#I don’t have the heart to leave our girl out like that since the UB buds are a bit more Durable

[min-mage-ing]

Part 2 to this post since folks wanted Mel to get some rest. It happens,,,, eventually :^) spoiler for book 2!

[shannygoatgruff]

My Brother’s Keeper - Chapter IX

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Modern Ivar X Modern Hvitserk

Rating: MA 

Overall Warning:  Dark story told from an emotionally distributed person’s POV with graphic and sadistic material including rape, terror, torture, kidnapping, drug use, slash, implied incest, necrophilia, and insecurity. Heavy trigger warnings.  

Chapter Warning: Drug use, talk of spiraling out of control

Summary: Mama always said to be their brothers’ keeper. Now there is absolutely nothing these two won’t do for each other.  Boys will be boys…

Chapter IX

Why the fuck am I watching the news?  This is what flipping through channels gets me.  I should have never stopped when I saw this bitch’s face.  I fucking hate her. 

Now, I either want to put my fist through the TV or pull my damn hair out.

Fuck, I hate this bitch! She’s no different from the rest of these news assholes. Always trying to dig up some shit that should be left alone. Putting all of our personal business on blast like that...pieces of shit. And this whore is the worst of them.  She's purposely trying to make Ivar and I look bad. 

"Police are trying to find a common thread between these murders. The victims have all been found in remote areas throughout the county.  The coroner reports each victim showed signs of sexual trauma and or torture, pre- or post-mortem. While police have no suspects, in these killings, they do believe they are all connected and have been committed by the same perpetrator.  Witnesses to the last two victims’ disappearances have described seeing a Caucasian male, between the ages of 18-35, approximately 5’8” – 6’2”, medium build, with medium to dark hair, leaving with the victims. If you have any information about these victims or the suspect, please call Detective Torstein, Homicide." The white numbers for the police station flash on the screen under this bitch’s face.  

“You fucking cunt!” I don’t know what just fell to the floor as I kicked the coffee table in front of the couch.  She has no right to show fucking pictures and the names of our past guests.  But, I’ll be damned, if they are there.  All the ones from this month: Halfdan, Porunn, Astrid, and Erlendur.  None of them looked like that when we met them.  Then, they were all slutted up and ready to please.  But looking at these pictures, they look like they’re a part of a fucking church choir.  

You bitch!

But, fuck you news-lady, you forgot one. You forgot about that girl we met at the concert. I almost did. At least, I can keep one of those special nights sacred without you fucking it all up and turning it into some freak show for these news groupies to salivate over.  

Shit, I just wish I could remember that whole night. 

I can only remember meeting her and bringing her back to the cabin.  I remember she was a great lay, and that looked fucking amazing. But that’s it.  Every time I try to remember what we did, or how many times we did it or anything else, there’s like a blank spot.  I don’t know if Ivar got to try anything new with her, or what.  

Ivar said I blacked out, again.  Did she pass out before or after he got to her?   Did she try to escape?  Did he punish her long and hard for that?  Did she cooperate and he let her go?  Is that why she wasn’t on this little photo lineup? What the fuck I am saying? He wouldn’t’ve done that shit.  They just haven't found her body, yet. 

That bitch reporter is smiling again. She's enjoying all the fucking lies and the smear campaign that she’s creating against us. "Stay tuned for more information on these murders as they become available. Judith Wessex, reporting, Action 10 News."

"Lying bitch!" Just the look on her face and the sound of her voice is driving me crazy. She doesn't know us. She has no right to say those kinds of things about us. Nobody tortured or brutalized anybody. It was all in fun. They were into it.  

Ivar takes the remote from my hand and tucks it into his palm, "You don't need to watch this." He's been extra protective since I woke up in his bed. I can't do anything. He must have really been scared after this last blackout because he won't let anything upset me. Changing the channel, he settles on something non-threatening; Property Brothers. He knows I love that show. "There. That's better."

"I'm fine, Ivar,” I lie, “that bitch on the news just got under my skin.”  I reach over to pick up the ashtray – when did I start smoking so much?  I’m already on my second pack today and I’ve only been awake since noon.  

"I know you are. But you get bothered so easily. I just want you to take it easy." His smooth voice caresses my ears and instantly gives me goosebumps on my arms. But he knows the damage is already done. Standing behind me, he holds his arms out on either side of my head, with his fists out in front of me.  “Left or right?  Pick one.”

I have no idea what’s in his hands, but since we’re both right-handed, I nod toward his right hand.  He tilts my head back so I’m looking up at him.  “Open up.”  I obediently do as I’m told and feel three pills of varying size hit my tongue. 

He quickly places a kiss on my forehead as I sit up to swallow the pills dry. Turning in my seat, I watch as he drops the pills from his left hand into his mouth.  He holds his tongue out for me to see his four pills before his tongue darts back into his mouth.

“What was that?” I try to swallow hard enough to make the pills slide down my throat.  Hopefully, it’s something that’ll make me stop wanting to throw this fucking television out of the window.  

Ivar shrugs and smiles, “Fuck if I know.  I found them in my coat pocket.  Guess we’ll find out shortly.”  He picks up the dishtowel that he had sat down on the back of the couch and slings it over his shoulder, "Anyway, Serk, that shit that reporter said wasn't true. She's just trying to fuck with us. Trying to make us slip up." He starts to walk out of the room but stops and turns around with a huge smile.  "Maybe we should party with her." His smile immediately fades when he sees how upset she's made me. "Awe, brother… don't worry about that bitch. I'll kill her if you want."

"They know what we look like, Ives."

"How many white guys are there in the world, Serk? They can’t even agree on my goddamn hair color.” He leans against the wall and folds his arms across his chest. “I took care of everything. No one knows. No one will ever find out." There is such honesty and power in his voice that I can’t help but trust that he believes this.  I know he wouldn’t chance anything getting in the way of the life that we've built together.

But, there’s still that part of me that fears that our world is about to come crashing down around us. What would I do if I didn’t have this outlet or God forbid they took Ivar away from me? 

"I can't handle this shit anymore. Fucking bitch reporters are lying on us. Stupid fucking cops are trying to dig shit up and sticking their pig noses where they don't belong." Everything as of late is running through my mind. This use to be so much fun, but now everyone else is fucking it up. "Something wrong with me. My blackouts are getting worse.  We went out and I can't remember it. I can't remember jack shit from the past week! Who the fuck blacks out for a whole week?  How long can I go on like this before something really fucked up happens?" 

It feels like my throat is closing and I’m starting to sweat.  My heart rate is speeding up and I think I’m about to die.  I can’t breathe.  Jesus, why does Ivar put up with me when I'm like this? "I'm fucking up at work. Fucking Ub is gonna come here and start asking questions. Thora’s gonna fucking leave me.  You're gonna get tired of taking care of me! Shit's just all fucked up." I sit forward with my arms on my thighs and try to catch my breath.  I try so hard not to give into the fear, but fuck if I'm not feeling it leak out of my pores. 

This is why I need Ivar.  Thora could never handle me like this. I can't even handle me when I get like this. "I don't know how much more I can take, Ivy. I can't do this shit, no more! I can't."  All the air I’m trying to gulp in isn’t helping at the moment.

Standing before me with a concerned look on his face, he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "Hvitserk Ragnarsson." And there it is - that voice that I fucking hate.  That voice Father used to keep us in line.  Ivar rarely uses that voice, but when he does it immediately gets my attention.  I look at him obediently as he sits on the edge of the couch next to me and studies my face.

The amount of emotion in me is overwhelming and before his hand even reaches up to touch my hair, my throat starts to ache, my head hurts and my eyes are stinging. Shit. 

Ivar's arms around me remind me just how much I need him and how important he is to me. "I'm sorry." I lean my head back on the pillow and let the tears run down my face. I’m so embarrassed and tired of always losing my shit.  But true to form, his arms are around my neck and he presses his lips to my cheek and coos sweetly in my ear until I feel my fear dissipates.

With a smile on his face, he turns my head to his. "Better now?" His thumbs trace my tears as he holds my head in his hands. The look in his eyes tells me that everything is going to alright and I believe him. A simple nod of my head convinces him that the worst is over and with that, he places the gentlest kiss on the tip of my nose. I don't how he does it, but he always makes it better. "Come on," he takes my hand to pull me off the couch with him, "I baked cookies."

Now I just feel silly. I had another meltdown and truthfully I can't remember why especially when I see the plate of fresh-baked cookies that he has laid out on the kitchen table. Whatever was wrong with me just moments before seems trivial. It's amazing how he just always seems to know what to do to make everything better.

Ivar's back is to me as he looks out of the kitchen window, but judging by the way his neck is arched, he's taken an interest in something. "We have new neighbors." His voice is distant, almost like he's speaking without thinking.  He can’t tear his eyes away from whatever is outside, but his head turns the slightest bit to face me.  

I’ve never seen him entranced this before. Ivar never fixates. These neighbors must be amazing.

I stuff a chocolate chip cookie into my mouth and pick up another one on my way to the window. He's right. A new young couple is moving in right next door and the woman is exceptionally beautiful. Her eyes are big and bright, her face is like silk and she has this refreshingly innocent look about her. It's enough to remind me that I haven't called Thora since the last night she was here.

Then there's the guy with her. There's something in the proud way he stands... the way his muscles protrude from the sleeves of his t-shirt, and the powerful way in which he slips his arms around her and lifts her off the ground…It makes my top lip sweat and a tingle start at the base of my skull. 

I can't move. I can only stand here and chew my cookie as I watch these beautiful creatures in front of me. “They are perfect,” My voice comes out like a dream.  I don’t even recognize the sound of it. 

As soon as I look over at him and see that gleam in his eye, I know that he already knows. They are perfect.

He lifts my hand to his mouth and takes a bite of the cookie I'm holding. "Yes. They. Are." Chewing, he nods his head and smiles. "We should welcome them to the neighborhood." He always says that the only way to get over the last one is to take a new one. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

Something happened with the last girl. Something bad enough to make me forget the most important things. I wish I could remember that night because I want to know that I showed her a good time, but I don't want to remember why I lost control. It's no use worrying about it now. I can't dwell on old memories. I can only look forward to making new ones. New memories with my new neighbors.

No matter what I've done before or how I feel about it now, the only thing I can concentrate on at this very moment is the dull gnawing in my gut. I need something to keep my mind off of all of this shit. 

I need this. I need them. I may always be fighting with the half a conscience I have, but the growling inside of me is usually much louder than it.

The beast inside of me is awake again. And it's so damn hungry.

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[lighthouseofthewanderess]

Shirkers

Yesterday night, I watched a Netflix Original Documentary called Shirkers, set in Singapore. It was a story about enthusiastic teens filming a movie in the early days when there were only reels and cans of film. Their director, ‘a man of untraceable age and origin’, absconded thereafter with the tape and they <spoiler alert> never heard about the footage until he died. As I went to sleep after it, I mulled about what I had seen. The way a 2-hour piece left me registering just a few shots -- the close-ups of mosquitoes taped onto notebooks, the cigarettes that every woman smoked, and Catcher in the Rye. The movie’s overarching theme was that in the world there were the shakers and the movers, and then there were shirkers. The ones who got up and ran away, broke free and did whatever they wanted to do. Zero responsibility. Here’s a new word for myself, I thought as the concepts was unraveled. I was a wanderess, a Benjamin Button, and now I was a shirker in my own sense.

My teenage years were a breeze for my mom. It was almost as though she braced herself for it but I never got in to any trouble. I was being a responsible adult like I had always been. The more I grew up, the more that word started to feel heavy on my shoulders. Choke me and mock me. So what did I do when I couldn’t keep it calm around me anymore? I ran away and avoided it. This was the mind state with which I moved to Pune. Unleash the freedom, let me taste what everyone’s going gaga about I thought as I got off the bus with my mom in tow on a rainy, gloomy day. I was left with some staff of the college first as we didn’t have any vacancy at PGs. It was both a good thing and a bad thing. Bad part was my mom paid a bomb for them to just let me occupy some space. The good part was that I dived into a new world and tried to take it all in. The red-eared turtles that had super soft necks. The Sundays spent watching them wax each other. The smell of tadka in the air as they all rushed in the morning to work. Every day I learned something new. And I processed it with all too much time in my life. I lazed around, spoke to the turtles, took them on a walk and sometimes I just sat in a bakery nearby and watched the people. In the rain, they all looked like huge ants scattering about.

When college started, I still had a lot of time. There was always one movie project in production, mostly with one of the seniors. I hung around them and helped wherever I could. We sneaked into parks were permission was denied, and shot in the blind spots where there were no cameras. And when we wrapped up and left, everyone looked like this was the only way to do it. We asked them nicely, but they denied. What else to do? Don’t worry so much about it. I on the other hand, was filled with euphoria that I got away with some trouble. So it was possible -- to do whatever you wanted and not fall prey to the normalcy with which others struggled. It was as though a very limited world, with rules set in stone, all vanished to leave a blank canvas. The real question was how was I going to fill it in and make it mine? Around this same time came the thought that changed me as a person. It divided my space and time into two halves -- the goody-two shoes girl who listened to everyone, had a plan for everything and always stayed two steps ahead of the rest, and the new procrastinator who went against her one-member family, stumbling and learning, but all the while loving and growing. I believed, in many ways, what Shirkers was trying to say: “In order to move forwards, you have to move backwards.” I had to unlearn the things that I thought were right so that I can look at the world with an objective eye. I had to let go of trying to earn praises from people so that I can find myself and give this new me to the world. And for Benjamin Buttons, this is a very hard thing to do. I started experimenting again, but this time not with hobbies or food. I was trying to stay true to myself and act in a way I wanted to be perceived instead of what others wanted to see me as. I forced myself to take breaks, slow down and try not to hold everything other. When I started doing that, things crumbled to ashes. I watched some ambitions burn down, some expectations lurking in the corner, waiting to be picked up and met. I felt I had made a wrong decision to be a Shirker and run away from my responsibilities. But once I had my pile of ashes, it was easy for me to be reborn. With everything shed, I could now choose a new identity. When I visited Bangalore every few months, my friends had started seeing the change. Some even stopped talking to me because they felt I had strayed too far. My mom was annoyed I wasn’t keeping my room clean. That I was up all night and sleeping in late. And me? I was beaming inside-out. This is the new me; and I’m a Phoenix. When I am bored of myself, I will burn every trace of my identity down and build myself up again. How cool yet powerful was that possibility? I could do it at will and don any hat I want. And to mark this rebellious phase and make it absolutely clear that I care only about myself, I went and got a tattoo on the back of my neck. It was a Phoenix.

