Strange Words

There's too many pages of strange things, too many books written by strange people, too many strange words that nobody uses anymore. There's too many pictures lining the halls of famous museums, there's too many symphonies that shake those concert halls. There's too much power in speeches, too much feeling in music, too many pages of strange things.

Disconnecting what I see and what I feel has never been easy. They always seem to go together, pasting smiles over the old magazines, laughing when I don't remember how to tip my hat. Who needs respect now? Constantly, we beg for honor and then throw it down. We are offended when we are complimented. The ink has been spilled, and the stain will never fully disappear.

I like to try to wear different hats, and different gloves, and boots, and see how many people tell me I don't match. People tend to have a nerve that they won't admit to. They pride themselves on the tact they possess, but the rest of us can see what they really are. Just a shell. One of those little dolls that has a smaller doll inside of it, and a smaller doll inside that smaller doll, all the way down to the little bean-sized one.

They seem to assume that if they keep pouring water over their heads, they will look more and more beautiful until the sun looks like a cold little rock next to their glory. They burn and scald themselves, starve the life out of their eyes, paint colored clay over their faces until they are simply a broken little bean-sized doll, locked inside a smiling robot, one of those serial killers that leaves you awake all night.

And then you turn on your television and watch the ball players run around and wonder how long each of them will live, and what their favorite colors are... regardless of the flags of their team. The paint in the cup by your wrist stirs itself, trembling, waiting to spill and ruin some other treasure in your possession.

And the voices trail on in that off-beat fashion called harmony, a subtle reminder that colored lights really don't work like colors on the paper does, and the way your mind works has to sift through the different modes until it comes to the right one. Maybe you'll get together with someone you call a friend, and you'll make that sound called harmony, but one of you always has to take a melody, and the melody is what everyone knows...

And you haven't eaten in you don't know how many hours, but that's alright because as soon as you start getting faint, you'll pick it all up again and make your schedule even more unbalanced than it is now. It separates you somehow, but you don't mind, because that's all you've ever wanted. That sort of respectful disrespect that appears to be attached to your words and actions. It's all you've ever known; how could it be wrong? You were born this way. They always say you don't have to change.

Your stomach hurts, but you're not sure why, and to be quite honest you don't really care. The newspapers blare out that there's been a murder, another life that slipped away, and not enough people care. The train will keep leaving with your magazines, and information slides down the wall where it's been thrown. But it never really affects anything, because there's always going to be another newspaper... another murder.

And now there's a reason to smile but you can't quite put your finger on it. Who cares about the cause as long as the effect was good? They say they do, but they don't. It's all lies. They like to lie, and they like to change words to make themselves appear more adorable. Why is it that the affection of other half-dead humans is what we chase after? Why do we want more of what we are? Are we all such hypocrites?

But then again, why do you care? It's not you're problem. It's probably the government's problem. They like to solve those things for you anyway. The paint spills, the power flickers, the television dies. It's dark again. Too many strange words.

House

The house is best when there's no one here but me. The only air that I inhale and exhale, over and over again, is just mine. I'm not sharing precious oxygen with the lungs of those occupying the same residence as I. It's all mine.

No one is here to hear the second heartbeat that is pounding hammers against my skull.
No one is here to warn me that the pills I've swallowed will knock me out for at least six hours.
No one is here to make me drink water and sit by the fire. No one is here to notice me.
No one is here to care.

The house is best when the only noises are mine, and I have control over what sounds reach my ears. Except for the haunting thudding in my head, I am the monarch of this building, and of everything inside. I am a dictator. I tell things to stop, I tell them to start again. I am angry when it is not anyone's fault. It is mine.

No one is here to look at my drawings and try to interpret them.
No one is here to sit by my side on the couch and listen to me spill my mind.
No one is here to watch me cry, no one is here to comfort me.
No one hears.
No one is here to care.

The house is best when the music can sail through it without anyone being annoyed with my choices. My songs are my songs, and I take them for my own pleasure, not for anyone else's. I share my original music only with the stillness, and I shatter the stillness. It is mine.

No one is here to read the words I have so carefully written onto these pages.
No one is here to smile, or frown, or agree. No one is here to understand my explanation.
No one is here to contradict or to converse.
No one speaks.
No one is here to care.

The house is quiet when it is just mine. It breathes and sways like a creature hungry, and fear breeds on my echoed gasping. A thousand ghosts seem to appear, leering at me, taunting me. My words spill from my mouth, a desperate attempt to keep my mind from wandering. The instrument that burns in my fingers crumbles, a tuneless heap, a failure. Those in the other rooms speak to each other, and I can hear them laughing...

But...

No one is here to care.

Unworded Paradise of Lies

"There's such an incredible infinity of lights!"

My lips moved and words poured out, but my hand was still trembling on the frozen grass. I don't think this grass will ever thaw; it's already turned grey as it is, and grey grass doesn't seem like it would ever really be alive again.

The apparition beside me stirs, its open mouth breathing out unfelt thoughts. Since when do ghosts breathe? A silent photograph in my mind smiles, a forgotten thought slipping to and fro over the waves of memories. Music was always a nice way of putting things.

A cool finger touches my lips and a shudder runs through my veins. The apparition smiles detachedly, and I gaze through its eyes. There was never much emotion involved here. There was never much emotion needed. Why would you ever bring feeling... and everything that comes with feeling... into such a cold, beautifully empty space?

