Infinity Doesn't Exist

Just yesterday I spent the entire day watching a girl learn to breathe for the first time without oxygen being force-fed down her throat. She made the most horrible choking noises I have ever heard, and I was sure she would suffocate. I was sure she would be smothered by all of the nurses and doctors pleading for her to just breathe, breathe, breathe and she would be all right. I watched from the hallway with my eyebrows pushed together in that concerned sort of way we all like to wear them. Inside, I was hoping she suffocated so I could say I watched someone die. By noon, she was singing. I pictured not breathing.

- - -

it's a blur of breathing and ballerina legs. he's all blue ties and baking soda. she's nothing but broken knees and baby powder. oh, they'll be married by the spring.

- - -

When he was seventeen, he liked his bruises in the shapes of knucklebones and being called Nothing. He shot his rockets to space and buried his dinosaurs with the fireflies. When he was seventeen, they found him in the drain with a cardboard box of salamanders. His throat said, "We're better off." I didn't like it the first time I wrote it; I really don't like it now.

- - -

What can I say? I'm the girl with a mouth stained blue from eating too many raspberry suckers (you call them lollipops). I'm the girl whose shoes glow because they're got dead lightning bugs (you call them fireflies) smeared across them. I'm the girl who makes other people wish on wishing weeds (you call them dandelions) because she's given up on wishing. I'm the girl who's terrified of drowning in oceans (you call them puddles) even though she learned to swim when she was six. Yeah, I'm that girl.

- - -

I would leave me at home too, so I can't blame you.

- - -

Nar har. Way to be depressing, Hayley.

Are These Roman Numerals?

Children are born for the summertime. School was created for the summertime. The sun was born for the summertime. Tell me then why our summertime was covered in stormclouds and power outages? Why was our stretch of laughter and smiles and friendship ruined by jealousy and betrayal? Are you able to explain why you left with the thunder and darkness? I cannot blame you for leaving. This town never was your taste, but what about the girl you loved? What about the girl in the red polka dot dress? What should I tell her while she cries when the power goes out? What should I lie to her about?

- - -

There's a lot to explain. There's a lot to tell. There's a lot to bury. I was chatting with my shadow early this evening, and we came to the conclusion that despite doing so much this summer, we still felt abandoned. I'm not so surprised actually. Afterall, a lot of promises were thrown into the street.

- - -

As cliche as it sounds, some important things have happened this summer. I reunited with old allies, made new enemies, grew away from my "best friend," crushed on someone for about a day, and hated sound boy for something he can't control. (I feel bad. I should apologize.) I still feel like throwing up when I hear the word "beautiful," and I missed my friends more than my father. I realized what I want to do with my life, but I know I'm not smart enough to do it, so I'll just cope with something less special. I know who to confide in, and he confides in me. It's a beautiful friendship; I'll cry when he leaves for the west coast.

- - -

I haven't photographed anything in far too long. My eyes are getting blurred, and my fingers are cracking like they're breaking. The wires in my head are curling around an old idea and giving it new insight. I feel like this might work. As much as I would love to work with someone prettier, a self-portrait will have to work. I need to do laundry then.

Even If We Stop, Someone Else Will Always Be Counting

It was like a circus: all of the people in facepaint and feathered boas wrapped around their throats like constrictors. The flashing lights in a rainbow of colors made me dizzy as if on a carousel, and I could feel my heart throbbing behind the cords in my throat. Oh, how it wanted to leap from my lips and dance with the women in suits and men in gowns. My dizzying legs dropped me before a man in a top hat with white doves as gloves who pulled me to my feet and pushed off the tightrope. There was no net.

- - -

ah-ha-ha. Little sound boy has been cured of his disease, and it will only be a matter of time before he's on his roof again, screaming for the clouds to speak to him again. He will scream of how sorry he is and how badly his ears ring at the need to hear the clouds sing to them once more. The girl in the polka dot dress will ask sound boy, "Just once more? That will never suit you." So he'll record the singing and listen to the playback every night before falling asleep on the shingles. Then the girl in the polka dot dress will steal the recorder and listen to the playback.

- - -

But all she will hear is the wind and sound boy's breathing.

