Dreaming In Tetris

Dreaming in Tetris

“Sometimes the stuff that's hardest to say, is exactly the things we should be talking about. If you want to go home, that is the place to start”

Shut the fuck up you fucking bald prick.

Ok . So he's right.

I try to look as normal as possible

She looked at me with her judging eyes

I could tell she thought that she was better than me in that way that all doctors do; but also in the way that most people seem to lately.

I have been patronised so much by peoples eyes

...It's as if they know that somebody has been messing with my thoughts

It's like everybody is in on it

They've all been talking about me, I just know it

I can’t remember when it began

I wish I could remember

I’d be a lot calmer if I could remember

Shit

How long have I been staring at her?

This is not going to help my case

I should probably say something normal

“Oh I think it‘s just the weather” I say, forcing a smile

Shit. Was that the wrong thing to say?

Shes's staring at me like she wants me to elaborate.

Fuck you bitch

Keep writing in that book

Fucking bitch

How does she know?

Maybe it is the weather

Once they tell you something like this about yourself , you can’t help but drift off, drift back, trying to find the cracks and work out where the whole thing started.

“You seem quite obsessed with being filmed” she says finally

I knew it

I knew there were cameras following me
Whatever you do, do not break character.
This is just a test

________________________________________

Andy wants to start by saying that this is not Fight Club
He says it is definitely not Drop Dead Fred and that he thinks that Drop Dead Fred was a bit of a pedo
I am not going to have some revelation at the end where suddenly I realise he was always there and I was him and that was actaully me punching me in my face in that one scene and not Brad Pitt.
This is not Fight Club
I know that Andy isn’t ‘real’
But he has been there as long as I can remember

_____________

I had never seen him scared

He wasn’t crying but he seemed afraid some how

I don’t know if that was in my head too

I didn’t even know what pills they had put me on. I was just taking what they handed me, hoping that it would stop the madness.

This was before I met that girl who said she had a twin

But I was fucking convinced that she was crazy

Sorry for swearing but not really

I can’t stop my brain is wired

Back to him

You just have this picture in your head of a person being so tough that they never crumble, never really show any kind of emotions other than happy or angry, but to just see him, genuinely hurt.

I don’t think I had seen it since his friend died and I was just a kid then.

I barely understood what dying was

I don’t mean that he was never hurt. I just meant I never saw it.

You don’t as a child do you?

I remember being in High School even and our teacher saying:

“Write a story, it begins with you walking in and seeing your Mum crying”

We all wrote these dramatic pieces.

At the end it the end she said:

“Its funny how we think of our parents being so much stronger than us, as though it would take much more to make them cry than it would for us”

It’s how you view all adults when you’re young really

Like they are invincible because they haven’t told you otherwise yet

__________

Drinking from a scrunched up Coles water bottle that I took from work then refilled with water in the bathroom and dudes are still hassling me for money.
Go ask Mr Fancy man over there who splurged on the Evain

I am so poor that I am pulling out my hair to use in place of dental floss
I am so poor that I am using the overdue payment notices for my bills as toilet paper
I am so poor that I am collecting rain-water to boil for my tea
I am so poor that this underwear is made from someone else's discarded plastic bag

_________________________________

This is a feeling where I am completely outside my body and completely out of control. I see myself trying to fight you off but I can't move. In my mind I pin point this moment as the first moment I ever felt insane.

You smell disgusting and your face, once so handsome to me now makes me want to be sick ... and your hands dig into my arms but I don't think I'm screaming. I don't know that I can. I pray that this will be like last time when somebody is there to save me but everything says that it's not

____________________________________________

The three of us have been sitting in the same club for hours. She smiles “The way I see it is that there are half-people and complete people. Half people walk around trying to find somebody else to make them feel whole”

____________________________________

I felt afraid, the idea that I could really care about you frightens me, knowing that maybe you'd stop caring about me some day.

I see you there and I know that I want it but part of me is saying 'go away'. What if you hurt me? What if I hurt you? What if we fuck this up bad enough that we can't stand to be around each other any more? What if it all just gets so dull that it's not even worth it for the story?

I liked that you kissed me when I was in my track pants and not wearing make up.

I like that I feel so nervous before I see you but comfortable when I do.

Since spending time with you, I started to think how falling in love can be wonderful and that maybe it doesn't have to be this awful scary thing that makes me feel sick all the time.

_____________________________________________________________________

Perhaps its dramatic to feel so forgotten but I do. I remember when we used to talk everyday… now its as though there is nothing left to speak about.

I feel jealous of the people you have replaced me with.

I cant seem to replace you.

I liked having you there.

Maybe I didn’t say it enough.

I know you were hurt when I left.

