I’m so numb, I couldn’t feel the needle pierce my used vein as the nurse wiggled to find one with a bounce,

I couldn’t feel anything as the nurse squeezed my arm to make the blood drip into a lab tube,

I couldn’t feel.

I couldn’t feel the cold Benadryl slowly move into my veins and into the rest of my body,

But I felt sleepy; I hadn’t realized the nurse hooked me up to the Benadryl, I just felt my body so heavy, and I thought I was just tired;

Tired of life, decisions, consequences, tired of being tired,

And if only life was like the end of a movie or the end of the show where they piece everything together and everything suddenly makes sense and all troubles are gone;

Life is not a movie.

A movie starts with an idea and ends with another; a life just starts

Which makes “the answer” all the harder to find because you don’t know what you started off with to begin with.

Destined for failure?

What are we?

Why must we have these vast emotions if we’re only here on this delicate earth to bore more failure destined creatures?

Why is it a lion can’t fail at being a lion but we can fail at being humans?

Don’t we have basic needs and instincts too?

Pride, hate, desire, love; that is where we go wrong.

Lions only eat to survive, we eat to satisfy,

Lions only kill to survive, we kill for hate,

Lions desire nothing but life, we desire everything else,

Lions mate to repopulate, we mate for pleasure, to satisfy our need for love, when it is simply a figment of our imagination (?)

There’s an answer to life, a way to get around things, a way to get over things, a way to move on, a way to “get the guy/girl”, a way to be happy.

So the answer…?

LIVE.

Do you feel glued to the ground?
Like Gravity is pulling you down, the way nature intended?
Why must we resist her gracious pull?
Must we walk and roam the earth, or stay put right here,
on this comfortable bed of grass
Sunk so deeply, only  stars can see you, and you see them,
and your drawn to their life that is almost over,
and you have time, boy do you have time,
and they’ll fade out and you’ll fade in,
and begin a life, the way you always wished… 

Day in and day out, suffocation.

This air of familiarity grows thicker and thicker as each day takes motion,

At work, my lungs feel engorged, as if someone ripped a whole right through them and filled them with water,

At home, I feel stuffed to my breeches, not even an unbuttoning of the pants will make it any easier to breathe,

In my own room, I feel hot, suffocated by my blankets and the things I have willingly placed around me.

I can’t breathe.

I gasp, and gasp, but the air seems to be getting thicker,

Everything around me, everything familiar, garbs a bit of my throat and lungs, slowly, but tightly squeezing the air out of me, squeezing the life out of me; forcing me into its’ existence, gripping tightly to my thirst for adventure, for something new, tightly holding me back;

Everyone has a say in the breaths I take, and I have no say at all; my throat is at their hands, unwillingly.

But I will breathe, I will breathe until there is no room in my airways, till the air becomes so thick that it’s like water being poured directly into my lungs.

I will breathe.

Clara had this constant fear or being forgotten, not needed, or not loved. The only reason why she did sleep with Mali was because it made her feel good about herself, it made her feel wanted and loved; and it seems as each day goes by she is less needed and less loved. If she died, would anyone miss her? If she went away, would they be in need of her return? Lonely, lonely, that is she. As each day goes by, Clara is more and more alone. Mali wants to have her again, but she keeps on making excuses as to why they can’t “hang out” it’s not like she doesn’t want to, she enjoyed every minute of it the one time they did have sex; but she just doesn’t know what she wants. It’s like everything is on hold, she’s nor here nor there; she is trying to decide but she’s stuck, suffocated, trapped. Which side? Which way? A life full of sin and destruction, or a “sinless” life filled with happiness that solely lies on the surface? She’s not sure she wants either. Main goal right now is, stay focused, don’t fuck up your life for a night of fun, and remember what you wanted even if you don’t think you want it NOW. Clara is going to be alright, she has to be; there’s no other alternative. 

I just came out of a dream; my ipod was on and Lady by Regina Spektor was playing. My 4 month pregnant cousin was drinking wine, and I hear, “little wet tears on my baby’s shoulder, little wet tears on my baby’s shoulder” and I’m coming out of my dream and my cousins face fades as the music gets louder and I catch a glimpes of an evil smile from her right before I wake up.

