I'm Leslie Monster, and this is Nightline...

I'm 17, British, I write stories and I try to get by in this weird little world.

[imlesliemonster2]

Blog moved!

Hi! This is the blog formerly known as imlesliemonster (now imlesliemonster2). I was kind of an idiot when I first made this blog because I used a separate email address. I've made a new writing blog, under the same url as the original (http://imlesliemonster.tumblr.com). The only difference is it's attached (invisibly) to my personal tumblr so it's easier for me to access it, and write stuff etc.

So yeah, anyone that follows me, I very much appreciate the follow and would love it if you could follow me over there as well! I'm writing loads more now, I just need to type some of it up, so. Yes. Thank you! <3

edit: Although apparently I can't follow or ask anyone anything from anywhere except my personal blog. Hmph! Oh well. :)

[imlesliemonster2]

wildflowers

There are wildflowers in my mind's eye. They are growing everywhere, a weed, infesting every corner they can find. A pestilence, really. They won't leave. You don't think I've tried chopping them down? I've used scissors, I've used hedge trimmers, I've used a goddamn machete to hack and slash a clear path through my mind. But, in seconds, where one head of the hydra is cut, two grow in its place; and so the flowers grow back. 

I've sort of learned to accept it now. I have to, or else I won't be able to function, to survive. They have sort of become part of me. I think I would miss them, if they were gone.

One day, I am being careless. A spark ignites, right in the centre of the meadow which I have grown to love. All my efforts go into stopping it, but - it is too late. A flower has ignited, and in a blazing roar, the meadow ignites. Everything I have ever known. The fire blazes through my mind, relentless, until all that is left is the charred remains of my life.

One day, I am wandering through. Everything that I once loved about myself is gone. It hurts almost more than I can bear, and I collapse to my knees, tears freefalling from my face. But while I am on the floor, I notice something. A speck of green. I stumble towards it on my hands and knees and carefully brush the dust and ashes to the side. A single shoot, with a tiny leaf, gradually stands up, and I smile. New hope, a new beginning.

There are wildflowers in my mind's eye.

[imlesliemonster2]

all-nighter

It is late; the sun has only just hidden away, tucked in for the night, but now it is dark. An envelope of night surrounds us as we talk and love and live.

We play into the night, the music filling me with nostalgia and memories of a more innocent time. We cannot remember how to play, but we get by as best we can.

The scent of cake catches us and we take a halt from our strategising to turn our attention to the kitchen. When we are finished there, what can we do but laze around to eat the fruits of our labour? Perhaps there are better ways to spend your first day here than by spending an hour almost entirely silent except for the quiet delusions coming from the television, but I cannot think of anything.

Words freefall from our mouths for hours today. It is eerily silent in the house except for our murmurs, our slightly half-hearted attempts to not get caught by my parents. 

It is good.

Life is good.

And we talk all night, and before we know it, we glance outside and the sky is a crisp, clear blue. Unknown to us, the world is waking up.

We eventually succumb to the tide, slumber taking over our bodies, and it is not enough - it is never enough - but oh, what a perfect first night.

[imlesliemonster2]

leaver's

BASS thumping

HEARTS pumping

everyone is hiding from me

all starlit is their fantasy

AND THE NIGHT FEELS ALIVE

bravely trying

always lying

I've heard "you look amazing" tonight

     more times than I can count

but that can't be right.

a perfect example of fake

     just for fake's sake, for fuck's sake

                            Because, ok, everyone

                       looks beautiful to someone.

But they don't all think that about each other.

all of them:

liars in layers.

posers and fakers.

                                               and what about The Case

                                                       of the Poor Introvert

                                                whom Everyone Forgot?

Well, she died.

They never found her body. 

[imlesliemonster2]

sleep

My poor poor

          Human body.

i want to be here

forever. i want to stay here

And play video games

And wallow in the lost

          memories of my childhood

And drown myself in tea

          so that it bubbles up (up, up, up)

          up to my ears in tea

                    and maybe, if luck is with me

                    write something beautiful.

