red breezes
entries from journals, the notes app, etc. from november 27th to december 2nd.(december 3rd, 2023)
Untitled entry, 11/27/2023, 10:32 p.m. In a notebook.
It seems that we’ve somehow co-opted honesty and vulnerability into a marketing scheme, along with everything else that should never, ever be tied to money (God, beauty, healthcare, etcetera). This is expected— this is the nature of capitalism— but the next person who tries to get me to divulge my secrets to them despite us barely being acquaintances is going to get killed, and I’m going to have fun doing it. I’ll throw a party and make invites for all my friends, and I’ll write “THE DEATH OF HONESTY” on them in pink glitter glue and we can get all dressed up just to lie to each other all night.
But doesn’t this always happen? Don’t we always forget that a lie is sometimes more honest than the truth? In our relentless pursuit of authenticity, we neglect the fact that the truth doesn’t exist. Facts exist; truth doesn’t. Authenticity is a word that means other people’s expectations of what your honesty looks like/if it’s honest enough/if it’s good enough/if you’re good enough. I despise this attitude so much that I don’t even care that I sound like Holden Caulfield. Honesty is a choice and a perspective, not an obligation. What’s so hard to understand about that? And why, for the love of God, do people seem to think that we owe each other our own little warped worms of this imaginary concept? When did social media turn into a confessional that you’re forced to use?
Picture this. You are sitting in the confessional. The priest is in the other booth. There is nobody in the church except for you two. You pull a .38 out of your coat pocket and shoot him through the lattice that separates you— once, twice, three times for good measure. The gunshots rattles off the walls. You walk out of the booth and into the dead priest’s booth, where you saw off his fingers with a utility knife and use the bloody ends to write: FUCK THE CONFESSIONAL. And it doesn’t even matter that you killed him because he isn’t real, and also you can’t help it. Sometimes your arms bend back, and you just can’t help it.
I think I’ll write the invites to my lying party in his blood instead of pink glitter glue. Lucky for me, I can still add glitter. A tacky substance is a tacky substance.
Entry titled “November :(“, 11/28/2023, 1:24 a.m. In the notes app.
God tells me that November is going to last forever and I’m never going to get a job and I’m going to have to live with my parents for the rest of my life. God also decided to remind me that I’ll never be able to bring John Cassavetes or Leonard Cohen back to life to have a passionate affair with, no matter how much wishful thinking I do. In return, I’ve decided in return that God is a bully and a spoilsport and generally unhelpful in times like these, and I tell Him He’s not worth shit if he can’t get me a pack of Luckies in the next few days, but He says He doesn’t care, which makes Him even more of a spoilsport. Life is rotting and so is He. I want a cigarette. I want worse things than cigarettes. On top of all that, I have homework, which blows. This is me falling to the floor crying, staring at the place where the wall meets the floor, and realizing that I didn’t paint it very well. And through it all, I think something bad is going to happen to me and I won’t be better for it, because those learning experience-type bad things only happen to girls who have good arches and aestheticized mental illnesses.
Day eighteen. Eight o’clock. Asparagus for dinner again. I hate asparagus. Does this mean I’ll never grow up?
List titled “allegories for my life in the form of fictional stories so it’s less obvious”, 11/29/2023, 3:47 p.m. In a word document.
A mother has a terminally ill daughter, and in her desperation to save her child, she lets a demon possess her to keep her alive. This creates issues (duh)—the daughter is a demon, the mother has to decide if having her daughter physically alive and healthy is worth violating her wishes (the daughter refused treatment, would like to die peacefully) and dealing with a literal demon, the ethics of removing bodily autonomy in a life-or-death situation, etcetera (side note: stop saying etcetera and learn how to end a sentence). The mother wants more than she was able to have for her daughter— a big college or chance to go pro at a sport or something like that— but where is the line drawn?
A writer, while working on a novel, slowly realizes that their life is changing to reflect the book. It would be fine if the writer could actually finish it and make it go the way they want it to, but the book starts writing itself (possession/ black outs) and the choices the new writer is making end up putting the writer in a terrible place— bad relationships, addiction, maybe even murder for funsies.
A charismatic, publicly beloved late night show host has a teenage singer come on as his guest, but when she and his daughter become friends, she slowly worms her way into his life and breaks his world and family apart. She is the taboo and the rebellion his daughter craves— she is the way out of the nuclear family and the perfect holiday cards. Cast of characters includes a stay at home mother of at least four, a father with national power, and two teenage girls (one with seemingly unlimited freedom and power who is absolutely some sort of malevolent supernatural creature— leaning towards a faerie— and one who’s just realizing there’s a home outside the home and church).