- - -

Oh, how badly I want to leave this place for somewhere with sun and wind and people who love each other even if our parents were horrible to each other because we aren't our parents, and all we want is to love and be loved because we've all grown up with hate on our backs and words of defense in our mouths, but that's not us just because it is everyone else because because because we aren't everyone else.

- - -

That's all I've got in my heart and head. I just hope it's enough.

Numbers Leading To Infinity

He's the kind of boy who feels most comfortable walking the highway in the middle of the night because it scares him so badly that his hands shake. He is always safe, but he won't return home until he has succeeded in changing at least one person's life forever.

- - -

I haven't much to say this time around. Honestly, I think I'm writing here because I can't write for real. I'm back in another lapse of writer's block. It doesn't make any sense since I've been handed the absolute best sources of inspiration these past few days.

- - -

An old friend who's had a grudge against me for years now has finally chased away that stormcloud. It was so calming, and so enlightening. If she can fix her problems, so can I. Things are about to get real!

- - -

I've been scraping layers off my nails for the past hour, and now they're all chipped and rough and ruined. They leave little trails of red down my arms when I connect my freckles, and the picture doesn't come out to be anything beautiful.

- - -

Your blushing bride said the word "beautiful" the other day, and I wanted to die. Every step I took throughout the past month was erased, every wall shot down, and every hope had its wings ripped off. It's ridiculous that you've made me hate that word so much. It's ridiculous that I let you make me hate that word so much. I figured I should warn you because next time she gets a baseball bat to the back of the head, and you and I both know who would win in a fight.

- - -

Ah, my violent tendancies are spilling over my collarbones.

All Countdowns End In Fire And Stars

Whenever I think of us, all I can imagine is two-person planes crashing into the ocean and catching the whole blue disaster on fire. I wish it could be the snow that we crashed into for once, but you hate the snow and love the ocean, so it's always that damn monster of a sea. If only my sailor's legs could overpower my terrified mind. If only the plane didn't drown me every single time.

- - -

Within the past few weeks I've been exposed to more negative influences than I ever have in my entire life. It's almost like I've started over from the beginning. The summer always drags me away from my school year friends, but this time around I'm replacing them with all the wrong people: the users and abusers, bad seeds and royal fuck-ups, the drop-outs of society. These are the people I've surrounded myself with. Despite the feeling of corruption crawling up my spine, I do not regret this rotation of friends.

- - -

It's kind of funny how simply I can tell if I'll befriend someone or not. When I was a child, I picked my friends on looks. If they looked like a crazy person, we were cool. Now that I'm grown I've begun to see the truth to it all. It's not the way someone looks that sways me, or even the way they talk. It's all in the way a person thinks, reasons. I think of all of my closest friends, and I realize that I have befriended only multi-leveled people. I have no friends who are simply one level. In other words, I have no friends who are what they appear. Everyone I like is so in depth and worldly. I have smart friends, sure, but my dearest are all world-smart first. It's beautiful.

- - -

It seems like everyone I know is having a crisis of faith. Hey, guys, your god is just testing your faith! Isn't that what you all say? Well, dears, I'm pretty sure your gods wouldn't test you six times in the last two years. That is called doubt. Welcome to the world of disbelievers. We're more accepting anyway.

- - -

Why doesn't this shit hole city have a church that's open 24/7? Maybe then when it's four in the morning, and I have no where else to go, I can go there to sit in the back pew and mutter poetry under my breath. I'll write about saviors and boys with angel wings and salt water.

- - -

And it's 9am, so I'm gone.

Decimals To Fractions And Back Again

I was raised by my mother's hatred. She called me by my father's name and beat me with the fire iron when she caught me trying on his olds suits. My sisters were saved from her wrath, but she said she saw his violence in my eyes. I was the bastard son that reminded her of the monster husband. - - - I haven't lived a long time, but I've been through a lot. I've played culprit and victim too many times to tell them apart anymore, but I remember it all too well. Most of all, I remember the words. I've been given the greatest of all compliments, and I've been called things worse than what most people hope to never be called. Once you've witnessed both ends of the spectrum, what's left? After you've seen it all, what do you do? - - - Sleeping and I aren't on good terms, but after tonight - after tonight I think I can sleep again. I can feel my arms and legs breaking down into bones and flesh, seperated by a freezing river of blood. My wrists are waterfalls and the sink the sea. My eyes feel like marbles in my head, and my skin is made of torn sheets of paper, all held together by stapled freckles. My insides are shutting down, and my mind has fallen to the back of my head to hide from the light shining through my clear eyes. - - - What the fuck was that? - - - I've been staring at fireworks for my entire life, and I've been watching things explode even longer. These fires in the sky are nothing to peak my interest anymore. I'd rather stand with my arm wrapped around your waist, smile on my face and fingers playing a song on your ridcage. I'm staring into the face of the man who pulled you into the night, and he's trying not to catch my eyes. He's burning my fingers as we walk side by side down a splintered street of the city we once called home. Now it is nothing more than our cage.