BUT MY POOR hUMAN BODY

cannot take it anymore.

the pressing urgency of the passage of time 

          has taken its toll on  my body

and I am so

                              very

                                                tired.

[qmsd]

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

Gary Provost (via qmsd)

[imlesliemonster2]

stockholm syndrome

It's just a matter of days, now, and I know it. Days that feel like seconds, like sand slipping through my fingers on a warm day, and by trying to catch it I just make it fall faster.

They always say that these are the best days of your life, and I always think, christ, I hope not. I hope that in my life, I get to experience magical things, wonderful things, places that fill me with joy, and that I have not reached my peak in life already. 

I am dying to get out of here. I can feel myself wasting away with each moment that I spend locked up in this nowhere town where no one is anyone and the most exciting event of the season is the release of a new romantic comedy in the cinema. Because I am dying.

Maybe not in the traditional sense of the word. I am not in any kind of immediate danger, but I do have a fatal illness. That illness is simply: life. My prognosis? 70 or so more years. It seems long, but each day that I spend in this place is one less day that I get to enjoy. 69 years, 364 days. Here it comes.

I look on my ceiling. Where once I could soothe my restless mind by counting the dots, they are now hidden by dozens of notecards, each covered in helpful hints or study material for exams, and it is this which reminds me of what I hate.

How, then, can people claim that I will miss my time here?

The quad is silent as the grave, and as I walk through it, the wind begins to pick up, as if it knows. All around me, I can see through windows into classes, classes of people who have no idea; people who are so set on doing this for the rest of their lives, that will become doctors and lawyers and will go through their entire life never knowing what it is to be living. As I think these things, I half expect an orchestra to begin to play, and the people in the classrooms to stand up, to smash the windows, to start dancing for simply no reason, to do something to show that they are people.

But my life is not a movie, it does not have a soundtrack, and no one knows that I am walking through, pitying them all; pitying myself. Life goes on.

I have 69 years and 363 days left, if I'm lucky, and I know that if I have any sense, I should want to spend as few of them as possible in this place. The more time spent here, the less out in the world, being an actual human being.

And yet, I feel lonesome as I walk through the abandoned quad, ordinarily full of students milling around. I walk into one of several cafeterias, and it is simply... empty. It feels strange. Wrong, somehow.

I leave, because I can't stand the feeling of such a familiar place being so incorrect.

I can see into classrooms as I walk past. Perhaps my earlier assessment was wrong. Perhaps there is some life to this place after all. I see people laughing, passing notes, taking off their shoes, social etiquette be damned. I see people being human.

I should be in there.

69 years, 362 days, if I'm lucky. The vast majority of those will be spent in places that I don't know, and that don't know me. Places that are scary, and distant, and some of them won't work out.

What's another couple of weeks in a prison, if that prison is safe and familiar?

I need to be here. I don't want to go. Christ.

I don't want to leave.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #11 - Foreign

In all his life, he has never needed anyone. And he still doesn't. It has been a year, and he has been trying to distance himself from it by distancing himself from all that he has known, and never staying in one place. Like dust on a windy road, he floats through, never settling.

Until now, that is. All of a sudden, it rains, and the dust sticks where it lands. And then he meets her.

He packs up his things slowly, far slower than upon his arrival. He has been here for several weeks, and it is finally time to leave; this is the longest he's stayed in one place for an entire year. Ordinarily, at this point he would be all packed up and at the airport already, itching to leave. But there is something stopping him.

He isn't quite able to recognise what it is, though.

Finally, he is unable to drag out the packing any longer. There is nothing left in his room, so all he can do is take his suitcase to the taxi waiting outside, and leave. The ache in his chest begins to grow, expanding uncomfortably, and he is sure that there is something physically wrong with him, so he calls the one person that he trusts.

"Hello?" he says.

"Hey," and he can hear her smile over the phone.

"How are you?" he asks, and his pain is forgotten. For some time, they talk, as if they have been best friends for years. But that is what happens when water meets dust. It kind of forces you to stick together.

