a montage

7/21/2019 a montage

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a montageI

Today marks the fth time in fve years I’ve stripped down a room and packed it all into

boxes and bags to load into my car. It eels like a weird homelessness. I never called this

room home. Or the one beore it. I did with the others I think. I’m very excellent at

packing now. I know it will all ft in my car fne. I’m giving everyone their things back,

too. A ewelry box, a script, a tshirt, a b!tton down, some papers. I don’t have any

elo"!ence in me, !st checklists.

II

#$eah I’m really sorry I didn’t ever say any%&

#'o, it’s really not a big deal%&

#I sho!ld have said something%&

#'o, yo! didn’t need to, it’s not a problem.&

#$eah% I mean I sho!ld have said% I’m kinda seeing someone%&

#$eah.&

#$eah(&

#I mean I fg!red% I mean I% yeah, I kinda am too.&

#Oh, okay.&

#Are yo! happy(&

#I mean, aren’t yo!(&

III

The air in my room gets thicker every night. I remember being fteen and sleeping in a

sweaty fve o clock di))y sl!mber on yo!r co!ch !nder a blanket !nder yo!r arms. And

being sixteen and sleeping beside the hospital bed with my head on the covers or in the

waiting room chairs trying to do chemistry homework with yo!r brother. And seventeen

and sleeping in a twin b!nk bed !nder yo!r roommate trying not to breathe c!) the

moment was a magic b!bble that wo!ld pop and end i I moved an inch while yo! ell

asleep. And being eighteen and alling asleep in yo!r car at the shooting range with a

sea o stars coating the sky and the tree line and the gro!nd with the most orgiving

light, neck and back roaring with pain when I woke !p, walking back to my cabin in yo!r

shirt and with indentations rom yo!r skin still across mine. Or being nineteen and

alling asleep in yo!r bed, hair p!lled back rom my sweaty neck, lights still on in the

room, only waking !p brie*y when yo!’d climb in bed too with yo!r eans still on and lay

a ew eet away rom me, b!t not protesting when I’d roll over and sprawl on top o yo!.

And now being twenty twenty twenty years old and staring at the ceiling as everyone

alls asleep aro!nd me and sneaking o!t o bed to fnd my charger or my headphones or

water or my shirt and hiding !nder the covers to watch 'et*ix !ntil I can all asleep too,

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and waking !p every ho!r trying to process yo!r arms aro!nd me, and lying with every

m!scle tense as yo! stir like yo!’re abo!t to wake !p and catch me not%sleeping in a

bed that’s not my bed, in a room that’s not one o my fve bedrooms.

I+

#hat did yo! glean(&

-$o! co!ld have saved a lot o time i yo! hadn’t decided yo! needed to fx me.-

#hat h!rts(&

#/y bones.&

#hich ones(&

#0ow am I s!pposed to pinpoint it( I g!ess it’s deeper than my bones. /y bone

marrow.&

#0ow come(&

#I I co!ld answer that, I wo!ld have fxed it by now, wo!ldn’t I have(&

#1o yo!r bone marrow h!rts and yo! can’t fx it.&

#$eah.&

#I !st don’t think yo!’re trying hard eno!gh.&

#hat am I s!pposed to be trying or(&

#$o!’ve given !p on the idea o act!ally fnding a prod!ctive way to 23 with someone. $o! said yo! were done hal%assing things. 1o why is this the exception(&

#I did my homework. I slept reasonable amo!nts. I sociali)ed today. I wore real clothes. I

slept in my own bed. I think I’m doing alright.&

#That’s literally the opposite o what I asked.&

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#'o one gets 4556 o it right, anyways, yeah(&

