Pride by Severine Richardson

In my pride I thought I knew everything. Every thought of every person, they were transparent and feeble. Feeble humans I was forced to communicate with. We were all here to use one another, so I was now here to use each one of them. I could play their hearts without fear of consequence, because I would always, always have a way to outwit them. No one was worthy of my heart, no one could even touch it. I had withdrawn, more and more, because in the end no one was valuable enough for my time. And yet, and yet I needed time to better myself, to become greater than everyone else so I could just stare at someone as the idiot they were. Once, my intention for learning was to help others. As each day passed I began to see the fault in everyone else. I knew who was insecure and who was a pompous prick. I knew who had all but vacant minds. So I began to label.

          I once told a friend, "Even if you've got more than another person, you should never make them feel as if they're less and you shouldn't think that they're less…because they're just human and so are you and so am I." But I didn't keep to my own words. I was the manifestation of good intention turning its head towards hypocrisy and vanity. All I claimed to hate with everything I was I now became…I became this knowing it and embracing a new self-hatred all the while thinking "I'm better than you, so I won't tell you a thing about me, get over it". I thought I had the right to tell someone when they deserved a pat on the back, like a dog when they performed the right trick.

          I expected my closest friend to be there through my worst nightmares…and he wasn't. He was always with his best friend and love, and I hated him for it. Jealousy over what? She wasn't any better than me, I had seen it over and over the abuses she gave to people all to fuel her own dramatic little performance. All my anger towards it finally built when, at least in my mind, I had made continuous efforts to meet up with them, and my oh so precious attention had gone unheard. I had asked him what he was doing that day, and he told me work. He never tried to say let's hang out anymore…it was always something I had to initiate. Looking back, I don't blame him, I always was a burden. I got a call around ten o'clock asking if he could pick up a book of his-one that I considered mediocre but nevertheless had held captive for months at a time. Button was the one that had called, and it disgusted myself how high my hopes went when she asked if I was home. I thought they were there to pick me up and hang out, like I'd always imagined someone to do so I'd feel special again, like they actually missed me and wanted to say what was up. Yea fucking right, it was for a book.  

          He arrived with two people I was more than familiar with. His love Button, and my ex, Adam. I was furious as they told me they had just bought dinner and were going to go play video games at his house. My mind automatically and ludicrously screamed, "I want to play video games!!!" when really I found it to be a dull and wasteful thing to do…I really just wanted to be near all of them, because I missed them and wouldn't admit it. Naturally, they made no move to invite me.

          The night was cold but I couldn't feel it, everyone was dimly lit by the living room's glow and everyone kept talking as if to avoid the fact that I was sitting there to seconds from crying. A thought hit me. They pitied me. They fucking had the nerve to pity the fact that I wasn't their friend, that they were just here to collect and then leave. I was furious. I stood up and gave them a cold bye, then walked in my house, into my room, and fell on the floor sobbing. I hated them so much at that moment. I sent him a text telling him that he wasn't there for me all those times I needed him, that I had been depressed for so long and he knew it and hadn't done shit. I told him to fuck off, him and his girl both, and said I hated that I ever thought he was my friend.

          I went out to walk my dog and ended up at a friend's place. They were all high inside, so I went in. I wanted to just take a hit, get lit, and leave my dog whining in the side yard. I couldn't. Mostly because my dog was being a hyper son of a bitch, but also because I knew it wasn't right. Fuck it. I used my dog as the excuse to leave…not that I needed one, and walked off again into that night.

          My phone  had been doing an excellent job of acting retarded, suddenly turning off and on at random moments. I flipped the cover up and held the power button until I heard the familiar nuisance of a start up ring. I had a voicemail. It was him talking about how much of a fucking idiot I was. Next I would get a text or two from him where I'd reply indifferently, then one from my ex…then a call from button. I thought she was there to yell too so I didn't pick up the first time…the second time she called I accidentally hit the answer button. FML, right? I braced myself for a bitching and screaming session.

          Instead, what I got was someone asking me why I said what I said. My mind couldn't get over the fact that she had matured so much. She talked to me for forty minutes straight, telling me happiness was worth it and pushing people away wasn't. I couldn't help thinking over and over, she sounds like I did once.