And then when the water dries, there is nothing to stop the dust from flying away once again. Not unless there is some external factor stopping him.

A thought dawns upon him. It's her. The reason that he can't leave with a clean conscience; it's her. He needs her, and she needs him. The feeling is so foreign to him that he is unsure what to do. This feeling of intense need scares him, and he longs for familiar territory.

So he leaves. That is all he can do.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #10 - Internet Love

nate_evans: hi

h.jackson: hi.

nate_evans: what're you up to?

h.jackson: Nothing new.

h.jackson: Miss you.

nate_evans: i miss you too.

nate_evans: god, I really needed you today

h.jackson: what happened?

nate_evans: nothing particularly...

nate_evans: just y'know those days

nate_evans: when everything just starts piling up and one thing becomes another

nate_evans: and it just snowballs into a huge pile of undesirable shit

h.jackson: is there any other kind?

nate_evans: ...

h.jackson: sorry.

nate_evans: no, it's totally fine

nate_evans: that was the first time i managed to laugh all day

nate_evans: kudos

h.jackson: thank you

h.jackson: I know what you mean though.

h.jackson: ugh there is literally nothing I want more than to be able to drive over to your house right now

h.jackson: and throw rocks at your window so you know I'm there

h.jackson: and I'd have a Friends dvd and a bucket of ice cream and we'd just sit and eat and talk

h.jackson: I would give up everything to do that

nate_evans: distances suck

h.jackson: hear, hear.

nate_evans: you know when you're here and I'm not?

nate_evans: like, you're just talking, and then I come back and read the messages

nate_evans: or vice versa

h.jackson: sure

nate_evans: well isn't it weird

nate_evans: just fucking crazy

nate_evans: that we say "I'm here"?

nate_evans: so if you say "I'm here" and I say "I'm here too", but we're not actually in the same place, so what the hell does 'here' mean?

h.jackson: pretty fucking crazy

nate_evans: i think there's a separate place between us, and it's just our own

h.jackson: so when I come there on my own, I leave a note

h.jackson: and when you come back

nate_evans: i read the note and leave you one too

h.jackson: you read the note

h.jackson: yeah, that

nate_evans: can you do me a favour? can you just... sit in this room that we have, with me, for a while? and just enjoy being human with me

nate_evans: just share that experience

nate_evans: of hanging out at 3am

h.jackson: of course. I wish I could be there for reals though, but I can't really justify leaving, y'know

h.jackson: my job, and everything, y'know...

h.jackson: but god, nate, you have to know, I love you

h.jackson: and it's tearing me apart that I can't be there with you.

h.jackson: ...

h.jackson: nate?

nate_evans: i just booked plane tickets

nate_evans: i will be there in 24 hours

nate_evans: i love you too.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #9 - Fertility

[trigger warning. just in case.]

The room erupted into applause and congratulatory remarks.

Heather stood, filling her glass with sparkling cider, and raised her glass along with Nate's. "To family, and children, and new life. Cheers."

"Cheers," came the chorus back at her, the gentle bells of glasses clinking together accompanying it as if rehearsed. The entirety of the rest of the evening was spent having people come up and express their congratulations; many handshakes and hugs were exchanged, and by the time that the last person left, both parties collapsed almost immediately into bed from the weight of the hours piling up.

"Night," whispered Nate into Heather's ear, as he clicked off the light.

"Night."

--

"Nate," she said, shaking him, with stiff, jerky movements. "Nate, wake up. Nate. Come on," she urged, her voice nearly breaking.

His eyes fluttered open. "What? What's up?"

"I'm b-" and she choked on her words. He sat up straighter, and put his arm around her. "I'm bleeding," she managed to get out. "I'm so scared, Nate. I'm so fucking scared, I-"

"Come on," he said, "let's get you to the hospital."

"Not like this!" she yelled, jumping out of bed. "I - oh god, it's all over the sheets and - and my clothes and - GOD, WHAT THE HELL am I supposed to DO?" Her chest rose and fell heavily with her intense breathing, and Nate rushed to her side.

