la_sauvagine

and the elephant has gone missing.

there was a large group of the good people, and a large group of the bad people. there were more reasons as to why they were good and why they were bad, little, probably political reasons.

in the good people group, theres me, theres jim, kristy and bob, then theres a large collection of other people, some from tv shows some that i know in real life. in our group theres two babies - twins, about five months old, tiny little girls with downy blonde hair, and a toddler. all babies are spitting images of me when i was that age, and the toddlers name is kyla, as there was something about all three babies really needing to make it out alive, and that was our groups main goal.

the bad people were slowly killing us off, using more and more secretive methods. one member of the group was posioned, another had a burning, debilitating substance carved into her back using a hollow knife, and they carved the peace symbol which swelled up and got into her bloodstream, acting like snake venom to slowly shut down her body systems. many were shot down on sight, and a few were killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and happened to be on their own for a moment. in the dream i became whoever was being killed, thats how i know how they all died.

jim and bob had been taken away from us a long time ago, they werent dead, they had been tranformed into little finches and kept in the bad peoples warehouse. they could still communicate with eachother so they kept both of them in seperate rooms so they could not work out together how to escape. jim was a purple finch, with a bright red head and chest that changes to drab colors on his body, and bob was a yellow striped finch, but with black tips to his feathers.

our group of maybe two dozen was dwindled down to four or five, and the three babies. we were sitting in an abandoned coffee house hiding out for the moment (this abandoned coffee house was the safe point, those bad people didn't know that we were using it,) with the two babies laying on their stomachs on the table and their mother sitting in the chair next to them, steadying them with her hands. the babies were gurgling and happy, the mom was exhaused and scared. the other people around me were strangers to me, i don't know where kristy had gone but she hadnt died.

the toddler wandered ofer to the end of the table and just stared at those babies. apparently the toddler never spoke a word ever. she stood and looked at those babies and it seemed like she was having some very deep thinking going on, but as she was mute i don't know what it was. and i really wanted to know, since the toddler was also me.

one person was killed when they brought in an elephant to trample him. an earthquake happened, and many people were killed by falling rocks. my dad was captured and probably killed when men came to force him to clean the pool, which had some chemical poured in it that ate away at your skin at an alarming pace. i tried to stop him getting in the pool and he wouldn't, he didnt know what they had done and i couldnt tell him, i had a stuffed nose and couldnt talk through my mouth because i couldnt breathe through my nose while talking.

we sat in our safe house coffee shop and came up with a plan to get us, the boys who were now finches, and the babies out alive. we knew that on the other side of the warehouse/garage was the rest of the world, and that we would be safe if we could get through the warehouse with everybody and get far enough away, we couldnt be caught again. we bundled up the babies tight in makeshift baby slings, one to their mothers chest, the other to another womans chest, somebody took the toddler in their arms, and we snuck down to the warehouse.

we saw that the doors were open and there was birdcages and birdcages and birdcages all stacked up inside the warehouse, kristy found bobs cage and took it, and in the next room over i found jims cage and took it. the crazy elephant that was used for trampling was hanging out in a makeshift stall in another room, worknig his way through a bale of hay. bad people were all around the place, but they didnt know we were here.

we made our way to the back of the warehouse, then got out the other side and made a run for it. it was hard for me to run with the birdcage, so i opened it and took out the little red finch, which then became plastic wrapped and he couldnt flap his wings. bob was not plastic wrapped, and kristy had a much smaller cage than i had, so she was able to carry bob safely. i had something else in my other hand as well that was slowing me down but that i could not drop, although i don't know what it was now.

the bad people had noticed, of course, that we were getting away, and they had archers in the woods in the direction we were running to ready for such an escape, and they called them down on us, as well as having gunmen come out of the warehouse behind us. if we kept moving we would be okay though.

that tiny red bird was just a delicate handful of feathers and i had to be very conscious not to crush him. with two things in my hands i suddendly cold not run fast anymore (this is a common thing in my dreams- having both hands full makes me incapable of moving quickly anymore) and i dropped jim, and he squaked very angrily and tried to fly but his wings were bound to his body. i said "oh no i dropped my bird! i dropped my bird!" and stopped to check around me on the ground. some other people came back to me saying, "what happened?" - "i can't find my bird, i cant find my bird!"

