UndecidedAsUsual

 Sleepless nights, when the pills are all gone.

“Loneliness is hard to escape,” she says.

Let’s play pretend, you and I, and run away together.

“Forget tomorrow,” she says.

 ***

 I want to sit by the water and watch the birds.

“They’re so beautiful,” she says.

And we wonder around, because we have nothing better to do

But listen to the sad silence of lost dreams and empty thoughts.

“I’ve forgotten what it’s like,” she says.

And I want to make her remember, but I don’t know how.

 ***

I contort myself so that I fit

Into the spaces where no one can find me.

And it feels like I’m broken in a million pieces, in a million different ways.

“Come find me,” she says.

I dance in the sunlight and try to remember

Because it’s so easy to forget

How I got here in the first place.

And we wonder around, because we have nothing better to do

And I listen to the sad silence of my lost dreams and my empty thoughts.

The pills are all gone.

There’s nothing left for me here.

“Come and run away with me,” she says.

Tomorrow doesn’t matter.

 ***

 He told me I was pretty.

“Like an angel,” he said.

And I cried, because

When has that ever been enough?

 ***

 Let’s play pretend, you and I, and run away together.

 ***

 We dance around and try not to cut ourselves

On the pieces of all that was left behind.

 ***

 I sit by the water and watch the birds.

“They’re so beautiful,” I say.

And it’s so easy to forget

How I got here in the first place.                                   

 “If you’re asking me about love, well… love is the door to happiness in my eyes. For example, no matter what reason you have for condemning yourself, loving someone else makes it all ok. Love helps you grow. Love is kindness.  Love is understanding.  Love is the only way to be yourself, love is the door to freedom to me.  Of course, it’s also a very difficult thing.  I think the hardest thing about saying “I love you” –and like genuinely meaning it—is coming to terms with this idea that there could be a day when the person that you’re giving your love to might not give it back.  What’s scarier is that even if they say it back, that doesn’t guarantee that they will the next time.  God, it’s fucking terrifying.  I think about it sometimes as like doing a swan dive off a bridge or something and then suddenly finding yourself praying to god that it’s just a dream and that you’ll wake up with your pillow underneath your head and your socks on and everything.  I mean, how idiotic is that?” Emily paused, kicking her red high tops together, scuffing up the sides.  She seemed to be groping for the right words.  Her upper lip twitched. “I actually thought about jumping from a building once.  I was on the roof of that really tall one down on 57^th and 8^th—I think it’s a bank, maybe, or a department store? I’m not sure how I got there, but I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? Anyway, I was standing on the ledge thinking.  And I was thinking about how easy it would be to just disappear—how crazy it is that you can be there one minute and then the next…you’re gone.  I thought about how I would splatter. How my insides would be scraped off the sidewalk in the same way I scoop my dog’s shit off the side walk.  I didn’t want that.” Emily’s voice softened.   She stopped and looked up, shoving a piece of her long, brown hair behind her ear.  She slid down into the leather couch so that her shoulder blades were resting on the back cushion.  “Anyway,” she breathed, “He didn’t say it back this time.”

***

They met under the most ordinary of circumstances.  Everyday Emily would walk down the two flights of stairs of her modest apartment and out through the littered streets of her Brooklyn neighborhood, eventually reaching the park.  Emily did all of her deep thinking here.  She’d sit on the red bench, perched up on the tiny hill on the outskirts of the park, under the weeping willow, and bury herself in thought; sometimes for hours, other times, just for a few fleeting moments.  One day, it was a spring day, Emily found herself in the company of another.

  He looked up at her, and she at him.  His face startled Emily.  The skin under his eyes, a deep brown, sagged in a way that seemed to pull his whole face downward so that even the corners of his mouth folded in this fashion.  Emily felt a strange desire to bury herself in the creases.  She imagined herself walking over to him and kissing him on his mouth, pressing herself into him, and he’d hold her, because he wanted to.  She imagined that they’d fall in love, and that his face would soften.  She imagined as she usually did, having deeply intimate moments with only herself.  

A car horn honked in the far distance, shaking Emily out of her trance.  She’d been staring and was embarrassed.   “This is my bench, you’re sitting on my bench.”  She spoke quickly, mumbling more to herself than to him.  He looked at her, but didn’t respond.  She noticed a camera sitting on his lap.  Emily looked down into the park.

