Category: Late Night Thoughts

Attempting Escape

Neutral SpacesLeave a comment

I’ve been sitting here every night for the last three years. I leave out my bedroom window and climb through the bushes, walk silently through the dewey grass, and find my favorite tree stump in the forest. I sit here for two or three hours every night and stare up at the sky, watching the moon, counting the stars. I make myself cozy on a tree stump, a tree stump that remains uncovered by the foliage of the trees high above. I bust out a notebook and begin writing down my thoughts. Thoughts that range from how the darkness is surrounding me, how the leaves rustle on the ground when a small breeze brushes through, how at any moment I could be attacked by a wild animal. I never know what to expect when I’m sitting here, but I know right now it is unusually quiet. It’s a quiet that I’m not sure how to process or how to get through. It’s almost deafening.

Exactly three years ago tonight is when I began sneaking out of the house. I was having problems sleeping, too stressed, too paranoid. I hadn’t made any friends in school, all my old friends stopped talking to me. I thought everyone saw me as the weird girl who never spoke and always had her head down. Insomnia from stress kicked in and the walls started closing in on me quickly one terrifying night. I could feel my room getting warmer and warmer, my throat was beginning to close, and tears were welling up. I jumped out from beneath my covers quickly, only wearing a night shirt with boxer shorts and leapt out the window. I ran  and I ran. I tried to escape myself. I didn’t know where I was going, my feet getting muddy and my hair becoming a tangled mess. Finally I tripped over the very tree stump I’m sitting on now and landed in the dirt. I turned my body over and saw the opening in the trees. I laid there, staring, calming down, breathing slowly. My body loosened up on the ground, but I could also feel mud soaking through my shirt. I sat up on the tree stump, my leg a bloody mess from scraping against the side of the trunk. I sat there till almost morning, walked quietly back home, showered, and went to school like nothing ever happened.

The quiet deafens me and the dark is surrounding me like a cloak. Chills crawl up my spine and I hear someone crying, someone running through the dead leaves. Each leaf breaking into million pieces and being flung in all directions from someone’s feet. The shine of the moon becomes dull, the gleam in my eyes from its reflection disappearing. I look to one side of me, in the direction of where I came, and see a translucent figure. A girl, just like who I was, running, trying to escape her mind, with only a night shirt and boxer shorts on. Her feet covered in mud, her dull blonde hair a tangled mess. She doesn’t know where she’s running to, but she keeps running. Then she trips over the trip stump where I’m sitting, her leg becoming a bloody mess from scraping hard against the side of the stump. I don’t know what to say or do, tears fall down my cheeks one by one, and she looks at me. She see’s me, she acknowledges my existence. Tears are streaming, old mascara falls beneath her eyes, soaked in dirt from her hair to her feet.

“Help me.” She says. Her voice is scratchy and tired. She’s propped up on one elbow and then falls to her back. She’s weak and can’t hold herself up anymore. Wanting to reach out and help, my arms stay stuck in the position of holding my notebook so close to my chest. I’m paralyzed by the fear of what is happening in front of me. I can’t answer, my throat is closed tight. I want to believe that she is not in front of me, that I’m not in front of myself. But she is and I am. I shut my eyes tight and wipe away the water from my face. I open my eyes and I’m gone. The moon is back to it’s usual brightness, the dark back to it’s normal darkness. The wind blows through once again and rustles the leaves. I know my safe place is no longer safe. I can’t escape myself, I can’t escape my mind.

Advertisement

Something Quick, A Break From My Book

Neutral SpacesLeave a comment

It’s three in the morning and it is obvious to me at this point I am not going to fall asleep. I sit up in bed and swing my legs over the side. My feet are flat on the floor and I dig my toes into the shaggy rug placed at the edge of my bed. I rub my toes all through the yarn of the rug, just wanting to feel something normal. I rest my elbows on my knees and place my head between my hands. My face feels numb, my nose feels cold, and I can see slow tears dripping to my knees. I take one grey sweater covered hand and wipe my face. I stand up and begin to pace the room. My face is hot with anger and cold from sorrow. My heart is racing and chest is in agonizing pain. I turn from facing my wall to facing floor to ceiling windows on the opposite side. It is completely dark in my room, but the light from the city outside wants me to come close. I take a deep breath and walk over to the windows slowly. Taking one step at a time, attempting to not fall over from my shortness of breath. I bend down to the ground to open the bottom window just to let air circulate in my tiny room. The window only opens about six inches wide from the bottom, but that is all I need.

