do you love me enough?

I've been trying to write about you.

But nothing that I write is anything that you want to hear. and I'm sorry for that and I know you don't want to hear that and I know I shouldn't even tell you that but you know me and you know that I love you I love you I love you but you also know that when something's wrong, I push it aside till it consumes me and for no reason at all, I don't like how many people know that little secret about me, but I don't mind that you do of course, let's just hope that no one ever uses it against me because it is a curse. So I guess what I am trying to say is that this is me trying to handle issues in front of me and not when they burst. I don't think that it's working out that well but I think a lot of depends on you and I love you I love you I love you but I think that it's not going to be easy. It's gonna be really really hard but I just want you to really really trust me when I say that I have had this before and I know what I'm talking about. I can see what is happening on my end and I can feel the tension in my self and I don't want that with you because you are my freedom. You are my peace. You make me lighter. and you make me laugh and you change the subject and you help me kite run away from my problems sometimes which helps me realize that there is so much more in this world than the life I am living.
There is you.
And "you" is reassuring.
So, it's like that again. Because I can breathe better when you're with me but those times are too short and too scarce and it doesn't balance out in my life at all because I have so much. too much. going on that you don't see and that you can't be there for and I don't like that. Because I like the saying "Go big or go home" and I do that in not only my relationships but with the friendships that matter to me. and you matter to me SO MUCH. I love you a lot and I want to show you that love but I cannot. I cannot. not right now at least.
I feel like I've tried to say this before but I guess in a different way, but do you love me enough to let me go? Do you care enough about any sort of a chance at all later to save it for then?
Please love me enough to let me go.
Because I love you more than enough.

"Enough To Let Me Go" by Switchfoot

Oh, I'm a wandering soul
I'm still walking the line
That leads me home alone

All I know
I still got mountain to climb
On my own, on my own

Do you love me enough to let me go?
To let me follow through
To let me fall for you
Do you love me enough to let me go?

Back from the dead of winter
Back from the dead and all our leaves are dry
You're so beautiful, tonight

Back from the dead we went through
Back from the dead and both our tongues are tied
You look beautiful tonight

But every seed dies before it grows

Breathe it in and let it go
Every breath you take is not your to own
It's not your to hold
Do you love me enough to let me go?

After Bite

Being passionate comes with a price. And sometimes I don't think the reward is worth it. Because I hate drama drama drama. And people laugh and nod their heads in agreement but there's a deeper reason I despise the awful stuff and that reason is you.
That "you", I guess, I directed towards everyone because I don't trust anyone but myself anymore.
Because I'm sick of roller coasters and mystery and the constant quiver between hope for a new day and eternal let-down.

I want to put every sentence in parenthesis (because I'm scared of saying something I don't mean).
People are tracking too close to what I say and my tongue is getting tired of having to talk such heavy words.
I want to yell simple, meaningless nothings every once in a while and have someone around to listen to them.

But things are too heavy.

I want to capture everything in quotations "because I just don't believe it anymore".
I want to be the gullible girl some more. That ended too early. I want to believe too easily and have everyone laugh when I look to the ceiling once again and see that your name still isn't written on it.
I want to laugh at myself for believing again.

But the jokes aren't funny anymore.

Once again I loved too easily. I believed too soon. I laid all my weight upon the fault line. And even my strong hope couldn't stop the earth from shaking. And for that I am mad at myself and my weak soul.

I can say one thing without any sort of uncertainty. That I need someone to lift me. Even if it's just for a little while.
I am so sick of the heavy that, this time, I know I just can't ignore.

I guess I had to learn someday that popcorn burns fast if you're not watching it closely and that vampires aren't even real and their bites only poison some and that I guess my brother-in-law was right and all people who drive trucks really are douchebags and maybe Las Vegas really was too far of a drive anyways and the magic we talked about was all just glitter and dust.
I guess I learned.
But oh how I loved my niavety.

You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have a say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers." - Augustus Waters

What I have been needing.

Kingdoms (Inspired by Emily Ruth Pew) by Private Conversation

You know what? I'm a king. A king of what, you ask? Well... A... A kingdom.

In reality, we're all kings and queens. We rule over our hearts. And as kings and queens we determine who enters our kingdom. We hold that power. And even though we are the kings and queens, we have little power over what people do when they enter our kingdom.

Once they are there, what was once held by us as power is now viewed as vulnerability. And people can choose whether or not they stay in our kingdom. 

They can also choose whether or not they stab us in the back.

