i-told-u-its-skittles

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

digging up this old thing to put thoughts unto the void once more. "ohoooo you're all horrible for harassing people like this over meaningless ships on the internet" is the most pathetic hill to die on that would be funny if it wasn't taken so seriously. Like. You realize that shipping is an active choice people make right. My brother in Christ you are the one shipping siblings of your own free will you can simply Not Fucking Do That and not be harassed, I'm sorry

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

When I was five I thought I had the greatest memory in the world.

I could picture anything I had seen,

Rattle off a list of facts like an answering machine.

I took pride in it so much for something so small.

I was so good. I was so smart.

My memory seems to get worse every year.

I forget things as soon as I hear them.

Faces and names pass through my mind like water.

It's not really pictures. I'm not sure it ever was, to be honest.

(If my honesty is worth anything, when I cannot remember the truth.)

I don't remember firsts. I don't remember dates. Or to-do's.

Flashes and concepts, a bit. But mostly, it's words.

Facts and numbers and rants and music and everything that would spill from my mouth in a tangled twisted mess of slurred sounds and restarts as I try and try and try to dissect the noise in my head the constant mass of songs and sounds and words always firing from A to B to D to M to K to T to Z to

A subway map of a train of thought, and the city never sleeps.

It was, perhaps, probably, always this way.

A five year old is not expected to remember everything. It is impressive, when they remember the order of planets from the sun, even if they forget their brother's birthday.

As I get older the gaps grow wider, along with the net.

I still know the order of the planets, and every ancient god of their namesakes. I only have the month of his birthday.

What the world seems to miss is that it's all connections. Like the webs of string I'd draw across rooms as a child;

Mars is third because Earth is fourth right after it, and Jupiter is the roman equivalent to Zeus like how Juno is Hera, and is also a satellite sent to Titan searching for life, for any spark down in the deep blue sea anything left under the ice anything moving beyond static readings of facts and numbers and words—

It all comes back in cascade.

What is a birthday? A date? In relation to what?

Everything is connected, except when it isn't.

Nothing exists to me without one thing to lead to another. Names are just sole, isolated sounds. Dates are just a string of numbers, a concept of time. Lost in the void between train tracks.

I'm sorry, I can't remember your name. I swear it isn't personal, I just have a horrible memory. Sorry.

Sorry.

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

It hasn't really sunk in yet, I think

That my best friend is dying of their own volition

And I don't know what to do about it

I should probably panic

Act more outwardly worried

But I've never been one for that

I bury

I avoid

I fracture

I write awful poetry at one am to post where no one will see

Do they know how much I'll miss them?

Will I miss them? It's been hell, these past few years

Middle school feels a millenia away

I have been trapped in the passenger seat

Of a car crash

Of my friend down the street

Burning

Burnout

Bygone days of sunshine

I know about the knife to their arms

I know about starvation

I make jokes. I deadpan. I stare tiredly into the middle distance

I wish so badly that someone would see how this hurts me

Pray to God every day that they won't

I write songs. You won't hear them.

When it is dark out, I compose the tear stained eulogy

That I will give at your too-soon funeral

I couldn't leave if I wanted to

Jumping on the grenade,

It won't save you any more than it saves me

You live just down the street

There is a concert I will give, someday soon

Of all the songs I wrote you that you can never hear

I think I will be reading this poem

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

in other news, I think I might be ace

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

Do you ever think if you passed that ghost of your future you've been chasing on the street you would recognize it?

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

A Game:

I will be Orpheus

You, Eurydice

Follow, follow

I won't look

Do you see the gate?

Follow, follow

Where are your footsteps?

I won't look

Follow, follow

Eurydice, are you not coming?

Why not follow?

I won't look, I promise

This is a blindfold

I promise, see?

Eurydice

There is a light

Where are you?

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

Signed, yours truly

~ The Whale ~

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

Your are so lonely, so very very lonely

You know this as you know your name

With an unwavering uncertainty.

But you think you are lonely

As you look at the empty screen

And hear others talk of their full ones

Complain about them.

But you think you are lonely

As you don't speak up

And no one seems to notice.

And you say you aren't lonely

When your mother says she's worried

When your father says he's worried

When you ask yourself

"Am I broken?"

And you think that you are lonely

Not deep down, but on the surface

When you sit at the corner.

When you stand on the empty stage

And sing to a crowd that does not know your name.

But you don't cry

Not but for the tragedies

Save for the music that comes like a soft blanket

On your very lowest days

And traps you there like lead

Like poison.

You never cry, except at movies.

Lonely, lonely, lonely.

Lonely, says the internet

You are afraid to be alone.

Lonely, it says

You make beautiful things from it

But they are all so lonely.

