Chameleon Face

Summer's dying fast. With it goes my bloodless fingers. I can't write anymore. Inspiration's scorched, talent's a burned-out house. Gaping windows make the eyes, dark holes leaking glass-shard tears.

"An eye for an eye as espied in the Bible,
My faith is lost to the burning of idols.
One less cross to press upon the survival
Of this lorded agony..."

She's leaving soon. When she goes, this place will cease to be a home. Too dramatic? I don't care. I thrive on dramatic thoughts, dramatic deeds, dramatic changes to the flesh and the fury nestled within. I scared someone I thought incapable of fear [save for the swelling of cold terror as it's found in situations of self-preservation]. It made me smile. It made my dark holes leak glass-shard tears. I wish he'd never told me. I wish I never knew. [Scared and lonely]. Oh, and the vine-feelings? Still here, still blooming, still uncurling thorns between my teeth. It's never, never. Never-ending? I suppose you could say that. It's time for me to lose. Wish the world would stop turning around. Wish I knew what I was supposed to feel, feel, feel numb. Look. Coherent sentences. Intelligible grammar. I must be feeling like being found out.

"No light nor reef,
No unsinkable romance keeps me
Safely from the stormy seas.
Now drowning, resounding...
Death-knells pound my dreams;
Unthinkable to dredge through this
Listless and lonely winter frieze..."

We are born like this. Hapless, helpless, blind babies suckling at the torrent of feelings afforded by our big brains. I am given to feelings. Given to the hurt and terror and sometimes-greatness of feelings. It's not what I took from you. It's not what I stole. Fuck. [I like that word]. I've decided against showing scars. If I showed, I would be known. No one knows me. I don't want anyone to know me. I don't want to be seen, to be heard, to be known. WAIT. I want to be heard. That's why we staged counter-protests against that people-haggling, abortion-denouncing, five-foot-aborted-fetus-sign-carrying son of a bitch, isn't it? That's why I counter-protested a gung-ho anti-abortion self-proclaimed pastor and his fanatic little church, isn't it? I argued until my throat was raw. I flaunted everything that inflamed them.

Take me all the way. I give up trying to remember. Forget I mentioned it.

I wait for you to take me under. Take me over. Here's the thing. I am breaking apart on the inside. I am losing my grip with reality. I am mixing synthetic things in a tumbler and taking them in silence. Just sleep. I promise I'll be there in the morning, despite my best efforts. Here's the thing. I am violently hurting myself with word-barbs. Here's the thing. I am shattered by everyone's best intentions. Can't you save me? Can't we talk about philosophy some more? Can't we read in the dark and [oh, this has got to stop. I am self-sufficient, but I pretend not to be.] Here's the thing. I AM [edit]. Wait. Scratch that. No one knows. Your poison girl is edgy, rusty, a wasted razorblade kiss, boy. If we love so that we know we're not alone, then I'm not alone, either. Don't doubt that. This throat's too full of insincerities to tell you outright...but you should know. I wrote for you. I tentatively reached out with a piece of paper comfort and hoped that you would be alright. I wanted to save you from that.

"There was nothing to fear. Nothing to doubt."

Convex

I am hurt.

I am afraid.

I am breaking.

You see, I'm not someone worth speakingtoseeingbeingwith ("nothing even matters, nothing even matters, nothing even matters, nothing even matters, nothing even matters"). I'm a disaster in a halo, the iris of an eye turned skyward for too long, the stitches (sutures-blacknylon-ouch-ouch-STOP) that dissolve when pressure forces the flesh apart. Nothing even matters. My sister, constantcompanion and bestfriendforever, leaves in a week for San Antonio. This is all my fault. My fault. All my PROBLEM, MY FAULT!

There's only enough money to keep one child (of five) in college. Guess who got that money? Now no one else (oh, fuckfuckfuck) has the opportunity to go to school after they graduate. My fault. Nothing even matters. Everyone leaves me. Everyone goes away after awhile.

Jake went away with a shotgun, filled with the sweet promises of chemical-voices in his head. Tony went away...just like Jake. Daddy went away because he couldn't handle me, or Manda, or Mom anymore. Bonnie went away with a shotgun, too, because she was afraid of being responsible. Nothing even matters. Look at how they went away. How they left me. Now Manda's going to leave me. LeavemeleavemeLEAVEMELEAVEMELEAVEME!