"Come on. I'm sure you're okay, and I'm sure the baby's okay," he insisted. "Let's just - let's get you -"

"Get off me!" she cried, pulling herself away from his grasp. "At least let me clean myself up f-" and then she could speak no more, and just collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor. He could say nothing, so he just sat beside her and stroked her hair and stayed with her until every last tear in her body had been wiped out.

--

"Look," said the nurse. "That's your baby." He pointed at the screen, turning it sideways so that Heather could see from her position in the bed.

"I... that's it?" she said, and her heart just about stopped with relief.

"That's the fella. Alive, seems reasonably healthy to me. We'll have to do some follow-up tests, but you don't have to worry. Just make sure you're on strict bed-rest for the next week or so, alright? We don't want to make it worse."

Just one look at his sympathetic eyes made her brain start going round in circles. What if he was just trying to make her feel better? What if actually, everything was going wrong? What if he was trying to signal something to her with his eyes and -

"Heather," said Nate, by her side in a second, stroking her arm. "We're okay. You're okay."

"I'll give you two a minute alone," said the nurse, leaving the room with a brief smile.

They didn't say anything. They didn't need to; they were so far into each other's heads that each knew what the other was thinking right down to the last detail. Her tears became his tears, and they cried until the springs were drained, and all that remained were the rivers leading to the sea.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #8 - In-Laws

"Pass the salad, could you?" asked my sister-in-law. Funny concept, that. Sister-in-law, I mean, not salad.

"Yeah, course." I handed it over to her.

"Thank you, by the way," she said, placing her hand on mine. "It means a lot to me that you'd let me stay here while Nate is away on his business trip. I just don't feel safe at home, y'know?"

"Of course! What's family for, after all?"

What is family for? What, even, is family?

"Did you make this yourself?" she asked, wiping her mouth with her napkin very daintily, as though she were a china doll. "It's so good, you'll have to teach me."

"Sure thing," I agreed, standing to take the dishes away. It would be nice, I mused, to have Heather in the house with me. The big, empty family house that my mother left me. Family house. Not that it feels like much of a family place anymore anyway. Is family blood relatives? People you love? People you would die for?

Can't be any of those, I mused, or else I'd either not be related to Heather, or I wouldn't be related to my great-aunt Elisabeth. Maybe the whole point is that it's quite impossible to define - it is whatever you want, or need it to be.

Once I had returned, Heather was standing at the window, just staring out into the big back yard. I beckoned her to come and sit with me outside, and we did, and we sat on the swinging bench in the yard. The bench was built for a family, and so was this house, and it was finally coming to some kind of use.

"Tell me what you're thinking," she said, after a time. Now ordinarily, I was quite a private person, an introvert; but somehow I felt at ease with her, this woman who I barely knew, only by way of her being married to my brother.

"I'm thinking... about what defines a family," I replied. I expected no reply, and that was what I received.

For a few minutes.

"I think family is when you feel at home with someone," she said, quite simply, after a time. "You don't even have to know them that well. Sometimes all it takes is to be introduced to each other by a mutual friend. And then what you have is an in-law." She smiled at me. "I feel at home here. I hope it's okay that I consider you part of my family."

I considered her hypothesis.

"I feel at home with you here," I replied. "Is that because you're related to me now?"

"Other way round, I think," she said. "Or maybe there's no causation involved here, but both of those things just... are the case, and will continue to be the case, irrespective of each other."

Funny little thing, being a sister-in-law.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #7 - $Five

It isn't easy by any means. To be used like that, with no further thought or consideration for your interests. But then, what choice do we have? We are given what we are given in life, and if you end up stuck with a bad lot, then too fuckin' bad, y'know?

Not that it matters with whom you end up, because you are inevitably going to leave them anyway. That's kinda part of the deal. If you do not change hands, then you are useless. Funny, isn't it - how everyone places so much emphasis on your worth, when the only time you are actually useful for anything is when you are being given or received. When you are just sitting there, what use are you at all?

