The end is nigh...

So, I have my last exam today! I guess that means as of 4:00pm I will be free. Free as a bird! It's sad but exciting at the same time. I really cannot wait to go to university, be it Hull or Plymouth. I just want to get away. I will miss my parents, as much as I moan about them, but it will be good to be away from the arguing and the drinking.

Anyhow, the real reason for this post was to share some writing. I've been clearing out my folders on the college network and I found my creative writing folder.

So here goes:

I crave silence.
A sort of clean and weightless silence, like water.
The noise seems heavy. Oppressive. Daunting.
It drags at my fingertips and sleeps in my eyelashes.
The silence between you and me
A wool blanket of fear and discomfort.
Like wading through custard at your daughter’s birthday party.
Laughing.

A kiss
Like something that was lost, found.
I would like to hold it between my hands and
Never let it go. But like smoke it curls up through my fingers, breathing in, nestles in my lungs. A cat in a cage.

xxxxxxxx

Dripping away, sludge-like,
Murderous. A mistake?
Or something more profound.
A circle loaded with promises,
A decision ripped out of my hands.
My body softens, contracts, expels,
Painful only for a day (or two, or three)
Or a lifetime.
Crying. Crying like a –
Baby?
Oh God. Oh God.
The only word I utter is stillborn, a passing,
An exit. My way out.

Sorry.

xxxxx

A tentative touch of your hand brings burning flames
To my cheeks but douses the one in my heart. Ice
in the smoky recesses curls around my trachea.
Choking me. I’m trying to picture you stealing what’s mine
with one ragged intake of breath. It whistles through your teeth
And paints a picture far more apt than the illusion.
Animalistic. Masochistic. Bliss.

Epileptic shivering haunts my hands, reaching for you was never
Easy. Drives me insane to know that she was never in your heart, hung
brutally on your bedpost with a daisy chain of words. Me too.
I never did enjoy the novel you seared into my skin. The ending –
Too tragic and unlucky for liquorice love.

The breath from your lips and the promise from your fingertips
waits for no man.
Unsteady on my wooden feet, submerged in time.
Wade through the salt water that pours from your drowned lungs.
It’s just me and you now, babe. In a dance that doesn’t make much sense
but drives me to this whirlwind finish clutching a thread on your unravelling heart.

I understand that you're my crutch when I'm stressed. When the going gets tough I turn to you, but you're not there anymore. I know this is a little self-pitying but I'm running on four hours of sleep and my hormones are doing a funny little scotch jig.

In the words of Stonesour:

You throw me a bone just to pick me dry.

I can't go on waiting for you to come and sweep me off my feet, it's just not realistic anymore. But I just can't seem to let you go. You gave me something so special but I had no choice but to take it away. It's horrible, awful. All because you wouldn't have been there. You just walked away.

I get scared that when I go to uni you will change your mind. Is scared the right word? Or is it hopeful? I can't say I wouldn't take you up on it, I can't say I'd be strong and say no. Because you have got me, well and truly, especially when I'm vulnerable. I want to be able to say that I could turn around to you and say 'I don't need you.' but I don't think I ever could because you've got me.

The worst thing? You probably won't do that at all and I'll probably be so naive as to wait for you. It's like waiting for Godot with you, I never know where I stand.

Crush, crush, crush

I was thinking today about all the crushes I've had over the years and how funny they've been. From year seven to eleven at The Royal there was always someone I fancied, even though there were slim pickings. Ah, the good times. There was Triangle Head. The guy with the biggest ego ever, Triangle Head thought he was a real ladies man although he really wasn't. He wasn't even good looking! Oh, that was an embarrassing crush.

Then there was TTG, Tom the Goth! I was in year eight and he was in year eleven and I thought he was just sooo mysterious. In reality he was just an ordinary bloke who dressed up like a goth! I have to say though, he was my favourite crush because something actually happened between the two of us. I thought I was so hardcore hanging out with a guy who was a few years older than me. I don't think you could call what we had an actual relationship, more like friends with benefits before I ever knew what that was. Basically it was just kissing and stuff, but still first and second base was like woah!

