Chapter 4

     We listened to a lot of Boys Like Girls. Anything else I have a hard time remembering. It's really odd to me, the way my mind decides what to remember and what not to remember. For instance I can't really remember what Her and I used to listen to but I can remember the first time I read Pride and Prejudice which was two years prior to even meeting her. Going back again. When we did hang out, it was outside, on the steps, with a guitar and her perfect voice. She played to but I much preferred her voice to anything else. We wrote a couple of songs, Her and I, and when we played them together everything felt perfect. I remember how fast I walked to get to the band hall to see her - it wasn't fast enough. I would breathe fast and low when I saw her and when I hugged her it was never long enough. I stopped caring about anything else and even though I thought I cared for someone else, I was only ever in love with her. Then she introduced me to Ashly.

     Ashly was a sweet, pretty and tiny little thing. She was super Mexican and was part of drill team that performed with the band. I remember her as a girl whose love was perfect, but never enough for me. We met, thanks to her, in a bus on the way back from a competition in, if my memory serves, Ft. Worth. I was sitting by myself in a row of benches across the way from her and Vincent. She kept telling me to go sit next to her and all this jazz that I don't even remember because all I can remember was that I still couldn't believe that she was talking to me.

     At that point, after the remainder of the bus ride and the lingering goodbye we had that night as her parents picked her up, I now realize that I should have, then and there decided that I would not let her think we would be anything more than friends. I am soft, though, and my heart's desire is to make every single human being I know happy. So I didn't say anything, I just let her believe that not only did I sit next to her because I wanted to, but because I was still in awe of her.

     After that night we were together as often as we could help it and talked just the same. I don't remember where our friendship became something more, I'm not even sure we ever were just friends. That is one of the many curses I posses, that is to make a person, more specifically a girl, feel as if all I have inside me is so in love with that person that they want to marry me. What is unfortunate is that I never have the will to make that person see that, while I do indeed love them, and while I am as best I can, making them comfortable and feel good about themselves, I am not in a position to be depended on.

 My limited forms of communication (only a computer for about an hour a day) meant that I could not talk with Ashly very often while school was not in session. I remember Christmas break, I'm quite certain we did not talk for at least a week, mostly because any chance I got to talk to anyone outside of my family, I used it to talk to Briana. Therefor, as time went on, I lost interest in Ashly.

     She trusted me, though, unconditionally, and even when I bailed on her or obviously flirted and started at Briana, she still loved me. (She would later tell me that she was convinced beyond trust and love that I was her future.) At one point in time, Briana and Vincent broke up and I almost, immediately broke up with Ashly for Briana, but I thought better of that in order not to appear to be a huge asshole. Of course, though, as nature would have it, Vincent and Briana were back together before I could say, "Please, Please. Just one kiss is all I want." I was pathetic, really.

Black and White.

     My heart is beating fast and my hands are trembling as I pull you in closer. My eyes meet yours and I am lost in thought and beauty. I feel nothing but complete happiness as I share a quiet, relaxing moment with you. I am steady and I know where I am but I have misplaced my knowledge of breathing completely. I see you and I know you, my love. I'm right here with you and all I know is that within my arms I have my whole world. In this moment I ,unmistakably, want to leave this world for the meaning of it is unknown and fleeting quickly from my mind.

     Come with me and together we will find a new, more accurate meaning of everything we have once known. I have to be a ghost, a shadow of what I once was. I have to be a beacon to my former self of what I should become. I have to be what I want to be, or I will never be what I want to be. I have to develop a natural (or perhaps unnatural) acceptance for myself, because I am who I am, and whether or not I desire to accept that, I must. I truly believe that I will, in time, do so. It may take me a lot of time and I may require very large amounts of assistance, but I will get there.

     And I am writing this to remind myself of that! I am writing right now with positive intention in my heart and a definite understanding and knowledge of what I must do in these next few weeks. Months from now, I can't know what I'll be doing exactly, but I can assure that it will be good for me. These next couple of days will be no doubt spent working on myself, doing what I know I must do to make myself OK. OK at work, OK with my family and everywhere else I may venture off to.

I love you

    I love you. That much is certain. How much do I love you? I don't know. I'm still pretty unsure how I should go about measuring love. I'll just suffice it to say that I love you a lot. It's like I'm walking outside I look up and say, man, it's a beautiful day. You sigh and smile at me, look up at me and say, yes, yes it is. And this is the written narration of that perfect day and perfect moment in time.