There was a pack of wolves that I ran with in Pune. Prerna’s family, the Mahtanis Each one of them -- her, her sister, and her mother -- were all shirkers. They had some basic responsibilities in place but other than that they had their own version of UBE going on. From painting backdrops for birthday parties to choreographing sangeets at weddings, the two sisters did it all. And that energy, for me, was infectious. It was what I thrived on, no matter how less we slept or how unproductive an off day seemed. I left my flatmates behind and started living with them. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Archana would take out the car and we’ll just ride off into the dark. Buy ice cream (buy some meds as well), and head back. The house saw us play board games, do havans, party till morning, as well as work our assess off. This is life I told myself, but like always I would be wrong.

I got bored of that routine too. I wanted more than dhoklas for breakfast, and long rides from college to home. More importantly, I needed a change of scene. It’s time to burn down this chapter of my life. So I made the move back to Bangalore. Since I had freelanced a bit in Pune, I got into an ad agency and slowly worked on what adults do. A career. As I stepped back into goals and dreams I found myself sorely disappointed. I had it in my head that come what may, I will publish a book when I turn19. This later turned to 21. What was I doing when I was 21? That’s right, editing my film with a horrible hangover. Then I sifted through all my years in Pune -- it felt like I had done absolutely nothing in life while others were carefully building themselves for the world! The lesson was learnt; shirkers cannot be shirkers forever. For me to splurge and do what I wanted, I need a career that will get me the means too. And if I wanted to grow super fast, I needed to work super hard and forget the fun a little. Goodbye scrapbooking. Goodbye long nights nursing a bottle. Goodbye Shirker.

4 years into that change, the familiar and unsettling feeling crept in again. I knew I had to unwind a bit more, air out my mind a bit more, and simply let go of the world for a while. Bitterness had set in and was festering in my work. I couldn’t love what I did for a living, and because of that I didn’t love myself too. Walking in to work, I would just stop on the first flight of stairs and breakdown. Then it turned into waking up and breaking down. The idea of not being happy and yet confining to something I decided to do was tearing me in two. What was I doing with my goddamn life? My health was too messed up -- internal hemorrhaging, abnormally high thyroid, eye infections and a slew mental illnesses. I knew what the problem was, but I was afraid to risk what I had going on for me at work.The Shirker in me wanted to forget it all and disappear. And that’s exactly what I did.

I took a 2-week break and traveled alone; it worked like magic. I went back to running up some stairs to catch the sunrise on top of a lighthouse. I stood rooted in the storm and snuck in to the warmth of my room, drenched and satisfied. I stuck my tongue out and tasted morning air as I waited for my coffee. But most of all, I felt lighter. I used my phone only to take pictures, which I would compile into an Insta story at the end of the day. For the larger part, I would carry my faithful doodle knapsack which contained: a book, a notebook, my Instax, a water bottle, some money all rolled up and hidden. When I came back home, I came back with the idea that I didn’t have to choose between a Shirker and a shaker. And folks, is how I ended up writing this book. I asked Shivangi what she’s up to and she introduced NaNoWriMo to me. A whole month to dish out whatever you want to write from your heart. Why not, I thought. I shall take three steps back with my ‘must-publish-before-21’ dream so that I can propel myself forward with greater speed. Hello forever shirker.

[r10tp00f]

Shame

You don’t need me to tell you how ashamed of myself I am. On the other hand, I’ve had occasion to wonder many times with many people in my life if the extent of my shame is something anyone besides Wendy, my therapist, has appreciated or understood. My shame about class and money is somewhere in, like, my top ten sources of shame? After fat shame and ugly shame and failure shame and crazy shame, so it’s fifth, maybe.

I think the first time I felt shame about money I was eight. Third grade. The trailer park we lived in, which was called McGarrity’s, for some reason never explained to me, was owned by a man named Frank Conger, who was the music teacher and chorus director at Soddy Elementary, where I went to school. The trailer itself we owned outright, because my mother and father, in what seems like some universe other than the one I inhabited with them, had bought it shortly after I was born, when they moved with infant-me from Graysville to Soddy. My father had always been a hardworking and very, even admirably high-functioning alcoholic, at least since my mother knew him; and my mother, once upon a time, wasn’t an alcoholic at all. 

When I was born in 1982, my father worked at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy-Daisy (doing what I’m not sure, some sort of labor in the course of which he was up on a telephone pole and was struck by lightning, sometime before I was old enough to understand or remember). My mother worked at DeLong, a sewing factory in Dayton. They both had new 1980 Ford Mustangs (my mother’s was maroon with maroon plastic and red carpet interiors and a sort of maroon striped upholstery, as I very hazily and imagistically recall). We lived, the three of us, in a double-wide trailer in Graysville, mere miles from my mother’s sisters, Aunt Linda and Aunt Suzy, who lived in Dayton, and even fewer mere miles from the tiny trailer my mother’s mother, Mamaw Betty, and her mother, Mamaw Pat, lived in a few streets over from us in Graysville, too. I think the settlement money my father got from Sequoyah as a result of the lightning strike accident was how they purchased the trailer and the Mustangs, but I wouldn’t swear to it. My earliest memories are not from Graysville, but after we had moved to Soddy. I remember playing in bed with my mother at night, under a blue comforter with sort-of needlepoint, six-pointed stars, my mother and father lying side by side, the streetlight coming in from the window, the room otherwise dark, and my mother balancing me on her knees and raised hands, our fingers laced together. I couldn’t have been older than two. I remember sitting in a round plastic laundry basket in the middle of the living room floor while my mother folded the clean clothes on the couch and we watched TV. Probably her stories, Loving or All My Children. Later, I remember my sister being an infant (which would make me three) sitting on our loveseat in the living room in the dark of pre-dawn morning, Cassie beside me, both of us bundled up for winter, while my mother went outside to warm up her Mustang to drive Cassie and me to our Aunt June’s house, where we stayed while Momma worked. I remember one such morning in particular because the Mustang’s engine caught fire while my mother was warming it up and she raced in to call the fire department. I’m not sure what became of the Mustang, other than it was gone after that.

And of course my parents divorced when I was four and Cassie one and the three of us stayed in the trailer we owned after Daddy moved back home to live with his mother, my Mamaw Ruby. And when I was eight, after we had been living with my mother’s boyfriend for two years already and my mother’s descent into alcoholism and addiction with him was total, we had no phone and regularly went months without electricity and hot water. He had already broken one of the kitchen windows trying to get in after my mother had locked him out after he hit her once (they taped the window up with packing tape and duct tape and and cardboard, after). The hot water tank had busted and soaked through the carpet and underflooring in their bedroom, leaving a hole straight through to the ground a few feet below the trailer floor that they tried to cover with the board on which my mother’s talented friend Brenda had drawn and painted for me a Rainbow Brite mural for my birthday; it had hung on the wall over the toybox in Cassie’s and my room before they used it to try and cover the hole in their bedroom floor because it was winter and the bitter cold winter air coming through the hole was making it impossible for our one kerosene space heater to warm the trailer, as much as it ever did or could). We couldn’t pay any bill with any regularity, by then. And though the trailer was ours, or my mother’s, I suppose, the plot in the trailer park it was parked on wasn’t ours (I think the plot rental was maybe $80 a month, if my memory serves), and we owed Mr. Conger money as a result. One day in third grade, as we were leaving music class, he called for me to stay behind while the rest of the class went back to our classroom, and he asked me “When is your mother going to pay me the money she owes me?” When I said I didn’t know, he told me “Tell her I want my money.”

I think that was the first time I was ashamed about money.

I had many such occasions to come. Early in my therapeutic relationship with Wendy, 2012 or 2013 or maybe a bit later, in 2015, when I was talking about the shame I had about money, she pointed out that I had never had any opportunity to learn how to handle money responsibly or well, that I never had that behavior modeled for me by any adult who then taught me how to do it on my own. Every year between 2010 and 2014 I earned more money in a year than my mother ever had. Between 2010 and 2016 I worked a minimum of two jobs at any given time (at one point in 2012, I think it was, I worked four, teaching simultaneously at UB and D’youville, writing copy for a TA colleague’s husband’s stem cell research site, and scoring AP English Language exams—I think I earned about $29,000 that year, total? The most I’ve ever earned by far, and more than my mother ever has or will.)

I spent money freely during that time. I’m not sure what else I could reasonably have been expected to do, given my shortcomings and weaknesses and background. I was earning money and didn’t think I’d ever be in a position where I couldn’t earn money again. Even if I never earn more than this, I thought, I’ll earn at least this, and that’s plenty. So I spent what I earned. Clothes, shoes, music, concerts, books—many, many books. And gifts. I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on gifts and clothes for my nephew Tyler and my niece Zoey and my best friend Kate’s girls Sofi and Minah, and trips to see them all twice a year, going first to Tennessee then to Houston once every summer and once every winter. A handful of trips from Buffalo to Toronto to see Tori or Nigella or go to academic conferences. A couple of times for a long weekend, just for fun. A two-day trip to Boston once, partially subsidized by the UB English department, the rest out of pocket, to present at NEMLA, the second largest and most prestigious conference in the humanities. There was the trip to London, aided partially by a student loan, to see Tori introduce the fabulously, heart-achingly beautiful musical she had written, The Light Princess. (I’m ashamed of damn near every dime I ever spent on anything in my life that wasn’t food or rent or utilities, but I’m not ashamed of the London trip to see Tori or any of my three trips to Toronto to see Tori, either; and if The Light Princess ever plays on Broadway, I won’t be ashamed to sell whatever I’ve got to pay Broadway-musical money to see it there, too; I wouldn’t be alive if not for Tori.) I spent money on a couple of trips to New York City to see Pat and Jana, too, once when I was there with them to see the McQueen show at the Met(ropolitan Museum of Art) and once to see Nico Muhly’s Two Boys at the Met(ropolitan Opera). We’d have gone to see Silence! the Musical (the musical parody of The Silence of the Lambs) off-Broadway, too, if Pat wasn’t such a fucking snob. (He apologized the next year, after he had read notices making clear the show was a tongue-in-cheek exercise of campy, bad-taste parody, as I had tried to explain to him, instead of the earnest musical of accidental bad taste he assumed I was recommending. He couldn’t imagine a musical of any kind being in good taste. Such a snob. 

For someone who said he found me so fascinating and stimulating, he sure thought I was stupid. In part because he, having been raised in doorman-high rise Manhattan by his advertising executive father and downtown LA by his dilettante artist mother; having gone to Yale, his father’s alma mater, for undergrad; having taken the train from Penn Station to spend weekends at their summer house in Connecticut; thought I was some sort of amusing, borne-of-poverty hillbilly savant who, were I not born and raised so unfortunately poor and backwards, might have otherwise been an actual genius and not the forlornly downtrodden, unschooled, uncouth genius of otherwise unrealized potential he thought I was. It was not an accident that the painting he did, inspired, he said, by me and my work, was based on the linguistic connections between Dustin and dustbin—you know, what Brits call a garbage can. He used the word “receptacle,” as I recall, when he showed it to me in progress in his Brooklyn studio, and not just because I was an admitted and committed cumdump. I was so blinded at the time by his perverse fascination with me it didn’t even occur to me to say, “So what I represent to you and what, in this painting, my name represents of me to viewers, is semiotic varieties of garbage, Pat?” I’m not offended he was calling me garbage, I’m not even saying he’s wrong, but he might have considered the possibility I’d understand that’s what he was saying in the painting even as he avoided saying it to my face. But I digress.)

Or do I? Maybe not. Pat always vehemently insisted neither he nor his family were rich. His father regularly dined at the alumni-only Yale Club in Manhattan and they lived in a downtown New York Apartment with not only room for a grand piano but the actual grand piano itself (despite the fact no one in the family plays piano); its own private, lushly decorated elevator vestibule (for their actual apartment alone, not all the apartments in the building as a whole); a private, smaller-apartment-sized storage area on a lower floor; and an unobstructed view of the U.N. building mere blocks away. But Pat’s family weren’t wealthy. No. Maybe his grandfather had been wealthy, Pat allowed, but by the time he died and left Pat only a small trust fund—a pittance, really!—the rest of the McElnea’s weren’t wealthy. Maybe if I wasn’t so poor I could have seen that, I suppose. I could have had enough money to know what real money was and know Pat didn’t have real money, as he insisted.

I didn’t work all that hard to convince Pat of his privilege. I didn’t make a habit of parading the more ignominious and painful details of my itinerant, hotel room to hotel room, flophouse to flophouse, roaches-crawling-on-me-while-I-slept-on-the-Smith’s-floor-with-my-mother, ages eight-to-fourteen homeless childhood before Pat for his exotic delectation. I rolled my eyes a lot, and wondered what the hell I was doing sleeping in the guest room of a tastefully appointed Manhattan apartment while who knows what conversation was going on about me and my un-orthodonture-corrected teeth in the parlor as they entertained a few of his father and stepmother’s hoity-toity friends. 

But I knew what Pat didn’t know about his family’s wealth and thus, what Pat wouldn’t ever and possibly couldn’t ever know or understand about me. And eventually I felt like too much a freakish token in his almost comically snooty artist’s salon to subject myself to it anymore, and had to lose his and Jana’s friendship the way I had (for different reasons) lost Sara’s and Trent’s and Stefan’s and Elizabeth’s and would come to lose Kate’s. Because, in their various ways, I understood them better than they understood me.