Once people have entered your kingdom, they can see all that you've gone through. And all that you long for and they can view the most raw emotions that you feel. I mean, it is yourheart. They can see that your kingdom is in turmoil, and they realize that's why you've let them in. To see if they have the slightest chance of rebuilding your broken kingdom.

We've all let people's past our walls and into our kingdoms. We've all been in other people's kingdoms, we've all been left alone in our kingdoms, and we've all left other people's kingdoms. People have decided to stab us in the back. Right in our own kingdom. 

A lot of people have closed their gates. They know it's not worth it to have people allowed in their kingdom anymore. Either they don't want to have the same thing happen to them, or they don't want to have other people deal with their kingdom. It's their kingdom, it's theirproblem!

Right?

If anything, I have been stabbed and left by almost anyone I've held close, and my gates should be locked with a HUGE LOCK. I've endured so much pain because my kingdom is like a theme park.

The fact that my kingdom gates are wide open shock me.

Unfortunately this is my life right now.

"I love you," she said.
He agreed and said, "I love you too."

"I miss you," she said.
He sighed and said, "I miss you more."

"I hate you sometimes," she said.
He nodded and said, "I know."

"I'll never forgive you," she said.
He sat and said nothing.

Quote: T.S. Wilde

One Tennis Shoe

My steps are slapping the frozen ground as I walk along the edge of the freeway. I’m not really sure what time it is, but the sky is dark and caving above me. I’m elated by walks on the freeway these days. I love the warm exhaust pipe air blowing in my face. The bright yellow lights are blinding me. It’s like being at a concert, except I’m making the music.

I think I’ve been walking for miles, and a cop hasn’t even pulled over to tell me to get off the road yet. I’ve been planning on walking more, except I see something up ahead. Off to the side of the freeway like me, I see something white. I’m hoping it’s not something dead. But as I’m starting to get closer I’m realizing that this thing disturbing my walk is very much alive and for minutes I just stand there with my mouth open, looming above it as a great, big shadow.

It was a single, never been worn, tennis shoe. The whole thing reminded me of a toothpaste bottle. But, I didn’t need to wonder why it was there.

I knew it was hers. I may be superstitious, but right then I was sure that the one, lonely, running shoe once belonged to Daisy LaPierre. It would’ve been perfectly fine. Lots of things that pass me by belonged to Daisy. I would just keep on walking, but you see, that shoe had never been worn. Not once. And that just made me feel.

I’ll start out saying first… that Daisy LaPierre looked nothing like an actual daisy. She had that kind of deep black, purple, red hair that changed with the lights. Her skin was so white, you could almost see through it and you were lucky if you ever saw her ears at all. Daisy always just looked really clean.

Well, I can’t remember when I fell in love with Bruno’s girl completely, but the way she sang in church got all of us twelve year olds. Me and my cousins sat in the pew in front of her and I still stick to the claim that I heard her first on that bright Sunday she moved to Revere. None of us boys could breath when her voice rang so pure like that. The number of boys on that pew grew rapidly after that week. Yeah, every 6^th grader in Massachusetts was suddenly avidly religious. We all said we could never love another. I’m the only one who ever keeps my word though. Every single one of those boys knew about me and Daisy. Well, they knew about me and they knew that I had made Daisy my own. Somehow, in my head, I had claimed Daisy and decided I would devote myself to her for the rest of my life.

Of course Daisy was Bruno’s Girl and nothing could be done about it. She hated the title, but that’s just the way it was. Bruno was big and bulky. He’s the kind of person that looks like God added a few extra slabs of clay onto his shoulders when he was molding him in heaven. I guess he was “cute” because I heard a girl say that once. He’s not the best big brother, but I think he’s the best football player at Paul Revere High School. I’ll always love him even though he’s real stupid sometimes. But, no matter what you hear about Bruno, he really did love Daisy. He just had a funny way of showing it.

On the night before everything got sick, it was that way. I mean that way that Bruno loved Daisy just in a sick, twisted, different way, but it was still love. It was that day I bought Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and I was so enveloped that I almost didn’t hear them downstairs. I know now that they had just come back from Minnie’s. It was much past my bedtime but I never did go bed before Bruno got home. Just in case.

When a door slams in my house the entire frame shakes. With two door slams it could pull almost anyone away, even from Frankenstein.

I could hear Bruno’s big voice pounding Daisy and I could make up a hundred guesses as to why he was so upset with her, but quite honestly, I still don’t know. I don’t care either, because that’s just not something you ask a person. Anyways, I had heard them again and was lying on the frayed carpet with my ear pressed to the vent. Their voices were muffled but I could still make out a few sentences I will never forget.

