cardboardgarden

You are the embodiment of selfishness. You are determined to refuse a fellow coworker - probably the kindest, most selfless person on the staff - a few hours with her children just so you don't have to work with me. I wouldn't have thought it possible that you were actually uglier on the inside than on the outside, but congratulations, I'm a believer. You are the first person out of the many assholes I've met who I've genuinely found isn't worth the air they breathe. You have no redeeming qualities. The only people you are ever decent to are those who you perceive as nearly as apathetic as yourself, and only because you need them. I did a tarot reading for you the other day, and as I was visualizing you while interpreting the cards, I actually saw a veined web of tar void where normal people have a glow. You leave a trail of sludge behind you like some twisted, negative-energy slug. Did you make a deal with the devil?

The world will be a better place if you choke on your next Texas bacon double patty melt.

Her life is a somatic death
Halfway through the glass
She watches her reflection walk
Through ever-greener grass

She craves to end that other self
Draws blood to kill her past
His memory reminds her that
Her happiness can't last

Every thought belongs to him
She fights to gain control
A ceaseless lust builds within
Where once she felt so whole

She binges on her love for him
And purges it with tears
She knows it's an illusion
But she holds it all so dear

She stares toward that carefree self
And bids her to come nearer
But always she walks far beyond
The dark side of the mirror

There's giant brown 1.5-inch feeler bug...
And there's red/white/black mosaic poisonous-looking bug...
And there's shiny green fluorescent-winged bug...
And there's stick-legged walks-like-he's-having-a-seizure bug...

Totally unproductive day. Cool.

The Silo needs cleaning before it gets beyond the point of no return, and my website desperately needs to be coded if it's ever going to get launched. I was going to take care of that today, but my sore throat worsened and I decided to go to Taylor on campus to see a doctor. That process took two hours out of the day, and it turns out I've got acute tonsillitis - but if nothing else, I got a penicillin prescription and a note for work out of it. I finally bought a power cable for my computer that actually works (Cost me $90 - ouch - but it came with a dozen different tips and works with virtually every laptop) and returned the useless Walmart version, which I got a full refund for. Right now I'm finishing up my agonizingly simple six-hour online Defensive Driving course so I can get my speeding ticket off the record. All in all, a fairly productive day.

Last night I had a long (and mostly-honest) talk with Zach. I told him I liked him, but his insecurities and potential for clingyness were troubling to me. And that I'm still feeling too hung-up on the whole AJ thing to know if a relationship is really in the cards for me right now. I know it's not what he wanted to hear, but it needed to be said before he ended up Geddy number two. Anyway, it hasn't really changed anything, except maybe brought his expectations down a bit. Which is hard for me to think about.

I saw AJ for what will be the last time for at least a few months. And it's never going to be the same. This week has been one of the best experiences of my life, and I know it's because of him. The things he says and the way he touches me - I've never had a guy treat me better. Ever. Every day for the past week he's told me I'm beautiful, that he wants me. Last night while he was holding me, he whispered into my ear that he's going to miss me - so much - and asked if I'll miss him, if I'll remember him.

What? As if there should ever have been any doubt.

And now I'm crying, which is just silly. It's only been a week.
But I don't want to give it up. It's the last thing I want to do.

I don't regret any of it. I'm so glad that I lost my virginity to someone who treated me so amazingly sweetly. But it makes it too hard.

This will be my first night going to bed alone in a week.

I NEED A HUG.

I'm walking on rainclouds
I can see through the folds
Through to the world below
A thousand breaking souls

The window slowly closes
Through the darkened mist I crawl
I'm starting to gain focus
I'm remembering to fall

Through the steamy skies I drop
'Till bone and brick have met
The world opens his great jaws
And I've forgotten to regret.

Just trust me on this one.

Don't buy a tank. Don't buy fish. And whatever you do, don't let anyone else get involved.

You'll clean it, you'll use water conditioners, you'll pour in food and pH balancers and antibiotics and in the end the whole thing will just reflect your own inability to ever do anything right.

Okay, so it probably won't. You'll probably be one of the majority who can manage not killing off everything they want to love. But if you aren't, save yourself the anxiety and just drink yourself into oblivion when you feel like you need a hobby.