Not because I’m such sensitive, intelligent hot stuff. It’s not a question of skill or talent or greater intellectual capacity. I’m not smarter or kinder or more talented, none of those things are true; they all were and are more capable than I am in what feel like countless ways. It’s a question of learned consciousness.

I won’t go on about it, because I know my academic bullshit is tiresome to normal people, but the concept, from W.E.B. DuBois, is called double consciousness. He coined the phrase regarding race, but it applies to any social or cultural abjection. Whether black people like it or not, their place in the world means they have to know far more about white people than white people can or will ever know about them. It’s a white world, they only live in it. So black people are able to understand the existence of white people and are conscious of that, just as they are conscious of the fact the reverse is not true. Black people understand what it is to be black and to be white. Double consciousness. It’s true of queers and straights, women/femmes and men—and the impoverished and everyone else. It’s not the result of a character flaw or malice on the part of every white person (or straight person, or man, or securely middle class or wealthy person); it’s a lived reality enforced by social structures and the way they prop up self-protecting, replicating circuits of power. 

If you’ve never been homeless, you don’t know what it’s like, and no one who has been homeless can adequately explain it to you. I understand what it would be like to be financially secure in the middle class because the world presents that reality to us more than any other, so everyone in our culture knows what that would be like. But no person who has never been so poor they were homeless knows what that’s like. It’s not a personal failing, only the way the world works.

When I was little, six or seven, Cassie three or four, before we had yet become homeless but when we were well on our way, we often had no food, despite the fact we were on food stamps. My mother and the man we lived with would take a portion of our food stamps and illegally sell them to mom-and-pop convenience store owners for cents on the dollar, in order to get cash to buy beer and drugs. So we never had enough food to make it through the month. I remember being off school during the summer, and Momma taking Cassie and me to the grocery store with her when we didn’t have any food or food stamps left. She would take us to the deli counter, and she’d get us styrofoam to-go containers, the sort with compartments, with mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, one bread roll, and a piece of fried chicken. She’d get the woman at the counter to put a PAID sticker on it, despite the fact she hadn’t paid (I don’t know how, my best guess is she offered to pay cash, at a later date, that the counter lady could pocket for herself), and we’d walk out of the store carrying them, because who is going to stop a six year old and a three year old and say “Hey, did you actually pay for that food?”

I don’t know how to tell you how that feels. Standing there ashamed, barefoot on the cold grocery store tile, knowing your mother is maybe begging, certainly stealing food because you don’t have any food left at home, and that if you tell anyone, they’ll take you away, and you don’t know if they’ll ever let you see your mother again. I had seen a made-for-TV movie with Sarah Jessica Parker playing a young, mentally ill, neglectful mother of four small children (as I recall). There was a scene where the oldest child, a girl my age at the time, fills an empty baby bottle with tap water and gives it to her little brother to stop him crying. She finds an open bag of potato chips and squeezes some water from the baby bottle onto a chip to soften it so he can eat it and won’t choke. She does it because there is no food and her mother is nowhere to be found. They are alone. Later in the movie, children’s services take them away from their mother and make plans to place the siblings in separate foster homes because no one will take them all together. They’re saved from being separated by a childless couple who own a farm, but they never get to go back to their mother. I remembered that movie. Watching it had made my stomach hurt in a way I hadn’t quite felt before, it made me cry, and I didn’t know why. But it taught me things. I knew if anyone found out about our lives Cassie and I would be taken away from Momma and we may never see her again, and I knew Daddy didn’t want us, and they might take Cassie away from me, too, and I couldn’t protect her anymore, and I’d be all alone, and that man would kill Momma without me there, and some man we didn’t know might touch Cassie if I wasn’t with her, and I couldn’t stop it.

I can describe it to you. I can’t tell you how it feels.

My mother used to call me lazy. I’m not sure why. Once we had a home again, except for the bout of severe depression my senior year when I didn’t clean my room once during a bleak stretch of months, no child had a cleaner room than I. From the time we became homeless when I was eight until we moved into a small house with Momma’s then-boyfriend David and got a washer and dryer when I was fifteen, the only reason we ever had clean clothes was because I urged her to take us to the laundromat so we could do laundry. From fourteen on, any time I was left alone in the house for any length of time, I cleaned it top to bottom (except my sister’s room). Goodness knows she never told me to practice my clarinet or learn my lines or do my homework or finish reading whatever I was reading. Or finish my college applications or practice for the Solo & Ensemble competition or prepare for the state tournament when I qualified in dramatic interpretation or revise my poem for the Young Southern Writers anthology. She never had to tell me those things, I did them on my own. So I don’t know where lazy came from with her. I mean, it worked, I’ve felt self-conscious about being lazy my entire post-teenage life. And everything I’ve ever done in the way of external recognition and achievement is because I’m desperately trying to make myself and my life valuable to others in ways I know it’s not, to prove a worth I wish I had but don’t and never did (and, at this advanced age, never will, which is a tough pill to swallow. If I could swallow it along with a cyanide capsule I guess I would.)

Some time ago—maybe months, but sometime in the last year—I was talking on the phone with a friend I’ve only ever known via the phone (what we were talking about I don’t recall), and the subject of my disability status, such as it is, came up, I think only by implication (I don’t think it was the topic at hand). He said to me, in reference to what I don’t remember, (I paraphrase as nearly as I recall) “not like you, you could go out and work if you had to.” A few times, when some habit of mine, predicated on my fear of going out in public and interacting with others, comes up, he’d sort of scoffed, laughed, said “Come on!” The last time, I think, was about taking out the garbage. I said I usually take it out at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, which is true, and he thought that was ridiculous, clearly. I’m not saying it isn’t. I know I’m ridiculous. The world’s least funny joke.

And I know other people would agree that, as he indirectly (probably so as not to hurt my big-dumb-baby feelings) suggested, I’m not that disabled, and others who know anything about my life now probably think so, too. Wendy doesn’t think so, I suppose, and my primary doctor Erin says she doesn’t. I assume when my previous doctor Lynn first told me she thought I should apply for disability and that she didn’t think I should be working that she didn’t think so. On some level people perceive my life, my inability to work and operate with some degree of productive normality in the world, to be, for all legitimate intents and purposes, malingering. I’m certainly not making my feelings up, or imagining them. My body does hurt the ways I’ve said it hurts, and I’m fucked in the head the ways I’ve admitted I’m fucked in the head, but the view that I’m making it all out to be worse than it really is and if I really want to I could get out and work and live like the counterfeit image of a somewhat normal person would be widely held if the details of my life were widely known. And I’m ashamed of that. I don’t know how to make it otherwise, but I understand they do, and that shames me.

Sometimes, when I’m trying to think how I could better communicate myself to others (Wendy told me not to say this, by the way, she said not to say what I’m about to say because making myself more vulnerable wouldn’t help, but she said so to try and protect me from the worst of my feelings, and I’m not good at helping in that goal, and I lost the thread of what she had gently encouraged me to say some time ago, anyway)—when I’m wondering what I could say or should say to make my life clearer to people, I think, should I tell them every time I cut myself? I don’t tell people every time I cut, because it’s humiliating, but should I? Should I tell them how I think about killing myself or otherwise dying every day of my life? How even if I sound like I feel okay, I don’t? How deep down I still think of dying as a relief? How, deep, deep down, I think that literally every man in the world (every doctor who’s a man, and every man nurse, and man Uber driver, and man grocery store employee, and man student, everyone who’s a man)—all men who have ever lived or will ever live would rape women and would hurt or kill me if they thought they could get away with it? All men, even Tyler, now that he’s a man and knows I’m a faggot? (I’m not saying my rational mind thinks it, or the part of it that’s rational, anyway. Just the part of me that knows we’re not entirely rational beings and people act in irrational ways based on irrational desires all the time.) Should I tell them how I hate myself for simultaneously feeling death would be a relief and men would kill me if they could, yet I live as locked away as possible so they can’t do what they want and what’s probably best for me?

But then I wonder what that would do. People might understand I’m even more fucked up than they knew, but the reasonable and responsible and practical part of them will still think, “You could go out and work if you had to.”

I know, what a freak.

I know it’s difficult for people to exercise any patience with me, given the fact I wasted fifteen years getting degrees any fucking idiot could have known weren’t practical or advisable in the long term, fifteen years being reckless and irresponsible and selfish and shortsighted and profligate and willfully stupid, fifteen years achieving only the most trifling and laughable outcomes to show for the pansy-ass, insubstantial work I did—My dissertation? Who gives a shit about my faggoty, labor-of-love dissertation?!—when people were doing actual work, working their asses off, making actual sacrifices, when here I sit on my obviously fucked but fundamentally malingering ass when I could go out and work if I really had to. I dunno, maybe I should have seen Lynn’s suggestion I apply for disability as a way to maybe get my messy life off her hands, at least for a while, and Wendy and Erin and Quinn and Ela’s kind reassurances as the best response they have to a fucking disaster like me on their caseload. However things end with me, I know it will be a relief to them to have me off their books, even if they’d never say so.

One Friday in July of 2016, I sat in Wendy’s office as I had nearly every Friday since the fall of 2010, and I broke down harder than I ever had before. For over an hour, I cried so hard I couldn’t speak. I’ve never cried so hard in my life. I had finished my Ph.D. I had no job to show for it. I had been homeless again from August of 2015 to March of 2016, and as of July I was renting a room in a rundown house with three straight men who stole food and money from me. I had no way to pay the next $500 I owed for each month renting that room. I was estranged from the best friends I ever had because I’m such a fuck-up and a freak. Sitting in that chair in Wendy’s office, I decided I needed to die. Or had to, anyway. No one and nowhere in the world would have me. I didn’t make sense anywhere in the world. I had nowhere to go. I had reached the limits of who I could be and what I could do. 

After an hour and a half, I stopped crying, and as I got up from the chair and moved to leave, and Wendy said “Take care,” as she always does when I’m leaving. But that time I was leaving for good, even if she didn’t know it. I said “I’m sorry I never got better. It wasn’t your fault.” 

At the top of the stairs, she called me back into her office. She asked me if I was planning to kill myself. She said it sounded to her like I was. I told her no, I wasn’t. The only lie I’ve ever told her. She told me if I were any other client, she would be admitting me for a psych. hold, she wouldn’t be letting me go away on my own, but she was only letting me go because she was afraid if she committed me I wouldn’t forgive her and it would irreparably harm our therapeutic relationship. I knew it was a terrible bind I placed her in. If I lived a thousand years I could never repay her.

The next Tuesday, I got a call from Angel Steele in the housing department at Evergreen. She said there was a place for me in the Lofts, which were opening in August. If I hadn’t received that call, I wouldn’t be here to write this. I wouldn’t be here at all.

When I received my disability designation in 2017, the letter said I was expected to improve. Wendy said she didn’t indicate that (can improve is a very different thing than will improve or even should improve), and I don’t think Lynn or anyone else who wrote in support of my disability application said so either. But the letter said so. It also said they would do a review of my claim after three years, in which time the improvement was expected to have taken place. I got the letter saying they were conducting my review in May 2019, but they’ve yet to send their inquiries to Wendy or Erin in order to conduct the review, and it’s been a year, so I don’t know what to expect or when. Wendy and Erin both said they intended to say I was still fully disabled, and Wendy said she intended to also make clear there was no evidence whatsoever that, regardless of what the initial disability letter said, it was ever the case that I was going to improve necessarily, or enough to alter my disability status, and she tried to reassure me: there’s no evidence whatsoever you have improved, even if they did expect you to. How pathetic a person I am, that what passes for encouragement and reassurance in the context of my life is don’t worry, no one who knows you thinks you’re any better.

But who knows what they’ll say. The chances they could revoke my status are high, I imagine. I’m 38. Or will be, on June 26th. I’m not supposed to be cripplingly debilitated by emotional instability and psychological disease, given what appear from the outside to be unfortunate but livable circumstances. Livable to someone fundamentally saner and a better person than I am, anyway. Someone should’ve told that disability judge I’d only disappoint him as I have everyone else.

If they take my disability status away, when they take it away, I’ve got nowhere to go. I don’t kid myself: as barely employable and barely functioning as I ever was, things have not gotten better or even maintained. They’re worse. I’m worse. I mean, in my mind. I recognize that others’ perceptions that I could go out and work if I had to is the assessment of a sane and hardworking person, but that’s not what I am. I’ll try whatever I can try, like I tried whatever I could before. I did what I could, my massive and devastating personal failings all too sadly withstanding. All those attempts ran out of steam on which my finally worthless efforts and the ultimately disgusting person I’ve become could float. Running on less than empty. That’s what happens given that the tank of the sorry person I am is a fucking collander in every conceivable way.

So I got a reprieve from what I understood to be true four years ago, July of 2016, sitting in Wendy’s office. It’s still true, even more true, and I know that reprieve is likely to be temporary, though my deficits are permanent, and will thus be terminal. A poz, homeless faggot becomes a corpse sooner rather than later, and this poz faggot would become a corpse rather sooner even than soon, all things considered. I know I will be homeless again, and I know then I will have to die.

That’s a lot to live with, as much as I can be said to be living.

Even someone as fucked as I am doesn’t look at my life through the telescope of money and the lens of necessary shelter and see, in the distance, home. I see, rather, the facts that indicate I probably won’t have a home for much longer. The facts that remind me I haven’t had a home for quite a lot of my life. And the conclusion that there are good reasons for that. Where, exactly, should a person like me expect to find shelter? My past and future homelessness, my current financial broke-ness, and my always already broken-ness militate against sheltering me. Nothing about me says to anyone, yes, you look a safe, sane, hardworking sort, come in and make yourself at home.

The first phrase of one of my very favorite books, in some ways most dear to me, Jim Grimsley’s Comfort & Joy is “To find a hiding place.” A few pages later, on the plane home—“home”—Dan thinks about Ford, “This is my hiding place.” But the thought seems wrong to him. Moments later, “Shelter, not hiding place. This wall of Ford was, would be shelter. That’s where the thought [had been] wrong.”