What am I going to do?

On the inside I'm really just fragile, and terrified, and wrong, stupid, weak, ugly, burning for attention but afraid to clinch the deal. Take me all the way, take me all the way. My knees are threatening to buckle with the weight of these thoughts, the burden (myself a burden) of opinions and ideas and the realization that I couldn't mean more than a whit to anyone. Vine-feelings coming. Oh. Oh. I will let you down.

Don'tlookatme. Don'tthinkthatIfeel. But I DO feel. I do. I promise I do. I was covered in darkness. No one attending. It doesn't really matter where it all began. Look at this. Depression has hit again. Do you know what it's like to struggle with depression?

It's all very poetic, the prodigal (hilarious) writer suffering from the intense, violent ups and downs that come without warning. I used to take my brother's Aterol (after he was diagnosed with ADHD). It helped some, some, some, not enough. I used to turn to other methods to cope. I think I may be committed soon for the habits I have now.

No, you're not alone. In anything. If thisthisTHIS can be accepted, I'll show you my scars. I won't laugh when you run. Everyone leaves. Remember?

Nevernever

Ever almost choked on a spool of words that you wanted to unwind with your tongue, but didn't have the courage needed to start the sewing? Ever thought that the reason behind your constant skin-changing (I alter appearances whenever it suits me...today is no different) had something to do with reinventing what was moldering, festering, breaking apart on the inside? Ever wonder what chemicals (roilingroilingbubbling...stop) were needed to assuage the flutter-winged fears that nevernever stop nibbling?

Through a river of tingle-feelings and fleshy weakness I often wander. You've removed the dam, the stopper, the precious build-up of cooldemeanor-quietpeoplestudying-conversationcontrol that has taken me (it's always me, it always hurts) years and years and (ice age coming) years to construct.

You can't shove me over the edge and expect me to fly. Push me more and hope that I don't snap. I can't (CAN'T) deal with it all at once (is it secret? is it safe?)...I can't be whatwhowhere you want just because you insist [stop] that I can.

I am becoming what I never wanted. I am delving into spaces too clear and cold for comfort. I am throwing out raw, genuine, terrifying phrases [thought-pieces] that I swore would never surface.

There's a sign in the window that complains of nearly-sated things. You'd (me, him, all of them) better be careful of the white glass kernels...I won't be held responsible when all that you believed to be true shatters ("frozen heart and a soul on fire). Oh. I'm so sick of attempting to relate on a truthful level (I want to repeat that word senselessly). I'm sick of this/thing/hurts.

"Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war?
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth...the weeping shores?"

I can't even breathe.

[Witty title]

What to do?

This summer is shaping up to be one of those extended moments that will forever hang in mind's eye like a pretty piece of colored glass. I'm confused, breathless, giddy, composed, cool, excited, wanting to run through a hall of ice holding fifteen sparklers and a piece of my mind.

Please have mercy. I can't take it anymore.

[At this point, the author feels remorse for whatever's causing the rotten-flesh smell in her room.]

I'm too lusty for my own good. Is that possible? Orgasms are nature's gift to those who toil and sweat -- to those that need a physical release when all else has failed. [I'm so silly.] If I could have a mind-orgasm...a word-language-poetry-induced orgasm...god. God, god, god. Oh. Blushing yet? I'm getting a little hot. There's something in the walls...it's creeping beneath this chair and slithering up my backbone. [So silly, this little girl.] I'm too lusty for my own good. I'll go to Hell for that sin (and ask politely if the Devil won't procure for me a lover). Intrusion. Deception. This song is worming it's way into what-I-want-to-say. I'm sorry. I know with this post and the last I'm attempting to write normally. But just for a little while, I promise. The wild thought-things will come when next I feel strongly some emotion or idea.

Oh. I need to make some more green tea. And dream extraordinary things. "Walked away, heard them say: poison hearts will never change..." What to listen to now?

[At this point the author decides to dream extraordinary things. ]

I wish my courage wasn't so dormant. I have a thousand things I want.need.wish to say to so many people. A few, in particular, are so very worthy of those words...but I haven't the solvent needed to unstick my tongue. I can talk big, walk big, look collected (am I beautiful? Think too much to be pretty, I thinkthinkthink), push people's buttons (gilt or plastic), shout with the rest of them. Hmm. This isn't turning out to be so extraordinary. "She's a cold porno dream in a mainstream romance..."

