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epistolary, fiction, life, poetry, prosetry, screenplay, Uncategorized

Something real

(A PROSE INTO POETRY EXPERIMENT)

strangest statement;

think the world of you

too good to be true

really needed to hear that

reeling for months now

suffocating on mortality emotions

lost that courageous love for life I think I once had

half in and half out

then you came and you were

fantasy figure

intoxicating and unreal

feel like all her light is pulling me out of this darkness and I’m having hope again
wait? You’re having hope again?
that was the thing I had lost
funny how you really can’t go on without hope
but it is so damn fragile

you know how when you are young you feel like something good is going to happen it’s just around the corner? And then sometimes (not always) as you get older you feel like the corner gets longer and longer?

I always believed we make our own fortune, our own hope to some extent. Our own outcomes

but sometimes it’s nice to have the fantasy too

when you live inside an iceberg and nobody really really adores you, then it’s damn tempting to believe it

I felt suddenly like I wasn’t this dull girl

depleted, At the general lack of care people have toward one another

I like the intensity we feel as teenagers where our best friend is our world and we are so passionate. I like the feeling of mattering and of it being something really strong and unshakable. When you are kids and you promise something and it means the world. I don’t like the feeling of tepid disinterest

A friend I had doesn’t have emotional space for friends. They complain about not having any but they really doesn’t have time for them. They are one of those people who is obsessed with and lives through their child

oh there was such a lovely moment where I wished it were!

she seemed to think I was like them but I’m not like them 

I cannot compete with and cannot keep up with, the A list. That is okay

I am not a glorious incredible person and that is okay

struggle some days just to get through a day. I am on a different track. I don’t know why I wasn’t made more for shining but I am who I am. I am the person in my poetry, if you want to call me dark and lost then so be it. I have to be myself I can’t be someone else anymore

nothing worse than someone finally seeing who you are and rejecting you – better to get it out in the open and let them decide

sometimes you can look good in photos, happy even, but behind the smile there is a person who is trying really, really hard just to make it through the day. I admire shiny-happy-people I really do. I don’t condemn them. I guess I envy them. But I am not that person

It is funny though how when your fantasy comes true even for a moment, you start asking yourself again, can I try to be that person? Maybe it would work?

sometimes you know your limits. And you know from experience when you try to push them, you will crash and burn to a husk

I may end up being nothing more than some girl who wrote a few easily forgotten books of poetry to add to a huge list of inconsequential people who wrote and thought they’d BE something. What is it to be?

I try hard every single day to get through the day and that alone is a battle

like I told the girl, I come from broken people and I saw the broken world long before I saw the shiny world. I happen to be proud of not being cruel and uncaring in response to this. If that is my only claim then

so

be

it

but what a funny experience…. To for just a moment, feel like a girl again, on the verge of something, turning a corner. I almost forgot myself and turned. I almost believed it would be something real

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art, life, screenplay

Notes from the Shrink’s Chair: Jimmy

 

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artwork by Francesca Strange

 

Notes from the Shrink’s Chair: Jimmy/Antonia

 

Dedicated to C.J., my heroine and a true bastion for bravery

 

OPEN SCENE: Right of frame, gloomy lighting. Dr. Strange sits at his oakwood desk, large and reclining, as he peruses his patients’ files. He furrows his brows, thick, under a mop of greying, greasy hair; he rubs his hands through it, a habit he has curated over the twenty years in his profession. A tell, if anything. He is clearly frustrated, stupefied, as to how he should proceed in his current state. A file, new, sits at the forefront of his desk; after a moment’s hesitation, he leafs through it.

 

[BEAT]

STRANGE – takes out a voice recorder from his suit pocket. Turns it on.

STRANGE:

Seventh of September, 2014. Patient James Connington, otherwise known as Jimmy to his family and friends. Fifteen years old. Heavily depressed, suffering from acute body dysmorphia. Tendencies towards self-inflicted bodily harm. Burns on forearms, bruising found on upper thoracic region and extending limbs. Heavily injured due to unreported reasons.

 

[BEAT]

STRANGE:

Latest diary entry, as follows.

 

CUT TO: A boy, sitting at a desk, on the opposite end of the frame. Scruffy-looking, wearing a football uniform scored with grass-stains and tussle. He kicks his football cleats off, spreading mud and dirt all over an otherwise clean, white carpet. He scribbles into an old exercise book, biting his lips as he struggles with his work. He hears his siblings playing behind him, and as a reflex, covers his notebook with his arm, protectively. Once he is sure that he is alone, he begins writing again.

