Pain Simmering in Your Muscles

2009, May 26

Feeling: Trapped, Angry, Helpless, Lost, Suicidal
Doing: Mourning
Wearing: Jeans and a Tank
Current Book: Skunk Works
Lyric of the Moment: Among bullets and pages from trade magazines...

For all our childhoods, we are told we have the capability to do great things, change the world, and be amazingly successful. What they don't tell you is how hard it will be emotionally when you figure out that not everyone can be a doctor or a teacher; that not everyone will have an easy time of it in school...
They never tell you that every single day you'll face the challenge of forcing yourself up and out of bed to face the challenges of days where everything and anything goes wrong; days where someone else's decisions control your life.
What the adults never tell you when you're a little kid with big innocent views of the world is that you start out in this ratrace eight lengths behind the ball, and hindered by that same idealism. They never tell you that there will be things like requirements and propositions to come in and snap out your hope's light. They let you sit there and think that life can be all these things, when in reality...
It's only true for the barest fraction of people.
In reality, there's this horrible thing called politics and this other, really bad beast called religion. The two don't normally get on very well, but nobody ever warns you that sometimes the latter can overtake the former and segregate you to a point where you feel like you have no feelings because, really, you are a segregated part of a segregated population.
In case you're still confused, think for example- of the supreme court's decision on Proposition 8. If you want to get down to it, they basically said 'We accept this seperate-but-equal terms, but in the process, we'll let this select group of them have what they wanted.'
Just to clarify, we're talking about a thing that has the power to bend and destroy dreams.
And nobody ever tells you that someone beside you could hold that power; nobody ever warns you that sometimes a group of people get together and heave one BIG idea together and team up to make it work- to let it trample your own dreams. The fact that nobody tells you about these things; that nobody warns you...
is it simply a mistake?
Are they trying to protect you?
or did they plan it this way?
Did they mean for it to hurt this goddamn much?

-Pathetic Otologist

Questioning Glances at Your Feet

2009, February 5

Feeling: Trapped, Angry, Hopeless, Semi-Suicidal
Doing: Listening and Living
Wearing: Grandpa's old wool sweater
Current Book: The Lay of the Last Minestral
Lyric of the Moment: And she fights for her life as she goes into the sto

So much of myself I pour into the world around me and into other people. I leave nothing for myself because I know that when I do I end up a mess of tangled hopes and dreams, devastated and writhing in misery on the bed.
Normally I would try to convey my feelings only, but today it's raining. As I stood at the bus stop and was soaked I blasted music so I wouldn't have to listen to people anymore. I wanted to make my music so loud it would blow my brains out. There is a feeling deep inside us all; it's always there, no matter how happy you are, no matter where or who or how you are... It's a little voice whispering in the back of your mind that 'well, you're going to die anyway, why not let go now and save yourself heartache and grief?'
For some of us, it becomes this booming howl in our ears, eating away at us until, finally, we give in, and in our last moment on earth, we hear the other voice that should have balanced the screaming one out- 'But what will you miss?'
A long part of my younger life, I knew nothing about death, but when I finally did get to know it, I determined that I wanted to die young. When you die young, so full of potential and life, it hurts. People left behind say 'horrible' or 'may s/he rest in peace'. But when you die old, it's a normal thing. Besides that, even, comes the thought that when you die old, people can look back on your life and say 'could have done that better!' or 'would you THINK about what a mistake s/he made?!' but when you die young, you haven't done anything yet that warrents those thoughts and words; when you die young, all people can see is what you COULD have been. They don't see a child, they don't see a person who made mistakes...
People think of children dying as a little hope of another specialized insight going out the window; they remember dead children because they could have been ANYTHING...but the life was taken from them too soon. My point here, I think, is that I know I've reached the stage where people can think both things about me... An 18-year-old perishes, and people can say 'oh how sad, she didn't get to live out her life' or 'look at THAT mistake!' Either way is harmful... I know when I started this rant, I wasn't sure where I was taking it... but I think it's more about me... telling me that I shouldn't die just yet.

-Pathetic Otologist

Tension Felt in Your Joints

2009, January 29

Feeling: Trapped, Angry, Stolen, Fearful
Doing: Planning and Praying in DLS
Wearing: Shorts and Wife Beater
Current Book: Harry Potter
Lyric of the Moment: Beauty sits in the child's kiss of laughter....

