Past Past

I wrote this in 2005, it was about Laura:

1
Picking tiny, pilled gatherings of fabric from my garments has always been a chore; a welcome black hole for my thoughts. I am my sweater, I am a ball of fabric, an eye-sore interrupting a carefully planned pattern, black white black black white black white white...but concentrating on nothing is a skill that I have never quite mastered. I walk to class every afternoon: after my nap, before lunch, after my other classes. I don't know why my eyes fell upon a girl weeping in someone's arms. Not crying. Big, huge tears that some god maybe intended to drown you with so that the misery would end. I thought, someone has died. Someone she loved very much, or knew, it doesn't make much difference. Do we realize our own mortality, or feel the poison course through our own veins? In class they told me that I knew her as well. The girl that died. She always laughed a little too much and spoke little, too loud. Apparently she cried just as much. And cried so loudly that no one would ever forget. 
That day I began to believe that everyone is allowed only so many tears before they die: frame-shaking sobs that only happen in the moments that define us. Then crying became an unwelcome past-time. I filled every empty space with tears. Puffy eyes sang me to sleep, the chalk-board blurred each morning behind salty, beaten eyelids.


I wrote this November 11, 2004:
I remember watching Alice in Wonderland. Being the perverse child that I am, I saw danger, fear recoiling in my mind. Every drop of stolen laughter bounced beyond thin, plastic walls of childhood. Feebly, I held the reins while sitting and staring blankly. Then, the wolves would come, tearing at my flesh, licking the tears from an emotionless face. How could I be so simple? Each flesh-deep hole let out a sour, chalky aroma that made the wolves detect weakness. So, beyond repair, with severed worth, I laid my head upon the breast of each beast until...almost motherly, the tearing continued. All interest left the beasts, and almost as soon as this began, it ceased. But every night, they returned, brandishing meat flecked mouths full of glass teeth. I could break them if I weren't so simple. They could not know of the building meekness and diminished worth. Otherwise, they would leave me in peace? They ripped out my throat first. Gashes revealed every aspect of myself. I could see my leathery spleen next to my third finger. I could feel each eye forgetting...until nothing stayed beside me. I was exposed and alone in the middle of tan plush carpet, holding the strings with wide eyes and an empty heart.