in expectation of rebellion dormant.

Every night, my father pulls himself out of his cracked, fading leather armchair and turns the TV off. He’s been watching something, probably since 8:30 after he got home with my little sister. He puts things away in the kitchen, because my sisters and I and my mother are spoiled and don’t always take the care to put away dishes. He turns on the alarm at the front door, making sure his family is safe in case anyone tries to break in. He comes upstairs and does some type of night routine, and goes to bed. Sometimes, he’ll snore a lot and wake up my mother, who then wakes me up in my bed. I like when she sleeps next to me.

Some nights, I’m still up when the alarm beeps, if I haven’t taken a melatonin. Or two. I don’t need it to sleep, but it’s pretty cool when you can feel it working. 

Usually, I’m sitting somewhere in my room feeling sorry for myself. There’s no reason for it- I have everything I could ever need. I think I watch new many new wave films- I keep wanting to be romantic and flighty.

I’ll try to will myself to do something along the lines of a tragic character’s story arc- do it, I tell myself. 

Walk downstairs, carefully, placing your feet on the carpet as you’ve seen in the movies- softly,  toe first, followed by heel, every second step a glance backwards to see if anyone is following you. Or noticing, you.

Take yourself to a shot glass in the cabinet, go to the liquor cabinet and pour yourself a glass of liquid difference. 

I always expect to feel sad- or wounded. I actually feel such an indifference it’s painful. I have no reason for drinking- other than wanting to feel different.

I had an idea, maybe I should go downstairs alone, find a canvas, and begin to paint. All of the emotions will flow out of me and result in a masterwork that only I understand, and that others find compelling. It wouldn't actually be compelling- it’s just a couple of colors arranged by me when I’m feeling a privileged downness that can only be described as boredom.

I like to wear big t-shirts to bed. I like the way my shadow looks when I have them on- flowy and mysterious- you can’t see where my body begins and the t-shirt ends. 

I want to feel special. I want to be written about- the girl that someone desperately wants to figure out but can’t.

Sometimes I open the window on the left side of my room, the right side if you look from the bed. I push open the blinds and open the window and stick my head out- there used to be a screen there, but it was taken out and never replaced.

I want it to be some big sensual thing- It’s like, in my mind, there is always a camera behind me, someone is always taking a close shot. It never feels like that though. No matter how much I think, now matter how I pose or look, I never get the feeling I expect. I always feel so indifferent, so empty, so, so, so, plainly, fine.

I don't know why i want to suffer- i think it’s in the way my society portrays those who are drowning- i want to be the victim, i want to be tragic. But I’m lucky enough to not be.

It’s 2:13 am, and i have everything i need. Everything i need. Everything i need. i need, i need, i need.

Now its been a little bit of time, and I’m hearing a lot of things (and clearing a lot of things in my head!

I wrote that in 2017, before knowing the gravity of the rebellion I yearned for.

I intended this project t to be more than a glorified portfolio, but as soon as I sat down to try and analyze myself, and how I had gotten to the point of, seemingly, no return, I couldn’t produce anything other than some melancholy film photos taken on a trip to California, a lot of self-assured writing, and some childlike renditions of how my brain tries to make decisions and distinctions.

I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t analyze without hindsight, and by definition, you can’t have hindsight if you’re living in the moment.

So instead of a cast of my peers, I offer you the cast that is my thoughts.

The visions dont ever stop, never dulled by sleep or sedated with drugs, and a lot of time I kinda feel like going brain dead. Voluntary braindead. I know that if I made music I could do it better than my friends, I know that if I committed to anything, I could do it better than anyone else. I know I could make it. But commitment hurts, and only results in eventual heartbreak, so I pretend I see the vision in a lot of my friend’s shitty stuff and use my Neo-alternative look to aid in my explanations. 

If I moved into a little house by the railroad tracks, would I get used to the noise?

Now the houses pass way too quickly and there isn’t a soul on the streets: people replaced by plastic bags and cigarette butts, lots of unfinished graffiti, spray paint cans still waiting to discharge. I’m remembering a lot of things that I hoped I had forgotten: Your face reflected in the window of a train at night, when we used to sit in seats tandem and try really hard not to touch. Me, face turned purposefully out the window, thinking of the far-sightedface of a boy when I handed him a carefully selected post card, fog and birds on the front. I spent hours looking for the perfect image to match what I’d built him up to be in my head. Can this boy dream through this card? I got my answer when he called late that night, lost in the image on it and leaving me breathless on the other end, comfortable in my choice. The right question about selection. Can he remember me from it, does he even still have it? Probably not. I’ll never know.

The real car that I’m on car slows, and now I wonder if I’ve picked the right music for offhand pensive deliberation, a jury in my mind.

I regret acting how I did yesterday, and I’m sorry I couldn’t say sorry. Sometimes waves of apprehension and disgust take over me, and you look to me with pretty sleepy (depending on the day, wounded,) eyes, just trying your best. I can’t help but smile.

“Are you alright?” 

“Yes.” No. I’m angry that our friends are still here, I hate them right now because they make me sad. 

I like when you look at me and I don’t look back, but then I wonder if I ever manipulate the light with my form. 

I’m embarrased too often, overly self assured, easy to please, quick to take offense. The one thing that acting taught me that I wish I could forget is the curse of noticing every little thing and analyzing it, much as you would do in a scene. Pick up the little changes in character that indicate a different feeling or emotion in your scene partner. 

