So, I'm pretty sure I hate this story.
“I suppose it has to do with the change in seasons. We can blame it on other things, but that’s all circumstantial, you know? When it comes down to it, all of the feelings that ache in the pit of my stomach or the random mood swings when I go from being so high to falling so low, it all has to do with the season, I’ve decided. Outside it’s cold. Mid-November is never quite this cold. It’s dry too. That’s what makes this place to endearing to some, and so inhospitable to others, to me. When the sun starts to come up, after 5:40 or sometimes later, it cast a sepia tone over the entire city. Over everything you can see in existence. That’s what makes this place bearable, I guess, well for me at least.”
It’s late outside, nearly midnight, and cold still. Below freezing it seems. Not according to the thermostat, but to me, to my bare feet resting on the off white tile. There are bare outlines of trees shaking in the cold outside of the large windows, one on each of my sides. Left and right. When cars pass by their headlights throw shadows on to the walls. They dance from one wall to another until the car fades off into the distance.
This is an awkward pause between us. I’ve never been too great at phone calls, especially when I’m tired yet I can’t sleep so I call on him to keep my company a few thousand miles away and three hours later. I want to go find socks, because it is freezing, but the cordless phone has gone missing and I’m too caught up in our conversation and my thoughts to set the phone down for any length of time.
“And the rest of the year? You’re happy all of the time, then?” He asks, and not with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, true sincerity. “Are you? You seems upset far more than that. Except, you’re never upset in person. Only in writing or online or when it’s from a distance. You just joke face to face. Smile, laugh, nod... lie.” And his point is valid. I’m not happy all the rest of the year, and a change in seasons is not an excuse for my random phobia of psychiatrists and medications that everyone knows I need.
It’s dead silent in the house. The small halogen lamp, with the adjustable neck bent at such a harsh angle, sitting on the computer table is casting rainbow lines onto the wall off of blank CDs that are strewn about along with papers and homework not yet done and books I’ll never finish reading.
“You’re right.” is my reply. “ It seems reasonable to blame the weather, though. It’s cold and dark and so I relate it to sad and depressing. So, it makes sense to me.” I add.
“Yes.” is the laconic reply he offers, followed by an outstretched and deep yawn.
“But, summer isn’t any happier. It’s so hot that you can’t walk outside. Everything is down and dull and dry and dead. That isn’t happy, not in the least. You can’t pretend it is, either. Even the monsoon. Rain and floods, how is that happy in the least?”
“You’re right, it’s very unhappy. But what about spring? It’s cool outside, somewhat green, and fresh.”
“But, you know that the summer has just ended and a bleak winter is around the corner, so there is no escaping it, you see. Every which way you turn here, it’s there and you can’t escape it when you live here year round.” I find my retort to be rather witty, but I don’t believe that Taylor finds it to be that way at all.
“You’re always down. But you won’t ever admit to it! God damn it, it’s so frustrating, you’re so frustrating! You are frustrating and I don’t understand!” He doesn’t yell, but only hightens the emotion in his voice as another car passes and another shadow waltzes along the wall.
“You should come back then. Thing would hardly be this complicated if you would just come home.” And I mean it, and he knows that I mean it, but he’ll find some stupid way around my words.
“You know I want to be there! But, you know that school is important, and that I worked hard to get out of there and to come to study some place that gave me opportunities and really, Philadelphia isn’t that far from Arizona, truly it isn’t! Another month and I’ll come visit. And a few more months and you’ll be living here too, or close by. Only a train ride away” He means what he says, and his words cary such sympathy, and that’s what makes it so hard to hear, especially knowing it is coming from a gray piece of plastic attached to a white cord sending signals through wires running between here and there. Thousands of miles apart.
“And if I don’t get into any schools near you, then what? What happens then? Six months and we’ve seen each other twice! No wonder I’m on the verge of a mental break down, we use to spend each waking hour together! You make me unhealthy.” I don’t mean what I say, and he knows that, and I still let the words escape the levee of my lips.
“You’re perfectly fine! You always tell me your fine, so be fine!” Be fine? And it’s as simple as that.
“Of course, you’re right, I’m being absurd, I’ll be fine. Good night.” And I hang up the phone ending our conversation with a harsh tone and hurt feelings at nearly 1 AM in the morning when I have exams that I haven’t studied for and now all I want to is sleep. That is what I have been reduced to is sleep. My entire body fills with this heavy feeling and I am taken aback by emotions I no longer have the strength to control, I doubt I ever had the strength to control. My parent like to say I’m crazy, and sadly, now I’ve come agree. I agree with every word they say, and I refuse the help because I am too big for it. I could never compromise who I am with medication and help. Never with help.
The walls are a deep red in the room where I am sitting, so the light casts a red tint across the entire room. When I look in the mirror hanging above me and the phone I see everything I don’t want to see. I see every word that I choose not to hear written across on my face, in the dark bags that now occupy the space below my dull eyes because I don’t sleep. And in that time that I don’t sleep, I don’t study, nor do I read or write and do anything but sit and reflect on my faults.
My social life suffers and my friends pull away, and Taylor pulls away, and my grades fall and my hopes of escaping this place being to shrink down into the pit of my stomach and mix with every other stress that is pushing me around, and I don’t sleep. Never do I sleep. This is you’re typical teenage angst, I suppose. I sit in the dark and stare at things I cannot see. At dreams that are fleeting and everything that I choosing not to achieve because I am so wrapped up in these feelings I cannot control.
