collisionofchaos

[collisionofchaos]

...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...

Jack Kerouac

[collisionofchaos]

i can see the tops of the buildings downtown, glowing, alit with moving colors and flowing lights against the black night sky, from my window seat. the road glides smooth below us, the slight rocking of the bus a reminder that we're still going. cars are rushing past, disappearing down the horizon, and i can see my reflection in the window, tired but still here. it's silent, the only sounds the breaths of the other passengers, each on their own journey, maybe starting their next big adventure, or heading home after a grand voyage. the colored lights fly past, blurs of life, buildings and cars, signs of people who are making their way through life, just like me. and sure maybe things could be better, but we're going. we're moving. we're going to get there. "where there's a will there's a way" well this is my way. sure this is nothing glamorous, but i'm on my way to where i need to be and as long as we're still moving, things can't be that bad.

[collisionofchaos]

it’s midnight and you’re with your friends and i’m missing you more than ever now. you’ll text me when you get home, and like a fool i’ll stay awake, keeping myself occupied until i hear from you. because you mean the world to me and right now you’re off doing god knows what and i know i’m the furthest thing from your mind and that hurts me a lot but i can’t for the life of me figure out why. why did the mention of her name make me angry. why do i care. you’re not mine. we aren’t like that. but sometimes you act like it and i fall into the trap that you didn’t even know you had set. and i don’t know but this whole day has been off. the timing and the words they’re all jumbled up just like the thoughts in my head but they had always been like that- we haven’t. can we rewind to when we were in sync? to when it was all good? to when it wasn’t this complicated?

[collisionofchaos]

i am suffocating in my mind- my thoughts, and feelings and emotions i don’t know how to make it all stop how to get my mind to stop reeling. these days i don’t get much sleep. never did, but now it’s different. now the exhaustion is here to stay, it never wavers but the sleep doesn’t follow. it’s forced and it never stays long when it does come. the sheets all feel heavy and it’s warm and my skin crawls because none of me can breathe and my neck is tense and my head is pounding and it’s all because of you i bet but how could it be because i promised myself i wouldn’t get attached this time everyones already stolen all the love i have to give.

theres none left.

[collisionofchaos]

maybe if i fill up the empty pages, all of the blank spaces, lines with no ink, maybe then i won’t feel so lonely. i’ll fill up page after page if i need to. i have. i write and write. pages and pages and pages. each page smooth beneath my fingers, the next one for sure. the next page will do it. the next page turns into a notebook. and then the next notebook turns into the next pen. and then the next library. and then the next lifetime. and it never ends. it’s never going to stop. never going to be enough. enough to fill this void. nothing will ever be enough i will keep going and going and no matter how much or how fast i write it never stops none of this ends i never escape i will never get out of this fucking lonely void with all of these books full of hopeless shit.

[collisionofchaos]

questions i’ll probably never know the answers to:

if i had the chance, i wonder if i could scream loud enough. is there any way, any chance, that if i just screamed, if i just started draining myself of anger and sadness and hurt, could i? would it be that easy? if i write until my pen runs out of ink will i have said all that i needed to say? if i pick up a guitar and then play until my fingers bleed, will it be enough music to fill the world? to reach the ears of those dependent on the notes to get them through? if i stay up all night and never let my eyes shut will i avoid my demons? if i drive until the world runs out of gas and i can no longer fill my tank, not anymore, will i have seen all there is to see? all i wanted to see? what if we never get any real answers in life? what if i have to spend the rest of my days asking questions that i’ll never know the answer to?

[collisionofchaos]

every note echoes in my head and i ran out of things to say long ago but i have this need- like maybe the world will end if i don’t fill up the empty space. and i know you’re right there in the back of my mind and i try to push you out. another song another drag another guy. but every note, every puff, every moan reminds me of you- i can hear your laugh- feel it in my bones in my lungs in my fingertips. you’re still here. i think you always will be. and the smoke hangs around my head but when i find the strength to open my eyes it takes your shape. and the smoke in my lungs is you it’s your lungs and your wrists and the nape of your neck. the tip of your nose. you’re in me, growing like a cancer and i try to smoke you out- out of house and home- out of my head, and my heart, and here you are floating in front of me with another match.