A beloved YouTuber/influencer is brutally murdered, only for her fan base to slowly realize that she had been planning her own murder all along. On the outside and to her audience, she was a benevolent, Apollonian figure, but she was actually severely depressed and had been conspiring with a boyfriend to get everyone to love her and then die, because nobody likes a loser. Maybe a forum-style format with timestamps and whatnot.
Everything I write is about suicide, autonomy, violence, or addiction. This says nothing good about me. Sick is as sick does, I guess.
Untitled entry, 12/1/2023, 12:06 p.m. In a notebook.
Dad kissed me on the forehead and then drove away to the airport, all the way to Amsterdam, leaving me and my mother alone in the house for a week with the dog and the foster puppy. She comes into my room a few hours later and gives me the blanket he sleeps on. I can’t tell if she’s trying to rid herself of him for the time being or give me some sort of consolation prize, like she knows she’s not the parent I prefer— it’s fine; I know I’m not the child she prefers either, so we’re even. She leaves with her friends in the evenings and I fall asleep on the couch. I’m not waiting up, I just happen to be in the room. I watch the dogs play. They mean well, neither of them ever really biting down, but their teeth are so white against their black gums and red tongues, always bared in their ruched lips. I watch them dance until I fall asleep and wake up to an angry mother and a puddle of piss on the floor. She’s just a puppy and doesn’t know any better. She’s just a baby.
My mother takes the dogs to bed with her in the basement, conceding the upstairs to me with the main floor between us. I make as much sound as I want through the night. I play guitar until my fingers bleed, writing shitty songs about driving at night and the Garden of Eden decomposing. I cut off some of my hair, half-convinced by the more fanatical side of my head that I’m Joan of Arc and going along with it because I have nothing else to do. I don’t sleep much. I go outside frequently, but never before midnight or during the daylight hours. My schoolwork goes neglected. In my mind, I create a new world for me to live in, one where animals talk and I wear pinafores and can drive down the interstate forever and ever. I can make everything red if I want it to be red. No person without a world; I am becoming a person, I like to think. I think I’ve lost weight, but I don’t know what I look like well enough to tell— I’ve been living off frozen pizza and hot chocolate for days. My wrists are bruised from my arms slamming into my metal bed frame while I dream. Funnily enough, my skin is as clear as it’s ever been.
I’m out of the specific cocktail of pills that make me function; after my mother picks Sudafed up from the store, I realize the biggest obstacle between me and some form of relapse is my fear of needles. I’ve never been so glad to be scared.
I cannot shake the deep-seated belief in me that one day I’m going to wake up and this whole life will just be an odd dream. I’ve had dreams like that before, ones where I see someone’s entire life play out in front of me until I open my eyes. So I’m going to wake up and my hair will be long again and I’ll do my homework and tell my mother, who will be my mother but not the one I have right now, that she just doesn’t get it and I’ll sigh and slam the door to my room and listen to some sad pop song that I like because I relate to it. I won’t have to be afraid of needles or men or classrooms that have locks on the doors or poverty because I won’t have experienced anything that made me afraid.
You don’t miss someone until they’re gone and Dad is gone for now. The house is more menacing when it’s just me and her. I light a candle for him like he’s a saint, and add more sounds and smells to the world in my head— the rumble of a Subaru engine in a Volkswagen van, a heartbeat, Tiger Balm, Palo Santo, cinnamon, motor oil. I close my eyes. I go back to sleep.
Entry titled “night walk”, 12/2/2023, 1:07 a.m. In the notes app.
in some desperate attempt to reconnect with the city i was born into (the wet the gray) i go out walking in the night somnambulistic and hungry feeding off the quiet and the angel streetlights. i try to do this sober. i sometimes fail. i feel very soft and nauseous. something milky and unsure. there’s only so much club music i can play before i stop having fun. only so much cough syrup. december december december is silent which makes god louder. emptiness is loneliness is cleanliness is godliness is emptiness. see how we all go around on the carousel with the pretty candy horses. i want everything in my entire life to end with a period because i want abruptness and i am tired of enthusiasm. the grackles calling the long hours the long hours. there's a white rabbit outside my door when i leave. right now i'm looking for a funeral and the white rabbit tells me i'm going to find one. it’s mine.
the houses are boxcars on a train to nowhere. i try to get it back. it’s slow going.
Untitled entry, 12/2/2023, unknown time. Written on the left forearm in black permanent marker.
LITTLE RED DOG DID NOT SEE IT BUT HE FELT IT ALL
Untitled entry, 12/2/2023, unknown time. Written on the right forearm in black permanent marker.
EVENTS CARRY BUT ONE