Forgotten

I am using a random number generator to decide how many words will be in each sentence. No sentences will be over 15 words


She brushed the makeup slowly in a circle across her sunken cheek. She avoided meeting the cold shining eyes of her reflection. Still she felt them staring at her, accusing her of a million crimes. Her hand spasmed roughly. The brush dropped down. It clattered in the sink. Her eyes filled up with tears. 

She doubled over, trying not to cry, trying not to think, anything not to feel.

"Shit." It didn't work.

The truth glared at her, irresistible, powerful, unable to control. She did not want to know this.

Brian had been over there the night before. It had been perfect, everything she'd never had, yet she had been afraid. He had been kind. Yet, she had feared that he would force things she didn't want to happen. He always asked permission, always made sure she was okay with what was happening. He was the kindest man she had ever been with, and she turned away.

Now she began to remember things purposefully forgotten. She paced, restless, burnt out. Grabbing the shower door, she roughly slammed it shut. SHHHHHK BANG!

"HOW MUCH MORE CAN I TAKE FROM YOU?" No answers from on high or down low. Silence.

She crumpled to the floor. Time passed over her without real measure. Still she cried silently over wounds of the past, forgotten and remembered again. Unhealed.

And then she just stopped crying. She picked herself up off of the floor. She wiped her face and gently washed off her makeup. Quietly, she walked out of the room.

Silence

SLAM!
Wood on wood, splintering, but only inside this fleshy sac, this body that never was quite good enough.
Stop. Done with that thinking now.
Done
Forever?
It's for the best.
Creaks and shudders of the quiet night.
So quiet it is oppressive.
Shouts still echo in my ears.
More oppressive than the silence

Dishes

Dishes are used for setting a table, serving food and for dining.^[1] The term dishes does not include cutlery, or the cutting words he said.
In the United States, tableware is most commonly referred to as dinnerware. Dinnerware can be meant to include glassware, however not flatware, as he has reminded you time and time again, stupid.
Don't forget to wash the dishes. Scrub them til they shine.
Remember the way they flew, crashed and broke around you, Alice.
The old dishes had a rose pattern. These are covered in daisies.

[1] "This is my home too."

The most common cause of human deaths in the world is the heart

Death is another word for Jimmy.
Phenomena which commonly bring about death in people include senescence of spirit, predation- most commonly by the hungers of other humans, malnutrition- or lack of needs met, disease of the mind, suicide, murder and accidents. Jimmy, or death, is a hole in which you dig deeper and deeper, trying to escape or just trying to feel.
Death is terminal, or so they say.^[1]
Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose leading up to, before, and following death until they are made up of dirt. Some bodies reach this stage before death. Like Jimmy.
The nature of death has for millennia been a concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical inquiry. Death comes with a choice: resurrection and rebirth, or a permanent cessation in consciousness, known as "oblivion" or "love.".^[2]
Prior to death. the physical remains of a person, are interred whole into the hungry belly of the earth or fed to the even hungrier fire, though among the world's cultures there are a variety of other methods of disposal.
The most common cause of human deaths in the world is the heart.<sup>[3]

[1] When one can handle it no more, a change must be made. The old self must die so the new self can live.
[2]  Alice knew she could just give up. She could make it go away. Or she could keep fighting and start again.
[3] "I will never be broken"</sup> 

The pages

The stories I want to tell are not the stories I can tell. I look at the screen and think "This time I will make it safe, fun, something everyone will like." But I can't write like that.

These stories burn through my mind, clamoring until they are let out, until the world sees them. I'm scared of what the world will know of me if I let them out, but they will consume me if I don't.

I've grown used to hiding. I don't show my emotions. I don't let people see the scars-- the rage. I nod and smile and laugh. Keep the blood hidden nicely underneath the skin.

When I write I can't hide. I have to bare myself on the page.The sadness. The vulnerability. Even the naivete. It's all there. Want to see my demons? I've locked them in the pages.

Restriction blog-google

Better than drugs

"Sit down." Matt said firmly. His purple hair showed brightly against his pale skin that still was not as pale as mine.

"I don't want to watch it." I said, chin up.

"Why not? It's good!" My brother chimed in.

"It's so girly and childish. I swore off that kind of stuff."

"Sit." Matt repeated. I sighed, sitting down. Matt sat down beside me and my brother sat on my other side. Both guys were 18 years old, only one year younger than me.

I sighed as I listened to them discussing which episode to show me. Hey, at least they weren't into drugs or something.

But still. This was pretty bad.

They settled on an episode and music started playing. "My little pony, my little pony, ahhhhhh."

