the eighth of may nineteen hundred ninety
i feel sad, and not sad.
i am not sure what it is.
i feel nothing all at once.
i really feel like i'm nothing,
but at the same time so pressured that i can't move,
can't do anything about it.
i feel i'm not really here unless
someone needs me to be here,
not alive unless someone needs
me to be alive.
all of which is entirely contrary
to what i lead everyone to believe
-that is that i need only prove anything to myself,
that i am alive because
i believe i am alive.
i feel like nothing and like void.
i feel so sleepy as if
i were being drawn closer
to sleep all the time,
and every time i go to sleep
it's harder to wake up,
and eventually i will never wake up
i feel like i'm falling
without substance or weight.
slowly moving down
without resistance or inertia,
like i am sinking.
i sit in the corner of the room
oblivious to all
but this one train of thought.
This is fairly literal. I was clearly (in retrospect) suffering with Depression and no one helped me. My parents say that they took me to doctors at some point, but that might have been before this time. They say nothing was wrong with me, but they didn't take me to psychatrists, only some pedatrician. Besides, my father had some former-generation horror of admiting mental problems and followed his family tradition of hushing up such difficulties rather than seeking professional help. Now, it's not like he's evil, that's just the generation and culture he was raised in. Everyone's family had that weird aunt or uncle that was avoided but never really helped. Still, I have bitterness about screaming about how unwell I was for years and not feeling like I was even believed. Thankfully I am a little better these days. I love my family, but, Man, I wish I had a time machine to do 1985-1995 over again!
out of my mind
i think i must be going
out or my mind
i'm so horribly depressed
i can't sleep at night
so i stay up restlessly
for days at a time
i hear screaming through
the windows and the walls
i sit and read the same
page of fiction
over and over
but never finish it
i go up to the pantry
wanting something to eat
but there isn't any honey
which i've wanted for so long
i keep thinking i hear cockatoos
above the ceiling
in the attic
and the breathing of the house
another sleepless night
another five books worse for the wear
but not read
i simply must be going
out of my mind
Again, symptoms of Depression: change in sleeping pattern, inability to concentrate, etc.
i remember you
i remember laughing in your room
and laying fevered on your bed
every twisted lie you said
and then you asked me to stay
you promised to me and then
you broke your word
i feigned sleep
too weak not to let you
have your way
i must have told you everything
trusting you because i wanted to
not because i did
feigning silent sleep remembering
your taste and the shape of your brow
but now all i do is hate you
and despise all that was mine and yours
the memory of it all sickens me
so i wish you were dead
the memory of you sickens me
i wish i was dead
(written May or June of 1990)
This was written after a incident in particular. I realize that 'have your way' could be interpreted as fairly serious, but again, as in other poems, the physical reality was not what people would consider most serious, it was the principle of crossing understood (or misunderstood) boundaries and the self-blame involved in not stopping someone else from doing what you did not really want them to do, which is severe in its own way. I am an emotional cripple!
champagne kisses
i sit down in the blue room
bright cool and clean room
and i'm remembering
all the things you said
and the way it used to be
champagne kisses after a hot day
a sip of tea and fevered dreams
oh how i wish everything
would change
and suddenly he the same
could i only call your name
i'd cry to you i would
do you remember me
the way i remember you
a ghost to haunt my dreams
could i only call your name
believe me love i would
(written May or June of 1990)
This is written regarding the same incident as the previous poem. Its tone is very different, almost positive. This just shows how mental and confused I was at the time. I didn't even know if I should have been angry or not. Now, I think, I should have been mad on principle, but in an ideal world I should have also had the self confidence to just say, 'hey, don't do that now.' This instinct in myself to curl up and feign sleep rather than confront percieved danger really worries me!
never let me go
someone told me you really liked me
you really did
and so i suddenly noticed
everything about you
is the prospect of love so appealing
i wish they never told me
because you were truly in love
with someone else
two years of hopeless waiting
and all i could do was cry
i wished i never loved you
i wished so hard and tried
to convince myself that i hated you
you had to really like me didn't you
you had to really like me
don't let my hatred scare you away
i can't let myself love you again
i can't let myself cry
it only it worked the first time
it might have worked again
i'm too weak to fight any more
i'm too weak to fight you
touch me and i'll only cry
don't let my tears scare you away
hold me in your arms
and never let me go
I suspect or vaguely recall that this was written after someone told me that the person I'd been infatuated with in high school had thought I was kewl or something. (we just said 'cool' then, but I like the distinguishing between temperature and kewlness.) Otherwise, I think the feeling is clear.