[collisionofchaos]

you’re trying. god i know you’re trying so hard. you care so much. i care too. but i’m not as good at showing it. you just have to know that i appreciate how you put up with my shit all the fucking time. when we both know it’s a bad idea, you still never judge me when the consequences start rolling in. i know that you believe in me. but god it’s so hard to stomach that thought when i know the truth. i know who i am and i know that no matter what you say i am worthless. and i am my own worst enemy. if i can’t prove myself wrong i’ll go up in flames. i’m a train waiting to derail. and i can look for the penny on the tracks all i want, but i’ll never find it. i know i won’t, how could anyone possibly see it coming. now the songs in my head are all mixed up and my hands are shaking. my fingers bleeding. my back aches from this weight and i don’t know which will kill me first- the pressure or the blood loss. i just pray that whichever it is, it happens fast.

[collisionofchaos]

have you ever looked at books lined up on a book shelf? looked at how none of them quite match up. they’re all different heights and widths and the colors never mesh but they’re all in that exact spot for a reason. and the stickers on the spines are all lined up in a row except for every once in a while there’s a book and the sticker is in the wrong place it’s slightly higher or slightly lower than the rest of them. and every once in a while there’s a group of books and you can just tell that they’re a collection, a box set or something, because they’re all the same size and varying shades of the same color, and did you ever notice that i’m sitting here staring at a bookshelf while you’re out god knows where doing god knows what because you’ve moved on and forgotten about me and here i am sitting in the library with my stupid journal and my pen that’s almost out of ink because you LEFT me here. you sat down in that uncomfortable chair across from me and you broke my heart and then you just walked away. and now i’m stuck here. i can’t feel my body and maybe it’s from sitting in this chair for so long but maybe it’s because this time YOU broke me and you were the only one who knew how to put me back together. so here i am, staring at this stupid book shelf holding all that weight, doing a much better job than my heart is at sustaining years of horribly wonderful, beautifully twisted history. and now it’s well into the morning hours, too late to call it last night, too early to call it tomorrow morning, and i’m lost here in this limbo, in a time where you and i never were and always had been at the same time. and tomorrow you’ll go on with your life like nothing ever happened because you’re just so damn good at rewriting yourself over and over, tearing out the pages before when they no longer suit you. so here i am, another page lifeless, left crumbled and wilted, lying on this table, watching you walk away before the ink even dried on my skin. before the tears even dried on the paper.

[collisionofchaos]

do you ever think about all the things you said you’d do. all the things you never did, promises you never kept. the little ones sneak up on you, come back at the least expected moment. you’re leaving the house, locking the door and the click of the key reminds you. reminds you of the book you told your friend you’d lend to them and then never did. all the little things, casual words exchanged over time, not lies, but words that carry little meaning. words with no weight to them. the promise to call. to swing by. to remember. the promise to love. forever. unconditionally. with no regrets no secrets. the promise that you would always be there. that you would always love me. remember that promise? of all the promises you didn’t keep, that one hurt the most.

[collisionofchaos]

you are the love that flows out of my heart when it is whole the love that i can't quite capture in my cupped hands trying to save it all you are the love that i thought i would never find thought i would never need and now you won't leave and my heart is too full and i can't breathe because leaving you is too hard for me don't you see that i can't live without you don't know what to do without you i'm lost without you and your love the love i'm trying so hard to hold on to to keep with me but you're slipping away and i can't stop it can't contain it because this isn't it you have bigger things to do to see places to go and all i can do is sit with my heart overflowing trying to hold on to the love you gave me