And then came Xavier. He was head boy and he was so very cute. I liked him in a very nerdy kind of way, although I always just admired him from a distance. It was very nice to see him at front of chapel every morning, in the pews with the choir. I even think I sat next to him a couple of times. Impressive!

Oh, and then there was good old Mr.P, the physics teacher. When I say it like that it makes him sound like a stuffy old man, but oh god, he so wasn't. He was an English gentleman. I don't really know how old he was, but he was in his twenties. He had a cool dress sense. He'd wear bow ties that were pink and stuff. The best thing was when he wore his graduation gown to the special occassions. That is one of the sexiest gowns, ever. I sound a bit like a stalker, and I guess I was a little bit. I was so chuffed when he started taking us for physics. It was like I'd struck gold! I remember me and my friend 'accidentally' dropped a pen off the table so he would bend over and pick it up! Cringe!

There was J, but he was very brief. He was very cute and we used to chat on MSN, but never at school. We danced together at the disco to 'Hey Ya!' by Outkast and when 'Push it' came on we just looked uncomfortable and walked off.

And then there was Study Buddy. Oh dear. No one really knew about him, other than close friends. He was the one I really thought I'd struck gold with. I don't really want to go into him. :/

At college I haven't really had any crushes like that. Maybe it was the close environment which just kind of thrust everyone upon you. You could see someone you liked almost every day whereas at college you probably would only see them a couple times a week, if that. I did have one crush, he didn't really have a nickname. I'll call him D here. He was very cute. I remember first seeing him at the bus stop (he took the same bus as me) and instantly taking a like to him. And then I got to hang out with him a bit, in a very loose sense, in a certain subject and that was cool. He was just a nice guy all round, I guess.

There was another guy. We did Drama together in the first year. I don't want to say too much in case too many people catch on. Let's just say I longed to play Blanche! Haha! I still think he is attractive but there is not much point in even pushing it because we are all going our separate ways soon.

And then we come to R. Oh, R! There was year 8 or 9 when we went out for about two days. I remember how that came about. We were sitting in the canteen at lunch and we dared one of our friends, I think it was Kat, to eat a piece of fruit with spaghetti bolognaise on. She said she would only do it if I asked R out in front of all the guys he was sitting with. So I agreed and she ate the damn fruity bolognaise, so I had to keep up my end of the bargain! I waddled up to the table and asked them. Of course, being boys they all sniggered. I can't remember what he said, but he didn't say yes or no. Later on in IT he kicked me and typed 'yes' into his computer. Turns out we were both doing what we were doing for a dare. This is only why we lasted a couple of days.

Then I remember texting him that time and he asked me to go to the cinema. I asked him what he wanted to see and he said the cheesiest thing - 'Your face.' Ahh! So we went and saw War of the Worlds (such a romantic film!) and he put his arm around me. My heart was pounding so much. So I guess from then on we kind of fell into a relationship although for the whole duration we never kissed! He came to my birthday party (which was in August, before my actual birthday) and we were supposed to be sleeping in the same tent. I remember he fell asleep with his arm around me and it was so heavy! It's like he became a dead weight! I lay there and tried to push his arm off only to have it slide dangerously close to my neck. That is when I thought it was time for me to leave. Our awkwardness and childishness was what broke us up in the end. We were only young and we both weren't very confident, so I figured there probably wouldn't be much difference if we just broke up. My timing wasn't so good. I broke up with him on my birthday, not knowing that he had arranged to come for a meal with me and my sister in the evening! I remember Katie saying 'Seriously, don't break up with him today. Leave it for some other time.' and I just didn't listen.

Who knew that he would end up coming to Kind Ed's with me and we would be best friends? And although he's off to Cambridge and I'm off to Hull, I still hope in the future we will meet up and realise we were meant to be together.

