z0m813

[z0m813]

red-crested robin, how do you know when the hunter's caught up with you? you that have lived a lifetime with a maroon chest and bleeding heart. you that have known nothing but the crimson of humanity and brethren. do you feel it, when the teeth pierce your body? or does it feel like the sharp wind on a cool day, like the branches of the tree reaching out towards you, like the brush of the grass as you forage for your next meal. will you feel pain, when the hound's jaws close around your small body, or will you feel freedom? the prison of a muzzle becomes the boat across the sea of souls, transporting you away from it all. little bird with the chest full of red feathers, had you always known this to be your destiny? glimmering pools of water reflected such futures back into your eyes, and all you could do was continue to fly. oh how i admire you, both in the vivacious path of life, and the chilled acceptance of death. oh how i admire your foretold fate since birth. you knew no fear, red-crested robin. you were born to accept all that life would hand to you. after all, evolution has its favorites.

[z0m813]

i fucking tired of the monotony.

i'm absolutely sick of it.

i'm fine. i'm sad. i'm great, then horrible. things feel fine and then not. and now i'm expected to keep fucking living in a world that doesn't want me to exist. i try to fight, but it just feels so fucking pointless you know? and i've tried, please believe me that i've tried so goddamn hard. i want to be strong but it's so exhausting. i've seen no results. it's the same cycling bullshit every time. every month. every year. i'm too poor, too lazy, too dumb, too ill, too weak. and every time i try to pick myself up, i will fail. and if, maybe just maybe im able to succeed, something else will be there to stop me. i'm living in a country where fascism is literally rising before our very eyes. sure, let's try to fix it. the people are too fucking broke and separated to unionize. sure, maybe i can move out of the US then. i have $300 to my name and im almost 22. i have no degree. i cannot escape. i cannot escape this place. i cannot escape this situation. i cannot escape myself. so what the fuck am i supposed to do? i'm angry. i can't even smother my anger and guilt and anxiety and sadness with pills because i ain't got health insurance. can't even move out of this goddamn house. i want people to hurt, i want them to feel what is CRUSHING me. so please tell me what the fuck to do. i'm tired of trying to write graceful shit. i'm over it. i lost my community, my connections, on other platforms. all i have is you. all i have is this massive fucking void to yell out into. i will not even hear an echo back. there is nothing. i will never be heard. my story will never be known. i will not die a supernova, but a speck of dust fading into the vacuum of space. i fucking tried man and im done trying so hard. i need to accept that the life i had in mind will never be mine.

[z0m813]

i'm 8, maybe 9 years old. im laying on the carpet of my room. it's cold, the fan is blowing on my face. i have the bible propped open, and a flashlight in my hand. i am reading genesis. i am confused.

it's midnight now, and i am tired, but still thinking on what this all means. for the very first time, i have become aware that the world exists outside of myself. that i am not alone; this does not comfort me, though. it makes me feel more isolated than ever.

i walk down the stairs, blanket clutched in my palm. the same one i lay with as i write, now. my mom is still awake, watching her reality tv shows. i appear, misty eyed, sniffling. anxious. i silently climb into her lap. she runs her hands through my red hair.

"what's wrong?"

i stare at the tv for a bit. how funny, i think. how funny it is that we are sitting here watching tv when the world is so vast and unending.

what IS wrong with me? what is this feeling slowly digesting the inner wall of my stomach? i feel sick. i feel empty. lost. i have many questions. i ask her,

"god made the world?" she replies, yes, he did. "but who made god?" she goes silent. he just exists, she tells me. "what exists outside of him?" silence again. i understand now that i was asking questions not even the world's best physicists can answer, but at the time, i was frustrated with the lack of response.

she takes me to church the next day. miss anna says that i am smart for asking such questions. that i will have a good relationship with god. that i don't need all of the answers.

she was wrong about all of this, of course, and now when i pray, i pray to the stars. i can see them, those tangible novas. burning and bright, they inspire me.

i hope to sit among them, some day, as a friend, or perhaps a brother. would i finally feel bigger than myself?