"Nothing even matters.
Nothing even matters.
Nothing even matters.
Nothing even matters.
Nothing even matters."

Miseryhead II

I've begun to re-evaluate everything.

I don't know what makes me happy anymore...I only know that such feelings flit through me like wind-born leaves across a grey-sky expanse. I'll admit that I enjoy it.

I don't know if I feel guilt acutely anymore...I only know that when I gave up Christianity, such feelings exited as stale blood through a leech-wound. I'll admit that I enjoy it.

I don't know if being strange is conducive to a socially-healthy existence...I only know that I am comforted in my oddity by others like myself. I'll admit that I enjoy it.

What comes as a shock to others is something that has clung (tenaciously) to the inside of my skull since this paltry measure of consciousness was created by one of my father's vivacious tadpoles and some bad common sense on my mother's part:

Guess what, dear family? I don't believe in God. I don't believe in Heaven, in Hell, in acting charitably so that I won't be punished by some raging inferno. I believe in behaving as I please, in taking responsibility for molding my own joys, sorrows, shortcomings and strengths. I am me, I am me, I am mememememe. I am who I am, and at times I love it. If I am considered 'outcast' or 'lover' by anyone matters little during those periods when I am strong. Such thoughts can break me when I'm weak -- but in these nineteen years of struggle.achieve.fail I've learned that I'll always get back up...I'll always glue myshatteredself together and I will always, always go on living.

What prompted this to-the-point careful re-shaping of ideas tonight? I don't know. I decided against letting disconnection and raw thought-material flow down the silly brain sluice. Notice that I almost let go near the end? I'm sorry. I was going to insert some catchy little phrase about how I've been thinking more and more about that make-me-smile-so-easily devil. Edgar and bush-greens...it made me happy. I was going to tell a certain boy-I-saved how much I'm thankful that he cut loose the anger that could have surged up (sentiment tsunami) after his hospital stay. I was going to grinning-ly hint at dominos with a tempt-me-smart-man. I was going to shout out loud to my behbeh that I missed her silly-sweet-you'nmearecrazy converse-ings...

...But I guess I'm tired. Did you know the moon is full and silvery-white and hung with trailers of night-sky mist? I wish I were in school again so that I could wander Greenwood Cemetary and write more wild, bad poetry. The other students look at me cock-eyed when I drift throught the never-closed wrought-black-iron gates -- but what do I care? I've got HIM, Ours, Switchblade Symphony, London After Midnight, Sigur Ros, Radiohead, and some green tea tonight to stave off depression.

Give me something to think about, now.

Ouch

I was locked inside my roomheadself for a long, long time yesterday. I stayed there until the night was past and early morning mutterings moved me to stare at an unblinking screen for a few hours from the solitary position I'd taken up on my worn red throne. Worn red throne. What I mean by that is a mystery, a word-doppleganger, a little secret limned in neon lights that's really tootootootoo easy to understand. I'm trying here. Catch that? I'm attempting to water down the cryptic contents of my brain in the hopes that someone will delineate what, exactly, makes me tickbreathe.screamcry.laughlust - oh, this speaking normally isn't working, is it? I'm rolling around in these run-on sentences and I'm laughing at the disgusting grammar murders I'm committing here...the serial slayings of the things that hold order for me in my world of musty-smelling books, yellowing pages, and faded photograph faces that peer out (with little black beetle eyes) from the creases created by the pressure in my pockets.

I remember finding an old picture in the pages (dirty insides, tangled with try-to-be professional entries) of a book that promised to explain the brain and all of its sicknesses. I was floating in waves of pink and green fabric, worn from countworthmind-less others who'd haunted the corner before me. I remember that being there was a precursor to the things that I'm feeling now, even though I had no idea what was to come, what had been, what would be. Be, be, be. I don't want to be anything for anybody at anytime anywhere. Any. Catch that? I dreamed last night. I don't like to dream much now...I loathe the free-wheeling, rampant, random (in-kingdom) paintings contructed there in my head at night (when the bedbugs bite). I saw a jihn out of proportion in tiny spikes of grass, I saw a poisoned girl all curly and blonde, I saw no more maybe's.

My eyes.

"Nothing even matters
Nothing even matters
Nothing even matters
Nothing even matters
Nothing even matters
Nothing even matters."

