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Absinthe_Faery's Journal
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Part of something I'm attempting
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August 27, 2008, 11:26:pm
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So this is totally new for me. I usually don't write first person but I need honest answers and what not. Is it worth continuing? Is the writing under first person okay? Etc.
Catalyst:
The tile is cold beneath my feet-icy- the kind of cold which sears through flesh, radiating upwards. I feel it, my toes on fire despite the warmth of the room, the day. White tiles, smooth, with their black grout look like teeth to me- mocking me, laughing. Just do it. They whisper as I inch my fingers closer. Just do it.
I lean against the counter- white as well. It’s sterile- everything is white, the counter, the sink, the toilet, the shower. Even the shower curtain is white and I laugh inwardly. Hospital rooms have more color. The toilet seat lid is up, a mouth, and the towels are askew on the rack next to me. Bracing myself, naked, against the burning countertop, I take a good long look in the mirror, examining my pale body, the grotesque softness. My one hand runs over it, down hips which actually curve in, across breasts, down the thin white scars all over my torso and stomach from the time I took a rounded blade to it. I shudder.
There’s no sound, nothing except my ragged breaths as I force myself into steadiness. There’s no room for mistakes now. None. In and out, my breath is loud, broken, grating. It echoes off the walls, marked with chips I’ve created and errant hair dye. Pink hair dye. Hot pink hair dye which has since faded to shades of red, all of which mock me. Just do it..
Nervously I flick my hair back, resisting the urge to pick up an old childhood habit of sucking on the edges. Thoughts of stories of surgeries to remove hairballs from human stomachs enter my mind and suddenly the whiteness of the bathroom is an operating room, complete with “Nurse, scalpel, stat” and hazy masks which soon fade out as I’m brought under.
I hear my breathing, a steady beat, and soon the drip of water is added as I try to drown out the sound that will soon be prevalent…the silence which will, within moments, draw concerned questions from my mom.
The blade flashes as it catches the light, a smaller version of the blinding experience in broad daylight- anticlimactic, and yet, it’s swift movement, silent. Now it’s the water, undulating as it splashes into the drain, uninhibited. My breath is drowned under the fall.
And my blood stains my skin as an artist throws a splash of color onto a canvas from ten feet away- a thin red line, a steady failed heartbeat in neon.
Impressions:
Meadow Brook is huge, square, in that gaudy Art Deco way which only exists in Ft. Lauderdale- with perfectly aligned windows, a door placed exactly in the middle of the building and I can’t help but wonder if the people who are supposed to help me need help themselves- perhaps for an overriding case of OCD.
The heat is static, easily over 100 with humidity and there are no trees save for a lone palm tree half a blown down providing less shade than the blue awning over the glass doors. On either side of the building are offices, cafes, tattooing parlors- a plethora of storefronts with people concealing a secret of knowledge. A business man and woman talk in front of our car, talking, avoiding eye contact with the building to the side. It’s been that way for the past hour- people walking- sometimes a tourist in khaki shorts and tank top, sometimes someone all spiffied up in a suit, sometime the surfers with their low swim trunks and waxed boards- all avoiding the building with its damning perfectly aligned eyes. “We know your secret” it seems to whisper in time to the strains of music coming from the street performer with a strickered guitar and open case.
If I had to be anywhere I suppose it works, fronting the Atlantic, able to pick up a slight salt breeze every so often which cools the concrete and tar and lessens the tension.
Once those breezes die though it’s back again, angrier then ever and the door gapes open as if to swallow me, but my parents show no notice. They are collected, in control, smooth.
Outside of the building we stare at each other, my parents facing the car, me leaning against it, looking up past them with that trick I’d learned many years back- the one where you focus on something extremely close to someone’s head without looking at them. It’s brilliant really- looking behind them and they think I’m at attention.
Someone in the window catches my eye, way up on the fourth floor, and I watch them, knowing that they can’t see me, glad to be able to peer in without being examined back.
“We made a deal Sarah.” My mother, stylish, tall, bottle blonde and in love with H from CSI: Miami. “You go for the summer and if it ends you won’t be out of school.” She was good at that- minimizing words, talking around the subject while still getting to the point.
“I didn’t promise.” I keep my voice equally pleasant. It’s something I learned growing up. We don’t raise our voices in public, we don’t look like anything is wrong. And really, nothing is wrong with us- just me.
The air is stifling and I count the seconds between those salt breezes as I would between lightening, to see how close the storm was. 1…2….3….4…5…6…7…8…9...10. Ten seconds before, if this were lightening, a storm would ravage the place where we stood. Instead, this was just ten seconds before I got a second of relief. My jacket feels heavy, heavier than it should and I pull the sleeves further down with my fingertips while they watch me and I watch the person at the fourth floor window. They remind me of a cat’s eye- the entire scene…the window and the person standing vertical in the center.