I know that you hated that you let your guard down while mine stayed firmly up.

I remember telling you how I just felt the world wanted too much from me, that I had too much going on.

You laughed at me and said “Some people dream of having too much”

Now I want it back.

I know I would always ignore you for a while when I had a new boyfriend or a new project but then in the matter of weeks it would take me to get bored or heartbroken, I’d always come back to you and you were always there.

And I suppose now if I called and said “I need you”…you would be here now but its not the same.

You’d make me laugh and make me do things that I would never have done of my own accord.

You were my Dawson

____________________________________________________________________

I just admitted to my sister that I feel sorry for inanimate objects and that in the morning if there is one lone bobby-pin, I either take one out of my hair to leave it with a friend or put it in my pocket so it knows that it is loved...

Is this behaviour normal?

It sounded way less weird before I said it out loud and she laughed at my hairclips sitting in pairs around the bathroom

__________
There is this intense feeling that is hard to escape, even when the craziness is over, there is still a lingering mass of insecurities. Those friends you made in there but couldn’t keep out here.

People you maybe never would have spoke to in a bar or on the streets.

He was laying on the bed, only being kept alive by machines.

I couldn’t believe it, someone I shared my bed with and told all my secrets to was so close to being dead.

Back when we'd met It was some brief kind of illusion of love, mainly built on the common interest of both wanting to die

We gave each other hope for a while
Things had changed so much for me

I guess I never thought about how it was for him

He must have felt so lonely to have ended up here

He didn’t look like him at all, his hair was all cut off and his face was puffy.

There were scars everywhere, many of them fresh.
For the past few months we hadn’t spoken at all.

I got this message saying they didn’t know if he’d make it. I didn’t know what to say?

Was there a point in going to visit?

Its not as though he’d remember and there wasn’t much chance of us going back to what we were
I wanted to see him
Of course I wanted to see him
But he hadn't crossed my mind in months

Do you think you love somebody more when you are scared they are going to die?

He didn't die
And I still love him but we barely speak

Once we both felt better it was like we didn't need each other any more
I guess it's not really sad or anything but from time to time I think about it and how on earth I would have ever gotten through that time without him loving me

Nothing good ever comes after "now don't take this the wrong way..."
nobody ever goes:
"Now don't take this the wrong way but here is a million dollars for you to spend at your leisure"... It's usually followed with something that can't be taken any other way than 'the wrong way'.... like it's totally fine to say something mean as long as you preface it with 'don't take this the wrong way'
...and if you get upset it's obviously because you're too sensitive....

Now don't take this the wrong way but you are an asshole-knobfaced-wanking-shitheaded dick...but don't take it the wrong way or anything_____
There are 3 of us sitting in on the therapy session with this psychologist who decides to put on a video about techniques to deal with stress.
It’s the worst acting and everyone is dressed like a character from 90210.

Yeah have a bath. Thanks Tori Spelling! I’m cured now!

“This video is lame” I groan

One of the guys laugh “Mostly because it’s a fucking video- and made in the 80’s”

The psychologist turns it off, irritated by our remarks

“I understand that it may be somewhat irrelevant in parts but there are still valid points for anyone who is interested”

“I was told this was compulsory” says this one guy, his eyes all red.

Even though he has not had access to illicit drugs in weeks, he looks stoned out of his mind “I‘m not gunna be here if I don’t need to”

Freud is getting really pissed now “No one can make you do anything”

Haha fuck I hate this guy. He has no clue what he is doing. How the fuck did he get his degree?

Oh 'How do you feel about that?'
UM DICKHEAD I FEEL LIKE FUCKING SHIT BECAUSE I AM IN A GOD DAMN MENTAL INSTITUTION

I can't do this shit any more, 2 months is too long.
Everybody is just fucking depressed and all I want to do is get out of here and have sex

I am nothing like these people
I only have one friend here who makes me feel O.K
I don't know what I what I will do if he leaves before me

What? Hang out with the guy that walks around with his hand down his pants?
Or all those depressed bitches that are losing their shit because some guy dumped them
Are you chicks thick?

'Oh he was the one'
SHUT THE FUCK UP
THERE IS NO 'ONE'
He was a jerk and he took a huge shit on your heart
He used your fucking heart like a toilet
And you want him back?