[z0m813]

trying to somebody who will match my freak (creating a spotify jam while both wearing noise cancelling headphones and dancing as a form of stimming with no cares in the world)

[z0m813]

im quite terrified of intimacy. i couldn't tell you why, can't pinpoint some moment in my life where it all went wrong. i just have this anxiousness settled deep within the center of my chest and every time she messages me, it pangs a bit, and i get flustered and happy and scared and nervous and shy and excited all at once which is quite an overwhelming array of emotions that i've never had to deal with before. i am trying to overcome this fear as it lurks in the dark folds within my mind; she's like a nightlight, scaring away the monsters out from underneath my bed. maybe i will be okay if i keep her by me, even when her very existence puts me on edge in both the worst and best ways. i am scared but i will try to be brave for her, for it's really all i have to offer, and i've never felt compelled to try for anyone else before.

[z0m813]

i'm not quite sure how to express that i'm often thinking of her, so whenever i am feeling such ways i will just scroll through pinterest and add onto our shared board titled 'love'. i try to be endearing in the way a cat will bring its owner dead birds and mice, a token of my love that transcends verbal communication. all i ask for in return is for her to take the bloodied mess from my teeth and pat me on the head to let me know that she has received it. i am new to this whole thing, romantic love i suppose, and i am still learning. i often feel like a zombie in remission of sorts. like, i was human once, then along the way i transformed into this infected and filthy and lost and mad being. but now, i am learning what it means to be human once more. i will try my best to learn for her, as long as my rotten flesh and yellow teeth and patchy hair doesn't scare her off first. after all, she's different, it seems. perhaps she is the scientist teaching me how to be whole? vials of her love act as the cure for my undead ailments. i, creature so used to the cold of isolated nights, am feeling a bit fearful for the warm day she brings with her presence. uncertainty makes me nervous, like a shelter dog weary by the extended hand of their new owner. i am frightened but i will try to push that aside for now, for she instills me with a confidence i had not yet felt in many years; and that must mean something.

[z0m813]

when college is so bad you have to start roleplaying a mad scientist in medical school just to make urself care about bio 141 (i personally like channeling my inner re-animator)

[z0m813]

there is so much to be overwhelmed by, so much to take in. so i will shut it out and keep to myself. this doesn't happen. i prefer the emptiness to suffocation, although i suppose it's true that you can die from both too much oxygen and not enough of it. i have a gaping hole in my chest and i keep packing it with more bandages and the blood keeps soaking it. i wish it would stop but i think i was born to keep giving even when i don't get it, i will give and give and give. even when i have nothing left i will give. this hole can only grow wider. and they will see right through it.

[z0m813]

i saw my dad's side of the family today. a dinner to celebrate my sister and cousin's birthdays in tandem. it was strange, seeing everyone there, together. i drove there listening to the wind and the road. i locked my car with my keys that have a rabbit's foot hanging from them. i enter the restaurant with my aunt who had come outside to grab something from her car. i sat wedged between my aunt and grandmother. my father passes a glance at me as i sit at the table, hesitant, unmoving. he knows not how to hug this child of his anymore-- i do not think i constitute as one in his eyes now anyways. it's strange, seeing life pass me by. i am the eldest of the children in the family, and yet my younger cousin had already completed more in nursing school than my measly one semester finished in community college. my father asks if i am still attending. i respond that i graduated last month, had he bothered to keep up with me. he asks where i am living now. i respond that i am still in the same place i was a year ago. i see my grandmother scroll through images on her phone, showing them off to the woman sitting beside her-- my father's mistress. a cliché if you ask me, her being my father's secretary and all. she and my grandma exchange photos. i see my sister growing up without me. i see my father with my surrogate uncle who had raised me like blood but failed to contact me after i moved out at 18. i see family friends now become distant memory. i see a family celebrate the birthdays of the children they still respect. my sister sits at the opposite end of the table and i only manage to catch her gaze once. i hide in the background of our awkward family picture. i turn towards my father as we all go to leave and know this will be the last i hear from him until next year. he shakes my hand and leaves. my sister and his mistress trail behind him and i hug my sister. i tell her to call me when she gets to college. i tell her to come to me if she ever needs advice. we know that neither of these will happen. my uncle forgets to say goodbye to me, and my aunt gives me a side hug. she tells me to come visit them, i tell her i will, but i don't know if i can bring myself to. my grandmother brings me out to her car and gifts me two stuffed animals that resemble my dogs. i remark that the restaurant next door has gone out of business, she expresses her equal dismay. i get back to my car. i go home.

