What's wrong with the world

          What’s wrong with the world is that I don’t get chills. I get chills when I read J.D. Salinger. You know what else? I want to write when I read him too. I know it’s a cliché but I swear this time I’m serious. I swear he’s my spirit animal. It’s like he knew me before I knew me, and he knew what I was going to end up wanting to say before I ever thought of it. I don’t get chills every day. I get chills when the National Anthem comes on at a football game or when I’m listening to a song that hits my core or when I think about my parents and how much they love me. One time before I was confirmed in the Catholic Church they made us go on a retreat, which basically means they took us to some camp and made us spend a weekend there. I got chills a lot then. One night we had confession and they didn’t tell us they were going to do it but they had our parents write us notes- see just thinking about it makes my throat turn into a gumball and the hairs on my arms stand up. I’m not a very sappy person and believe me, if I was ever a sappy person it definitely was not when I was in 8^th grade but when I started reading the letters from my parents I immediately stiffened up. I couldn’t help it. I’m not a sappy person and I don’t talk to my parents about how we feel about each other and maybe you think you know how your parents feel about you but I bet you if you have them write you a note to encourage you next time there’s a big moment in your life, you will bawl your eyes out when you hear what they really think. It doesn’t matter if you’re like me and my mom where you are so different but she’s your mother so you love her and she cries whenever a movie even almost gets sad or if you’re like me and my dad whose conversations mostly consist of grunts and nods in agreement but you know deep down you’re the same person, you will bawl. I guarantee it.

            I was dying. I was shaking all over and I knew I was going to cry. I hate crying but more than anything I hate when people see me cry. I almost forgot. You know why I was so torn up? I probably would have been pretty torn up anyway but it was so much worse because they sprung the letter on my right after I got done with confession, at least I think it was right after. Either way these two crazy intense things happening to me at probably my most vulnerable age really killed me. So I they make us do confession and I’m like, “shit, confession.” Then I see my priest who is really cool and always seems so wise and stuff sitting on one side of the stage and a random guy who couldn’t have been more than 30 or 35 on the other side. I wanted to get in line talk with a wise old man but I got shuffled over to the younger priest and I just accepted my fate. I think it might have been one of those chance moments that you think will be insignificant that actually ended up changing my life. For some reason I knew I was going to tell him I didn’t believe in God. At the time I believed but barely, and it was new to me I didn’t believe for a while before that. For some reason all of a sudden I feel like I’ve told this story before. I know I haven’t. Maybe I have? Either way I told him I had a hard time believing in God and I was on the incline but still, I needed to confess it.  You’d think this would be one of those moments where I got let down by a young Christian man naïve to the things he should say to a wayward pre-teen, but it wasn’t. He told me the smartest thing I think anyone has ever said to me, most people would probably disagree but then again they don’t know some of the silly things I’ve been told. He told me in training to be a priest and in the monasteries and stuff, or however that works, most of the priests go through a time where they don’t believe.  He told me if you never doubt a thing then you probably never thought about it very much and that my doubt just meant that I was thinking about it a lot. I really did though. I still do. I think about it a lot. Maybe too much.