I take in a long, deep breath. The air is freezing but I feel it go through my nose, down my throat, straight to my lungs. It is cooling and livening and I thought my heart is stopping in this very moment. I let the air go and create a fog on the window. My eyes close, my head is resting on the glass, I sit there breathing in the rigid October air. Voices  from fourteen stories below are just faint murmurs of the young students walking out of the bar across the way. I hear the stumbling women and the infectious laughter of the drunkards. I sit there wondering where they are all going, what they are doing out this late at night, who they are, if they even knew each other before heading out tonight. Air infiltrated my lungs slowly, air evaded my lungs quickly.

In…

Out.

In…

Out.

Soon the air becomes a shroud on my body. My skin gets tighter and tighter till I cannot stand it. I stand up quickly and give myself a head rush, a head rush that forces me to hit my actual head on the glass of the window. I lean one hand against the window to gain my balance and to gain self awareness. My eyes shut tight, my nose drying quickly with snot, my stomach churning like someone kneading dough. All these feelings together gave me something I had never had before.

I had never been alone.

Till you left me in the most agonizing way you could.

I lift my hand away from the glass, pushing myself up straight. I wrap both of my arms around my stomach and keel over. I wanted to vomit, I wanted to cry, but all of my tears were stolen by time and my stomach was close to nonexistent. My eyes hurt from the tears but somehow my body is starting to produce more. I do not want to cry any longer so I stand straight. My arms are still wrapped around my body, my nails digging into my sides, digging deep into my skin. I open my eyes wide to let oxygen circulate and blink quickly. I walk over to the window and do something I haven’t done before.

I just look.

I just look at the buildings surrounding me, the buildings that are taller than me, that are shorter than me. I see all the lights turned on throughout the city and I see all the drawn shades and dark rooms. Every light, turned on or turned off, represents a person in this metropolis that is either wanting to be excluded from the outside or is already excluded from the outside. I see below the strangers wandering the streets lonely, with drunken friends, sober. I see homeless men and women with tattered backpacks and grocery carts filled with bags. None of them speak to each other, none of them even make eye contact. They don’t know each other and they have no interest in knowing each other. My eyes wander up to the sky and I see millions of stars, shining bright, falling dull. The moon is full and bright, not a cloud to cover it’s beauty. The only thing worth looking at from up this high. I look down to the building across from me. There are exactly six apartments with their lights still on and activity on the inside. One apartment is a couple watching movies, two apartments are having parties, and the three others are just people sitting in the kitchen enjoying an extremely early breakfast.

My mind is wandering to how many people are really in this city. Close to millions. Of how many of the millions actually knew each other? How many wanted to know each other? The people on the streets definitely did not want to know each other. The people in their apartments were cut off to those people in the apartments with them. Did they know anyone outside of their front door? Now I am wondering if I know anyone outside my front door. Every morning I leave my door at 7:30, get into the elevator where no one speaks to each other, walk out my building with my ear buds in same as everyone else, speak to absolutely no one. I lean my head against the window shifting all my weight towards it. I breath in the thin air and let my lungs fill more and more. I am losing control of my mind. My eyes move in every direction, flittering quickly from one side to the next. My breathing cuts short and my chest gets tight. I lay down with a pillow next to the opening of the window. The sun is slowly rising and my body is quickly going to rest. The air is on my face and my eyes are having a harder time staying open. I know that if I fall asleep now I will miss class, but I am okay with that.

I turn my head to look down to the ground once again. Still, no one speaks to one another, no one acknowledges one another. Sometimes I wonder if those people even exist or if they are just a product of my imagination or fabricated from this life I am living. The lights in buildings are shut off also realizing the sun is coming up. My room is now entirely freezing and I drag my body to my bed. The parties from the building across are shut down, the couple had gone to bed an hour ago, and the ones enjoying breakfast have left for work. They still do not realize that no one else in that building was awake as the same time as them. I lay in bed and listen to the noises of cars, busses, and trains. But not to the sounds of people who know one another. I am realizing you did not make me alone.