 

JIMMY:

Momma caught her today, just as she was about to leave the house. She had that beautiful necklace I picked out for her, the one that matches her eyes at it catches the sun. And that soft, suede lipstick, the one she wears with that dress I like. The pink one. She looked so beautiful in it, as she always does. So light and airy, like one of those story-book elves as she danced around my room. Enchanting, how free she can be. As if none of life’s rules applied to her. Like gravity; she didn’t agree with it, so she never let it buckle her down.

 

[BEAT]

JIMMY (cont’d)

Anyway, we were about to go to church. Momma saw her sneaking out of my window, as she always does when she stays the night. She hates going to church, (it makes her feel like a phoney), so she never goes with the family. Anyway, Momma. Momma screamed hellfire when she saw her. She looked possessed, almost demonic with rage. I never heard her use words like that. Especially not on a Sunday. Next thing, Momma pushes her out the window. Just like that. It didn’t take much of a shove, she’s so light. There’s nothing to her. And from my room, you could see her lying on the grass. Strewn all over it, all of her spread across the lawn. Like a china doll. Pieces everywhere. The necklace crushed by the fall.

 

[BEAT]

JIMMY (cont’d):

I didn’t linger. I had to go back upstairs, brush myself down, get ready for church, and pack my things for football. There’s a big game next weekend, and coach has been riding my ass about it for weeks. Saying things like: ‘Boys, it takes one to dismantle a team. Just one. And it is only men, men who can play this game. Because men know better than to pussy out when it hurts. Men know better than to stop, because men keep on going. When no one expects them to, when all odds are against them, only true men will cross that final line and take home the gold’. Coach never knows when to stop, when enough is enough. Never with her.

 

[BEAT]

JIMMY (cont’d)

They were in the locker rooms, both of them. Coach and her. After football practice. I usually get changed there, on Sundays after practice. There’s this bar on the other side of town that only opens on Sundays. It’s called Antonia’s, by the way. The bar. Poppa drives past it when he goes to work, and sneers at it every day: ‘That fag bar, always full of goddamn fruitcakes. Goddamn scum, what fucking animals’. She doesn’t care about what Poppa says, she loves them all. It’s her favourite bar, because everyone there is just as outrageous as she is. And she’s friends with all the busboys, the kings and queens – And she dances with everyone: complete strangers, both men and women. She doesn’t care who they are, what they’ve done to get them there, at that bar. Because to her, it’s home. Antonia’s.

 

[BEAT]

JIMMY (voice faltering)

She was slipping on her stilettos, as coach brushed himself up behind her. I saw him in the mirror behind me. I was packing up her things, her makeup, her kit. She was roaring to go, fired up as she always is. But I turned cold.

 

[BEAT]

JIMMY (hysterical, sobbing as he recounts the rest)

His hands were wrapped around her throat, I couldn’t breathe. He pushed me to the ground, and pressed my cheek to the tiled floor with his muddy cleats. ‘This is what you were made for’, he hissed, as he stroked my back, ‘men like me take, women like you give. Make your choice, boy. What would you rather do? Would you rather give or, would you rather take?’. I lay there, silently. It wasn’t the first time, I thought, and it wouldn’t be the last. Unless I did something about it.

 

[BEAT]

 

CUT TO: Dr. Strange, sitting emotionless. He pauses the recorder, sighs, and takes a sip out a hip flask. He continues:

 

STRANGE

Seventh of September, 2014. Coroner’s report – patient James Connington. Adolescent Male, Caucasian, mid-teens. Cause of death: asphyxia, constricting force applied to the ligature on the upper occipital region. Compressive narrowing of laryngeal and tracheal lumina observed. Ligature mark on neck is deeply impressed; it’s composition: superficial abrasions across the front and nape of neck, indicates the implementation of a thickly textured material. Most likely a rope. Will compare fibres to those found in the Connington family’s workshop. Severe Internal haemorrhaging in lower torso and abdominal area indicate heavy assault. Lipstick stains across his cheeks, across his face. Prominent bruising on face and forehead under thick cosmetic foundation. Also indicating a struggle. No fingerprints or biological fibres, or any forensic clues found on subject. Perpetrator, still at large.

 

CUT TO: Black.

 

END. Continue reading →

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