look at all the lonely people.

I have hidden myself away, in an abandoned corner of a crowded location. I have nothing but my calculating eyes and delicately flavored iced tea. My new secret place is hidden by shadows, and the foliage of an imitation tree to keep me concealed from the apparent glances out of the corners of curious eyes.

Every face I examine carefully. I see fake smiles for awkward conversations and frustrated eyes at wayward children. I hear too-high laughter from large gaping mouths and caffeine induced chatter that bounces off the walls and then comes back to slap me in the face. I smell in the air through the rustling of newly purchased attire the stench of pheromones, fake flowers, and nervous sweat.

I feel such a weight on me.

After some time I have begun to see what I hadn’t before.

Their behavior is not random. They are not flitting about aimlessly, but they each dance, with a precise action individualized for everything.

It is hauntingly mechanical. I watch the people as a whole, rather than individualizing, and I find that I am able to recognize the delicate balance, and almost graceful shifting of the waltz of human kind. Every person – according to their self-made identity status – holds and carries themselves the same way as everyone else in their same specified category. Every flirting woman goes through the same motions in the way she tilts her head, tosses her mane of hair, and stands with the same effort at nonchalance. Each conceited boy kicks his head back to scoff, walks with the same arrogant saunter, and sneers with the same better-than-thou attitude.

Where did they learn the steps to this infinite dance?

I am beginning to think that there must have been classes taught that I missed, or a brochure handed out that I accidentally threw away without reading, or perhaps I was just forgotten altogether.

There is a man that catches my eyes. At first I thought that I knew him; there was something about him that radiated familiarity, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. He stood with his chin tilted up, the corner of his mouth curled as he looked across his kingdom and subjects; his friends look to him for consent to induce their every action as they seek for his approval. To them, he is God.

He frightens me.

I know now what I recognize in him. A glimpse into my dark past, that only prayer and time will erase from my mind.

I sink back as far as I can into the corner, my back pressed hard against the cold brick.

Someone has caught his eye. He nods his head at an awkward looking teenager sitting alone at a table and says something to his friends who all turn to laugh raucously. They must have recognized the young man from somewhere, because no stranger could be a victim to such mocking behavior.

I turned to better pay attention to the prey. He was hunched as low to the floor as you are physically capable to in a chair, with a plate full of sandwiches in front of him, and one that was held in both hands, half inhaled, pushed close to his face. He pretended not to see them, but I knew he was faking. There was something so well-known to me about him. I watched him push his hair into his eyes and tilt his head almost imperceptibly to watch them. He sunk even lower; his long legs and boney knees hitting the underside of the table.

I knew how it felt to be in his shoes.

The jeering crowd – not obtaining the expected response – soon after left the vicinity; and once out of sight the boy shot out of the room as fast as his lanky body could carry him.

I know that feeling all too well.

I have begun to see that the world is filled with people like the one from my past, which seek out those who, for whatever reason, are profoundly cut off from the human race. These are people, like me, that are unable to form or maintain any kind of relationship. However they crave social contact nonetheless; they hang around the periphery of normal human activity.

I hadn’t come to this understanding until just now, thinking only of the perks to being a wallflower; but I too am a part of this dance.

I can see them sometimes if I am looking for them; my kind; the abandoned souls, the broken hearted and the deep intellectuals. They walk tentatively around shopping centers, eat alone in diners, they hide behind books or laptop monitors in Starbucks and wander the walkways of the school in solitude – they survive off of the residual energy of other people’s lives. Relationships for these people are typically only superficial encounters with tip starved waiters and polite classmates, friendly teachers and kind-hearted librarians, bubbly women or cheeky men who, trying to feel better about themselves, toss them two minutes of self-centered conversation while waiting in line for caramel lattes.

I feel so much pity for that boy, because he could eat a mountain of sandwiches, but the truth is, he was trying to satisfy a hunger that no amount of food could ever sate.

~C

i don't belong in this grey world.

The skies here are turned to a dusty grey color; solid wall of emptiness and lack of change. It causes me to imagine that outside the mist is not at all a large expanse of an entire universe of undiscovered beauty, but that we are indeed trapped inside of an insignificant opaque marble that rolls around and around.

Like when you were a child and marbles could be anything to you – a treasure long ago forgotten, magic to heal wounds or make you fly, a secret. Nobody ever wanted the plain grey one. And to imagine that the one lying untouched and discarded is all of humanity. Where, if you were to only break through the thin layer of clouds, you will find thriving life; complaining, worrying, hurting, working, laughing, crying and feeling.