I was already alone in this city.

 

I wrote this in about an hour and it was just an idea I came up with. I was in the shower singing New York, New York when I realized how much I actually do miss living in Chicago. While this story is not entirely true to me (I was never up at three  in the morning crying about men) but it is somewhat resonant of my experience living in the city. I loved looking out at night to see how quiet the streets had become and it was always interesting to see people wandering the streets at ungodly hours. And yes the apartment across the street always had a party going on or someone up at a strange time watching movies.

Here’s An Unfinished Piece

Neutral SpacesLeave a comment

Because of you, I am not the same person.

I used to lay my legs on your lap and rest my head on your shoulder. I sang songs to you and whispered poems into your ears late at night. You would look at me with wide green eyes and tell me how you loved my voice and you could listen to it all night long. How my voice could soothe you and and how my songs were nothing without such a voice to follow; how my songs were nothing without me.

I used to rest my hands in yours and drag you into the middle of the living room to dance with me. I would put on something light and fun and dance all around you and you would laugh. You would laugh at how silly I would become and you’d pretend to be impressed with my terrible dancing. Then you would change the music and put on something slow and romantic, then you’d take me by the hand and waist. You would twirl me around and dip me all the way to the floor.

I used to sit in our sunroom and stare out the windows with a blank stare and a blank canvas in front of me. You’d bring me piping hot coffee in the morning and warm tea in the afternoon. You would wrap your arms around me and tell me that inspiration would come if I stopped thinking about it so hard. I would say you’re right and then dipped my brushes into the paint. You would sit there with me drinking tea and we’d get distracted from my work and talk about our futures and our lives.

I used to sit in our living room and daydream about us. I would stare at you while you read the morning papers or your work reports and think about how lucky I was to be in love with someone as beautiful as you. You would catch me looking at you and ask me if something was wrong and I’d say no. Then you’d come over to me and kiss one cheek, the other cheek, and my lips. You’d laugh and tell me how lovingly silly I was.

Because of you, I am not the same person.

I can’t sing anymore. I don’t want to dance anymore. I have no inspiration to paint. I no longer daydream about being the luckiest person alive. All of these things were things that you did to me or made me feel. Now you’re gone and so is everything I was. Shame on me for looking so deeply into your green eyes. Shame on me for singing for someone whose love was not undying. Shame on me for believing those laughs were laughs of endearment.

 

This is something I started working on today. It’s definitely unfinished but I hope you guys like it so far.

New Year, New Updates

Neutral SpacesLeave a comment

Hello to all my wonderful readers. It has been quite a while since I have written and I will tell about that later on, however, at this moment we must pay great tribute to someone.

It has been a couple of days since the news came through, but better late than never. It has taken me a while to process the passing of this wonderful life and in truth, I am still processing the news as are many other lives across the world. With the passing of David Bowie, we lose a life that has changed more lives than he will ever know. He was a musical legend and has personally meant a lot to me in the last couple of years. His music taught me to expand my mind in many ways and taught me how to truly be okay with being just who I am. With his different stages in his musical career, he also taught many other souls, just like his, to be who they are and continue on with themselves and only themselves. Many friends of mine were quite devastated with the news of passing and considered him a role model. With this being said, we must celebrate Bowie and all he was and all he will ever be. He will go down in history as one of the greats.

With the sad side of me out of the way, I would like to tell all you lovely people that I have officially started the process of writing a book. It’s actually really exciting and I’m hoping it’s really exciting for you as well. From time to time, I’ll post small snippets that I’ve written. I don’t want to give out a lot of detail about it because I’m still in the early stages of writing. However, I can tell you that it does combine a few of my posts that I’ve already written on here. One of my resolutions for the year was to write more and this is what has come of that resolution.