Old Numbers On New Streets

But the boy, he muttered in his last breath, "Don't whisper my name like it's something special." He turned and was lost to the night. I stood, my fingers over my lips in case they felt like being naive again and whispering more names of dead boys.

- - -

Something is not right. I am not alone in this white house, but I haven't seen another monster in days. Not since I sat at the end of my driveway and watched the midnight traffic. Not since I fled the house and spent my insomniac hours with others. I left things, and when I returned - and when I returned. Oh, how things have changed. Something is not right here.

- - -

I have been around for 4 years. I have been running the streets with and crashing the weddings of the famous faces of this city. I have followed the rules and broken every law there is. We have knocked down more kings and masters and tyrants than these children have ever known. They are walking our city streets as if they own the world, weapons strapped to their hips. They're spitting at our feet and sneering in our faces. Alone, they cower in our shadow. But when they come with their armies of youth, they force us back because we follow the rules. We keep the peace and order and let travellers know that this city has retained its sanity. These children follow no rules. These children are burning our city down.

- - -

Would you believe me if I told you that everything I say means something else?

We've Been Sleep-Counting

She's been whispering in my ear all evening, warning me of the sunset. This woman named Insomnia kissed my ears all evening because she wanted me to herself in the following hours. She couldn't wait to lay down beside me and traces little broken hearts into my chest. Her words carressed my ears, and her fingers danced along my spinal cord all evening just so she could have me alone for a few fleeting hours. Insomnia loved me with my dark purple scars under my eyes. I loved Insomnia and the way she made me feel like the last person alive.

- - -

This isn't a cry out for help. I'm not that kind of girl (person, child, thing). Sound boy has been telling me all about his own sleeping problems, even if he doesn't think I've been listening. He whispers them into the night and hopes that someone hears him and saves him from himself. His heart may be more scarred than his arms.

- - -

Cancer boy must have finally fallen prey to the disease in his knees. He said he was going to walk until his legs wouldn't walk anymore. Perhaps his knees gave out in the middle of a freeway. It would be ironic for his freedom to end there, right after he paid his $1.25 in nickles and dimes. He tells me that it worries him that someone will raise the price up again. He wants to know why he has to pay for a freeway. Because you live on it, I told him. He always throws an extra nickle in now.

- - -

I was in a car wreck on Saturday. My brother couldn't break fast enough, and I watched as his courage crashed through the windshield. He's so broken now. He walks as if his legs are made of glass and might break if he runs. He stands close to me now and is always making sure I'm all right. I was in the passenger seat. I wonder if he's all right, but I never ask him anymore. I know he isn't. I know he won't be all right for a long time.

- - -

I've been falling asleep to sunrises and hoping that I never wake back up.

Vestigial Numbers

I hate the summer, said the little girl. I hate it because it makes me feel so alone. And when I feel alone, I just cry rivers and rivers of crocodile tears because I don't know what else to do. I haven't anything else to do. I'm so alone, and I feel it in the summer. It must be all those warm nights of sipping lemonade and catching fireflies in mason jars.

- - -

I've run out of options. I've exhausted my every source. I'm too afraid to ask of you because then I'll seem childish and clingy. This isn't puppy love I'm after because we're both grown - grown into people. People with nothing on their minds but destruction and how to cause it. What have we become? No one should love chaos as much as we do. No one.

- - -

I won't lie about this (yes, I will). I've been sitting on the hood of my mother's old Taurus in the driveway just waiting for my courage to get me to walk to your house. I know it's on the other side of town, but I owe you a late night, early morning visit. We've always been about giving and taking, but what now? I'm a coward, and you're a ghost. I'm chasing dead ends and falling asleep to dial tones. I want nothing more than to tell you bad jokes over the phone and hug you on my porch at four in the morning.

