"But through this line, remember not the hand that wrote it. Remember only the verse, the songmaker's cry, the one without tears. For I've given this its strength, and it has become my only strength. A comforting home, mother's lap, a chance for immortality, where being wanted became a thrill, I never knew. The sweet piano writing down my life. Teach me passion, for I fear it's gone. So much more, I wanted to give to the ones who loved me. I'm sorry. Time will tell, this bitter farewell. I live no more to shame nor me, nor you. And you... I wish I didn't feel for you anymore..." A thousand extra brownie points to the one who emails in and tells me where this quote is from. Anyone that actually knows... damn you're cool. And now... DO THE NUMA NUMA DANCE!!! VREI SA PLEGE DAR NUMA NUMA IEI, NUMA NUMA IEI, NUMA NUMA NUMA IEI! QUI PORTA CAN'T SPELL THE REST OF THIS ROMANIAN SHIT RIGHT DRAGOSTEA DIN TEI! MI AMIN TESC DI OCHII TAI SOME OTHER LETTERS!!!!
~does the dances to the hot Romanian voices, and gets lost in the seductiveness of the language... and does the numa numa dance!~ So sue me, I'm a bit drugged up. :D
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ERO-SENNIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DISCLAIMER: This is my story. It is not your story. Don't post it on other sites and claim it for your own. If you wish to post it on another site, you may do so as long as you credit me, the author. This story is based entirely in fiction. Any resemblance to events, past or future, is purely coincidental. If you should not be reading this for whatever reason, then don't, but hey, I'm not gonna rat you out. Enjoy the story, and let me know your thoughts on it.
You know, you're never completely in the clear. You think to yourself so many times "If I can make it through this, it'll be okay. If I can just make myself go through this pain, the reward will be so great I'll forget all about it." Only, you go through that again and again, and you get knocked down to where you started from. Life is pain. That's how you know you're alive. I guess death would be oblivion, the absence of knowledge, emotion, sensation... not entirely unpleasant to think about, though not a thought to dwell on if you're going to maintain your sanity.
The point is, life is a cycle. Not many people will realize this, and no one can ever completely comprehend it. Life is something you never get done with until you die, and there's no way to know what will happen to you next. Sometimes you just have to let go and hope things go your way. Most of the time, you'll have problems and you'll get knocked down. But isn't it all worth it... isn't getting hurt, bruised, broken, beaten, completely and utterly destroyed all those times... isn't it worth it to fly that one time when you let go? Isn't it worth it when you rise from the ashes to become the phoenix of your dreams?
What the fuck am I talking about? You have no clue, do you? Or maybe you do. Maybe you're that one person in a million I'm talking to right now, who's really listening to what I'm saying, and thinking about it for the first time. Maybe, just maybe, I'm doing something great right now, that gives my own life meaning, by letting you know that there's hope for tomorrow, no matter how incredibly disastrous and FUCKED UP today seemed. Let it all go, let it wash over. Be sad, cry, but let it go. Then, you'll be able to fly again.
I woke up that night, at four in the morning, to that tapping sound I was telling you about. I felt my feet go from the dark, sweet warmth between the covers that hints of that feeling of warmth you get from going to bed fulfilled, and I touched the cool carpet as I opened my eyes. I was naked, and the air conditioner was going full blast. The air seemed to kiss my skin all over when I stood up in it. I wrapped my blanket around me, covering the heated, tender parts of my body, and walked over to my window.
The music I like to play at night is something that not everyone likes. Hell, its not something I like all the time, but it sets my mind at ease in the end. Its all in native American languages, mostly songs a friend or two has sent me over the years. Amazing Grace sung in Cherokee, the Wolf Song, Wash Your Spirit Clean, things like that, you know. Very soothing things. For some reason, when I listen to these things, it calms me enough to reflect on the chaos that is my mind, and gives me a semblance of peace.
My eyebrows furrowed together, and I blinked away the sleep hanging at my eyes. The tapping kept up from my window, and I slid aside the heavy curtain to see Jonathan's dark silhouette against the glass. Immediately I became a bit more alert, and shoved up the window, drawing my blanket tight over my collarbones to hide the naked flesh beneath. Sue me, bitch, I'm modest sometimes. You're ruining my moment, so hush.