            I recommend you have your parents write you a letter. After this I walk down from the stage and go the back and they ask for my name and pull out these letters. It was so bad. All the other girls I was friends with were crying, bawling, hysterical, I couldn’t stand it. They kept saying how they had never been away from their parents this much and how much they missed them. I went to camp as a kid, I was never overly attached to my parents, I didn’t really miss them, it had been what? A day and a night? Maybe two days? I thought they were silly. Keep in mind that I was thirteen. Do you remember your relationship with your parents when you were thirteen? Fond memories? Didn’t think so. That’s exactly the time when you become brat. I was a brat. It was normal, but I was still a brat. These letters though they killed me. The worst part was I think it was mostly my dad’s letter that killed me. My mom’s was long and about how much she loved me and how even though I’ve been rude lately she still was happy to have me and loved me dearly and etc. etc. My dad’s though was a killer. You know in those corny commercials or tv shows when the dad says, “I’m proud of you son” and that one manly tear comes to your eye? It was a lot like that. It was a short letter but he basically told me he was proud of me. Proud of me. He was proud of me. I feel like someone just turned the heater on in my head, my eyes are sweating and my ears are getting warm. I can’t even think about it. He’s proud of me. The worst part is: I never liked my dad much. He made me angry. I didn’t look up to him. At times I think I almost hated him. I was a thirteen-year-old brat and he was proud of me. I forgot all of the shitty things he ever did because in that moment he was the perfect dad in the movie I would never watch that is quiet and manly and I finally made him proud, but it was better than that because I didn’t do anything special. I was at a silly church camp that was only 2 days long and consisted mostly of card games and team building activities that really had nothing to do with the fact that we were supposed to be preparing for a ceremony that in itself doesn’t really mean a thing these days. I didn’t do anything to make him proud and even if getting confirmed into a church a.k.a. walking down the church aisle in a robe and… well… that was pretty much it, even if that was something meaningful in the world, it wouldn’t be to him, he’s an atheist.

            I never asked my dad if he was an atheist. I made that up. He hates church and makes fun of it. That was all the proof I ever needed. I highly doubt he believes in God but when I think about it I like to think he’s at least an agnostic or in my wildest dreams he has a secret shrine in his closet hidden behind his pants with one of those candles with Jesus in Technicolor on it with the sacred heart and he’s just been fooling us all this whole time. Another thing about getting confirmed: you don’t actually have to do anything to prepare. They made us take this class, it was like Sunday school only on Wednesdays and specifically to prepare for being confirmed. They made us learn all of these things that I forgot the instant I learned them so I still can’t tell you. I know one was the Ten Commandments but there were other things I think a prayer or two and something about virtues maybe. I didn’t take it seriously, like usual, and my best friend at the time who was in the class too, she was so afraid and kept studying. That’s how it was for us in regular school too. I never gave a crap and got A’s and she worked harder than anyone and got A’s too. We had to go into a back room and talk to the priest and he was going to quiz us on the stuff we learned. She was scared to death and I didn’t care. What were they going to do tell me I couldn’t be in the church? They don’t turn people away from the Catholic Church these days. They just don’t. There’s this façade that they’re secretive and really traditional; the truth is there’s a lot of rituals and traditions but they don’t care what you’re wearing or what you believe because they’ll never ask and they don’t yell at you for anything, they just greet you when you walk in and smile and tell you wise things and then you leave. It’s nice. I like it way more than most churches. I feel judged at other churches, like I have to be something I’m not. Maybe I don’t want to stop around screaming, ”JESUS! HALLELUJAH!” because maybe that just looks silly and maybe I can think about religion and mortality and immortality a lot more in depth when there isn’t someone screaming next to me, “JESUS! HALLELUJAH” or someone on stage screaming, “START SCREAMING JESUS HALLELUJAH.”  At mass it’s not like that. There are women with their arms up singing along loudly and passionately and there’s old men falling asleep and getting nudged by their wives when they start to snore and nobody judges anybody else. Nobody judges me for a god-damned thing there, and maybe it’s because they don’t care enough or because there’s so many people that you get lost in the crowd, but I still feel safer in a pew than I do most other places.