[z0m813]

can't get enough of this movie... y'all will have to put up with my brainrot

[z0m813]

this is what i see before i die btw

i feel like i could write entire essays just on these half second clips. since high school i've "vlogged" things, even thru my worst moments, ive pulled out my camera and recorded. i have a shitty memory so maybe it was a way to prove i've existed and that i'm real and i have a past. it hurts to look back on it all, but it also reassures me in a way? it's like the past is reaching up to me saying "hey, i'm still here, and so are you." and i guess for a guy like me, that means a lot. i have people i care for and that, somehow, care for me. my saving grace, my one remaining grip on what humanity has to offer. well, i say that now, but i'm still a sad sack of shit. but that's okay because i'm human and they are too. i'll try to be like them more often, i guess is what i'm saying. so i don't lose them or myself

[z0m813]

[z0m813]

do you miss it?

do you miss when your mom would get home from a late night out and kiss you on the cheek?

do you miss when your nana would take you to the the gazebo on the water and point to the crabs?

do you miss climbing in your best friend's treehouse reading spy books together?

do you miss watching your dad work on his truck, wishing you could do more than hold the flash light?

do you miss hiding behind the trees in your backyard with your sister, examining the bugs?

do you miss church on sunday mornings because it was the only time you were allowed to drink coffee?

do you miss sleeping in the hallway where the floor fan was, bundled up under the same blanket as your sister?

do you miss walking to your neighbors house uninvited to play nerf with them?

do you miss the big hill in your neighborhood where you learned to ride your bike with no hands on the handles?

do you miss staying up late at night to read the latest book you got from your local library?

do you miss sneaking upstairs to use the pool table your dad forbade you from touching?

do you miss the stories you wrote with you friend in middle school that the librarian proof read for you?

do you miss sleepovers, the kind where everyone brought their own sleeping bags and left with little goodies?

do you miss attending your sisters dance classes and climbing the shelves in the back just to get a glimpse of them dancing?

do you miss swimming in your grandpas pool, tracing the outline of his poorly done dolphin tattoo?

do you miss sitting on the floor of your great aunts house for christmas, and eating mac n cheese in the garage while they smoked cigars?

do you miss helping your papa sam bottle feed a calf abandoned in the fields the night before?

do you miss riding the bus on a winter morning, forehead pressed against the frost-bitten windows?

do you miss the fairy gardens that lay between the courtyards of your old school?

do you miss hand-making everyone's gifts for the holidays because you were young with no sense of money?

do you miss your eccentric art teacher with frizzy hair, who was never afraid to let you experiment even if it was unorthodox?

do you miss the neighborhood cookouts when the adults would gather by a fire, drinking beer and exchanging stories?

do you miss swimming into the ocean waves, getting knocked around and going home with sand in your underwear?

do you miss your aunt's cat that died when you were 6, who you mourned in your mother's arms?

do you miss sneaking into your parents room in the middle of the night and sleeping at the foot of their bed?

do you miss bunco nights, when the older ladies let you throw a few dice so you'd leave them alone?

do you miss that field trip, exploring the creek behind the library in tall boots and overalls, searching for pretty rocks?

do you miss going to the river and pointing at the big barges passing by?

do you miss the honey suckles that grew through the fence around the track field at school?

do you miss scraping your knees on the gravel driveway when you were learning to ride a bike?

do you miss the sun?

do you miss the laughter?

do you miss the innocence?

do you miss the people?

i had forgotten it all.

i do.

what can i do to get it back?

[z0m813]

i went outside today, to a little spot behind my house where some wild blackberries had been growing. there was a huge bush, outstretched and covering all the little weeds growing on the forest floor. i had spotted the bush a few weeks ago, on my search for yarrow. i had promised to circle back to it, but alas, i was too late. it's been hot here in virginia, not as hot as places like texas and california, but still, we've felt the effects of that unrelenting sun beating down on us from 5am to 9pm. the animals have felt it, the insects have felt it, the trees have felt it. when i went back to check on that little bush unfortunately it too had felt gods hand too closely, hot like fire, unending pressure, rough hands that don't know to hold fragile things gently. saddened, i made way back to my yard, not a berry in hand. what a shame for natures food to go to waste behind those bars of briars. before i made it to my porch, however, my neighbor called over. Mary, her name was. she made some remark about my dog who had been barking, quite annoyingly to an elderly woman minding her business i suppose, but i made my way over to converse with her nonetheless. she was picking berries off from her blueberry bush. as we talked, she told me about her refrigerator which hadn't been working since june 23rd, and then her church's outreach program, and then the japanese beetles that had recently held our neighborhood captive. she handed me over a reused strawberry container and i just plucked blueberry after blueberry, listening to her talk. had she known of the secret blackberry bush behind the house? did she know that i had come back empty handed? she didn't, and yet here i was, berries now in hand. i'm doing a project for english class, a 10 page paper with the question, "are humans inherently selfish?" my proposition, although optimistic, is that people are not born selfish, but rather created that way as a product of their environment. i think today was a reminder that i'm on the right track. there is so much bad in the world, so much pain that we cannot control, so much hurt and destruction. that little blackberry bush shriveled up due to humanity's lack of care for this earth- global warming at its finest. and yet i was able to hold company with a little old lady, chatting away and picking blueberries from her personal blueberry bush. she let me keep about half of the lot, even though she commented on how this would probably be the last bit of the year. a fine reminder that not everyone is selfish. not everyone is greedy. there are more of us out there than we think, although that's just my theory. admittedly i am an anarchist at heart and that may shape my opinions. surely that little old lady isn't one. but she shared her berries with me, expecting nothing in return but a pleasant talk. and isn't that anarchism in its purist form? people taking care of each other even when the world's gone to shit.