No wonder that book had my heart from the first word. Shelter in the love of a good man. Reading that book I thought, “Oh, this man understands some things about me.”

But. 

Neither he nor anyone else is under any obligation to make any sense of my money shame, my fear of homelessness, my failures generally, or to understand me as a person at all.

Talk about a position that doesn’t pay.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Padre Pio and Eublio Cardone’s Story

Story with images:

Image below is of Eublio Cardone. A personal friend who wrote the following story for me before his passing on November 22, 2010. (Caption for image)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/padre-pio-eublio-cardones-story-harold-baines/?published=t

The MS Vulcania was an Italian ocean liner built by Cantiere Navale Triestino, Monfalcone, northern Italy in 1926 for the Italian company, Cosulich Line.

This is the ship that Eublio sailed to America on in 1929, arriving at Ellis in New York on June 19th. It was a long hard trip across the Atlantic Ocean. (Caption for image)

This story was taped and written exclusively for Pamphlets to Inspire (Harold Baines) in May, 2008.

My name is Eublio Cardone. The name Eublio is a one of a kind name which brought me much frustration going to school, and especially during my army service during World War II. No one could pronounce my name or spell it, so one day my sergeant came to me and said “from now on we will call you Ube.” In reply I said, “Fine just don’t call me late for dinner”. So, I’ve been Ube ever since. Actually I tarried to explain to people that in Italian the letter “E” is pronounced “A”...doing this makes my name easy to say “Aublio”, but they preferred to call me Ube, and still do as of today.

I was born in a small town in southern Italy called Pietrelcina on December 3, 1921. This little village became known all over the world as the home of a young priest better known as Padre Pio. On July 3, 1919, my parents Vinzenzo Cardone and my mother Angelina Mustaccinlo were married. My mother and father were very close friends of Padre Pio’s parents. Padre Pio’s mother’s name was Giuseppa, and his father’s name was Grazio Forgione. We lived only a short distance from Padre Pio’s family.

At that time Pietrelcina was a small farming town where everybody new each other, or was related to each other through marriage. Our town was a very poor town, but a loving town where everybody cared for each other and looked out for each other. There was no money exchanged for services rendered.

My mother was a dressmaker teaching young girls how to sew a dress, and to knit, in exchange she was paid by people giving her grain, oil, wine or whatever they were growing on their farms. We were poor, but full of love for each other.

When my parents were married, Padre Pio’s parents gave them Padre Pio’s bedding consisting of 4 pillows and a mattress which their son no longer needed, since he left Pietrelcina to study to become a monk in the Franciscan order for he was a devoted follower of St. Francis. After his studies, he was sent to a Monastery located high in the Gargonion mountains in Foggia, Italy. It was in the monastery that he received the 5 wounds of our Lord Jesus. (The Stigmata) on his hands, feet and side which bled for 50 years till he died.

Padre Pio became known all over the world as the Holy Man on the Mountain. He was able to read people’s hearts, and minds in their confessions to him. He was able to tell when a person was not telling him the truth, he also had the power of bilocation, (being in two places at the same time.)

There was a woman from a wealthy family from New York, a devoted Presbyterian who was curious about all the stories she had heard about Padre Pio. Her name was Mary Pyle, she was always reading, in search of a Faith that would satisfy her needs, he decided to go to Padre Pio’s monastery to meet this holy man on the Mountain.

Her search ended when she met Padre Pio in 1918. She was converted, and baptized a Catholic, she became Padre Pio’s secretary answering many letters to Padre Pio that were coming from all over the world. Mary Pyle could speak and write in many languages.

Padre Pio received many donations from all over the world, and in turn he put this money into good use by building the most modern hospital in Italy. He named the hospital La Casa Sollievo Della Sofferenza. (the Home for the Relief of Suffering).

There are many stories to tell about Padre Pio and I would like to share my own story which I call “Touched by a Saint of Pietrelcina “Padre Pio”.

At age 6, I was stricken with a severe case of pneumonia, and bronchitis with a very high fever, after an examination our town doctor Andrea Cardone (no relation) told my mother that there was little chance for my surviving this illness, that I would not see the coming day. He instructed my mother to prepare for the worst, and have my burial clothes and casket ready for as he felt that he had done all he could to save my life.

In those days they had no embalming fluid, they buried the dead the next Day. That night my mother got on her knees and prayed in front of a Padre Pio picture Which we had in our bedroom saying “Please Padre Pio save my son, if you do so we will visit you at your monastery before we leave for America.

A miracle did happen in the middle of the night, my fever broke and I cried out “Mama, Mama” she cried with joy for her son had been saved. Our towns people were overjoyed to learn that Padre Pio, their beloved priest had performed a miracle. During my recovery, Padre Pio’s older brother Michael brought me a little puppy to love and to help me recover. I regained my health, thanks to my mothers prayers and the gift of healing powers of Padre Pio. As soon as I was able to travel we made preparations to leave for America.

But, we had a promise to keep before doing so...to visit Padre Pio at his monastery to thank him for my cure. So my mother, grandfather and I boarded a bus which was going to San Giovanni Rotondo and visit his monastery, which was located on a high peak of Mt. Gargano in Foggia, Italy.

There were no busses or any kind of transportation to the monastery, we had to walk this high peak of Mt. Gargano. As I remember, the road was made of cobble stones which made it hard to walk on. When we reached the monastery, my grandfather and mother paused to catch their breath, and I like a little curious kid opened the door to the chapel and walked in. As I did so, Padre Pio opened the door at the other end of the room and we walked into each other, Padre Pio put his hand on my head and said “you are Eublio”, he called me by name. I was shocked for a moment, trying to figure out how he could possibly know my name since he had never seen me. We did not write to say that we were coming to visit, so how did he know my name?

We talked for awhile asking about my health, and once my mother and grandfather came in, Padre Pio asked about the conditions in our hometown and about his family. We visited with him for a few days , our visit was a memorable one for all of us, especially for him to know my name without ever-ever seeing me or known me before.

As we returned to our hometown we prepared for our trip to America, boarding a ship called The Vulcania. We arrived at Ellis Island in New York on June 19, 1929. It was a long hard trip across the Atlantic ocean.

We were here only a few months when the stock marked fell, banks closed up, and the worst depression in America started, which lasted to around 1939. There was no work, banks defaulted, many people committed suicide in desperation of loosing everything they had. They were the darkest days in Americas history, a Time that many people will never forget, including me.

Before the depression, my father had saved some money working on the railroad during the time he was in America, and we were able to open a shoe repair, hat cleaning and shoe shinning store in Newark, NJ. I became my fathers helper in the store, learning the trade. At age 14, I had to leave school to help my parents in the store. I worked in the store till age 19, at which time I started to go to night school to become a machinist.

Becoming a machinist paid off a few years later when war broke out. Being a machinist, I was needed working in a factory producing war material, I was deferred from service for a period of 3 years. Seeing all my friends going into service I decided to give up my deferment and joined the army. This did not sit well with my parents, they were furious by my action.

I was shipped to Fort Dix, NJ, then to camp Lee, Virginia for more machine shop training. On my completion of training, I was sent to Australia, and eventually to New Guine, then the Phillipines and then on an invasion force for Japan. But midway to Japan, we dropped the atom bomb, and doing so saved many lives, for the Japanese were determined to fight us to the last man. I was stationed in Japan for 6 months as an occupying force, I came home in December 1945.

My outfit the 3498 Ordinance Company was a lucky outfit, and I believe that we were always under the watchful eyes of Padre Pio, Our Blessed Mother Mary, and Our Lord Jesus. My tour of duty in the Pacific was the most darkest days of my life, and thanks to Jesus, and all the saints in heaven, I came home in one piece with the exception of coming home with Malaria, which still keeps coming back.

On June 16, 1946 I married the girl who waited for me for 3 years, who I loved very much, Mary Marino of Elizabeth, NJ. We both worked hard and purchased a home in Newark, NJ. After two years of our marriage she gave birth to our daughter Angela, we named her after my mother. Our home was too small, so we sold it and purchased another home in Elizabeth, NJ. I found a job as a machinist with the Weston Instrument Company, my pay was 75cents per hour.

On our 4th year of marriage my wife Mary gave birth to our second daughter who we named after her mother, who I loved very much Raffaela, we were a happy family. But once again our home got to be too small, so we purchased a new home in Avenel, NJ. We enjoyed a good life being happy with our home, children and our families.

Tragedy struck our home. My wife Mary contacted breast cancer, this was a devastating blow to our family. A year later my wife Mary passed away. But another miracle happened to us. The year my wife died, we had taken a trip to St. Anne’s church in Quebec Canada where it was said that many miracles took place. I prayed to St. Anne and all the angels and saints in heaven to spare my wife Mary and make her well, but if it wasn’t possible, then have her die without the pains of cancer. Our prayers were again heard for Mary was only hospitalized for only 4 days when she died in her sleep.

Our family was devastated at our loss, but thanked God and all the saints in heaven for allowing Mary to die in her sleep. My two daughters helped me during this awful time of my life, for I was devastated to the point of suicide. As they say “time is a healer” which is true. During my two years of the loss of my wife, I came across an article in an Italian newspaper that a Padre Pio society was being formed at St. Anthony’s church in Bellville, NJ. So I decided to join it.

This was a gift from heaven, it gave me a chance to get over my depression and meet other people. When I told the members that I came from the same town of Padre Pio, I became a celebrity, everyone wanted to hear stories about him, who I regarded as my personal saint and still do to this day. I made many friends and also became friends with Father Casturo, pastor of Saint Anthony church. During my association in the group, I made friends with a very nice couple who always came together to the meetings. I did not know if they were married, or boyfriend and girlfriend.

One night feeling blue, and lonely I decided to call Marie and said to her “I don’t know if you are married, single, and whether the gentleman you come to the meetings with is your husband or boyfriend if you are not married, I would like to go out with you.” There was a pause in our conversation and laughter in the background, then Marie said: “You have a lot of nerve calling me in this manner, and for your information that guy is my brother-in-law Tony, and I am single… never married.” I replied: “fine lets go out together” there was another long pause and then Marie said: “fine, I would be pleased. From that moment on, we started a relationship, and after two years we decided to marry. We went to Father Casturo and he was delighted to hear the news as he new both of us as members of the Padre Pio society. He then said: “when do you want to get married” ? Out of the blue sky, I said: “September.” Fr. Replied “Fine what day”? I replied “I don’t know... how about September 23rd”. Father replied… ”Great... you picked a wonderful day, as this is Padre Pio’s Feast Day.”

Since both of us were very devoted to Padre Pio, we felt that this would be a special occasion. At this time I looked up to heaven and said “Padre Pio you started this relationship, and you will always be in my life, and I thank you.” Marie and I have been married now for 30 years. Thank you God and all the saints in heaven.

My other story I would like to relate to you is about two servicemen who were stationed during the war in an Air Field near Padre Pio’s monastery and who became friends with Padre Pio. There names are Leo Fanning, and Joe Poluso. As the war ended, both were due to be sent home to America, so they decided to go to the monastery to say goodbye to their friends and to Padre Pio. Before leaving the room, Leo Fanning turned to Padre Pio and said: “since you can read people’s hearts and minds, what is in the future for us”? Padre Pio looked at Leo and said: “you are going to study for the priesthood”. Leo was taken back by his remark. Then Joe remarked: “I guess you are going to tell me also that I’m going to be a priest”? Padre Pio looked at Joe and said: “No Joe you are going to meet a girl that I will pick out for you, and you are going to marry”. Joe replied: “never”. As it turned out, Leo Fanning did become a priest, and Joe did meet a girl and did marry her. Before Joe married, he received a letter from Padre Pio saying: “Joe marry this girl, for she is the one that I picked out for you”. Joe and his wife had two sons born to them. Joe named one Pio Francis, and the other Francis Pio. I never had the chance to meet Joe before he passed away, but I did meet Father Leo Fanning many times.

The first time I met Leo, was around 1958 at a church in New York. I had read in a newspaper that people from Italy came to America in the hope of starting a Padre Pio prayer group, and to start a movement to have Padre Pio become a saint.

During the talk I found myself standing next to a young priest. We started to talk to each other and low and behold, it turned out to be Father Leo Fanning, he related to me that “yes” during his growing up that he did consider becoming a priest, but how did Padre Pio know this? Father Fanning is now retired and living in New Jersey.

Another person who worked hard to have Padre Pio become a saint was Vera Colandra of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Colandra had 5 children one of which was born without a bladder. Doctors at the Children’s Hospital told her that her baby would die, but Vera would not accept this. She had heard about Padre Pio, the holy man on the mountain in Foggia, so she decided to take her child to see him and pray for a miracle. She met Padre Pio and asked him to bless her child and they prayed together and then he told her to “go home for the baby would be fine”. In coming home she found a letter from the hospital saying to bring in the baby for more x-rays, she replied to her husband Harry “But Why, they took so many, why more”. But her husband insisted on going to the children's hospital and x rays were taken. The new x rays revealed that a bladder was growing in the baby's body. Now Vera remembered Padre Pio saying: “take the baby home, she will be alright.” Vera cried and looking to heaven said: “Thank You”. From that day on she started her own movement to have Padre Pio known to people in America and to have him become a saint. She was the first person to have a life size bronze statue of Padre Pio sent to America and had a celebration at a church in Norristown Pennsylvania, it was at this celebration that I first met my wife Marie.

A few years later, Vera and her husband Harry purchased a large farm in Barto, Pennsylvania where she had erected an exact duplicate copy of the little church of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rontondo, including a Padre Pio museum, library and other facilities. It’s really a wonderful place to visit. Vera Colandra passed away about two years ago, and now her husband and children are in charge of the shrine. May God and Padre Pio bless her family always with good health and happiness.