girl child
i'm not trying to be sexy
i'm just trying to be adorable
you can laugh at me now
then you can love me later
a game's a game
push me too far
and you'll lose me forever
shy and boyish that's me
but look at me in my blue dress
and you're suddenly aware
that i'm a. woman
i could twist you around my finger
like a luck of your hair
silvery voice and golden hair
i'm a regular disney heroine
so inject me
and watch me slide into your heart
its an idea you can become addicted to
picture me a girl child
sleek and trim with apricot skin
but turn out the lights
and its all too much
you can take a trip
without leaving the room
just watch the colors dance before your eyes
take me i'm yours for the having
but the tighter you hold me
the tighter my hold on you
I know this is in a voice, because it is just not me, but I do not recall exactly what voice this was.It is similar in some ways to the nymphet voice used in i will be your little girl. It's also slightly La Belle Sans Merci or whatever that was called.
suspicious
i've never been loved this way before
so treat me badly or i'll become suspicious
its not that i don't love you
its just that i cant trust you
how do i know you're not like everyone before
comparison only brings resentment
doesn't everyone have an ulterior motive
i want to believe you so i say i do
i don't really
you're nice to me now but you'll expect a favor later
experience has spoiled our love
do you deserve someone so suspicious
I do not know who or what this is about, specifically, but it disturbs me. I do not like that I felt I could not trust anyone, because everyone I felt should have loved me, did not make me feel loved. Being suspicious turned away people who could have potentially been good for me.
confession of a depressed seventeen year old girl
when i was young i was never really happy
or content with my life
all i ever got was indifference
or rejection
i wasn't invited to do anything
i would ask to join in
and they would say
"i guess so" or "no''
very few times did i ever really feel
like i was accepted
and it was never around home
it was always while i was away
all the people that accepted me i only saw
for a really short time
i think they admired me for being different
they were bored with tired reality
so i've decided i want to be famous
so i can be in a position
where everyone can see me
i can draw out those ones who are just like me
then we will all feel a little less lonely
I know that the 'while I was away' probably referrs to my feeling there were people I could relate to when I was at Carnegie Mellon University, but overall in my life feeling alienated. This poem was probably written after that time, though it is undated. This is basically how I did feel: that no one got me.
from ian to nancy (sister )
sister don't press your luck
if you tempt me again
i'll kill you
no one is good enough for you
i don't buy the goth queen act anymore
stop stepping on me with those spiked heels
if you put me down one more time
it will be your last
i'll shove your spiked bracelet down your throat
i'll tie your fishnets in a hangman's noose
and hang you till you're dead
sister don't press your luck
if you tempt me again
i'll kill you
you'll be dressed from head to toe in black
when they bury you six feet under
This is obviously in a character voice, from the title and the context. I think the characters Ian, Nancy and Dolores were also characters in Happily Ever After with Robert, Mary and Faith. Clearly Ian and Nancy were brother and sister and she did not approve of his actions and he was angry that she did not approve.
from ian to lo (raven strands)
raven strands hang down your back
and i forget to breathe
i'm intoxicated by the dolores haze
and everything's a dream
ever since i first saw you
in the smoky light.
the most fucking beautiful girl
i'd ever seen
i knew that you were for me
drown your tears in alcohol
i don't care
as long as you're crying on my shoulder
it's sister doesn't think your
good enough for me
she can burn hell
raven strands hang down your back
and i forget to breathe
i'm intoxicated by the dolores haze
and everything's a dream
peel of your clothes
and climb into bed
i promise i'll never ever hurt you
ask me and i'll gladly stay
we can spend the afternoon
dying each others hair
raven strands hang down your back
and i forget to breathe
i'm intoxicated by the dolores haze
and everything's a dream
Lo is short for Dolores and Dolores Haze was the title character of the novel Lolita, so the references to Dolores Haze may be some sort of play on words. The girl with Ian is not meant to be the same Dolores, but the character from Happily Ever After.
i'm hating
i'm hating
hating life
hating everything
maybe you
my brain is fuzzy
can't think
can't move
my head is hurting
make it stop
or i will
stop it all
This is like some lame suicide thought poem. It is sad that I had to feel like that, though.
short poem
A rainy day
falls on my carpet
and I roll around
in a blanket of tears.
I was proud of this one. It's just a single surreal sentance.