I had been so caught up in my apathy that I thought I had the right to tell everyone what to do with their lives. I pretended I didn't need anyone, when really I was screaming my lungs out begging someone to hear me, just for a second, just a moment? No. From the very girl I thought had no sense of maturity, she pulled me back from my bitchy all-knowing façade.  She gave me a mental slap in the face and said for me to fucking suck it up and let myself be happy…and to tell someone when I needed help. That made me stop. Tell someone? Tell anyone that I was so dam lost that I just need you here beside me for a little while longer, even if there's nothing to do or say? Lost because the person I had begun to get close to didn't care about me as I did for him? Lost, because I thought I didn't want anyone, I didn't even want myself, and I had been searching up ways to kill myself on the infamous site Google, that would give you anything from porn to the meaning of life. Lost. Just lost. It had been my choice all along.

          I mean to say I've been ruining the few friendships I've sustained? I've been intentionally attacking another person's life to see how easy they bend. The strangest part was realizing that I just wanted someone to say that I was worth it again…something I hadn't heard for so long. I just wanted someone to see something, anything that I've been desperately trying to accomplish and say, that's amazing. But how could anyone when I've given no emotion into anything? I was someone that was running on goals and no passion. I forgot what passion was. In my quest to be better, I was trying to no longer be human. Emotions were feeble, and I had too much pride. The things I did for the sake of pride. It almost left me with nothing. So for this sin, I have a friend to thank, she helped me remember a piece of myself I thought was lost forever. I had forgotten how humble you had to be to admit not that you needed help, but that you wanted it, and I forgot how humble you had to be to admit "I'm human".

Before I Die

I am the emotional sponge. Every pain felt within or by others seeps past my pores as often as sweat comes out of them. I can take in hurt so others stop feeling it, and my spongy soul never stops taking it till I'm huddled in my room for days on end with nothing but fitful sleep to comfort and confide in. I am mildly bipolar and chemically prone to depression. My meds have stopped working. Recently, I am suicidal.

 I have 595.7 hours to decide. Death's clocks been swinging faster, and faster, and faster. It's inevitable. The apogee of my known existence is near. Finally, fully, I'll make a choice: die or be happy.

 How can I know it was all meant to end now and in this way? An abusive father, a crushing love, fortunes and dreams and engagements lead here. The destruction of my foundations, Moby Dick, and a set of runes from a kid that worships Odin leads here. Three bottles of mead and one Jack Daniel's leads here. Dirt, deceit and self-pity leads here.

The realization of all affairs gone wrong, the futility of giving, of receiving and of being and of love: it was always meant to lead here, to now and to these last two months. If you listen, you'll find I've killed my spirit many times before this moment. My mind is a morgue, the skeletons memories. If you hear me, my chest will be free of these confessions and sins. So, I beseech you, my kingdom for your company, to hear this story of my torment, before I die.

 It ends walking hammered two miles in dark, pouring rain, leaning over the edge of bridges contemplating the sensation of a broken spine. It progresses as I talk to strangers in hopes someone would kidnap me and spare my mother's shame. The Death clock itself, it seems, began with a promise that begun ticking half a year prior.

If, by the age of eighteen-January 4^th, 2010-I remain unhappy, my heart will expire. Somehow, it took me most of those six months to figure out that my scars cut deeper than even I imagined. I know now the true case and trial never was finding happiness, but discovering enough love in myself to letting happiness find me. Of all the feelings I have ever ingested, never have I experienced the pleasure of calm bliss. The emotional sponge has never learned how to receive love.

The hands have been haunting my recurring dreams, spindly black hands moving round and round. Ticks aren't actually soft when there's no other sound, no other tremor of life, and the clock is alive without doubt. Keys and clocks, angels and ravens infest my thoughts like a plague. I've withdrawn from the living as a bird does when it refuses to fly, no sense of self preservation is here, only a breathing phantom.   

This is the account of beginning a conclusion to my story, whether it ends happily is for neither of us to know. I have 594.3 hours, shall we begin?

Part 1:

          Where do I rewind? Perhaps at 4:47 a.m. in Munich, Germany January 4^th, 1992. But no, most stories start long before conception. This was in no way an exception. 