I’ve met so many wonderful people during my life knowing Padre Pio. One such person among many was Diane Allen of San Diego, California. Diane Allen and I met on a trip to see Pope John Paul's mass in Rome when he proclaimed Padre Pio to Sainthood in 2002. It was a very hot day in Rome, St. Peter’s Square was packed with over 200 thousand people from all over the world to see Padre Pio become a saint. It was so hot that some people were passing out from the heat. Water cannons were brought in to spray water in the air hoping to cool down the temperature. The Mass lasted for 5 hours.

My daughter Angela, myself and my son-in-law Luciano left before the Mass ended because of the heat. Our hotel was about 3 miles from St. Peters Square, we walked about a mile in the hot sun, we finally saw a cab with 2 people in it, we stopped the cab and we pressured the driver to please let us also get in the cab before one or us would faint.

Once in our hotel room, I made the mistake of putting the air condition on high, and I took a cool shower. That was a bad mistake on my part because a few days later, I came down with a very bad cold and a fever. The very next day of being sick, we were to go to San Giovanni Rotondo to visit Padre Pio’s monastery and visit his tomb. During that night, I got very sick and never was able to visit the monastery or tomb.

The next day we were to leave for my hometown of Pietrelcina which we did, arriving at our hotel called Lombardi Hotel, a very modern hotel with marble staircases, bathrooms all marble with very fancy fixtures. But I was to sick to care, for I went straight to bed. In the mean time, my daughter persuaded the owner to have the cook make up a large bowl of chicken soup which I finished all of it in my room.

The next day, we were to visit our hometown church and sightseeing of the town. Before doing this, my daughter was able to find the hometown doctor who took me into his home and gave me an examination and some medication. He also gave me the bad news that I had pneumonia and bronchitis. During our stay at his home we talked and I told him that I was born in Pietrelcina, he asked who my parents of my mother were, and it turned out that he knew my uncle Vincent's family. We had a great talk together, at the end I asked him how much was my examination. He took nothing for my visit. (This is in his home and on a Sunday). But sick or not, I had to go sightseeing in our town even if it killed me.

My daughter again came to my rescue, she contacted the monastery in our town, told my story of being born in Pietrelcina and that I wanted to look over the town before departing for America, she was able to secure a Van and driver to drive us around. Doing so I was amazed on seeing all the gift shops, restaurants, pizza places, beautiful homes and gardens, it was just breathtaking. My little hometown Pietrelcina was now a flourishing little city. In my old church, St. Anne’s, there was a full size bronze statue of Padre Pio. The statue of the Madonna de la Libera was fully engulfed with a gold vestment, gold donated by the townspeople. The Blessed Mother was just beautiful to look at. Everything in the town was a spectacular sight to see. My little hometown was no longer a poor little farming town it had grown into a beautiful city.

The next day as sick as I was, we started our journey home to America. I was too sick to walk, I had to be put on the plane in a wheelchair and on landing in Newark airport in a wheelchair again. My daughter Angela again came to my rescue for she had alerted my wife Marie to have a limousine at the airport to take me home. It was a trip that I shall never forget.

In conclusion I would like to mention some people who have worked hard to have St. Padre Pio remembered always. One such couple are Mr. and Mrs. Nick Pino who have sent over 600 statues of Padre Pio to churches all over the world, free of charge. I received 4 statues from Nick that went to different churches in Bellville, NJ, Avenel NJ and 2 for St. Mary’s church in Barnegat, NJ. May Nick and Janet be always blessed by St. Padre Pio, and Our Lord Jesus with good health and happiness. They recommended to me the website www.pamphletstoinspire.com for more information concerning Padre Pio.

Another person is Diane Allen of San Diego, California who has a large Padre Pio society in San Diego, who writes a newsletter about St. Padre Pio. She also has a website for anyone who would like to receive them. Diane Allen P.O. Box 1915-45 San Diego, CA 92159. Website: www.SaintPio.org. Also the National Center for Padre Pio Foundation of America, 33 Prospect Hill Road, Cromwell, CT 06416 who have also dedicated funds for the restoration of our church in Pietrelcina, and the Home of Padre Pio’s parents in Pietrelcina, and the Hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo, Foggia, Italy.

We have a Padre Pio shrine in Landisville, NJ. The shrine was built on a large farm in Landisville by Mr. and Mrs. Peter and Marie D’Andrea, who operate a large wholesale business selling to large stores such as AMP and Shoprite food stores. They visited Italy in the hope of finding farmers who grew chestnuts so that they could import them to sell in America.

Traveling to different parts of Italy they kept on seeing signs reading Padre Pio and stories of miracles and cures by a holy man on the mountain in Foggia. They decided to find and visit the monastery in Foggia, but whenthey arrived they were told that Padre Pio had died.

I first heard about the shrine in a news cast on channel #4 giving details of many miracles taking place there. We located the shrine on the website: www.PadrePio.org., so my daughter Angela, her husband Luciano, my wife Marie and I, plus my sister-in-law Lucy and her husband Tony decided to visit the shrine. Doing so, we met Mr. and Mrs. Peter and his wife Marie D’Andrea. On later visits, we learned that her husband Peter had passed away. During our visits, we met the shrine trustee Mr. Joseph Trappani who inspired me to write a book on my life knowing Padre Pio, which I did, called “Touched by a Saint of Pietrelcina Padre Pio.”

Mr. Joseph Trappani was good enough to pay for the printing of the book, all of the proceeds of the book to be donated to the shrine. As of this date we have donated $2,000. to the shrine. Many people have purchased the book and they all love the stories. The book has traveled to Canada, Italy, Australia, California, Florida, etc..

To purchase the book, please call Mr. Joseph Trappani at 1-856-691-6663. at 553 W. Oak Rd., Vineland, NJ 08360. For quote of book and shipping cost (mail has gone up and so has everything else).

As for Padre Pio’s feathers, I have been giving them out to people who are suffering from cancer and other illnesses in the hope of miracles, and I tell them that life is beautiful, to have hope and pray, because there is always a miracle which does happen with help of prayers to Our Lord Jesus, and to all the saints in heaven. As Padre Pio often said: “Pray, Hope and don’t Worry”.

I would like to say that I often dream of Padre Pio. My first dream of him was after my wife Mary passed away. My dream was so real that I actually saw Padre Pio in a robe standing at the foot of my bed and he said: “Don’t cry any more, for Mary is now in heaven”. Just recently I dreamed that Padre Pio was standing in my bedroom doorway talking to a man with their backs toward me, and that I touched Padre Pio and he turned around and said: “Eublio, how are you feeling”? My wife Marie called out my name and I woke up. But the dream was so real. (In Italian.. come stoie) Eublio

Yes, I’ve been blessed many times knowing Padre Pio. I pray to him everyday, and always will. Like I mentioned before “He is my personal saint and I love him.”

I hope that you all like my story of St. Padre Pio here and in the tape. Like I said before, I am not a professional trained speaker, or a writer, I’m just a guy from New Jersey who loves St. Padre Pio.

May Our Lord Jesus, Blessed Mary, and all the angels in heaven bless all of you and your families with good health and happiness.

And remember “There is always a miracle to happen by praying and having faith”.

God Bless you all….Eublio Cardone or just call me “Ube” from Barnegat, NJ.

[huffletiika]

it shows your heart's desire

Day six, people! It’s almost the end of the week, and I’m really excited about this and tomorrow’s prompts. For today I decided to change a little the prompt, I hope you don’t mind. All my love to Mandy @deliverychicafresa​ for proofreading this... it has been a total pleassure to read your comments on this. words count: +4.6k

Day 6: We stumble into the mirror of erised together. We look into it. Neither of us know it’s anything special. We just see our reflections

{read more fanfics}

Luna would probably say with pride that she is one of the few people who know Hogwarts very well, She has been in about every inch of the castle, even if only because she has taken the wrong staircase at the wrong moment all the time. Like this afternoon, for example, as she was walking to her common room after her astronomy class, and now she is in a hallway she has never seen before. Yeah, she is lost. At the beginning she tried walking and walking until finding a way out. Right now she is just opening all the doors she can find, trying to hold back the tears, because she shouldn’t cry because of something like that.

She is almost giving up when she hears something. Were those steps? She looks around trying to find the source of that sound, but she can’t see much, everything is way too dark.

“Hello? Is somebody there?” Maybe saying this isn’t the most intelligent thing she has done, it could be a mean student, or worst, it could be Peeves. The poltergeist has pranked her and her best friend the day before, throwing raw rice at them while they were studying for their O.W.L.s in the library, making them abandon their books to find a safe place to hide until he found another victim for his jokes. But it’s her only option to find her way back to her common room, so it’s that or nothing.

There’s no answer, and she is starting to think it was a product of her imagination, so she decides to keep walking. How was the song Dory used to sing in that Disney movie she used to watch when she was a child? Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Yeah, that one. She takes a deep breath and starts walking again, repeating those words as a mantra, trying to stay calm.

“Are you lost, little badger?” A sudden male voice coming from right behind her ear makes her scream and jump, throwing her wand to the floor. The light that came from its tip vanishing. “Oh sorry, I didn’t mind to scare you,” he says laughing and she rolled her eyes.

She knows who it is since the first word comes out from his mouth, not only because she can recognize his voice as easily as she can recognize her own, but because in that exact moment the delicious smell of his cologne was invading all her senses, making her shiver from head to toe. It is Matteo, one of the most popular guys at Hogwarts, the best Quidditch player, the most handsome (that’s what the polls say), one of the best students and… of course, one half of the most iconic couple of the school. She hates that guy, or at least that’s what she says to everyone and herself, because there’s something about him that annoys her, but at the same time attracts her like the most powerful accio spell someone has ever conjured.

She turns around finding his face just centimeters away, so she paralyzes for almost a second, resisting the urge of her own body to come even closer. What is she thinking? He has a girlfriend, and said girl is so flawless Luna has the theory she has to have Veela blood running through her veins, no girl could be that gorgeous. Besides her she was just… just Luna. He would never like her, not that she wants him to do so, of course. She hates the guy, she hates him very much.  

“You’re such a liar, I bet that’s exactly what you meant to do, don’t you dare deny it,” she says when she found he voice back. He has the most devilish smile she has ever seen while bending down to pick up her wand, handing it over to her after getting up.

“Well… touché,” he doesn’t deny it, nor does he looks like he feels sorry for it. “You looked so defenseless I couldn’t help myself,” he adds, while lighting up the tip of his own wand. “Now, are you going to explain me how you got lost? Because that must be an interesting story.”

She looks away.

“I wasn’t lost,” Luna doesn’t want to accept that, not in front of him.

“Yes, you were.”

At this point she knows there’s no way she could convince him otherwise, so she just sighs and shrugs. She won’t tell him how she got lost, not in a million years, because telling him she was too sleepy to notice the staircase moved when she was using it wouldn’t make it any better. He already has enough material to mock at her for decades, she won’t give him any more.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she tries to change the topic, finally putting some distance between them. “Do you spend your free time creeping around the dark hallways of the school, looking for people to scare to death?” She raises her chin and he laughs, pointing at his prefect‘s insignia.

“I’m just doing my round, making sure there are no lost little girls on the hallways,” why does his voice has to be so provocative? Being alone with him in the hallway wasn’t doing any good for her. “And now that I found you, I can finally achieve my ultimate goal in life: saving you…” he adds, and she remembers the big amount of times he has done it.

The first time was when she was on the train on her first trip to Hogwarts, she was trying to reach the trunk of the train compartment to get her belongings and change for her uniform, but ended up with her bag almost hitting her head, if it wouldn't have been for the second year guy with Slytherin robes who stopped the luggage with his hands in the last second. That day she met Matteo Balsano, his perfect smile, and his huge ego. Since then, he had made it just in time to save her several times. Falling into the lake? Check. Books being too heavy for her petite self? Check. His girlfriend being mean to her? Check, as well. He is always there for her, and she still doesn’t know why.

But she is stubborn, and she would never accept how thankful she is of him, because he is a snob, and she can’t be falling for someone like him.

“I don’t need to be saved, much less by you,” she says, and just to make her point clear she crosses her arms and walks in any direction, anything to keep him away. But he follows her, so she starts walking faster, as if it was the most mature thing to do.

“You are going the wrong way, little badger,” he tries to tell her, but she ignores him. “If you let me escort you, you'd be in your common room in less than ten minutes,” she keeps ignoring him, even if a small part of herself is trying to tell her that he might be right. He is a prefect, after all. But no, she won’t let him win, not this time… not ever. So she keeps walking, being aware of him right behind her, hoping she would get to the stairs by herself, to be able to tell him how wrong he was for not believing in her.

But the only thing she finds is a dead end.

“Now, are you going to let me accompany you to your common room?” he asks, with his stupid cocky voice, and she feels madly vexed. Stupid preppy boy, with perfect sense of location, and great ability to make her lose her chill. She decided not to give up, just not yet, so she finds a door on her left and opens it, not sure about what she wanted to find there. “Come on, Luna. Stop being so stubborn,” Matteo follows her inside the room, trying to persuade her, but that doesn’t stop her.

There is nothing in there, except for an ancient, ornate mirror, big enough to reflect their whole bodies even when they got closer to look at it in detail. It has clawed feet and a gold frame inscribed with a phrase in a language he didn’t understand.

“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi,” Matteo reads, his eyebrows furrowing at every word. “What does it even mean?” he looks confused, and seeing him like that is a first time for Luna.

“I thought you knew everything,” she teases. He rolls his eyes.

“Not everything, but I'm sure that I still know more than you,” she has a wild desire of punching that snob expression of his face. “Or you are going to tell me you know what it means, little badger?” he teases back and she takes out her tongue at him. Yeah, very mature coming from her.

He laughs, walking to take a closer look at the mirror. She does the same, without noticing anything strange in its reflection, there were just her and Matteo next to each other, just as they were in that exact moment. Except…

“Hey, are you insane?!” she moves her hand as she sees his approaching it on the mirror, and moves to put some distance between them. Why would he do something like that? Is he nuts? He has a girlfriend, and she isn’t her. “Don’t dare to do that!” He looks surprised by her reaction, his other hand suddenly moving away from touching his own lips, something she hasn’t notice he was doing while looking at their reflections.