“Sarah, we discussed this. Now please.” My dad, over worked and worried, pleads with me. I know he blames himself to an extent with his undergraduate work in child psychology, but it’s not his fault. He doesn’t realize that. Neither does she. Despite his pleading there is underlying anger in his voice- I know it well and any second I expect him to laugh nervously the way he used to when he’d yelled at my sisters and I for doing something silly. This time he doesn’t. “We can put this behind us in a few months but princess you need to get better.”
“I didn’t promise though.” My voice is as dead as the air at the moment.
“Fine, you didn’t promise, but we talked about it. You’re going. Meadow Brook seems like a nice place.”
“Maybe if you’re crazy.” I mutter, finally turning my gaze to them after the girl in the window left.
“Sarah!”
“What mom? Don’t want anyone to know that you’re daughter is crazy?”
“You’re not crazy honey. You just need to figure this out and move on with our lives.” My dad cuts in, putting his hand on my shoulder. It’s heavy but doesn’t seem to add much to the weight of the air.
Another breeze comes by. 20 seconds this time and I smile slightly. I can’t nod, I can’t bring myself to tell them that they are right. Instead I look away.
“Sarah Allison. This is not funny. Get your bag and come on.” My mom is through with the hanging about discussing this. She doesn’t want to be seen or noticed. Not that anyone would notice her- we live over an hour away and its 9am on a Thursday. Most of the people she knows have hair and nail appointments at this time.
I watch her for a moment, memorizing the way her hair, surprisingly still soft after bottle and bottle of dye, picks up in the momentary breeze before falling flat again, and the way she looks almost like a model standing next to the single palm tree in front of the Art Deco building with its condemning eyes and oubliette entranceway. I open the back door of the car, turning away from her and him, pulling my hand in and grabbing the backpack I’d filled up the previous night. All I needed was enough clothes to last a week or so.
The suave exits when we enter and no longer is the building debonair. It’s sterile. A receptionist sits directly behind the door, keeping with the obsessive trend and to the right is a waiting room with three chairs and a love seat in blyue and white pleather that sticks to your legs at all times of year because the temperature never drops below eighty. Stupidity. Even the cold air which doesn’t seem to circulate can’t curtailt he greediness of the couch and I sit perched at the edge, back rigid, hands clenched. Heels down, chest out runs through my mind and instinctively I assume the riding position, digging my feet into the ground, as though roots would spring from the soles.
A guard stands to the left of the dest but there is no speaking, no Muzak and everyone is upright, rigid. There are papers to be filled out, monitors to check.
Question after question- things which seem silly considering the place I’m at and I tap my foot on the geometric floor, hugging the jacket tight around my arms- not surely, just protecting.
Pamphlets rest in the corner and magazines lay perfectly aligned on the table and the window is at eye level. Across the street there’s a Starbucks- a trendy waste of five dollar cups of hot chocolate that I would go every Monday and Wednesday without fail for. Next to it a small surf store and through their decaled window I watch a brunette in board shorts and a bikini top lean over the counter to flirt with a shaggy haired boy and I grin. And next to that a tattoo and piercing show- Graffix- with brightly colored walls and even brighter people and I bite my lip wondering if my own metal would have to be removed.
“Sarrison?” A woman, short, fat, steps out of the door back behind the guard and my parents look up, standing. I uproot my feet from the floor and follow, keeping my eyes down.
People:
puppy boy:
“Tell me something.”
I look up and frown, scooting over on the seat so the boy could sit down, and continued to aimlessly change the channels.
“Tell me something.” Again he proposes the question and I tilt my head, not speaking to him, thinking that perhaps he was one of the actual crazy ones here. There weren’t that many I had realized. The majority of patients, or “attendees” as they like to call us, are normal people with abnormalities. There are the girls who don’t eat, those who eat constantly and erratically. There are those who abuse their medicines, those who are going through withdrawal from some sort of drug of choice. There are those who have been victims of abuse of some sort, those who hurt themelves, and then the very small number of people who were certifiably crazy. I mean crazy crazy…like “Throw Mama from the Train” crazy. Most of them were in a special area, on the top floor, but every so often they got moved down here to the other levels. This boy next to me I decide is one of the crazies.
“Tell me something.”
“The sky is blue.”
“Psht, you suck at this game.” He cracks a smile and I can’t help but grin back. It’s infectious. “Now, tell me something.”
“You’re interrupting the show.”
“Oh really? And what are you watching.”
“Um..” shit. I have no clue what I’m watching and so I resort to scrunching up my nose and ignoring him.
“Okay, so seriously now. Tell me something. Anything at all, about you, about this place, about anything.” He shifts toward me now, his eyes light up and he reminds me of a puppy.