I knew if i stayed i would die, but if i left him he would die. the ground was grey paving that was goopy and sticky like silly putty, and people were parting it with their fingers to search below the surface.

they stayed to help me to look, each one of them getting shot down. i wandered around saying stupidly over and over, "i cant find my bird, i can't find my bird!" while everybody died.

i forced myself to wake up and found that i was already crying, hurting like all those people had just died. my brain still repeating 'i cant find my bird!' through my head over and over.

i turned over and tucked my head into the crook of his neck, and before long he is awake asking me whats wrong, what happened and getting more and more worried when i can't yet answer. just needed him to talk, to see his eyes open and tuck myself into his body to feel his warmth and his heart beating away steadily, not being dead. needed to reassure myself, in my just-pulled-myself-out-of-the-deep-sleep confusion, that everything was okay. didnt stop crying for a long time, couldnt go back to sleep.

____________________________________________

this is almost exactly what the boys looked like:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3234/2445872065_154514f959.jpg
http://www.antpitta.com/images/photos/finches/Yellow-striped-Brush-Finch.jpg

just soaked in sweat.

thinking how i can get out of this apartment, stay outside and awake all night. there is a liberating aspect to knowing that nobody knows where you are - having the power to remove yourself from the map entirely. swing in the park all night long, no more messing up.

I could see us not making it, actually. i am aware that i may never be able to forgive you.

we tend to not go to close to the subject.

excited because things are getting fixed. I imagine them to be scooped out, all tar-like and dripping rot, with a melon scoop. I don't know why a melon scoop.

stinky, stinky thrush anxiety.

she said make a list of everything that makes you anxious, make a list of everything that feeds your demons, number them from 1 - 10 for how anxious they make you, and we'll start to tackle them one at a time. we will start to pluck them out of your brain, wiggle their little fingers off of your neurons, smooth your hair and tell you it will be okay.

I am overjoyed this is finally happening. it is great relief - I will be able to talk soon.

-cramps on and off about halfway through cycle,
-completely new, never felt before shooting pain about four days later.
-if throwing up was a 10, my sick-feeling level is at a 1 or 2, more in the early morning and late at night.
-parmesan cheese, one of my favourites, taste like soap.

I love you I love you I love you

yelled at twice. makes me shut down, pull everything back inside. step quietly, move slower, jump if you touch me. i can't think of why i was yelled at, it doesn't seem to make sense with what i was trying to explain. explaining things means that nobody has to yell at all - if i explain you arent supposed to yell. stare out the window, sit on the kitchen floor trying to figure out exactly what i did that was bad. what did i do wrong that made yelling happen, i dont know what i said or did. one of those overwhelming tides of guilt - must have done something wrong somewhere.

do it again - i dare you. i know which plate i will break. i know exaclty how it will go - put down the cloth, gently and quite deliberately slide the clean plate, not even properly dried, to the edge of the counter and off. i know the noise it will make, i know how the peices will fly, spin across the floor in all directions. i know you will stop yelling, that everything will calm down.

i love my red lines so much. i love knowing i have something that can bring on such a thick, calm wave of peace. in the middle of everything, cant go to school, cant get out of bed, cant explain myself cant answer your questions or be touched or make eye contact. there is always a way to make it calm down, make you calm down.

pack all the bad up nicely into a little package, stored away in my head somewhere and try to pretend its untouchable. those things you tell yourself never to tell yourself.  draw a few lines safely out of sight, queue the lying, and mainly I'm allowing you to continue on with the day you had planned out before you met me. somehow i am the only one who can't get out of this, looking for somebody to blame.

i have never felt so completely ashamed of my body before - wake up with the demons waving to me, handing over a new thought, 'remember you were told this? and this? and then somebody said this?...." no doubt twisted around in some way to hurt the most. an instinct to be covered up - grab the closest clothes, baggy sweater, yesterdays jeans, throw them on the dark. disgusted that if i sit up some part of me may be seen. thinking this is out of hand, as my first reaction to the blanket sliding off was to double over to hide, god forbid he saw such a terrible body. remove self from bed - disgusted that if i stay there some part may be touched. demons chuckle.