Elvis blasts in a room of noise, ladies swinging and men carousing, noise, noise, noise. The bar's full and flirty; pass around the Patron and sit a while, each lady and gent alike says with a flick of a hand or a wink, adjusting their tie. We're somewhere on the grounds of Sonoma County, 1989, and summer's in full heat.

Tammy Richardson steers a young woman through bodies, roughly shouldering people aside in flashy colors garish and wild. The woman is Caroline Testard, a shy, dark hair and dark eyed German beauty with olive skin, dapper bred and old nobility. She looks terrified.

Tammy tramples en route her destination, arm set on punching one youth talking lively in a circle of wicked looking men, clapping hands and holding sides, their shirts moist and unbuttoned. Contact is made, and he turns, blue eyes hazed by gin and black curls ruffled, clutching a replenishing tin of beer. The hostess leaves no room for retorts, knowing he'd make an ass of himself berating his sister. She snatches the beer from his prying fingers, latching an arm around her new friend. "Hey Kevin deary, I brought you someone to meet? Now don't get too excited, I'll be stealing her back if you aren't nice,"

He hardly needed introduction, not that he processed it anyway. He's staring intently into the foreigner's face, a smile plastered so thick you knew his mind was in the gutter. Tammy barked a laugh, whispering in Caroline's ear, "He's not a dog, swear. He just can't get enough of you." The woman blushed and began replying, but her escort had mischievously vanished with one of her brother's companions.

 Men by Kevin exchanged looks and snickered, whistling. He gave a sharp look before focusing back on the lovely lady from some country or another. In a fluid movement he had her hand and with one comical bow murmured, "How lovely to meet you. How about we go somewhere these guys won't bug ya, you look nervous" he finished charmingly. A nod was all he needed.  

The stacks were set, one month she was pregnant, three months she was married. If you ever had the chance to ask, "why?" she'd say you just couldn't resist a guy who flew halfway across the world after you, with an empty wallet and flashy promises of happily ever after-especially if you were two months in, which she was.

They settled down with their first girl: Theresa Emily Richardson. Theresa Emily Richardson barely lived her first week. See, something went terribly wrong during pregnancy. The baby girl was born sickly yellow, immediately quarantined and kept under artificial light. No one touched her bare skin. Luckily, she survived whatever strange ailment possessed her fragile body, and still lives today as my older sybling.

A few things were strange about little Terri. She cried a lot, too much. She avoided looking anyone straight in the eye, even her mother. Growing up, she has difficulty with emotion Much, much later it would be decided she had a slight hint of Asperger's Syndrome. Why, seemed unanswerable. Of course there are always reasons.

A few months in, Kevin had punched his wife hard in her swelling stomach.

I used to be convinced I saw my family long before birth through my mother's belly button, like it was one of those peep holes on doors. Apparently I was an easy labor, at least the birthing part, not the whole lugging me around for 9 months bit. You get what I mean. Anyway the day I was picked up from the hospital my mom always used to tell me how loud I bawled the loudest, how she could hear me screaming across the entire level. She walked into the nursery and all the lady had to do was point, and she knew it was me. "I think she's hungry", was the golden phrase, coined whenever I was crying. It seemed that the only ill humor played on my part was when my tummy just didn't feel full enough. I was, according to Caroline Testard, a "Gerber" baby. I was all blue eyes and blond hair and laughing dimples. My dad didn't think I was his.

Sister

I'm afraid. I'm afraid I can't take you from him. You're only two, little sister. You're only beginning. I sing you your lullaby, little sister, so that when you feel what I felt you'll know I'm here. When it starts I'll be somewhere else, and I'm afraid of that. I can't hold you in my arms and whisk you away when it happens. I can't scream at him for you as he attacks you and your mother. I can't do it little sister, because it's a battle you were meant to fight, since the moment you came here…a hell within heaven. If you're so terrified and broken you no longer speak, I'll go to you from the other side of this world. I'll hold you in these arms and tell you about the day I forgot fear.

Some memory

"You've had one, right? A thing that kept the past alive, something you avoid like crazy or cherish like nothing else-no matter what pain you got out of it. It was you're first love and you're biggest failure. You've got it tattooed on you're shoulder or folded in a note.  Yea, it sucked. It was amazing. It's every little thing you wish you could've done better or could've held onto or could've said goodbye. You've had that, right?"

