me or that I'm doing it for the wrong reasons, that every time that happens I lose my breath because I am so scared of being wrong about myself. I've spent such a long amount of time trying to be someone else that now I don't really know who I am. But I think I do. I hope I do.

There's this tiny canvas I painted earlier this summer hanging on my wall above my shelf of knick knacks. It has one of my favourite CS Lewis quotes on it. "Courage, dear heart." I thought I needed those words when I was empty, when I was miserable and I was just trying to get through every day. And I did. Courage is needed when all you can think of is loneliness and hopelessness and nothing at all. But I need it more now. I need courage as I embark on this next chapter of my life, as I follow the lights in my soul and hope that it will pay off, as I open myself up to true vulnerability for the first time in years.

And I'm excited, I am, but I'm terrified. I am terrified of too many things, so much so that I can hardly form a coherent thought.

Courage, dear heart

Courage, dear heart

Courage, dear heart

why did you leave

Take your well-earned pennies, sir
And plant them along the caved casket of an empty bed,
Cold without her. Frozen coals.
She ties her hair in copper coils
And runs from your good-willed but late-willed intentions
And climbs through the sky, that jeweled ascension,
And hides in the moon beyond the shore,
Sung into this universal score.
Catch her! Catch her!
Drag her from those glittering stars
To keep her here, forever ours.
But those lights, how they cradle her heart full of joy
Up through the ages, pages and pages of
Love of love of love of love of love of love.
Those marvelous stars
That gather her up kindly in their maternal warmth
And kiss her hair full of diamond mouths.
I see her, sir, do you? Do you?
Laughing, singing, joking, loving, flying
Out of this world, and into another
That will keep her much safer and love her forever.

anywhere

these are tentative words; I'm spinning them into sentences as they appear in my mind.

I've been thinking about the future a lot. Senior in high school and all that. I know loads of people in college. The statement where do you see yourself in 10 years? puts me at nearly 30 years old. So I've been thinking about the future.

I'm really stressed out right now. There's too much going on and not enough hours in a day. I'm running on fumes and we've only been back in school for three weeks. I'm mentally and emotionally where I was about 2/3rds through last school year. I know stress is relative and things will pass and someday I'll be able to look back on all this with my Adult Problems and laugh at Adolescent Kate and all of her woes, but I'm just not there yet.

I keep thinking of Someday. Of this hypothetical point in my life when I have a fulfilling job and I'm in a stable relationship with someone who cares a lot about me and I'm Good. I live in New York or England or Somewhere Else. I'm Happy. I feel like I'll get there somehow. But I'm not there yet. Before then, I have to get through tomorrow and this week and this month and this six weeks and this semester and next semester and next year and everything in between. Every time I think about it I want to be there. I want to skip everything and appear in that future where everything is okay. But I can't.

"Souvenirs" by Switchfoot is playing on my phone right now. It's off an album that I first heard when I was twelve, carpooling to Ft Worth in a car full of girls going to dance. All of them are off at college now, or graduated. They're going what they love and I know they have problems but they seem so Happy and Free.

When I was younger I had smaller problems. I remember getting excited about things and gosh I miss that. I miss not being able to sleep because of anticipation and throwing myself into challenges like there was no such thing as losing. I miss enjoying little things. If I could immerse myself in that world, just for a while, I think I would.

But at the time I was excited about the future as well. Right now I'd kill to be Her again or to be Future Kate without having to live the intervening years first. I'd rather be anywhen but right now. I'd rather be anywhere than right here.

And that's really too bad. I should be living every moment, sucking the marrow out of life and all that. I want to but I physically feel unable to make myself care. Please, just let me get through this. Please just let me live through this.

an old friend

you knock at my door with the darkness in tow,
and I breathe in that scent that I knew long ago
So we talk of old times
(how I've grown since you fled!)
and you searched for my pain,
quite chagrined I'm not dead
Here we are yet again,
standing close, you and I,
unable to breathe and unable to cry
And I knew you'd return here
to claim what you'd lost
for the stars that have fled cannot stay long uncrossed
But I beg you be gentler than you were back then
for I'd rather fall dead
than be broken again

the laughing heir

          The funeral was a quiet occasion, with few in attendance and even fewer guests with whom the late Lady Mathilda Catherine Kensington could stand the company of whilst she was alive enough to voice such opinions.
          A scarcity of tears were to be seen, of which the majority were cried by the occupants of the first few rows of black folding chairs. These were the guests who received invitations of expensive black stationery embossed in silver calligraphy one week prior; the others attending (who admittedly represented a strong majority of the crowd) had received grapevine invitations from behind secretive hands and hasty letters written in gossip infused ink.
          This latter group had donned appropriate shades of funeral-black and were quite punctual in their arrival times, none of them strolling across the fastidiously manicured lawn of the graveyard any later than ten minutes to the hour. Some brought sleek black umbrellas on the chance that it rain later in the day, but others decided that the pewter grey sky looked too pale for any precipitation and instead favored bowler hats or elbow length gloves.
          One thing this unconventionally invited party did have in common was their reason for taking the time to attend this small funeral on a Saturday morning in April for a woman none of them cared much for to begin with. You see, the late Lady Kensington was in possession of quite a large fortune at the time of her passing, and, having no surviving children or husband to claim the sum, it was not publicly known who would inherit the money. Any number of people could be willed it, and any number more (who were ambitious and persuasive enough) might yet see the old money of the Kensington family, even though many of them had more than enough of their own to be getting on with. But greed is as greed does, and none of them were willing to walk away from this opportunity to add several million pounds to their already considerable fortunes.
          The former group, being friends or close acquaintances of the deceased, did their best to ignore the dry-faced blue bloods who stood behind the rows of chairs and waited patiently for the will to be read, which would not be until the end of the service.
          One of the persons in attendance, however, seemed to fit comfortably into neither company. This particular young woman arrived at fifteen minutes till and sat in the back row of folding chairs, her crisp black invitation peaking out of a pocket in her belted, calf-length raincoat. She wore a pink-tinged orange scarf that was mostly hidden beneath a cascade of auburn hair so dark you could barely see the red at all, as well as grey fingerless gloves that matched the shade of the sky so precisely that they might have been cut from the clouds. She sat quietly throughout the funeral, but with none of the curious anticipation that plagued those standing behind her.
          The identity of this mystery guest was inquired upon by a young man in the front row at her arrival, but none he asked had even the slightest idea who she was or how she had come by a proper invitation. (“Who, that pretty young thing? She looks as though she took a wrong turn somewhere and wandered in by mistake,” commented the late Lady Kensington’s lifelong gardener. “What, and just decided she’d pop into a funeral and hang about?” Retorted his wife, who quite enjoyed disagreeing with him.)
          At the reading of the will, however, it became clear to all in attendance that the “pretty young thing” in the back row was Claretta Bishop, great niece of Lady Matilda Catherine Kensington, and heir to the large Kensington estates along with a sum of no less than 35 million pounds.