“Do what?” he asks, with bewilderment.

“That thing you were almost doing with your hand!” She shouts, and he still looks clueless.

“I was doing nothing with my hand” He is just trying to annoy her, she believes, so she decides not to follow his stupid game that could end with him laughing at her for thinking he would try to take her hand. She was tired of walking in circles, she just wanted to leave that room and be as far away as possible of Matteo Balsano, so she sighed and decided to accept his help to leave that stupid hallway, but only until the point where their paths had to be separated so that they could go to their respective common rooms.

He was strangely silent all the way.

“Are you sure about that?” Luna asks her best friend, still trying to assimilate the news.

They are having lunch in the gardens of the castle, very near the lake, on a picnic blanket that Nina has conjured for the two of them, as they rarely can eat at the same table at the great hall. The disadvantages of not belonging to the same house. Simon is also invited to their picnic, but her other best friend is late, perhaps because of some training of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, so they started it without him.

“Yes, I’m sure. Gastón told me,” Nina’s boyfriend is Matteo’s best friend, so he is a very reliable source in this particular topic, but she still can’t believe it.

“So… Matteo broke up with Ambar?” she asks, and her friend nods. “When?” She needs to know more about it, even if her inner self is telling her that she shouldn’t care about that, she hates the guy, after all.

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask him that,” Nina shrugged. “I didn’t want to look like I’m into gossip, because I’m not, and Gastón had already done too much telling me about the break-up thing.” Luna bit her lip, and looked away.

You hate him, she reminds herself. You shouldn’t feel sorry for him. But she is, she is feeling terrible, it is a torture to think of him having a hard time for breaking up with her long-time girlfriend, mostly because she couldn’t stop thinking about that night they met on the hallways during the last days, fantasizing that he had reached to take her hand, and with them kissing in front of that old piece of furniture.

Somehow, that makes her feels guilty.

“Planet earth calling Luna,” her friend brought her back to reality, and she blinked.

“Sorry… I was thinking about something else,” she excused herself, and Nina smiled.

“Yeah, I realized,” her friend has that smile, the one she uses to tease her about how much she thinks she has a thing for Matteo, but if she wants to do any comment she keeps it for herself, because the next thing she says has nothing to do with the topic. “I was telling you that I have been reading about mirrors, trying to investigate about the one you saw on that room, and I think I found it,” her friend tells her, taking a big book from her belongings.

Luna leans closer to be able to take look, as the Ravenclaw gets to the correct page.

“Here it is!” Nina smiles, and points at the picture in the page. “Is that your mirror?” she asks, and Luna takes a closed view of the picture.

“Yes, that’s the one,” she nods. “What does it do?” she is really curious about it, because that all alone on the room, as if it was a really important object.

“The Mirror of Erised was created before the end of the nineteenth century. It is unknown who the creator was. The mirror is one of those magical artefacts that seems to have been created in a spirit of fun (whether innocent or malevolent is a matter of opinion), because while it is much more revealing than a normal mirror, it is interesting rather than useful.” Nina reads. “It shows the ‘deepest, most desperate desire of our heart.’, and its name comes from the word desire, spelled backwards.” Her friend looks at her, open mouthed. “What did you see in the mirror?” she asks with curiosity, and she just shakes her head.

“I told you, I only saw our reflection,” she shrugs, and her friend is looking really fascinated.

“Oh, well… that’s good, really good indeed!” she was getting really excited. “Here it says that if the happiest person in the world would look in the mirror, he or she would see a reflection of him or herself, exactly as they are. Maybe you are that person!” in that moment Simon arrives to their picnic, excusing his tardiness on Gaston’s extra training sessions for the team, and looks at the overly excited girl with an amused expression.

“Could you tell me what I missed?” He asks, as he sits at the blanket and reaches a piece of bread.

“Luna is the happiest person in the world!” Nina shouts.

“Well, that’s no news,” the Gryffindor smiles at both girls, and taps on his best friend’s head. “She is a sunflower, after all,” he adds, and Luna rolls her eyes.

“No, but I mean... there’s a true proof of that now.” The other girl replies, starts to explain Simón about the mirror of Erised, and how Luna had seen only herself when she saw her reflection on it. But that couldn’t be true, the mirror must be broken, because she doesn’t feel like the happiest person in the world, if it was true she should be as enthusiastic about it as her friend.

“It must be super cool to look at that mirror, what do you think I would see?” Simon asks, and both of her friends start discussing about what they could have seen in the mirror if they had been in her place.

Suddenly, it clicks in Luna’s head. No, she didn’t just see her own reflection, she saw Matteo and her side to side, and in the reflection it looked like he was closer than he really was, Oh Merlin’s beard! She saw him slowly approaching her hand with his. Now everything makes sense, his surprised expression, the fact he didn’t know what she was talking about: He didn’t try to take her hand, it was the mirror showing her the biggest desire of her heart, and somehow that makes her feel worse, because she now knows the truth: she could have hated Matteo Balsano, but now... now she has fallen in love with him.

Studying for her O.W.Ls has been terribly exhausting, more than she thought it would be. Her best friend has been taking it too seriously, making them stay in the library for hours, even on Sundays. Especially on Sundays. She has been reading so many books she doesn’t know if Ignatia Wildsmith invented the flu powders, or if she was part of the International Warlock Convention of 1289. She needs a break, or even better, not see a book for the rest of her life.

Nina opens another book, and she groans.

“Can we finish for today? Pretty please?” she begs, her forehead touching the wood of the library’s table, all her body aching for staying in that chair for almost five hours already. Her friend sighs.

“But the O.W.Ls are in four weeks, and we still haven’t studied the Goblin Rebellions, and Gaston told me they asked about them in his O.W.Ls last year.” The shy girl replies, biting her lips. Luna is seriously considering to throw herself out the window if her friend tries to make her memorize the name of any goblin in that moment.

“You said it yourself, we still have four weeks,” Luna lifts her face, looking at her beg with puppy eyes. They must work. “Come on! we can study that tomorrow, now I don’t think I would be able to memorize anything else.” Her friend doubtfully looks around and then nods.

Oh, sweet victory.

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Maybe I can come up with some schemes tonight, so it gets easier to learn it, the goblin’s revolution is very complicated,” Yeah, it is, Luna says mentally, asking herself how she ended up being as good friend with the Ravenclaw girl. They weren’t much alike.

They are picking up the books from the table to put them back in the bookshelfs when a couple of guys approach them. The one wearing Gryffindor robes goes directly to hug her best friend, giving the girl a sweet peck on her lips, while the one in Slytherin ones walks directly towards her, giving her the brightest smile ever, as if he was happy for seeing her. She feels as if someone had started a party inside her stomach, because now she knows she is in love with him, as much as she is sure he doesn’t feel the same. That’s why she has been avoiding him lately, walking to the opposite side every time he has entered her field of vision, inventing any excuse every time he has tried to talk to her, as she is about to do in that very moment.

“I… will go put these back in their places,” she says to her best friend, but she is too busy looking at her boyfriend with heart eyes to listen, so she just picks a stack of books and starts walking towards the hallways of shelfs, because she couldn’t stand staying close to Matteo for another second.

She is trying to put one of the books in one of the highest shelves, painfully failing on the task, when a male hand takes said book and puts it in its place. She freezes for a couple of seconds, before turning her head to find HIM right behind her, holding another stack of books. How could he always look so handsome? He looks so damn good there, staring at her with an amused smile in his lips, and the tie of his uniform slightly untied.

“What are you doing here?” She asks, her heart beating too fast to be considered healthy.

“Nina and Gastón were so busy over there that I thought you’d like some help with the books,” he replies. “I mean, you really need help with those high shelves, don’t you?” He then teases, making her shake her head.  

“If you just want to bother me you can go back to them, Matteo. I’m not in the mood today,” she says, because she feels like she wouldn’t be able to reply to his teasing today, or for the rest of the year, indeed. Knowing how she feels for him is killing her slowly, and that makes her unable to think of good responses for his teasing, to keep things as they used to be.

He looks taken aback.

“Too much studying?” he asked, and she thinks it's a good excuse, so she goes with it.

“Yeah, that.” She starts walking again, going back to put the books on the shelves.

“I can help you if you want, little badger,” he suggests while following her, and only thinking about him helping with her study sessions makes her body shiver.

“I’m ok, I’m studying with Nina,” she dismisses his offer, breaking her own heart a little, because a part of her would’ve wanted to spend some time with him. Luna erases that thought from her head. She must put all those books on their places as soon as possible, so she can go to her common room, where she is sure she won’t see him. “But thanks, anyway,” she adds, trying not to sound rude.

“Anytime, little badger,” Matteo replies. “And the offer remains.” He then adds, with a killer smile, and she has to look away.

They stay silent for a while, and even if she thought that she would prefer it to listening to his voice, she isn’t able to stand it anymore. She wasn’t good at not talking, she needed to do so as much as breathing, so she looked back at him after putting the last book on the shelf.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, and he looks kind of taken aback, but nods. “Is it true that you and Ambar… well, that you broke up?” she trusts on her best friend’s word, but she didn’t want to look so sure about the topic and put her best friend, or Gastón, in any problem for telling.

He pauses for almost a minute, and then shrugs.

“Yeah, it’s true,” he runs his hand through his hair. “News spread fast here in Hogwarts,” then says shaking his head, with a soft laugh that doesn’t sound very happy, not at all.

“Oh, sorry for mentioning it, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” she looks at him for a while, her own guilt drawn on her face, she shouldn’t have said those words. He notices that, and leaves his last book in the shelf before walking towards her, and awkwardly putting his hand on her shoulder. Since when is Matteo Balsano awkward in any way? She thought she would never call awkward to anything that he did, but still it feels that way. “Forget I asked…” she tries to wipe away the topic, but he smiles and she feels her worries fading away.

“Don’t worry, Luna. It’s ok,” he shrugs, moving even closer. “I broke up with Ambar because I don’t feel the same way about her, I haven’t done it for a while now, but I was so used to our relationship... that it felt safe to stay together, for both of us,” He is looking at her eyes. “She is an amazing girl, but she is not the right girl for me, she is not the one my heart desires,” he concludes, and she swallows. What does he mean? Why is he getting so close? Why is she feeling as if his eyes were looking directly into her soul? She needs some space, a Quidditch field-size space, but she can’t move from her place.

“And who would be that girl?” She whispered, her heart beating faster.

“I will tell you. But first, I need you to answer a couple of question.” She wants to refuse doing so, but he already had answered her first question, so she kind of owes him that. “First,” he says, raising his index finger in front of her face, while still looking directly to her eyes. “Why were you avoiding me these days?”

She shakes her head, “I wasn’t avoiding you,” she says, and his look lets her know he doesn’t believe her. He knows she has been avoiding him, she hasn’t been very subtle, to be honest.

“Don’t you dare deny it,” He quotes her from the time they met on the hallway, and then laughs. “But that question can wait, this one is the most important: what did you see in the mirror?” She feels her heart skipping a beat, and her legs shaking as if they were made of jelly. He had researched, otherwise he wouldn’t have bring back the topic.

“I- I didn’t see anything strange,” she stutters. “Just the two of us standing there.”

“But you told me not to do something I obviously wasn’t doing, what was it?” her cheeks start turning red. “What was I doing with my hand on the reflection?” She doesn’t say a word. “Tell me, Luna.” He whispers, getting closer, and she closes her eyes feeling her heart almost breaking her ribs cage.

“You were going to hold my hand,” she gives up, feeling too embarrassed at her own words to look at him. But then she hears a sigh of relief coming from his mouth, and she has to open her eyes to see what’s happening, just to find his face millimeters away from hers.

“You mean like this?” He asks, taking her hand in his. That simple contact of their palms sends shivers all over her spine, like he was pure electricity. She nods. “Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. I spent hours that night trying to figure out what those words meant, but they weren’t in any known language. I asked Gaston if he had any idea about it, even if I would have to deal with his stupid puns for the rest of my life, but nothing… I was in a dead end. But then I thought it could be a game of words, I tried to put the letters in different orders, until this idea came to me right before dawn. It’s a mirror, read it backwards, and I got it. You know what it says?” she just shakes her head, she is too hypnotized by his voice to come up with a coherent response. “It says: I show not your face but your heart's desire. But you already know what the mirror does, don’t you?” he asks.

“Nina found it in a book…” she manages to whisper. He smiled.

“Your heart’s desire was this,” he says, squeezing her hand. “Do you want to know mine?” then asks, getting even closer, his breath caressing her face. “There were only you and me in my reflection as well, but I wasn’t holding your hand, I was doing this,” he leans and slightly brushes their lips, breaking apart just a couple of seconds, leaving her breathless, as if he was expecting her to back down.

But she doesn’t, so he merges their lips into a passionate kiss that makes her feel like her legs couldn’t hold her anymore, so she surrounds his neck with her arms, as he surrounds her waist, pulling her closer, kissing her as no one has never done before, making her feel like the luckiest and happiest person in the world.

“Reality surpasses the imagination, by a huge range,” he says breathless, as their lips break apart. She giggled and looked into his eyes, lost in his sight. That moment is the most magical she has ever had. He caress her face, and she closes her eyes, enjoying the sensations that came from his touch. “It’s you Luna,” he says after a while, keeping her close. “You are the girl my heart desires.” She feels those words warming her heart, and steps on her tiptoes to kiss him again.

[exochartrecords]

My EXO’rDIUM in Manila Experience!

[Personal Blog Post]

Hi guys, this is Admin J, the sole admin of EXO CHART RECORDS. I thought it would be fun to share my EXO’rDIUM experience from Manila, Philippines.

It was a 2-Day concert, for Day 1 I was seated in the Upper Box section, had a nice view of EXO and got to enjoy the performances as a whole, everything went smoothly and my heart was captured by EXO from start to finish. 

Now let’s talk about Day 2, because this is 100% the most unique concert experience I have ever had in my life. 