Everything you have ever made

Has been saturated with your loneliness

Tangible like raindrops

Leaving a bitter taste on the air.

You are so lonely you cannot breathe of it

Cold fog fills your lungs so you let yourself suffocate.

You do not know if you don't know how to stop

Or just don't want to learn.

As much as it hurts it feels right

You crave it like cigarettes, like phone screens, like air.

It feels so lovely to be alone

Your melancholy is so beautiful you cannot help it

Cannot help but to love it.

You wonder if you watched the sunrise from the crucifix

As you starved

And you wonder if you liked it

If you knew this was what you were meant for

And accepted.

You are so lonely, so very very lonely.

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

not to start disk horse but does anyone else here think that this whole "use block to personalize your media experience!" movement seems like an excellent way to streamline creating social bubbles and compound confirmation bias, on of all places one of the few social media sites that doesn't already use an algorithm to essentially do that for us?

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

*deep inhale*

I'M A BROKEN MAN ON A HALIFAX

PIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

been playing that diablo 3 game and just wanna say congrats on diablo for successfully transing her gender through dark magic

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

Remembering the time that my mom told me she was pretty sure everyone in our house was high-functioning autistic/aspie on the same day I was just thinking that the "ghost" in our house that takes our stuff and puts it back in incredibly obvious places we could've sworn we checked like a week later sounds a lot like ADHD

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

I am a girl.

That sentence feels wrong. Maybe because I want it to.

I am not a girl.

Now that I type it out, it feels so natural, so right.

Now that I speak it, I'm not sure. What is it about these wires, this screen, that plays with me like this? Is it MY wiring, autism something that feels so right, feels true, with an outside confirmation now.

I mean, confusion about gender is something that happens to people like me, right? Should I ignore this, the tightness in my chest, the weirdness about the very shape of me.

But then again, I think myself in circles so much I just. Don't. Know.

Is it normal for people like me to freeze when asked for pronouns, or sometimes even a name?

To stop and start and shift something to the left the first time a podcast character says he is a lady and he/him, and to hold that in my mind for days? To catch a concept in a single fleeting fanfiction and let it consume me?

To be drawn to this as a moth is to a flame?

Gender Not Found

Gender Not Found

Gender Not Found

But it doesn't feel right the more times I say it.

My mother would hate it. Not me, but for what this feeling did to one of my cousins. I don't know if that hurdle, a seeming insurmountable barrier is protecting me or only causing me more grief.

Anyways, I think I'm okay now

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

so the penumbra podcast did end up making me question my gender. this is. this is fine.

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

I don't know what I want to write today, I just know I have a lot to say.

Exam finals are starting up, and my head is filled with cotton. I can't focus, can't think.

Something feels desprately, desprately wrong.

It doesn't matter, it won't matter, it'll be fine. Everything is fine.

I'm okay.

But, oh fuck, I'm going to let them all down. I've gone and messed it up. Nothing can every be okay.

Everything is fluff, I'm drifting. Music makes it worse, drags me away from the screen that I hate. I try something new. Words help, but not the ones right now. New words, good words.

Purple.

A radio announcer speaks. "Welcome, to Night Vale." and I can finally, finally, get something done.

"This has been Wolf 359," my headphones say as the oasis dries up with the paint on my hands. I miss the stars already. Silence and stagnation fills me. The radio isn't for now. I need the stars.

"Welcome to the Penumbra," says a new voice, unfamilliar and feminine. I fall yet again.

And I wonder, how did it take me so long to get here?

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

Shout out to the kids with parents who they still get along with but don't feel comfortable talking to. Shout out to the kids with the world on their shoulders who are starting to break. Shout out to the kids who are burning slowly without crashing. Shout out to the kids who don't talk about mental issues or gender or sexuality or anything personal with their parents. Shout out to the kids who feel like they're scared of nothing around their family. Shout out to the kids who's heartrates pick up at any kind of serious conversation tone. Shout out to the kids who don't know the difference between what they want and what they think is expected anymore. Shout out to the kids who don't think they have a reason to feel this unsafe around their parents, because it's not like they ever actually did anything. Shout out to-

[i-told-u-its-skittles]

My great-aunt is selling her cottage.

It's hours drive out over on Lake Huron. I used to dread the ride as a kid but I'd play my Nintendo 3DS the whole time, so I guess it doesn't really matter. The drive didn't seem so long last time I went. We go every Canada Day to meet with relatives and stay the weekend and light fireworks.