What I feel right now, is so very small.

But to push past the imaginary and the idealism, I have discovered through my travels down the road, there such things as little worlds like the marble earth. These worlds live inside of people. They are so much bigger on the inside. As total universes, they think big things, and dream big dreams. They love so deeply, feel so ardently, hurt so desperately, and can cause change enough to move entire nations if their passion is as intense as their desire.

I work to achieve that desire – that motivation to make the thoughts in your head the reality. I have the enthusiasm, I have the dreams, I have the ideas and the intelligence, and the capability.

I need to believe in myself. But I oftentimes can’t even muster up enough motivation to do even that.

I am so passionate, so filled with romanticist tendencies. I am trapped as a wanderer; a homeless traveler to drift with only the craving of discovery through the vastness of my mind; to run my fingertips over tall grass in a secret meadow, to swing on rope swings in lush gardens, to get lost in forests of mist and moss.

Sadly, there are no editions of the current dictionary that I could use as reference to explain my confinement any better. I could never begin to perfectly and accurately communicate the way I feel. If only I could open my chest, like lifting a boulder, and show you all of the worms and rotting bits of my insides; that you might nod your head and say, “oh! Now I see” and really truly understand. But I cannot. I am incompetent in this manner.

I bring this up only because it has been on my mind a great deal this week, for several different reasons.

1. I lost someone that I might have been able to love this week because I am not like everyone else – specifically a woman who thinks much, talks more, understands greatly, listens often, and in short – is your typical run of the mill “attractive” female. You know the type that every guy dreams of: The ones that play volleyball and softball that looks sexy with no makeup on, with a thin, tan frame slipped inside shorts and a tank, with their blonde hair pulled up into a perfect messy bun that only took a few seconds. The girl that has is English, or physical therapy, vocal performance, or a Language Major. They are the women that are absolutely everything that I am not. While most of the time, I do not bother to even bat an eye in their general direction, today I have an almost murderous vendetta against them.

2. I was abandoned Sunday by a person whom I claimed friend, for the sole reason that he found me incapable of communicating effectively like everyone else, and that I am too much of a dreamer for his delicate pallet. He said that the way that I conveyed affection was something that he found annoying, not at all an act of kindness or love, or attempted attention; but irritating. That was really painful to listen to. It is always a hit on my fragile self esteem when I am told that one of the few things I pride myself in is actually a part of me that should be buried and forgotten.

3. I’ve had this friend that has danced in and out of my life since high school. The other day, I was texting him, and he said that he might in time come to even like me as a person (because I guess that he hadn’t before) if I was only capable of being more like the girls mentioned above. He didn’t use those exact words, but really, that was the drift of it.

Basically the long and the short of it is, the reason that I don’t get along with many people, as much as I understand them and their needs, it is very one way. I am riding on an entirely different frequency to them, and to be honest, I am not willing to change myself to suit the majority of men, just because they have a craving for a certain flavor of meat.

I am just so tired of other people telling me that I need to be different than who I am because it isn’t good enough for them.

I’m going to go do my taxes.

No I haven’t done them yet.

Don’t judge me.

~C

five words.

Best day of my life.

satellite heart.

I’m over it.

No really, I’m totally fine.

I am just tired.

… I’m lying.

Change of subject.

Reader, do not allow me to digress.

School is nearly over. It is so very close, the tips of my fingers tingle at the potential, and it causes me to hold my breath and hope.

I never understood the excitement of looking forward to long lengthy periods of time without any prospective activity planned. But, I realize now that this was affected significantly by several underlying factors, such as: I had no friends to love – or to love me, I had to spend all of my free time taking care of countless arguing children, sleeping too much or too little, and only leaving the house at night. I was lonely, and depressed. I was so isolated.

Last summer was the best summer of my life, and every life I could have ever lived. I had a job whose clients I adored like my own children, I had friends that loved me and would do anything for me, I could go wherever I wanted, and see whatever I wanted to see. Bountiful baskets, barbecues, games, summer market, star gazing, glow stick spattering, festivals, evening opera performances, tandem riding, local bands, flower picking, adventuring, gallery walks, sunrise hikes, midnight tubing, the fair, first dam, the wind caves, watermelon eating contests… I could go on and on. Nothing could ever be as magical or as wonderful.

I almost dread the upcoming of this one.

Almost.

It would be much more beautiful summer if I could spend it with him. I know I would be happy.

I can’t listen to songs about love anymore. They make me cry. There is one in particular that comes to mind, that just makes me want to crawl under my bed and turn it on repeat. Until the words become meaningless, and the pain so intense that I become numb once again.

