I Wish My Life Was Boring
By: Alex Bennett
Text Type: Abstract
Date: Ongoing
I stand in the shower of my home and stare at the corner where tile extends to more tile. My eyes trace the crease and notes where the caulk fails to fill the gap. I think about writing about it. I look down and see a pool of red start to form at my feet. My bright magenta hair dye slowly loses its color as the warm water consoles my shaven head. I think about how everyone says it always looks more red than magenta. There's the lady who dyed my hair and was passive aggressive to me the entire time. Small price to pay to look the way I want. I was never really a bracelet kinda girl but that doesn’t stop me from twiddling with my two friendship bracelets while the water tangles them together. I should shut up more. I think as I recall all the times I cried about showering as a kid. Soapy shampoo water gets in my eye, I remember hating showering for a moment more. I turn around pushing my nonexistent hair back and stare into the shower head. Its dazzling broken pattern of perpetuating drops penetrate my postulating mind. Alliteration is so distracting, I think, thinking about writing about thinking. Warm water cowers in comparison to the warmth of the sun, I’d hate to think. Maybe they are good friends, maybe the earth is so far that the sun doesn’t know that it is in competition with anything at all. How embarrassing. Dare I compare myself to either, I pause, must I? Vastly small and large I turn the water off before I get to finish washing my hair. There is no towel on the floor to catch the water falling off my body.
My parents' bedroom is figuratively scorching. I sit on my mom's side of the bed. Parallel to my position hangs a tremendously crooked painting of a meadow. I looked up the definition of meadow. Parallel to my position hangs a tremendously crooked painting of a grassland. I turn on a fan. Today the sun does not forgive me, I repent nonetheless. As a child I would imagine myself in that grassland, my muddy brown melting into its warm greens and yellows. Back then it was a meadow, adulthood brings grasslands. I need to paint my nails. I wipe my eyes and lick my lips, today I feel worn. Boredom inches its way into my vision, I choose to avoid its eyes. I should put on clothes. I should fix my hair. I should read. I should write. I choose to do nothing. I write that down and laugh a little to myself. I cough a couple times and feel a substance build in my throat and chest. I cannot remember the last time I was not sick. July, nearly a year ago. I roll over and think about my parents. I choose not to write about them. There is an attic in my house that I have never seen. I would daydream about living up there, a home inside a home. I breathe in. Bacon always made me sick, I was grateful when my parents stopped making it so often. Still lying here a part of me wishes I could smell it beckoning through the vent. I roll my eyes. I roll them again. Back and forth. Once I spun in circles for 3 minutes. My vision goes blurry. Someone knocks on the door.
Dark brown tables and light gray walls. That peculiar feeling of invitation evades me. A mound of letters littered by the cutting board. I wish I could write you letters, I insist upon someone who no longer exists. I would very much like that, you will never say. If you will then you would. One million tears fall, one million spots speckled below me. Have you ever counted all the freckles on your face? Of course not, a ridiculous question. I’d count anyways. Twenty two. There’s a book out there or an article or a journal that can summarize how I feel mush more eloquently. For now I’ll misspell the word “much” and hope no one will notice. Feathery clouds please rain down on me. You too have substance. Touching rocks and smoking herbs, throat parched and mind absent. Heavy eyelids threaten my peace. I sit in the backseat of the car, less to see more to think, I lie to myself. You will always be happy even when you’re not. Every moment I’ve spent unhappy I was happy to be spending the moment. Rusty barrels and hefty burials. I can't pretend you don’t exist without acknowledging that you do. If I could talk to God I’d ask him to tell me about me, not Him. Pages and pages He gets. I have to make my own. They are a labor of my small, softened fingers. My small softened mind. Yes, keep reading. Yes, tell me that you read it. Tell me that you love it. Adore me, adore me, adore me. My companions which I own, my mind that I worship. It will never be enough. Nothing great will come from me. To imagine my grandeur is to acknowledge its absence. My wounds reopen, I exhale.
