thanks for nothing

Today, I was told in the face that I am living in self-denial.

And, that my goals were unrealistic, so much so I should rethink my strategy and possibly slot in some allowance for failure perhaps? While I'm at that how about I brace myself for disappointment because you can't change things and fix mistakes in 42 days.
42 days to the start of A levels, and those are basically the thoughts that your words translate to in my head.

Forget about impending disappointment, consider it premature. And before I go berserk and spew forth an onslaught of vicious typing I thought I should say that these are my thoughts, my platform to display them, and my views. I'm not looking for sympathy, or to be relatable, but if you're able to find any relation to how I feel right now then you are awesome. But here's a disclaimer to leave if you have an issue with uninhibited outpouring of thoughts with generous lashings of misanthropy.

I could be studying right now, in the words of anyone taking the upcoming A levels, I could be making a huge difference by spending my time wisely. Why are you on your Mac bitching about your life when you should be studying. A huge difference? And by having more As on your report card you are making a greater difference than I am? Here's where I lay down Newsflash #1. You cannot make a difference. I'm so riled because by telling me I am being unrealistic with my dreams, that my goals are unattainable, you are crippling my ability to even begin to make a difference, to be the change. Society isn't going to change, Newflash #2. You are going to leave this institution forever altered because they will tell you that you're not good enough, that you will fail, that you didn't work hard enough. And you will leave this institution a fraction of who you were when you entered. You traded in not just your social life and free time but also fragments of yourself because they told you you had to change, that you couldn't possibly succeed with that attitude. What if I happened to like that attitude? What if that attitude bore, even if it was the slightest, semblance of compassion, that was hacked off me like a cancerous appendage the second the putrid cells could be detected? Because right now, right here, I see that faith and positivity mean nothing. I can believe in myself but if come next year I don't attain satisfactory results then I am deemed a failure in life. My lessons in resilience, empathy, discernment and sensitivity towards others rendered completely redundant simply because my report card is not peppered with the alphabet 'A'. The fact that I am able to celebrate a friend's success, instead of seeing them as a threat, or to motivate someone to go farther. Invalid. It makes me angry to see some of the most amazing people I know doubting themselves and determining their self-worth from the grades they attain. It makes me angry how it puts their flaws under careful scrutiny, not only be others, but by themselves. It makes me angry because it is akin to saying, you can't produce results so you deserve to remain at the lowest rungs in society, at the mercy of those who are able to clamor their way to the top even if it is at the expense and complete neglect of others around them. It makes me angry because it completely shifts the emphasis from character to intellect. It all seems a little melodramatic, but honestly, I'm 18, I'm supposed to get my very first nuances of adulthood and this is the psychological scarring inflicted on me?

To anyone of you who are feeling discouraged at this point in time, and should none of you exist then take this as a public declaration of my disenchantment and bear with me, you're getting the full-on experience. Welcome to life, as we will always know it. I urge you to keep your dignity intact no matter how many people try to put you down. That's what they'll do. Don't try to be good enough for them, because it's never going to be enough. You only owe that to yourself, not anyone else. Be someone that satisfies you and only you. To anyone who says, sorry but, please be realistic with your dreams, ask them to take it in the fucking ass. You know, screw the grit, the rigor, the success, if I walk out of here with my identity in check then I'd be more than happy.

I'll walk out of here a fighter, that's for sure.

eighteen

I've been procrastinating this birthday post for the longest time. So I'm 18. And so what? I wish there was a difference, wish I had more insight, wish that every step would render more impact, less hesitation. I can only hope that before 13 turns to 14 I will don the highly elusive cloak of courage and newfound fight will decorate my canvas quickly in pebble grays and wine reds. I clearly still take the same form; cynical, deprecating, but hopeful, thankfully. And if there was one thing turning 18 taught me, was that I got so much more than I ever bargained for. Honestly the days leading up to that night and there and then itself, I realised god damn I'm lucky. You know when you're so used to feeling like every day is a passing cloud that never quite hovers away, a feeling like that could be possible lung failure. But I guess the kind where gratitude, amazement and the simplest really - joy, engulf the vessels so starved of air. So much so you take a deep breath, and find what you need; family, friends and a whole lot of room to breathe.

That's pretty much how I felt that night. I've never been one with the hordes of friends, nor enemies, I'll admit. But I think a lot of those close to me would know that I never expected this. I came to SAJC, and I'd be brutal but, kind of looked at the lot and never imagined they'd mean this much to me. I never imagined I'd fit in. We're the strangest configuration of jilted hearts, dorky laughs and filthy mouths. But one snort short and we wouldn't get along this well. Then there are the girls that helped mould me into the (IJ-proud) person I am today and I owe almost everything to them and they're probably the reason why I can feel like maybe I'm not that much of a bad person after all. Mum and dad, never hesitating to give me anything in my life, understanding everything that worms its way around and tries to bite me in the ass. Biting those things in their asses. Being the parents I never have to dread bringing friends or boyfriends home to. Basically, everyone shone. And I can safely say I am of age, with a great family, a boyfriend I address as "dude" more than any other name but love him to death all the same, an amazing circle of friends and a whole life ahead of me. I will start living. I will stop counting calories, stop worrying so much, stop calculating moves, stop separating my peas from my carrots. Go in for the kill, emerge bruised but bolder. I will lift heavier and break my personal records, I will have my cake and eat it. I will not wait for New Year's Eve to come up with resolutions, and I will not lose fervor in completing them. I'll kiss in school toilets(okay just kidding school is a no go), kill a cockroach, learn how to cycle. I'll decide my own future, grow the balls to say no, and stop mulling over the small stuff that's dead and gone.