***a “laughing heir” is someone who is legally entitled to inherit from someone who has died, even though they are only distantly related, and therefore this person has no personal connection or reason to be upset over the death

phoenix

I've seen the world in sparkling shades,
an effervescent masquerade.
These candy box people
in candy box rows,
they sway and they glow
like the sheen 'cross the spread
of the moth speckled sky
and I see you collapse, that look in your eye.
I see how you feel and I know how you feel,
and I know that you're stone full of darkness, not light.
And you'll break you apart
with the fear in your heart,
but then how you'll glitter, and oh what a sight!
when you rise from the ashes,
a phoenix in flight.

i am here

I went to a Coldplay concert on saturday. They were preceded by two bands, Bishop Briggs and Alessia Cara. Both were excellent. It was the first concert I've ever been to and it was hands down one of the most incredible nights I've had in a really long time.

Section the first: I am there.

I can feel the music reverberate through the air, the drums beating in my sternum. My lips part and I'm flying, caught up in the exuberance of her expression, her closed eyes and dancing lights. I know she belongs in her skin and I long to belong in mine. I can't hear what she says, but I can hear what she feels. She offers up her soul to the crowd and it rolls across the seats, collecting energy and light and love, rising and filling the room with vibrancy.
He's filling up so much space for being so small. The noise is overwhelming and all consuming. I become part of everything and nothing and I forget that there is anything that isn't light and love and music. He spreads his arms, hugging the air and grabbing energy up in his palms. He consumes the stage, claims it and travels with such manic confidence it takes my breath away. He must feel so free.
If I close my eyes I float. The music and clapping and singing and cheering meld together and surround me, fill my skull with wind chimes. It is almost quiet. There is almost too much to comprehend, and I feel oddly cleansed. There is so much being forced into me that there is no room for my own thoughts, my own emotions, my own worries. I have achieved a clarity I did not think possible.

Section the second: I am here.

I am sitting in class under the glare of stagnant florescents. The whir of an air conditioner, shuffling feet, breaths and murmurs, rehearsed speech and broken discussion. There is too much room for my thoughts and doubts, so much that they extend beyond the solitary sphere of my core. They lengthen outward in waves, altering my expression and manner, brushing out of the folds in my clothes and tying my hair into knots. My body feels as empty as the room, like I could deflate or collapse. I want to leave, to walk out of the door and into the clouds.
But They are in my way. These paper people with their lists and landmarks and I'm suffocating. I can't even feel my heartbeat anymore because I've stuffed myself full of boxed information and there just isn't room for passion in the blueprints of my warehouse chest. The inefficiency of caring is too much of a cost. Better wrap it up because I don't have time for concerts and stories, so a beating heart would just get in the way. My stagnant heart sits behind a desk and waits for the clock to stop ticking.

string

Our lives crossed and uncrossed
like pink candyfloss string
that would melt on the tongue
(those sweet fleeting treats)
Bringing cavities back
from when we were young.

With your pulled-toffee eyes
melting, soft, into mine,
and that new-penny smile
(always smile, always smile)
Dear, you spent it too quickly,
forgetting the time.

Cat's cradle cord binding
our fingers together
and ice cream that dripped
from your soul to my soul
on can-telephone wire
(pulling tighter and tighter)
But we'd rust long before
that connection ran cold.

And you hid in the trees
(disregarding my pleas)
as I skipped and I tripped
on those candyfloss strings.
When I reached through the leaves
you were gone, please don't leave.
But you were, and you had
and I'm terribly sad
and I wish you were here
but you untied your string.

emotional investments

So I've been thinking a lot lately about my tendencies as a human person. As in how likely I am to act or feel a certain way in any given situation. And (plot twist) I don't really have a good structure for this post, so I'm just going to be saying words until I get across what I'm thinking.

I'm a little worried because I don't think I'm capable of being emotionally vulnerable anymore? Like, obviously I still have emotions and I'm not the most detached person on the face of the planet, because I still care about things, but I think I've trained myself to not ever get emotionally invested in things enough to get hurt by them. Thinking back, I can't even remember the last time I got so invested in something that it hurt when I lost it. Not in recent memory. It must have been when I was a kid, but I can't point to the exact moment in time when I stopped getting my hopes up about stuff.

I know I was emotionally invested (hereafter referred to a EI) in dance because I'm still not over it, but that was more a long term commitment than anything else in my life. I'd been in it since I was maybe 4 years old, so obviously growing up intertwined with something will be hard to lose. I was EI in that birthday party I mentioned a couple posts ago. The one when I was around 8 or 9 and I spent ages planning this party and had all these expectations only to be let down hard and super disappointed. But I can't think of anything else, especially not recently.

