Harold: Mother Earth's Dirty Sanchez

I was in sixth grade and a new kid just transferred over. His name was Ziggy, no really; I’m not even changing his name because it’s just too good. Ziggy road around in a wheelchair due to his paralysis from the waist down and was also vertically challenged. That may have also been because about a quarter of his body was horizontal most of the time though. We met four years before at a bonfire three houses down where his half sister lived, who was not a lovely person. But he didn’t remember me at all. I don’t blame him though, Danny Bonaduce can’t even remember being a teenager because of all of the drugs he took. Maybe Ziggy was a second grader with an expert’s knowledge of how to use a bong.
The second he first road in Harold jumped at him. Harold was, in as few words as possible, a self-centered, conceded, jackass who stood at the height of a five-year-old girl. Not a tall girl mind you,
The thing about Harold was hat he would do anything to bring me down. Of course, I don't mean that literally because as a school wrestler who totally liked girls and once volunteered to be a bouncer, saw such sodomy as just sick. I don’t know why he hated me so much but I think it had to do with my average height and the one joke I made in fifth grade about his dwarfism.
Harold once lost a new kid as a friend to me. I’ll call that person Hector, who is now no longer my friend and often makes overly sexual jokes. One of those “jokes” was "crotch cookies." I’m not going to explain that. Harold wasn’t going to let Ziggy be another Hector. Naturally, he told some ridiculous lie with numerous holes so Ziggy would hate me.
What he told Ziggy was that I hated short people. It was almost as pathetic of a lie as the time a girl name Beth told people I ate tree bark. Plus, it ignored two of my best friends’ shortness. We tried to explain that to him but, naturally, he didn’t put that together and kept on believing Harold. Jeez, short people can just be so stupid, can’t they?
Ziggy went on thinking I was stubby enemy no. 1 until he became my friend Eve’s semi-stalker. But he wasn’t just a semi-stalker because he was short, he could have been a full on stalker if he applied himself more. Through her, we became friends but he left halfway through the year. So I basically put in all that work for nothing. For that, he was a true ass face, but that was also because his face was at ass level.

A Tale of Infinite Douchebaggery

When I was in second grade I had a reputation as a freak with serious anger issues. I didn’t know it yet but I was living with an anxiety disorder that was much worse then than it is now. Ultimately, a lot of people hated me without ever actually meeting me, they knew who I was but I had no idea who they were. Archie, as I’m calling him, was one of those people.
I remember once I was waiting in the lunch line and looked over to see this little freak glaring at me. Naturally, I glared back.
I’m not sure if that was first or second grade but my next memory of him was when Mrs. Second Grade Teacher Lady, she had a very big name, moved us to the same table, next to each other. I remember as we walked over we were glaring at each other. Next thing I new we were friends.
Our friendship was real but it was short lasting. It lasted about a week. The next week he just turned back into a total dick.
Obviously I was hurt so what did I do? Oddly, I promise I have no idea why I did this, but I tugged the back collar of his shirt up only about an inch as I walked by during lunch. After lunch I went out to recess, had my fun, and then came in and Mrs. Second Grade Teacher Lady started yelling at me.
“How could you go over and try to strangle Archie?” Mrs. S.G.T.L. started screeching at me.
“What I didn’t strangle anyone!” I tried to defend myself but it didn’t take.
“Come with me, you’re going to the office!”
“What?”
The fifty-four-year-old woman lunged at my wrist, and practically dragged me all the way to the office, which they used like detention until the never present principal let you go back.
Naturally when she made me sit down in front of that horrible she beast working the phones, I had a fit. Next thing I remember they made me sit in the backroom alone. With my anger management skills I had a total panic attack of anger. They made me sit on this stool, which I then threw at the desk and went off screaming. I was like a child from hell.
They must have called in the school counselor, Mrs. School Counselor Lady, because she came in and calmed me down. Next thing I knew the teacher visited us that eventually became my third grade teacher, Mr. Third Grade Teacher Guy. I was especially calm when he came in because I was embarrassed to be in such trouble.
The worst part was that I had no idea what was happening. I think the reason why she believed Archie was because back then I had a tendency to play choke people. They’d be aware of it being a joke but she’d just flip out. I was just being a stupid second grade boy.
Everyone left my room and I heard my class outside taking a bathroom break. The bathrooms were only across the hall and Mrs. Second Grade Teacher Lady stepped in the check in on me. After she left, all I heard was a trombone like from Peanuts. I stepped out the door and saw him. Archie was looking at me like a real child from hell, evil grin and all.
The only appearance Mrs. School Principal Bitch made was walking over to me and telling me that she called my mom because she feels that I should leave school early. Quick lesson on second grade Skyler, missing a single class of school back then was like loosing my mother. I remember being in my mother’s car as we backed away and the wonderful Mrs. School Counselor Lady waving goodbye to be after helping my mom carry me, kicking and screaming, to the car.
Four years later, The entire sixth grade went to a gym for the last day of school. There was a pool and next to the pool was a rack of dumbbells. Archie decided it was a good idea to pick one up and through it at one of my friends heads as she swam in the pool. That’s right, that little stub stub threw a dumbbell at a girl’s head and didn’t miss. We never saw him at school again and I’m happy about that. I did see him two years later at the movie theater with his younger brother by about two years. His brother was about half a foot taller than him. That brightened my day.