Elusive

Echoes of an elusive world are calling soft to me,
"Choose well sweet child
Your time ensues,
Your path unfixed is free".
How can I know so lost so young

Too close at hand to see?

Frozen in fear this rising duty

Whispers forth on separate winds

For walking West instead of East

A different sunset

Another end

I linger here in the embrace of you my guardian

And with or naught either assent

Soon face mortality

The future's sloth incessant march

runs swift by season's turn

I'll breathe once more, I'll forward stride

Still weary of a fledgling's pride

I vow that any maelstrom fierce won't break me or my will
Although my soul is malleable
My courage leads me still.

The Summit

Perspiration on your brow

Heavy breath you reach the summit

Turning round you see your trail

Of ruts and eddies that wore the path

Now you breathe the simple air

Of clean victory

Rejoice the feeling of used limbs

Now shudder in delight as they quiet

For all else to envy

The Youngest Heart

Your eyes tender gray

Hello sister, are you awake?

Your pink palms curl in tiny fists

As you tug on hair and gurgle

I feel I've known you all my life

And yet only a moment you've been

But for that moment I can swear

The rest of life I'm yours to share

Each trouble silly trite or small

To ones where you can't stand at all

And sister since it suits you now

I'll let you tug on these few strands

Of golden locks just as you please

My sister now I'm yours to tease

As I'll tease you to my content

Or sweep you in my arms and render

Every word I give to you- as loving ones, my darling

Bitching

My eyes are closed, small hands pressed them shut. Seals out all the light, they dim the world into sounds. Tapping. Humming. Pages being turned in a stack they rustle. In all my years of living, not one paper described the momentary feeling. The sense of a soul's anxious repression, silenced by its own stilled tongue. How can I express that to you? I'll let my hands, if not tongue, describe all my heart, and for the first time, feel free. Unbound, or at least as though that iron chains gone slack enough to reach in the flood of sunshine where all happiness dwells.

Maybe the first thing I need to let go of is this dam vocabulary. Fuck this shit. Truly.

I'm tired. I'm always tired. I'm fucking tired and overwhelmed. Fuck these weights hurt. Those dam fairies need to get the fuck away from my eyelids and quit trying to make me sleep all the time-I'm about to go and stalk Mr. Sandman, that fruity song, and cut his throat if I keep in this sleeping limbo. Bastard is feeding me nightmares, too. I should grab his goddam potato sack and dump that glittery tinsel shit on his head putting him into a century long coma.   

          What else do I want to bitch about…about manipulative Skanks that spend ten minutes sweet talking and two hours trying to get in your pants. Really? I mean, really?!? Fucking pretty boys thinking that their looks are about to be enough. Fuck off. I'm REALLY fucking tired of the ones that are your "friends" and try to get with you every time you're kicking it. I'm sorry but my opinion of bonding wouldn't be sexual innuendos. Mother fuckers stay away from that zipper you are NOT touching it. And I KNOW I look good today I don't need you telling me.

          I want to bitch about drama-queens, hypocrites, liars, fucking cheaters, assholes, stereotypical Barbies and all those Hoes of the generations to come and pass. Let's bitch about abusive fathers and drugged up mothers and psychologically traumatized children that need someone to fucking give a dam. I want to bitch about the apathy that's sunk into the world like fucking arsenic. It's like that asshole that can't help but sleep in class with his mouth open and drools onto his desk, the fucking spit from all those bitter words just sinks right down into the soil and up into the clouds and all we're tasting when it rains are the tears and resents of lives in the stench of bitterness turned into that very apathy, into that greed that violence that anger, and that drool from that asshole.

          I want to bitch about the years I've lost avoiding being me, sitting over there in the corner with my hands together and eyes down. The times I spend just keeping quiet, talking like a straight edged boring lil white girl that every so often comes up with a spark of fucking interest. I want to bitch about hesitation, about cold feet, about inhibitions, about freeze-dried romance and my future stuck on a blank white page with inkblots all over it like a two year old got a hold of the pen. 

          And what the fuck is the hesitation for? I'm not getting any younger typing these words, I'm fucking dying as I speak and so are you. Not to scare you but it's true. So what have you wanted to say for the better part of your life? So what have you not said to him or her that you know you should. So when are you going to stop wasting your time not doing anything, sitting on a curb or at home playing Halo or smoking your joint and wandering around all night. So instead of bottling up all that shit you're still pissed off about, still mad about, still want to act on: Say it, live it, and do it.  On my part, I feel better now. You know I've got no regrets. Till the next time I bitch.