So let's look at this logically. I got EI in things when I was a kid because kids don't know any better. I didn't have any friends from the ages of 12 to about 16/17, so that saved me from getting EI in any friends that would go on to leave me. I got very used to the idea of having surface friends that I would talk to and who said we were "friends", but then would have other actual friends that did not include me. I got very used to the idea of being independent emotionally and not ever telling anyone how I felt. It just seemed like such a stupid idea, to tell other people about feelings that could end up changing. Then, when they did change, you would seem like this moody idiot who didn't know what was going on in your own head. I was EI in dance because it was all I knew. But even though I have friends now (my current definition: people with whom I talk to/who contact me on a nearly daily basis. They appear to care about what happens in my life at least occasionally), I don't know how capable I am of being EI in them. I think if they stopped talking to me I would be bummed, but it's not a new situation to me so I'd just take it and move on. I care about them, but I'd know they have other friends so they'd be fine without me. And me, well, I've mastered the art of being alone. I wouldn't mind (at least that's what I tell myself. Stay tuned to find out more!!). And even with this guy I mentioned a few posts back, I don't think I even care that much?? I thought I was letting myself get emotionally vulnerable. Like, hey, I'm letting myself like this guy who I think likes me also. Does this mean I might finally know what people are talking about when they get so hurt by breakups and stuff? I was genuinely intrigued by that. Genuinely curious to know what it felt like to get EI in something that ended poorly or just didn't last. BUT GUESS WHAT. He stopped replying to my messages a few days ago, and I don't even care. Like, that sounds harsh, but it's literally only been maybe 2 or 3 days since we've had a conversation, and I've almost forgotten entirely what I saw in him in the first place. I remember enjoying his company and liking his music and liking the attention. I remember getting all caught up in the idea of being in any sort of relationship/friendship/whatever the heck it was, and I don't doubt that there was some infatuation going on, but legitimate EI?? I don't think so. But that kind of sucks because I thought I was. I thought I was letting myself be vulnerable and open to getting hurt but it's been 2 friggin days and I'm ready to move on. I kind of hope he stops talking to me altogether, honestly.

Like, what the heck? I should definitely care more, right? And I was thinking that maybe it was just this specific instance. Oh, he just didn't click with you properly, it was really super long distance, you were trying to force it because you craved the attention on a psychological level, etc etc. But I'm really worried that it applies to all areas of my life. Maybe the reason I feel isolated is because I have literally trained myself to not know how to connect with people. Maybe I'm fine with people leaving because it's all I know, so why should I expect things to ever be different? I don't know how to let myself hope for things anymore. I mean, really invest myself in things. The voice in my head is always warning me about people not really caring, about people leaving. It's always preparing a Plan B for when things don't work out.

I don't know, I think I'm just finally realising that I am the Alpha and Omega of my own issues. I've blamed myself for my problems in the past because I hate blaming other people for things, but I've never understood just how much of those things stemmed from barriers I'd built around myself. I feel like I sound ridiculously dramatic about all this. Sorry 'bout that.

ocean

Sorry for another old one, but I've been cleaning out my room so I've been finding loads of stuff I wrote ages ago. This one is from 6th grade. It is equal parts fun and nauseating to read old work.

My life is an ocean, I'm finding my way
through these miles of perilous sea

I sit on my raft day after day
praying for someone to find me

I do see a lighthouse, a light upon far,
but it's further away than I think

I am a real dreamer, I follow my star
but right here and right now I may sink

I fear for myself, but where are my friends?
The meaning is gone with the dark

A storm cloud hovers o'er, a foul mist descends,
just like a biting remark

The sun just came up, the horizon turns light,
the boards that I'm on start to groan

I open my eyes and my! What a sight!
I'm here in my room, all alone

year 2194

NAR Archives ©2194

     It began with panic, thick and stifling.
     No, that's not it. It began with the sirens. With the speakers blasting warnings across our sector of the North American Republic.
     It began with people running, frantically attempting to locate family members while the police force herded us off the streets and down into the shelters. With the masses craning their necks to the sky, as if seeing the missiles before they hit could somehow stop them from destroying us all.
     It began with four words. The bombs are coming.
     The panic came afterward.

     Now it has been four months since the bombs came. Sixteen weeks since they locked us in these deep concrete cellars. One hundred and twenty-three days since I last saw the sun.
     They say our sector is lucky. We are on the outskirts of the Republic, far enough away from the pole that some people lived here even when it would still be covered in snow for most of the year. Far enough from the capital that we did not suffer direct hits from the Union of Northern Asia. But even one bomb of substantial size can destroy eighty square miles, and there was not just one bomb. If the bombs detonated on or near the ground, the shelters beneath the capital and surrounding areas might not even be livable anymore because there would be giant craters blasted out. There would be nothing.
     So yes, we are lucky that we have a shelter to stay in. This vast and winding system of levels extending far below the surface, all concrete and blocky rooms, everything numbered, everything labeled. Yes, lucky that we have food and water to last a good amount of time. Or so they say. The leaders won't tell us how long. I suppose that's to prevent worry, but we find ways to worry regardless.
     And making another mark on the wall to signify yet another day without the sun or rain or sky I do not feel so lucky. This is worse than the flashblindness in people who were not ushered into the ground before they saw the explosions. That goes away after a few minutes in most cases, but mine is mind blindness, and it does not end. I do not care to see these lifeless grey bunkers one more day. I cannot bear the same boring walls and flickering fluorescent lights one more hour. Up there, before the bombs, it was warm and wet and we rarely saw even sleet, but it was open and the sky stretched on forever. It was overcrowded from the vast world population of near twelve billion people migrating towards the poles, but at least then all of us weren't all trapped in the same concrete boxes together all the time like we are now.
     There aren't that many people any more though. War tends to do that. Kill people, I mean. There weren't enough shelters for everyone to stay in; there wasn't enough warning for everyone to get to safety. So many people I knew didn't make it.
     I just wish I understood the mentality behind wars of such destruction. At some point it would seem that they'd understand that we're all just people, right? We're all just humans trying to not die. Is that truly so hard to understand?
     I would love to hate the people who put us here, but I wouldn't know the first person to point a finger at. Should I blame the idiotic leaders who decided we could use a little more destruction and decided to blast each other with bombs? Or perhaps I should go a little further back before the pressure of so many people in one place forced that conflict upon us. Oh, I would love to hate those people centuries ago who pumped chemicals into the air and oceans without a second thought. Who couldn't for the life of them stop using those awful machines and factories, and who were too greedy and too blind to see that they were killing everything, including themselves.
     I would love to hate them, but they're dead. So no, I don't hate them. I envy them. I envy their freedom and carelessness. I envy that they got to light the fuse and then die before the world exploded. Before people's hair began falling out in clumps and got their skin blistered and burned off. Before the radiation hazard trapped us underground for at least five years, if the experts really are experts on the subject.
     Not that anywhere up there is really livable anymore, what with the plumes of smoke and soot and dust that hung in the atmosphere for several weeks. A nuclear winter, they called it, with fear in their eyes. How carefully detached they sounded when they described it! Semidarkness and frost and low temperatures and radiation. Ruined vegetation and animal life. Anything and everything we had left on this burnt out husk of a planet. All of it gone. All of it destroyed.
     The only friend I have from before is Phoebe. She was in tears for days after the announcement about the nuclear winter before finding solace in history. She has become so obsessed with the past, where everything is dead and yet more alive and vibrant than we are. It must be nice to be a part of history, to have done your part and passed on in due time. They don't know the terrible inevitability of knowing the human race is coming to an end and having no way to stop it. They don't know the horror of a life not yet lived.
     The archives —which they only open to Phoebe after she completes almost twice as many service hours as the rest of us— are essentially where she lives in her free time. She pours over old reports and pictures like they hold the answers to life instead of just more unanswerable questions.
     "Do you think they knew?" She asks, holding up a plastic-sheathed picture of a factory belching smoke into the air, then a shot of a highway choked with cars. "What they were doing?"
     I touch a black and white photograph of a smiling man in a bowler hat standing outside of a factory. He is waving and pointing to a sign that identifies the building as some company I've never heard of.
     "They can't have," I say quietly. "If they knew, they would have stopped."
     Right?