I lined up at 3PM, entered around 4PM and the concert started at 5:15 PM. The concert ended around 8:45, it lasted 3.5 hours.

I was in VIP Section, Floor B, Standing (AKA the pit - right side). So I was standing for 6 hours straight, but it was worth it.

Lay was not present during the shows in Manila. The political climate between China & The Philippines is still complicated and he has endorsements, contracts, etc. I understand his situation, I’ve seen EXO 5 times without Lay, so hopefully, one day, I hope to see you on stage with your brothers soon Zhang Yixing. <3

I was extremely close to the stage, only 2 people were in front of me, which I was totally satisfied with, considering I’m very tall and broad, so no problem.

2 people fainted, 1 Filipino girl & 1 Chinese girl, I need to applaud my fellow Filipinos for handling the crisis with compassion, holding up the girl, calling for bouncers quickly and feeding her water. That’s why, if you are planning to watch inside the pit, DRINK UP AND STAY HYDRATED, very important!

Concert started and boom, they push.

See this is where I don’t play, I like to consider myself a gentleman, so I’m not going to push this tiny girl in front of me just to get closer. Good thing I’m strong because those in the back are not going to push me out.

FANSITE MASTERS EVERYWHERE. At one point during the concert, there was a huge camera lens to my left shoulder, a huge lens to my right shoulder, and another lens right in front of me. They were so close, I could hear the rapid sniping of their cameras, photo after photo. 

I need to make a pause here and kinda highlight my experience with these fansites. Disclaimer: If you like fansite photos (because I do as well) that’s okay, if you don’t like them, that’s okay too. It’s up to you to decide if you like them or not. 

MY EXPERIENCE however, was both Good & Bad, let me start with the bad first. The fansite girl to my LEFT, was... for the lack of a better word, a complete beast. She was pushing me so hard to get closer that I would have fallen, but NO, SORRY GIRL, you were NOT going to ruin this night for me. I pushed her back so hard, she tumbled back and looked at me, and I gave her the biggest death glare of my life. The people around beside me saw us and if you search on twitter, MANY Filipino fans had less than stellar experiences with these girls. Listen, as a man, I’m not going to put my hands on a woman, but you aren’t going to elbow your way to the front and you will NOT DISRESPECT ANYONE to get there. 

My advice when dealing with them is, if you can, stand your ground. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a guy and I’m tall that she didn’t try and come for me, because I’ve read experiences online of them pulling on the hair of female fans. If you feel threatened, call the bouncer right away and have them escorted out because these cameras are not permitted. Don’t allow them to touch your personal property (your camera, phone or lightstick), some will try to push your hands, grab your phone, do anything to get a nice shot. Don’t allow them, try and get the bouncer’s attention.

I’m not the type to retaliate, God tells us to never take revenge and to leave it to the Lord. So around 15 minutes later, a bouncer parts our section like the red sea, grabs her around the waist and hauls her OUT of the pit! I’m happy that happened during around the start of the concert, because everything after that was amazing!

My Good experience with a fansite, was a shorter girl who was pretty nice! She had a fellow fansite girl with her and they weren’t being disrespectful or rude. She was talking to me, but I couldn’t understand her, sorry bes. :( But at one point, she thought I was leaving or something, and lightly grabbed me to stay and I think she wanted me to hide her cause I’m tall and I was like “lol ok”. When she wasn’t taking photos, there was a short fan beside her trying to film EXO on stage, but her arms couldn’t really reach EXO since they were on the extended stage; so the fansite girl took her phone and started filming EXO for her since she had longer arms, it was cute. She gave it back and then left, but grabbed me to get into her spot, and I ended up even nearer to EXO. 

Overall, I’m happy my experience with these fansite girls was both positive and negative. It showed me two different sides. My guardian who was waiting outside saw a girl leaving a decoy camera lens before entering the arena but her real lens was strapped to her leg, underneath a long skirt. (She saw it when the girl ran). And then AS SOON as the concert ended, all the Korean fansites RAN LIKE WILD, they were probably the first ones to leave. On Day 1, my guardian saw 5 girls, caught, having to leave their lenses before entering. She couldn’t believe it.

OK! So, back to EXO! I will highlight each member.

Suho: Leader Kim! He gave THE most fan service. He’s so grateful, it didn’t matter whether it was a ballad, a dance track, an acoustic session, or whatever, the guy is always waving to the fans. His English is incredibly thoughtful and cute. Please support our leader, he’s someone to be cherished. 

Xiumin: SEXY.  When ‘White Noise’ came on and he was elevated right in front of my face. Winding down, and body rolling, and everything was EXTRA. Extra face, extra body, extra everything. That’s a man, yet, also a child because 3.6.5 would come on and if you were next to me, you would think that was my favorite song with Xiumin jumping in my face. I haven’t played that song on my iPod in 2 years and I KNEW ALL THE DAMN WORDS.  

Chen: FAN SERVICE KING. I know he saw me, we had a connection, I’m currently in his mind as of this moment. But seriously, he was such a performer! Everyone I know thought he was the most handsome that night. His arms too. And his voice, the vocals were on point. It’s such an experience to watch him hit those high notes up close. 

Chanyeol: TOBEN HAIR, is a Q-T-PA-2-T, is a real life human puppy. But suddenly transforms and slays the electric guitar while eye body slamming me. His guitar skills were SO GOOD! What a multi-talented king. Last January 2016, for EXO’luXion, he was serving sex with arms that could choke and straight hair. This time, he was too cute, all cuddly and his tummy was FLUFFY, I LOVED IT. His shirt would raise and I would see glory, I’m happy you enjoyed the lechon babe. 

Baekhyun: When EXO first appeared, the first person I saw was Baekhyun, and I immediately thought “Shet, the pit is worth it, I see the eyeliner, I see heaven”. There was a fan who got hurt on the middle side of our section, and Baekhyun was staring at the scene the whole time. He was concerned, you could see it in his face. I think a Korean fansite was escorted out after that. His vocals were perfect, not a single imperfection, and he’s an amazing dancer. He really is.

D.O.: I feel like I saw D.O. the most, I probably made the most eye contact with him. He looks like and felt like a man you could bring home and everyone would love him. He had a really beautiful aura around him. He was so beautiful in person, sang like an angel and he also looked so manly in person, all I saw was TopD.O. I’ve converted.

Kai: Absolutely... I need to take my time, because words cannot describe how this human being exists. Photos, Videos, do not do Kai justice, NO JUSTICE AT ALL. His body moves and curves in all the right places, I was stunned, truly the Dancing King. The stairs were right in front of me, so when he came down after performing, I saw his face up close, and God, he’s so handsome. 

Sehun: My Pyak Pyak. TT_TT My UB, oh how perfect you were last night. You danced like an angel and I heard your wonderful voice. You had the tiniest waist, the longest limbs and the cutest smile. During ‘Run’, you would jump and I would see your tummy and UGH you killed me. I honestly didn’t care I was probably the only fanboy in my area screaming your name, an Introvert who starts using his voice when you appear. 

Lay: He wasn’t there, but he wasn’t forgotten. Lots of EXO-Ls still had their Lay banners, headbands, and screams would become even LOUDER when his face would appear in the screen. Trust and believe, I will see you one day!

My EXO’rDIUM experience is something I will always remember and cherish. EXO sang ‘Hawak Kamay’ again, Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ was suddenly included in the setlist, Baekhyun’s PHIXO made another cameo, Kai did some kind of Chicken themed rain dance, which inspired me to order Jollibee for today’s lunch, thanks KimKai, and the Philippines will always love EXO. The loyalty of a Filipino fan will always be with you. I know you guys will come back, probably next year, so until then, I will continue to support my loves. <3 Thank you for a wonderful 2 nights.

Thanks for reading! Now back to your regular programming. 

[unicornninjabitch]

Follower: literally no one asked for a depressing ass life update

Me; …… lol you wild anyways

I hate not being able to ask for help and i hate not being able to stand up for myself. Growing up i was thrown into a lot of fights between my parents and i always felt like i had to pick a side and stick to it and i usually sided with my mom for reasons we dont gotta get into rn so me and my mom have been super close like my whole life. She was all I had for most of my life because i was a kid playing parent since my mom worked a lot and my dad wanted to do whatever he wanted, so imagine little me barely out of elementary school trying to make sure my 5 year old brother is doing homework and the angry 8 year old isnt being a complete asshole to the 5 year old. I never really got to just be a kid cause i was making sure the house wouldnt fall apart under our feet, so now that im being thrown to the wolves as far as growing up goes I don’t think its fair that when i ask for help i get looked down on and belittled and get looked at like im some stupid kid, like, i was never allowed to just be a stupid kid so how come now that im 18 and dont know how to do everything immediately am i suddenly a stupid kid who probably cant make it in the real world? Its bullshit and not fair. Tbh its not just that i cant ask for help with cause growing up i thought asking for help meant weakness and i had to be strong cause i was the oldest and asking for help meant stressing out my mom even more than she was cause she had a hard time putting food on the table by herself.

As for standing up for myself, okay i havent hidden that my mom hasnt been supportive in any way after i came out cause i try to cover it up with humor, but like, she was my best friend for so many years when i had no one else to lean on (and thats a story for another day tbfh) she was like all i had. She was supportive of my writing even when it sucked and when i wanted to be a teacher but its like she did a 180 or some shit. Okay so when i switched to wanting to do psych she was kinda like “okay but make sure a certificate will be transferable or whatever” and one time i said how i THOUGHT about MAYBE doing english as a major cause i love writing and i thought maybe i could start up a publishing company that mostly published books centered around minorities cause that seemed like something id enjoy tbh, but she shitted all over even the thought of majoring in english just like “What job could you possibly get with an english degree?” and her friend, with an english degree, told me an English degree is basically useless and like??yes i understand english isnt the most employable degree but maybe i want more to life than a job, maybe i wanted to do something im passionate about or something (dont get me wrong im really passionate with my current career path but still it was an idea i was really into and wanted to learn more about and i still wanna double major but besides the point) I couldnt even explaing why i was thinking about that major i kinda defulted to head down, shoulders drop, say “yeah maybe you gotta point” and like thats not fair to me i dont think. That was the start of the slippery slope of her becoming more and more unsupportive with everything i do. I didnt apply to that many schools and most the final 2 were Elizabethtown College and University of Bridgeport, Etown was way more expensive and i kinda didnt want to go there tbh but they said i could apply for free so i did. Now for college i did EVERYTHING myself. I looked up colleges, compared prices and scholarships, took notes on all the majors and minors i thought i could want, applied on my own and anything else I did by myself. Looking back i realize i probably shouldve applied to more schools or looked more at the professors or something, but i didnt cause i didnt know to, but she gave me such a hard time with UB. She complained about everything about it until i finally said “fine ill just go to county and then Rutger or something” (which isnt a bad plan and wouldve saved me a shit ton of money but i wanted to get tf away from jersey) Thats when she said fine and said she’d help financially (even though the loans getting transfered to my name after i graduate but okay). So there was kinda a wedge in our relationship but nothing huge we were still pretty close but we just ignored certain subjects like school and shit. Then in the summer she gave me hell for not working like we agreed i wouldnt work during the school year cause i speant so much of junior year wanting to kill myself and was so fucking depressed we, as in the both of us, decieded on that, than in the VERY begining of summer i broke my fucking ankle, so i couldnt really walk anywhere and i dont drive (side note, i hate when driving gets brought up because just sitting behind the wheel gives me so much anxiety, like yes its a good skill to have but i cant drive so please leave me alone i hate myself for it enough) Plus i speant a majority of the summer super depressed and anxiety ridden and kinda scared about a lot of stuff.So it was nice to hear i was lazy and ungrateful when somedays it took everything to get out of bed to feed myself let alone clean up around the house. Also as a certified Millennial™  I cover my self hatred and depression with jokes and memes o the one day i make a joke about it and she said “you dont really hate yourself, you wouldnt know what that feels like” Okay 1. I most definetly hate myself just cause i dont walk around super edgy and emo doesnt mean i stopped critizing my every action, just cause you dont notice me not letting myself eat/eating everything in sight doesnt mean i dont wish i looked like literally anything else. No i hate myself i just cover it up so fuck off.

Then theres coming out (which gets its own paragraph cause its a fucking mess). I came up via a letter that i left in her room and she didnt say anything for maybe a week so i speant a week with my defult being panic attack or “maybe everythings gonna be okay i mean she hasnt really said my name i dont think and maybe everythings okay and youre just freaking out for nothing” but nope we had a talk and if you dont know apperently you have to know right out of the womb that your trans. My moms best friend has a niece whos trans and she was given so much shit from the adults in her life just and still does (this kids literally 14 and they treat the poor girl like such shit its awful) and i was never into sterotypical “boy things”. I didnt like sports other than soccer but only for fun, I was very much the quiet kid who usually had his nose in a book, so i think that mixed with seeing this little girl treated like trash by people we both loved and looked up to (cause my moms best friends family is kinda like a second family to me) i never thought that could ever be me. Later in life i questioned my sexuality and looking at a bunch of terms and things some of them related to me, but i thought no ill put that on the back burner for now just cause maybe im just projecting/thinking about it too much rn. Then even later in life Kate came out to me and we talked and i noticed some similarities in what she said to what i felt, so i looked up terms and definitions and took online quizzes almost all day everyday to figure out what was going on with me. Almost as long as i known Kate shes been my safe person, especially with this just in case I realized no this isnt who i am or whatever, but either way Kate was a huge support and great person to rely on and my fears and other stuff. After more constant quizzes and reading and asking myself if i just wanted to be a *~special snowflake~* and testing waters and shit I decieded yes this is who i am...shit im gonna have to come out. My mom basically said “you arent trans, youre making this up and being ridiculous. Im not calling you that name and i wont call you he/him and that hurt a lot. Like she didnt even say Alexander she said “whatever name you put”. Mind you im absolutely heart broken cause i thought if anyone my mom would be supportive. She offered if Kate ever wanted she could crash with us and she calls her best friends niece the right name, but when it came to me she thought it was fake. Now at this point im trying not to cry out loud and im clenching my jaw so hard it hurt till the next afternoon. I dont know if its just me or what, but it feels like after that shes rubbing it in. It feels like shes using my birth name more and saying she/her and shit. She also acted like i was an idiot like i know that changing my name is a process, but she also said if any of my college stuff had Alexander on it she wouldnt help pay for it which really hurt. I really try to ignore/avoid her just cause it hurts less than figurative slaps to the face its like, *slap* girl, *slap* birthname, *slap* liar, *slap* making it up, *slap* thats not how it works, *slap* youre being disrespectful as hell, *slap* you arent a boy *fucking uppercut*, but i cant always ignore her which leads to tonight.