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

That whole 'The heart wants what it wants' stuff is bullshit
You meet a person
You fall in love and you treat them nicely
If you can't treat them nicely then it isn't love at all

Chasing after guys like that, it's bullshit
It's lack of respect for yourself
It's not love making you do that
Its your pathetic fear that you will be alone

'OH NO WHAT WILL I DO IF I AM ALONE? I CAN'T SPEND THAT MUCH TIME WITH MYSELF. I HATE MYSELF'

Maybe that's the problem and I am kind of over hearing about your douche-bag boyfriends
I never want to be in love like that
I just want to listen to my fucking music and think my thoughts
My brain is so much more interesting than this shithole
And I fucking hate Freud

“Seeeya’s!” yells the stoner and walks off dragging his feet and slamming the door behind him.
The other guy and I sit through another 20 minutes and leave, laughing at what a waste of time it was

It doesn’t matter how far you run in life, there are some people and memories that you will never escape.

There was this and there was him.

This was here before he ever came along.

This may have been here forever but it’s hard to remember.

There was some terrible memory I could never escape; I think he had that too.

I escaped it with him and he escaped it through anything he find.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would fall in love with a person who was even messier than me.

I looked at him asleep next to me, all the way at the other side of the bed and I wondered how I was back here

I went to the sink and saw that my tooth brush was still there
I didn’t know whether to take it with me and make a clean break or leave it there so he’d have to be the one to throw it out

So he’d have to think of me at some point

To remember he adored me once

I won some stupid little game in my head by never saying 'I love you' out loud
But god in this moment I love him so much
I am going over everything in my head and trying to see where I went wrong
How could he not want me anymore?

I'm not mad that I went home with him

I'm glad that I did

When I woke up this morning and we were both so far away from eachother

I knew it was done

I don't want him to stay with me because its easy

I don't want to be the stale taste in his mouth

Knowing that I didn't set him on fire the way that he does me

And he was so fucking nice about it

All I want to do is hate him but he won't let me

Please fucking hell

Just give me a reason to hate you

I can't stand the way this makes me feel

I wouldn't give a shit if he slept with every other girl in Sydney
But to think of him looking at somebody else the way that he once looked at me
God

It kills me
Why does some other girl get to be loved by him?

Why isn't it me?

What do I have to be for him to love me?
For him to want to see me every second the way that I do him
To smile the way that I do when his name pops up on my phone

This isn't fair
He made me love him

He chased me
He made me get to know him and adore every part of him
And now he gets to be the one to break my heart?
No
This is not how it's meant to go
I am not meant to be the girl that gets her heart broken
This is not fair

Fuck this shit and fuck the toothbrush
_________

When somebody that we love dies, we tell ourselves that we will spend our days more wisely. 

We tell our ourselves that we will not take things for granted, that we will love more, try harder and give what we can.
For a little while we appreciate the ability to breathe in and out on our own, we slow down and notice things and take life in… for a little while.
Slowly I always find myself sliding back into normal patterns of life.
You don’t stop needing food just because somebody is dead, you still have to eat and you still have to work and eventually fill your life with distractions.
I cry for a while then I get back to it and months pass and I realise that my attitude has hardly changed at all and that I am still the same even though you are gone …apart from the moments I think I see you and then realise that I couldn’t possibly have really seen you.
Today somebody else died but she was older, I’ve known her all my life, much longer than I knew you and it was sad but it was the way that life goes.
I cried and I will miss her but its different.
She died when it seems like people are meant to die.
I miss you all the time.
The places you’re supposed to be.
In the things that I do.
And even though I know you wanted out, I still don’t feel like it was time.
I miss you because of what I missed before you went.
I miss you when I watch Casper because I feel like you have unfinished business.
I miss you because I know you’re in the room and when I feel it my bones start to ache
I miss you because when I try to write about you I feel myself trying too hard to be poetic and I just hear you say “Be real people should be real” in a sort of stoner voice but you're not stoned
Then you show me a picture of a baby hedgehog and say “Look at this little guy, how can you ever be sad when you look at this little guy”
I don’t know maybe you are stoned

Madness has well and truly sunk in. I am missing Sydney.

I haven’t slept in days. I was convinced that going to read in a coffee shop by myself, doing anything by myself was the key to getting my sanity back but now I don’t know.

I look at my phone and I have been sending texts to all the wrong numbers again or just saying ridiculous things that I was so drunk I don’t even remember saying.

Last week I was in a tunnel and I messaged my ex-boyfriend to tell him that I was. He wrote back something like

“The thing about tunnels is, sometimes they get longer and it‘s hard to find your way out. Are you O.K?”

I laughed it off thinking I am fine I was just actually in a tunnel, it's not a metaphor dickhead!

Maybe even from Sydney, through a phone-line, he knew before I knew that I was going mad.

Maybe everybody knew?

I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. I need to go for a blood test because I feel like I have cancer.

I want to be alone but then I feel like I cant breathe and I need somebody with me.

I have been spending a lot of time alone in my room.

Why is nobody around when I need them?
I guess I haven’t asked anybody to be here.