You know those parts in movies, that parts where they say, “do you know the different between so and so,why one is happy and the other isn’t?” And they go on explaining what one is doing right and the other is doing wrong; well, I wish there were some genius narrator telling me what I’m doing wrong and the other is doing right.

4:28am in the morning and Clara’s eyes are very heavy, but they can’t seem to close. It’s the New Year and what now? So far all she’s done is eat, sit around, eat, think, yawn, listen to music, and eat some more. The only thing that appears to be heading for a change is her weight. Mali text her, he wants to “hang out”, if that were so, and even if that were, they wouldn’t have much to talk about. What’s happening here? It seems as though Clara is moving backwards, that progress she made, that turn around that occurred midyear 2011, where did it go? What happened? She wants change, but where does she start? Surely not at church, that triggered her walk backwards, but at one point it did help. What now? What’s going to turn her around now? Surely, not sleeping with Mali again; she spoke with Nicholas after not really speaking to him for a while, and she was reminded of why she liked Nicholas so much. He really can’t be compared to any low life, horny, jerk. But Nicholas seems so far away, so impossible, just not so. New York all together seems and feels that way. Clara just wants to melt into her comfortable couch and watch movies for the rest of her life, that way she doesn’t have to live her own life. Sometimes she can be so depressing, she gets those days when she literally wants to do nothing, how sad is that. But, when she’s happy, it’s the greatest thing in the world, like every couple out there in the world sharing a wonderful orgasm, or every junkie and drug addict reaching their highest of highs without the overdose; but once she’s there, she can’t remember how she got there, and she can’t ever remember how to get to that point. She’s bored with life, she wants something new, different and exciting; but what? Nicholas? New York? Nicholas and New York? This constant mental search for happiness is going to drive her mad, and if she doesn’t find her “fix”, God knows what’ll happen.

As she tangles herself in her thoughts, she realizes something; that she knows nothing. Clara outdid herself this time, she did an unthinkable thing, something she did not see herself doing again for a very long time. She had casual sex with a not so casual guy. His name is Malikiah, Mali for short. It all started when Clara was 15 years old, Mali was 17, and Clara was dating Mali’s friend at the time. Mali did not like Clara, but he wanted to sleep with her, he told her, “I want to take our virginity.” Clara did like him, but she didn’t want to have sex with him. But Clara was foolish, making mistakes at every turn, so she cheated on her boyfriend with Mali. It was a cool summer night on an empty and dark college campus, Mali undressed her and grabbed her hand and placed it in his pants, gently. Two things contributed to them not having sex that night, one: he did not have a condom. Two: she was so nervous, she couldn’t even get wet. So they didn’t have sex; he dressed her, she apologized, and they went their separate ways. Three years later, Clara finds herself in a weird place; lost in her thoughts and tangled in her emotions, she does something very impulsive; she texts Mali. She said, “I want to get high and I want to get laid, think you could do both for me?” Mali replied with, “What took you so long? ;)” The next night, Mali picked her up from her house; the car ride to his house was filled with anxiety and disbelief. Being in his rented room didn’t put her at ease; she was still nervous, more than with any other guy she’s ever slept with. She remembers scarcely grabbing the pipe from Mali’s hand and smoking it the way she remembered, she felt her heart shaking, not thumping, shaking. She remembers the high hitting her harder than ever, her whole body felt uncontrollable. Then Mali put his arm around her and brings her close, she can literally feel his heart thumping against his chest; slowly, he kisses her. Her mouth was dry from smoking, and so was his; he quickly grabbed her and placed her on top of him. He removed her shirt, then her bra, she removed his shirt and unzipped his pants; she remembers thinking, “I can’t do this, I can’t…but I’m already here, I can’t do this to him again.” Soon after that thought, she had no more thoughts. He guided her to his bed and he slowly penetrated her; she moaned and softly cried out, “It hurts so good.” He trusted and pushed as hard as he could, softly moaning and saying “Oh my God, you’re so tight.” This comment flattered Clara for some reason. Beyond that, she can’t remember; she was too high; she just remembers the ceiling of his bedroom and his small silhouetted body thrusting over her plump and fragile body. It lasted a while, she remembers, but after they were done, it felt like they hadn’t done it. It felt like she got dressed quicker than she got undressed and just like that they were on their way to drop her off. She remembers almost getting in a car accident in the free way a few times, and thinking to herself, “God is going to kill me for this.” But she made it, but with no regrets. She didn’t find any emotional attachment to Mali, whatsoever. She didn’t even have a conscience about what they had done, her mind was as blank as a freshly stretched canvas. But then it hit her, not the fact that she had sex with Mali, but the fact that she liked it, that fact that it didn’t bother her to have casual sex with him. She was so sure of herself; she was on this road, the right road, and now she was in the middle of nowhere with no map to guide her. She began to rethink her future, did she really want to do what she wanted to do? Did she really care so much about being wealthy one day and owning a big house with a loving husband and loving children? She got lost in her thoughts; she heard a song play on Pandora called “Names” by Cat Power. If you’ve heard, you know what it’s about. She imagined her name in it, and sang to herself after the song was over, “Her name was Clara, she liked to write, she got lost in her thoughts, and slowly died. She was 18 years old, she was a very lost soul.” 

