"So fucking what?" I ask her. "So fucking what?"
Her eyes well with tears. Apparently I'm supposed to feel bad now.
"No. That's not gonna fucking work on me again, Kathy. I learned my lesson from last time. I learned my lesson. Never trust a fucking bitch."
"You're such a dick, Tyler." Mary was glaring at me. I didn't fucking care.
"Maybe. Probably. It doesn't matter, either way. Kathy should know fucking better by now that her little waterworks aren't going to work on me."
Secretly, I feel really bad about it, but I can't tell Kathy that. Then I'll lose. She's so fucking condescending when she thinks she's right. Maybe if she didn't try to pawn her own faults off on other people, I'd help her more. Maybe if she wasn't so fucking condescending when she was right and I was wrong, I'd help her more. Maybe, just maybe, if she wouldn't be so fucking pissy towards me when I'm in a bad mood, I'd help her more. But as it stands, she pawns her faults off, she's condescending, and she makes my bad days worse. So here I am, screaming like a lunatic at her, while she's crying. What a scene. I totally look like a dick. But maybe she'll learn something this time.
Totally uncalled for hope. She'll never change. The only way she would change is if she realized her own faults and decided to change them for the better. Because she always blames someone else for her problems, she'll never change. No cause, no effect. No fire, no smoke. No volcano, no lava.
Everyone tells me I go too hard on Kathy, but I don't think so. She calls me a jerk when I'm mean to her. But I know how much I mean to her. My words are important to her. And if I'm the only one who's not afraid to tell her what I think, then by god, I'll tell her what I think. Maybe I have the power to make her see the light and realize what she needs to do. Maybe it's me.
Then I remind myself that this is Kathy we're talking about. Not some rational, sane human being. Kathy, for god's sake. Then I remember that all is futile when my existence is limited here and that in a few years, I'll be someone else somewhere else, detaching nearly completely from my previous life. I figure that I don't need to care about what's happening right now because I'll be leaving so soon anyhow. I just have to put up with a few more months and then I'll never have to deal with this shit again.
Silence has fallen over us. Kathy is sitting in quiet, angry requiem and Mary sits near her, occasionally shooting me dirty looks. I don't fucking care.
Metaphor, simile, symbolism. These are all lenses writers apply to stories to obscure the actual situation from reader's eye. In addition to these fogging agents, writers can change names, times, locations, colors, sizes, and all manner of other identifying material. Now, the story is as original as the truth and could, conceivably, have happened as is. Assuming the story obeys the laws of physics, of course. But hey. That barely matters.
This is a bit of a sudden topic change, but I hate it when people flip sides. One of my gay friends (the few that I do have) was telling me about his sudden fondness for women. I'm perfectly fine with that, mind you, but it bothered me a little. And then it bothered me a lot more when he said, "I'm not trying to alienate you or anything, that's just how I am."
Well, gee whiz. That's fucking great. Already, I feel isolated and here you are abandoning me, telling me that you would be fine running with women if necessary. Wham. Isolation. Abandonment. The Omega Man. More like the Omega Gay.
I don't think, dear reader, that you know quite what it feels like to feel completely alone. Imagine that you are in a crowd. It's a nice, summer day; the sun is sending its golden rays down upon the earth. You feel ice cold. In this crowd is everyone you've ever known for thirteen years. You move through the crowd like a nonpolar molecule moving through a polar solution.
Oh, that's a good idea!
You are the nonpolar molecule methane travelling through water. All around you, other molecules are hydrogen bonding and vibrating, moving incessantly. You, on the other hand, have nothing to get you moving. You have nothing to be attracted to and nothing that is attracted to you. You are completely inert. All of your motion is in pure reaction to the other molecules'. You can't even hydrogen bond. You are completely and utterly alone, a nonpolar molecule in a polar solution.
See what I mean? Metaphor, simile, and symbolism, all to obscure the true meaning of the story. Anywhere, where were we?
Right, loneliness. It's not the loneliness that kills. It's the idea that it might never end. It would be conceivable that I never have a successful relationship and that I spend the better part of my life alone. I hope this doesn't happen, with all of my heart, but it's always there, in the back of my mind.
Love for gay people is a little different. We have to be careful to whom our hearts flutter. The odds of meeting another gay guy at the bank are slim. Around five percent, actually. We can't let our hearts run wild and rampant like straight people can. That's only a formula for heartache. Gay people have to focus on what they know, who they know. Yeah, it's possible that the cute guy at the bank, the cute guy at the store, or the cute guy at the local burger joint are gay. But that's a one in twenty chance.
It hurts to have your heart broken just once. Doing it again and again would result in nothing but pain. So gay people have to stick together, in gay-straight alliances, or gay bars, or other events where LGBT people assemble and raise the probability.
This means that I have zero chance unless I step out of my shell and join a LGBT club in college or something. Or frequent a gay bar in adult life. I don't want to drink alcohol. Ever. Alcohol turns people in morons, plain and simple. It's a poison. I don't know why anyone would willing drink something that slows down your heart and kills your brain. To each their own, I suppose.