I should have never come here
.

Melbourne is making me sick. 
Its fucked with my head.

I thought I realised the meaning of life earlier

but then I forgot it.

I’ve done that a lot lately, forgotten things.

I have so many fleeting thoughts that I can’t catch and I don’t know which ones are important any more.

Sydney could be the cure.

I walk in and recognise the solicitor straight away
He was a customer at the cafe
He starts to read me out the report and tells me that they are requesting 8 weeks
8 weeks?
No
Fuck that

“It could be less. This means nothing. There was another guy in here just yesterday who was told 6 weeks and he left today. In the end its all up to the doctors discretion”

“What else does it say?” I ask, rolling my eyes

“It says that the 8 weeks are for your safety, they are concerned about your reputation”

“My reputation? It's not like I am a politician”

“No, I suppose for a writer, a damaged reputation could work in your favour” he laughs “Look it's rare that they are not going to side with the doctor”

“I am not talking about going home, I know I am manic but I am not fucking psychotic.
I will stay in the main part of the hospital and be treated but if they think I am spending one more fucking night in that observation room, I will punch that smug doctor in his stupid face.
He thinks he is fucking Kanye West.
You know he seriously laughs at me when I tell him he needs to move me? This some sick power-play.
All the nurses have said it, I am not meant to be in observation and this is all because I don't want to take Lithium and he wants to assert his authority.
I have been kept between those fucking four walls for almost 3 weeks because that man has a fucking ego the size of a whale and can't admit that I am right. It's my god damn body, I should get to decide not him!
And do you know why I am fucking manic?
Because HE took me off a medication that was fucking working and tried to put me on one that is just going to destroy my fucking insides
And now because I refuse to take it, I am on fucking muscle relaxants to stop me from banging my head into a wall but this shit is addictive as fuck so they'll have to wean me of it, which means another month on top of my admission
And I can't sleep at night because there is always fucking something going on and no locks on those see through doors so last night some guy just walks into my room and there wasn't even a nurse at the desk?
This is meant to be 'high observation'
They wouldn't let me call legal-aid which by the way is FUCKING ILLEGAL
They refuse to take my claim seriously about the patient support officer walking in on me naked SEVERAL TIMES
Do you know what one nurse said to me? 'Well why were you naked?'
Are you fucking kidding me? It was my room!
I have fucking evidence of all the shit he has done to me and I am taking him down and that is why they fucking moved me to this side. Not because I was a danger to myself but because I was a danger to the hospitals reputation
I have kept copies of all the complaints that I lodged.” I pause “that was a long rant wasn't it?”
He laughs “It's O.K. I think you needed to say those things”

This is the stuff your P.E teacher tells you not to do.

This is the stuff homicide shows tell you not to do.

Doing lines above a seedy kebab shop with a guy that you just met has Special Victims Unit written all over it.

Is Ice-T going to come and find my bloody remains when this guy murders me?

HELP ME ICE-T! I AM FUCKING DRUNK AS SHIT AND MAKING POOR LIFE DECISIONS

__________________

“How long has this milk been open?” she barks at him holding the carton in the air.

“I don‘t know. I haven‘t been drinking milk for a month or so” he responds looking back at us from the couch

“What the fuck?” she shrieks “So I opened a milk like 3 weeks ago and this is the same one? Is that what you’re saying?”

He gives her a look that spells ‘honey you are insane’

“I am not saying anything because I don’t know when you put it there. Isn’t it long life anyway?” he says rolling his eyes and smiling back at me.

I cover my mouth to hold back a giggle and continue to sip my green tea.

I never know why couples feel the need to argue, disregarding anyone who is around.

“Fucking hell!” she says scrunching up her hands next to her face “That is not what long life means? When you open it, you have 5 days to drink it. When the fuck did you stop drinking fucking milk?”

“I just told you. About a month ago” he shakes his head and turns back around to the T.V

“Why?” she says, putting her foot down on the lever and dramatically throwing the milk into the bin

“Because it makes me feel bloated” he laughs

She folds her arms “Well now I‘m going to be fucking sick because I have been drinking old milk for 3 weeks. Do you even give a fuck about me and my body?”

He gets up and walks over to the bathroom “It wasn‘t old 3 weeks ago. You’ve probably been drinking old milk for about 2 weeks”

I feel bad for people that have been in a relationship so long that they either despise the person so much that they try to embarrass them on purpose and put them on show or are generally have such disregard for the other persons feelings that they don’t even know they are doing it

I cower in the corner like a frightened mouse

“Please, please no, I will take the pills, just don't make me have a needle”

Please.