But can usefulness just fade in and out of existence like that? I suppose it can. Even within this weird little life of ours, there is different relative worth. You could end up, for example, being tucked into a stripper's thong about once a week, like a few of my unfortunate brethren. Some others, though, just sit in the wallets of those up higher, ready to be doled out at any opportunity when feeling charitable. More still just end up sitting in the bank accounts of the fat cats, doing nothing, and becoming essentially worthless.

Me? I'd like to think that I'm better than that. Just last week, for example, this little girl bought a toy dinosaur with me. She was thrilled. And then I ended up being given as change to a lovely young man, who bought a rose for his fiancee with me from a family business. The daughter of that family proceeded to use me to buy art supplies. And so on. In some ways, the big things are the biggest part of our lives, sure; you could say that they define us. Our jobs, the food that we pay for, the rent. An upper class banker in a high-end apartment in New York will lead a very different life from a lower class builder living in a shared room in Nowhere, Tennessee.

But everyone pays for their living expenses, and their food, and everyone gets paid for their job. I think that the things which define you are the little things. The toy dinosaur, the rose, the paintbrushes. The things that are important enough to you that you would spend your last five dollars on them. I think that is what makes you who you are.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #6 - Summer

This summer, I promise to make amends.

I can only idly drum my fingers against the desk, drumming away my life, for so long. Before long, surely the drumming must drive me right to the brink of insanity and then - SNAP ME like an elastic band. At least that would mean that I would be doing something, anything.

And then it is too much and I am taking all of the reminders of days past, and I am ripping them up into shreds. All the photographs, mementos of my monochrome years, the poems filled with words like ensanguined and caligo that only serve to prove what a pretentious asshole I was, they are words no longer, but scrapings of graphite on pieces of paper.

I grab a basket from the corner and toss the shreds into there. Everything goes in there. I start to pull down posters from my walls. Winter is for darkness. I have spent enough summers in darkness, and as I pull down the posters, the light starts to pour in through the cracks in my life. I am blindly tearing paper, and I may be screaming. It is hard to tell, because my corneas feel as if they are being torn out by the light, and my body does not want to cooperate with my mind.

What do people do in the summer? Sit outside in deckchairs, watching the sun rise? Roast marshmallows over a fire? I wonder if that is what normal people do, or if that only ever happens in movies.

I have determined that I was not screaming, and while I wassurethat I was blinded by the light, upon further inspection, it is still the dead of night outside. Yet there are still spots in my vision, residual patches of blindness from staring into the sun for too long. Or perhaps it is just that feeling of re-adjusting to what it is like in daylight after being caught underground for years.

The basket is full now, full of the me that was, the me that will never be again. I have wasted so many summers refusing to let myself see, convincing myself that this was normal. I am making amends.

Heading downstairs, I grab a bag of marshmallows, as well as a bottle of vodka from the cupboard. The marshmallows go into my pocket and I hunt through the garage for a deckchair. The dust and cobwebs in here fly into my mouth and I inhale them and it tastes like home. I find a suitably gaudy one (covered in daisy print) and while dragging it out, grab some skewers as an afterthought. I prop up the deckchair just in front of my house and lay the skewers and marshmallows on it.

When I am back in my room, I take a swig of vodka, and almost choke. Stronger than I expected. Should be perfect.

Back outside, I sit down in the deckchair and impale what is left of my childhood on a skewer, and wait. It takes some time for it to spread, but I have time. I have the entire summer.

I reach out the marshmallow and begin to roast it on the collapsing ruin that was once my house. The flames lick the sides hungrily and I want to run in there just as a finalfuck youto my childhood self, spiting her by destroying the future self, but I refrain.

The house is so collapsed now that it has contorted itself into a strange shape, and for a second I convince myself that it is a phoenix among the ashes of its prior life. However, this fantasy does not last, as the final support finally breaks, and all that was left of my childhood home is a burning pile of cinders, in front of a spectrum of scattered light which falls on the clouds to form beautiful eddies and currents of mauve, goldenrod, rose, more colours than I could feasibly name in a lifetime.