“Bruno, please- I’m real sick!” Even I’d heard this before.

I could see all of it through the floor without even opening my eyes. I could see his eyes like he had been so hurt getting closer to Daisy like I could see his big voice. “You’re always sayin’ you’re real sick now days and I’m frikin’ sick of your stupid excuses!” He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her off the armchair, so as to get a better kick at it. He cursed. I know he’s mad at himself now more than he’s mad at Daisy and so my heart hurt and burned in so many ways. He mumbled something that I think was, “Yeah, Daisy. You’re fine.” Daisy was gasping and coughing a little bit. Trying to stop crying and trying to breathe.

I will never forget Daisy’s voice, so stuffed and coarse, speaking like she never did at this part. “No, Bruno--” He looked down then at Daisy’s beautiful water eyes and her wet cheek with the strands of hair plastered to it.

“I’m not sick- Bruno--” Daisy gasps for air like someone just told her.

“I’m dying.”

I remember everything like it was happening now. I’m pounding on the door. I don’t know how I got there, but it was fast. I can feel my heart doing tumbles in the left side of my chest. My heart’s almost hurting me. I’m screaming now, “Let me in!” “LET. ME. IN.”

I’m throwing some kind of fit just like the ones I used to have. Back when mom fixed a knob that could lock from the outside and I’d take my plastic garbage can and hit it against the door with feeble attempts. We never got around to painting over the dents. I would scream and pound and drown just like I am now. All sense of logic falls to a puddle at my feet. All the energy inside me would instantaneously drop from me. I’d turn weak real fast and join the rest of me in the pool soaking around my ankles. That’s what was happening now, except I’m bigger. I was turning 13 in a week.

My voice sounded like it was underwater. My throat was filling with tears and gunk and anger and hopelessness. I guess they couldn’t hear me through all the filth either because they never did open that door. Not Daisy, or Bruno ever did let me in there.

I suppose I eventually fell back into my puddle, because I awoke on the floor with everything having seeped back in me.

Daisy always wanted to be free. She told me so sometimes. But she never could be. Not free from Bruno or free from her breast cancer that had consumed her. I would’ve traded all the perfect in my skinny body to give Daisy that freedom. But, it’s like Daisy told me. “It doesn’t work that way, Bo”.

It’s been four years now and the hospital room memories are starting to fade. But I remember all the pink and white that filled Daisy’s room and I can remember every door I had to pass through to get there. Daisy loved peonies so her room was stuffed with every peony in America, I bet. Her grandpa got them because he really loved Daisy. Most boys really loved Daisy. Most people always love a dying girl too.

I started to get really sad around winter that year. I knew Daisy was gonna have to be bald soon. I was awkward about it, but I ask Daisy if I can keep her hair. I know now that it was ridiculous, but Daisy just smiled at me like she always did. Still with the eyes that knew everything and always seemed to be laughing at some beautiful, kept secret. But they were growing to tired eyes.

“No, Bo. You can’t keep my hair.” She’s all slow with the way she talks, but I think she had always been that way. “Why do you want my hair, Bo?” But I know this isn’t really a question. She just wants to hear how I’m gonna answer.

I wanted to say, “Because I love you”, but I didn’t. I was still too afraid. I shrug instead.

“I’ll tell you what... I’m gonna give you a piece.” She pulled closer to my ear and said softly, “But don’t tell, ‘cause, you wanna know who else is getting some? Nobody. You’re the only one.”

She doesn’t know how many sizes my heart was pumping to right then, because owning an inch of Daisy could fill me for years. And she gave me 4’.

            Daisy died on August 19^th. I believe in heaven like I believe I’ve got 2 hands and 2 feet. I know that Daisy is my guardian angel. I think she’s gotta be the most beautiful angel that ever entered in heaven’s gates. Bruno had left for college two weeks after that night we found out and he never saw her again. Daisy’s cancer had destroyed Bruno. No matter what we said, Bruno thought that he had killed Daisy. And today, Bruno still treats himself like cancer. He came to the funeral though. Me and the boys still sat at that same pew and everyone was crying. I heard things about how Daisy’s death was so sudden, but it felt awfully long to me. I only cried once. It was when the preacher said that Daisy was now an angel, whole and perfected. I had worried that maybe her cancer still followed her into heaven because it was still a part of her, right? But, I still wonder if Daisy is now completely free.