            Well anyway, my best friend Samantha, the one who was very serious about school, she was freaking out. We had to know a bunch of stuff for this quiz and the head priest himself was giving the quiz, it was scary. I wasn’t really scared for some reason, until I was walking down the hall to him thinking, “Crap, I don’t know anything about this.” Needless to say I got there and I really didn’t know anything. I think I got most of the commandments, definitely not in order, and a couple of the other things. I freeze up when I’m on the spot like that. Tests are fine, I write down what I know and I’m good, especially when it’s multiple-choice. With multiple-choice, even when I have no inkling of a clue what the answer is going into it, after I read the answers I can be positive what it is and tell you about it later. If there was a profession that required answering multiple choice questions, I’d have it made. Anyway I basically failed and then he yelled and threw me out and my grandmother cried her heart out when I didn’t get confirmed. No, but seriously though it turned out it didn’t really matter what happened. It was all a big smoke and mirrors experience. On the one hand, it was stupid, it was a waste of time and effort, and it means nothing to anyone that I’m confirmed. On the other hand, if I was at a different church and they said study for this test, you better believe that when I failed, they’d give me stern words about how I should live my life for Jesus and put effort into my relationship with God and crap like that. I’m pretty sure Jesus never said you needed to memorize things or you’re out. I guess another church might not have had the quiz to begin with but the example can still stand. Yeah, He stuff about selling everything you own to follow him but he never said you had to, and he never judged people. Well now I’m just saying things that don’t even make sense but the point is, that’s the story of a thirteen-year-old agnostic brat getting confirmed as a Catholic.

          What if people were like books, leaning against each other and other miscellaneous objects on a shelf somewhere? There would be those people with soft covers, easy enough to get inside, but with a barrier of politeness and social-normalcy. Then of course there’s those books so thick that they not only have a hard cover, but a layer of padding covering the hard cover to make it seem softer. There would be the stoic hard cover, black, minimal wording, simple, tough, unapologetic. There would be ones with no cover, maybe never had one, only bound with rings, or maybe a soft cover that over time ripped away, or worst of all: the thick hard-cover who had it’s protection viciously torn off, all of whom show their guts to the world unable to cover them up.

            There are millions of types of book covers, all with different textures, art, font, and all covering up a different set of pages, a different pile of meaning. I believe some people are poems: multiple poems, making up a person, not necessarily the same theme, but a collection nevertheless. Some people are full of stories, facts, definitions, order, or fantasies. I guess I know people are like books, and at the same time I wish people were books. I could open the cover and read all about them and hopefully the words would help me understand their story and their essence.

Complex

I don’t know what to call it, but I feel like everyone is in love with me all the time. Mostly, when I meet a guy, especially one who I become friends with, I have a constant paranoia that he is madly in love with me and that I’m going to break his heart and ruin everything forever. What would you call that?

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got. It’s not that I think I’m extremely attractive or anything, I think I’m mediocre looking. I don’t really think I have that great of a personality either; as a matter of fact, it’s rather prickly at best. None of that really matters though of course. People don’t love people because they’re perfect, they love them because they’re what they wish they were or because they don’t give them what they want. That’s why everyone in the world just wants the person who treats them like they’re dirt because they want to figure them out, change them, fix them, they want the challenge, they want to prove they’re tough enough to deal with them. Weak people say, “I love him/her” what they really mean is “They’re tough, if I can handle them then I’m tough too.” It’s just not true; we can’t all be strong. I was born this way. I was born without whatever it is in your brain that makes you upset when the cute boy in class doesn’t like you or when the popular girl doesn’t like your clothes. I have some sort of handicap I guess, but honestly it’s more like a gift. I just don’t really care that much. I mean I care about starving babies in foreign countries and when my mom cries and when people die young and stuff like that but really besides that things just blow past me like the breeze.

Back to everyone being in love with me: I don’t really care about anything, I don’t lie because if people can’t handle the truth they need to learn how to, I just do what I want basically. People love that. I don’t have those moments when someone is making me feel uncomfortable or shy, I just am the way I am. So when someone meets me they are taken aback. I’m different.  It’s like everyone is a rock collector and I’m the cool one with the crystals inside. Nobody wants Samantha the girl in your Physics class who studies and gets B+’s on every test, drinks on the weekends, and likes to listen to folk music because no matter how exciting she thinks she is or unique she thinks her music taste is the truth is most people are Samanthas. So when her boyfriend of a year meets a girl and breaks up with her leaving her crying with her best friend every night, she won’t see it coming because they were “special.” Then when he goes for the new girl, because he’s the male version of a Samantha, he’ll be surprised when she loses interest in a month because they were “special.” Then he will go running back to Samantha because the truth is they are both boring and are perfect for each other.