I chew on the thoroughly roasted marshmallow.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #5 - Five

I walk slowly past, counting each thing in my head as I brush my fingers past it. As I do so, words and sounds and colours burst vividly into my mind and it is as if I am part of the memories of which I consist, rather than the other way round.

Five. My fingers glide over the cover of a CD. Her music flits through my head like a deer, never lingering for more than a few seconds. It carries with it those times when I felt utterly betrayed, and it was all I could do to keep going about life as usual. Those times when all I wanted to do was give up, but she helped me stick it through. I cannot listen to track 15 anymore without being taken all the way back four years.

Four. As I move on, the silky, artificial fur of a cat puppet is what greets me next. I stroke her, and rub her cheeks, as if she is real, because for years she was. This cat has crossed the Atlantic probably more times than I have, each time getting heavier and heavier with the weight of memories. I keep walking.

Three. This time, it is my laptop. Superficial, perhaps, but every time I delve into the depths of folders within folders, I am reminded with a jolt of this time, or that, or that. The time when we stayed up all night and sat outside to watch the sunset. The time when we filmed ourselves dancing long after everyone else had fallen asleep. Many of my life's great memories are kept here. I move forward.

Two. I run my hands carefully down the strings of my guitar. It is a means of expressing myself, without which I cannot do so... and I cannot think of playing it without remembering the time spent teaching you. I wonder how you are doing now. I wonder whether you've kept it up. I can almost smell the marshmallows roasting as we played guitar around the campfire, hoping that we wouldn't wake any of the neighbours. I keep walking.

One. Books are, despite their frequently escapist nature, often what keep me grounded in reality. After all, it is so difficult to appreciate what you have, or even be really aware of it, until you have experienced something different. Every time that I begin to drift through life, or start to float away and forget whether I tied the cord securely or not, a good book will keep me from straying too far from home. It is impossible to choose just one.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #4 - Before My Life is Over

"Je suis fini," I said, raising my hand, but the teacher shook her head.

"You're looking for j'ai fini, which means I have finished. 'Je suis fini' means 'I am done', quite literally." She took my work, and a look came across her face that I knew could not mean good things for me. "See me after class," she said, turning away before I could examine her expression more closely.

"You have got to chill," said my friend, nudging me with her arm. "C'mon. Live life a little. You ever been to a club before?" I shook my head no. "Ah, mate, you're kidding! It's like, a life experience, y'know the ones that you just have to have at least once, yeah? You've gotta come with us tonight. I'm not taking no for an answer."

--

All I remember from that night are lights flashing, and the music pumping so loudly that my feet ached from the vibrations. Or maybe my feet ached because I'd been jumping and dancing for an eternity in this place where time stood still and all that existed was the sheer energy of the room.

--

Two months pass, and I am hanging out by the bar, downing shot after shot. I'm not sure where I am anymore, because the room is spinning, but I feel so free, and alive. I have been wasting my entire life sitting, and just existing, when I could have been here. Within an hour or two, my vision begins to go blurry, and I just have time to collapse into a bed before my sight goes black altogether.

--

It has been six months, and I am back in that room where the electricity of it all makes you feel so... liberated, and one with all of the rest of the room. This time, I am high, and dancing with strangers. Sweaty bodies bump against each other in the confusion and in the heat of the dance, and it doesn't matter who I am with, all that matters is that I am there and I can feel my heart thumping in my chest in time with the bass. The two feelings combine so powerfully that I feel as if my heart is going to burst out of my chest at any second, but to my great surprise, it does not.

--

A year passes. I am sitting in my bed, shaking, sweating, just praying to the God that I don't believe in that this will be over soon. I reach desperately for the bucket next to my bed, and retch, but my stomach has been empty for hours. I scramble out of bed with all the strength I can muster and stumble into the bathroom, hunting through the cabinets. Maybe there is something left. It can't all be gone. But it is. I can't even make sense of my own thoughts anymore, and I am sweating so profusely that it drips into my eyelashes and blurs my vision. I am in so much pain.

--

A week passes, and it is over. I am glad that I got to have all of these life experiences before my life was over.