The building has two stories, and the kitchen ceiling takes up both of them. There is always sand on the back doormat, and sunscreen bottles on the side table near it. There is a big glass piece filled with sea glass we collect at the beach. There are rooster paintings and figures and sculptures everywhere, and this huge stuffed rinocerous in the upstairs. In the early mornings I would creep downstairs and play Pokemon and eat cereal while the rest of the house woke up. There is a couch that's more of a bench with a cushion, weirdly wrapped posts an uncomfortable backrest. There's an acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner, steel stringed and distinctly difficult to play.

There is a cliff at the edge of the yard, past the swing set and fire pit, and the picnic table that all the kids eat lunch at. A set of finely sanded stairs go down it to the edge of the lake, the rock wall buffing the dirt against the small waves. There was sand where our stairs went down when I was small, but there hasn't been for years. I'm told the lake swells in cycles, it would go back down again soon. I've never seen it fall, only rise, and now I never will.

Out in the water there is a big, squarish rock, not worn smooth and further out to shore that any others further down the beach. Fine, slick seaweed we used to throw at each other clings to it's sides. We would play "king of the hill" on that rock, and laugh as someone fell. If you go right, you'll meet a set of corrugated metal dividers jutting out roughly ten feet, with small corners of soft damp sand. To the left there is a beach of hotter fine sand baked in sun, scattered with twigs and seagull feathers.

And the rocks! Just below the waterline, the beach filled with small smooth stones, worn round by the tossing of the lake and free for taking. A rainbow of colours drawn out by water, greens and reds and even pinks and orange. Patterned and smooth and striped, some riddled with fossilized imprints, and with seaglass strung through the bay like stars. I never see rocks like that at other beaches. I miss them. I used to paint the blander ones, but I ran out of them well over a year ago.

The rocks hurt to walk over, but once you reach a sandbar it is smooth swimming. We'd bounce up over the small crests of waves and ride the push back to shore when we were tired. Somewhere down the cliff there was a section made of soft clay, we made bowls once when I was young. Past that a small river meets the lake, and you can climb a hill for a stunning picturesque view of the waves. The unending peaceful calm of the lake stretching on for eternity towards the sun. Sunset sparkles there, brighter than glitter and gold, each evening a new painting on the grand canvas of water and sky.

There is something special about the Great Lakes, unending like the sea but calmer than you ever picture the ocean to be. Sometimes, I had envied it's serenity and wished for excitement, for the riptides and surfboards and chaos I sung. Now I only miss it dearly, like an old friend you weren't ready to let go of, or the phantom feel of cut hair. But "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" is not a song we sing without reason, the Lakes have teeth and they will bite.

Fuck, I miss that beach.

I miss the days waiting for July 1st. The chaos of meeting the relatives you only see at holidays, hours out drive from the cottage themselves too. Hours in the basement trying to win at Mario Kart. Learning how to push myself on the rope swing set. Manhunt in the dark with only flashlights. Rainy days populated by empty pages with graphite and tilt mazes. Daring each other to climb the twisted old willow tree. Harmonies around a campfire with an out of tune guitar. The thunderstorm and blackout and spilling glow sticks on my dress. The one time we went swimming at sunset and it felt like we were breaking rules. Crickets at my window as I try to fall asleep over the chatter of voices drifting up the woodsmoke. Hardcover story books with watercolour illustrations. I'd loved it, every second of it.

It's been nearly three years since I've been up there, since I've seen the home of my golden days.

Fuck, I miss that house.

And I hate it. I hate the flat echo that's the dry river of rocks in our backyard. I hate how worn the baseball cap I wore last time is, how small the clothes are. I hate the tiny scraps of seagrass in my closet like an aborted hug. Hate the fact that I might never see some of them again because I don't know where. Hate that the only song I ever got to play at that campfire was Riptide by Vance Joy because it was all I knew, and I hate how it fits the story.

Above it all, I hate that I never got to say goodbye.

Life Of Pi has an interesting passage I cannot remember now, as I type this up in 2am catharsis. But it's about how as Richard Parker left the boat, he didn't look back. Never said goodbye. Just ran on ahead into the jungle, left Pi on the beach alone with no acknowledgement of the tragedy and life they had shared. And I do not know if I am the tiger never looking back, or the desperately lonely boy on the beach who will forever be without closure. There is nothing worse than a botched goodbye. I never even knew to think that I was going, as we drove away that last time. That, dear reader, is the part that stings. I never even knew.

And now I'm haunted by this, and a thousand songs and melodies like salt in the wound stuck inside my head. It is far too late and I can't sleep. Did you read this? Or did you just scroll past. I'm not adding a cutoff this time, I am splashing it loud across this digital self like a banner.

Will you read my story about a house by a lake? Or is it just as insignificant as everything else in this void. Of code, of wires, of carbon, take your pick. All I want, is a nice, smooth rock from that beach, and it is too much to ask.

Fuck, I miss those days.