I had a considerably more terrifying dream last night.

At about 3:00 in the morning, I woke up (sort of) so frightened that I went to my mom's room and tried to get her to convince me everything was okay. Even though I was awake, I was seeing things from my dreams. I had to turn away from the bedside table because I could have sworn there were rotting skulls behind the big plant that sat on it. I can't really remember what had happened at this point in the dream, except that everyone was killing everyone else in the most gruesome ways possible. This horrible, murderous face was following me, showing me the dead. I fell asleep on my mom's bed and woke up an hour or so later. I felt better, so I went back to my room.

I don't remember any part of the dream that took place while I was napping on the edge of mom's bed, but she said in the morning that at one point I suddenly sat up and screamed, "Thirty!"

I remember the rest a little more clearly: I was in a shopping mall, trying to find someone with an antidote for some potent, horrible chemical that had gotten into a cut on my hand (I think Ozzy Osbourne put it there, but don't quote me on it). The antidote was called seneca, and it was evidently illegal, but I needed to find it. Someone promised to have the stuff, but rather than give it to me spent a good chunk of time trying to make a sale of some other product. One male member of our group - I don't know who it was - stood up and left. He was dressed like the devil, but with long, spindly, antler-like horns.

Outside, Brycen was being killed by his mom. She hoisted him up into the air in a harness. I don't know what else she did to him, but I heard two gunshots, and I could see that he was still alive, though his body was twisted and his eyes were unfocused. I was terrified again, just as terrified as I had been at the beginning of my dream.

I don't know why I'm suddenly dreaming again. Normally I can't remember a thing, and I haven't actually woken up scared for my life since I was seven or eight years old.

What a fucked up night!

At a restaurant, my dad and stepmother eat horse meat rare. I feel angry and betrayed.

I lose my car keys. I don't know where to go or how to get there.

I figure out that I'm in China. I'm at a harbor full of boats.

A boy and his mother are trying to escape something in his attic. I don't know what they were, cougars, maybe?
(Brace for weird gruesomeness)
The boy shuts the door on his dog's tongue but can't open it without letting the cougars in. He needs something to tie the door handle in shut. He rips a ribbon of the dog's skin from its belly. It doesn't whimper or struggle, but I can see the poor thing's insides. I feel nauseated and helpless. The boy's mother promises to take the dog to the vet after all this. The boy says that the dog will die too quickly. I'm not a part of this scene, but I hate the boy as much as I've ever hated anything in a dream.

I'm a ghost. I think I'm still in the boy's house. There are two other ghosts here, but I only see one - it's a shapeshifting animal. I see it as a lionfish. Someone is trying to get into the house; I try to scare them away by throwing things, but they come after me. I am a goddamn GHOST and I am still having a being-chased, running-away dream! I am invisible, but they can still feel and grab me. I feel like the woman can almost see me, because no matter where I run she follows. The man has a net. I must not really be a ghost, because he catches me in that net, and what the hell kind of ghost can be caught like that?

WEDNESDAY
Broken pencils in writhing hands.
Who the fuck cares about Jacques Cartier, anyway?
One last cigarette to calm my nerves and curb my cold sweat.
A few minutes to pack, then on the road.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tickety-tock...
Joplin, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas...
32 miles to Georgetown.
Oh, God, where am I?
Headlights flicker behind.
Nodding off at ninety-five.
Sleep.

THURSDAY
It's already half past noon.
Shower, dress, breakfast.
A soft heat and a gentle breeze.
Goat kids, flicking tails and bleating.
Back home, Law and Order.
A fight, because they don't understand.
They're people, can't you see that?
It's not a joke.
I cry. It's been a while since I did that.
They stop and stare, silence screams.
She apologizes.
Then he does.
They begin to understand, and so do I.
My friends are the strongest people alive,
Because they have to be.

FRIDAY
The smell of horses and cedar.
Tacking up, going out.
Cantering across the lawn.
Texas skies go on forever.
Letting go of EVERYTHING, if only for a moment.
Horse sweat smells like redemption.
I need a cigarette.
It's 2 PM.