What if this is as good as it gets? One-sided conversations, half-assed homework, and sneaking food into my room is not a life. I do a lot of observing, catching subtle hints people throw out about their lives. Everyone tries to make it basic, but I see the spark. I catch the small smile they give themselves, remembering something I don't know about. I read the status updates, the blog entires, the texts: everything that makes everyone else's life seem so much more fulfilling than mine.
I've become the master of procrastination and bullshit, putting off even my own emotions in order to drown myself in the apathy of text. What am I thinking about now? Not my homework [which I'm extremely behind on], not my boyfriend [who I'm still too timid to call], and not my eating habits, which were brutally annihilated by a bagel teeming with cream cheese. I'm thinking about typing, about how I better get this scholarship so my parents will get off my ass.
I pick up my phone to another "lol" text and just shut it angrily. What's the point in trying to carry on a conversation? My meebo is up, but I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't even know why it's on. Maybe it's a force of habit. Maybe it's so I can see that I'm not physically alone.
And then a thought occurs to me. Maybe Kevin's house isn't that odd of a fascination. Maybe it's that one thing that keeps me feeling alive. I sink into this state of apathy when anything could happen, and I wouldn't give a shit. My parents take my phone? Whatever. I don't get dinner again because everyone else wants beef? Sure, why not. John could tell me he never wants to see me again and I wouldn't even flinch.
In almost a neurotic twitch, I check my phone again. No new texts, no new messages. I've finished the homework I'd been planning on using as an outlet. Plus, my guitar is out of tune. The straight razor whispers quietly to me from my dresser, but I shush it.
The name is Nik.
"Then, all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street. I thought I’d just go down, down, down, and nobody’d ever see me again."
-Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
What if this is as good as it gets? One-sided conversations, half-assed homework, and sneaking food into my room is not a life. I do a lot of observing, catching subtle hints people throw out about their lives. Everyone tries to make it basic, but I see the spark. I catch the small smile they give themselves, remembering something I don't know about. I read the status updates, the blog entires, the texts: everything that makes everyone else's life seem so much more fulfilling than mine.
I've become the master of procrastination and bullshit, putting off even my own emotions in order to drown myself in the apathy of text. What am I thinking about now? Not my homework [which I'm extremely behind on], not my boyfriend [who I'm still too timid to call], and not my eating habits, which were brutally annihilated by a bagel teeming with cream cheese. I'm thinking about typing, about how I better get this scholarship so my parents will get off my ass.
I pick up my phone to another "lol" text and just shut it angrily. What's the point in trying to carry on a conversation? My meebo is up, but I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't even know why it's on. Maybe it's a force of habit. Maybe it's so I can see that I'm not physically alone.
And then a thought occurs to me. Maybe Kevin's house isn't that odd of a fascination. Maybe it's that one thing that keeps me feeling alive. I sink into this state of apathy when anything could happen, and I wouldn't give a shit. My parents take my phone? Whatever. I don't get dinner again because everyone else wants beef? Sure, why not. John could tell me he never wants to see me again and I wouldn't even flinch.
In almost a neurotic twitch, I check my phone again. No new texts, no new messages. I've finished the homework I'd been planning on using as an outlet. Plus, my guitar is out of tune. The straight razor whispers quietly to me from my dresser, but I shush it.