#Oh, come o7 it. $o! can do better than that.&

#I didn’t !sed to hal%ass it like this. $o! know what happened last time I p!t all my

weight on someone.&

#0e abo!t bled o!t on the side o I%85.&

#$eah.&

#That was years ago.&

#It doesn’t eel like it.&

#'o(&

#'o.&

#That did some damage, didn’t it.&

#$eah.&

#$o!r bone marrow is still recovering, then(&

#$eah.&

#And !ntil then(&

#Tr!st no man am I right.&

#9!cking take this serio!sly, yeah(&

#1orry.&

#:ight.&

#I try to, ya know(&

#:ight.&

#I !st don’t really know how.&

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yo an!ary, can I make it(

;an yo! wake me !p i I p!sh everything harder and walk twice as ast(

2eca!se I’ve always said i sel%ind!lgence were a sin the world wo!ld r!n o!t o

orgiveness b!t no one ever told me how hard it wo!ld be to maintain solid systolic

press!re when yo!r heart is scattered across the state

yo an!ary I’ve been asleep or weeks now and I’m all o!t o dreams

All I want to do is tell someone abo!t how the <reeks reveled and broke thro!gh the

sickly sheen that coated their so!ls and bathed in blood and danced bareoot in thorns

beca!se whatever controls o!r veins and arteries is terriying beyond belie b!t it’s

somehow less terriying than detaching rom yo!r tr!est sel

And what I’m trying to say is everything I !sed to say has r!n dry and everything I !sed

to eel is sleeping or now

yo an!ary, give me a shot, wo!ld ya(

hen I was yo!nger, I had whole !niverses swarming aro!nd in my head. hetherit was a byprod!ct o watching too many =isney movies or a res!lt o being an avidreader rom a very yo!ng age, I don’t know, b!t I dreamt abo!t knights and castlesand orphaned princesses and magical powers and kingdoms. And when my headstarted to h!rt rom all o the worlds clambering or space behind my eyes, I beganto write them down. I constr!cted elaborate amily trees, created maps orkingdoms and profles or the c!lt!res o the characters I tho!ght !p. I planned o!twhole series and sectioned o7 parts o my notebook or vario!s chapters, all titledvery dramatically. I’d po!r o!t my stories > as m!ch as I co!ld think o > into stalewhite pages via easily%smeared graphite, then sit aro!nd and po!t abo!t how my

seemingly endless plotline co!ld only manage to maniest itsel in the orm o achapter or two.

A ew months ago, I picked !p an old notebook o mine, and read the prolog!e andfrst ew chapters ?aptly titled #The 2eginning& and #hat 0appened 'ext&@, andwas impressed by this intricate storyline o a princess, kidnapped rom her room atnight, who was being taken hostage by the enemy soldiers in order to gain anadvantage over her previo!sly ins!rmo!ntable kingdom. It also str!ck me that I had

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absol!tely no recollection o planning this, writing it, or even thinking abo!t thecomplex characters and storyline within it. Once it was an intricate part o myimagination, b!t is now red!ced to aded text in an old notebook > erasedcompletely rom my mind.

At some point, I reali)ed that writing was not only an escape rom the real world,

b!t also a place to get rid o things yo!r mind doesn’t have room or anymore. /ycharacters developed ?or recessed, depending on how yo! see it@ rom princesseswith galloping steeds into tro!bled girls who ran away rom home, or girls whoseparents got divorced, or girls who dealt with pregnancy or ab!se or loss. Thro!ghthis transition, I remained sta!nchly at home, with parents who were decidedly notdivorced, while I dealt with neither pregnancy nor ab!se nor loss. In my mind,writing became this o!tlet or the #what%is& in my lie so they wo!ldn’t ester in mymind, !naddressed, and !nacknowledged. Once these characters leaked ontopaper, I never had to deal with them again. I had space again to memori)e theperiodic table or to try and make heads or tails o my

I being tired is a sin, then I am the devil. I loneliness e"!aled power, I’d be ananointed king, and i happiness were a blessing, I’d be the oker at his eet. adyl!ck took me o!t to dinner once, b!t I got lost on the way to meet her, and by thetime I got there, clairvoyance had taken her away already in his passionate sweep.Batience ells me like a great knie. The heavens are playing tricks on me, Cane, andI don’t know which way my eet stand anymore. The *oor wobbles when I try andwalk. Tragedy str!ck me b!t orgot to leave its calling card, b!t pity h!ng aro!ndand draped itsel aro!nd my neck > b!t it keeps getting tangled in my hair, Cane,

and I can’t get it o!t, like a necklace with too many beads that angles when I walk.a!ghter is my virt!e, tho!gh, and she rings in my ears even when I’ve been aloneor ho!rs > b!t my la!ghter is like silver bells, a blessing. /y smile is a git. /y heartis a ticking time bomb.