The Candy Rack ©

“You get one dollar,” she decreed.
“What! That’s only enough for one tiny bag of skittles!” protested the boy.
“Exactly, you get one thing for once and maybe you won’t get sick,” she whispered trying to restrain her anger over the oncoming temper tantrum.
“Please can I have more?” Timmy asked, despair in his voice, his brown eyes open wide waiting for the answer. His short brown hair just barely reached as high as his mother’s shoulders.
“No,” Tabitha commanded. Her blue eyes looked down at him with disdain for the question. Her straight brown hair, which usually went a little lower than her narrow shoulders, was tied up in a bun behind her head.
“PLEASE?” he chanted over and over again.
“No,” she returned, “and if you don’t stop now you’re not going to get any candy at all!”
“Okay,” whispered Timmy, defeated.
Timmy walked over to the candy rack across from where the frozen yogurt used to be. He looked at the plethora of candy starring back at him, longing to be eaten. And that’s when he saw them; the skittles sat there, calling to him. Then they came into the picture, the Reese’s peanut butter cups. The Reese’s were on sale and there was a big bag of twenty of them for just ninety-eight cents. Which one would he get? Timmy’s eyes lit with cunning. He put the smaller bag of skittles in his coat pocket and carried the Reese’s.
He walked up to his mother who was putting the food onto the counter to pay and put down the candy. The twenty-year-old woman behind the counter, chewing her gum mouth wide like a cow eating grass, looked at him from one side lifting a nostril slightly as if he had, “I’m a thief,” written on his forhead.
“Something wrong honey?” Tabitha cooed.
“Nothing mommy,” he replied twisting about with his hand in his pocket feeling the skittles. As his mother turned away he grabbed the candy and swung it to the counter as quietly as he could.
Without even looking his mother chimed, “put it back.”
After pretending to put it back he saw the answer; he saw his mom’s favorite kind of cookies, oatmeal SUPERcookies©. Since they were getting enough groceries to feed ten elephants insecure about their weight and starving from an all almond diet, his mom wasn’t done buying the food and there was still food to be scanned.
“Look mommy, I got you your favorite cookies!” Timmy cooed sweetly trying to make the cutest face he could.
“Ah, that’s so sweet of you!” Tabitha said, faking a smile, “But why don’t you put the skittles you’re going to throw in with them back?”
“I’m sorry mommy, lemme go put it back,” he uttered if he was actually sorry.
Ten minutes later Timmy was being carried from under his arms with astounding difficulty to the candy rack by Tabitha, her face was steaming red looking around at all of the hundreds of eyes starring wide at her as people began to jeer.
“AHHHHH! I WANNA NOTHER CANDY! PLEASE!” he screeched at the very top of his little yet surprisingly powerful lungs.
“No, you’re not getting any candy any more you hear me?” He forced out of her mouth trying to say this loudly so everyone could hear lest she be labeled a push over.
As Timmy began to scream and wouldn’t let go of the skittles, a man ran to help her. He managed to get the skittles but that didn’t stop Timmy from screaming.
“That is it!” Tabitha yelled, blood reaching its boiling point, “No more candy, no more TV, and no more videogames for a month!”
“WHAT? No please! No! I’ll be good! Please! No, Please I’ll…uh…I’ll, I’ll be good. I’m calm…” Timmy began to grovel.
His mother just looked him face unchanged and, holding his wrist, walked him back to the check out isle and bought her food sans candy.