However, for now, I will post something new I wrote a few nights ago while I was having trouble falling asleep. It’s a short poem and for me, poetry is unusual. I can read it, I can analyze it, I can’t write it. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

For the moment,

This has been Neutrality

Thoughts From the Airplane

Neutral SpacesLeave a comment

Hello my dearies. Yes, it’s been quite a while since my last post. With the end of my first semester of college, moving out of my apartment dorm, and going on vacation, things have been a little hectic and draining. However, with a nice long vacation in the carribbean, I’m feeling especially refreshed and full of new ideas and thoughts. So, with that being said, I want to tell you all my airplane thoughts.

Over the past week, I’ve taken four plane rides to and from the carribbean. A total of  almost nine hours of air travel. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken an early morning flight, the kind where it’s still dark outside, but it’s quite amazing. There’s something about take off and watching all the lights pass you by then slowly slip away as you leave the ground. To get even more cheesy, I was also listening to David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Somewhere in all of this beauty, I had myself thinking. As the lights of nearby communities slowly slipped away further and further from me, I could only think of how many people lived in those communities.

I thought about how many people were in each one of those thousands of houses that I was flying over. I thought about how each one of those individuals was going to wake up in the next few hours, get dressed and eat breakfast, and then go on with their day doing what they believe they are meant for. Then I thought where do I fit in with all of these people? I know it’s quite a melodramatic question, but haven’t we all thought that at least once in our lives? Where do we fit in with the rest of the world? Well this was my moment. As I watched these unknown people in their unfamiliar homes become invisible through cloud cover, I couldn’t shake the question from my mind.

I still haven’t been able to answer this question. Over the last month, I changed my major to creative writing and my minor to photography and the same question gets asked every time I say this: What are you going to do with a degree in creative writing? I was also asked this question a lot when my major was photography. I know you’re supposed to have an idea in mind as to what you want to be or what you want to do when you finish your college career, but this time last year, I had to ask to go to the bathroom at school. I don’t even know what I want to have for dinner tomorrow night and you’re asking me what I want to do for the rest of my life? Maybe I am being a little dramatic, in fact I know I am, but I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I just want to be happy.

I don’t think people think about their happiness enough. I always ask myself that when I’m eighty years old and sitting in a rocking chair with my cat on my lap, will I be happy with how I’ve spent my life? Yes, I know having a career and being financially stable and all that junk is important, but as a human being you’re allowed to do the things that make you happy. Maybe it’s just me, but I see more people working just to make money rather than working because they were in love with what they were doing. Maybe it’s just me. I’m a firm believer in doing what makes you happy no matter the outcome, unless of course if you put someone’s life in danger. That’s a whole other story and when you get caught doing whatever you’re doing, don’t use my name.

To get back to what I was saying earlier, I have no clue where I fit in with the rest of the world at all and I’m totally content with that. Yes, it’ll be a frustrating, long trek down a foggy, uncertain path, but it’s something I need to do to be happy. Even with the unexpected twists and turns, I intend to smell every rose and gaze at every star in the night sky. You’re probably thinking at this point well that’s just a waste of time but let me tell you something: when I’m eighty years old, sitting in my rocking chair with my cat on my lap, I’ll be able to say I lived my life happily and I can die knowing I did what was best for me.

Who knows, maybe when I’m eighty I’ll still be writing and taking photographs. In fact, I know I will be.

Thank You

Neutral SpacesLeave a comment

My heart is a precious thing. It’s a precious object that beats and beats and beats. It pumps real blood and has real pulses. I know you felt the pulses, I know you did. You held me so close, closer than I had ever been held. You put me on a pedestal so high, high enough I could reach for a star and bring it back down. I can remember the day I met you, I can remember the days we could do absolutely nothing and be comfortable, I can remember the last day I ever saw you, I can remember the last thing I ever said to your face. I remember saying goodbye.

You tore every little feeling apart, to absolute shreds. I could feel the strings in my body wither away with every word you never said. I hear every chord snap inside in my body, my ears were on fire with explosions inside me. I could see my bright, red beating heart turn to a slow, dreadful grey. Turning thirty-second notes to whole notes, going from two hundred miles an hour to a mere five miles per hour.