I haven’t told anybody, but I never did tell Daisy I love her. While she was alive anyways. But I wrote her this letter on August 17th and I put it under her pillow while she was sleeping. I didn’t know if Daisy ever opened the envelope or if she even noticed it. I asked everyone. Daisy’s mom and dad. Her nurses. Nobody ever saw it under the pillow or saw Daisy reading anything.

            But I like to think she got it.

Now, tonight, I walk along the edge of the stream of cars and I come upon a shoe. She was always ready to run in the free-est way and I’ve been discontent these past 4 years on the thought of Daisy’s freedom. The thought that she never got a fair chance to run free in mortality.

It has been 4 years since Daisy died. I sit down, my jeans pockets pressing on the wet concrete. I think it's been raining for a while now. I’m tugging my boot off my foot and I toss it to the side. I wipe the rain off the white and pull the brand new tennis shoe onto my foot. I’m kneeling and the cars are lighting me up to a sillohette as I tie the laces tight.

I walk away that night with the new shoe on my own foot. Because if Daisy couldn’t be free by herself, I should be the one to help her. Her foot wearing Freedom in heaven and my foot wearing Freedom on earth.

I continue my walk down the freeway. The yellow and red lights continue flashing upon me and the street is coughing smoke in my face. I’m wearing the other half of Daisy’s Freedom. For the first time in 4 years, I am content.

I'll be surprised if you read all of that.

I'd like to say that I just sat down and wrote that one day, but not exactly. It was for a creative writing assignment (the only one all semester) in my English class. The prompt was just one tennis shoe on the freeway that has never been worn and you could write absolutely anything. It was the coolest prompt ever. We all wrote such different things. I accidentally wrote a lot more than what I turned in to the teacher, but it was already so long. I almost turned it into a short book that I would call Falling in Love With Bruno's Girl.

Hey Sarah Loveday

Thanks for liking my blog. Well, thanks for loving it.

Seriously, you've been a huge chunk of the reason I even keep writing.

But, I'm so sorry. I can't say who I am. Because basically... I am a lie.

Yep. This entire blog is basically bull crap, but I meant every word.

This blog was never meant to be about truth, it was supposed to be a writing project for myself and a different side of me. I wanted to see if I could write from a whole different perspective than I'm used to and, honestly, I have loved it.

These words that come from Benji Shell are honest and some of them are straight quotes. They're just not from me.

I lied to Nelson about who I am and I lied to a lot of people at first actually but the truth is is that I am not Benji at all. He's a mixture of two things but mostly Benji is in love with me.

I sound crazy... I'm just incapable of being fully honest with you because we're friends in real life and all of my different selves worship you. I don't want you to hate me when you find out who I am.

"The man who is behind it is one of the most honest men I've had the pleasure of reading about."

And he is. A huge part (the best part) of Benji is one of the most real, most honest people that I believe has ever walked this earth, but I am not him. 

I'm so sorry if I've been a huge disappointment to you. I never thought Benji would go anywhere and because of you, I feel like he has.

Thank you so much for everything, Sarah.

I'm not sure that I can continue Benji after this but we'll see.

Thanks again,

Benji Shell

Intimidation Nation

I wanna know who I intimidate so I can show them they shouldn't be afraid.


















 I wanna know who I don't intimidate so I can quickly start intimidating them and put them in their place.

suicide

Damn it.

most appear and fade away

I'm this close to being done.

Who am I kidding.
Why was I trying.
Who am I kidding. I'm not a writer.

The worst is having a broken heart but no one even realized they broke it.
Then you are mad.
Anger pushes up inside of you and you wanna just throw every thing you own out on the table and say "Take it! You can have all of it. I don't want me anymore."

The pieces of you are scattered.
You can do nothing.
No good.
No bad.
You just sit.

Fade away. Sink lower into the dirt you were made from.
You want to be forgotten. So nobody can remember when you failed.

I'm not a writer. I just talk too much.

Mom's got the bucket

 

Dad never let us draw chalk on the driveway. But I miss the days when he'd yell at us to stop. Knock it off. Grow up a little bit faster.

So I did.
When all that stuff happened..  When life happened, too young and too quickly, I grew, shooting up on a thriller ride and my body collapsed under the pressure.
I think my head and my heart must have collided on the way up cuz I haven't been able to get them separated since.

I dropped my crayons on my way up, but I never really had them from the start.
It always for me better to use the stick of charcoal. So I could get my hands dirty.