[z0m813]

average notes app entry;

I've been feeling a lot of everything lately. I couldn't describe it, though. Just that I feel like there's something inside of me that's missing, but I can never quite catch it. Every time I try to look, just get a glimpse, it's fleeting back further into the recesses of my heart. I've lived a lot of lives, it seems. Yet it all came and went so fast-- cowboy surgeon, laundromat receptionist, student, sister, bully, artist, poet, child, daughter. I was all of these at one point but not anymore. I have no title to fill. No destiny to follow. Hell, here I am, and a whole year has passed since I started living in the attic of my grandparents house. Failed prodigal son that couldn't stay away from his small town filled with queer bashing, god fearing, hateful folk who can't stand me and I them. As I write this, I'm driving the same route I've taken to work since October, a simple job at a hotel front desk. My heart is filled with something. But I'm stuck. It seems I've lived out my life already. What more is there to do when you've done everything? I no longer have that same adventurous spirit that filled me three years ago or two years ago. I'm trapped, a butterfly who flew too long and ended up stuck to an entomologist's pin board of insects. Leg. Wing. Antenna. All these bits and pieces plucked away. Now I'm 21, and Joan of Arc had already died before she reached my age, she let armies, I've been thinking a lot about her of late. And yet, what have I done? What will I do? I'm scared that the most interesting parts of me will be left in my teen years and I will slowly grow to resemble the jocks who got a cubicle job at some accounting firm but never took off that letterman jacket. Is there anything left for me to fill? I do not know the answers to these questions, but I hope I find them soon-- both for my sake, and for the people around me. I've not yet loved-- will I ever? Lately, I've come to find that I don't much care about people. They speak, they cry, they laugh, they dance. Yet I feel that all I do is simply a reaction. Is it all a mirror of those in front of me? Sometimes I fear I have no heart. But it's not really fear. Just something that is, something that always was. If it possible to feel all too much for myself and way too little for others? Perhaps it is I, human greed and selfishness perfected. When I was 8 years old sitting on the back of my father's truck, I recall thinking, is this it? That was the first time I realized there was something missing inside of me. Do I really exist, or is this just going through the motions? Am I a person? Or am I a husk, a hallow piece of skin and flesh and meat and bone? Sometimes I scare myself. What will ever make this go away? I have a pack of Newports I keep in the center dash. I've only smoked three. I never seem to find the time to smoke more. Not a true smoker heart I suppose, which is surprising, giving my family's long history addiction. It's unfortunate, really, wanting so bad for something to stifle that pained edge in your heart, but nothing doing the trick. Nothing really setting me at ease. I used to have to take 8 of my grandma's Xanax pills just to feel calm. Maybe that's still the happiest I've been. Even if it tore my family apart. There it is again, that familiar sense of self-importance, selfish self pity, searcher of desires and bringer of destruction. I cannibalize everyone around me until there is nothing left of both of us.

[z0m813]

i detest when folks can't compliment my core traits without saying, "your parents raised you so well!"

like no, actually, they didn't. if i wasn't my own person then i would've turned out horrible just like them, but i am responsible for myself and who i created, so i am good because of me and me only. you don't get to decide that i am good because of them. my existence is a revolt against my parents, their ethics, their ideals that they tried to instill in me many times but failed with each try! i am good because i worked for this, for me, and worked against them.

[z0m813]

i would sacrifice pieces of my flesh

but i'd still be considered selfish for wanting to keep my bones