The Pursuit of Loneliness

-No Song-

In fifth grade, I recall getting bullied viciously from everything to my skin to my shoe game. Homie that bullied me the most, though? This ugly little boy who was always shorter than me until high school. I remember finally biting back one day along with some of my peers to which a female teacher responded, "Be nice to him. You never know. He might grow up to be a rapper or something making a lot of money." That, dear friends, was the first time I mentally called out an adult on their bullshit as if to say, "Wow. Even they don't have the right answers." And she didn't. The way I always saw things, it wouldn't matter how any of my peers turned out. I certainly wouldn't need anything from them. As I write this, though, I'm terribly uncertain. I know peace of mind (because that's what I'm on a witch hunt for) will shelter me whatever route I take, however I'm afraid my feet are glued to the path I carved into stone when I was a little girl. College, job, book publications, then whatever was next. For all the planning it took, I feel unprepared to walk into the line of fire. No amount of kindness or mercy shown to my peers could have prevented this for me. In the adult world, I am alone. A number among other numbers. I have a bank account number, a number of hours on my paystub, an alphanumeric combination at the DMV, a number for the pump my gas is on, and even a number for the computer I'm using right now. Just a number that begins with my birth: 09/04/1998 and ends with my inevitable death date. Currently, I'm supposed to be doing one of my online college classes. (Number of those: 4, soon to be 5) As fate would have it, my login isn't working, so I decided to make time for my suffering blog. I have approximately fourteen minutes before this library computer shuts down, so this will be quick. My love life doesn't exist anymore. It probably never did, but it definitely isn't there now. I find myself smiling for nothing and everything. There's a guard: I trust no one. I love everybody. I just don't fret anymore. I'm not sure if that's good or not. I find solace in the idea that one day I'm going to pack up and not say a word to anybody, just leave. It's not like I'd be running away from something, just more like toward something else. Something new. Something different. I'm tired. I'm tired of trying to plan. I'm tired of checking my account balance. I'm tired of not knowing when something or someone is going to come into my life, show me something amazing, and stay. I'm tired of the people I know will stay blaming me for not always noticing their presence. Subconsciously, I'm recreating myself into everyone that had an impact on me and vanished. I can't leave myself, right? Somehow I find peace with that. It's like I'm more me than I've ever been because I'm alone, yet I still have all these attributes of people I've loved. I have Your cynicism, yOur painted hands, yoUr vapor, youR jokes, yOur lingo, Your lack of concern, youR fear of trust. I am all of you as I hope in some small way, you're me too.

Drea

Life Support

"When the real hold you down you 'sposed to drown, right?"-Drowning, Mick Jenkins

I gave myself a little time to write this one, wanted to allow myself to replay the day over and over again. I stumbled upon a recent (well not recent, but more visible) development of my emotions that will be explored later because, quite frankly, I don't like writing in the present tense as maybe you've noticed. It was Saturday. I had gone thrift shopping, beat my face, and had adorned my skin in my sexiest outfit. I felt good, so it was only fair I looked the part as well. I was supposed to go see a psychic for a reading. Cecelia. You will later learn why on a scale of 1-Not Shit, Cecelia is not a one. During my thrift shopping, I came across a swimsuit I'd been looking at all summer in the store window. Brown with large pearls dangling from the front adjustment straps. I cannot swim and decided during a 2013 suicide attempt, drowning is not the way I want to go. Still, this summer I took my first visit to a large body of water [to learn to swim]. Orange Creek. I went with my best friend and the most success we had in me learning to swim was doing poorly executed floating. Regardless, the water was only deep enough for me to still be able to stand straight up in and while I felt dizzy wading through it, I enjoyed the experience and knew I'd want to do it again. Saturday made my second visit to Orange Creek. New swimsuit clinging to my curves, the anxiety I'd felt all week followed me down the little hill to the water. Here's where Cecelia comes in. Roughly an hour after calling to ask the price of her services and politely declining an appointment after learning knowledge of the future would cost me $55.00 out of a $109.00 check, I almost drowned. This is not an exaggeration. The current was stronger than last time. I wasn't using my hands to help get through because I was holding on to our shoes. Ironically, all this caused me to lose my footing. Balance unintact, things escalated from a playful "Oh shit!" to a terrified I'll-never-see-my-mom-again "OH SHIT!" The only thing that helped me (I was out of my best friend's reach) was being pushed toward some low hanging branch that I grabbed and held onto until I was certain I hadn't died. My best friend swam to me, I got on his back and was walked to a little sandy piece of land where I cried hysterically for five minutes straight before saying, "If the damn psychic hadn't been so expensive, we could've seen this coming." Five more minutes was spent laughing at that and afterwards, I had the photo shoot I'd anticipated before my face had hit the water. Fifteen minutes after nearly being taken out the game, Instagram got to see my summer body, my wet curls, my unbothered grin. Not my trepidation, my literal fight for my life, and my panic. I wish I could say I had this huge epiphany, that I live every moment like it's my last and that I believe I'm invincible. The truth? Now when things feel awful, all I think is, "This is still better than drowning" and I begin to feel better. That's it. The picture I posted fifteen minutes after almost drowning has 83 likes currently. Let's say Mother Nature hadn't extended a hand and my best friend didn't get to me in time. That's 83 people that, while I had died, would've been playing Xbox or working or listening to music. Rolling a blunt, eating some pizza, having sex. Those 83 people wouldn't have known until perhaps hours later that I was gone. What would they have said? Would they had missed me? Would they blame my best friend? Travelled down for my funeral? Had massive regret all I'd left behind was an unpublished poetry book and a fake diamond ring? These are the questions that have played in my head every day since the incident and while they're menial and impossible to answer honestly because they're hypothetical, they've convinced me to have slightly more regard for my existence.