[collisionofchaos]

dumb kids that's what they say we're just a bunch of dumb kids. "back in our day things were different" but that doesn't mean they were right. there is no right way to live your life. there is no set formula to live a meaningful life. "do this. don't do that. stay home. study. be respectful. follow the rules. keep your head down and your eyes on the prize. have it all figured out by 18." what they don't know: school isn't for everyone. it's not the only way to learn. reading from a textbook and taking notes isn't always the best learning tactic. no one has to have it figured out right away. we have all the time in the world. go out. live. breathe. be a DUMB KID. drive 45 minutes to see flowers that aren't even in bloom. run across the street with as little time as possible until your impending doom. steal a sign from a private property with a cop sitting on the corner. stay out running around walmart until 3 am. go to parties. be weird. go crazy. don't be afraid to make new friends. don't be afraid to be your whole self around them. get your heart broken. be a DUMB KID while you still can and have no regrets. live unapologetically. love unapologetically. be you and only you and don't let anyone tell you how to live. don't you dare let them tell you that you love wrong. that you live wrong. don't you dare.

[collisionofchaos]

we were stuck. i needed you and you needed me but you never wanted me and i really didn't want you. we coexisted, two paths that crossed where only one path was needed- both paths leading to nowhere. we should've stopped. why didn't we stop. god we were horrible for each other. both too jealous and angry to let the other move on but both too stubborn and apathetic to be together for more than stolen minutes here and there. closets. dark rooms. under blankets and in cars. i cared enough to keep us going in case things ever took a turn for the better. you didn't care at all. you got what you wanted. i pretended i got what i wanted. it worked in some broken, awful way. we were friends too, you know? i think that's the worst part. we used to talk- you have demons and i have demons and yeah life sucks but we figured it out. we don't do that anymore. no words just faces. no compassion just connection.

[collisionofchaos]

at night i lay in bed and i think of all the words you've said. the way they would roll off your tongue and melt over me, slowly almost like one of your hugs, a warm welcome embrace. but you stopped hugging me. you put out the fire. you left me cold and all i have left are your words. the heat they bring isn't nearly enough to stay warm. to stay alive. your words chill me now. they reach deep into my bones and run cold through my veins because every word you said to me was a goddamned lie. you spit cold venom from your lips and you just sat and watched me soak it up like some kind of fool. so now at night i sleep under blanket upon blanket, layer after layer, a fortress of softness and warmth because your words can't do that for me anymore. you can't do that for me anymore. now at night i fight to keep the cold out. to keep you out.

[collisionofchaos]

this is an ethical dilemma. you are standing in a room. the glass is one way. you can see them. you can hear them. they can’t see you and you can yell scream argue all you want with them but they can’t even hear you. or maybe they can, but you’re on the outside so they’re listening to you speak but they aren’t really hearing you. they are in three different rooms. each situation separated by a soundproof wall, no two people aware of the other. in one room, two hearts are in the middle of breaking. you can only see one, in fact they can’t even see the second heart, but you can both hear it. what started off as a fracture, something that could be fixed if treated fragilely but persistently, became a canyon. in another room, one heart has just broken. again. it was broken before, the big chunks haphazardly glued back together, good enough to be useful, but still fragile enough to collapse. now it’s been smashed again, and this time it’s possible that the pieces won’t fit so easily back together. in the third room, one heart was broken long ago. it took all it could, hit after hit, contusion after awful contusion, bloody and bruised within an inch of its life until one day someone, the one person to whom it should’ve been bulletproof, obliterated it. beyond repair. one lovers quarrel, one sad fool played, one innocent victim betrayed and robbed of love. each different. each a valid chaos, a fury of fire and passion, all misdirected. and the trick of it all is, you can’t do anything. this is an ethical dilemma, but you don’t get to choose someone to save. this time there’s a train coming down every track. there’s a gun held to every head. there’s no getting out of this one. in a fourth room, a cold, dark room with a horrible, impossible to stomach view, a fifth heart breaks. all of the love pours out of it, and all you can do is hope that it finds a crack in the wall or a drain or vent, and that some of your love finds its way to those other broken hearts. maybe your words weren’t enough, maybe you can’t save them, whole heart, but you can try. and you can hope. sometimes hope is all you have.