Where Can I Run? ©

Bum-bum,
My heart pines for Freedom.
Bum-bum,
From the anxious wake of day.
Bum-bum,
I cannot stay.
Bum-bum…Bum-bum,
I must feel the warmth of the sun.
Bum-bum…Bum-bum…Bum-bum,
But where can I run?
Bum-bum.

The Page ©

Empty,
I stare upon the leaf’s first row.
Blank,
I rack my mind for what I know.
Screaming,
My ideas shout out as of rage.
Raining,
My thoughts crumble down onto the page.
Completion,
I lock them down into this cage,
This book that shall save my age.

The Dominos ©

The dominos stand,
Side by side
And face to face,
As soldiers.
Or are they simply oblongs
Of a larger puzzle,
A game?
The dominos stand
Waiting to fall
On the call
To trust each other
To catch a brother
Just fall upon the next
Until the hindmost has gone.
The rhythm gives little rhyme
The rhythm has little time
Just as a soldier.

Graves of the Forgotten ©

I had to make this poem based off of a photograph for English. It's not my favorite but I don't know.

The boy stands among the monuments
Of the forgotten.
The unkempt graves
Of broken stone,
With sorrowful brush
As their only gates.
He hears the secret
Told by grief,
This will be his,
A monument
Of the forgotten.

Myself ©

Myself,
I am my only adversary.
I may dream my wildest dreams,
Set to soar the tallest trees,
Swim the deepest seas,
Keep the tidiest bees.
Myself,
Only I may kill those dreams,
Only I stand in my way.
As one dies,
A smaller door opens.
Myself,
My dreams shall never fall.
My dreams shall be fulfilled
My dreams, ‘less by me, can’t be killed.
I am my only adversary,
Myself.

Grief ©

Grief is a shadow
Gliding over untouched snow,
Leaving no mark,
No trace.
You can see it as you stand inside it,
But you can’t feel its presence.
It only makes things darker,
Submerges them in night,
Flowing with despair.

A Broken Record ©

Note: The following in no way refers to suicide or anything related to it (I was told it sounded that way by a few people). The theme has no relationship with death or depression.



I am broken and bent. Time and time again I find myself repeating my every word, unheard. People only hear my rhythm and never hear my words, my rhythm rather than my reason. How can I have meaning at all without changing your day with a song or a story? As I go unheard, I just scream my words until spun off track.
I was once like and listened to, but now I am but trash to you. At first glance, I’m scratched and useless. That’s all that they see unless they take the time to hear my words and appreciate the meaning. Although I am named as and for only one, I am many. There are many complex and intricate symphonies of life, of thought, of energy, and even of death. You may have your favorites, and I’m sure you do, but I love them all. Each contributes to the greater message, to the purpose. There is no purpose with only one of those grand symphonies.
You may laugh when you hear me, people often do. It’s when I don’t mean to be that I am hurt. Hurt greater than before; a scratch that nothing may fix. You may feel bad but I’m not entirely broken. I continue on with my song and my words. Why would I quit?
Alas, you never let me talk, you discard me and push me to the side, and you keep me with the others, the broken, the bent, and the scratched. Soon you will throw me away, but will I care? You never liked me when you could use me, so why should I care? I will be sad, my tune will be slow and woeful, but I will go on. I will repeat, and I will speak. I will tell you this before that happens. I am not your annoyance for you are mine. When I didn’t want to speak, you forced me. When I did, you wouldn’t let me. But know this, when I am gone, you will miss me. You will regret what you did to me, and you will realize it is your fault I am broken. Goodbye, for this is my final song.