So I notice miniscule, normal, completely unassuming to normal non-actors things; you hold my hand more loosly than usual, you’re withdrawing from me. You grab it really tight, l, you… 

So, in apprehension, and uneasily, I alienate myself from the situation so I don’t notice too much, and risk taking it the wrong way. 

Maybe I was just stoned out of my mind.

And now I walk the streets of an unfamiliar city, and turn up the voume on my earbuds so everything is soundless, minus the soundtrack I give it. I pretend I can’t hear the calls; 

And in the middle of a big, cavernous lobby, someone is turning 30. Dressed to reflect their vailant paychecks everyone eyes me, carnivorous. Would you like a place like this? I feel at home among the stares, I’ve always liked to be looked at. And there’s a man in a pink shirt and jeans that I challenge, looking him in the eyes. He won’t do a thing.

The other day on the metro was the first time I’ve begged them not to look. The anonomous people who fixate their eyes on mine, smeared in black. I feel comfortable, I don’t look down, usually. But that day, I challenged no one and prayed for the ride to be over. I guess I was sick of performing? 

i’ve fallen way more than once. I admire some for always doing what they want, even if it trips others up- you over everyone else, right?

At the end of the day you’re the largest part of your own life. Everyone else is just a character in your coming of age movie, and I’m lucky that I’m a part of some of the ones that I am. Internal credit list rolling, I watch as characters make decisions and wonder if viewers at home are cringing ahhhhhh! 

Doing that viewer thing where they wish they could stop certain things, change things that they can’t control onscreen. Sometimes I feel like I’m so perceptive, I can see how these things, these decisions, are going to play out, kinda like a scene selection thing in my mind.

I used to steal trinkets from my Sunday school classroom and agonize over it, until I eventually justified myself.

I’ve turned that ability to justify my wrongdoings into a habit- I excuse myself for others, (see my about page.)

It wasn’t until I found a prophet within the writings of Patti Smith that I realized that I wasn’t as special as I thought.

Patti used to steal too.

But right before an internal battle began raging within me, the pull of adulthood tussling with the memories of grade school, I discovered rock music.

Childhood fear inducing, shadow casting, Mr. Jones and Omaha with images so clear in their lyrics I was turned, pushed, knocked, kicked, and spun right into diet! rock! and! roLL! 

Eventually I got into the harder soft, the softer stuff, and the tracks with so much fluff you might not ever be able to hear them more than once every couple of years. 

Bennie and the Jets, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Paul Mccartney and the Wings, Paul McCartney and the rest of the Beatles (Paul was always my dad’s favorite,) Lynryd Skynryd (unapologetically sacrilidge for a young indie kid) Bob Dylan, and the Coctaue twins. Zombie, the Cranberries. Car Seat Headrest on Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using (Drugs with Friends), Beach fossil’s Sugar (Jesus that night) and anytime Alex G screams on, spits on, looks at, or god forbid, blesses, a track.Sitting Among my friends, amateur musicians, and learning from everytime I can’t open my mouth, I command from my hidden perch and select a soundtrack for the world. Why can’t I Have You, for crying on the metro. Future for getting high. Candy (Shes Not So Sweet) to test how high I got. 

And this day was sunny then rainy, The one I saw acorss from me at the BGR, avoiding an akward conversation he didn’t know was happening with earbuds in and a tripping smile fixed on his face. Eyes distant.

Anti-feminist, doting, whatever you want to call it, and he’s never quite far from my head. Always in the back, a welcomed headache I don’t want to combat with advil.

And now the train moves more fluidly, passing rows of houses that still look exactly the same.

If I dropped my whole life, my ambitions and triumphs, peaked in high school, and moved into a little house by the railroad tracks, would I be followed? I wonder if I would be able to forgive myself if I gave up my ambitions. I could become a small novelist, or a poet. Humble life, lots of cigarettes. Probably prolonged use of marijuana, a couple of cats, maybe a dog (because I feel like they really listen,) artisanal coffee, whiskey without judgement, and the same questions about everything. Would I need someone, something there?

The ancient Sumerians were depressed, that’s been proven because of the unpredictability of their rivers and the flooding risk. You can also tell through their art. 

Kind of like if ancient Sumerians had photographic technology and access to surrealism and understood schizoaffective disorders and believed in the paranormal and had opinions on MTV’s downfall. So different from us, but anciently advanced. They never knew if they were going to live or die, so they remained wary all the time.

In 2020, rivers still overflow, like those floods in Paris that gave the glimmering city a glimpse of the post-apoctolyptic climate-change doomsday impending sinking of crown ciites they keep worrying us about. I wonder about the term “peaking,” and I wonder if we as the human race are peaking in this era. At this point, we can predict and control flooding, something the ancient humans only dreamed of doing.

In my 18 years on this planet I’ve derveloped a keen understanding of polarizing things, just as verying river stability provided a polarizing public level of happiness: the constant serenity of the Nile made sure that the Egyptians were always happy.  Now, you either love Fleetwood Mac, or you hate them. You can drive, or you can’t drive. You can tolerate Justin Bieber, or you dismiss him, scoff. Justin Bieber? . You have an instagram and stay kinda updated on pop cultutre, or you can’t figure out how to use the face id on your new iPhone 11. Texting is easy for you, or you still find the cry laughy face completey normal, and applicable in nearly every texting situation; Why do you type in all lowercase? It’s sooooo unproffesional. I’m above that *laughy face.* 

Whatever hand you write with (another polarizing factor,) You usually know your right from your left, though. And in 18 years I still haven’t really been able to figure that out.