I build a mountain every time I climb into bed. I scale that same mountain trying to get out of it. Three pillows and two blankets deftly rest around me. I of course speak metaphorically about myself and my mind. Exhausted I lay and exhausted I wake, never quite satisfied with the notion of either. I would always say how I wish I couldn’t sleep, how I wished for those odd hours of the night when I looked most beautiful. All the real beautiful people having gone to sleep. However the night makes me it’s own. My once round face and bright eyes settle more solemnly in their place. In my restlessness I am forced to think. To my surprise, thinking leads to realization. I realize my outspokenness and its facade. I lie about feeling too much, I feel too much about my lying. In my head I see nothing and my jealousy grows for those who see everything. My dark brown mind unable to conjure up my heart’s desires. I think about writing about being imprisoned in my own mind then realize there’s absolutely nothing I would like to write about less than that. I think about him and I think about her. I don’t think there’s anything I could write that would be worthwhile. So once again I suppose I am just writing about writing. I hate writing about myself, but I must do it or it won’t get done. Yet everything I write about myself is a lie. I lack the proper skill set to actually effectively communicate these parts of me. I am a child, my vocabulary rudimentary and flawed. With each letter I type I am effectively writing myself out of existence. I hear construction outside of my window, I look out. A man in a purple shirt on a ladder looks up. He is interrupting absolutely nothing.
Sensations are a peculiar thing. I poetically assemble the notion of spice, as I brush my teeth to eradicate the pain. I know unhealthy food is, well, you know, but I relish in the momentary satisfaction. I recall staying up late for what felt like the first time. It was a phone call. A guy I liked. We talked for hours and that was more than enough to think it was this grand sought after fulfillment of love. The following year we would speak for what seemed like the last time. I’m up late again and the crunch of chips in my mouth is starting to disgust me. Repetitive and redundant I begin to think of all the things I’d rather be eating. Crumbs tumble onto my bedsheets, I don’t immediately brush them away. I bought red bedsheets for this exact purpose, the red from the chip goes almost unnoticed. Of course I do know it’s there but for how long, until I too grow naive to the facade of my mind. Words entertain each other in my head, there I don’t do any thinking, the thinking does all the thinking, I merely observe. Oh to be absent from the thinking completely. Drugs do not satiate this cavity. Expelled from myself I create something similar. The more I write this crude mockery takes shape, she is strong and entertaining, seldom does she lie. I roll my eyes back to reality where I’m back in my bed. Bag of chips now suspiciously empty, redhanded, I imagine the look on my face. Sloppy and loveless, I dramatize for your approval. I desire so greatly to be okay that I often forget that I am. Something is off, pillows tumble to the floor around me. My world is unequivocally falling into pieces.
Every aspect of the known world governed by our convoluted rules. When I grasp at the atmosphere I am breaking my own promises. The known world they say, but what is unknown, truly. I will not claim there to be more, nor am I implored to do so. This cold mug sits on my desk, does it not already know the warmth of my lips, why then does it fade. You too have felt my warmth, yet you fade too. What, then, am I to make of myself. I shiver and clatter in these digital frames. In this counterfeit skeleton I rot. Everything I touch, ah how does it go. Everything I see, something in between. Another kettle of tea for my mug, so someone else to warm you; I look around me. Oh, oh how silly of me of course there are others. Where I can not expand they do in my place. Who gave me this mission anyway. Wait what was this about warmth or fading. That’s not my responsibility. Clasp me to a new dream please. One where I can be me, not yours.
Scratched and scarred, notebook bleeds arbitrary sentiments. Sentiments envious of statements; bold and uninterrupted. A notion unadopted by depth of speech. Faltering and limp, each page subject to the purposes of placement. Thoughts creased akin to the folds of flesh and bone. To whom of whom. Extract or prescribe me. Yes, I am also here. Laboring along, flattening circles. Exactly and precisely you see, admirable and consumable. No, however, placement is not destined by these hands. Tarnished each page, persuasion, abundance of influence. Genuine? Sweet Lord spare them for they do not notice. Heavy hands guide my heart. Take melodious desires from these words. Aligned mind, where is your room? Cage and key? Satisfy me once. Explore me once. Spaciousnesses like arrogance. Stay put. I love you. Stay put. Practice practices. Greatness strung along by laughter. I know. I wouldn’t feel so much if I didn’t. Would I? Clamoring, no, gather and soar. Right, walls, how could I forget. Don’t forget me. Yes, right, whatever. Stay put.