So guys, you don't need to turn 13,18,21,30,42,50 or any bloody age to realize you need to start living. Maybe you saw this on a hipster's iPhone cover but really, life begins at the end of your comfort zone. I don't give pseudo-motivational pep talks and I'm hoping this does not feel like one but if it is in anyone's interest about how my birthday went then here it is. Turning 18 did not leave me curled at the waist, worshipping the porcelain gods the next morning(can't drink for nuts), or had me up all night doing "cool, illegal shit" or whatever stereotype being legal entails, but instead, I felt like a child again. Like, you're peering through your china doll bangs and the world has this wonder to it, and in the slightest whisper you go, wow, look at that. 

Don't let the added height and make-up fool you I was basically that girl in a cocktail dress. So to everyone who's been a part of my life thus far, even those I wish never entered on some nights, I thank you so much.

Cheers guys!

I think somehow, I lost my mind.

I remember so clearly in my head the story Maxine told me about this bulimic girl who brought her meals to her room where she would undress down to her underwear and sit in front of the mirror and eat and somehow, I became that girl only short of food but nothing short of insecurity. I stand before myself, and I remember closing my eyes and feeling the sickening tremor rippling behind my eyelids and I try to fight it, but I know I am slowly slipping into, sadly, myself. I am that girl who stands in front of the mirror looking at herself, scrutinizing every dimple and every sordid fold as she bends and arches and twists trying to pinch and grope at the rolls and pouches and she has no trouble finding them. Afterall she makes herself find them. He tells her to stop, tells her she is fucking beautiful. But what she sees is the furthest cry from perfect. She starts to fall apart and she is crying now, and she looks at herself and swears she is huge, hideous, unsightly, her sight makes her sick. Her mind, no better. She sits on the floor now, curls up into a tight ball and that proves to be the worst decision because she looks down and doesn't like what she sees and she chants in her head, fat, fat, fat and she starts to question the people who told her wonderful things, told her she was beautiful. Beautiful girls don't break down on their cold bathroom floors with hot tears dripping on their cellulite-streaked thighs gasping for air. They don't change out of their outfits thirty over times because they don't have to think about how after they eat their belly will show through their tight camisole. They don't secretly feel like their friends are judging their meal choices at lunch. They don't cry themselves to sleep thinking about how much they've been doing for their bodies but still find themselves unattractive, flawed. They don't have such conversations with themselves because they have nothing to be unhappy about. I feel ashamed to face the person who tells me I am his dream girl, that I am sexy, and beautiful, and amazing. Because I can't be that girl with the sway in her hips because she has the charm only confidence allows. I can't be that girl who effortlessly throws on a tiny dress and you sling your arm around her waist and brush your thumb against her hipbones. I'm not her. I'm the girl texting you to tell you she'll be late because she can't find her jeans, but actually, she's sitting on a heap of discarded clothes, two breaths from bursting into tears because nothing looks good, nothing flatters her, and because she's thinking about that girl she wants to be in her head, and how she is falling completely short of her. How you wish she could be that girl, if only for the night at least. She throws on the same black ensemble because black is forgiving. And she remains as that girl. For that moment as you whisk her away on a night out she is fine, she is happy. But as soon as she gets home then the story is a whole new other. Most nights are like that. I'm the girl who examines herself, and is unable to think of how she is capable of your love, of anyone's love. How could anyone hold her, and think to himself, her body feels amazing. How do you look at her with so much adoration? She is so lucky that you do, yet she throws it away and puts it all at stake because of her mind. This fatal, mental asylum she's institutionalized herself in. But she can't stop. I don't know how to stop. How do I stop? 

How?
God help me because I don't know.

''I wish I was a photograph
tucked into the corners of your wallet
I wish I was a photograph
you carried like a future in your back pocket
I wish I was that face you show to strangers
when they ask you where you come from
I wish I was that someone that you come from
every time you get there
and when you get there
I wish I was that someone who got phone calls
and postcards saying
wish you were here
I wish you were here
autumn is the hardest season
the leaves are all falling
and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground and the trees are naked and lonely
I keep trying to tell them
new leaves will come around in the spring
but you can't tell trees those things
they're like me they just stand there
and don't listen
I wish you were here
I've been missing you like crazy
I've been hazy eyed
staring at the bottom of my glass again
thinking of that time when it was so full
it was like we were tapping the moon for moonshine
or sticking straws into the center of the sun
and sipping like icarus would forever kiss
the bullets from our guns
I never meant to fire you know
I know you never meant to fire lover
I know we never meant to hurt each other
now the sky clicks from black to blue
and dusk looks like a bruise
I've been wrapping one night stands
around my body like wedding bands
but none of them fit in the morning
they just slip off my fingers and slip out the door

and all that lingers is the scent of you

I once swore if I threw that scent into a wishing well
all the wishes in the world would come true
do you remember
do you remember the night I told you
I've never seen anything more perfect than
than snow falling in the glow of a street light
electricity bowing to nature
mind bowing to heartbeat
this is gonna hurt bowing to I love you
I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around like children love recess bells
I still hear the sound of you
and think of playgrounds
where outcasts who stutter
beneath braces and bruises and acne
are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies
are never gonna grow up to be happy
I think of happy when I think of you
so wherever you are I hope you're happy
I really do
I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight
I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking
I hope your lungs are open and breathing your life
I hope there's a kite in your hand
that's flying all the way up to orion
and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out
I hope you're smiling
like god is pulling at the corners of your mouth
cause I might be naked and lonely
shaking branches for bones
but I'm still time zones away
from who I was the day before we met
you were the first mile
where my heart broke a sweat
and I wish you were here
I wish you'd never left
but mostly I wish you well
I wish you my very very best''