 “What, were you taking pictures of? There’s no one here.”

He didn’t answer, but instead scooted over to the very end of the bench and got back to taking photographs.  Emily watched for a moment—he seemed lost in what he was doing and had stopped paying attention to her. She perched herself on the other end, trying very hard to do the same.

***

“Why were you standing on top of the building?”

       “I don’t know, I just sort of ended up there.”

“Does it make you sad, thinking about that moment?”

       “Sad? I mean, well—yeah I guess so.  Dying is sad.”

“Do you really believe that?”

      “I don’t know, why are we talking about this? Didn’t you hear me before? He didn’t say it back this time.” 

“Ok, let’s talk about it.”

     “That’s what I’ve been trying to fucking do.”  Emily was growing impatient.  She wanted to talk about things that mattered—that was why she was here, wasn’t it? This doctor seemed to want to talk about anything but that.  “Ok, well, I don’t know where to start.”

     The doctor shifted in his chair, swinging his right leg over his left, exposing red socks that stopped at his ankles.  “Well, why don’t you start at the beginning.”

***

Emily learned his name was Michael.  That day at the park, as they sat there in silence—him taking pictures, her staring at her feet, thinking—she decided that she didn’t want them to be strangers, however transparent he made her feel.   She learned that he was visiting his older brother, who lived out in Queens.  He had hopped on the subway early that morning, hoping to get lost.  He liked to get lost, he told her—he made a game at trying to find his way back.  She thought that was odd and told him so.  Michael laughed, smiling for the first time.  His teeth were a clean white and slightly crooked in the front, but not in an ugly way.  She smiled too, wanting to share the moment with him.

They spent the next few hours talking.  It wasn’t until the sun was setting that they’d run out of things to say.

“Well…” Emily said.

 Michael nodded in silence, agreeing that it was time to leave. 

They parted ways, planning to meet again, at the same spot, at the same time, on the next day.  Emily trudged down the hill, out of the park, through the littered streets of her Brooklyn neighborhood and up the two flights of stairs into her bare apartment.  She fell asleep that night thinking of tomorrow.

***

“The second day we met was when I fell in love with him.  He showed up to the park after me.  I was already sitting on the bench, convincing myself he wasn’t going to show, when he appeared.  He had stuffed two peanut butter sandwiches in his bag and handed one to me.  I won’t ever forget that, because peanut butter sandwiches are my favorite kind of sandwiches, and I was so excited, because I thought it was a sign.”

     “A sign for what?”

“Like he already knew me or something—like I didn’t have to explain myself to him, like he just knew.  Do you know what I mean?”

     “I think I do.”

“So anyway, it was after that that I decided I loved him.”

     “After he gave you the sandwich? Did you tell him this?”

 “No.”

     “Why not?”

“Would you tell someone that you loved them the second day you met? I didn’t want him to think I was crazy.”

     “I see.”

“What does that mean?”

     “It means I’m listening.”

Emily hesitated before opening her mouth again. “Anyway, then after we finished the sandwiches, he kissed me”

     “How did that make you feel?”

Emily smiled, “Loved.”

***

Emily liked being in the company of another.  Of course, she didn’t mind sitting alone, but this was much better.  She’d lost herself in thought before and finding her way back had been a struggle.  Michael kept her grounded.  She needed him.

***

“What happened after that first kiss?”

     “What do you mean?”

“Did you begin a relationship?”

     “What do you mean by ‘relationship’?”

“Where you intimate?”

     “Like did we have sex?”

“Is that your idea of intimacy?”

     “I don’t know. No.”

“No…?”

     “No we didn’t have sex.  But that doesn’t matter.  I loved him.  We still loved each other.”

“When you say ‘loved’, what does that mean?”

     “I meant love, I love him.”

***

Emily lost track of the days.  With Michael, it felt as if she had known him forever.  They’d meet everyday up on the hill, and sit on the red bench under the weeping willow.  Sometimes they’d talk, other times they’d sit there in silence.  But it was a comfortable silence, the kind people wait their whole lifetime to find.  She didn’t want it to end.  When she told him this, he told her he’d never leave.  That he couldn’t leave—that as long as they had each other, they’d be safe.  Emily asked “safe from what?” and he held her close, because he wanted to, and told her in a quiet whisper, that as long as they were together, no one else could get in.

***

“If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.”

     “It sounds like he cared for you.”