Blank ©

He stared at the blank page, almost emotionless but with despair in his eyes. He could think of nothing to write, and the paper was due for the first class of the day. He began pacing to and fro like an animal trapped in a steel cage. The clock ticked on, mocking him with every glance. His breath was heavy, his heart was a beating drum, and his bones were rubber. He sat down unable to hold himself against the meekness of gravity. His mind raced through every available thought but found nothing of use. The paper, the clock, even his own mind were all against him. The pressure was eating away at his every idea. With every word there was rejection. The words seemed to be laughing at him with their inadequacy. He couldn’t rely on such words.
All seemed lost. His hands clenched and squirmed about. His legs twitched and shook; he shifted all around to the corners of his seat. He pulled at his hair and clamored for the paper and even the universe itself to disappear. Why was the entire world against him?
The room was getting smaller, the buzz of light was driving him mad, and the chair kept creaking every time he moved. Why wouldn’t it all just shut up and leave him alone? He looked at the clock; the bus came in ten minutes. The room started spinning. What was he going to do? He attacked the paper with the least stupid idea he had thought of, breaking his pencil. The pencil collided with the wall, the floor thundered beneath his feet, and the door crashed to a close behind him. His bellows charged through the air and hit their victims like fire to the ears. The cat shrieked and ran to the basement and his mother ran out thinking he was in danger. That was it! He knew what to write! 6:49AM, he had one minute to make it to the bus.

Deletion

As I look back at things from before, I couldn't help but feel as though the blog needed to be cleaned up. So, I deleted a lot of stuff. Deal with it.

Evan ©

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”
. . . . .
They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die. No kidding.
. . . . .
A plump woman handed the judge a small piece of paper. Her hands trembled slightly as she let it go like a distant memory.
. . . . .
We were sitting on the steps in front of the apartment building; it was mid-afternoon and the hottest summer I can remember. We were eighteen years old but our parents wouldn’t let either of us move away.
Mrs. Tuskin drove up in her white, rusty Oldsmobile. She was a fragile old woman, twice a widow, once to cancer and the other to heart failure. Her hair was a cloudy white and her clothes were dress was a bright pink tartan with a hem of frills.
She walked over to us toting in each hand plastic grocery bags.
“Evan, would you mind helping me with my bags?” Her voice seemed to trill each letter as the rolled off her tongue.
“Ethan will,” he said never once glancing at her. He was my exact twin, we were both five feet and eleven inches tall, and we both had bright brown eyes and matching short wavy hair. The difference between us was simple; we were exact opposites in every way.
. . . . .
Judge Shahid took a deep rushed breath and opened the paper.
“Thank God,” was the only thing she whispered before handing the paper back down.
. . . . .
I was standing in Mrs. Tuskin’s small apartment living room. My nose twitched of the overpowering scent of an old perfume I couldn’t imagine anyone else wearing. It wasn’t musky but wasn’t a sweet either. Her groceries were lain out on the peach colored shag rug but the plastic bags were nowhere to be seen.
As I walked through this before unknown apartment, I couldn’t help wondering where everyone was. After calling out Mrs. Tuskin’s name what felt like a few hundred times, I realized what door must be to her bedroom. When I slowly opened the door as it creaked like a crow trying to be a songbird, I saw the horror of what happened to her.
As I fell backward, overcome with shear panic and shock, and caught myself with my right hand against the wall, I saw her unmoving, lifeless body as it lied upon the bed, the bag laying on her head. Someone had smothered her with the bag. That person stood beside her body, his eyes unthinking as if nothing happened.