And before that there was Marc. Oh, how I loved Marc. Now that is a bit complicated. Me and my sister live in a place where, when we were growing up, the majority of kids were boys. This meant that we were always hanging out with guys. We befriended this trio, which Marc was a part of. They were a little older than us. I think Marc is in his twenties now. But it was fun to hang out with them all the same. I'd always liked Marc. He was cute, tall, dark, etc. He was a very good looking guy. I was heart broken when him and my sister got together. And that's where I'll leave that, eh?

Oh, at that ends the chronicling of my crushes. I find it fun to think back on those times, where those microcosms seemed like our worlds.

I need something to believe in

Today I have been presented with a choice.
I am overweight. There is no denying this fact. People can always try and console me and say 'oh, no you're not fat. not at all' but I KNOW that I am. I'm not blind and I am not stupid. In the past I have tried to change the wrong way. I have tried to take the quick way and that just doesn't work. Starving myself never worked for the long term. It was dysfunctional and it was the wrong way.

Today I went to my GP about feeling depressed. The first thing she bought up was my weight and whether that could be a factor. Well of course it could! I have some serious self esteem issues, which is never going to help improve my outlook on the world let alone myself. Despite feeling low and sad, I desperately want to live. I know I am not living now, I am just existing. No-one likes a fat girl.

So maybe I have had an ephipany. I think that now is the time to change - before I go off to university and leave this self contained world I have created. Before I have to go out into the world on my own I am going to become someone who can function in it. The reason I feel so good about this now is because I'm not doing it so I will be slim and men will fancy me and I will feel loved. I am doing it because I want to feel happy with myself and my life, not through validation from other people but through validation from myself.

So I guess this is me being optimistic.

I guess so.

This is so messed up

These will be the poems that become famous when I die in obscurity.

Both are untitled at the present time.

1)
Life slows down
but time speeds up and I'm
left
standing
here. I have ground to a halt,
frozen in a time where each tick
tock creates a thin red line on
bare flesh. Stop.

Questions hang limp and flaccid;
What's the point? When it's only
an illusion.
To fight, to live, to breathe, to be -
is just another brush stroke
on a canvas painted with blood.
It merges into one with each tick,
tock goes the blood-flecked clock.

2)
Open the floodgates and pour me out.
Watch as disappointment falls
like rain and I am washed
of all these thoughts
and failings.

A bright red scream left
in my wake, with silence
burrowing in your ears.

It's me, just behind those
newspaper grey eyes,
the print draining down
to leak from my mouth. Teeth
stained with ink and regret.
It's over,
at least
it's over.

I'm writing this half to purge the dream from my head and half because someone suggested it to me and it couldn't hurt to do it.

So last night's dream was a strange one. I only remember bits and bobs but here goes.

Before the main dream I had a series of mini dreams, if you like. They basically involved me waking up to members of my family coming into the house. At first it was my grandad and then it was my aunt and my two cousins. Nothing really happened that I can remember other than in the dream I woke up and heard them coming into the house.

The main dream is much stranger. I'm at this swimming pool, but I'm not swimming. I decide that I want to leave so I'm looking for an exit but all I see is people getting into what seem to be pull down drawers. All I can relate it to is what we put the cashbags in at work. You pull the handle down, slide the bag in and shut it, then pull it down to check that the bag has gone. In the dream there is priest standing next to these drawer things and people are getting in and the priest is shutting the drawer and then opening it and the people are gone. I walk up to one of them and ask the priest if that is the only way out and he says yes. I watch as about four people cram into this thing and he shuts it but as he pulls it back open I can see that they are stuck, and he pushes it again and they go. I say to him that I don't want to get in one of them, that I am scared of getting stuck in it and suffocating. He says that it's the only way out so I run off looking for another exit.

I find an emergency exit and push through it and all these alarms go off. I carry on running but for some reason I am suddenly Sasha from Hollyoaks. In the soap she is involved with this guy called Warren and he is in the dream. We are on the run, but we are kind of like terrorists, and Warren takes this kid and binds him in the sleeping bag type contraption and hangs him above some railways lines. We then decide to run off but I'm back as me again.