[collisionofchaos]

when we were seven years old, we played outside with our friends. we awaited the first day of second grade excitedly. we screamed our friends names across the playground. but somewhere else a seven year old girl's name was whispered behind her in an airport terminal. she has already forgotten her birth name, she won't know the excitement of the first day of second grade. she no longer gets to play outside with her friends. she and life have become old, distant friends. she's lived too many years in her seven of existence. she is one of 20.9 million victims of global human trafficking. she is part of a $150 billion industry. she is the one child out of six that the national center for missing and exploited children have reported as likely a sex trafficking victim. she is a statistic. but she shouldn't be, because she's also a person, one of many of the lost souls that have fallen victim to a cruel system. you all thought slavery was a thing of the past? then you haven't been paying attention. #projectpercipient

[collisionofchaos]

a collection of memories with you

•playing iSpy on your computer in your room •playing poker with cheap makeup in my room •eating mac and cheese all day everyday •making picnics of deconstructed sandwiches •your sister teaching us how to draw stick people with ponytails with chalk •that time we were out playing really early one morning and all you'd eaten for breakfast was grapes and you threw up in the bush between our houses •that time you thought you saw a dead squirrel in the road but it was a plastic bag and we realized you probably needed glasses •that time we were running to that old lady's house to visit her and her dog and you tripped over a squirrel and twisted your ankle and also ripped part of its tail off (why do a lot of our memories have to do with squirrels) •making "tacos" for the meehans dogs out of those giant leaves and berries and other random things we found outside •our various rope swings, in the backyard and then the front yard with that blue rope and sore butts until we figured out the way to go was a wooden seat •using the sand box to make various concoctions out of mud and other stuff and trying to get leo to drink them •spending two weeks collecting chalk dust and putting it in a balloon to pop over leo but instead it popping over you •playing jackpot with everyone in between the worleys and the meehans houses •going to play with the pences at their house and going on grand adventures in their giant backyard •skittles water •trying to sell gatorade to all the neighbors •and those weird crumpled up pieces of paper •and basically all of our get rich quick schemes •our hex girls performance •and our halloween haunted house where we ripped the heads off of all my barbies and hung them from the ceiling •"ow my eye" •painting the gazebo •origami in the gazebo, or in preparation for the gazebo •going to your dads house one time and playing battleship i think •our fort phase summer when we built all of those forts with old baby gates in the front yard •our scooter phase when we set up ramps and courses and did cool scooter tricks (basically jumping the curb and going fast) •our wii phase where all we ever did was play games on the wii (i remember particularly intense sessions in trying to beat super mario galaxy) •our gymnastics phase (which might have, scratch that, probably did lead to you becoming a cheerleader) when we would pull the futon mattress off the frame and try our very hardest to perfect front handsprings until you bought and actual gym mat and we practiced in the front yard •"you better watch out you better not cry you better not pout mr. gary's gonna run over you" •our weird obsession with planning parties that we never actually followed through on in the slightest •climbing the meehans tree all the time until that one branch broke with like three of us on it •water balloons all the time •frozen gatorade popsicle concoctions •you saying that someday you were going to move to a big house and have ducks and the ducks would follow you around even into the bathroom •bus rides to and from school my freshman year your senior year, including bradley and amber and olivia and susan, the last year we regularly saw each other i know there's countless more, a lifetime of priceless, irreplaceable memories that i can't think of in my hazy, tearful state because you're leaving and i don't know what to do. i know this isn't goodbye i know this isn't the end for us but i also know that things will be different and i wish i had better words, a better way to express how thankful i am and how much you mean to me and how glad i am that i've had you by my side all these years, a lifetime of adventures with my partner in crime, but all i can think of is how much i'll miss you and how happy i am for you to be embarking on this new chapter of your life, the next adventure. i love you.