I wrote that sophomore year for a research project exploring how the misuse of technology could negatively affect the future, so the weirdly specific details of this story were backed up by sources. The poem year 2156 I published here in April was from the same project.

it's not changing

I'm scared I'm so scared of the future I'm scared of making the wrong choices and of going down the wrong path and I'm scared I won't amount to much and that I won't get to do what I enjoy, no that's not it, I know if I work hard enough I should be able to write in some capacity I should be able to write what I love but
that's not the problem the problem is getting there the problem is getting through this school year it's getting into colleges and figuring out how to pay for it, but that's not even the issue the issue is that I don't know where I want to go I don't know what I want to study I don't know I don't know I don't even have a clue of what I'm going to do with my life and how do I apply to university if I don't know where to apply to, and this school year I don't know how I'm going to get through this school year when I want
to be happy and I want to love myself and I want to have hope but all of my friends are fake friends with better versions of me to talk to so I'm just the one they talk to when they aren't busy when their real friends aren't busy and that's
fine I like being alone I'm okay with my own company but when I feel like I connect with someone and that it should go somewhere but then they spend all their time with other people it makes me wonder what I'm missing what essential link in life I haven't figured out because there's got to be something there's got to be some
spark I don't have because when people say they like me and they say I'm great and they say they're glad I'm their friend but then I'm always the one starting conversations or all I see is them doing things with other people it hurts it hurts like being lied to it hurts like when I was a kid and I spent ages planning this birthday party and
I was so excited and I waited and waited and had all these kid expectations for how fun it was going to be but then only 2 people showed up and after that I never let myself get my hopes up again because all I could think of was 9 year old me thinking she was finally going to have friends and have birthday parties and connect with people and years went by and I never had another party and I slowly realised that my friends didn't need me nearly as much as I needed them and hey guess what they all had other better friends and that never changed because the years
kept going by and I kept being me by myself waiting to connect waiting for that spark that would tie me to another human being and tether me in some tangible way but it hasn't it hasn't
it hasn't I have friends and I have people I care about but if I were to move away tomorrow it wouldn't take long to lose contact it wouldn't take long for them to forget about me and move on because I don't matter very much to them and I wish I did but I don't want to be selfish and demand love like that because if I haven't managed to connect with anyone yet maybe there's just something
wrong with my brain maybe I just don't understand how people work and maybe that's okay because I'm okay I'm okay I'm Okay and you need to believe me because I'm telling
the truth I'm better than I've been in years but when those years have dragged me through the dark and scraped me raw with glass then better than that probably isn't Great but it's good and I'm good and I'm tired and I'm slipping and the future is so foggy I can't see 10 feet in front of me and I'm having to walk into it smiling at people because
people can't know that you aren't better because you say you are and how embarrassing would it be if you told them you were strong and then you fell but I'm scared that this is all there is that even healthy me is never going to be okay and that is terrifying because I don't know where to go and frankly I'm losing interest in life by the day

you

I found this poem on my phone from November of 2015. I don't remember why I wrote it.

you
with the butterfly eyes
and the hands like a river
you were never meant
to walk the path of the masses
you
with the dreams made of granite
and that scent of vulnerability
tucked into your every movement
you were never meant
to fall beside the leaves
and decay with time
you
with the rain laughter
and the lighthouse voice
calling for me in the dark
you were always meant
to soar beyond this mortal sphere
you
with your dandelion wishes
blown asunder
and your tapping feet never still
you ran from that future
and lost yourself in the crowd

healing, never healed

I've been working on myself. Trying to fix my flaws and combat destructive thought patterns before they destroy me. I've recently begun this thing where when something triggers certain emotions or certain thoughts, I'll see a second version of myself feeling those things. I split my thoughts into two so I can allow part of me to feel those things, and the other part of me to comfort her. This way, I can accept more fully that people are never completely fine or "better". Today I had a brief experience where I was able to utilise this newfound coping mechanism while also relearning a truth it seems I have been trying to avoid.

Briefly, first: a few days ago I got to do a photo shoot with a friend of mine who is sort of a professional photographer. He posts pictures on his instagram all the time of other people he has taken pictures of, whether it be for senior pictures or just random shoots. And today he posted a picture of this really gorgeous girl with a caption introducing her. He said who she was, that they'd known each other for a long time, that she was someone he'd love to shoot with again and again, that she's amazing, and that she is going to be a famous ballet dancer someday.

I read that, and my chest caved in. My mind kept zeroing in on those different phrases. "Amazing. Could shoot with her again and again. Going to be a famous ballet dancer someday." Going to be a famous ballet dancer someday.

It hurt. Goodness, why does it still hurt? It's been over a year since I left. I've grown. I've learned things about myself. I have fat on my body and I manage to not hate myself. But those words, that thin and beautiful girl. I'm not healed. The scars ballet left may not be fresh and bleeding anymore, but the scabs haven't even formed properly yet. So I saw that picture and I read those words and had to detach my strain of thought almost immediately. I had to let those thoughts live on in part of me, but not all of me.