still being haunted. i know eventually they die becuase even if they want to turn around, their bodies have long since stopped producing the enzymes to handle food. haunted right back into it.

time and time again i come to the conclusion that you are just lying. its so simple and straightforward - i can see so clearly that you are lying. demons are so happy to have created some new entertainment for themselves.




just get a fucking new one already.

i wonder how long you'll put up with me.

dont make me those promises. you already made the same promises to another person and those fell through. why should i trust them now.

girls are trouble - its what i hear the boys saying, jokingly. girls are trouble - its just the words of wisdom that they always fall back on. it donest mean anytihng to them.

one hour into thursday.  i am having a painting break from the world. i am making a nice beach for my mom to put up on her wall.

girls are trouble? really? but cant they be good too?

i realized suddenly that I've always heard this - girls are trouble since we started to define the difference between males and females in grade six. all females everywhere are just lumped together here. we are too much effort, we are confusing, we are difficult. well fuck you too.

then i decided i wasnt going to put with that. i don't like being referred to as trouble, okay? it just makes me try really hard to be somebody else. makes me feel like no matter what i do i just cant get myself past being a rather annoying person that boys just put up with becuase they feel obligated. i dont particualry like causing trouble for other people, so when i keep hearing how much trouble all girls are it just feels like theres nothing i can do about it - all persons with that double x chromosome are doomed from the start. from the serpent and the pear and that happy, ignorant garden.

dont keep telling me i am too much trouble, i dont need that. i dont care if youre all joking. we are not too much trouble, dont keep me in that mindset.

if you keep telling me this i will be afraid to come to you on my bad days.

next time i hear it i am telling them off.





i love you, 1 in the morning. i love you, quiet rainstorm and open windows.

dear world, i am the goddess of awesome. not trouble - got that? not the goddess of trouble. goddess of awesome, thank you very much.

little green star, i am not trouble. remember that when i need to hear it back again, okay? okay.

"i might talk to you later. i feel like betraying my girlfriends trust in any case. really, it seems like a brilliant idea all round. cant think of why it hasn't come up before."

that email again: it was my cricket aquarium. it didnt smash. i needed her to smash it.

and happy belated birthday, while we're still at it. think of where you happily could have been had i not shown up.

took the dog out for the longest walk of her life. walked past your house. i know the number cause we stopped in the dark in the car once to look at it, loud boys all around, he's making stupid painful comments about how funny it would be if he walked up and said hello. it would not.  i burned 303 into my brain for safe keeping.

then we turned out to be living two streets over. thats walking distance. when we moved here i had a puppy in the plan, and promised myself that one day i would make that walk just to see. to see what it felt like, what it looked like, what my reaction was.

you cant see it from the grocery store. you have to walk south for a while. nobody knows where i am going, garnet is tired and keeps sitting down to rest. nobody has to know, i can remain absolutely silent and safe in my own head and do things on my own that i dont feel i need to share. walk places to see things that i never have to share. i dont even have to go, i dont even have to look. but i knew i would becuase it was late july when i made the plan and i couldnt go back having not accomplished it.

counting up from the 270's, pick up garnet to pass by an elderly poodle and its human boy out for a walk going the other direction. cross the same street twice when i realize i wasnt quite ready to see yet. count up slowly, through the 290's then at 300 turn my head so i dont have to see it yet.

me and the dog linger outside this tiny run-down place, using the excuse of complete ignorance and garnet sniffing around to pause and think for a moment.

how many times did your car pull in this driveway? how many times did you knock on the door, get greeted by a hug and a quick story of an update of the moment. how many times did you stay for dinner, cook together, or get back in the car and go out.

how many sweaters did you leave behind at this house. how many times did you both cry here. how many times did you hide out til late at night to get the most time you could out of eachother. how many fights. how many hurt feelings, how many good memories.

i cant top your best ever. im stuck in this mindset - i was told i couldnt do it. eventually i gave in. i cannot top your best ever.