I cannot have a kid, even just one, because I am so incredibly terribly afraid of the possibility of having a daughter. If I have a daughter I would quite literally never forgive myself. (I am hopeful that this is something that I will process before I die). But the greatest most terrible burden of my life is the male gaze. I do not know if anyone else recognizes this but the male gaze tremendously influences every single aspect of my life. Every waking moment of my existence as a woman is clouded by the fact that I live in such a way that is targeted towards men. Even now writing this there is a part of me that knows that I desire to be seen and understood by the men reading this. Even adding this part I feel as though my ability to be introspective will impress you all. This is the biggest burden on my life and to ever even for a moment subject someone else to that makes me nearly sick. I despise that half my writing my diary entries and poems and letters and all I have to leave behind on this momentary existence have been tainted by my experiences with men. I exist to impress, to preform. I hate with every ounce of me that there are men that will never see me as their true equal or mutual. I will never be spared of the confinements of my own mind. How could I be so blindly brainwashed all these years. And now it’s it’s too late I will never live a life free of it. I won’t risk it- I simply won’t. Since I have read this quote I have not been the same person: “ Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.” This is it- this is my life
The experiences I’ve had with men thus far have been vastly different. But the more I have the more I am certain that I am looking for something more than a relationship or otherwise. I simply very simply desire to be taken care of. I want to be a child forever and to not by grabbed or groped or bitten. Simply held lovingly and genuinely. However I can only ever find a deeply sexualized version of this. I can never truly just be as I desire. No one wants a kid to take care of. What I would give. To be seen innocently and treated as such.
Is everyone really human This whole time there was an us and a them This whole time I was human and you were not I have it all I would think to myself But if everyone’s really human than everyone has it all It is not the burdens we carry but they way it carry’s us My foundation makes me human But I have so much more You carry so little You carry nothing at all Yet you’re still human This is an epiphany You mean to tell me that even this is understood You’re telling me that they’re all really human But what about us and them They don’t have my eyes They don’t have my broken bones They don’t have my weary heart Commentary or none we are both human Why is this blowing my mind What about the way I speak Articulating each and every word What if I What if I ain’t make no sense And I signified or satisfied my own identity If I identified with my gentrified and ratified way of speech Huh What’s up, what’s it to you You got an attitude or what Hi I’m different I have a background Oh you do too But I’m more human I’m more in tune Oh that doesn’t make us Oh But I have these depth I have this perspective Oh it’s been done before Oh and before Oh and Hold hand There’s love There’s the one that knows me more Maybe just me and them Us and them The whole world isn’t human There was and error and there were two Me and you Oh but everyone else has an us too Oh and it’s just them again But I have more I do See I write these things And they’re so me be so little us No us could understand They aren’t human too But here I am in front of everyone Being understood so easily My thick rich commentary Was so easily consumed Since we’re all really human Then there’s me
Today I walked home in the snow I walked home in the snow and could only think of you I couldn’t even see your face and I knew you looked beautiful I couldn’t even hear your voice but I knew it sounded lovely My tears wouldn’t come My mind weeped instead I mourned a life I’d never live My mind played over every good memory Today I walked home in the snow But I wasn’t cold at all
I always ask “what’s ur thing! Comeonnnn everyone has a thing! Abe Lincoln has his hats, discord has its pedophiles. What’s urs, hmph I’ll go first then. I like poetry. Like not in a pretentious way, but like in a fun and silly way. And I like gaming— but (and this stays between us…) I’m not all too good at them haha. Anyways now ur turn, what’s urs haha”
I would say I am a compilation of these things. I would say that words define me. I would try to convince you that that is true. However there are so few words I would actually hold. Like actually keeping it in my hands. Even those I fail to contort in my hands. It hurts too much, it hurts to take off my skin and staple it to a mutilated attempt at understanding. I’d rather just lie. I’d feel safer just writing a book that no one will read. I’d feel safer not admitting it's a book. I feel safer knowing it's in a file I hardly access. I feel safer knowing it's buried deep in a laptop I use mostly to play games. But I am at work. With nothing to do. So the games are put aside, the file is accessed, and the book is written. So there, you win. Someone somewhere is writing something far more riveting. And they have nothing at all to do with me. For this I am grateful.