The other Kate fixated on those words and the girl's face, on her arms and height and chest and stomach. The other Kate thought of her own weight and size and chest and stomach and arms and hips and calves and feet. She dragged memories of dance up from the abyss of our mind and held them to her heart and cried. I held this other me while she sobbed and mumbled about not being good enough and how that should have been her. How dancing was all she wanted but she would never be as thin or as beautiful as this other girl. I felt physically nauseous, as the mere thought of being fat made me want to throw up. To vomit up everything so I could give this sobbing Kate in my mind what she so clearly needed. But I couldn't. I just held her and let her cry. I let her hate herself and hate the thin and beautiful girl she doesn't even know. I stroked her hair and hugged her tightly because I love her. She is flawed and she is sensitive and she is cruel and she is tired, and I love her.

500 lb anvil

The past couple years have not been good for my mental health. But, if you've been paying attention, the past few months have been fine. They've been good. The end of the school year was looking up, even if I was stressed. In June my brain relaxed a bit. I was removed enough from the period of my life where I hated everything about myself that I felt really good. England helped me feel more calm than I had in ages, and I was able to sort out my stress and reorient my thoughts in a more positive direction. I felt like I had grown past that angsty-depressed mess that had plagued me for so long. I felt prepared to face the school year, stress and all, because I was finally okay with who I was and my mind felt clear and light.

And I still feel that way! I promise I'm alright. But I've been up at the school this week working on summer assignments, and guess what I noticed today?

They're not gone. Those thoughts, those emotions, those fears, those insecurities. I didn't send them packing, I buried them. I didn't move away, I took a vacation. Today I was sitting in a classroom surrounded by peers and talking about assignments, and I felt it. I felt those feelings hanging over me like a 500 lb anvil (you know, like in the cartoons). I thought about the stress and the future and that anvil swayed on a creaking rope tied to the sky. Other people talked and laughed with their backs turned to me, and my brain sunk down in my skull, into this inky sponge that absorbs my thoughts and numbs everything. I'd forgotten what it felt like, that numb panic, those drowning thoughts that crashed against the inside of my head and were too loud to ignore. And today I felt it. I saw the anvil and my chest seized up.

Because I want to be okay. I like feeling happy. I like not hating myself. I like being calm and I like knowing that it will all work out in the end.

But that anvil, that girl I was...I know how that anvil feels when it falls and breaks my ribs and crushes my lungs. And I know that girl. I know her well and can feel her breathing down my neck, waiting for her time to wrap those fingers around my neck and squeeze.

So here's hoping for a good year. For that rope to hold my anvil in the sky and that girl to find a new hobby. But...if not, I'm preemptively apologising for my future state and I ask for your understanding. We can't all be strong.

so there's this guy

Maintaining the form of previous posts, I shall begin with a preface.

Preface: I know emotions are fleeting, and I know I'm a weird hormone-y teenager, yada yada yada. I know I'm probably going to look back at this post at some point and regret writing it. I know to Future Kate I'll come off as a pathetic and flitty child, and that's fine with Current Kate. No one reads this, so I can say what I want. If anyone ever finds it, well...I don't think anyone's ever going to find it, so GOTCHA.

Anyway.

So there's this guy. I was in England for three weeks, and 6 days before I left I met this guy. (He will be referred to as This Guy, or TG from this point on. You have been warned.) I met him for the first time at a church activity on Wednesday evening, then saw him again on Friday when this other guy, TG, and I drove about two and a half hours to go to a thing in a different city. In the car the three of us talked about everything. We talked about so many things and I had only just met them once, briefly, before then. It was so fun. The next day I saw TG again at an event/graduation of sorts. I think I was too aware of where he was at any given time. Then again, for someone such as myself (who has never really felt inclined to pay special attention to any guys in particular before) any amount of attention I'm paying a guy feels like hyper-attention.

So there's this guy. On Sunday after lunch, TG and his family came over to the house of the people I was staying with (who were old family friends from when we lived in England whilst I was a child). They brought their dog, and we all sat in the backyard and talked and played fetch. The weather was really nice. Then we all went on a walk. TG and I walked together and talked the whole time and I felt like I'd known him for ages. I don't really know why. Back at the house, we had pancakes for dinner (side note: I don't know why people don't do that more often. It's amazing). He knows how to make roses out of napkins, and later he asked me if I wanted the one he made after dinner. He played the piano for a while, and he's fantastic at it. He made it seem so effortless and it was beautiful. After that all of us played games in the living room. I hate to say that TG and I had chemistry, but there was chemistry. Before they all left we talked some more upstairs while the others congregated downstairs.

So there's this guy. On Monday, my last day, I didn't have plans. To cut to the chase, I took a train to the town where TG lives and we coordinated that he would meet me after he got off of work. Brief summary. There was loads of walking and talking. We went bowling and went to a park. He showed me his old primary school and these woods behind it where there's this outdoor-classroom-thing with a circle of benches and logs. We talked until it was dark. His mom drove me home later because it was really late to take a train. He came on the car ride back, and we talked more, but also sort of sat in silence a lot. It was nice. I had my seat leaned all the way back, and he let me use his jacket as a blanket since I was cold. (I know, I was a cliche. Move on.)

So there's this guy. I thought about him when I was at the airport, and I wished he was there so I could talk to him in person and fall asleep leaning on his shoulder. This whole situation makes me feel pathetic and not like myself at all. I mean, I wrote a friggin poem about him on the plane (the one from the previous post, actually). I got that paper rose all the way back home without crushing it. He messaged me recordings of songs he had written and just played, and I listed to them on repeat on the plane.

So there's this guy. We've kept in contact ever since I got back. We've messaged and facetimed, I sent him a letter and he's sending one in return. There's this guy who lives almost 5,000 miles away from me. He makes me laugh, and he seems just as interested in talking to me as I do to him. I haven't even known him for a month, but I miss him loads. I just want to spend a day walking and talking again. I want to hold his hand or just sit next to him or kiss him or something. I don't know this new version of my brain. The Kate who has a real human person to think about and have like weirdly innocent fantasies about. Ew, well I'm never saying that sentence again.