Dead; that word had crept into Clara’s mind like a bad love song. She looked in the mirror and she contemplated, “Makeup or no makeup…?” She’d stop and look at herself for a while, examine her eyes, pout her lips , “If only I were prettier, if only my stomach wasn’t so big, my thighs so fat, and my head so big…Makeup or not, I always look dead, and sometimes, I even feel dead.” Clara would then end her questions and walk away from the mirror. A friend, and new roommate from work showed her this movie named “Memento” It was not her usual cup of tea but she enjoyed it, and she remembers this part when the main character says, “We all need mirrors to remind us who we are.” Can you imagine a world without mirrors? Who would we all be? What would we think of ourselves?  Oh Clara, a lost cause? She felt she was so interesting and that she had so much to offer to any kind of relationship, but she failed to project her true self to people. If she could only find someone who’d appreciate the little things as much as she did, like a great movie, a good book, a broken but fixed carrousel found at the flea market fixed by her. She could do so much, she has so much to offer; but it’s as if everyone fails to see her, even she fails to see herself. She could develop a crush for almost any guy, and just as fast as she came to liking them, that’s how fast she snapped out of them. For a while she felt wanted by so many guys, but now, now she felt no one could nor would want her. Could love like in the movies really exist? Is there such thing as a fairytale ending to the story we call life? I guess only when you tell it. This new roommate of hers, he was neutral to just about everything, he just floated on by through life, unfazed by life’s everyday obstacles. Clara envied him yet had sympathy towards him, he was lucky to walk through everyday unfazed, but at the same time, it must be horrible to not be fazed by anything. How do you spend your time if not worried about something? Or stressed about this, and overwhelmed by that? Isn’t that a bit boring..? Clara thinks so, but at the same time, she wished she could be filled with such ease. Oh Clara, any man that will give her the slightest touch of ‘love’, any man that will show her some bit of affection. Before, she had to kick them away, now she held a welcome sign up with both hands, arms tired. She didn’t like Nicholas, she never liked Albert, and she only dwelled in Anthony. Movies make her happy, the thought of having children one day make her happy, the thought of once having sex again,  reading a good book and living in their adventure makes her happy; love doesn’t make her happy, it makes her depressed. She thinks the only way you know someone loves you in any way is by them showing you affection, whether it be sexual or not. Like her new roommate for example; there have been times when she just wants to hug him, feel his skin on hers, or his face against hers. She feels unliked when people don’t show her the least bit of affection. What does Clara need? What is she looking for? I’m sure she herself hasn’t got the slightest of clue.   