My cousins had like a little party for their birthday and it was awful for me (in their defense im not out to them but still it makes me super uncomfortable but its not their fault really). We looked at baby pictures so it was a lot of “omg look how pretty you were” and “oh my goodness i love that dress you look so beautiful there” Then my hair, of course got brought up and people were like “oh you know girls are so much prettier with long hair” and “when are you gonna grow it back out like hers?” (cause you know girls HAVE to have long hair *sarcasm*) so i just kinda awkwardly laugh and change the subject. Of course my moms pointing out all the pictures of me in a dress or with long hair or whatever. Then it was super fun picture time!! I hate pictures (that i dont take cause those are under my control and shit) for a lot of reasons. I always feel like i look fat and i notice everything thats “feminine” about my body and we already went over the self hate thing but still i hate pictures and im visibly uncomfortable while theyre happening. Someone says “oh stop youll love them in 20 years” like or ill hate them cause ill remember being so uncomfortable and so ready to walk home and ill remember not being able to forget that my whole family will probably always think im a girl no matter what i do. Then we get on to college. Im the first to go to college and everyone was like where are you going, what are you majoring in blah blah blah. So i answer their questions and be a polite kid. And everytime someone asked when i was leaving my mom jumped on it “3 weeks from today!!” like shit so by the end of the night my binders starting to get uncomfortable, im socially tired, ive been uncomfortable for 20 minutes, and im hating the amount of hugs im getting cause i can feel my boobs more than and shit. So someone said something about me leaving so i was like “you still have like a month” and of course my mom goes “3 weeks!!” so im fucking annoyed by everything and like just ready to go to CT now so im like “we get it your counting down the days i leave” and she got an attitude so i turn to my uncle and say im about to make it 2 weeks and shes like how about 1? So i just shrug and say okay bye like im unfazzed right now. Then we go drop my brother off at our dads and as soon as we pull away shes yelling at me about my “attitude lately” like what??!! Youve ruined so much for me lately im allowed to be angry! You destroyed my confidence about coming out. You made me feel like something was wrong with me. YOU completely destroyed our relationship and maybe i did too, but you know what?! Im completely justified in being uncomfortable around you! When my 14 year old brother (who has been really amazing and apologized for having to call me my birth name which he didnt have to cause he knew im only out to a handful of people but it was still sweet of him) asked how you were about this you said what you said to me which is fucking bullshit!! Youve treated me like shit lately and youll walk in and start nagging/complaining/yelling at me cause you dont know how to handle your angry which ive delt with for so fucking long!! Like when am i allowed to be mad at you?! When am i allowed to say no ive had it with your bullshit?!! But of course i dont know how to actual articulate this without a huge fight going off cause those just trigger a huge anxiety attack and shit and screaming and fighting is something i avoid at almost every cost because its scary to me fo a million and three reasons. Like im so ready to burry my ass in debt just to keep out of this house like i dont want to be anywhere near here. I dont wanna come home ever. I want to stay in CT forever just so i dont have to deal with this shit which i know probably isnt healthy but whatever i dont care anymore she gives me so much shit i dont care.

But i still feel guilty i guess. Ive never been ANGRY at my mom, i rarely fought with her, she was always my rock and i know what certain holidays, mostly Christmas, mean to her, but i dont know if i can bring myself to come home just to be around her so much and fall back into being called my birthname or she/her or whatever. I dont know i feel bad not wanting to come home because the boys moved in with our dad (which i cant do for reasons that dont need to be talked about atm) and i dont want to make her sad cause shes my mom, but i dont want to hurt myself because shes my mom, you know?

I dont care about our relationships, me being trans isnt going away a few years (which she told me we could revisit this in a few years like bitch what??!!) wont mean anything except me, once again, doing everything completely on my fucking own! Ill be alone and it feel like almost like i always be alone, like maybe ill go to CT and still wind up with the Fuck Up™ gene being very present in my life. Idk somedays i just feel like maybe no ones supposed to saty in my life, which i dont want to be true cause rn i have some amazing people in my life and im scared theyll leave too just meant to be abandoned and alone or something. The thing is im a sentimental, touch starved, emotional piece of shit and i really love people being consistent in my life and being left alone is such a huge fear of mine and i feel like some of my friends are already disappearing from my life (which i know happens and is natural especially after school but it still hurts to some degree ig)

So yeah lifes kinda full of bullshit right now and i cant wait to move out and study almost year round to avoid being home as much as possible and theres really no reason to this other than for me to complain about life and shit ig

[fenrirgraves]

Sharing Dreams 1 (Long Post)

So...I’ve been having some pretty bad nightmares recently.  I’ve been told by multiple people I should consider keeping a dream journal.  Sadly, I’m exceedingly lazy, and just can’t be bothered.  BUT seeing as I live on Tumblr, I figure, why not keep one on here?  This’ll be a long post though, and for those of you who stay with me, thank you.

So, a bit of context.  For the last four years of my life, I was in a relationship with one Kairi Mizuhara.  That’s not her real name, but we’ll call her that, because that’s what I called her.  I met her at a turbulent time in my life...4 years ago today.  Not long after my father died, and the girl I was with then had broken up with me because she was incapable of sustaining a relationship.  When I met Kairi, I was very lost, uncertain, and depressed.  Just looking for something, anything, anyone, to ease my pain, soothe my nerves, and share time and nights with.

Kairi was the admin of a Facebook page I liked, and four years ago tonight, while we were both terribly sad and lonely, we struck up a conversation, hit it off from there.  Two weeks later, we decided to date each other.  This was probably not the best decision for me to make at the time, it was totally of necessity.  I was the first person she’d ever dated, and she was utterly in full and absolute love.  And I...just could not commit.  My depression and emotional turmoil created many rifts, I could not bring myself to love as I needed to early on, despite the fact that she was giving me her everything and all.  Depression consumed me, and I made some bad choices.  

But we kept at it, because I knew I could find myself and my love for her, and she believed in me.  I couldn’t love the way I needed to because I was so lost and away from my true self even.  We had ups and downs.  All the while, she was my champion and guardian, taking care of me in the midst of my worst hardships.  

I suppose I should mention...Kairi was from Florida, and I’m from Buffalo, New York.  For the first two years of our relationship, we never met in person, and managed it all over Skype.  Then one day, we had the amazing opportunity to finally meet, in Disney World, thanks to the Maker All Stars Creators Conference that I was invited to.  Our first date and weekend together was a VIP, all expenses paid experience in Disney World.  And it was a dream come true.  Kairi was everything I could’ve ever hoped for, even through my depression and pain, it was so clear what an amazing human being she was.

We were perfect.  We were SoKai in the flesh.

She went on to spend that next summer with me, and then came back up for Christmas, then the next following summer, and has been here since.  Having Kairi by my side finally after all this time...was perfection.  But I’m a damaged being, and I’m imperfect, and was unkind.

Though I tried my hardest to be loving, caring, kind, and affectionate, I failed more often than not.  I was so filled with anguish and and sadness that I ended up lashing out at those closest to me, namely her.  I knew full well that it was inexcusable, and we never let an issue pass without discussing it.  We tried to communicate.

But things began to degrade and devolve, she thought I hated her, people took advantage of her.  Suicide was considered.  We tried to heal.

When it came to that grim, dark point where that all happened back in November, it was the shock to my system that I had always needed all along, and I found the power to be the person I always knew I could be.  I manned up, and embraced love, kindness, and emotion like I always should have.  I got on anti-depressants, and gave back all the love I was given.

But it was too fucking late.  By this point, I had damaged her so badly, it was beyond hope.  She was so proud of me, so happy at how much progress I’d made, and it broke her fucking heart, but she couldn’t love me anymore, not in the way she needed to.  She needed to find herself, because for the past 4 years, she’d defined herself through me, not knowing who Kairi was.  And I damaged her nerves too bad, that it was too little, too fucking late.  We broke up on March 6th.  She promised this wasn’t the end, that it was to be continued...but I don’t know if I believe that anymore.  I’m scared.

That week, I exiled myself to my friend’s house in Niagara Falls to try and retreat.  It served its purpose, but once I got home, I tried to kill myself.  I self harmed for the whole week following.  I’ve stopped since, but I’m still haunted by everything now.  My inexcusable actions and failures, our memories, and what’s happening to her now, something hidden within my deepest fears.

And these fears are what are manifesting in my nightmares and bad dreams.  I feel that I should share these and try and journal them.  It’s not that I don’t understand what they mean, I know very well what they mean.  And I’m more than willing to share and talk about them, but maybe getting them out on paper like this will help.  And getting feedback too.  Maybe.

I’ve had several recently, but I’ll start with my most recent one, from last night.

-----------------------------------DREAM STARTS HERE----------------------------------

I awoke in a familiar place.  UB’s Clemens Hall, 10th floor.  A place I spend my Wednesday evenings, for about an hour and a half weekly, waiting for time to pass so I can catch the bus to South Campus for my last class of the day.  I tend to listen to music up there, think, and browse Tumblr/Facebook.  Yesterday was Wednesday, and I did just that.  

When I awoke in my dream, I knew exactly where I was, it was familiar to me.  But naturally, I thought it was real.  That I had fallen asleep while waiting for the class, and it was now late into the night.  All the lights were off, and I was sitting in pitch black darkness.  Darkness that was oppressively heavy and grim, like a black pall hanging over everything.  They’d turned off all the lights, and it was pitch black outside.  I was forgotten, not without fault of my own for falling asleep while waiting.  I had no idea what time it was, but I knew I needed to go home.  But I could hardly see, things looked the same when my eyes were open as when they were closed.  Eventually, the adjusted a bit, and I was able to find my way in the darkness slightly.

I knew that the elevators were right in front of me, I just needed to pack up all my stuff, step forward, find the button, and I’d be set.  But I was afraid to rise.  Afraid to step further into the darkness.  I felt that I may not be alone, but didn’t know why.  The silence was that of a grave, unmoving, unwavering.  Still and cold.  As if I was somewhere I did not belong.  Fear and anxiety crept in, as I put on a track on my iPod to attempt to stave off my fear.  I found the button for the elevator.  There was one waiting for me, and I stepped right on in.

Instead of going down to the ground floor like I would have normally, I went to a higher floor.  Now, that’s the thing about Clemens...it only has 10 floors.  And I was indeed on said 10th floor.  But in this world, it went higher.  And I took it all the way up.  A soft, faint light came on in the elevator, and I could see slightly better.  The doors opened after some time, and I found myself in a library, also softly lit, with great shadows and soft glowing lamps...I recognized nobody there.  I worked my way through its winding passages, through different rooms and halls, until I found a common room, with some other students watching TV.  Some girl in the corner waved to me, and saying hi and calling me over.  Or so I’d thought.  It was not to me, but yet there was nobody else there.  I was utterly confused.

She eventually got up, and walked past me.  I attempt to engage in conversation, which she responded to.  I was able to make out that this was an old co-worker of mine, Michelle.  Though I never saw her face up close, I could tell it was her by the way she carried herself and spoke.  She immediately could tell something was on my mind, and asked about it.  I told her about how I fell asleep in Clemens, and was very scared of the darkness there, and I had found my way here.  She could tell that she had sensed that, and then launched off into some long winded diatribe about something I could not make sense of.

I then suddenly found myself in my room with Kairi.  The love my life, my Sole Mate, whom I haven’t seen in almost a month.  It was as if it was all back to normal.  I didn’t recognize this room, but I knew it was mine...or ours, perhaps.  It all felt normal, at first, and I was overjoyed to see her...and feel that it was all okay.  She was in the process of changing, taking off her shirt to put another one on.  Something totally natural for couples to see each other doing.  I thought nothing of it.  When she was just about to take off her shirt though, she stopped and asked me to leave.  I asked why, it was never a problem before.  She said it was because we weren’t together anymore, and it just wouldn’t be right.  

I asked her then why I was here, why we were here, what the point was, if we weren’t together.  If I couldn’t tell her I love her, if I couldn’t embrace her, if we couldn’t share kindness and joy together.  I don’t remember her response, but it seemed cold, if I recall.  As if it were coming from a stranger, someone that I no longer knew.  It was apathetic, cold, uncaring.  It hurt me deeply.

I was so frustrated, I was offering my mended love, filled with the deepest affection and care I could ever give, and she was treating me with cruelty.  It was RIGHT THERE for her, right there, and she pushed me away.  Fitting for how I treated her, in a way.

I don’t know what happened next, but it became violent.  I don’t know how it ended up here, but it did.  We were on top of each other, crashing through the room, smashing and breaking stuff, punching each other in the face, trying to inflict as much harm and pain as possible, breaking everything in sight.  Blood and damaged shards of this and that covered our faces.

We suddenly continued fighting, by some railroad tracks.  I took her face and smashed it onto the rails, kicked it into the dirt and mud.  Jammed my knee into her spine.  I had clearly won by this point, she had given up, but I didn’t stop.  I threw her into an open train car that passed by, and she was gone.

I don’t know what happened for there and how it ended, I don’t know why it became so violent, it was horrifying, I never ever would do that to her...nor do I want to...but it happened there nonetheless, and I’m utterly preoccupied with the fears and thoughts regarding it.

I don’t know why the fuck I’m suffering like this, I’m just trying to fucking heal.   These nightmares do not help me.

Feedback would be appreciated.  Thank you for reading