Everything is timeless in the dark. There is nothing that can help me or pull me up when the black engulfs the room. And I lift my heavy body from the chair where I’ve been sitting for far too long, and fall between the sheets of my bed a few feet away. Until the sun pulls it’s heavy self above the gray horizon I lie awake and wonder and worry and my eyes never rest and I just waste away. And the phone rings.
It’s late outside, nearly midnight, and cold still. Below freezing it seems. Not according to the thermostat, but to me, to my bare feet resting on the off white tile. There are bare outlines of trees shaking in the cold outside of the large windows, one on each of my sides. Left and right. When cars pass by their headlights throw shadows on to the walls. They dance from one wall to another until the car fades off into the distance.
This is an awkward pause between us. I’ve never been too great at phone calls, especially when I’m tired yet I can’t sleep so I call on him to keep my company a few thousand miles away and three hours later. I want to go find socks, because it is freezing, but the cordless phone has gone missing and I’m too caught up in our conversation and my thoughts to set the phone down for any length of time.
“And the rest of the year? You’re happy all of the time, then?” He asks, and not with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, true sincerity. “Are you? You seems upset far more than that. Except, you’re never upset in person. Only in writing or online or when it’s from a distance. You just joke face to face. Smile, laugh, nod... lie.” And his point is valid. I’m not happy all the rest of the year, and a change in seasons is not an excuse for my random phobia of psychiatrists and medications that everyone knows I need.
It’s dead silent in the house. The small halogen lamp, with the adjustable neck bent at such a harsh angle, sitting on the computer table is casting rainbow lines onto the wall off of blank CDs that are strewn about along with papers and homework not yet done and books I’ll never finish reading.
“You’re right.” is my reply. “ It seems reasonable to blame the weather, though. It’s cold and dark and so I relate it to sad and depressing. So, it makes sense to me.” I add.
“Yes.” is the laconic reply he offers, followed by an outstretched and deep yawn.
“But, summer isn’t any happier. It’s so hot that you can’t walk outside. Everything is down and dull and dry and dead. That isn’t happy, not in the least. You can’t pretend it is, either. Even the monsoon. Rain and floods, how is that happy in the least?”
“You’re right, it’s very unhappy. But what about spring? It’s cool outside, somewhat green, and fresh.”
“But, you know that the summer has just ended and a bleak winter is around the corner, so there is no escaping it, you see. Every which way you turn here, it’s there and you can’t escape it when you live here year round.” I find my retort to be rather witty, but I don’t believe that Taylor finds it to be that way at all.
“You’re always down. But you won’t ever admit to it! God damn it, it’s so frustrating, you’re so frustrating! You are frustrating and I don’t understand!” He doesn’t yell, but only hightens the emotion in his voice as another car passes and another shadow waltzes along the wall.
“You should come back then. Thing would hardly be this complicated if you would just come home.” And I mean it, and he knows that I mean it, but he’ll find some stupid way around my words.
“You know I want to be there! But, you know that school is important, and that I worked hard to get out of there and to come to study some place that gave me opportunities and really, Philadelphia isn’t that far from Arizona, truly it isn’t! Another month and I’ll come visit. And a few more months and you’ll be living here too, or close by. Only a train ride away” He means what he says, and his words cary such sympathy, and that’s what makes it so hard to hear, especially knowing it is coming from a gray piece of plastic attached to a white cord sending signals through wires running between here and there. Thousands of miles apart.
“And if I don’t get into any schools near you, then what? What happens then? Six months and we’ve seen each other twice! No wonder I’m on the verge of a mental break down, we use to spend each waking hour together! You make me unhealthy.” I don’t mean what I say, and he knows that, and I still let the words escape the levee of my lips.
“You’re perfectly fine! You always tell me your fine, so be fine!” Be fine? And it’s as simple as that.
“Of course, you’re right, I’m being absurd, I’ll be fine. Good night.” And I hang up the phone ending our conversation with a harsh tone and hurt feelings at nearly 1 AM in the morning when I have exams that I haven’t studied for and now all I want to is sleep. That is what I have been reduced to is sleep. My entire body fills with this heavy feeling and I am taken aback by emotions I no longer have the strength to control, I doubt I ever had the strength to control. My parent like to say I’m crazy, and sadly, now I’ve come agree. I agree with every word they say, and I refuse the help because I am too big for it. I could never compromise who I am with medication and help. Never with help.
The walls are a deep red in the room where I am sitting, so the light casts a red tint across the entire room. When I look in the mirror hanging above me and the phone I see everything I don’t want to see. I see every word that I choose not to hear written across on my face, in the dark bags that now occupy the space below my dull eyes because I don’t sleep. And in that time that I don’t sleep, I don’t study, nor do I read or write and do anything but sit and reflect on my faults.
My social life suffers and my friends pull away, and Taylor pulls away, and my grades fall and my hopes of escaping this place being to shrink down into the pit of my stomach and mix with every other stress that is pushing me around, and I don’t sleep. Never do I sleep. This is you’re typical teenage angst, I suppose. I sit in the dark and stare at things I cannot see. At dreams that are fleeting and everything that I choosing not to achieve because I am so wrapped up in these feelings I cannot control.
Everything is timeless in the dark. There is nothing that can help me or pull me up when the black engulfs the room. And I lift my heavy body from the chair where I’ve been sitting for far too long, and fall between the sheets of my bed a few feet away. Until the sun pulls it’s heavy self above the gray horizon I lie awake and wonder and worry and my eyes never rest and I just waste away. And the phone rings.