That’s it! Clara couldn’t go without writing; she tried to solve her problems herself, she tried solving them without putting them into chronological order. She desperately needed to do so, and now she found herself two clicks from exploding. She had done something wrong, very wrong; she kissed one of the drummers from church, but that’s not all they did. He felt her up and she jerked him off, that bluntly, with no love between strokes or touches. One way or another, Clara’s cousin walked in on it all, and made it her job to tell the world. Tonight, this very night, she was to have a meeting with the pastor, the drummer boy, and the two youth leaders.  Drummer boy is 15 years old! Oh, but he’s no child; he looks like a grown man and he’s the one who began touching her and urged her not to be nervous, and when she said, “I can’t do this. I don’t want to.” He replied, “Oh, c’mon. You’re no fun.” She fought it for as long as she could, but she could not resist, his hazel brown eyes were calling to her, and his lips looked ever so inviting, so she leaned over and kissed him. He instantly reached over for her vagina, she could feel his index finger manipulating her clitoris; she cringed. She had been good for so long, she fought it for so long, but she fell weak to drummer boys strong grip and big arms. The music is playing while all of this is going through her mind and drummer boy is centered between the heads of the other church goers, and all she sees is him. She closes her eyes to forget he’s there, but she could feel each drum bass hit her right in the heart; it felt like a sword being plunged into her heart through her back, over, and over again. Her head began to hurt, and each drum bang felt louder and louder, closer and closer, it felt like her head was put under the drum pedal and drummer boy was just beating away, carelessly and effortlessly. Poor Clara, poor, poor Clara. So many things on her busy little mind, like how she’s was going to get to New York, who will she live with, how will she be able to pay for rent, should she send her transcripts out yet..? all these questions just filled her mind; she wishes her heart was so easy to fill, it seems as though there’s a whole at the bottom of her heart, as if it were a pocket on old worn out jeans. But something happened, something great… this peace fell over her after the pastor prayed for her, this peace that just took over. Even her headache went away, her tears soon seized to fall, and her mind just felt clear. Things will look up for Clara, surely things will work out, ‘cause they do every time.

“You are strong willed, but easily fooled, I am weak willed, but no one can fool me.”

All she had for a self-expression was writing; but she seldom used it like it used and abused her. Her will was weak, it’s true, but her head was on straight….it was her heart she was worried about. She was never good at “picking” guys, as if they were in some sort of line for her; she always chose “the wrong ones”. The hot, horny, jerks, the losers, the hot, horny, jerk losers, and lastly, the smart attentive ones from out of state. Yup, she was absolutely great at pickin’ ‘em, very great. She recently fell in love with this Bossa Nova song written by Tom Jobim but sung by someone else, it’s called Retrato em Branco e Preto which means, Portrait in Black and White . At first when she listened to it, she just fell in love with the piano solo in the very beginning, and then she fell in love with the pain of his voice in the song. She couldn’t understand a word, she doesn’t speak Portuguese, but she played it over and over. One night it occurred to her to look up the lyrics and translate them, here is what the songs says: “I already know the steps that road, I know that it will go nowhere, I can recite its secrets, I already know the way the stones, And I know there alone, I’ll be much worse, And what can I counter the spell, This love that I deny both and that, however, Always comes back to bewitch, With their same sad, old facts, What a photo album I insisted on collecting, There I go again like a fool, Search the disappointment, Tired of knowing that, New sad days, clear nights, Poems, letters, my dear, Yet again I write you, To tell you it’s a sin, I bring the chest so marked, Memories of the past and you know the reason, I will collect more than a sonnet, Another portrait in black and white, The vex my heart.” It’s no wonder she fell in love with it. They say the heart feels the pain, even if it’s in a different language, or maybe she just made that up just now.  