So this leaves not many options for me. At the moment, it seems like it's college or nothing. If I don't find true love in college, then I will be lonely forever.
Talk about stress. Most teens are worried about college apps, where they'll go, and how to apply. Me? I've got all that, plus worrying about a future over which I probably have little control, not to mention to acute awareness I've developed of my surroundings.
I feel like I'm a super-pressurized can of super-pressurized inflammable gas. I'm so pressurized that, when you shake me, I make sloshing noises. My gas has condensed into a liquid. Or maybe beyond that. Maybe I make rattling noises. The gas inside of me is solid. If you gashed the side of the metal can in which I'm contained, I would explode. The gashing of the metal would create a spark, which would ignite the rapidly expanding, escaping gas. Boom. No more metal can, no more gas, no more hearing, and no more eyebrows.
Do you remember when we used to dance in the moonlight? We'd open the paneling over the basement windows that hid the outside from us and stare out into the night, wanting nothing more than to be free. We'd wait until two or three in the morning, one of us watching the sky and the other sleeping. When the moon would be in the perfect position, it filled the room with delicate, cold, silver light, glistening everywhere. The sentinel would wake the other and we'd hold hands and dance in the moonlight. It started out as a sort of gentle sway, then evolved into more elaborate, flowing movements. We'd twist and spin in the silence, moving gently to some internal rhythm shared between the two of us.
Do you know what makes me mad? When people say that "rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel. They're forgetting everything that elementary school taught them! "A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y." Well, guess fucking what! That "sometimes Y" applies right fucking now. To rhythm. And rhyme. And Rhydon and try and why and spry and fly and dye and dry and Nye. Y is a vowel. Not all the time, but for a good portion of it. Y is probably a single mother who has to work two jobs to support her kids because that ungrateful bastard B left her after she found out she was pregnant. What a fucking jerk. Now she has to pull twice the weight of a normal letter: vowel and consonant. Life just isn't fucking fair. Poor Y.
I sometimes wish the universe would rearrange itself into something I could handle easier. I don't wish I was straight, necessarily, but I do wish that other people were gay.
This NaNoWriMo is kinda a write-off, don't you think? The only plot I had failed when I stopped caring about it and revealed it, pulled back the curtain and showed what was going on behind the scenes. Alas, the plot has died.
But now what is it? It's not quite an autobiography, and it's not quite a diary, and it's not quite a journal, and it's not quite a memoir. I guess you could call it an anthology. A collection of miscellaneous shit that's been clogging my mind for most of high school. I foresee this to have a cathartic effect on me for a month or two, then I'll be back to my same self. Good old me.
I'm supposed to be at 20004 words, but right now, I'm only at 18415. And it's 2327 on Friday night. It's about to roll over to 21671 and I'm not even caught up for today yet. So I'm trying a mad writing dash to 20004 before midnight. I can do it. I just have to get to funnel from my mind to the paper really going.
Sometimes, I consider everyone I know. I don't understand how people who are accepting of others can remain friends with people who aren't accepting of others. When I find out, it eats away at me, like a cancer. I don't…understand. I guess it's different for me than for other people. I am a minority and I totally get that one poem. The one where the (spoiler alert for that one poem) end is all "And when they came for me, there was nobody left to speak out."
I guess I'm a fighter for other minority groups because I hope they'd do the same for me. We've all got to watch out for each other. It's a shame that stuff like religion gets in the way of minorities banding together.
I wish religion wouldn't straight up hate on minorities. The Bible promotes slavery. The Old Testament promotes the shunning of heathers. The Qu'ran promotes the subservience of women. WTF, religion? I don't understand why a higher power, be it Jesus, God, Yahweh, Allah, Allen, or whatever would hate something they created. What kind of jerk makes something he or she knows he or she will hate? WTF? I swear to god, God's some sort of sociopath.
I wish I had the guts to stop people when they say hateful stuff like faggot or fag or stuff like that. I have the guts to argue gay marriage, ENDA, and gay adoption, but I don't have the guts to stand up and tell someone that certain words are offensive? What's the deal?
I wish I knew for certain whether my parents would accept me if I told them I am gay. I wish I didn't have to worry about telling them eventually because I care too much about my family to just walk out. I wish there wasn't any chance of a bad reaction, but I know that chance is rather high. Most conservative county, most conservative state, most conservative country, etc…
I wish I could tell my friends more than I actually do. It might make me feel better. But so much of it is so personal and so much of it is stuff they wouldn't care about if I did tell them.
Shit, I only have 18843 words and I only have twenty minutes left. Gotta get cracking.
I wish for this:
In a break in the music, we walked out of the warm, crowded cafeteria and made our way over to a deserted corner in the lobby. Heavy beats floated out of the cafeteria and lingered in the air around it. The school smell was dominant, but it was tinged lightly with your cologne. I have come to cherish this scent, this free piece of you that's offered willingly.