     I'm waiting for an answer as to why your bright dreams can still penetrate the grey clouds above us all. Now the grey is just falling around you and we're all tongue-tied in awe. Now, I see your beauty and it is blinding. Thank you  for protecting me, now I won't let go. Every silence all around me, with me longing just beside you, is now screaming through the walls.

     If you give me your life, I swear you will never lose it. If you include me in your thoughts, I swear they won't control you. If you trust me with your love, I swear I will never let it go. You see, I need to be needed. I've never felt this way before, I was always just so empty. I didn't know it, but I need to be needed by you.

My head pounds.

Everything that I love is an art, yet even then all of my art is meaningless to me now. All of it, everything, everyone everything I know or once knew is death. I feel dead. nothing I have to do is worth doing. My brain makes the most ridiculous connections to make me think that all I am doing is OK  It's not, though, and I know that. I am worth. nothing. It is so apparent to me now that I am nothing. Mathematically I am equal to 0 an idea, not a number that is negative or positive, but an idea that there is nothing to be had at that current juncture in time and location. I am nothing in any current juncture in time and location that I choose to be in.

     Another thing occurred to me, recently. That is this even the concept of nothing or zero is still something because we still have a symbol for it, whether that symbol be a word or a number. This worlds nothings are still and will always be something. But I digress, as I always do and instead decide to tell you where exactly it is I've been. You see, hold on..

     That's better. Where was I, right. I've been busy. So so so very busy. If you have read everything that I have written on this channel of the internet, then you'll know what kind of unstable person I am and how I feel like I need to be heard even though there probably isn't anyone in the whole world that reads what I write here on a regular basis. I want you to read it, though, I want you to know what I'm thinking and I want you to read what I've written, because I need to be noticed.

     Again, though, I digress.

Say Something

     Good God, child, have you noticed that although she speaks beautiful words of love, she sure does leave you out to dry unbelievably often. what do I know, though, of true love and being in love? I know nothing, I feel for I am but a boy trapped inside of a man's body. Why would you leave me here in this state? How could you assume that I knew why you were leaving and why would you even leave in the first place? Just leave!?!?!?! I don't even feel like you want me anymore, do you understand that? Tomorrow? I'm just going to sleep and go to work and probably get high because for all I know and from what I can tell you don't want to see me tomorrow or ever if you can help it.

     Please say something. Because everyone thinks you're gone, but they're not right baby. Are they? If they are, let me tell you what I'll do. I walk the streets with a semi automatic gas powered assault rifle and pump round after round into my friends, colleagues and co-workers until someone comes and puts a bullet in my head. 

Musical Flowers.

Musical Flowers, Musical Birds. Musical People to which music allures.

Musical Flowers larger than I, musical birds, taller than I.

All the musical people I know of and know, All the flowers and birds singing so soft and slow. 

Musical Flowers, Musical Birds. Musical people to which music allures. 

Musical Flowers, you put me to bed.

Music & people all stuck in my head. 

You, my dear are far removed from any bad thought I've had in years

You, my love are near my heart for with you, my love is all but gone. 

This music and these birds have flown around my head, they've pieced together memories, 

I've long thought dead.

Anything I have for which I count as fruitful, is somehow related to you and I can't stop thinking about you. I hadn't seen your face in years. In four fucking years. Now out of no where I see it. I know this wasn't your fault, I know it was all my doing, hell I was looking for your face. However, I find myself so broken by this finding. I am breathing heavily and all music I once loved I now hate. All music I ever hear now is not but poison for me. I miss you but it's nothing except pain. I'm a glutton for punishment, therefore you who punished me the most I now desire. 

Post Afterlife

     In my mind, my pain right now is only explainable in a place that is to come after hell, the worse of the after lives. A place reserved only for people who have committed great emotional and mental sin. I will be tormented on the intellectual and emotional levels like I can't imagine and right now, as she lays so comfortably in my wake, I only want to see her in front of me. So I may hold her and pet her, because I miss her. I feed her and I give her water and I clean up all the messes that she's made but I can't seem to make her see that she would be much better off in front of me.