- - -

I know that this will all come crashing down around me since we're both horrible at break-ups, and that's where we're headed. That's where the whole world is headed. But I don't want us to come to that. We've lived our whole lives as an extension of the world; it's vestigial structures; it's useless limbs. So I'm on my knees and I'm begging you and I'm not giving up on you (like I've given up on so many others). I'm on my knees, and I'm begging you: please don't give up on me either. I'll get there. It's just a matter of time.

Running Low On Numbers

This may very well be the end to us. I've reached that line I said I would never cross, and you're running across it like it's nothing. How can I follow you when my body won't move? My mind is screaming no, but my heart is crying out yes! Oh, darling, you've made me into such a cliche.

- - -

I woke up early this morning and dragged an industrial black marker across the flesh over my left shoulder until the skin was dripping with ink. My heart felt suffocated, but I knew my ribcage would hold back the poison. I have to be honest here. It felt good to fall back into my simple addiction. After all, ink poisoning only kills about three people a year. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Three people isn't enough.

- - -

I scribbled until my chest ached from the pressure, and my shoulder hurt to move. My shirt was the thin layer that saved me from the world's judgement. Without it, I would have nothing but my blackened skin and a lie on my tongue about how it got there. Nothing could explain it. It was too perfect, too beautiful. It looked like art painted across my shoulderblade. I wanted my right to match, but I'm right-handed and didn't have the time to learn my left hand to work.

- - -

Cancer boy thinks I'm out to get him. I would love to color his ribs black and blue just because he would mourn the lose of his perfect white skin. Sound boy told me that I scare him. With shoulders like mine, who couldn't I scare? I wanted to trace his spine with my marker and number each vertebrae as if connecting them would create something beautiful.

Speeding These Numbers Up

He's been speaking with the clouds again, that dear sound boy. I feel that it is only a matter of time until he coaxes cancer boy up beside him. What will I do then when both of my boys of hearts are up on the roof with the clouds in their ears? This cloudspeak has taken them away.

- - -

Have I not introduced cancer boy yet? He's my dearest friend, even if he doesn't quite realize it. Don't think of his name negatively because he isn't a horrible person like everyone thinks. He laughs at broken glass and blood and scars, but he mourns broken hearts and lost friends and being alone.

- - -

He earned his name because once he gets a hold of you, he doesn't let go. He forces you to grow greater than you ever thought imaginable. He forces you to live life like every moment is your last. He forces you to love what you have and forget what you don't. His heart sends out those little red ribbons to tie around your wrists and throat that pulse happiness into you.

- - -

However, despite how little I want to admit this: cancer boy is the oxygen to a burning world. Without him, it would all turn to ash. With him, it will all turn to ash (just after more destruction). He was the one who taught me how to love the sound of shattering glass. He was the one who infected my hands with the need to spill blood. He was the one who made me cry little rotten apple hearts every night.

- - -

I love him, my perfect cancer boy.

Self-Timers Running Late

And there I was in the land of broken dreams and dismantled hopes. I ran my fingers along the volleyball net and stared at the basketball net longingly as if either could catch the scatter pieces of life in that ruined lot. The ash pit was growing like cancer, and the vacant cars at the end of this dead end road sat like corpses in cemeteries. And yet, amongst all of the sadness and pain, I found exactly what I was looking for: a window. - - - Today I discovered something extrodinary. No one in my family really understands me. They're not in that "don't understand" genre, but they just don't get anything I do. I feel so detached when I do things they've never done before, and they give me their looks. Another thing is that the people who do understand me are limited to less than half a dozen. My best friend, my worst enemy, sound boy, and the blonde. - - - I stole a window today. There is a place not far from my house where people used to tear apart mobile homes. I went up there today and there was a stack of windows sitting on the ground. No one had been up there all winter. The top one caught my eye. it was all dark, faded wood and perfect glass with a little, rusted handle at the top. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it. It's the first time in awhile that I've stolen something big. I felt accomplished. I won't lie. - - - Only those four will understand. I'm perfectly okay with that.

Positives v. Negatives

I thought I had come to find the cure to my sickness that lurks within my heart of flesh. I thought your arms of sidewalk chalk and eyes of magic were going to cure this gash in my chest, but now I see the truth: one love can never heal the utter annilation of another.