So there's this guy. I don't know when I'll see him again. I don't know if he likes me. But, to quote a second grade girl, "I like him. Like, I like like him." Screw everything. My brain was easier to deal with when I was the most perpetually alone person in the city.

the clouds above the sea

it's been hours, yet I miss you—
every smile and every note,
every silly pun you mentioned,
every song your fingers wrote.
I could hear you sing for hours
but it seems I've lost the time,
so I'm smelling paper flowers
and still wishing you were mine.
my heart is quilted gold with dreams,
the sky is draped in blue,
this ink bleeds black with stories—
every page turns back to you.
and I know I'm being foolish
when I dream you think of me
as I sail back through the sky
on the clouds above the sea

it'll last longer

Take a picture. Go on, take a picture of anything, I don't mind what it is. Your cat, your dresser, the window, the screen. Now, what have you just done? You've captured that specific moment in time to last long into the future (or at least until you delete it). But why? Why do we take pictures?

There's no shortage of reasons behind it, but honestly some of them are a bit trivial. And it's gotten to the point, I think, where people spend more time documenting than living. And I do like pictures, I do; I love to be able to look back and see the people I've been with and how they've grown and how places have changed. But we take pictures of things that won't be worth looking back on I don't think, or maybe of buildings we've passed or historical monuments we've seen. And that's all fine and dandy, but why on earth do we take pictures of these places that already have thousands of pictures to their name all over the place? What, to prove we were there? I don't know, perhaps I'm looking to far into it. (And of course, photography is a form of art, and I am excluding those pictures taken purely for the joy of taking pictures.)

But I was in Oxford yesterday. I'm back in England for the first time in over a decade and I got to spend the whole day in Oxford. I spent maybe seven hours there and I took absolutely no pictures. None. And thinking back on it, my rationale is that I wasn't inclined to take pictures of Oxford (and indeed most of the England I've seen so far) because I hope to not need them. I don't want a photo album to see these fields and cottages; I want to be able to look out my window and see them. I don't want to remember that I came here once because I hope to be here often. That's just me, but taking pictures of things makes me feel like I'm never going to return. I mean, what's the point of taking a photo of a building that isn't going to move or change? If no one's in the picture, you're just documenting an existence. A location that happens to be occupied by a structure. People change. People are worth documenting. Events are worth documenting. Locations are only worth documenting if you'll never see them again, or never see them in the same lighting or view or situation again.

So no, I don't take many pictures because I hope to never lose these things. Maybe that's foolish, but I hate goodbyes, and pictures are really a way to capture things we've got to say goodbye to.

kate starter kit™

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year 2156

i.
we sit on this breaking balcony, watching
the sky turns itself inside out, pounding
out a funeral march (endless, endless)
this downpour that would have noah
cowering in fear, but he is dead —
more than we can say, for now.
if i had an ark, not even the rising oceans
could have driven us from home
you ask me if i miss the sea
i say maybe, sometimes

ii.
we sleep on top of thin covers, listening
to the breathing of six strangers –
homeless, like us
before we blew north with the rain
(this hell, this crowded wasteland)
your eyes are in the past,
staying indoors to survive the heat.
i ask if you miss the flames of your old home
you close your eyes so i can no longer see
the things you have lost
and say not really

iii.
we lean against chain linked fences, waiting
as the sagging people pour from buses,
like smoke from a bonfire (too dry, too easily catching)
they come like us – escape from the sea
escape from the sun
you ask me if they realize
what we were too late to learn
i notice their hopeful eyes and upturned lips
and shake my head
no, i say, not yet

infp

I honestly don't even have a point to this post. I don't know, I guess this is gonna be fairly vent-ish, so buckle up if you plan on sticking around.

I have an intense fear of mediocrity. I feel like I probably share that sentiment with a lot of people, but I have no way of knowing who shares my thought process behind it all. In summary, it's basically just that there's this prick of frustration in the back of my mind anytime someone says a variation of "everyone goes through that" or "that's quite common". And I know it's meant to be a form of consolation, like you aren't alone, don't feel alone. But honestly it just makes me feel worse. And don't get me wrong, I hate this about myself, but I can't stand being grouped in with the average. This probably has something to do with the fact that being average is one of my deepest fears for no apparent reason that I can trace.

(honestly I can't tell how much of this is digression and how much of it is actually coherent, so bear with me)

But yeah, so my brain latches onto anything anyone says that could set me apart from my peers or makes me "special" in some way. (I've also gotten in the habit of catching myself at this and immediately writing it off as an untrue statement so I don't get too self-centered, so there's always this tug-of-war game being played and I don't even know who to believe anymore.)

I do have a fairly solid example of my insecurities of being outshone though. My sister. She's 7 years younger than me, and, like, gosh I don't know how to say this without sounding ridiculously childish...she's just so much better than I am. She got the physical genes I would kill to have (tall and thin instead of short and stocky), she's adorable and has been her whole life (I've just been dragged from awkward phase to awkward phase), she goes to The Montessori Academy (rah rah public school for me), and she's so much smarter than me and is going to end up being like valedictorian or something, she has friends (???I've always had the hardest time getting friends, they never stuck around, and I feel like I'm always annoying people???), and I feel like if she gets the same teachers I had they'll like her more and think she's smarter than me. I guess if I were more secure in my self-worth or whatever it wouldn't bother me so much, but I hate it. And my mom always says stuff about other people's successes not diminishing my own, but for some reason I can't internalize that. It feels sort of like the weak way out. Like, hey So-and-so won, but that doesn't mean that you got dead last!!! I don't know.

I just. I just want to represent a superlative of some sort. I'm prettyish and smartish and funnyish and dancerish and talentedish and goodish at writing. Who knows why I care so much about being sub-par.

Oh! Another great example of my ridiculous insecurities and need for other people to not be obviously better than me. I had my mom do the Meyers-Briggs personality test thing, and my sister ended up doing it as well. For those of you who don't know, the Meyers-Briggs thing has 16 personality types (16personalities.com if you're curious) like ENTP and ISFJ and stuff, and on that website they're all labeled things like "the architect" and "the mediator". So my mom comes to my door to tell me what her result was and my sister comes up behind her and goes "I got The Protagonist! I'm the main character!"