      In this place, I will receive special treatment from special devils with special training and higher pay than those in hell. I will have no mouth, no eyes, no ears and will have lost my ability to physically feel. I will have no body. I will have no way to express my pain, no way to write about it and never any way to scream or cry. My pain will be kept inside of me with a lock that has no keyhole and never a key for which been forged, so you will never be able to see it and I will never be able to exhume it.

     It's alright though, I guess, I'm nothing more than a boy, thinking he's a man, locked in a cage, pretending not to let my captor's know that I see it. I see it though, and when I am free and I move into post afterlife, I will think of nothing but you. A whole month, wow. This is retarded. That's all I will be able to think. That this is so stupid and I feel so lonely and stupid.

     Say something, because they're all beginning to believe that I've gone crazy. I haven't though, right Jane? you're here, I know you are, because when I talk to you, you talk back and you make so much sense to me. How could you not be real. I've seen a glimpse of Jane in my Post Afterlife, and it isn't very pretty. She is mean and she tortures me so. I'm not sure if I should let her be there for that in the end or if I should get rid of her now. I'll never know. 

The lies.

     I fucking miss you. I'm not going to lie. Not even to myself. In order to truly hold onto a lie and make it true for someone else, one must first get themselves to believe the lie. I don't love you, that's a lie. I don't want you, that's a lie. I don't miss you, that's a lie. A real lie, and I've been believing them to be true for a couple weeks now and I'm so tired of that. Maybe now I can sleep.Maybe now I can focus on one thing. Maybe now I can stop sleeping with your jacket and maybe now I'll throw YOUR jewelry out of a moving car window. I won't though, because I still plan on returning all of it. I have it down to the day, actually. Of when I plan on giving you back your stuff. I hope by then it will no longer bear the gory sentimental value that it does now.

     I don't want to be dead. That's a lie. I don't dream about you anymore. That's a lie. I don't see Elizabeth everywhere. That's a lie. This pain is unbearable, I miss you so much and my belongings are slowly being broken as a result. Thank God I put all of my guitar stuff away, that would have been terrible. So terrible. The plain truth, Jane, is that I love you and I want you more than anything I can think of. I'm just not good enough for you. I hate myself for that, I always will. I'll never be someone that you don't resent sometimes no matter what happens between us. I'll never genuinely want to be cliche. I'll never be able to be strong enough for you and I hate myself for that, I always will.

     I'm coming for you. watch your blind side.

First Day.

Screaming. screaming. Endless screaming. A shit load of screaming is what I'm talking about here. . .

You know like in 500 days of Summer and suffering except with. . . screaming because sometimes I just feel like screaming and for a really odd reason when I type screaming, the word screaming. Things are better for me, in general.

     And when there's no more of that to do I'll stop, look around and see everyone near me, staring at me. Thinking, what the hell is this kid doing? And I'll have to explain myself and people will get hurt and people will get on my fucking nerves. Then I'll realize that all that screaming I did was not worth this shit hole that I'm in. I can't mask my emotions for a prolonged period of time. That's why it's a terrible idea for me to live with people. Absolutely terrible. . . I hate myself so much right now.


So I'm trapped. . . And I've looked every where I know or have thought to know to look. I've yet to find an exit. I'm trapped and you simply won't help me.

I am running out of words to say to you, wonderin' why I'm wasting my time. Thinking back and wondering why I'm such a fool, for loving you.

After reading that line, you're going to think it's directed at you. I'm here to tell you that it is. So just take it easy and know that I still hate you and always will. I really really love his voice and I like what he does with it when he sings these lines. That's why I have it pretty much everywhere. . .

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I hope the weight of what you've done to me crushes all your dreams.
I'd loved you enough to know them but now I know to much about you
you make me ill and you don't deserve that smile on your face or her on your arm

Please don't tell me that you still love me when what you've done is screaming that you don't
No, I won't call and if you still go, I won't be there, no, I'll never show,
but wait all night if you want to, I hear they have a lovely quiche there.

I hope the weight of what you've done to me crushes all your hopes and dreams and I, I hope you think of me when you're at the bottom of your valley and the shadows are darkening to shades of black you've never seen before or even known existed.

Please don't tell me that you still love me when what you're doing right now, what you're doing right now. I see you, you can't hide a thing from me because I did love you and I did know you enough to see the moment you lied to me for the first time.