“You’re a puppy.” I grin absently, considering him- his glasses, black rimmed and slightly square, tipped askew on his nose, his chocolate virgin hair (you can always tell when hair hasn’t been touched by dye), his hazel eyes which look too happy to be natural but not happy enough to be drugged.
He laughs, shaking his head, and his hair falling into his eyes. “I’ve never gotten that one before miss. Thank you…I think?”
“You’re welcome.” I grin and stop clicking channels, settling on the Discovery channel. It requires no thought what so ever. I like that. I watch him out o fthe corner of my eye. Maybe he wasn’t a crazy afterall. I didn’t feel right asking him though. Not yet. But then…it could be excused. “Tell me something now.”
“I haven’t seen you before. How long have you been here?”
“That’s cheating.”
He frowns, leaning back against the seat, crossing his arms and I realize how lanky he is, and possibly how tall. We don’t talk, my attention caught on the alligator eating the gazelle.
“Why do they do that?”
“Do what?”
“If one gazelle sees another being eaten, why do they return to that water again and again. They’ll all die that way.” I turn to look at him, moving my whole body this time to show commitment to our conversation.
“Why do we keep doing the same things again and again even though we get caught and reprimanded for it?”
I frown and stick out my tongue, grinning through the gesture and he leans against me. “Silly puppy.” I whisper, turning my attention back to the television, my body rigid, afraid. He presses harder against my shoulder and my mind wanders to those twelve hour car rides up to North Carolina when Katie would lay against me while my parents drove. I want to put my arm around him but I don’t. I don’t trust him, don’t know him except for the fact that he likes playing a stupid game in which he doesn’t follow his own rules.
The credits start to roll on the show and I move away from him quickly, glad for
an easy out, glad to get away from the boy with puppy dog eyes.
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Live Journal. ^^
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August 20, 2008, 01:06:am
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I have a new Livejournal.
Because I'm a dork.
You should add it if you want to be my friend. <3
www.absinthexfaery.livejournal.com
=^.^=
1.....2.....3...
GO!
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What I want in a significant other.
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July 09, 2008, 04:21:pm
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I get this question a lot so here is the answer:
What am I looking for in a guy/girl? (I used guy throughout but it applies to girlies too)
I want someone who is intelligent, who is going somewhere with his life, who understands that there are more important things than getting drunk and partying. I'm looking for a guy who knows that compromise is part of a relationship and values conversation and the simplicity of being next to someone- of holding them, touching their hair, their skin, their hand.
I want a man who treats his family right and who wants a future, not a quick fuck.
I don't want someone who gives up easily, resorts to anger, or who doesn't know how to hold his tongue and retain an ounce of decorum.
I want a guy who will take the time to understand me and some of the things I have gone through which still linger to an extent today. I want a guy who won't get frustrated and snippy when it takes a while for intimacy to move past touching, hugging and kissing. I have my reasons.
I want a guy who will realize that I adore my family and they are my lifelines and they won't disappear so he's stuck with them too to an extent.
I want a guy who is funny, spontaneous, planned out, and raging with inquisition. I want someone who that spark of life yet who knows that quiet time is a plus and is often more needed than anything.
I want a guy who knows when the right touch is needed and where, a guy who will listen if I need to cry or rant, a guy who won't belittle me.
I want someone who will dance in the rain with me, eat brownie batter from the bowl, entertain my random stories, go for long meaningless walks when it's freezing outside and who can be willing to pick up and go on an adventure when the time is right.
I want someone real. I'm not looking for a knight in shining armor. I want someone with flaws and insecurities. Maybe a little baggage and most of all the innate ability to love.
That's all. ^^
Pretty simple, right?
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Scrapbooking
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July 08, 2008, 07:32:pm
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So scrapbooking.
I cut 1609 photos down to 500.
From there I cut down another couple hundred and honestly I can't cut anymore.
I just can't. Four months worth of photos can not be cut that much!
No way, no how.
But I do have awesome paper,
stickers,
and brochures, ticket stubs and the like to make it all look amazing. =^.^=
Meebee?
I've never done this before so I hope it turns out okay. ~grins~
Wish me luck.
Mood: Sleepy.
Music: Nothing
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There always has to be a beginning.
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July 08, 2008, 12:14:am
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Boredom has propelled me, as it often does, into one act or another, and this act was reviving VF in my life. I've had several accounts on this site in the past and honestly some of them might still exist somewhere on here, but this is a start over.
There are "do overs" in the game of life. ^^
And now it's 12:12am and I'm exhausted but I have finished my page for the most part- any tweaking can come later but for right now it's lovely...maybe one of these days I'll learn HTML and do something with it but for now I'm okay with the basics. I have other things to accomplish.
So the list:
1) Make my profile look better
2) Turn my Elegant_Bondage group into something to be proud of.
=^.^=
Mood: Sleepy
Music: Nothing.
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