I have a tendency to learn things in school and think #ohD That’s what’s wrong withme&. In middle school, I o!nd o!t that carbon dioxide was heavier than oxygen, andso I ass!med it settled in the bottom o my chest and that’s why my l!ngs co!ldnever eel !ll eno!gh. I did headstands or weeks to get rid o the waste in mychest

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Anything yo! read, really, is a memoir in essence. 1omewhere in the a!thor’s mind,this elaborate world they’ve created act!ally exists, and the characters are as realas any neighbor or riend they know. The story is a part o the a!thor’s mind asm!ch as their trip to the post oFce or grocery store. And no one will ever be able toconvince me that an a!thor can create words and worlds o!t o nothing. 'o,

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everything is based in something that the a!thor has read or seen or heard. Theconversations that the a!thor reco!nts are drawn rom snippets o words that havebeen heard beore, or adapted rom things that have been read. A novel is nothingb!t an acco!nt o what the a!thor has experienced, b!t adapted to something thatwill appeal to an a!dience.

This doesn’t have to maniest itsel in the way that 3nglish teachers across thenation are trying to orce !pon apathetic st!dentsG that is, that everything in a storyrepresents something great and magnifcent, reerencing archetypal evidence orepeated patterns in stories across c!lt!res and nations and oceans. This co!ld beas simple as a person dreaming abo!t a dragon, deeating it in a bla)e o glory andsplendor, and then waking !p and wanting to reco!nt the tale. There’s nothing lessval!able abo!t trivial inspiration. 0owever, it doesn’t change the act that the storyhappened to the a!thor. 3ven i it’s the prod!ct o random ne!rons fring andconnections made deep within the abrics o o!r brains, it happened somewhere,and the words on the page are !st a re*ection o what really happened. A memoir,

!st a very specifc one.

I also believe that writers are some o the loneliest people I know. There’s a strongpredominance in literat!re o stories o people who go against the grain. They arealone in their belies, and they m!st go against what is nat!ral and accepted to dosomething that is good and right. O co!rse they have their loyal sidekicks andsteadast s!pporters, b!t they are never the ones that are widely accepted andollowed, or even the ones that have lots o riends. 'ot !ntil the end, at least,where everyone loves them again. And it’s a lonely chain o events to ollow overand over again. 1ome lonely person o!t there creates a world or themselves where,by the end o it, they are the hero. They are in the right, and everyone else iswrong, b!t the other people t!rn aro!nd and love them by the end. 2!t they have tolive with the act that they’re never going to ft in !lly > a general doesn’t playcards with the oot soldiersH a monarch doesn’t dine with the plebeians.

And the readers are lonely, too. It’s so easy to t!rn to fctional characters whenthings don’t work o!t with the living, breathing people aro!nd yo!. It’s comorting toread that something works o!t somewhere or the characters in the stories. A!thorsab!se this, I eel, and create main characters with hollow personalities with generictraits s!ch as social awkwardness, eelings o being alone, or physical mediocrity.

Then the reader slips himsel into the character like an awkward s!it o armor andtravels thro!gh the story themselves. It’s !st too easy to all into the plotline. It’s ahollow well with deep pl!nge at the end that res!lts in a vivid r!sh o satisaction,b!t !st leaves yo! cold and wet and tired at the end.

I want to write abo!t mysel. O co!rse, I’m going to edit the plotline so things worko!t slightly more grace!lly than they perhaps transpired in reality, b!t I won’tchange the people’s names. Their names are part o what defne them.

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