We make small talk. I listen intently, like I always do. I'm always in overdrive when I'm with you, my mental cogs spinning, trying to decipher and determine. That's me, in a nutshell. An analyst. I listen and think and ponder and mull and turn over and decode and decide and choose. I try to piece everything together to reveal a higher meaning, a meaning that I've searched for endlessly ever since I'd met you.
A familiar song comes on. One of your favorites. The friendly beats turn you away from me and lure you back into the cafeteria. Before you go, you make one of your funny faces that say so much with so little. You are so. Damned. Cute. You turn your back and head back towards the cafeteria. I watch your broad back go and think about life, the universe, and everything. I want to call out more than anything I've ever wanted, to call you back, to say your name. I say it internally, the knot in my stomach throbbing in time with my pulse. So much regret. Time is running out. This is the night I said I'd do it. I have to do it.
But you've already headed back into the maelstrom of souls and bodies and before I know it, I'm running in after you and trying to spot you in the dense crowd of unknown faces. I can't find you. The music makes the whole atmosphere seem heavy, thick with notes to be swatted away whilst I wander through the crowd in search of you.
I can't find you. But, to my luck (and sheer terror) a slow song comes on. The dance floor precipitates dancers like a rain cloud. People of all walks of single, lonely life are shed off like dandruff onto a black suit coat. This includes you. I find you and we walk back to the deserted corner. Normally, I'd be with my friends, but all of them are slow dancing. They've all found love.
Back in the dim corner, we start up the old small talk machine. We exchange words and ideas, but nothing more. There is no point to small talk. It doesn't do anything. The terror and stress piles on me as the music swells and I become aware of the end. The song must end. The dance must end. High school must end. This friendship must end. They all must be cast off like an unstable atom casts off neutrons, flings them freely as though they were some terrible weight finally lifted.
"Listen," I say. I feel as though the whole world is listening. My heart leaps into my throat and tries to escape with my stomach and its contents: the pasta I had for dinner. "I was wondering if…"
You look at me with your brown, calm eyes. My long, pale face is reflected in them. In this brief instant of relative silence, I see myself in your eyes, the place I always want to remain. My gaze shifts from your eyes to your round, full face, your vague smirk, and your dark stubble. Preparation for Homecoming was so long ago, this plan a relic of the past. I must go on.
"I was wondering if…" I begin again. I can't get the words out. Their shape and size are far too offensive, too vulgar to force from my throat. They won't go. They get jammed on the way out, get stuck and jumble everything up. I take a deep breath and try to remain calm. "if…you wanted to go out with me."
For the instant afterwards, I hear nothing. No music. Not even my breathing. Just silence. Terror. Shaking. I am in pure terror. Then, you move. In one fluid movement, you wrap your arms around me. I move my arms and place them around you. The embrace is the only answer I need. I rest my head calmly on your should, thoroughly dazed. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
I can't believe it. Everything I've wanted for all of high school. And it's mine. And I'm its. I'm its…something. It doesn't matter what. I'm not my own. I'm its. Nobody even has to know. Not even my friends. If they asked, I'd lie. I want this secret to myself. I want you to myself. For now, at least. You body is warm against mine. I feel alive. So alive.
I look down at you and feel a light, deep inside. I don't have to stifle it anymore. I can smile again, true smiles, smiles telling of happiness, not just contentment. I want to hold on to you for as long as I can. I'd admitted it before: I would change my future to be with you, if it came to that. And it came to that.
I scan your face for your emotions. I see my emotions reflected on you: a warm, wide smile, telling of happiness, satisfaction, completion.
"Yeah. Sure." At this point, it's redundant, but the words are soothing nonetheless. A yes is a yes is a yes. I want to take you by the hand, lead you out on the dance floor, and proclaim our togetherness to the whole world. But it wouldn't be a good idea. So I'm content to keep it to myself, lie to my friends, and tell them that you said no. But I'm good at keeping secrets. I've got plenty of them in my head. What's another?
Instead, I take your hand and lead you out of the school. We follow the darkened sidewalk along the side of the building. It's slightly chilly out, but do you think I care? We find a nice, deserted piece of grass in front of the school and lay down, not worrying about being seen. Dress clothes make the best camouflage at night.
We stare up at the night sky, the stars, the clouds. Everything. It's cold, so we huddle closer. Your arm goes around my body. For the first time in these seventeen years, I feel full. I feel completed. The feeling I've wanted for years, but was too afraid to seek.
Wishes are wishes because they don't come true. You can wish and wish until you're blue in the face, but when it comes down to it, you've wasted your time. Wishes don't do shit. Effort does shit. Getting out there and doing some work gets shit done. Doing shit makes the world go around. I wished until I was blue in the face. But you're still straight and I'm still gay and you're still my friend and I'm still yours.
I wish wishes came true at least sometime.
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