Je suis fini.

[imlesliemonster2]

30Day #3 - Holidays

I am minding my own business, sitting in the comfiest chair I have ever had the good fortune to encounter, reading my favourite book, when I hear my name. I look up. "Yeah?"

"What do you think of holidays?"

I blink.

"I love them," I say. "Let's go on one. Right now. Right this second." Who needs to pack bags? We grab the necessities - passport (just in case), wallet, keys - and head out to the car.

There is several weeks worth of music in the car that we can listen to. Real road trip stuff. And I have not lived the life that I intended, and so as we rip down the country road at a thousand miles an hour I roll down the windows and turn the music up to eleven, because I can, and because I should.

For a fleeting moment, I feel more alive than ever before. I feel as if my lifeless body has finally had some kind of soul breathed into it.

And then I feel the wind in my hair and the smell of grass and flowers in my nose and I feel real.

We are at a beach now. I don't know which beach, nor do I particularly care. Within seconds I kick off my shoes and they fly into the ocean, resurfacing moments later like little drowning sailors. But I will not rescue them. Every time I tie my shoes in the morning I tie myself closer and tighter to my life as it is now. Just by living it every day, I am digging myself deeper into this hole and soon I will never be able to escape it.

But it is okay now. The shoes will wash up on shore somewhere, sometime, and perhaps they will tie someone else down for a change. Not me.

I wriggle my toes and feel the sand, warm against my feet. Hot, even, too hot, so I can't stand in one place. I hop from foot to foot and you laugh at me, as you had the common sense to wear sandals. Not me.

The hopping is getting tiresome, so I run towards the ocean, towards the sunset, towards the scattered light that has entranced many, that some people are probably watching right now at this very moment from their homes for miles and miles. We all share that same sunset, and so I run towards it, feeling one with everything and everyone as I collapse into the water, laughing like a mad person and just... being.

You stand at the water's edge, mildly amused, dipping your toe in, and recoiling from the cold. You have the common sense to stay on the shore, not soaking through your only set of clothing while the only source of heat is descending down the horizon. Not me.

I feel an intense sense of pleasure just by being.

I blink.

"I dunno," I say, looking back down at my book. "They're alright, I suppose." The person on that holiday is someone that I have always wished to be.

It is not me.

[imlesliemonster2]

When I think about the choices I have made, I wonder if I made a wrong turn somewhere. Something must have stopped me every time it seemed like I was approaching something real. In every field, I am inadequate; against the backdrop of violently burning astronomical entities, I am just a simple yellow dwarf star, and yet to those on earth, I am the Sun, with a capital S. But how can I be, when nothing I do could ever compare to those whom I hold in high esteem?

And that's just the thing. I cannot even express this opinion to anyone; the heartcrushing truth of the matter is that for every person to whom I can cut my heart and allow the feelings to bleed out onto their floor, there are ten people for whom my life is just so fucking perfect that they are filled with resentment every time I open my privileged mouth and spout nonsense about how I am just wrong in every single way.

But they don't know me. My standards of living are high, and I am generally an optimistic person, therefore people are so quick to remind me that my problems pale in comparison to others. But you do not tell a person standing on a mountain that they don't deserve as much respect as the mountain. You do not tell brussels sprouts that they have no right to exist when pizza also exists in the world.

No matter the problems that other people have, that does not in any way lesser the suffering of each individual person.

This is not to say, however, that I am depressed. In general, I feel satisfied with life. There are those who I love, and there are those who love me, and there is significant enough overlap between these two categories that I am quite comfortable. And yet occasionally it is not enough.

I am caged within a box of my own self-worthlessness. Artists are people who feel pain, and they express that pain to the world. Without their medium, they are lost. And that is how I feel; lost. Dead in the water. Dead to the world.

With no medium through which I can express my feelings, the darkness within me is growing. I can feel it, every day, inside me, the pressure pushing against my internal organs until I feel sick, threatening to take up all the space inside my body until I am as bloated and useless as I feel.

I fear that soon, I will explode from the pressure.