It's hard to believe that just a few minutes earlier, I was acting so tough, calling them motherfuckers. These people hold my life in their hands and I have no say

Three gaurds stand over me

“You are having it”

He grabs me by the arm and it hurts

“Stop being a baby”

I give up

I hope I die

I hope the injection kills me so I don't have to feel this any more

______________________________________________________________
In my hospital room, I start to write.

Time passed by so strangely. It could have been a few hours, it may have been more.

The second I had a bed there, I felt better.

Part of me, every time thinks I am so sly, thinks I am playing a trick on the world. I convince myself I am just an actor, consumed by a part in a big movie.

I find myself telling the intern thoughts that I have never told anybody, memories that I forgot I had.

Now that I am alone. I tell myself I can write anything because nobody else has to read it.

I rack my brain trying to pull out truths that I have never spoken about, trying to tell myself a secret that I have never told anybody.

Suddenly I am writing about how I wish I was able to be monogamous, how I hate that I never have been able to do that…how I hate that my feet itch any time I fall in love and that the thought of spending my life with just one person terrifies me but that I wish I could meet somebody that could make that fear go away.

I wish that I could allow myself not to be the one to leave or the one that doesn’t try hard enough, that even if it all fucked up, I wouldn’t walk away thinking, knowing the way that I have always known that I just never tried hard enough to let anybody in.

I write that I need to get better because if I ever want to be a mother, I can’t continue to ignore my problems.

Really?

a mother?

Perhaps my biggest secrets are not the things that make me so different from everyone else but the fear that I am just way too fucking similar

“Are you saying that you have an imaginary friend? Aren't you a bit old for that?”he says raising an eyebrow as he looks at me from across the desk

“Yes that's what I said but I know he isn't real, it's like a coping mechanism to help me deal with everyday life” I say, wiping my forehead with my sleve

He continues to look puzzled “Have you mentioned this in previous admissions?”

“No”

BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT TO BE DRUGGED OUT OF MY EYEBALLS

“Why not?” he asks

I speak through gritted teeth “Because I fucking know that it sounds crazy. I only told my Mum about it a few days ago” 
“So he's here now?”
“He is not here, he is not real for fucks sake!” I bark “IM- AH- GIN- AIR- REY”

I woke up feeling sad like I hadn’t felt in years.

I woke up feeling like somebody had just broken my heart, the kind of pain you feel after a break up, the kind of pain I felt when we broke up but it had nothing to do with him or with love.

I got lost and started crying.

I cried until I could barely breathe, I felt like I was being followed, the way that I was followed by that yellow car all those years ago.
It felt as real as it did back then.

I went to a park where there was people around.

For a moment I felt O.K

It didn’t take long for fear to strike again.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this sad.

To be perfectly honest, I can’t remember much at all.

I wondered if I was always like this but too busy to notice.

I have no idea why this room is blue

What is ‘mental’ anyway?

There was a man outside my room

Rolling round in his wheel chair

Pretending to talk to my parents on a fake phone

I’m not crazy like these people

When I came out

He smiled and greeted me

Holding a picture of a nurse

“Tell me what you see”

I saw her shirt

and I saw her dark wrinkled skin

I lied and smiled

I said I saw nothing

Later in the art room

He said he was painting a picture

This one was for me

It’s a tree

He said he was drawing it because trees are small

And I know better than anyone what it feels like to be small

I laughed

Though I knew he was patronising me

I told him to draw purple apples

And he smiled evilly,

“Why did you say that?”

“I thought it would be funny I replied”

“Isn’t it strange how women say things to be funny…Michaela do you consider yourself to be a woman?”

“I‘m only 19... I’m somewhere in between”

“Interesting” he continues to paint “Some people are like that aren’t they… never one way or the other. Always in between”

Does he think I am a transsexual? Maybe I should flash my boobs…maybe he just thinks I am gay… best to do nothing

“I need to know your favourite colour”

Its orange

I lied and said “Pink”

It seemed like the girliest colour to say

At this point I was convinced that everyone thought I was a man

“Isn't it funny that you said that just as I was making pink?” He raised an eyebrow

God he was frightening

“How do you find it here?”

I said “this place is full of liars”

“The funny thing about liars” he says “is that they always think they are being lied to…what’s your starsign Michaela?”

“I‘m a Gemini” I laugh “The one with two faces”

_________________________________________________________________________________

In my mind I am fireworks.

I’m doing back flips for you to notice me, in my mind.

Sometimes I forget how much of this is dreamed up.

How little I have really said out loud.

How little either of us have said to each other

about anything

I have fallen in love with the idea of a person.

Somehow I have found myself thinking that someone I barely know could change me completely.

I suppose that is the beauty of a stranger.

We are so far away that you are just a beautiful blur.