I'm a bump on the head, a bite on the neck...obviously she's got it all wrong-untogether-sadsadsadsad-I don't know what to say right now about anything. Seizures in my fingers keep making me type, seizures in my skin keep making me feel...I WANT YOU TO KNOW WHAT I'M FEELING.

But I can't. Can't speak. Don't have the words (they've betrayed me, betrayed me), don't have the energy. I want to tell you, speak, converse, debate, crycrylonelyinsidebutnotbleedingnowforyoubecauseitwasrequested. Oh, I'm so disgusting sometimes. So pathetic. My eyes. Oh, my eyes.

Malebolge

Ours. Ours. Jimmy Gnecco and his shivering voice make me want to curl up and create such art. Such art. Ours. Haunting band -- haunting songs. "Distorted Lullabies" is the album that sings of my life, my biography, mymymymy me. "Sour" is profound, political, cutting, true. "Kill The Band" is a blue-nailed hand that points in a new direction...new direction towards which to walk backwards. Ours. Oh, god. Everything to me.

"Now it's pushed upon me...
It might not breathe --
But it might harm me, stuck inside;
My brains blown out again...
Trust is dead."

I have nothing to say. Nothing to bleed. Nothing to show for the intense, intricate patterns burned into an emotional garbage heap that has been polluting the bone-dry caves behind my gaze for a month. Good morning day. The sun is there. I can't see the light for fear of putting out the waterfall that invariably drenches the wormholes that have developed in the pit of my stomach. I want to [disgussssst]. You. Get that? I am covered in the stench of a million lies, a thousand smouldering desires, ten billion rotten (longing) second-looks. I surely waste away, what with the 'wait for you to take me all the way, wait, wait, take me, all the way? All the way...take me.' Yes. Catch the secret yet?

"Feed from their eyes,
Dream you're alive...
And feel...feel.
The beast flies tonight,
And the world he describes
Suffers, suffers."

Do I ever write anything that anyone can understand? Is there a sentence that comes out of my mouth, these hands (oh, how they hurt now), this wriggling pink brain of mine that doesn't need to be decoded, analyzed, inspected, dissected, twisted, drawn tight across the conscience? Perhaps I'm a reborn project de Da Vinci. Tether me to a mirror and see if my character is shown (true and real) upon that melted sand like mangrove roots on death-still river water. Try it. Get that? Understand it now? Am I making sense?

...Of course not. I'm nonsensical syllables arranged into a pretty pattern that hides in the folds of a great burlap tongue. Don't shoot to kill. Such sparkling colors on those feathers. Just wait, though. Everything turns grey in the absence of me. In the void created by shed feathers. I'd like to make sense to you. I really would. But continuous streams of thought assail me now (even as I write this), and to impart those tangential images is like sugar in my mouth. I can't [for]/[thelifeofme] speak like noun-verb-adjective.

Tell me: is this a problem? No, second thought (look at that 't.' Does it mean anything to you, or am I backing far further into this thought-scape than I intended?)...don't tell me. Just tell me in three words what is beautiful and terrifying and scarring. I love words. The number three is significant. Just ask 'Don't waste your touch...you won't feel anything. Or were you sent to save me?' He knows. He knows far too much. Ever wonder how much I know? Oh, I don't know a thing...save for the fact Naucratis was an ancient Greek city and that I loathe everything related to synthetic chemicals imbibed for the sole purpose of altering a state of mind. Chemicalssubscriptnumberpostscriptpostmortemrigormortis...and he's dead. Oh, the injustice of it all. I want to eat a fistful of heroin and a fingertip dipped in demerol. Then. Thenthenthen.

Now I'm rambling. Shine that light over here. She may be breathing. Tell me, won't you?

Struggleagainstmyself

"Erupt again, ignore the pill...and I won't let it show.
Sacrifice the tortures, orchestral tear cash-flow.
Increase, delete, escape, defeat -- it's all the matters to you.
[Cotton case for an iron pill.]

E-motion sickness,
[To idle with an idol.]
E-motion sickness...
Addict with no heroine --
[Corrosive head-pollution.]"

