i pray the lord my soul to keep

I have been put under a spell.

I boast neither vanity nor false pretenses about my looks. Some girls are blessed with being extraordinarily pretty or striking, and I am not one of them. I have made peace with this. I’d rather be considered attractive for what lies beneath skin and bone.

Yet, in the small window of time before slumber, I am no longer the plain faced, short limbed creature that walks the Earth by day. I become reborn, my skin glowing from a fresh washing and my usually unremarkable figure being hugged by nightclothes. The invisibility of eyelashes and cheek hue only adds to the mystique. Before my very eyes, I have turned into a woman completely foreign to me. Yet she is familiar and safe.

I watch this stranger braid her hair in front of the bedroom mirror. She is some resurrection of Isolde, of Titania. Her nimble fingers entrance me, and her long tresses ripple down her back as if they were the current of a river. Someone could learn to love this apparition of the night.

The ritual finishes and the girl dives into her undefiled bed sheets. She shivers under their coolness, yet they are a chill that can only bring serenity. In one last habbit before sleep, she turns off the light and curls up under the blankets like a child in the womb.

In one of life’s many ironic tragedies, the few minutes that I am beautiful are also the ones that I am completely alone.

dysphoria/euphoria

There is an expanding pond of blood on the kitchen counter. On second look, it is the cough syrup you knocked over in your delirium. Your psyche is swimming with mirages and hallucinated conversations.

Do you hate me?
Why?
I was just wondering.
Oh.
Well, do you?
Yes.

“Tiffany, are you ok?” they ask. “Tiffany, you better go get some sleep. Let us clean up that mess”. They shove you Nyquil and vapor rub before you stumble down the stairs like a drunkard. Eyes shut, you begin to swim in a channel of medicated dreams. Now delivered from a swelling throat and coated lungs, a different kind of purgatory stands before you. The ghosts of the night hover around your bedside and whisper distant, feverish memories into your ear.

Why do you hate me?
I don't know.
Really?
No.
Please tell me.
You are loud, and needy, and you never remember what day of the week it is.
That is silly.
Also, you love me when I can't love you back. I hate that.
I'm sorry. I don't know how to stop.

You toss and turn through these nocturnal visions. You long to bolt upright, but the fumes in your brain refuse to let your eyelids do anything but remain tightly shut. Then, as quick as a change of thought allows, you are no longer suffocated by the nightmarish torture. You are transported into the loveliest wonderland imaginable. Waltzing around in blue frocks with white ribbons, chasing rabbits down holes, and playing croquet with the queen. You have been frozen into a painting, a concerto. You soak in the sweetness.

Do I disgust you?
No.
I don’t? That’s funny I always thought I did.
I think you’re perfect, let’s go for a walk.

When you awake, you cry to dream again.

tie me to the end

never neverland

These things you want him to know but can’t say. Plans you make and tactics you rehearse because you are afraid to stand still. Voices in your head, as clear as Joan of Arc’s own saints, leading you in every wrong direction achievable until you are dizzy with hesitancy

Reverie. Music so beautiful that each tendon and vein longs to weep. Peeling back the layers of defenses and fronts until there is nothing but a wisp of a girl. A lost, confused girl who does not know where she fits in the world. If you are not a child, and not an adult, than what are you? You are a transition, a cocoon, an ellipsis. Chasing every melody and finding sanctuary in the transcendence that only symphonies can bring.

There is a secret, hazy midnight dream that holds you back from reincarnation. And you cling. You cling and you hold on to the threads of what cannot and should not be. You plea and cry and appeal. If you don’t love me, dear, let me go.

There are days for explicitness, and days to be cryptic. Seasons in which you must cause a scene, and others where you disappear. You don’t mind sitting in the corner anymore. In fact, the world of imaginings is preferable.

lux lisbon

Those of us with constant inner dialogue tend to rarely get a good night's rest. We awake the next morning, haggard and aching, clinging to the delicious dreams we are destined to forget in a few hours time. Our lives are ruled by sensibility and a silent narration that turns the most mundane transaction into a thing of theatrics and bittersweet beauty. We mourn for our commonplace existence, but we are secretly too pleased with ourselves to feel more than a little sad. We are selfish creatures, all of us who prefer our own imaginings to actuality.

I keep on saying “I’ll start changing tomorrow” or “I’ll be a better person next week” when, in my heart of hearts, I know all too well that I will keep going on exactly as I have been. I write down an impressive list of goals that are guaranteed to never leap off the page and become an accomplishment. I’ve come to realize this technique will only work if you are courageous enough to bolt all the windows and doors behind you. The cold, unfeeling leap of faith is proving too great a feat for spineless little me.

If only these fellows knew how often I spend my evenings contemplating the irregularities of their behavior. One minute acting like an old friend, the next seemingly attracted to me, and then, as quick as a change from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde, they are condescending and ignoring! At these moments, I’m sure they hate everything about me. I pray for a bit of normalcy, and try to banish all my quirks. Alas, they are too fond of me to ever leave.

Shall I justify my eccentricities by explaining that I have been listening to heavy doses of Rachmaninoff and Debussy, reading too much Shakespeare and Chekhov? Clair de Lune and the art of longing must be old lovers, and Ophelia was the bedroom where they began their affair. My mind is so fixated on the past, on the make believe, on small gestures from yesteryear that only I would have the childishness to remember.

In my model of the universe, past, present, and future exist side by side. I’d like to think they are holding hands with one another. Time is fluid, and perhaps we are all swimming upstream.

half sick of shadows

Do you ever feel like a monster in need of a cage? My anger manifests in both passive-aggressive remarks and full-scale demonstrations of rage. I break pencils and hurl innocent pillows against the room when no one is watching. Ink stains on the bed sheets and a trembling hand that scribbles out half-legible phrases. Every so often, striving to be a better person in a civilized world seems like a hopeless endeavor. I want to raise my arms to the heavens and scream, “I can’t do this anymore, take me away”.

You make plans for the future, you pick someone to love, and you stare optimistically into the black nothingness of the future. You grow old. Do the details really matter? In retrospect, the particulars will become fuzzy and then fizzle out all together anyways. I look over these college applications and weep over my indecision. I lay awake at night, sleep no longer an instinct, and meditate the contents of imaginary love letters. I’m beginning to think I’m doing this whole life wrong. We agonize over our happiness until there is no hope for it at all. I must settle down and let the choices make themselves.

I wonder if I’m always this agonizingly incoherent. Even after praise and acknowledgment, I still fear I am nothing short of annoying. How does the rest of humanity walk around so self assured? Here I sit, cryptic and uncertain.

"How do you make God laugh?"
"Make plans."

Perhaps these writings would make more sense if I gave you an adjoining soundtrack to listen to while reading. The way my mind skips from verse, to chorus, to chord progression. The way I rest my hand to my cheek, letting out a frustrated sigh. There are lyrics that rest underneath this page, as I am unable to verbalize the internal changing of the tide without a nudge of musical encouragement.

I’m scared to make plans. Scared to get what I want, afraid it won’t be as good as I’ve dreamt it. Scared the catharsis I wait for will never come.