"There's such an incredible infinity of lights."

Stars are an astonishing sort of phenomenon. Sometimes I wonder how far the incredibly simplistic black-and-white could go. The tears stream down my face, but I scarcely notice their presence. Crying is just another one of those useless forms of seeking sympathy.

I haven't learned yet to stop using my voice. The ghosts around me never speak, no, they are too transparent and beautiful to mar themselves with sound. Sometimes, the weight of the silence is so strong that I say something, anything, whatever I am thinking... just to remind myself that I am still as sinful and disgusting as any other. For now, anyway.

They say words die when they are spoken! Dead, dead, dead like wasted emotion and crushed dreams. The apparition nods, very gently, to encourage me. I understand it now. At first I was frightened, but it showed me the endless, endless stars and the frozen grass, the blue blood that sailed in the streams in place of water, the angels that stood still like stone. Oh, stone, stone is beautiful.

"Such an incredible... incredible infinity... lights."

They say that if I sleep, it will all be better when I wake. It will all make sense. The air is unspeakably cold; I can almost see frost forming on the softly indistinct line of the wonderful apparition beside me. It's chest falls and lifts, an imitation, for since when do ghosts breathe?

A finger traces mine, but there is no feeling. Feeling is unnecessary. Hurt. Trust. Love. Unnecessary. It is better without.

I smile contentedly. Neither lies nor truth matter anymore. That is what the ghosts told me, their bodies against mine, removing the fire of fever and bringing blue blood in place of water, silence instead of words of empty comfort.

"Such... infinity..."

And I sleep.

Vinegar

It is an uncomfortably large room that I have stationed myself in -- perhaps exiled would be a better word. My world of illusions is delicate and intricate and the detail are perhaps the only thing that keep me from sinking into insanity. I would ask you if you have ever experienced anything like this, but usually you haven't. It's a rare and terrible creature who has. But I am content to be the only terrible creature living in my beautiful mansion, and I am content to have only one room that is consistently destroyed.

Only one room. An uncomfortably large one. I can afford to be just a little bit over-the-top in my decorating tastes. I've never seen anyone have a room as large as mine, with so very little furniture. I have a chair. A wooden one, with a straight back and simple carving. And I have a desk. A very large desk. It is in the very center of my wonderfully, awkwardly large room.

The walls are the true masterpiece. The walls are coated, floor to ceiling, in mirrors. When I write, there are hundreds of images of myself staring at me, commanding me to live up to what I say I am, pulverizing my self-esteem with their angry pairs of identical eyes. And they all look at me at the same time. It's amazing, really.

Here I have exiled myself until I can talk to people without cutting their skin, without bruising their faces, without crushing anyone. I have a solid habit of maltreating people when they get on my nerves. I know when it's going to happen, because my hands clasp each other tightly and I start smiling. Smiling is a bad sign.

And then, they say something that cuts the last wire that holds old Pinocchio down, and I let loose.

Words are beautiul, like knives. Knives are a beautiful danger, and I am far too skilled and confident to be let alone with knives. My words are my knives, and no one seems to realize that. They tell me to be quiet, can't I see how I've hurt their feelings? Go to my room, I shan't be allowed to visit people if I can't keep ahold of my tongue.

I'm proud to be sent here -- I'm proud to look around at all the criminals trapped in here with me, all the profanities I've written into the floor on some of my worse days. I've been getting better with the curse words, though. I've been trying. Cursing is such a weak way of letting emotion loose. It's too simple. Too easy. Naturally, I can't do anything too simple or too easy.

And here I am exiled, self-exiled, mostly, and I sit on my chair and hold my hands tightly behind the back. The pens on the desk are all fountain pens, all beautiful old-fashioned instruments of hate and glorious love, all sharp and glaring just like the knife-words I know how to wield so skillfully.

I've spilled enough of the ink on my desk to drown the wood, and my blood is probably mostly black and blue, but if I die of poison from tools of beauty, how can I complain?

My fingers are already shaking, but the clock is slow and I can't give in prematurely. The pens and the inks are waiting for me, the pale, dead paper waiting to breath again, the mirror images waiting to revel in our wordful triumph. And yes, it will be a triumph, for triumph is what I live for... triumph in all its glory, its different perspectives.

My reflected images are smiling, waiting. The paper before me trembles, my fingertips burning. I imagine the ink to be boiling inside the little bottles.

The clock strikes; the chains break and adrenaline shoots through every vein in my body, sending my mind into a beautiful frenzy. The word-knives bleed ink onto the waiting sheets, and I can hear the heatbeat beginning again. The pain of growth is nothing compared to the raw exhilaration of release.

Time speeds, or stops, or shuts me out as long as the pen is scraping the page. My writing is curved and beautiful, the result of years and years of unintentional practice. The clock strikes again, but I don't stop. I'm not ready to stop yet. It's not ready to stop, it wants to go on, it begs to go on, it burns to go on...

Someone knocks.

The inkwell falls, my arms and my desk are stained a wonderful black.

The paper breathes, sighs, and closes its eyes.

"Ready to behave now?"

My tongue jumps; my fingers convulse over the splintered wood. I am not ready to behave. I am ready to stand downstairs like a demonic angel and wait until you practically beg an insult out of me.