As I left my childhood I became a stick of charcoal, trying to draw on the pavement. But mom wouldn't stop pouring the bucket of water over all my pictures.

Any kid would've stopped trying to create things after they watched that black wash off the driveway and drip into the grass.

I love her still.
Even if she never bought me a Crayola set.
Even after I began to wonder if she let me hold the charcoal just so she could wash it away again.

But I was only ever trying to draw her a picture and I think that's what hurt the most.

And You've Won

It's time to hand out the awards again and the crowd goes silent as the last award is about to be announced.
Human of the Year.
I've always wanted to win.

But there's that hush and that rush and the announcer says what the neighbors have hoped wouldn't be spoken. You've won again.
It's only a contest in my mind I know, but somehow it matters that you win over me... every time. I haven't decided, but I might like it that way.

Human of the Year and you've won.



I make a decent human.

My grades say so. My parents say no. So I guess that lands me somewhere in the middle.
But you used to wonder if I was half god because I had some magic magnetic pull or something. And I can do math like a pro.
Where's that magic pull now?

And I might've believed you if I hadn't lost in the end.

So now I see I'm human because when I saw you dancing at prom, I swore for the second time in my life because, you were beautiful. Even if you weren't dancing with me.

And I could feel that I'm human when I found one of your red hairs on a shirt I haven't worn since that Tuesday and I kicked a hole in the wall.
My mom was gonna pass out.
I know I'm human because the look on her face still is hilarious to me.

I know I'm human because I get anxious.
I know I'm human because I can't stop myself from writing a thank you card after everything.
I know I'm human because I slip in the shower.
I know I'm human because I keep shaving the mustache that isn't there yet.

So you've won the award again.
You, Human of the Year again this year and you're probably just sleeping in your bed right now, completely unaware.

Yeah so. You've won the medal and you were nice, but you were wrong.
Because I'm just human and I won't believe I'm any more than that now..
Because even half a god could grow a mustache.

And I can't.

thirty-two

Back when a man's hand was used for nothing but shaking.

(I think this is my Paris post.)

I'm looking at my thirty-two year old self in the mirror and I'm scared.
Maybe I'm getting to the half-way point cuz I'm almost positive this is my mid-life crisis.

I look at my face in the mirror. Scratchy. My chin, my hair, and the wrinkles lining my eyes. Am I sad?

I guess it happens suddenly, huh? Because that's how I hear the knocking. It had been a while, but I still remembered how to open the small door to my bones.
So, it was in my hands that I held them. I wanted to rock and to roll with them. They sent a shock through my palms that ignited every regret I had left in me. I heard them talking and it was the first time in 10 years.
That's when I saw in my hands, mixed with the blood and the bones, a picture of Paris.
I stared at her. Did I even own her from the start? I don't think so, but I know Paris had seen me. I'm thirty-two and even dad doesn't know what to believe anymore.
But, somehow, my bones drew a sketched up picture of the Eiffel tower and I knew it was for me.

Suddenly I remembered the bricks they used to keep me here. The night my bones helped me sand them down to make my escape. As I stand here in my 10th grade locker room, my heart is hurting and I remember my first look through that hole at the Eiffel tower. My Beacon. There she stood, shining, melting the snow in my footsteps. My bones are beating to get through to my 32-year-old self as I relive once more... stepping through the hole, my hair brushing against the crumbling bricks, and hearing Resistance calling my name.
I wish I never looked back.


But that night, my bones were set. So I turned and ran even faster.
I jogged till my legs were burning, but I only took life from the fire.
Because that summer I slept under the Eiffel tower and I will never forget it.


But now I'm thrity-two, looking down at my hands, shaking my head and thinking I should've sealed up that hole. I didn't realize how I was holding that picture so tightly.

What happened.
I'm 32 and I have just as many hours in my day as I did when I was 6. As they always have. All that's changed is that I've read so many more books.
Life happened.

Life isn't called living if you're using a dead player.



I'm still very much a little boy.

wipe me off the table

If there was an announcer right now, viewing myself on a television screen, it'd say "Lonely boy, sits hunched over on bed. Figuring nothing out. Not really caring about anything."
And then he'd go off about the game and the strikes in my head again. and everyone would flip to the next channel.
That's why the television never made me anything.

I'm as easy as that.

My life is just 60 seconds in slow motion and when the time's up every part of the world will continue to move as fast as they usually do.
I could be swept off the plane just as easily as it took to get me here.

I'll be wiped off the table and the world won't even pause to see if the air feels differently without me in it.