You drift like a spirit through my dreams, like flipping through the pages of a book. Sometimes you are just there. Existing only as a pair of eyes in a sea of faceless people. Other times I can smell your skin, and feel the air around my body become warm and the breath from my lungs is sucked from my soul. You never touch me. Sometimes I don’t even see you, but I know that you are there. And I wake and curse the silence, and pray for release.

Darn.

I digress. I’m supposed to be pretending that I am not suffering from a broken heart right now. I need to obtain some kind of composure.

I saw a friend the other day. We had a beautiful adventure, and we talked about everything that had happened to cause me to fall apart. I cannot express myself to anyone as easily and as honestly as I can with him – he is the only one that understands me. He is and has always been a true blessing to me; I thank the Lord for him every day, and still feel my appreciation is insufficient for all he has to put up with. We chased the rain. I was so unhappy, though surprisingly doing better than I had in several days. He saw right through my terrible attempt at a charade.

He listened. He gave me advice from his standing as the president of the lonely hearts club, and after crying all of my makeup away, and tender strokes through my wild hair, I was able to find so much peace in knowing that I was loved, and that he was there for me.

And that was sufficient.

I could never ask for a better friend. I am so blessed.

I’ve realized that I can never make him love me, or see me for who I really am.

Not talking to him is killing me.

Grr. Stop it Cate. Stop it stop it stop it.

I have lost my mind. I am going to end this before this begins making even less sense, and I lose all remaining dignity I have.

~C

I’m a satellite heart, lost in the dark.
I’m spun out so far; you stop I start.
But I’ll be true to you.

turning to the night.

Sometimes in life, we are willing to go down the narrow walkway into the slaughterhouse, knowing that it is to be our demise. We do this with the preconceived notion that if we endure the pain of having our flesh violently torn from our bones, and cold metal thrust deep into our chest to tear out our beating heart before our crying eyes – we would find at the end of this journey something so beautiful, so unknown, and yet so entirely wonderful that we would be willing to do it again and again. We are so brave to walk that path, so fearless, and so utterly blind. You are all I think about. Whether you deserve my love or not you are always in my head. You haunt me unto the point of insanity.

I am on my knees, praying to God saying, I see why I had to endure such suffering. I understand what knowledge I have gained that I could not have learned in any other way. I know with assuredly that I have been strengthened, and have grown. The question is not why, for I know why. The question is what. What must I do now? A fleshless body and a missing heart leaves you little options in life other than to be buried deep beyond all sight to live in misery for an eternity, or to wait for the hundreds of thousands of days till the skin grows back and a new heart is grown in a secret tree in a forest; hidden by thorny brambles and poisonous vegetation.

It is raining now. I can hear it tapping against my window.

I pretend that it is you.

I am grateful that it went by so fast. I am so passionate; it is in my nature. I know that God was being merciful to me, but I almost wish he had let me stay in that butchery until I had been consumed to dust. I am nothing but empty bones. Cursed to a silence of a broken heart, and forgotten by all who used to know me.

What must I do now?

We walk the steps of Eden’s path, our hearts we do not know,

With every breath —it feeds the wrath, from demons down below.

But had not yet been quite prepared, with book, or tale, or pen,

That never had a soul been spared, within the love of men.

We weep to feel the broken heart, that lives outside our chest,

That when devoured – torn apart, the aching never rests.

~C

be kind. for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

What a time I've had.

I was in a theatre performance. It was quite a dreadful production, that should be put six feet under. But, to be fair, it was quite good if you discount the lack of vocal and dramatic talent, the poorly penned script, the endurable music, and the tasteless scenes. Lets just say that I am glad that the members of the audiences donated to charity. Because if I was so unfortunate to have seen it in it's entirety, I probably would have walked out. Laughing.

It was supposed to be a spiritual rendition of the New testament, that was not biased to any one religion, but generic for anyone who believed in God. It was not done well. But, who am I to complain? I made new friends, I got the experience, I had the opportunity to share my talent of costume making, makeup, and set design. I even got to perform; not very well, but perform indeed.

That aside, I have been off and adventuring with a very old friend of mine. Yes, the partners in crime are indeed back together, causing ruckus every which way, and disturbing the peace. For how long this will last, who knows? But I accept.

Life has been getting better. The more I pray for open eyes, the more I see and love.

Sorry for such a short post. It will be better next time when I am not between classes.

And hopefully less like a journal entry.

~C

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99TCWaHmWKc&feature=related