A Twist of Alice

Through the looking glass to eternity where there are no eyes the soul can see.

I'll see you where it all began, but only at the end.

Alice gasped, "My how beautiful you are!" The kitten flicked its tail in agitation, a curt reply. Two little orbs glared into her, one of a deep violet, the other piercing green. But oh, poor thing, its nose was dry and fur snared with grease. "I'm surprised you're alive at all, kitty." She mused, turning the creature round and round in awkward search of a license chip. "You wouldn't be a Glitch now, would you?" She smirked mischievously. The dirty thing mewed indignantly and bit her finger, drawing blood. Alice gave it a quick shake, tut-tutted, and kept on searching, ignoring the spitting of hiss-like blasphemies no doubt being thrown at her.

 The streets of metropolis A7, Queen's city, were all soot and grime. And the time-the time itself was hard to believe-this little guy had survived past a day or two, OUTSIDE! "Unbelievable," she fussed, thinking of the many untouchables that would just love a nibble of this kitty's foot. Alice shuddered, and quickly glanced at the deepening color of the sun. It was twelve-thirty, so she still had half a spin before lights out. "Then you and I both would be locked out here, and that's no good, is it?" Her discovery merely glowered, submitting to this pale and dominant thing's grasp. She looked intently at the creature, smiled after recognizing the submission, and pinching the scruff of its neck, began her brisk pursuit of shelter down Aisle253.

The buildings to her left and right stretched on interminably, one could only go straight ahead, and that was precisely what Alice did. As the sun sank, she comforted herself by looking at the blank, windowless grey of the left building, knowing she would soon be safely tucked inside. Small 15MPH vehicles were scattered here and there, the fastest vehicle one could acquire. They were on their sides, steel skeletons resting until sunrise. She smiled as she recognized her sector's and ran up towards the scanner set in the wall beside it. Placing her hand against the metal sheet, she read her bar code as the memory metal detected her imprint. "24569830001, pawn." Alice stated mechanically. "Granted." A mechanical voice consented, and the separate shielding layers withdrew, folding away to reveal an opening.

Blinding light flooded Alice's senses, and the kitty mewed miserably. "It's okay," she giggled, looking down at her reluctant passenger, "You'll get used to it in a day or two." Alice's eyes hardly dilated as she stepped into the tunnel. 

Angry at Ghosts

          Wet Ribbons press gleaming pebbles on the bridge over the eddy. Gold flecks of sun peer into its own lambent reflection. A King Heron's glide scathes the surface, amber eyes angular, feathers rustled in flight. Fish are riding the current-lazy things-cool on the muddy bank, looking like drifting shadows. Dark knobby pegs support docks standing knee deep in water. Flies flit along the surface of the algae, weaving past the stunted edifices. Red Dragons with their paper wings beat the air, hovering, soaring on the bare banks. The cold of the evening's settling. The hand of cold extends its fingers past every shade and, whispering, breathes softly for the silent night. The wind is the only sound left.

          I'm a smudged reflection on the tide…lost in thought, angry at ghosts. So, why would you give in, give up, lie down and die? Why couldn't you be stronger? I'm saying to myself. You're so selfish, so dam selfish, why couldn't you be selfish enough to want to live, to want to be happy? You stepped away from that light... Dammit. I was there, I cared, why didn't you tell me? Why did you become Apathy?

          Did you really not hear me? I LOVE you. I care for you. Hold on, please? Why couldn't I reach you? Did you remember even one word?

          Stay with my a little longer, okay? Before I realize the only breath left is my own...Let's pretend yesterday never happened. When I wake up I'll call you, I'll meet you at the usual, on the bridge over the eddy. I'll stay an hour longer. I'll walk you back home on the dirt path. We'll cross the tracks, the rusty walls, the graffiti, and the fall you can see between the boards. We'll lean on each other and get to the other side, just before the train passes. I won't be afraid to help you this time, I'll twine my fingers in yours, and it'll be unbreakable. It's a promise.

          I didn't leave you on that bridge last night; I'll see you again tomorrow.