Don’t worry I would never actually tell Samantha this, or Kyle, or Julie, or Ally, or Tyler, or John. It’s not like they can change what they are. What they are isn’t bad anyway, sometimes I wish I was boring too. You might be thinking, “Man, aren’t you miserable?” or “Do people even like you?” No, I’m not miserable, I’m pretty happy. I get bored of being so not upset all the time but I get over it. And yes, people do like me obviously. Thinking everyone is in love with me isn’t entirely in my head. I actually do have to turn people down a lot. I’m also just rational enough to know that I do get a little paranoid about it sometimes.

I met this guy today. He kept looking at me and smiling. I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop writing a story. I don’t know why people do that: look at you and smile. If you aren’t interested in them they just look creepy. You have to have a lot of confidence in your charm to sit in a public place staring at someone like that. It’s stupid, even me, sitting here telling you about my giant ego would never make myself look stupid like that, no matter how little shame I have. So, we kept making eye contact and he would smile and I smirked back once or twice to keep it from being awkward. Obviously he took that as an invitation and he walked over to my table.  This is a perfect example of why I have a complex.

“Hello, my name is James.”

He stuck out his hand. I looked at it, then shook it.

“Hello.”

“I figured since I was just sitting over there getting bored of my book and you were sitting here alone I would come over and we could both sit here and not be alone anymore.”

“Well, sit down then.”  I was already bored of writing whatever I had been writing and he seemed entertaining at least.

“Is that an invitation?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t expect you to do it.”

“So is it?”

“Yes. It was an invitation.”

“But it’s not anymore?”

“No it still is. Unless you don’t want it to be then I’ll go back to writing.”

He sat down. I didn’t know whether to be annoyed by him or keep talking to him so I just waited for him to start a conversation.

“So do you go to school?”

“Yeah, I go to UCF. You?”

“I don’t go to school. Hey, I’m sure this place will close before we can have a really good conversation how about we meet up another time? You seem interesting.”

“I don’t know about that,” I laughed.

“Don’t be so vain. I just met you, I’m not asking you on a date, I just like a good conversation.”

I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little bit shocked but I’ve met guys like this. They think if they’re mean they’ll get you interested.

“I am not vain.”

“You’re right. That’s not the right word is it?”

He took the napkin that came with my food out from under my plate used my pen that was on the table to write something down. He slid the napkin over to me and stood up.

“It was nice meeting you, I didn’t catch your name.”

He stuck out his hand again. I shook it without thinking this time.

“It was nice meeting you too.”

“See you around,” he said with a smirk.

            When I read the napkin later it just said:

“You’re arrogant.”

ACT I

Scene 1

Adalae and Evan enter the living room together from outside (stage right). They begin speaking as they take off their coats and scarves and hang them up on the coat rack next to the door. Adalae is wearing a belted dress, about knee length. Evan is wearing a sweater vest and bow tie, but does not look old or awkward in it, just handsome.

ADALAE:

If I could rip my heart out and put it in a blender I think I honestly would. (Nonchalantly)

EVAN:

(Shocked)

Why would you say that? That wouldn't make any sense.

ADALAE:

(Confused)

What? It only makes sense! It's what makes us so confusing and frustrated and basically our only real weakness as human beings. I mean animals don't have hearts, at least the symbolic ones and they are weak in the mind which is how we got to the top of the food chain. Imagine if we just didn't have those pesky emotions, we'd be invincible.

Evan shakes his head and kind of chuckles to himself at her. Adalae walks into the kitchen and begins to boil water for tea, Evan follows her.

EVAN:

You know if you didn't have a heart you wouldn't really be able to enjoy being around me.

