ventably

[ventably]

Thinking about the meat hook again.

[ventably]

Remember! If you write it in a Narrative voice about fictional characters, it’s not Technically trauma dumping about your high school freshman spring concert :)

[ventably]

I get real self absorbed once I start creating for a fandom. Opening tags, sections, archives, just to find myself filed there. Writing down numbers on scrap paper to sort myself into percentages and ratios. Pitting the things I post against each other like horses. Referring to the hypothetical followers and readers and fans with a goofy grin that’s just a bit too genuine. Pretending the single button press to tick up a number represents a person who’s thrilled with me, thinks warm and fuzzy things the way I do when people write to me. When I read and reread them over and over again and never respond.

[ventably]

[ventably]

Sometimes I ask myself stupid questions

Like, “When was the last time I talked to someone outside my family?”

I know the answer, last Saturday I had a conversation with a stranger in a thrift store about the horror movies they were buying. I don’t know their name. It was barely 5 minutes.

It is details like this, qualifiers and more specific questions that make the question stupid. Besides didn’t I go to that event with a high school friend in October? Didn’t I resent it?

I’m dodging a friend’s DM right now, a ghost notification on a site without red receipts, like if I never officially read the words “I miss you” I won’t be a heel for ignoring them for months.

[ventably]

I feel like I have a headache even though I know I don’t

I feel like I’m feeling nothing even though that’s wrong.

I’m positively useless as I fritter the days away.

I’m drowning in guilt over the rut where I stay.

I can’t focus on anything, 7 hours into a whim.

Not eating, not working, nothing finished at all.

A breakdown over a smile delivered by someone who knows I’m useless due to a stupid social faux pas.

“Have fun with your hobbies!”

[ventably]

Don’t say that, like it’s fucking easy, like you expected it, like I’ve every been able to ask for things. Oh I probably have, it’s probably been expected of me, even, like the Christmas lists I don’t make.

It’s a more comfortable emotion, to be denied something because I didn’t ask than because it’s not Allowed, not Feasible, Silly even that I would want it. I agree to things and I don’t follow through and I don’t ask for things I want, even when it’s coming up on the end of the month and everything is getting worse. And my nose is clear but shouldn’t be because it’s February and all that snot not in my sinuses is making my throat sore. Not when I’m in the aimless gap between passions and my brain is responding to hormones I don’t want on me by imagining the anemia my actions would bring me and my shitty eating habits when the Expulsions start.

[ventably]

I feel like I don’t experience the same emotions as other people. It takes a lot for my to say I’m Feeling something. Usually it’s when I start wanting to write here. I’d rather compose and order and rearrange the words in my head to send out to a nonexistent audience than find out what the correct words are. Other than Wrong.

Most of the time I don’t even notice I’m feeling wrong for a while, I’m feeling fine, I’m doing whatever and my thoughts say in the same even unhurried voice as always something that hurts me. It tells me to give up, to hurt myself. I think them like I think about music or tv shows or the angles on the art I make.

People describe their emotions like friends or enemies, like the weather. Their body and brain work together and they tend to notice that they’re more than a bit disappointed before they start crying hours later. They know what makes them angry, they notice when they’re sad, and they don’t have to hunt around for clues when they stop being able to do something as simple as cross a bridge.

[ventably]

I cannot make friends. I cannot keep them. Reaching out is imposition, silence is rude. Attention is alarming. I open up too much and then never again. Sharing is embarrassing. I will simply forget they exist.

[ventably]

Did you know that gen z being online has invented brand new phobias? I had a falling out with a couple of peers online about a sensitive topic in a way that could be maliciously (righteously of course) misconstrued and I’m feeling levels of fear previously unique to 1950s Ingred Bergman and Japanese idol members with boyfriends. I’m thinking of retiring from the public eye, (tumblr) and focusing on myself (anything else at all)

[ventably]

Might fuck around and relapse on s**f h**m before the new year

[ventably]

Well…

It didn’t hurt as much as I remembered

It didn’t focus me at much as I remembered

It wasn’t as satisfying as I remembered

All it did was stop the part of my brain that kept Planning to do it

I still might do it again

[ventably]

The testing people have never seen scores like mine. It’s a reminder that I was supposed to be better than this. People with scores like mine can handle graduating high school. I hate being different. Different in a way that stands out. Different in a way that makes me worse. I am very smart and I have all this potential. This is why I am wasting it. It hurts so much to be unable to answer basic questions well. No I’m not. Not anything at all. No, no classes. A job? Never.