Today Clara finished reading “A stolen Life” (With the exception of a few pages, she had to rush to pick her little sister up from school). She suddenly felt grateful; she felt happy to be alive and she was happy with all the choices and decisions that she had made in life; she wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. She realized ANYTHING that happens in her life is better than the life Jaycee Dugard lived. Although she is now living a free life, she (Jaycee) has missed out on a lot, Clara thinks of all the years she’s been captive and held against her will, “18 years?! That’s how long I’ve been alive!” Clara felt like she was there the whole time, everything Jaycee went through, she went through too. She thinks back to what Jaycee did in certain situations, some people may even call her ‘stupid’ by not taking advantage of her outings and reach of the internet, but Clara thinks “I would have done the same thing” Clara wants to meet Jaycee and her daughters some day, she wants to hug her and praise her for surviving, because she (Clara) knows she wouldn’t have. Clara had her own share of sexual abuse, but nothing compared to what Jaycee went through. At the age of 6, a cousin of her father’s they were forced to live with showed her his penis and said “Put it in your mouth”; she doesn’t much recall that day but she remembers not putting it in her mouth and somehow finding a way out. Later in the years she would be molested, bothered, and eventually raped. First her cousins that were females forced her to ‘eat them out’ she never understood their pleasure in her doing it, later she would find out. Her cousins would touch her vagina and make her ‘play’ strange games. Then her family moved, for financial reasons, and she was always being taken care of by her mother’s best friend. Her mother’s best friend had an adopted son and he’d always want to play “mom and dad” with Clara, he’d make Clara’s little twin brother and sister pretend to sleep while he made a move on her, he must have been a year or two older. Then finally, one day she was over by herself, he took off her underwear, took out his penis and said “Put it in you” she made the excuse that she had to pee, and when he let her go she ran out and told on him. Later in her early teen years she revisited them and spent the night for the 4^th of July, he greeted her that morning with a hand on her breast and the other hand on her butt. Now, to when she got raped; she doesn’t remember any of it, she doesn’t even know if it really happened, she sometimes believes it was just a nightmare. Even though she believes it to just be a nightmare, she knows it happened, she just knows it did. Her ability to forget has been her strength, but in reading “A Stolen Life” she recalls everything; like one weekend she spent with her older brother when she was in the 6^th or 7^th grade, her older brother lived with an older lady that had an older son, around the age of 22, he snuck into her room at night and touched her vagina, he had big fingers and it hurt, she remembers one finger going deeper than the others, that hurt the most; then he grabbed her hand and put it down his pants, after a while (before it went any further) she pretended she was really sleepy and he eventually left her alone. Everyone in her family knows she was molested in some way, but they knew none of the details, and maybe they didn’t want to know. But all that had happened in her life didn’t affect her greatly, just that she was more aware of these things for when she had children of her own,   she didn’t fear to love, she didn’t fear to trust people, she knew just as much as there is bad in the world, there is also good; and good will always prevail. It prevailed for Jaycee Lee Dugard and it will prevail for her. 

Today he said something that was a bit of a deal breaker; it’s time we gave him a name, let’s call him Albert. Albert, her little sister and herself were at Target and she commented on her last fellow and how Albert and him were friends, she said ,in a joking manner, “Yeah right, you guys were best friends, you used to suck his dick” and Albert replied “Not like someone I know.” And he pointed at her as he said it, her eyes widened, and she began to laugh in realization of a lot of things. Those words gave her a glimpse of what a relationship would be like with Albert, the past would ALWAYS be brought up. She knew now that with Nicholas she’d never have to worry about that, Nicholas commented on her past, “It doesn’t matter to me. What does matter is what you do from here.” Albert had been intimate with her, but he had never shown her intimacy. She was so happy Albert uttered those words, that’s all she needed, it was the very cherry on top of the reasons why she should not be with him. Maybe it’s time she had a name now, Clara, that’s her name. She decided to text Nicholas right after the conversation she had with Albert; somehow they came to the topic of over thinking, he told her he over thinks everything, and it occurred her to ask him if he over thought her, he said “Yes, and as you can see we are still talking.” She didn’t know why, but those ten words made her smile from ear to ear; maybe it’s that thought that she’s actually being thought of. She was now certain about Nicholas, but New York was beginning to dim out in her mind, not because she didn’t long to live there anymore but because it seemed impossible. She felt she didn’t deserve any blessing, but maybe when you feel that way is when you deserve them the most? Hey, it’s a thought; that’d make her feel better. Maybe sometimes she was better off not thinking too much about things; like there was an ice cream man that befriended Clara and her family and one night they didn’t have enough to pay him $0.75, he said it was alright, next time they can give it to him, then her father got an ice cream and he didn’t charge him; that upset her. The thought that this poor man is walking up and down the streets selling ice cream and her family doesn’t pay him, she swore the next time she saw him she’d pay him. But see there, she thought about it too much, and still thinks about it; although he had ‘given’ them the ice cream, she thought what his life could be like and what he has to do to help his family. She had a knack for over thinking, but she also had a knack for not thinking at all. Now , at this very moment she thinks of tomorrow, and not tomorrow  as in September 28, 2011 but tomorrow as in four months from now when she’s supposed to leave to New York. The closer the days the more unbelievable it all seemed. Would she really move away? It all seemed too good to be true; isn’t there a saying that says, “When something is too good to be true, it usually is.”? Would that apply to this? She had never gotten her way, all her life, she thought of things that were major possibilities but they just never happened. Is it safe to say she was over-hyping a dream of hers? Or, is it so much of a passion, she will do anything to get there? At this very moment, Clara is thinking to herself that she will do whatever it takes to get there, she’s not going to sell herself short and she’s not going to give up.