Smiling, he is getting closer to her while she's busy rustling around in the cabinet for tea and mugs.

ADALAE:

Well I mean I could still have a nice intellectual conversation with you and I mean we'd still have physical urges and stuff. It would just not have all the down sides.

EVAN:

But I really don't think this-

He turns her around and surprises her with a passionate kiss. As he pulls back, they both smile at each other.

EVAN:

would have quite the same effect.

ADALAE:

Well...

She takes a while to finish her sentence, she is light headed and just stares at him for a second while she stutters out a response.

ADALAE:

th-that is... a very good point. Wow, I can't really breathe.

(She laughs)

I love you. You know that right?

EVAN:

Of course I do, and I love you, even though you have some unnatural vendetta against your heart.

She pours the water into the mugs and he carries them to the table for her. They sit there for a second sipping tea while they smile, both to themselves.

ADALAE:

You know what's great about you?

EVAN:

Well I can start listing-

ADALAE:

Oh hush! No, I just want you to know how much I enjoy that I can just sit her and drink tea with you without feeling like I need to entertain you or make unnatural small talk.

EVAN:

Well you know what I like about you?

She doesn't answer, just smiles and tilts her head, inviting him to tell her. He stands up and puts one hand holding his weight on the table and one hand running through her hair.

EVAN:

(grinning)

That I'd do anything for you to entertain me. Sometimes I just don't know how I resist the temptation to just-

ADALAE:

Evan, I- I- I just don't want it to be like that.

He sits back down.

Evan:

(still smiling, just a less deviously)

I know, I know don't worry I'm not trying to change your mind, I just hope you know how crazy you make me.

ADALAE:

Sorry.

EVAN:

Don't apologize, I promise, it's fine.

Pause, both sip tea.

EVAN:

If I promise to wait as long as you want to wait, and to never stop loving you and to make you feel like you can't breathe, in a good way,as often as possible do you think you could make a promise to me?

ADALAE:

You know I would love all of those things but you also know how I feel about promises! I told you I hate them and I will not make one.

EVAN:

Have I ever asked you to before?

ADALAE:

No.

EVAN:

Have I ever asked you to do anything you couldn't handle that ended up badly?

ADALAE:

Well, no but-

EVAN:

Then you trust my judgement. So if you would please listen I would like you to make me a promise and in return I am making a lot of promises that I will keep, and you know me well enough to know that I actually will keep them.

ADALAE:

Well, what is it?

EVAN:

In return for everything, I just said, will you, Adalae, please promise me that if you ever had the opportunity to rip your heart out, that you wouldn't mangle it in any way?

ADALAE:

(Smiles, relieved)

I guess I can, just for you.

EVAN:

Well say it!

ADALAE:

Say what?

EVAN:

Say that you promise that you will never put your heart in a blender and/or destroy it in any other way.

ADALAE:

Okay! I promise you that if by some miracle I manage to pull out my heart and still live, that I won't do anything bad to it. Is that good enough?

He gives her quiet applause.

EVAN:

That was perfect! What progress we're making!

He holds her hand on the table for a moment then gets up.

EVAN:

It's getting late and I still have to get back home, I'm gonna go but I'll see you soon, don't worry. Thank you for the promise, I'll hold you to it!

ADALAE:

I know you will, but you should be more worried about me holding you to yours!

She follows him to the door.

EVAN:

Oh, I'm not worried at all.

ADALAE:

I was just kidding, I won't hold you to all of that! I will still keep mine though don't worry.

EVAN:

No, I'm not worried because I know I will keep all of them. Now I love you and goodnight!

He kisses her on the forehead and leaves. She stands at the door for a moment thinking, she starts to look worried, walks over to the table, sits down staring off into space. Suddenly she gets up and picks up her phone and dials.

ADALAE:

Hello? Hey. What are you doing? Mhm. (she laughs) Yeah, okay I'll be waiting!