         You're making me cry. I'm crying at this moment. Right now, I'm shedding tears. You keep reassuring me, but it's not really working. You've just informed me of something I previously didn't know about and I'll be honest, it kinda sucks. I thought that, since you loved me and junk, it wouldn't matter. I thought. . . that was my mistake I guess. I think to damn much. Please spare me the trouble of your words, girl. I don't need you at all, never have, never will. What we had, well your side of it at least, was always a lie, I can't believe you could try and tell me other wise now. I know everything, girl. I know where you were with him. I know who he was. I know exactly what happened.

       Well it's your loss, I don't want your stupid friendship anyway. . . because that's all it is stupid, that's all you are, girl. Stupid. Why after all the crap we've been through together would you suddenly do this to me!? well I'm done, honestly, I'm totally just done with you. I quit. And if you ever talk to Jane again I'll freaking kill you. If you ever touch her again, If you ever look at her wrong. Yea, I hope you do read this, girl. You need to find out somehow that your life is on the line next time you pull crap like this.

       I've stopped now. The crying has ceased.  Just like my grandmother and you knew that and you took advantage of that and you made fun of me. What kind of a monster are you, girl!? That's my grandmother we're talking about here. Whatever, I forgot what I was about to say, that's how little you mean to me. screw you. And not in the good way.

Chapter 3

     Let me tell you about my school. I love my school, I really really do. I find this odd, I think, for most freshman. Most freshman like me, you know, the band geeks, get picked on mercilessly; but not me. I think it has something to do with the fact that my brother is on the football team and plays alongside one of the greatest linebackers in Texas high school history. That probably gives him a lot of influence in a place like high school, but what do I know? It's always interesting when I see my brother in the hallways of the same school. Especially when he is with his friends because he always seems to be in a very big hurry. My brother is a very smart guy, but sometimes he acts really stupid around his buddies.
     Where was I? I always seem to get sidetracked. Oh yes, my school. It's fairly large considering it is a private high school. It's an all boys establishment and was founded in 1852. Yes. It's old. very very old. The building we're in isn't that old, though it has seen a very large amount of years. It has three stories and is in the shape of an 'L'. The gymnasium is at the end of the hall on the shorter side of the 'L' and beneath it is the locker room. I won't tell you what happened to me in that locker room simply because I think that my brain had the wherewithal to shut it out. I have made a few friends, most of which are composed of my fellow band geeks and a few of my classmates. I don't think very many people here like me. It's probably simply because I'm nothing like them. I know I'm not, I wonder if it's blatantly obvious in their minds that they don't like me because I'm different. Maybe they're lying to themselves telling themselves and others that their not liking me is justified by something that I've done wrong. I'm sure my shortcomings aren't a very short list, but these people, they seem to take every stab at me that they can manage. That paragraph I just wrote was really very run together and it probably made almost no sense to you. But that's my fault. So don't beat yourself up about it.

     My time at school that was not spent failing class or in the band hall, I was outside, when the weather permitted, eating lunch with my band friends. It's an odd thing, when among the band geeks are some of the most highly revered people in the school. Or at least those with the brightest futures. My friend Josh, Asian kid, was of course, a genius. It's funny though because he wasn't one of those Asians that studies the crap out of everything, he was just naturally studious and smart. It balanced out and everything, so odd. Again, I lose myself. Lunch, right. Thank you. One day at lunch my friend, or rather acquaintance, Rene thought it would be a good idea to throw some of his left over food at the outcast seniors sitting on some bleachers. After he did so and was promptly returned the blessing, he got really upset, punched one of the seniors and was expelled. It was funny though, because I love seeing people be so irrational. Yes, it drives me to tears of frustration on the inside. I have found that it's much easier and more delightful for me if I just laugh. At everything. So I do. So I did.

     That afternoon after school (about a week in, maybe two), I met her. It's funny, I hardly remember her name because to this day she is simply "her". In my phone, in my journals, in my e-mail contact list. Just "her". Brianna. That's her name. How I met her is extremely unforgettable, especially how much we used to laugh at it later in our friendship. I was sitting in the Band Hall at the tables listening to the band practice and I remember seeing her earlier, walk in from across the street at her school. She was talking to one of my other friends Vince. He was a sophomore and he quickly befriended me, because well, he was a nice guy. So I see him point at me and then they exchange a few words and as he puts his trumpet to his mouth and inhales, she walks towards me.