Back to the story, the boy was outside my window. I could take a minute to describe how he looked in the moonlight while I was opening my window. I could tell you how the stars flickered, dancing in the pools of crystalline darkness that were his eyes. I could even tell you how his eyelashes whispered as his gaze caressed the skin still showing in the gaps in my blanket. But I'm not, so I'll leave it to your imagination, which I assume can fill in the blanks of my narrative.
"Jonathan, what are you doing here? It's four in the morning, ya weirdo." Okay, I have no tact, we know this already. You're complaining this late in the game?
"I'm not a weirdo, you're the one opening the window for some guy with nothing on but a blanket, which, by the way, is very cute on you." He said, always cool and collected, as usual. That is, until he fell across my windowsill.
"Fuck, that hurt. Sorry for waking you up. I just... I wanted..." Jonathan's voice trailed into nothingness as he awkwardly stood up, looking at me and waiting for a reply of some sort. I looked closer at his face, and there was a dark, puffy purple spot on his cheek the size of a fist. It looked like it had been made by one, in fact. I knew better than to ask about it; he had come to me, after all, so he would explain himself if he wanted to, and I wouldn't pressure him to do it. I'd just make sure he had an ear to spill it to.
"Shush, and come over here. Take your shoes off. Take... well..." I started, and moved in a little closer. I let my finger run over the bruise, and he winced. I stepped right up to his chest, looking up. He towered over me, his over six foot frame making my barely five and a half foot one look tiny in comparison. Suddenly, though, it seemed reversed as he put his head down, his chin sinking against his chest. He complied wordlessly, kicking off his shoes, and I opened my blanket. Neither of us could see anything in the darkness that enveloped my room, but I wrapped the blanket around him and guided him with me to my bed. I sat down and pushed him back to the pillow.
"So why are you in my room at four in the morning, Jon?" I asked him as I snuggled up to his side, laying my head on his chest. Every moment with him was heartbreakingly beautiful. I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time, which is a disturbingly enjoyable feeling. All those little goth kids know what I'm talking about. How sweet bitter things can be. How you smile when you drag a razor across your skin. How your brain swirls into the darkness as your heart soars on clouds of acid tears. That feeling. It will keep you sane, and drive you crazy.
"I needed you. I was scared... you make me feel safe." He told me. I looked at him, confused, wanting an explanation, though at the same time wishing it was something so simple I wouldn't notice it. The state of being I'm in is very akin to inebriation; very interesting, but scary when you stay that way for too long. If you've ever done hard drugs, then you know there's a point when you pray you'll go to sleep and wake up with your head normal again, that you're not permanently fucked up.
"I haven't told you a lot about me, I guess. Things are happening really fast, its confusing me, and I haven't had time to make myself really understand. I've been going to a psychologist for years, and I'm on medication for paranoid schizophrenia. Sometimes I just... I have little freakouts. Its nothing bad so long as I'm on my meds, but its... scary. I was sitting down in my room, me and my dad got into a fight, and I started talking to one of my friends. About twenty minutes later, my dad slammed into the door and yelled for me to shut up gibbering to myself. My friend wasn't there, I was talking to... I don't know what I was talking to." Jonathan's eyes stared straight up at the ceiling, and his hands, hands that look strong and capable, not like mine, that look so small and breakable, his hands were shaking, jittering, more like it.
"So, are you okay now? I mean, I'm really here, there's not anybody else in the room, right?" I asked, and slipped my arm over him, pulling tighter to him. I was terrified all of a sudden. I have my own battles with mental illness, but mine seems so much more subtle and slowly destructive. Schizophrenia just sounds so scary to me. Depression was familiar territory, though, as was anxiety. Both of which I deal with, not exactly well, but I'm alive.
"Well, yeah, I'm okay, but that shit's not supposed to happen as long as I take my meds. It really freaked me out. I used to be... so freaked out all the time. I always thought about things that other people didn't even understand, things that don't exist except for in my head... its hard to explain, Joey."
"You don't have to. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, and you can stay with me as long as you need. My mom would love you... she thinks I need friends." I told him with a goofy little eye-roll thrown in for good measure.
"Thanks... you... I... well... you know I'm not exactly gay, right? I like girls, too... actually, I like girls more than I like guys..." he started out.
