Blackout

i remember

i remember the time I cut my hair in the bathroom with the kitchen scissors, and how my mom cried, and i was confused because it was just hair.
i remember the day i learned how to ride my bike, and how i yelled at my mom for letting go of the bike causing me to fall and scrape my knees and my elbows.
i also remember my dad coming home from work that same day and me tearing around the street corner on mt hot pink bike so proud of myself for what i just learned.
i remember the smell of my dad's old truck. i always told him that it smelled like "dirt". i remember how i loved it.
i remember a lot of things about my dad.
i remember him coming to pick me up from preschool and jamming Oingo Boingo through the stereo, and singing along to "Dead Man's Party" after getting a Dr. Pepper on the way home.
i remember how much i hated sunday dinners. i still do.
i remember the sting of leather belts, and the cutting of sharp words into a young child's ego.
i remember forgiveness, after all, i was a child.
i remember my mom's broken ribs, and bruised backsides, broken toys, smashed games, tears, screams, and fear.
i remember his clenched teeth, and shaking head.
and i remember falling asleep in the closet hoping he wouldn't be able to find me.
i remember loving my dad.
i remember when i first saw him cry.
i remember that sunday afternoon.
i remember when he said, "i'm just gonna miss you guys so much."
i remember how that didn't last for long.
i remember the smell of car grease, and tire polish.
i remember The Monkees, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
and i remember bad mistakes, and happy times.
i remember forgiveness.
i was a stupid fool.
i remember "i'm sorry" being my middle name.
and i remember father's day.
and i remember purple hair,
i remember, "you look like trash. you're embarrassing this family."
i remember leaving,
i remember visiting my mom.
i remember his text:

"i guess your hair is more important than me. too bad it wasn't something nicer. i dropped some of your shit off on your mom's driveway. better go get it before it gets thrown out with the rest of the trash. probably where it belongs anyway. come get the rest of your shit before thursday, or you can go buy it back at the D.I. for a bargain price. have a nice life."

i remember the numbness.

i remember the betrayal.

i remember the stories,

i remember concerned neighbors,

to only find that when they asked for my dad's side, he told all of the lies that could feed their gossip based diet.

i remember nobody believed me.

11 piercings, purple hair.

who would?

i remember 45 minute long drives everyday to school, because who want's to transfer their senior year?

i remember him coming into where i work and yelling at me over the counter for how shitty of a kid i was.

i remember how i loved him.

but not anymore.

le monde de charlie

dear charlie,

i know how you feel.
despite all of the people, high school is a lonely place,

but there is always that set two or three people that can change it,
change you.

and love is a strange thing,
and family is hard.

but charlie,
thanks for sharing with me,
with all of us.

love,
a friend.

#realtalk

this is for him.

and i'm sorry i wrote so much about him,

but I don't take heartbreak too easy.

but who does?

this post is for the other him.

the real James.

you may know him by the name of McKay,

but he always will be James to me.

and no, i'm not in love with him,

he was just the perfect person,

inspiration and support in a time of welcome desperation.

 and this blog was about another boy.

and he might not be here to see this,

but trust me when i say the intent is the same.

i love you James McKay Chidester.

thanks for the boost of courage.

this is for her.

her ivory keys tickle the annoyance of melodies in my mind,

and her selfishness drives me to the point of insanity.

believe me when i say i will not miss you.

i thought we were supposed to stop playing pretend when we learned that 3x3=9,

but the square root of 9 is 3, and that's probably the only logic you understand.

this is for Mr. Stanley.

the funniest, most bad assed, courageous mo-fo i've ever met.

i'm glad we made that arrangement at the beginning of the year.

thanks for being my best friend.

this is for Madeline. and Abby.

and all of the other girls i fooled throughout the semester.

sorry i'm not who you wanted me to be.

this is for Nelson.

for giving me a taste of Paris when all I knew was French.

for opening my eyes to beyond Robert Frost.

for amazing mixtapes.

for tears.

for copious amounts of laughter.

for the inspiration.

for everything.

thank you.

and i know i'm not the first, or the only one to say it,

but i mean it.

thank you.

but this is for me.

all black clothes,

purple hair,

11 piercings,

bad language, and a broken heart.

a broken soul,

but a creative mind and no outlet.

a vulnerable girl with a lot of love to give,

but surrounded by the wrong people.

freckles,

and prescription glasses that are only worn on the days when she feels like they'll match.

so pale the albinos are envious,

and she is on her knees begging for this torment we call high school to be over.

begging to be out of this place where she stands out like a sore thumb because she wants to be herself.