“Fine, then I sentence the defendant to at least sixty days in a psychiatric institution for further evaluation,” the judge announced and banged her gavel.
. . . . .
I didn’t kill her. There’s only one person I know who’s crazy enough to have killed old Lady Tuskin. Evan framed me. Evan was guilty. They sent me instead.
. . . . .
Chicago Hospital for the Mentally Ill, that’s what they called it. The building was completely white and gray and was surrounded with fences higher than twelve feet.
They unlocked my cuffs and handed me over to two nurses who took me three stories up. They led me to a large entirely white room with six bared up windows along the farthest wall. In front the door we stepped through, on the left, was a front desk blocked off with glass that looked so thick it must have been bulletproof. Behind the desk was a man seeming to have been doing paperwork, he was biting his lower lip and squinting his gray eyes behind thick circular glasses.
There was an old man walking in a circle whispering something about a rock and another staring as if dead at a tiny TV screen in the top corner of the wall. There was another man lying on the couch and gazing up at the ceiling. In the far right corner was a group of eleven men in a circle with a stout male nurse seemed to be leading the conversation.
To the right of the front desk, the side farther from me was a set of stairs blocked off by a cage-like door. The nurse to my right, a slightly plump woman who looked about forty-two, took out a key and unlocked the door.
We climbed the stairs that led to a door. There was a bookshelf on the right side of the room full of books of psychology, each bigger and older than the last.
“Please, sit down,” the old man sitting behind the oak desk in the middle of the room. He was wearing a suit with his ID card clipped onto his suit pocket. He had salt and pepper colored hair, a clean-shaven face, and bushy eyebrows, which seemed to curl into his eyes. He had short oval glasses half way down his large nose. “Welcome, my name is Dr. Graves.”
Two aids walked in and stood, emotionless, on both sides of the door.
I looked back and then shifted my attention back to the old man. “What do you want from me,” I asked, squinting my left eye and picking at my nails. I pulled down my shirt from the bottom and sat up more straight.
“Do you think you should be here?” he questioned, moving his head forward slightly.
“No, my brother should be here.”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Your brother?”
“Yes, my brother,” I remarked, my voice getting louder.
“Why should he belong here?”
“He’s the one who killed Mrs. Tuskin.”
“Can you get Evan to come and visit sometime? Maybe we can have a chat mayhap?” the doctor queried as he inched his head to the left and, for but a moment’s moment, glanced up at one of the aids.
“Probably not,” I whispered and began to run my eyes over his diplomas hanging on the wall next to the only window without bars in the entire building.
After about ten more minutes and him going over my file, I was led downstairs by the aids, which were joined by the same nurse who unlocked the cage-like door, to a hall with a series of metal doors with single tiny mirrors barely lower than my eyes. The nurse took out another set of keys and unlocked the entrance to what would be my new home. It was empty with the exception of a single metal white bed and a white dresser. Three feet off of the ground to the left of the bed, which was at the far right corner of the small room, was a window with slightly thicker bars than those in the main room.
After telling me this was my room, one of the aids had me remove my belt and the nurse went through my luggage.
Minutes after they left, there was a knock at my door. The last person I would expect to visit me stood there. It was Evan. I didn’t bother asking how he got there but just stared on in disbelief.
He was silent.
“What are you doing here?” I wheezed.
“Well visitin’ my brother, of course!”
“I swear to you I never want to see you again!” I began to yell, “Get out!”
“You can never get rid of me, “ he retorted with a slight smile, “I’m with you every time you look in the mirror, you’ll always be with me.”
“We’re only identical twins. When I look in the mirror I see myself, now get out!” In all of my anger I forgot to get him to go and see Dr. Graves. Maybe it’s better that I didn’t.
I went to sleep and when I woke up I was on the floor. My neck hurt and I found that I had several scratches along the back.
There was a loud ding and the door slammed open. Out came the plump nurse from the day before, Nurse Hellena. “Wake up, breakfast time!”
After I got my food, I sat down at the table with the least people. The table was a light blue, almost white, and the first of the two men sitting there clearly belonged there. Michael Vickson, a short man with a declining gray hairline and large brown eyes, was a sufferer of mania. The moment I sat down he began talking unintelligibly. He stopped for a single moment for my answer but when I said nothing his attention shifted to someone else at the table next to ours.
“He has somethin’ called mania so he’s kinda like an extremely arrogant person with extreme ADHD. His name’s Michael. I’m Stephen, Stephen Mahoney. I have Panic Disorder and autophobia, which is usually what triggers the panic attacks.”