I grimaced. I just had to get through an hour or so and then I could tell them officially that I didn't like it. They could collect their dolls without me.

I paid attention, because if I didn't they would call shenanigans. Also I planned to use this material to tease them later.

Except, things didn't go the way I expected. I started laughing at the jokes. I liked the art. I began to feel similar to Twilight Sparkle, the main character.

I found myself wanting to watch more. I had joined my brother and his best friend in the Brony ranks.

Sigh.

The only time I have ever been kicked out of a store

In high school, my group of friends had a tradition. After our finals every semester, we would go out and do something. It didn't really matter what so long as we were together. It was our way of making sure that we saw each other before we all went our separate ways on breaks.

The first instance of this took place my freshman year. Seeing as we were stuck in Racine, our options were pretty limited. Obviously, we chose to go to the mall.

We did some basic shopping. Salespeople followed us around the store because they thought we were skipping school and we were going to shoplift. I thought this was really funny.

When we got to JCPenney, we were bored. Deciding to express our teenage independence in the only way we knew how (by being greatly immature), we took turns making running leaps onto the perfectly made, rock hard, sample beds. It was a great time.

My best friend had gotten separated from us, and she was hiding behind racks trying to sneak up to us to scare me. What she didn't know was that her hiding had actually drawn the attention of the harshest saleswoman in the store.

When she finally caught up to us, we urged her to take her turn ruining that perfect bed. She eagerly walked as far back as she could before running forward and taking a fantastic soaring leap on the bed. She landed heavily, bunching covers up as she fall. Just as she landed, with brilliant timing, the saleslady stepped around the corner.

I swear my friends melted into the racks. One even had the audacity to say that she wasn't there with us. She continued that ruse until she was out of the store, refusing to even speak to us.

It never occurred to me to try to get away, so in the end it was my best friend and I taking the brunt of the woman's anger. I don't remember what she said, except, "Get out or I am calling security."

I remember the rush of it. I had always been the "good kid" and it was exhilarating to get in trouble while having such fun. I remember feeling wild. Like I was some hero in a story.

For a fourteen year old stuck in Racine, it really meant something.

Horror Movies

He watched her as she watched the screen. She squealed and squirmed as blood and intestines poured out of the deep cut on the main character's stomach.

She buried her head in his shoulder. He loved the warm feel of her cheek there.

He looked down at her to see that she had her head turned so that she could see the screen out of one eye.

He was amazed at the look on her face. Not fear. Not revulsion.

Hunger.

It turned to lust as she gazed at him. He was afraid, so he did the only thing he could do.

He kissed her.

Character sketch

 Clouds loomed over yet another frigid night in Beensville. Sara hated the cold weather. Coming back for the weekend had been a mistake.

She watched the faces around the fire. All smiling and laughing. A few were shivering in the cold weather. The girls all gossiped about other people they had known from high school. They snuggled closer to their boyfriends, planning their futures together.

Sara saw all these faces and felt lonely. She had been so close to these girls for so long. They had passed notes, they had fought over boyfriends, they had fallen asleep on hard floors together many times. Yet, Sara didn't belong here anymore.

She had always longed to leave her hometown, as had many of these girls, and Sara had been the only one to get away.

Staring into the fire, she considered the cost of her dreams. The people she would have to leave behind.

She would leave them all to get away to the sunshine.

Bat is a lesbian donkey

My roommate is standing on a box singing into a lampshade about being a transgender woman-loving donkey who tried to use flowers as a fake penis.

Sometimes, life gives you moments that are so surreal even your imagination couldn't come up with them.

This is one of them.

D.I.Y.

I have always loved taking something useless, outdated, or broken and turning it into something new and beautiful.

Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) Bat shares my passion for personalization. Our apartment is filled with paint samples, old magazines, knicks knacks,and pieces of art made by both of us. Her sharpie drawings are pinned to the walls haphazardly. Our fridge is topped by a two foot long papier mache bat I made in a high school art class. It may be cluttered, but it is clear to anyone entering our apartment who lives there.

That's what I love the most about DIY culture. I can make ANYTHING my own. Whether it is by putting googly eyes all over our tv or by extensively collaging my bookshelf, I can make just about anything reflect my personality.

That is what I love about zine making. I can mix my writing and my love of decorating things. I can make it so that when someone looks at one of my zines they instantly see my style.   It's an expression of me.

Monsters

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” -Stephen King 

There are monsters in my head. They are clawing their way out of my heart, ripping through my throat, stealing my voice, changing my sight.

I want to lash out, to fight back, to rip your throat out the way they are ripping mine.