My mind spun for a second. I hadn't had time to doubt myself in this particular relationship yet, and here it was already. A reason to doubt my chances to be with him. Wonderful. Just fucking great. So now, I get to think about all the girls he talks to, and how he could fuck any of them, and have any one he wanted. Jonathan's hot, remember? Suddenly, I got... well, this is an understatement, really, but I got PISSED THE FUCK OFF. I felt used. I felt like I had been lied to. Yeah, none of that was really justified, but remember, bitches, I'm on Prozac. I'm allowed to have moodswings and insane moments.
"What the fuck? So what... am I just like, a play thing? Am I your little cocksucker until you find a girl that you like, since I won't be good enough?" I blurted out. I have to admit... I didn't really regret it after I said it, either. I rolled away from him. He was laying on my blanket a bit, so I rolled right out of it, and stood up naked. I reached for my shirt and pants, and started putting them on.
"No! That's not what I meant, it's just... I don't think... I don't think we're after the same thing here. I can't deal with relationships, especially with a guy, not relationships that are on a boyfriend/girlfriend or boyfriend/boyfriend basis. I really..." and I cut him off there.
"Jonathan, I think you need to get your ass out of my bed and out of my window now." Tears stung at my eyes, making the moonlight coming in through the glass sparkle and images shift and blur. I zipped my pants up, and grabbed my cigarettes from my night table drawer along with the lighter, and walked out of my room, down the hall, and out the back door, shutting it quietly behind me. I walked around to the back yard, my hands shaking and fumbling with the pack of cigarettes I was clutching. I finally managed to get one out, but not without spilling out five or six onto the dew covered ground along with it.
"SHIT! Fuck, son of a bitch! God DAMN it, what the hell is going on?!" I whisper-screamed. I heard a flick and there was suddenly a flame next to my face. Stark shadows stood out on the visage of the person holding the lighter. I growled and blew out the lighter, then lit my own, holding the flame to my cigarette. I then quickly picked up the ones I'd dropped, and tucked them into my pocket so I could let the little specks of water on them dry later. Cigarettes are expensive and annoying to buy for me. I took a deep drag, and sucked in through clenched teeth.
"Just back the fuck away from me. I don't wanna fuck with you." I told him, and started walking at a brisk pace down the gravel driveway. I heard the crunch of footsteps behind me, and I spun on my heel to face him.
"I SAID TO LEAVE ME ALONE!!" I sobbed out. "Stay away from me! This is when you leave me ALONE, goddamnit!" I turned again just as quick, and ran of the side of the driveway, into the trees on the edge of my lawn. I knew the woods like the back of my hand, so I ran fast and sure through the darkness. Lungs heaving, cigarette still lit, I dropped to sit on an old fallen tree. I drug on my cigarette again, this not helping at all with me being out of breath. I stuck my other hand deep in my pocket, and let out a soft yelp when it came into contact with a sharp metal object. I pulled out the bastard and looked at it; it was a razorblade, one of many I keep around my room.
I lifted it to my wrist and traced an old scar lightly, not pressing with the blade. The blade was so sharp it bit the top layer of skin, leaving what felt like a welt behind it. As I ran the blade back in forth in my familiar zig zag pattern, I started pressing harder and harder. Blood dripped, and I stared open-mouthed, tears drying slowly. I breathed a sigh of relief, and dropped the blade on the ground. I wouldn't miss it, I had more.
"So, you done being an idiot?" I asked myself. "You knew it all along. You fucked up when you broke your own rules. You don't trust people, and this is why. You don't hope, and you don't ask, and you don't try to change things. You take it, and shut the fuck up, and hope nobody dishes you out more." I slammed a hand against the tree in frustration. What kind of a fucking idiot am I? I'm out in the woods at damn near five in the morning, crying and bleeding, over a boy that I barely knew.
I let myself sag down, leaning to one side, and finally laying down against the trunk of the tree. My eyes felt heavy and sore, so I let them close. My breathing, though ragged, slowed into a deep, steady rhythm. Slowly, so slowly, I drifted off to sleep.
I drifted off to sleep, and into a dream. My Chemical Romance songs assaulted my senses, the chords of Helena dragging my consciousness through rapid scenes of the previous day. I saw myself laying on the tree, white with dark circles under my eyes. If you've ever seen the music video for Helena, then think dead chick that gets up and dances during her funeral while everyone else is praying. That was a beautifully poetic moment, by the way... makes you wonder what you don't notice, and maybe insane things that are supposedly only in your imagination really do happen.