And I hate myself for this, but it hurt. Like, it hurt to hear her say that. ENFJ's (the protagonist) are a ridiculously small portion of the population, and they're charismatic and people love them and they're natural leaders and great at making friends and all the great things you can think of. Essentially, they're Cooler Than You™. I guess in my mind "small % of population = unique = important = special" and it's not me. And I know personalities aren't a competition, but I just wish I were some weird rare personality that people love and whatever. INFP's are cool, don't get me wrong, and so are all the others, but the protagonist? Really? In everyone's mind they're their own main character. It's your life story, and it's about you, of course it is. But I always feel like I'm that unimportant side-character who'll never amount to much.

I! am! so! scared! of! never! amounting! to! anything! special!

And if I'm not special, then what are my chances of getting into the college I want? or getting the scholarships I need? or getting to travel and get a cool job that I enjoy? or having some adorable romance? of ever making legit friends? We can't all be success stories. We can't all be lucky or special or loved or noticed.

I think the reason it hurts so much is because I'm in the process of lying to myself, of telling myself that it will turn out and that I am special in some way, when really I'm just like the next guy. I'm going to go to some college and get some job and get married to some guy and live some average life and die somewhere and never be remembered by anyone. Because I'm just some girl with average talent and average intelligence and average luck. We can't all be Cinderella. Some of us have to be those nameless girls from town who didn't go to the ball and didn't fit the shoe and were never spoken of again because, as we all know, stories prefers those who are different and not those who blend in.

I'm trying to figure out if these thought patterns are the kind of Depression Warning Signs™ my counselor told me to watch out for. I don't think so; it's probably just a mood swing. But hey! Stay turned to find out!!!

vistalis

          It hardly matters now the reasons I was sent to the courts of Vistalis, as I have gladly since then retired from the business of politics. However, in light of recent events—the details of which I assume you have heard by one way or another—I shall endeavor to recount that time which has haunted me many an hour since my departure in the late spring of this previous year.
          The castle of Vistalis was a magnificent structure as I recall it, surely constructed to inspire awe in the hearts of visiting dignitaries and ambassadors, though predating and following my stay there it has done little entertaining for outside guests. The blackened gates of curling wrought iron towered above me as the footman guided me up the long drive, where I found myself in the company of fancifully carved bushes—here, a ten-foot griffin, while by that fountain loomed a creature akin to a giant leopard—and overflowing flower beds bursting with color, all immaculately kept. The only living creature that I could see—excusing myself and the footman—was an exceptionally large and exceptionally old bloodhound sprawled across the front steps, his deep red fur shining dully in the morning light. When we passed, he raised his great wrinkled head to watch me intently with sagging bloodshot eyes. I was never made aware of the beast’s name while I remained at the castle, but I am convinced I should have hated him regardless of any title he responded to, for the footman identified him as the queen’s personal bloodhound. He was loyal to her and her alone, and I was most resentful of his valued position in the castle.
          Inside, it was quite easy to be overwhelmed by the grandeur of it all. I craned my neck to the vaulted ceiling; the gold ribs lacing across it sloping down to melt into the columns engraved with various geometric designs. Every breath I drew seemed to live on forever, echoing out of every crevice and off every stained glass window, of which there were many; a few pictured late kings and queens of the past, while still others depicted tinted symbols and glyphs I could not comprehend—the intricacies of such glasswork was astounding. I was lead down a series of maze-like hallways, the footman murmuring explanations as we passed faded tapestries and murals, gesturing to each masterpiece in turn. The place could only be described as unapologetically beautiful; lovely in every sense of the word. I will admit I was so distracted by the lavish surroundings that I very nearly forget the purpose of my visit until my chest hit the shoulder of my guide, who had come to an abrupt halt in front of a large and polished oak door carved to bear coiling and twisting vines and flowers—the metal plaque above it held the inscription vivre pour l'amitié et par la loyauté.* My companion rapped sharply against the door, and a few moments later both oaken slabs were pulled inward. The room revealed was small without being cramped. The ceiling and walls were draped in heavy tapestries reminiscent of the sky at dusk; smokey oranges and yellows blended seamlessly with the deep purples and indigos that hung in thick folds about the edges of the room. In the center of the chamber the yellows and golds appeared to glow about the woman settled in the ornate throne.
          I had heard of this sad and beautiful queen previously in my political, and indeed human, career, but failed to understand why she was labeled such until that moment. She was wrapped in black silks; a single dark gem amidst the glowing sunset. Her skin was pale as moonlight pulled from the sky and her ebony hair darker than even the silks of her gown; the length of her neck was slender and graceful beneath a perfectly proportioned face—every feature was surely deserving of a person’s full attention—but the most captivating part of her face was her eyes—the eyes! Those deep liquid jewels hung in her moonlit face beneath the heavy lids. I could not imagine a more perfect creature, and yet there was a melancholic aura to her presence; something profoundly sad about her for someone so young. She thanked me for travelling so far to represent my king and country in her courts—I must confess I’ve no idea what my response was, as her low voice had me just as enraptured as her lovely face—and when she dismissed me to my rooms I barely cast an eye toward the surroundings which I had previously found so splendid; she was the solitary subject of my thoughts from that moment on.
          In the weeks following I blush to confess my feelings toward her bloomed into irrefutable love—despite my not being allowed to see her for any reason without her summons. I could hardly sleep at night without the thought of her midnight hair falling just so about her straight shoulders, could barely eat without thinking of the perfect slope of her scarlet lips and the glimmer of her ivory teeth placed just as they should be in her angelic face. On occasions where my fantasies urged me to leave the confines of my rooms to run to her, I found that dreaded bloodhound blocking my path. He took to lying at my door day and night, watching me with those eyes that I am sure the devil himself could not rival in fiery hatred. For the duration of everyday—with the exception of meals, when I would be brought down to the kitchens to eat— that filthy animal lounged across my threshold, pressed so close to my door that I could hear his steady heartbeat through the wood if I pressed my ear against it; and all the night the beast scratched at my chamber door with alarming persistence. His bloodshot eyes tormented me in slumber as well as in consciousness; the low whine of his throat buzzed in my ears like a fly I could not shake.
          I took to pacing, doubtful imaginings clawing their way into my heart and mind. Why hadn’t my queen sent for me while I paced, waiting, in my chambers? Surely she knew of my love for her and felt the same, but oh! how I longed to see her eyes!—To but behold those lovely liquid spheres of the night, to cure the sadness hidden in their depths! And the only thing standing between her and me was the dog—that beast! How he reveled in keeping me from my lovely queen. Over many long days I became convinced of his plot to keep me there forever, and over many days more I realised that surely he would do no such thing without the queen’s orders, as the footman assured me the dog answered to her alone—she intended to keep me there forever with nothing but my own thoughts and the scratching of the bloodhound for company! Words cannot describe my despair at this revelation, for my angel had betrayed me to the demon I hated most of all.
          By the time I was finally called upon again to go before the queen, rage and betrayal had consumed my heart to the point that I was in quite a murderous rage. I kept my silver dagger hidden in the folds of my cloak during my passage with the footman to her throne room, and still I kept the blade out of sight as the oak doors swung open to reveal the queen, more beautiful and sad than ever. I avoided looking into her eyes, and when she requested her guards leave us alone in the room it felt like a sign of some sort that I should kill this deceitful angel for her crimes. The doors swung shut with finality, and I barely spared a breath before plunging the dagger into her perfect breast, drawing a flow of deep scarlet blood that stained her skin like wine across a tablecloth while falling invisible onto her already dark silks. As she slumped into the throne her eyes found mine, and I saw that they were now aged and bloodshot, accusing me of murder from beyond the grave. I recoiled, leaving the hilt of the knife protruding from the sheath of her chest, the thoughts of how to escape after killing the Queen of Vistalis suddenly tearing through my mind. What was I to do with the body? hide it? simply hope to get away before she was discovered? The eyes of the bloodhound stared up at me from beneath her ivory brow, and I heard a scratching at the door—imagine my anger at the beast coming to find his dead master! She was his in life but mine in death, and yet the scratching continued—as if he had any claim to her now! I pulled the blade from her breast and sunk it into one of those beastly eyes, hoping to cut any part of the bloodhound from her; he surely had corrupted her feelings toward me while she was yet living, and to leave any trace of him in her now would be a sin surely punishable by death and Hell. I ignored the clawing and whining at the door for just long enough to carve the other aged eye—that abomination!—from her corpse. The door finally burst open, and when the guards rushed me I used the bloody knife to slay them as well. As I ran from the chamber and out to the front hall, the only sound chasing me was the clacking of the bloodhound’s claws against stone.
          I emerged into the evening air just as dusk was spinning its fading colors across the sky. The bush menagerie along the lane loomed over me in fearsome silhouettes as I dashed for the gates, two guards pushing them closed for the night. I could hear the beast’s heartbeat in his pursuit, angry and focused; it cut through the air louder than my footfalls. I slipped through the gates just before they clanged shut and coughed out a startled laugh—I had escaped! The scarlet sun kissed the horizon, and I turned to see the beast howling just beyond the gates—and every inch of me was frozen at the atrocious sight—the queen’s dark liquid eyes staring at me from his sagging face.