“You mean cares for me.”

     “Where is he right now?”

“Close by.”

     “What does that mean?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ok, let me ask you a different question. How long has it been since the day you met him?”

     Emily paused, and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.  She looked down, fingering the hem of her dress.  “Um… I don’t know, a year maybe, six months…?”

     “So last winter?”

“No…no, we met in the spring, I remember, the sun was out and everything.  It was a day like today.”

     “So it was a year ago?”

“Look, I don’t know why you’re so hung up about when we met.  It doesn’t really matter.”

     “Where is he now?”

“He’s in Queens, with his brother.”

     “Who he’s been visiting…?”

“He decided to stay here…because of me.”

     “Emily.”

“Yes?”

     “Where is Michael?”

“He’s in Queens, visiting his brother.”

     “Emily, where is Michael?”

“In Queens. He’s in Queens with his goddamn brother!” she was yelling now, clutching onto her knee caps.  You could see the beginning of tears swelling over the rims of her eyes. “He’s in fucking Queens ,Q.U.E.E.N.S!” She was standing now. “Write that down on your fucking notepad.” The room was spinning.  Emily felt like she was suffocating.  She wanted to run.  She wanted to run to the park, up the hill and sit on the bench under the weeping willow. But she’d forgotten how to get there, so she stayed.

     “Emily…?”

“He’s in Queens—“

     “Emily, look at me, where is Michael?”

“—visiting his brother…”

***

She needed him to be real. 

***

Emily was tired.  She didn’t want to be here anymore.  “He didn’t say it back this time, because I couldn’t find him.”

Sleepless nights, when the pills are all gone.

“Loneliness is hard to escape,” she says.

Let’s play pretend, you and I, and run away together.

“Forget tomorrow,” she says.

It never stops.

I liked where this article was going until I reached the conclusion. You had two different directions you could have gone in, and I have to say dear Targum, you dropped the ball — and you completely missed the point. This is not about not being able to swallow a “joke.” This is not about the proposed superiority that you suggest of the greek community. In fact, this isn’t about the greek community at all. This is about the irresponsibility of the media and its effect on social commentary. The Medium is a satirical newspaper — and yes, as you said, it is meant to “indiscriminately offend,” but this didn’t do that. Satire is supposed to surface society’s shortcomings and follies — it’s supposed to provide a constructive societal critique through literary devices such as irony and sarcasm. The Medium’s article was vacant of this. There is a distinct difference between writing something that is provocative and smart versus something that lacks taste and is just outright nasty and malicious — in case you were wondering, The Medium’s article falls under the latter. In their article, The Medium wasn’t just making fun of sorority girls — they were creating a commentary on women’s bodies and perpetuating this idea that there is some kind of standard or model that women need to adhere to in order to fit in or, in this case, to avoid being the punch line of some poorly written and tactless piece of “journalism.” They were reinforcing the negative. Where is the constructive social criticism in that? Where’s the humor? If nothing else, I think The Medium needs to do some self-reflecting and re-frame their conception of “satire,” because they clearly have been heading in the wrong direction for quite some time now.

http://www.dailytargum.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/satire-requires-a-bigger-message/article_134f02fa-822b-11e2-b668-0019bb30f31a.html

Words separate us.  Words unite us; they hurt us, bring us joy, make us laugh, cry, scream—they fill us with love and hate.  Whatever it may be, words are always there, serving as the epicenter of communication and as the vehicles of self-expression.   They are the literal transcription of our thoughts, desires, ideas, and feelings.  They also personify our experiences.  These things (thoughts, desires, ideas, etc.) together, make up the composition of a person’s ‘self’, or what might be better understood, as a person’s identity (‘I’ or ‘Me’).   In other words, our utterance(s) of our experiences and our expression of our inner-selves, formulates an identity.   To say that words have no meaning, would be to disqualify this formulation of identity, stripping us of our sense of self and proving it difficult to separate us from the uncivilized and non-beings of this world.

We use words to express our ‘self’.  What I mean by this, is that we are constantly in thought and as we move through life, there is an ever-present narration going on in our mind: experiencing, observing, processing, feeling, and forming opinions (these are all produced in the form of thought).  These narrations can be classified as our internal language or dialogue as they occur within the mind and are what make up our ‘self’ (if we submit that our ‘self’ is composed of thought[1]).   Eventually, our internal dialogue surfaces and is externalized or uttered.  This utterance is in the form of language, or, a coherent string of words that express or give meaning to our thoughts, thus giving meaning to one’s ‘self’.