it doesnt really matter what you tell me, i am stubbornly convinced you jsut settled for a plan b, the best is over and done with and you live in memory, wondering if it will ever come back. its a pretty big hole to fill in and i find myself trying to do it constantly. you made promises and plans with her that now you are making with me and i dont want to hear them they make me shy away. didnt work last time, what makes you think you could mamage it this time? i cannot top best ever. im fed up of feeling like im expected to.

and its not true. none of it.

its helpful when you can just be a normal, regular human being. somebody who goes to school and goes to the grocery store and goes out with friends. somebody who has lived in this house, with this lawn, these windows, this big tree. somebody who doesnt know that i am standing on your sidewalk, that doesnt know my dog is sniffing at your lawn. it gives me a sense of freedom from this, and makes things feel a bit more equal.

im pretty sure my anxietys long term goal is to remove me entirely from all of this. i mean entirely. no its not that bad yet, and yes i know what its trying to do so i can catch it ahead of time. but i am scared that if it got that bad would i be so far in i wouldnt bother to try to tell it it was lying anymore.

a few plots up theres a woman standing stock-still outside a small sanctuary, staring at the virgin mary through a metal gate. the virgin is shut in for the day, visiting hours are over but you can still see her. i reel garnet in so the woman is not disturbed by a dog jumping up on her legs. silently wish us both luck as i walk behind her, for whatever it is that brought her out here to visit mary that day.

not sleeping well for over a week now. this is having serious impacts. my demons are jumping on me quite frequently now.

i fed her, maybe she will have one of thsoe two-hour long naps so i can as well.

queue regression.

out of the blue. i thought "maybe i will check...." and then right back where i started, sifting through crap for hours on end. it is 10 in the morning i have done notihng i have a project due and some major exams happening.

held out for a long time. ive been happy for a long time.

i dont forgive you today. i dont forgive you for making this hurt so much - and right now i dont care if knowing that hurts you at all. sometimes i hope it does becuase sometimes i feel like its the only way to get you to take it seriously.

goodbye productive day.





and honestly i dont think you would miss me that much. prehaps this is red flag behaviour.

negative nancy, chatty cathy.

names names names.

things i will hold onto, remembering when and who decided i was being a pain in the ass.  either im not talking enough for your liking, or i am being cynical ALL THE TIME.

i try to tell myself its not my fault if people feel that i dont live up to their expectations - theyre the ones who set them.

kristy takes so much energy. every three seconds i have to tell her im not mad at her, let her know im not  a complete dick - becuase she decides what i am feeling before my brain has even got a chance to spread mood-making chemicals around my body. she decides i am angry eighty-four billion times every time i talk to her, and in truth i rarely get angry at all.

she is too much like my cousin sometimes in that respect. i have very limited tolerance for people who decide my emotions for themselves without actually knowing me properly, and sticking with it so that i have to explain myself over and over. i shouldnt have to justify that im not mad at anyone or anything every other sentence.




i dont want to go to london. i dont want a weekend of having to explain myself, feeling like i need to play along to keep people happy.

i want a thunderstorm.

or a cricket aquarium.

something to smash somewhere.

i would prefer to feel like something special, not something recycled.

a waste of a blue morning.

i wasted yesterdays - slept through it. show me a day when they world wasnt new.  i woke up and thought 'oh i am awake early enough i could go to the market with bernie,' and realized this wasnt a scary idea, entertained it for awhile in my head and then stupidly traded it in for more sleep. i prefer to get up once i am awake - its daylight outside, why waste the day trying to get back to sleep?
 
i find i am needing less and less sleep as i inch my way out of teenagerhood. those teenager jokes only have five days left. just five, single days. then they have to stop.

i got some work done, but theres not much i can do without my textbook really. even just my notes would have been good.

and i am on loop again, thinking myself into a corner.

i hate waiting. theres things i want to do but i have to wait, have to rely on other people. cant go home yet, jim needs to be awake first. cant start these pictures yet, need to get the photos and the paper. cant get this paper done, need toget my textbook, check a few things, need to wait wait wait. cant do this, have to wait for somebody to do that, cnat do this, have to wait for something else.

held back all the time. i am much better at always being on the go. i understand that of course other peoples first priorities are not my schedule but their own, but its frustrating to be held back  on things that rely on their actions first.

and so i am filling up the space myself - and now cornered in my own head.