---

I have a story of woe and malice and love and betrayal and all of those chiche words that often describe the saddest and most beautiful of life stories. I have this story on my shoulders that I want to share with the world, scream to the world, only it's not entirely mine to share. It involves so many faces and fists and names that are not my own. However, the masses call for words of life, so here they come - tumbling from my lips.

- - -

My dear sound boy has grown into something crooked and broken. He's got nothing in his heart but saddness and lyrics to songs no one else has ever heard of. He's slipped into this perfect world of depression where only his frowns feel right. The rawness of his cheeks scream stories in my face, and the stiffness of his arms around my shoulders are whispering his pain in my ear. On some deep plane of subconscious, I know how detached he has made himself but (at the same second) I want nothing more than to be his savior because he needs one, and I'm ready to play God.

- - -

This wasn't supposed to be about me.

- - -

Sound boy has lost that happiness I loved. His smiles are as hollow as his eyes, and I'm losing my faith in him. When will he finally step over that line? When will his forearms beg to be freed and his chest tear open; it won't be that singsong voice of his that escapes - but screaming, endless screaming. I'm watching him lose faith in himself, but all I can do is stand on that line and try to push him away.

- - -

Sound boy, darling, learn the words to your self-faith and sing them every morning and every night because you need them more than anyone I know, and we'd all miss you terribly if you ever stepped over that line.

Skipping Numbers Along The Way

Darling, you deserve so much more than smiles. You deserve for the entire world to smile at you forever, for it to sing you praises for simply living, and for it to mend your broken heart - because you're the one who always gets hurt. Worry for yourself first. I should come second, always and forever. You are already farther than I will ever be able to go.

- - -

This started as something pathetic and cliche and naive. It started as a child's rant, but it's grown somehow. I must have seen the little hearts in the I's and that innocent smile on my face. I should apologize a thousand times over for being so cruel to you.

- - -

I am allowed to keep secrets from you, right? Afterall, you keep secrets from me, right? I'm not a horrible best friend for thinking this way, right? You don't hate me, right? You still love me, right?

- - -

I'm so confused. I'm seeing things that aren't there, and I'm losing myself in this world I've built. You have my map somewhere, and you won't give it back. Did you burn it? Did you throw it out? Darling, why, oh why!, would you?

Losing Track Of The Numbers

There was a boy soaring higher than the airplanes with their metal wings. He could out fly any bird that graced the sky, and he never wasted a chance to race the shooting stars of space. His glorious wings were crafted of barbed wire and twisted metal, dead bolts and gold paint. He put the painted spaceships to shame. Stolen comet tails trailed behind the boy who raced stars and chased the sun back over the horizon every night. - - - 12.34AM --- Make A Wish Today I changed my entire view on life in the backseat of a car with The Beatles blaring and everyone screaming for someone to hit the brakes. You learn to love your life when you are a second from losing it - four times in the same night. - - - Simply put, I've gained a few realizations tonight. I learned a lot of things. I learned that destruction feels amazing. I realized that I am 100% myself at a show; I also realized that I can't control myself well in that kind of environment. I learned that screaming is the best noise to fall asleep to. I realized that the end result would be too painful to handle. I realized who I want to spend my free time with.

- - -

I want to crash asleep and kick in more windows so badly, at the same time. I've lost track of what number I was on, but I'm sure I'll figure it out somewhere between Jeanette and Monongahela.

Starting the Countdown

Spin off of the original. We should all be counting sheep? More like counting years - years until Claustrophobia doesn't mean anything and everyone gets dirty. I hope, for your sake, God doesn't see right through you. The transparent being. What a laugh. What a cry.

Why I would try this on a Sunday, I haven't a clue. Perhaps it's my subconscious trying to get me to confess, only I haven't anything to confess. Chris is telling me that everyone has something to confess, and I wonder if maybe my confession is living too freely. Could my pride really be my great sin, my great condemner? Is it wrong of me to be so proud?

Chris is telling me that sacraficing my happiness for eternal life is a coward's move. Am I prepared for this, this great opening of the skies and splitting of the ground? Would they : the angels and demons : fight for my ownership? I doubt it.

And so begins the countdown to the day of reckoning. I apologize for something so ridiculous.