#formatting largely unchanged from original but tumblr requires breaks in large chunks of texts for some undecipherable reason

[predoom]

8/14/08

Thursday, August 14, 2008 crasy is just a perspective. (i am sid and nancy) i feel like i owe you something after tonight. this is an oldie. i dont know why im sharing this wrote this one sometime after i shoulda just been comatose in a best buy parking lot,ive never said this before and i wont ever really talk about it. please dont repost.... no edits:

"This is where the story begins, not linearly but more like this is where it stalled out. Like “back after the commercial” pause that never ends or the humming with the “be patient. We’re having technical difficulties” sign. St. Valentine’s Day massacre of the brain cells. 8 blue ones will do that, anyone in a white coat will tell you. You’re in your sister’s car on the phone with managers, psychiatrists, and your mom. You love to hate attention. You hate to love attention. They’re telling you to drive to the emergency room. It’s so predictable. ‘I am only telling you this to set the scene’. The cold February air is sobering but unforgiving. It feels like there are insects buzzing through your veins. It’s funny the way the black night sky into the double-doored white-lit corridor of northwestern hospital is like heaven, in the movies. The only thing missing is overweight baby angels and some harps. They are unfortunately on back order. “You know what the Midwest is? Young and restless” is playing on the speakers at the door. Your mom laughs nervously in the waiting room- the thing inside your head bothers her far more than it bothers you. There is a fish tank on the right side of the room, over there, just between the bleeders. The fish in the tank are all a brilliant blue. They are the first thing you circle in a “what does not belong in this picture” quiz. You are mesmerized. An old woman with a bandage wrapped around her head, you know like from the old days, stands right in front of you obscuring your view. She needs them more than you do. They call your name and take you into the next room. The security guard looks at you in a “the fuck are you gonna do” kind of way but then settles into boredom. You almost feel like you owe him a tantrum or some kind of psychotic episode. They say undress and put on the gown. You want to call her up because she knows just how to get you out of your clothes. “You can’t have those in here,” the guard says pointing at your shoes. "The laces are considered a suicide risk. The lights are bright and the door is open- nothing is going on here. You aren’t getting away with anything. You ask them for a pen and paper to write down all the details. They are also considered a suicide risk too and are denied. You tell them in that case it won’t be your fault when your memory is blurry and you don’t get any of this right. ‘I am only telling you this because it’s possible that none of this is right’. They make everything the whitest white in the hospital. The lights are so white they burn your skin or maybe you are just imagining things. It makes you feel more alone than you ever have before. You are lying on a gurney that hundreds of people have died on before. You lift yourself off of it quickly so none of their memories seep into you. You look around to make sure that no one saw you do this, no one saw you acting “crazy”. The security guard is staring at you with the “just give me a fucking reason” look but settles back into the monotony. You cough but you’re feeling down and kind of light and get worried you might blow yourself away- you hold on tight to the rails.

The crisis counselor comes into the room and shuts the door but she asks the guard to open the blinds and watch through the window. Now you are the brilliant blue fish in the tank with him watching. Swimming, not quite as brilliant, just as blue. A nurse comes in to draw your blood. She puts the needle in and you get kind of nervous that she is gonna pull “the boy” out of you. ‘Yes I did just drop that reference. I’m okay like that’. The crisis counselor is a fucking amateur. If she had her shit together you suppose that she would be in some nice building in the suburbs with a receptionist- make 200 for 45-minute sessions. She’s fucking farm club not even minor league ball. You on the other hand have read The Pill Book from front to back. You could talk your way out of anything. But you’re too busy swimming for the guard. She says she won’t admit you to the hospital if you’ll sign a contract saying you won’t hurt yourself. You actually laugh out loud at the thought of anyone depressed enough to kill themselves being stopped by a piece of paper. It’s like slitting your wrists over a sink so you won’t make a mess. You joke her “imp gonna have to go over this with my lawyer. And send back some markups”. She’s not impressed. Crisis counselor A is followed by B and so forth- it’s getting hard for you to keep your story straight. You feel yourself bending it just to keep it interesting, adding minute details, waiting for compliments on your storytelling ability. I'm only writing this because I shouldn’t’. You call the one person who matters from the gurney and say, “the Capulets and Montagues don’t have shit on me and you”. You are pretty sure you got her voicemail. You call back and apologize for leaving the first message. You are talking into a phone that doesn’t exist to a girl that doesn’t matter anymore. But who are you kidding; it takes a bit of time to get in or out of your system, the same as any drug. You fall asleep in the room. Your dreams are sterile and uninfected.

Wake up; the thought of having a conversation with another human being makes you throw up. You are noticing the way everyone is talking about you- not in a conspiring against you kind of way- and again not in a “the world revolves around you” kind of way- but more the way a doctor and family member would have a conversation over the bed of someone in a coma. “I hope it’s not serious. Is he going to be the same? Will he wake up?”. You understand why there aren’t mirrors in places like this. No one wants to see their cried out eyes or stitched up faces. Every time you look in a mirror you remember you are always one second away from crying or getting it right. It’s fucking pathetic. You pitch and turn. You can’t control your head right now on the inside, there’s no way of describing it. The closest you can come is the movie where the paralyzed man drowns in the bottom of a swimming pool. Your head is that scene. You shut your eyes and disappear off of the face of the planet but only for a second so no one notices. ‘Im only telling you this so you know things could have turned out so much differently’. You are a set of circumstances, nothing more, variables. The only important part of this from the start was: you in your sister’s car in the past tense, YOU in the past tense, almost but not quite.

====this is some old shit. unaltered.. from a specific moment.

posted by xo at 1:16 AM