I touched myself on the cheek. I felt cold. Slowly, I shook off chills threatening to make the hair on the back of my neck stiffen. I could see the veins in the back of my hands standing up, forming a faintly blue web. I watched the corpse-me's eyes open, and I stepped back. Corpse-me sat up, and looked at me with an expression like it couldn't figure out what I was, or the significance of me being there. Corpse-me then stood, and spun in a circle in slow motion, looking around at the world that was now the purple haze of twilight. I remember thinking about myself, wondering why I was dead. I saw cuts on corpse-me's wrists, long, deep, jagged, vertical cuts, stretching from the palm to the elbow.
"You're dead, you know. And there's nothing you can do. It's all over. It's all over. It's all over. It's all over. It's all... dead." Corpse-me said in deliriously happy voice. Then, he came over to me, and placed his cold, bloody hands on my cheeks, leaned forward, and kissed my forehead.
I rolled off the tree, bumping something with my head, and waking up fully. I looked up to see Jonathan holding his nose and blinking back tears.
"I knew you were annoyed with me, but damn, I didn't know you could hit that hard." He said. I stared at him, still huffing and puffing from the incredibly realistic dream. All of a sudden, I realized what had happened, and smiled. Then, I started to laugh. After that, it was only a matter of seconds until I dissolved into hysterical giggles, crying and laughing at the same time. I cried because I remembered the pain of my earlier situation, and laughed at the hilarity of Jonathan getting bashed in the nose by me waking up from a nightmare.
"You ass!" He yelled and threw a pinecone at me. I raised a forearm and batted it away, still giggling, but winced as the cone hit the zig zag pattern of cuts on the underside of my arm. I stood up, and resituated myself on the fallen tree, thoroughly sobered by the pain of my self-inflicted injury. I let go of the laughter, but the tears remained, falling silently down my face as I moved to light another cigarette.
Leaves crunched as Jonathan moved toward me, and sat down on the tree beside me. I shied away as his arm tried to wrap around my shoulders. He sighed, and put his hands reluctantly in his lap.
"I didn't mean what you thought I meant... I like you a lot, Joey. I really do. But I really don't know what I can handle, and I don't want to lead you on in case I decide I can't handle a relationship. It's just... it's fucked up right now, okay? Look, I'm not any good at this emotional outpouring shit, so cut me a break just this once? So... let me walk you back to your window... and..." he trailed off. I stood up silently, and turned to walk back towards the house.
"You don't have to walk me back. I'm not going to get lost in my own woods."
"That might be true, but what if a bear or some crazed redneck preacher comes along to try and eat you? I could help with the bear. Now, the redneck preacher... you'd be on your own there, every man for himself." He said with a tiny smile. It cheered me up a little bit.
"Well, in that case... Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." I intoned in a solemn voice as Jon put his hands over his ears and pretended to be in horrible pain.
"IT BUUUUUURNS, JOEY!!!!" That got me, and I cracked up. I let him walk right beside me as we headed back to my house.
"So... do you really not like me as much as I like you?" I asked him, thinking about it resolutely, ready for an answer I wouldn't like.
"I like you a lot, ya lil punk. I'm just really unsure of things right now. That's part of the reason I don't know if I could handle a relationship; I really like you, and I don't know what I'd do if it ended badly." That answer surprised me just a bit, but I nodded.
"Okay... but... while you're deciding..." I looked up at him, with a serious expression, and red, puffy eyes. "We can still have sex, right?"
"Mais bien sur, mon petit chou!" He exclaimed gladly.
"Oh my God, Jon... never, ever call me your little cabbage again, no matter what language it's in."
And so ends this chapter of Rave Boy, dear readers. Haha, I said "dear", not "you fucking dumbass bastards". Don't think this changes anything. Just because I'm getting to like you a little more, does NOT mean I'm going to get all emotional and tell you anything important. Okay, maybe it does. So I'm a little mushy at times, kiss my ass. Yep, I've still got it, that biting attitude. You like it, though, admit it. But seriously, I've begun to really enjoy these little asides. My life is not so pretty right now. Things are rough, and they're going to get rougher.
Just keep your fingers crossed for me, baby, and things can get better. I've hit rock bottom before, and made it back. But I'll tell you now, you better be ready for some serious shit to happen, cuz there's no way to predict my life, as boring as I think it is, some insane shtuff tends to happen. I love you guys, so make sure you stick with me. And as the great Samantha once said, "MWAAAAH!"