You deserve it. I know you do. You stole my voice, punished my love. The voices in my head are yours.

Are you the monster in my head, or just a product of the monsters in yours?

I feel it, the rage, as I think of you, of all you did, of all you wanted to do to me.

It makes me sick, this cage. Maybe I should let you see all there is to me.

How long before I am just a monster too?

How long until I am just like you?

Shove me again, make it hurt.

Screw her again, we'll make it work.

Every day I want to punish you. Tear you all apart. Forget forgiveness, screw forgetting.

I see you miles away, pretending you never knew me, like you're some saint.

I see you, the monster in all their heads. The father who cages, the boyfriend who beats, the lover who cheats, the woman who surrenders herself to the hate.

Swallow my good, eat me alive, I won't let myself be a monster like you.

Somebody get these monsters out of my head. 

Get them onto the page before they destroy us all.

Bat

My roommate, Bat, has a pair of pajama pants that say "Fat and happy." She wears them all the time.

She weighs 100 pounds.

I keep cooking her food with lots of butter and it doesn't do anything. She stays thin no matter what she eats.

I think her incessant energy causes her to burn calories faster than she takes them in.

Bat is beautiful, and not just because of how thin she is, or the fact that she has this adorable delicate face. She is beautiful in the way she always can find a way to laugh, and make others laugh. 

Her beauty is expressed through the art she makes. It's all colorful and vibrant, with sharp black edges.  I think Bat sees the world like that.

I can't make visual art. My mind doesn't hold a picture long enough for me to make a pretty picture.

All I can do is sit on the couch and write down the stories of the people around me. People like Bat.

Description- Lighter

I never understood why Amy had so many lighters. It was odd, considering that she didn't smoke. Whenever she was asked, she would laugh and say, "I'm a pyro!"
This lighter was laying haphazardly on the windowsill. An incense burner sat nearby, so I assumed that the lighter had been used to fuel Amy's incense obsession. The whole apartment smelled like sandalwood and burnt flowers.
The lighter was a bic: cheap and plastic feeling. Amy was too cheap to get a zippo, though I had seen her staring hungrily at them whenever she found a display. Still, this bic suited her tastes. It was covered in artwork portraying a busty woman in a pirate's outfit. Her brown hair curled languidly around the lighter, surrounded by roses and a banner that said "A pirate's life for me" in purple lettering. The backdrop looked like aged and weathered parchment.
I flicked my thumb the smooth round roller, feeling the less smooth outer rollers bite into my skin. My thumb pressed against the red plastic button, feeling the flame so close. I watched it dance for a moment before I released the button and replaced the lighter.

Observation-Tarot Cards

Julie was drawn to something orange on the shelf. She walked near it and found that it was actually some kind of bundle wrapped in silk that had been dyed orange and yellow, with traces of an ashy gray. It looked like a flame had consumed whatever was wrapped. Julie looked behind her. Nobody was watching, so she pulled the silk off to find a deck of tarot cards.
Running her fingers along the smoothness of the oversized cards, she was overwhelmed with curiosity. She pulled a card from the deck at random: The Empress. The artwork was fascinating. A woman sat in a purple dress, looking pensively at a cluster of flowers. Mountains dotted the landscape behind the woman, who looked remarkably like Julie's mother.
Looking at the card gave Julie a weird feeling. Hurriedly, she put it with the rest of the deck, wrapped it up, and put it back on the shelf before Amy came back in.

Description- Focus Pad

Leaning against the desk is a focus pad like the ones fighters use to train. It seems out of place in her artistic feeling apartment, but then I remember her saying how she wishes she had more strength.  It is made of a black material that has been shined to look and feel like leather.  The word "Century" is emblazoned across the front in caps. A zipper runs along the bottom of the pad, seemingly as a way to remove the cover. Multiple straps run across the back.
I can see the spot where the material has been thinned from use, just underneath the word, "Century." I can imagine her coming home after a hard day, strapping the pad to something, and beating that same spot over and over until the anger is gone.

Free Write-9-16-12

You know that feeling at the end of the night when you know everything has been said and done, the doors are locked, and you are so tired that you aren’t even thinking anymore? You know that you need to sleep, but you lack the vitality to even go to your bed, to shut your eyes and end the day, so you just sit there, comfortably uncomfortable, waiting for one last dose of energy to come so that you can finally sleep.

That’s how I feel when I look at you.

Observation Free Write- 9-15-12

The glaring white of the wall was broken up occasionally with brightly colored art. One of these pieces was a tree that was created using big plastic looking stickers. 

Lara ran her fingers along the smooth sticker. It was matte and smooth, feeling more like velvet than plastic.