No flaws yet.

Up close I am sure you have faults

I want to know them someday

Perhaps you are messy… or the kind of clean that is too clean.

Maybe you sing all the time like me

And you’d make me realise how annoying I can be

Maybe we would compliment each other

Or perhaps wear each other out

Maybe we wouldn’t fit at all

Maybe I’d get to know you

And you’d be just what I want

But you wouldn’t like me back and it would get weird

The next time I see you out, you hide behind a tree or something

Where did the tree even come from?

I don’t know

But you’re behind it

Hiding

We spend the rest of our lives avoiding each other

What a fucking mess

I want to say something

but is all seems recycled.

When all that’s left is clichés, it almost doesn’t seem worth saying anything…

though even overused expression must hold some truth…

how else would Hallmark make so much money?

Perhaps its not eloquent or romantic or poetic

Just to say

“I want to know you”

I've been dreaming in Tetris lately
__________

Put anybody here

I challenge them not to go mad

Take away all of somebodies things, all their privacy and then tell them to go to sleep.

You think I haven't been trying to sleep?

Its a bit fucking hard when I am being watched in a room with a camera, with a security guard at the door

Who have I ever hurt?

What have I done to be treated this way?

READ MY FUCKING FILE YOU ASS-HEADED DICKFUCKS! I AM ALLERGIC TO FUCKING RISPERODONE

So yeah I have yelled. Yeah I am talking like I am on some weird acid trip and not making sense... but is anybody dead?

Am I really the most severe case in this town that I am in the highest monitored area of the hospital?

Just let me make a mess and paint things and let me think I am psychic.

I will sleep and I will be ok but right now I have access to places in my brain that none of these people have

They call it mad

They call it crazy because they don't know anything else

Tomorrow I will morph back. I will be a functioning member of society but right now I am dreaming while I am awake. Right now I am a fairy phsychic mental fuckhead and that's all I want to be

“What the hell are you doing?” he yells “get off that desk now!”

I look at him for a moment then continue writing “I will not get down”

I glare at the wall, looking into it's eyes

I write 'you will not silence me'

“This is hospital property” he says, two other nurses standing behind him

“I will clean it up when you let me go”

“Well maybe that can be arranged. For now, get down”

I know this probably looked like that scene from Candy where Abby Cornish destroys the walls but I was just documenting what that man did to me

They could ignore my formal complaints but it will take a long time to clean off all this writing and they'd have to look at it

“Why are you so fucking angry?” he yells into the air as he falls beside me on the grass

We are both drunk as hell which amplifies my hatred for him

I look at him and say sternly “I just saw what the back of my head fucking looks like when people are looking at it. Do you get that? Do you even get that?” I half sit up and lean over him holding on to my head as our faces are about a centimetre apart

I don’t love him

“Do you know what‘s really funny?” he says rolling over on his stomach

I can tell he thinks whatever he is about to say is so profound and I am just so lucky to hear it

“Enlighten me” I say, feeling my eyes roll

“Nobody has a clue who you really are”

As he speaks, his voice annoys me.

I can hear his tongue pronouncing every vowel and his annoying fake British twang that he has from living in London for a few months.

I wish somebody would shoot him in the face

I wish somebody had a gun and would aim it right at his fucking head and just shoot him right now

I literally think I could go straight home after something like that and watch a movie and not give a shit that he was just murdered

He continues “I used to think you were so mysterious and interesting, the way you were so secretive and would just disappear all the time. I used to think you were an enigma and- ”

I interrupt “You‘ve already fucking told me this!” I sit up again, and mimic him “You used to think it was so great but now you find it annoying and you don‘t think I am an interesting puzzle anymore, you just think I am a bitch. I get it, I don‘t care”

He sits up too and stares right into my eyes “No, my new theory is that I think you‘re fucking clinically insane”

“Bingo” I laugh in his face

He turns and grabs his jacket, like he’s going to leave but I can tell he has some spiel lined up and ready to go

“You know you are going to die alone. People like you, die alone”

I laugh “I fucking hope I die alone”

He gets in my face again, his breath is like ice “…and don‘t say you where nowhere, you are never nowhere! You are always up to something with somebody, using people for your fucking stories”

“Oh you‘re right, that’s the only reason we were ever together” I laugh “Because a stoner D.J wanker makes such an interesting story. I can‘t wait to sell this to Wes Anderson and make a film about you with a greeny-blue tinge to it and fucking Owen Wilson will play you and people will flock from all the land to watch a film where you just spout poetic irrelevant lines from time to time”

He stands up

Thank god maybe he is really going now

“I don‘t even know what that is meant to mean”

I lean forward and stretch toward my toes “Oh don‘t mind me, I am just over here being mysterious, being ‘an enigma’ ” I chuckle “I have never written anything about you. You dickhead!”