*live for friendship and by loyalty

This was a pistache written off the writing style and themes of Edgar Allen Poe.

transfer

          She watches the train grow larger down the tracks and twists her hands together. She hasn’t heard anything from Alfred, which was expected granted the limited time frame, but despite this she manages to be well-plagued with anticipation. She is the only person on the platform. Her hair falls in waves about her rigidly held shoulders, and her neatly pleated skirt just barely brushes the filthy stone floor.
          The glowing train puffs into the station and she swallows, holding her chin a little higher and allowing thoughts of his return to flit about in her head, distracting her from reality. In the back of her eyelids she can almost see him striding toward her through the crowd. How she’ll run to him and apologise for her reckless and apathetic behaviour.
          “Captain Harrison. I didn’t expect to see you here.” He hoists his bag over a shoulder and his eyes travel over her face, seeming to feast on the very sight of it.
          “I had to see you.” She bounces slightly on the balls of her feet. “I was so worried the transfer wouldn’t go through.” They are jostled about by the crowd and he guides her off to the side with a gentle hand on her back. They stop in the mouth of an alcove and he sets down his bag, leaning against the wall.
          “Might I ask why?” His eyes never leave her face, though she avoids eye contact, fidgeting and questioning the choice of coming here.
          “Because I couldn’t stand the thought of you riding out on a suicide mission.”
          “Any particular reason?” There is a tentative smile in his voice.
          He knows. He knows but he wants to hear her say it.
          “Because, Mr. Fielding, it became apparent to me recently that...that …” She flicks her eyes up to meet his., and finishes her thought in a whisper. “That I'm quite fond of you.”
          The smile she missed so much splits his face and he holds her twisting hands to still them. “I assure you the feeling is mutual, Captain.”
          The shrill train whistle startles her from her imaginings, and the nervous flutter in her chest returns full force. She can barely keep from sprinting to the train and waiting to intercept every passenger as they step off. Doors are pulled open by weary hands, and soldiers spill from the cars. She scans the crowd, ready to run at a moment’s notice, at the briefest glimpse of him.
          But she doesn’t spot him. The crowd pushes around her and he is nowhere to be seen. The nerves morph into grating panic. She takes to weaving among them and looking up into their faces, thinking she might have seen him without noticing. She spies the general speaking with the conductor and takes a moment to wrap herself with a facade of calm before approaching him.
          “General, excuse me.”
          “Might I help you, miss?”
          She brushes her hair over a shoulder so he can see the pin she is required to wear with plainclothes.
          He chuckles. “Forgive me, Captain Harrison, what a pleasant surprise. I am used to you in uniform. How are you this fine day?”
          She smiles. “Very well, sir. I am looking for a soldier, a friend of mine, who was transferred on this train. Do you know where I might find a Sergeant Alfred Fielding?”
          A crease forms between his eyebrows. “You say you were friends with Fielding?”
          “Yes, sir. I planned on meeting him here before he was deployed to his next area.”
          “Well then, Captain, I am sorry to bring you the news.”
          She feels her chest cave inward. “Did the transfer not get through?”
          He purses his lips and takes her hands in his. “It was received too late. Sergeant Fielding was gunned down in a surprise attack the night before last. He died with six others. They gave the rest of the battalion time to rally.”
          All the breath leaves her. “Sir?”
          “He isn’t here, Eliza. I’m so sorry.”
          The clock chimes and he pats the back of her hands. “Excuse me, Captain. I’ve a meeting.”
          He walks off, leaving her once again alone on the platform, the breeze off the departing train blowing her hair about her face.