She liked the tree, but did the flowers have to be pink? It ruined the relaxing feeling the tree added to the room. The pink was energetic, perky, feminine-- everything that Lara was not. 

Interspersed among the brown and pink branches were bits of mirror in the shapes of flowers, branches, and owls. The mirrored elements clearly were from a different set of stickers, but they fit. Lara could see distorted reflections of the room behind her in the mirrors.

Catching a glimpse of her own reflection, Lara quickly looked away. She fingered a mirrored flower. The edges were sharp, and the flower was hard. Her fingers caught on the polished surface, leaving a smear and a fingerprint to mar it.

Ah yes, these flowers were more Lara's style.

Tracklist free write-Future story? 9-15-12

I like to listen to music on shuffle and write what images I get relating to the song and what I have already written. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it isn't.

Lead Sails and A Paper Anchor- Atreyu

She turned again, alone in the silent house. Except—was that a footstep? As she walked the dust rose, pushed up from the press of her foot like bellows on the “antique” carpet.  This place was a gem. Beautiful, old, it had character.  Even the creepiness of the building lent a sort of charm. Becca had gotten a great deal, but that didn’t help her to feel like she had to keep glancing over her shoulder every second.

Your Eyes- Rent Soundtrack

The lace curtain stirred, but that was just the wind. “Becca.” A voice whispered. A breeze brushed at her hair, drawing it around her face, tickling her nose. She sneezed, and soft laughter seemed to surround her. “Who’s there!” She shouted.

Pieces- Icon For Hire

Silence. She had just imagined it. The wind was just the wind. The house was truly empty. Becca got to work.

Free Writing 9/11/12: Classroom Horror

11:45 AM: You arrive at the classroom. It is the first day of this class. You find a seat, avoiding a chair that holds a small puddle of water.

11:50 AM: You notice that the string attached to projector screen has been tied like a noose. You take a picture and send it to many of your friends, with a few joking remarks about how this class is going to make you want to hang yourself. Everyone in the room stares at you as you take the picture. Obviously nobody else sees the remarkable similarity between the knot and a noose.

11:52 AM: You notice that by sitting between the wet chair and the wall, you have effectively isolated yourself.

11:53 AM: The instructor finally arrives. She is perky and innocent looking in a light blue cardigan.

11:55 AM: The instructor begins class early.  She locks the door as she begins talking. You vaguely think that this is odd, but you have a hard time focusing on one thing long enough for it to cause true alarm.

11:58 AM:  Your eyes begin to droop. The room seems to be getting... wavy?

12:06 PM: You absent-mindedly scratch at the scab on your arm. The scab comes off and blood begins to ooze out of the wound, contrasting bright red against your skin.

12:08 PM: The blood makes you uncomfortable. Everyone can see it. You wipe at it with your hand, doing nothing but smearing it and leaving a coppery smudge across your finger.

12:12 PM: The blood is leaving the wound in fat drops. Your hands are covered in blood, yet you can't stop wiping at it.

12:20 PM: You are holding your hand up to the wound, trying to stop the flow. A tiny torn off scab should not be bleeding this heavily! You look up, trying to find a paper towel, a kleenex, anything to clean the blood off of yourself, when you see them. At the window, there is a crowd of masked faces peering in. All of them are turned toward you. Conversely, the faces of your classmates are all turned toward the instructor, paying you no mind.

12:23 PM: You notice that all your classmates are using red pen to take their notes. No, not red pen, you realize slowly, it's blood. The smell of it permeates the room, metallic sweet.

12:28 PM: You are trying not to throw up. You have already tried to get up, but you can't move from your seat. You struggle desperately again to lift yourself from the chair. The instructor has finally noticed your plight. She sharply calls your name. You look up at her.  "Do I need to keep you after class?" You quickly, fearfully shake your head. She smiles predatorily. "Good." As she smiles, you notice that her teeth are sharp. Her grin is much too large. It literally stretches from ear to ear, making her look like Venom, or a frightening real life Cheshire Cat. This is the last straw. You need to get out. You are totally taken over by fear. You find that you can stand up, and you do, knocking over your chair. Lightning fast, every face in the room turns toward you. All the students are perfectly normal except for the blood-ink pens they hold. You run from the room.

12:39 PM: You don't stop running until you reach your apartment. You didn't see anything amiss on your run home, but you are still so afraid that you slam the door shut behind you and use every lock the door has (all four of them, including the chain). You take a deep breath, your forehead pressed against the heavy wooden door. Finally, after a few breaths, you turn around.

There are dozens of masked faces pressed against your window. You scream.

With a creak, the window begins to open.