He shakes his head “Maybe right now, in this moment you actually believe that you hate me because you are sick but I know that you don't and by the time you figure it out, you will be alone”

“I want to be alone!” I scream dropping my head into my hands and speaking through my palms then looking back up at him “I like being alone. I like myself more than I like most people and I definitely like my own company more than I like people who are constantly trying to drop life lessons.

You‘re the one who carries on like we are in an episode of Bold And The Beautiful then you accuse me of ‘using people for stories’. I think that you wish I used you for a story”

He looks down at me “Yeah that’s it. You. Mad. Bitch. I‘ll see you when you‘re off your period”

It was back when you could still smoke inside in Sydney

We were by the poker machines at the back of the club

“Do you think it's just because it wasn't your decision?” he asks

I loved and hated in equal measure 

What the fuck?

You don't get to break up with somebody and still be cocky

He had used my heart like a fucking toilet
I am every girl I hate

I don’t know what I am doing here. I don’t know what they have given me.

It’s these pills that are making me crazier.

But I was crazy before?

That’s why I am here isn’t it?

I know that I wanted to be here but now I don’t.

Everybody is saying something different and I don’t know what to believe.

He said “Everybody has their quirks, you just do whatever you need to feel O.K”

I feel so far from O.K

No matter what I do

I feel like I am drowning and stuck in a permanent state of dejavu.

People are saying the same things I have been thinking and I don’t know what I have dreamed

All these coincidences are happening and I feel like there are cameras everywhere.

Not just in this hospital but everywhere

I could be stuck in the Trueman Show but I never realised.

The way people look at me everywhere and I can see that they recognise me.

I wish you could love me the way that you love heroin
I wish I could get under your skin like that
You say I dramatise everything but I can feel you slipping away
Doing lines just to get out of bed
How much longer do you expect to afford this?

You say
“You watch too much television. People take drugs in the real and they still function. I am not some fucking day time special”
That's just the problem
You are my heroin
But heroin is your heroin

I know I'm not enough

How can somebody be the best and worst thing that ever happened to you, simultaneously?

I couldn’t believe that he brought her along.

More so, I couldn’t believe the amount of jealousy I felt over something that I never wanted in the first place, something that weeks ago I blatantly said I didn’t want.

As they walked toward me, she oozed sympathy in my direction and I resented both of them for it.

Why the fuck would he bring her here?

I wasn’t wearing makeup and all round just looked and felt like absolute shit.

I expected him to visit and make me laugh and momentarily forget that I was in this hellhole; instead, she hugs me and I feel her feeling superior and I can’t stand it.

If she knows about us, which I am sure she does by now, I’ve gone and made it so easy for her to feel like she has won.

If my boyfriend was spending time with somebody else while we were broken up and I came to visit her in a place like this, all my insecurities would disappear.

Bitch. Fucking. Bitch.

I want to tell her how they wouldn’t even be together if it wasn’t for me but I can’t.
That just weeks ago he was begging me to be with him.
I want to tear her down

Instead I just carry on politely, hating her in my head.

When I think about that night it is almost like it didn’t happen to me

I know it happened

but it plays out like I am watching it happen to someone else

Like a Scary movie that I can turn off with the click of a button

There is nothing real about it

I look at my body in the mirror

I have a few scars

One on my hip from when I was ridding down the hill on a skateboard at my old house

One on my little toe from when I walked into the wine rack

There are other marks but not a single one that proves what happened that night

Nothing

I don’t remember what I was wearing or what colour my hair was

but I remember your eyes

I remember what it felt like to feel small

It was back before myspace

Back before every moment needed a display picture to prove that it had happened

Tell me that my story is embellished

Tell me it wasn’t real at all

Maybe if I ever saw you again, I could ask you how it all went down

Maybe I could see you and I wouldn’t even cry

But old yellow cars still frighten the hell out of me

I lit a candle and burned every word I’d ever written about you

I turned you into a ghost

and you came back to haunt me

I thought you were my ghost alone

That only I could see you

But others saw you too

She said “Its written all over you, from the moment you walked in here, 2 years ago”

I cried

Even when I was locked away I saw you behind the door

I lay on the floor while water poured over my head

I started singing

And I was surrounded by an army in the sea

They all thought you were a joke

“What a silly little man” one said

As you drowned

“Ghosts can’t swim down here”