I’m old enough to do this by myself. So I should have to do it without any instruction. In front of and for other people.

You are paying me $50 to watch the house while you go on vacation and I am making elaborate analogies about which 80s film trend my hair most resembles to avoid thinking about my waist or my hips or my lips or my tits or the razor blade in my closet or the scars on my hip.

I keep forgetting to be hungry. It’s too much trouble to eat. You stand behind me as you tell me to make dinner and I know what I’d do for me but this is dinner for all of us. Failure has a cost. You refuse to explain and act like I’m helpless when the possibilities spread out endless in front of me and I think I will ruin everything. I should learn to cook like I should learn to drive.

You think I will be seeing friends while you are gone. I last spoke to a peer in person almost a full year ago. I texted an old friend 6 months ago. I can’t drive. I switch between knowing I’ll do nothing and planning the 6 mile walk to the nearest Walmart like it’s an expedition im excited to go on. Like maybe I’ll see a dead raccoon again or find some mystery foodstuffs at the side of the road. Maybe I’ll get hit by a car. That will spice up my week while you’re at D*sn*y

[ventably]

“A”s in all the work I didn’t fail.

A pleasure to have in the classes I attended.

[ventably]

I am sitting very quietly I am laying down I am tied. I am naked I am in my underwear my clothes are pulled into disarray. A knife a razor a scalpel is held above me. It’s held by someone no one me. It slices into my skin in light patterns deep gashes clean cuts. I bleed.

[ventably]

It’s wearing off, the Thing all last year wasn’t good for me. It wasn’t good for anyone. But it was a break. A break from the expectations I dashed when I dropped out of school. For more birthdays coming and going and repeated reminders that I was getting older, I needed to have a plan. I needed to got to school or get a job. I got the first shot and my birthday’s coming up soon and it’s all starting up again. Why couldn’t I get a GED? I was so smart. What was so bad about school? College will be better. It’s too late for it not to be obvious that I’m a dumb piece of shit who couldn’t just buckle down and plan for the future. The thought of retail makes me cry. I only remember the bad things about school and college sounds no better. I don’t make good enough art to get money for it.

I still get nervous crossing that fucking bridge in town.

I still can’t think of anything that I could do that I could handle.

I imagine, sometimes, job interviews at my favorite stores. I tell them that I like organizational work and have a good memory for stuff like inventory. I can do tedious things and follow scripted customer service well. I tell them about the couple years I did community service at the church’s pop up restaurant. I never get far into imagining I have the job. I can’t drive. i have no high school diploma. I don’t have any experience. The public transport in the area blows. They would be be able to tell I’m trans. They would know I was autistic. They wouldn’t have any openings for me. They get all their employees through referral. People stay there for years.

[ventably]

I think I used to be able to spend money. I think I liked to plan it out. I liked knowing how everything was going and buying stuff I liked at list price.

I don’t do that anymore. And I don’t know if my reason for it is justified.

I never know if I’m allowed to be upset. Is this a thing normal people get upset about? Is this a thing people like me get upset about. Am I being unreasonable? Am I pressing a character flaw onto an unrelated event? Is this a character flaw? People always say I’m so good with money.

I never ask for things. Expensive or otherwise.

When I dropped out my mom said that School was my job and I had to do it. Had to have a plan if I wasn’t. Clearly that didn’t happen.

One day several months after it all fell apart, I opened my bank statement and found out my allowance had been cancelled. I hadn’t been told. I wasn’t making money, I couldn’t spend it. I didn’t have a job. I wasn’t seeing my friends. I stopped leaving the house. My birthday money was strictly rationed. Besides I didn’t deserve things anyway. I was a failure. A dumb piece of shit who fucked up his life and didn’t pull himself out of it. I embarrassed myself in front of my friends. I broke down at Christmas.

I’m back to an allowance now. I get paid if I do my chores like a good boy. I clean the kitchen and water the plants and watch the dogs while my parents are at work.

If I don’t do the kitchen I cry. This is my job. I have to do my job to get paid and I have to do it well. I have gift cards from last Christmas I still haven’t spent. I can’t. I have to do it right. It has to be a deal. Or rare. I have to know beforehand if I like it or else I’ve wasted the money. I’m irresponsible.