I Feel as though much of me has been drawn into four distinct little piles in corners of my mind, so seperate in the laberynth it has created that they are too scared to come together and find themselves again. The piles seem to twist and morph and each has it's own feeling to it, it's own heart. It makes me feel like I have no hope other than to pray to god or whatever high powers may be that somehow I'll be able to coerce the walls of the laberynth down so they might find one another and allow me to feel that numb okayness once more. But they just sit there, writhing in thier own little groups and whimpering with thier own memories, too incomplete without each other to know full stories and making it just that much harder to concentrate.
The First Pile is the part of me that is closest to the surface; that part that is just too terrified of anything to do everything and can't move unless I look all 360 degrees just to be sure I'll not be killed in the crossing. It seems to have a deep grip to the wall it's huddled next to, and it makes me feel like I'll not be able to separate it from myself to save me. I hate this part most, and I know it's almost all others see of me, which makes me know why I have so few around me... They hate it just as much as I do, and yet I can't separate me from IT and IT from me.
The Second Pile is the semi-coherent part of my heart that longs so dearly for me to be able to just shut myself into a closet and die there, to be able to simply float in that dark void and forget all else because that would make things easy; that would make things tolerable. And this is the part that scares me most; the part that would be willing to close off that last door, snap that last thread to others and let me remain alone forever.
The Third Pile is the lingering darkness, and it seems to be huge but is really only a hollow space. It is the void that overrides me in panic, takes over my vision and orders me to find the smallest, most cold place I can to wake up from the nightmare; because that is the only reason for life, it's not real. It can't be real, no it must be a horrid nightmare and one day this third pile, if let to it's own, will take over and slash and cut and burn until I'm gone from the nightmare and it finds out that, maybe, it was wrong... But this one little pile also knows that there's a chance it could be right.
The Fourth Pile is the hopeless concern that I force out, play down and keep quiet. It doesn't scream and cry like the others, it merely sits there placatingly and folds in on itself, reaching out tentitively to run across the nearest wall as if to comfort quietly. It makes me feel like someday I could break away from the other three and be of use in the world; lets me see that no, I'm perhaps NOT as useless as I would have myself beleive... It makes me feel some form of a spark, the little light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, and it gently tells me that there HAS to be a way to bring them together to balance out in the end...

-Pathetic Otologist

Creaking Noises in Your Mind

2009, January 28

Feeling: Angsty, Concerned, Cornered, Angry
Doing: Thinking and Reading
Wearing: Striped Shirt and Boxers
Current Book: Harry Potter
Lyric of the Moment: Do you remember? It's playing on repeat...

The life I lead is slowly coming back to haunt me. I can't demand things from them, and yet I need to ask for small things to comfort them. I don't know what I want and what I need when I want or need them, so I ask for little things; fruit or pencils. Things I know will be used, will be of use. I feel rather guilty about it all, they seem to think It's me, though, and I have to begrudge them that... I never needed to ask for things, want things, because they would throw me in with my sister. I never had to make choices because I never had any.
When I went away, I felt like I could breathe, and when I came back from my trips, I felt like I was slipping back into this role that I was constantly trying to keep; the role of the daughter who knows how to please, how to be good... I was always told how good, how quiet, how helpful I was. And so I was broken into the belief that being good meant doing what I had been for ages; bever asking, never wanting, never needing.
It feels so odd to find these things that I want, that I crave now. It's like a new taste that you can't decide to hate or to love. It settles on you like a shock and slowly gaining on you. But you don't know if it's the shock or the actual taste of it you like or want. So you give it another, even more cautious try. And slowly you find that you can't tell the difference.
I feel as though I'm floundering, trying to find these things I can't reach and telling people I'm happy when I am just to be happy.
It's almost time to move and I feel like if I try hard enough I can change and give myself a new chance in this new place. My terminal aunt will be moving in with us and I feel like it's going to be a challenge to keep up with that pressure. Finding a job and being with my friends will take new priority and I'll force myself to buckle down for my license so I can escape when needed. Because I will need it; the one thing that will be easy for me to see and know... I'll need to escape.

-Pathetic Otologist