We run into this town and it's kind of like an old cobbled high street. As we move up this hill there are these people in contamination suits and they are spraying everyone with this pink liquid. I walk up to one of them and she says to me that there is a herpes epidemic and that what they are spraying is going to cure us. At that point I put my hand up to my mouth and I feel what is like a coldsore on the corner of my mouth.

As these people are spraying us people are trying to leave the town, saying something like people are starting to kill each other or something. I'm running down all of these backstreets and eventually I come to this park that used to be where I lived. The park is in two sections. One is the sections for young kids and the other is the section for older kids. Me, my mum, my dad and my sister are in the section for young kids which has a hut and some baby swings. And my aunt, my uncle, my grandad and my two cousins are in the section for older kids which has a climbing frame and some swings.

It's implied that we have this virus which makes us kill each other and we're supposed to keep to our own sections. When we go to sleep we're afraid that someone might come over from the other side and kill us so we both elect someone to stand guard. My dad is the guard from our side and my grandad is the guard from the other. For some reason, the next day, we have to fight each other but the people on the other side are no longer my family.

The guy I have to fight is kind of like a minotaur. The fight consists of me sitting in the adult swing and swinging while trying to kick out at him and kill him, while he has to try and grab and kill me. So I'm swinging on this swing and kicking out but I can't hit him and he keeps trying to grab me but I swing out of the way. While this is happening I am terrified that I am going to die but kind of resigned to it because either way I'm going to die. After a while of trying to kill each other the minotaur gives up and asks this guy in an Iron Maiden t-shirt to do it for him. I go back to swinging and get a couple of kicks in but he can't get to me. He says something about my swinging technique and how it is superior, so this minotaur guy gets really angry and tells me to kill the guy in the Maiden shirt. So I start kicking him.

Then I wake up to find myself kicking out at this guy trying to kill him.

I'm gonna go and look for some interpretations now and if I find anything significant I will edit this post and put it down.

Rip off my mask and leave the lies to the liars

Not coping. Not coping. Not coping!

Why was the only time I could see a doctor on Thursday! Thursday!
That means I have to go three days feeling like utter shit, wanting to block out the whole world and dying for help.
Today has been truly, truly awful. I had another horrible dream. I don't think they qualify as nightmares at the moment. They are more bizarre and unsettling. I woke up kicking out at things , which is very unlike me. I don't tend to act out my dreams in reality.

I have a psychology exam on Friday. The college called the house today. I presume it is about my recent absences. I'm praying to god they did not call my father because if they did I am in big trouble. The last couple of hours have crawled by. I've sat here chain smoking and contemplating how many Cuprofen it would take to bump me off. I've saved it for a rainy day, though. Mostly because I'm a coward and a failure and I don't deserve the relief of death.

Am currently working my way through a bowl of spaghetti hoops but feeling slightly sick. I wasn't even hungry I just though 'hey charlotte, you haven't eaten, have something see if that makes you feel better.' It didn't.

Urgh. Not looking forward to my mother coming home. I've got some excuse about feeling ill and that being the reason why. Maybe I should tell her the truth. That I think I am clinically depressed and I'm entertaining suicidal thoughts. She'd probably freak out. Best to see what the doctor says me thinks. Thursday couldn't come quick enough.

I need someone to talk to me, to listen to me. But everyone has their own suggestions and ideas and opinions and feelings on the matter. I want someone objective to just listen to me. Again all routes point to a doctor and some kind of therapy. Doesn't help that I'm shit at telling people how I feel to their faces. I wonder if they have online therapists? Maybe life just doesn't work like that and I should get over it. Maybe.

Urgh. This is the only place I can spill my guts and even then I hold back because I don't want people to ask me about things. I'm a bag of contradictions, always have been and always will and what I really, really want right now is to go to sleep but I know that I won't be able to.

Why am I such a failure?