She looks worried again for a second then shakes her head as if shaking a thought out of it and then hurries around putting the mugs in the sink and wiping off the table. Then she runs off stage (stage left). The doorbell rings and she comes running back on stage in pajamas. She opens the door and a man comes in he is not similar to Evan at all. His jeans are ripped and he doesn't look friendly. He immediately grins and grabs her and begins to kiss her intensely. When they separate she doesn't look happy, actually looks almost annoyed.

ADALAE:

So do you want anything to drink?

Man 1:

(Looking annoyed)

Not really. I promised to meet someone after this actually.

(Checks his watch)

ADALAE:

(confused)

You promised?

(playfully)

Fine, be that way. I promise I'll make it worth your time then!

She gets close to him and pulls him by his shirt to her and starts kissing him. Then she pulls him to the couch and on top of her. The stage goes black.

Wooden Booths

“This is a grubby place. Who has wooden booths anymore? I guess they were going for that rustic feel.” As soon as she sits down in a restaurant, she always lists the pros and cons, before we even get our drinks ordered. I don’t think she understands the concept of “bar and grill.”

“I’ll go order some drinks at the bar, be right back,” she says. I guess she did understand the concept.

I lean back in my seat and relax, but all of a sudden I start to catch the conversation going on in the booth behind me. 

A girl’s voice, “Have you ever thought about suicide? Not considered it, just thought about it.”

I can only imagine the person sitting across from her being taken aback by the first question then becoming even more confused after she revised it.

She continued without waiting for an answer, “I mean life is so messy, but isn’t death even messier? I mean not just literally, it’s messy for everyone around afterward.”

“At least you wouldn’t have to clean up,” the person across replies, probably attempting to lighten the mood, but maybe she didn’t hear the sarcasm, or maybe she just ignored it, but she still gives a serious response:

“Exactly, it’s complicated. You make this conscious decision to make this huge mess and create this new image of yourself, but you don’t even get to be there. Now you’re known as the person who killed himself or herself, and people talk about you in this sad way, and you forever live in infamy, or glory depending how you look at it, but you’ll never even know that you’ve become famous. Besides all of that, living is the real messy part. Suicide is an instant, life is years and years of mess and cleaning and mess again, and only a few of us become legends for living, and we all have to do it. One time I had this-“

“Hey honey, got you a beer. The bartender here is from my old town, isn’t that funny? Did you ever think that would happen?”

“No… I never thought about that.” 

Fourth of July.

The night lights up with spurts of brilliance.

Once a year.

Then every five seconds.

Words rolling off the tip of my tongue through my finger tips like electric currents.

Pooling my innermost thoughts into tacky light up sweaters and clip on flag earrings.

Spectacular brightness

burning out

       falling

    trail

      of 

        sm

      oke

        roof.

           rolling...

               gutter.

The reason this exists:

I'm going to attempt to keep this blog mostly dedicated to my own creative writing and less of me just rambling, since I tend to do that. I probably will just post how I feel or ideas I have a lot but I'll try not to. I also have to stop myself from posting poems and stories that I just love that I didn't write, but I will sometimes because they inspire me to keep going. Wow this is going to be a challenge. That's the point though I guess, I'm going to attempt to push myself to write more. Just to get me started though:

Our Desires

There is a wind that seeks the crevice
under my heart
the way insects file at night
beneath a doorway

Its edges are rough, it slits
the cords. It trips my steady breathing.
When it comes there is no one
I can trust.

It seems, at times, I have designed
too well this vision of you
I cannot survive your eyes
when they are scarred with a need
for some lesser form of love.

I admit to this conceit.
And though you will not accept it
You love it nonetheless

It is just like you. Our desires
will always be kept sharp
by a kind of perversity. A need
to be each forever alone...

Its color is violet, like lips
that have been smashed by nights
or robbed of blood by lack of breath,
The wind I was speaking of does this.

I can feel it now.

- Jack Kerouac