“Autophobia? What’s that a fear of cars?” I asked like an idiot.
“It’s a fear of being alone.”
“How is constantly being with other people going to help you get over that?” I questioned, moving in slightly closer and shifting my position in my seat.
“I’m…I’m not sure exactly.” He responded with a shrug. “Before I forget, what’s your name?”
“It’s Ethan. Ethan Robins.”
“What’re ya in for?” He asked as he kept his eyes on his undercooked eggs.
“What do ya mean?”
He looked up at me again, one eyebrow higher than the other. “Well, what’s wrong with your head of course! Why else would ya be in a loony bin?”
“Nothin’s wrong with me! It’s my brother who’s psychotic!” I answered, my voice rising.
“Mmmhmm, that’s what we all say at first.”
After about twenty minutes of silence, there was an announcement over an intercom telling everyone it was time for our medication. I don’t remember taking, or not taking, the pills. What I do remember was being strapped down to table with leather straps. Nurse Hellena and several others were standing around me holding me down. When I was finally calm, they let down on the pressure.
“Where am I?” I managed to utter. There was no answer, I was soon led back to my room and the door was locked. It was already nighttime.
After those two days, fourteen more went by and my visits from Evan became more and more common. One day, around eight o’clock, I heard the knocking on my door.
“Hey, what’s up? Thought I’d visit my little brother,” he chimed in as he arrogantly strode over to me with a smirk held up as if to the ceiling.
“You’re only older by minutes.”
“Still counts,” he said, moving the smirk from the ceiling to me. “So how’s life? Everything good?”
“Of course it’s not! I’m locked in a mental hospital for something you did! How could you do this to me!”
“Hey! Look, I didn’t do nothin’ to you!” He yelled, his smile only slightly faded, “This is all you Ethan! Every last bit of it!”
“How can you say that? You know you killed her! You stared into her old, wizened eyes as they took their last look and didn’t even care! You’re the crazy one! Not me! Not me,” I shouted. My eyes felt like they were going to fall out and my stomach felt as though it might jump straight out of my mouth.
The door slammed open and in poured four nurses. Three of them tried to pick me up and dragged me. As I screamed and kicked, a new nurse, Nurse Marion, a tall Native American woman with black hair like electric silk, shot me with a tranquilizer in the neck.
Once again, I woke up strapped to the same table I had before and so many other times since Evan began to make his visits more common. The only difference was that this time Evan seemed to have snuck in.
“Hey, didn’t forget about me did ya?” He questioned as he stepped forward with his smirk returned.
“I wish I could,” I said as I dropped my head back down onto the table, unable to move anything else but my fingers and toes.
“Well wouldn’t life jus’ be boring without me?”
I didn’t answer.
“Fine, I can take a hint. But I’ll be back tomorrow, don’t you worry. Because you and me, we’re inseparable whether you like it or not.” He walked out the door past Dr. Graves just before he stepped in.
“Well let’s get you outa these binds,” he said, making no eye contact.
“Where’s my brother going? You need to stop him, he’s supposed to be here not me,” I begged slowly, still drowsy from the tranquilizer.
He sighed.
“What? What! Why aren’t you trying to catch up with him?” I asked, slowly regaining energy.
“Your brother isn’t even in the building. In fact, I checked your file and there are no records of you ever having a brother at all,” he told me, his head down, retightening the binds he had just loosened.
“What are you talking about? I’ve had a brother all of my life!”
“No Evan, you are the brother,” he answered, slowly backing away.
“My name is Ethan! Evan is my brother who happens to exist!”
“Evan, Ethan is only a split personality. You’re real name is Evan.”
“No…it’s…not! I’ve seen my brother with my own eyes all of my life!” I argued as I tried to tell myself it was just a joke or a nightmare.
It was no joke.
“Evan, our research has found that you have undifferentiated schizophrenia and a dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personalities,” he said as if he’d been practicing it in the mirror for some time now.
“That’s not possible, that can’t be true!” I began to scream. My life truly must be over now, and as I looked back I began to realize the proof of it all. As I looked out the small tiny window outside of the room, I could see my mother crying into my father’s arms. I saw, with horror, the truth of what I had done and saw the truth that Evan’s words, or rather my words were true, Evan will be with me every time I look in the mirror, every time I see my refection in the water, and ever time I dream at night.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

My Resolutions:

-Be less of an asshole to my friends (especially Jack)
-Come out to more friends
-Get straight A's
-Practice my flute more (don't make fun of me)
-Always remember to do my homework
-Get better at German
-Try to learn some Dutch
-Get a catch phrase
-Read much more
-Write more and better
-Get a job (eventually)

-Be more environmentally friendly