I always thought I could captain myself. 'This one here, she won't run aground on foreign shores where emotions like blast-propelled lead buttons pit the skin and bite into the eyes.' The term "crushing blow" can be applied to that which transcends the physical, you know. Crushingblowcrushingblowohlookwhatyou'vedonenow. I've never had conversations that lasted until the light shone through my window. The last time I was awake when little grey birds sang, I was attempting to decipher the meaning of a four-part tattoo on the back of a sensitive mistake. Oh. I was crippled by words. I see in words, feel in words, taste in words. Sometimes I see tree-shadows and streetlights and sharp edges (that's what I said, wasn't it? I thought it was a beautiful string of images...). Sometimes I feel pages on my insides, vellum leaves covered in thick layers of afraidexcitedstrangealivehappysad. Sometimes I taste the word 'self-deprecation,' and sometimes I taste the words 'a maelstrom of unconnected thoughts ending in my too-soon descent.'

Sometimes, sometimes, oh sometimes I want to kill the vine-feelings.

"Imagine pageant,
In my head the flesh seems thicker;
Sandpaper tears corrode the film...
And I need you now somehow.

...Open fire on the needs designed."

I was rushed headlong through the hospital corridors covered in the vein-juice of confidence and control. In the blink of an eye, there was no one attending. No one attending. It doesn't really matter where it all began -- all I know is that I was covered in darkness. Covered in the vein-juice of a little girl's strengths dissolved by her natural (acidic) tendency to forget and bow down. Look at me rambling. No one can decipher this mess of language and thought-strings, you silly thing.

Please decipher me. I'm getting tangled in myself.

Passing storm...

Everybody's angry. Feel it like perfectly-shattered shards of recompense. I am like the burned out sky. I can't help but wonder...why me? Why this empty bottle of brains? Why this heavy lock of loneliness? But I am tinsel-thin and floating on all of these marks...so the answers don't really matter, now do they? Keep nailing me together; I'll keep falling apart.

"We held hands on the last night on earth. Our mouths filled with dust, we kissed in the fields and under trees, screaming like dogs, bleeding dark into the leaves. It was empty on the edge of town but we knew everyone floated along the bottom of the river. So we walked through the waste where the road curved into the sea and the shattered seasons lay, and the bitter smell of burning was on you like a disease. In our cancer of passion you said, "Death is a midnight runner." The sky had come crashing down like the news of an intimate suicide. We picked up the shards and formed them into shapes of stars that wore like an antique wedding dress. The echoes of the past broke the hearts of the unborn as the ferris wheel silently slowed to a stop. The few insects skittered away in hopes of a better pastime. I kissed you at the apex of the maelstrom and asked if you would accompany me in a quick fall, but you made me realize that my ticket wasn't good for two. I rode alone. You said, "The cinders are falling like snow." There is poetry in despair, and we sang with unrivaled beauty, bitter elegies of savagery and eloquence. Of blue and grey. Strange, we ran down desperate streets and carved our names in the flesh of the city. The sun has stagnated somewhere beyond the rim of the horizon and the darkness is a mystery of curves and lines. Still, we lay under the emptiness and drifted slowly outward, and somewhere in the wilderness we found salvation scratched into the earth like a message."

"If I were..."

If I were a month I would be: July. Sultry, velvet nights worth traipsing through...
If I were a day of the week I would be: Sunday. To work on this day is a 'sin,' and I do love to add my silk to the web of evil.
If I were a time of day I would be: Nine o'clock at night -- time for twilight, smears of red and orange on the horizon, and smoky silhouettes.
If I were a planet I would be: An extrasolar body radiant with undiscovered heat.
If I were a sea animal I would be: Something epipelagic. A porpoise, maybe.
If I were a direction I would be: Left.
If I were a piece of furniture I would be: A red silk chaise lounge.
If I were a sin I would be: Lust.
If I were a historical figure I would be: Eleanora di Toledo
If I were a liquid I would be: Laudanum.
If I were a tree I would be: A cypress tree hung with Spanish moss.
If I were a flower/plant I would be: A bleeding heart.
If I were a kind of weather I would be: Rain. Of any sort.
If I were an instrument I would be: A fleshpot.
If I were an animal I would be: A cat. A sphynx.
If I were a color I would be: Grey. So many things that I love are grey...
If I were a vegetable I would be: A radish.
If I were a sound I would be: The notes from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony seamlessly meshed into a single sound.
If I were an element I would be: The element of surprise.
If I were a car I would be: I hate rumbling machinery.
If I were a movie I would be directed by: Tim Burton.
If I were a book I would be written by: Anne Rice.
If I were a food I would be: Whatever sates the wicked.
If I were a place I would be: A Gallic forest.
If I were a material I would be: Linen.
If I were a taste I would be: The bitterness of defeat.
If I were a scent I would be: Rain-soaked pavement.
If I were a word I would be: Incomplete.
If I were an object I would be: Rather vague, hmm?
If I were a body part I would be: An eye...window to the soul, you know.