50-hours-a week kind of girl.

in-love-with-a-boy-who-will-never-understand kind of girl.

he-broke-her-heart-but-she-still-falls-for-him-everyday kind of girl

looks-for-love-in-all-of-the-wrong-places kind of girl

naive kind of girl.

people-say-she's-too-mature-to-be-17 kind of girl.

still-not-old-enough kind of girl.

my kind of girl.

 that kind of girl.

thanks for reading.

love, James C. McKay

sorry for making a mess

you broke my heart into so many pieces I can't even count.

one for every promising word that was ever exchanged,
one for every word of love,
one for every conflicting word,
one for every word of sadness,
one for every word of defeat.
A piece for every smile that spread across my face when you would walk into the room.
A piece for every butterfly that fluttered it's delicate wings all around my stomach when I would hear you say my name.
A piece for all of the times your name would appear on my phone screen.
and I didn't think that something that is so easily taken for granted such as the heart could wind up in so many pieces, but here they lay.
down at my feet, covered in all of my salt water tears that I wasn't brave enough to cry out in front of you, because you would say that is immature.
and no matter how many times I try,
or you try,
or I try,
or we try,
or I try to put them back together,
someone is bound to give up.

and you still look at me with those big brown eyes, that are rimmed with a small trace of light blue from your contact lenses that seem to make the brown a little bit richer.

and I wish I could just run away and hide, be placed in a Witness Protection of Lovers and Heartbreak Protection Program, but I'm afraid those don't exist

but 2am is the time for missing people that don't seem to miss you, or maybe they're just better at hiding it than we are,

or maybe I am missing the phone calls that used to come from you at that time.

and I guess that fate just had different plans for us,

and the stars didn't align exactly how I wanted them to,

but I can't just blame fate,

but I can't blame myself either for you falling...

falling for someone else.

but I can blame you.

and you say it isn't fair, 

but neither is not telling me.

not telling me for 3 months.

but I certainly can't blame them,

they don't even know I exist.

and don't you mind that you left me in this state?

it all of the sudden seems nearly impossible for me to have caused this amount of heartbreak for someone,

but here I am,

standing in the wreckage,

while the shards are sinking into the soles of my feet.

and all I can do is pray that over time someone will come and save me and my bleeding fingers that have been trying to piece my heart back together.

but there will always be pieces too small to find where they go.

to small to pick up, or even to see.

my heart will be left with cracks that can only be filled with the stinging memories of you,

the left over pieces, the ones too small to use, to be swept into a dust pan, and thrown away without a second thought, like how they ended up there in the first place.

des arbres et des feuilles

winter is probably my favorite season

but only until January 18th even though my birthday is February 3rd.

85 more days

85 more days

85 more days

counting the minutes and the hours

and yeah, I know I wear too much black, but who are you to tell me it's wrong?

but it's because when the snow starts to turn grey and slushy from the dirt on the streets,

it loses its "winter wonderland" effect.

wtf youtube, you can't just decide to skip the best 4 songs on my "1975" playlist.

not cool. 

but sweaters are nice,

and coffee is nice,

and skiing is nice,

and the holidays are nice,

but the cold will eventually turn you numb,

and only so many weekends can be filled with ski trips to keep your mind occupied.

skiing can lose its glamour too, you know.

and I wish I could spend my days traveling around the world, but money is a bitch, ain't she?

so stop asking me what my blogger name is.

but spring sucks ass

and I wish I could spend my summers in the overcast comfort of Seattle, because the sun and my vampire skin don't get along,

but fall is in a pretty close 2nd to winter,

and black isn't my favorite color,  it's red.

you look so cool.

and no, I don't love them anymore.

but this hazy head of mine says no

and my love sick heart says yes

and I'm in a constant battle between the two.

jet black hair and dark brown eyes.

and despite how much I wish I wasn't,

I am home.

85 more days.

exactly 84 days, 1 hour, 22 minutes and 38 seconds.

but winter is pretty cool.

le jour de la mort

this was inevitable

and we all knew it was coming, because we all know the ending to this story.

and I wish I could tell you that somehow it could change, but it can't.

this is one ending that can't be unwritten.

and the beating hearts of the weary just make it worse,

but the tears of your sister just make it sad.

and the flowers make it beautifully tragic,

I had heard once that white roses represented innocence and heaven,

but I can't seem to rip my swollen eyes away from the mahogany case that lies at the front of the chapel.

and not all of the heartbreaking-ly chest-crushing music in the world can help that, but maybe it can cushion the blow for just a little while.

we all deserve to be sad, just like we all deserve to be happy.

until breathing doesn't hurt so much,

and until the quiet black hole that sits in between your heart and your lungs that feels like it's constantly pulling at everything inside you that ever mattered starts to disintegrate and fade into the shadowy background

not gone,

but you've learned to deal with the quiet.

we all have one way or another.

and because this sugar that is pumping through my veins, is turning my heart and soul blacker than the night,

and it's all because of the childhood that turned the sweetness sour.

but it wasn't our fault.

the blame is on no one but the stars and the moon,

but, what did they do wrong?

all we've learned is that eventually the sun will be gone too.

not in our lifetime, but everything has a lifetime,

and sometimes, the lifetime isn't long enough.

and the denim jacket that turned soft from over wear, and the tires that had to be changed sooner than they should have needed to be were all just written into a different story with the same ending,

but even though our endings are the same,

my ending will be different than yours.

and we'll all end up as skeletons in the ground, but at least we'll be together.

the sun will be cold, and the sky will turn into and endless night, but only to accompany us in our eternal slumber, but we'll all be together.

we'll all be together.