I remember the day I saw you with her and how much I wished it was me. I looked at her and all I could feel was a complete jealous rage take over and my eyesight had gone red, then cleared with tears. I had wanted to be her more than anything and she had everything I wanted. She had you and your undivided attention and you looked at her the way I could only imagine you looking at me again. I remember the time where you looked at me like that; with total adoration and unwavering focus, like you were holding onto every word I said like it was the last word that would ever come out of my mouth. I wanted to believe that it could be like forever.

Slowly you forgot me. You forgot about those small important memories we shared and all the wonderful whimsies that had come from our almost relationship. The fire in your eyes for me had been put out and couldn’t be re-lit. I lost you and I thought it was my fault. I blamed myself for ever putting myself in a position where we made ourselves so vulnerable and susceptible to a terrible love. Everyday that passed without you by my side was terrifying and the days I saw you with her made me the most depressing shade of blue. The fire in your eyes had been lit by someone else and it saddened me to think that it couldn’t be me anymore. The sadness turned into a depression turned into a numbness.

When I was numb I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t hear anyone, and everyday turned into a routine of dragging myself out of bed pretending that I was ok and I will go on with my life. I would go on but I would still love you even after the terrible emotional instability I had been suffering from. Finally, I knew I needed to get on with my life. So I did it in the only way I knew I could; I got disgustingly drunk. I drank and I drank and then somewhere in the middle of my drunken state, I had a realization. Why was I so heartbroken by someone who couldn’t give me the time of day and ultimately didn’t give a fuck about my emotions? What the hell was I doing with myself? Why was I emotionally destroying myself over this shit? I realized I had no reason to be angry or upset or depressed because I realized I had him in my life. Somewhere in my depressive state, hungry for someones affection, I had met him and he fit a bill that hadn’t even been written up.

He became someone to me than I could even imagine at the moment. When I was with him, every terrible thought of you disappeared from my mind and I suddenly felt like I was breathing fresh air, like someone had pulled me out of the water and saved me from drowning. He made me feel things I had never felt before and had turned my melancholy sounds into a joyous opera.

I won’t go into detail about my happiness because you don’t deserve to know how my happiness. I thought you had ruined me when in reality you put me into a direction that led me to someone who is more amazing than you ever were to me. You filled me with hate and fear where he fills me with love and hope for a better me and an even better us. This is my thank you letter to you. My thank you for making me understand what I’m really worth and who I’m really worth. My thank you for the tear soaked and mascara stained pillow cases that led to a crave for affection. My thank you for leading me to him and making me see the beauty in not being with you. I hope this letter makes you understand how much instability you caused me and how your decisions affected me even when you took me out of your equation of creating the perfect life. I hope you realize how you ruined me and my image of myself. I hope you realize what you’re capable of and that you never do it to another person.

Thank you for helping me find him and leaving behind the person I had become when I was in love with you.

11:45 PM

Neutral SpacesLeave a comment

Here I am at 11:45 PM and I have to get up at 6:45 in the morning to be able to make my activities for the day and I’ve been tired all day as it is. I guess tomorrow I’ll really be needing the coffee. However, being tired leaves me with my thoughts and that could either be really good or really bad.

So, here’s my one thought I’ve had that I can actually make sense of; when you have an opportunity in front of you, don’t jump into it, you need to dive into it. You can’t look at something on the surface and only understand the surface. You have to go deeper and understand what it’s really all about.

My fault is that I see things on the surface and I don’t want to take the time to understand deeper because I feel like I already know everything that could go wrong. I can admit to that and I can also admit that I’ve been trying to harder to get better at that. However, I’m not doing so well. When I see things on the surface, I get nervous and I don’t want to make myself vulnerable by diving into something that could go awry. So if you ever feel like I’m not 100% putting myself out there, that’s why.

I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks how this is really hurting me in different life situations and I’m honestly trying to be better about these things. I know that this isn’t the best thought out blog I’ve written and I’m probably going to end up deleting this in the morning when I wake up and realize how poor this really is. But, now, here I am, a few hours later at 1:02 AM. My thoughts have remained the same and the one at the forefront of my mind is still this; don’t jump, just dive.

-Neutrality