Untouchable

Be careful.

I want to lash out with everything that I have.

I'm too tired, though. Too bent by conscience, too exhausted from the constant carrying of emotions that were probably never meant for me.

Oh, dammit.

I'm sick of censoring myself. I'm tired of holding back when (clearly) I should be exploding, should be demanding thoughts, should be asking sharp questions designed to cut.

Be careful.

Work has sapped me of everything. Wit, energy, patience, social tolerance. If my aversion to people was surprising before...it's absolutely shocking now. I don't want to see anyone I haven't bargained for, and I don't want to play the amiable (malleable) girl everyone can get along with. You don't like it? Regrettably, then, I ask that you fuck off.

"Now it seems you're leaving,
But we've only just begun...
And you've still got nowhere else to go,
So I wait for you to
Take me all the way...
Take me all the way."

I wish I could get away from all of this. I can't wait for school to start again. I can't wait to leave, to be independent and a shadow and a people-observer again. Coming back home to live for the summer sounded relaxing at first -- it sounded good when I was buried under fifteen tons of notes and a week's worth of final exams. But now, with the amount of drama and ache that I've immersed myself in...with the staggering number of things that have changed, with the minute tweaks and patches I've applied to myself and my personality...I'm not sure if coming home was a good idea at all.

There have been a thousand promised made to me. They've been broken.
There have been a thousand affections poured upon me. I'm parched now without them.
There have been a thousand thoughts wheeling through me. They've disintegrated.

Want to know a secret? Be careful. I've a thousand secrets to tell. Let me show you:

I am not expendable.
I am not subject to your whims.
I am not always cool, collected, and witty.
I am not anti-social...I'm anti-people.
I like the tender undersides of individuals.
Facades make me sick.
I've lied to you. I've lied through my teeth.
I like to worm my way into your head. When I'm finished, I'll worm my way out.
I am desperate, powerless, weak, and ravenous. Over you.
I am frail. Handle me delicately.
I like decadence, degradation, shooting pain, and dull aches.
If I could self-medicate against consciousness, I would.

Oh, and you thought you knew me...

"White trash, get down on your knees..."

Sick of everybody.

Sick of being pulled one way and then the other. Sick of being twisted up, turned around, lied to, emotionally played with, conquered by the most base of sentiments. Sick of everything. Sick of everybody. I always thought I was better than this...but temptation tempts the tempting, and I like the way you move in the dark. I like the tension and the spark.

"Life's not meant to be disposable...
Lost. Found. Dead.
Ready and willing,
Can't stop the bleeding;
Life's not meant to be expendable...
Rain. Sun. Gone.
Left robbed, unwilling --
Can't fight the feeling;
So low.
Overwhelming.
Clinging to a tragedy
So clear,
Hear weeping voices --
Tears fall in the dark.
Feels like I'm caving in from the outside...
So lost. So gone. So wrong."

I don't get it. What am I worth? A source of comfort when bored? A game to play when the other kids have gone home? I don't get it. Thorns uncurling between my teeth again. I just don't understand. What do I want?

"Am I so unlovable?
Is my skin untouchable?
Do I remind you of a part of you that you don't like?"

I have been quietly etching away at the glass mask that encapsules the inner ugliness associated with my deception. I have been silently picking at the brown-red scabs garnered from a quick fall from faith...as per my poor Christian cognomen's suggestion. I bruised my knees when I touched down. Kiss my owies with your acidic lips. I won't cry when it burns.

I had to grow up fast. Too much pressure building within this little plastic doll. Soon I'll burst; soon you'll lose interest. Soon you'll go to the store, clutching pennies, ogling the other cellophane-wrapped treasures...pick out another. And another. And another. What does it matter if my painted eyes leak tears? Others can do that for you, in your name, for the pain you endure. We'll always have our secrets. Those you can't throw away. They're non-recyclable.

I'd like to be non-recyclable, but the confusion you heap on me is too much to move beneath. Stick to a pattern of conduct, soldier. I like the tension and the spark.

Ich kann es mir nicht aus den Rippen schneiden.