This externalization of thought results in an external dialogue.  This dialogue is the back and forth exchange of words from one person to another or to many [people].  The exchange takes place on the premise that we react to the words directed at our attention, because they move us in some way (positive or negative).  If words did not possess meaning, then there would be an absence of dialogue between people, just as there would be an absence of dialogue within the ‘self’ and a lack of identity.  We would not feel the need to respond, because there would be nothing to respond to. In other words, if words do not have meaning, then they are meaningless, and would thus be non-stimulating in nature and serve no necessary purpose. However, because we do feel the need to respond, and because we use words to express these responses, we must conclude that words are purposeful and therefore have meaning.

Additionally, it must be acknowledged that civilized human beings communicate very differently from the uncivilized and non-beings.  For example, you cannot sit down at a computer and have an improvised conversation with it.  You cannot say, “Computer, I feel as if my whole world is falling apart,” and expect an emotionally appropriate or empathetic response (in fact, there would be no response at all).  This is because computers and non-beings alike do not possess the emotional sophistication of human beings.  When you say, “I feel as if my whole world is falling apart,” there is no emotional connection or triggering taking place, nor is there an internal dialogue within the computer.  That is to say, your words do not inspire any amount of real thought or feeling within the machine, because the machine lacks a ‘self’ and therefore lacks the language to participate in a dialogue, because words hold no meaning to it. 

 From this we can conclude that, because human beings participate in an external dialogue, which is composed from emotional reactions occurring within the self, and because we use words to express these occurrences, and these occurrences are thoughts and thoughts compose our ‘self’, and machines lack a ‘self’, we must submit that human beings are not machines.  And if human beings are not machines, then they are everything opposite.  If machines lack a ‘self’, then human beings possess a self, and if a ‘self’ is composed of thoughts, and thoughts have meaning and if we use language to externalize and express these thoughts—which we do—then we must conclude that words have meaning.

It is through this logical progression that we can conclude that words having meaning.  By thinking about the way the ‘self’ in constructed as well as the way in which we express this ‘self’, we must acknowledge the importance of language and the purpose it serves.  Finally, we must accept our ‘humanness’ as the thing that separates us from the uncivilized and non-beings of this world and that it is this quality that we represent with language and only through the acceptance that language carries meaning, can we make distinct, this difference.

Ahead are about thirty, eight by eleven inch photo frames: hung in perfectly straight rows and columns against a long, slate gray wall. Within each of these frames is a single sheet of plain white paper, littered in a vast array of colored dots: reds, pinks, blues, greens, browns, yellows.  They sit in the middle of the page in a rectangular block, their chaotic color scheme contradicting the orderliness of their layout: dot after dot lined up in perfectly straight rows and columns.  Taking a step back, all the frames look similar, but none of them are identical.  While looking at these undecipherable dots, it’s hard not to feel lost among the chaos.

 I myself felt a sense of confusion.  Looking up at the framed dots, I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but the mystery of it all intrigued me.  I took a step forward and read the artist’s description: Altered Receipt Children’s Hospital Bill for Important Services.  The piece of art was a compilation of receipts she had received from the hospital, because her sick child had been in their care.  I stepped back again and looked up at the receipts and felt a surge of unexpected sadness.  To me, all the dots resembled bits and pieces of this woman’s life; tears over her sick son, over the bills she had to pay; over the uncertainty of her child’s future; over many sleepless and anxious nights.  I thought of how it must have been, transcribing each receipt, immersing herself more and more into the life of her sick child, dot after dot.  It was oddly overwhelming.  I forced myself to meander away and focus on something else.

Sara stumbled into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed and desperate for a cup of coffee.  It was almost

six and the sun had just begun to rise; its tiny rays poking through the thin yellow fabric of the

curtains— a touch her mother swore added warmth to their quaint kitchen.

A week later Harry disowned me as a friend and my jesus-loving parents put me into therapy where they showed me weird looking pictures and asked me if I liked to hurt animals.  I said only the spiders that are in my bathtub, because spiders are gross.

I went up to Harry before the funeral and told him that his dad was going to hell.  Of course what I meant to say was “heaven”, but at eight years old, I had a hard time keeping the details straight.