     Her words are barely audible over the 40+ member band in a room that barely houses us all. She said, "Hi! Are you David?!" I, stunned that this beauty was addressing me, muttered, really whispered.
"Yeah, why what's up?!"
"My boyfriend Vincent asked me to ask you to come with me to the corner store. He says it's sketchy and you're pretty cool."
"Sure, let's go!" I said with a smile, not even letting the boyfriend comment harm me. I didn't care. I was in love.

     After we got out the double glass doors, she introduced herself and we went through the niceties of fellow band geeks. The instrument, the voice, the desire. After that brief, slightly aided introduction, we were nearly inseparable. She was beautiful. Her light skin and thick, dark wavy hair made my skin tingle and as we walked I remember thinking how perfect her profile was. Surely an odd thing to think, you might observe, but I didn't and still do not care. She made me happy to be where I was, instantly, and that's all I ever look for. She is beautiful and I love her. Loved. I meant loved her.

Numb.

     To have all of my nerve endings and emotions just stop. To be torn to pieces and still feel as one.
     To be crushed by the weight of you and not even know your name.
     To stare at the sun all day and still be able to see clear.
     To have no knowledge of what I did the day before, much less ate for breakfast. If anything.
   
     I want to be but not feel, I want to eat but not taste and I want to see but not understand. I don't want to die, not yet, because I know that even though you will never know how wrong you were, I need to be around for the day that I become what I want. I need to stop. I need to breathe. I need to repair; re mantle; reevaluate. Hysterical and useless, hysterical and let down and hanging around. Crushed like a bug in the ground.

     I'll take an unheard prayer to be my freeing verse.
     I'll be a beautiful day, that is, one with your hearse.
     I don't have time to be your sole, only to say that I am done.

     I am burned out and I don't even know why. I've no reason to be and I can't even begin to think why I would be.

     I hate you without feeling. I want to kill you and not care, I want to curse at you and not feel remorse and I want to tell you to your face all of these things. I hate you. I fucking hate you. This is say in a letter to myself I fucking hate you, David. I fucking hate you. Why do you have to be this way?!?! Stop it! stop crying, my eyes burn. I can't. I can't stop, it feels too damn good. Stop it, stop, there's so much blood! I can't. I can't stop. It feels too damn good. Why can't I just I stop feeling? Why can't I just close my eyes to never find them open again?

Not Yet Complete.

This is an introduction to my favorite Relient K quotes. .. I'm basically listening to my favorite songs by them and when the quote comes around, I add it. . . this could take a while. Anyway, Relient K is more than awesome. They were my first favorite band and are still one of my favorites.

If it hurts, kiss it better.
You wear skirts, I write nice letters
Never said nothing with flowers, though we'd always talk for hours. -Jefferson Aero Plane

So reckless for all these years,
I crashed into a wall
there's a ringing in my ears
and It's my wake up call :) - Wake Up Call

Adversity; we get around it
I search for joy; in You I've found it - Pressing On

Never Underestimate my Jesus
When the world around you crumbles, he will be strong - For the Moments I Feel Faint

You'll find mercy, you'll see grace,
love and beauty defined in His face - The Rest Is Up To You

No, I don't hate you; don't wanna fight you
know I'll always love you but right now I just don't like you - Which to Bury?. . .

Today I'll trust you with the confidence of a man who's never known defeat
but tomorrow upon hearing what I did, I will stare at you in disbelief - Let it All Out

I'll let it be known, at times I have shown signs of all my weakness
but somewhere in me, there is strength; you promised me
in time I will defeat this & somewhere in me, there is strength. - Let it all out

The Devil.

Dear Miss Anonymous,
     You're trying to hurt me, but it won't work. goodbye.

Long Live.

Have you heard of the man who walks around his city crying out into the air?
His cries are sad and his walk is filled with anguish, yet no one seems to care about him.
It is said that when he goes home he's happy and his wife and kids say he's perfectly normal.
I think that he's found his tree and taken refuge in the shade, forgetting the people around him.
He does what he knows he must to be happy, and he does it in freedom.
Good for him, who has found his key to happiness.
Long live the man who is free in his own mind to do what makes him happy.