But you can only play with mermaids for so long

There’s no sleeping out at sea

I would return to the world and ask for a pill

One to help aid my hallucinations

A visitor came

He said he’d been here yesterday too

I didn’t remember

Life was becoming an illusion

I was just a story to tell

If you can forget one thing that happened

Maybe you could have imagined another

My brain hurts

I started going on about cancer and leprosy

I begged to trade for an illness that could be seen

This one’s got me a wreck

You’ve got me feeling a wreck

There are ants and fairies

Always another new story to fall into

One more likable than someone like you

Then somehow you learnt to crawl

You learnt to fly

You even learnt to swim

Even under the sea I wasn’t safe from you

My mouth filled up with water

The mermaids disappeared

I thought I was going to die

But I didn’t die

A bunch of them trained for these kind of situations

They pulled me out

They gave me a bunch of things to fix it

I started to wish they’d just let me drown

Then there she was

This woman

She spoke in a monotone

Even when she was furious

She was an unlikely hero

So much stronger than me

She read her story aloud

When you hear it

And it isn’t a tv show

And its not just me

And you aren’t a ghost

Or an ant

I see that I am not a mermaid

Though I can play in the water all day and wear my pretend tail about

Watching movies and playing make believe is only a way to survive for so long

And Ariel is one cute little cartoon

I collect things too

I have tales

But I don’t have a tail ....or a little lobster to tell me what to do

______________
“What do you think I should do?” I ask her,afraid of a brutal response

“I think you should get on with your life” she pauses “Let me tell you, something similar happened to me and I let it haunt me for a hell of a long time but letting go was the best thing I ever did”

“How did you let go?” I asked

“You fake it until you make it girl. You face every day with a smile on your face, even if inside you feel like absolute shit and eventually you find yourself smilin' for real”

“That feels so far away for me” I sigh dramatically like some character in a daytime soap

“It's as far as you want it to be. Every day that you spend moping is another day that those assholes win. He took something from you, something you didn't want to give and that hurts, I know but are you going to let him takeover your mind too? Because you have control of your future and you need to quit acting like you don't have a say in what goes on from here on. He took power away from you and you need to snatch it back and say you're not going to be the victim any more and you need to say it so other girls will say it too. So say it”

She is like my Whoopie Goldberg...not my gay life partner...I mean like my saviour, like Whoopie Goldberg in Girl interrupted when she tells Winona Ryder to get her shit together and she does.

I smile “What do I say?”

She looks back at me“I am not going to be the victim any more”

I say shyly “I am not going to be the victim any more”

“That was a pretty lame attempt but we'll work on it.”

I force a smile “I am so scared”

“Well don't be” she says firmly. I fucking loved that about her. Things were black and white, feelings were things you could turn on and off ...which maybe kind of makes her sound robotic, she wasn't though, there was a stiff kindness underneath like some kind of awkward boner hiding under a pair of jeans, waiting to get out.

I guess it was all that desensitisation she was forced into when she was in the Army with hordes of men. She once told me that the army drove her into being a nurse
 'Why do you think we all want to shoot guns because we are all fucking mental. In those places you see real pain'

“I don't know how to switch it off”I respond

“You'll work it out” she smiles “You are way more resilient than you believe and I don't mean humans in general. I mean you. You're going to leave this place and forget all about me but I'll remember you forever”

I didn't know how she could be so nice to me after I'd made life hell for so many people here.

“I am really sorry for the way I've been acting”

“It's o.k you're cool with me as long as you stop watching Girl Interrupted on my shift.”

Oh Whoopi-

She was wrong, I will never forget how she saved me

I usually hate new years

Standing next to him in the pool, I felt so comfortable and anxious at the same time

It was a weird kind of attraction that brought back a state of being in High-school

You know the kind of love that makes you feel like you need to shit really badly?

Like you want to kiss them so desperately that you start to freak out that you've forgotten how to kiss

Words were flowing so easily between us but underneath I had this overwhelming desire and it was making my palms sweat

How can your mouth keep speaking while you're filled with thoughts of being fucked up against the wall behind them?

I think I've had too much Pimms

That brownie is getting to me

I feel like an itch you can't scratch away

this annoying little thing that won't leave you alone

I feel so unwanted

I have never been more alone

I would have called her 'Audrey'

I have always loved that name

She would have been beautiful

She would have had your eyes

Sure it would have been hard but this, this is so much worse

This feeling.

I could drown in it.

I love something I never knew

I love this imaginary life we would have had

I haven't just lost her, I've lost you too

Most of all. I've lost me

__

The day I got out I said to myself I will never go back.
I couldn’t cut ties as easily as I wanted to.
We all only knew each other for a short time but for most of us it was the craziest time of our life

When you feel something so powerful and you don't know what to do with that emotion
Sometimes it's easiest to run as fast as you can, as far away from whatever makes you see something in you that you that you don't want to notice
Bail