October 02
People want change. Like the transformation of day to night, and the way the ocean sends waves to the land, over and over, as if it fears the grains of sand would forget its presence if it were to cease, it’s inevitable. Contentment is a lie. It is merely an illusion put forth by those who hide their dissatisfaction from others, in a bizarre attempt to keep them from becoming even more prevalent. The only thing I’m content with is the fact that I’m not content with anything, and even that I’m not too sure about.













-CE
6:17 a.m. The sound of the shower running, that pitter patter of the water hitting the bottom of the fiberglass, and the vibration of my phone that I have grown to hate ever so much forces me out of my slumber. Is it even considered sleep, the thing that I do? Where is the line between sleep, and the toss and turn rooted from the mind’s uncertainties, where one dreams but can recall every noise throughout the night and awakes even more so unrested and tired as they were when they first slipped into bed? I roll back over onto my stomach in an unsuccessful attempt to retreat back into my “sleep.” But the demons won’t let me. They infiltrate, invade, surge through every last ounce of my being, running up and down my spine and into my mind. Suddenly, I am as alert as the girl in my first period math class that drinks three coffees each morning. I put on my glasses, which I do not necessarily need, but I like how they sharpen the edges to everything. The first step to thinking clearly is seeing clearly, right?
.

I run to homeroom, but I don’t make it. I hardly ever make it. I open the door, and send a telepathic plea to Ms. Trune for mercy.

“Are you kidding me, Colton?” she snaps.

“Sorry,” I murmur as I stare at the disciplined floor. She starts ranting on and on about the importance of homeroom as if I was purposely late to resuscitate her dying mother or something. I’m not even listening to what she says, but I know this b**** means business. She really didn’t want me to be late for homeroom. And now she’s going to try to make my life hell. She gives me three detentions for being late three days in a row, and threatens to send a letter home. I pretend not to care, but deep down, she terrifies me. I ask to use the bathroom, but of course she declines my request.

“No Ms. Trune, you don’t understand, I really have to go,” I beg. And I doubt you want to clean up a puddle of vomit because I sure as hell will not waste my precious time on your s***, lady.

She finally says yes, after two obnoxious sighs and three of her signature “tsk’s.” I run into the bathroom and get sick in the handicapable stall. I can’t be in any other, they’re too small. I open up my bag, take out one of my pills, and swallow it. I can’t catch my breath, and I’m crying, and my mind is screaming and about to explode but I can’t let out the scream because I forgot to check if anyone else is in here and I can’t risk anyone hearing me scream even if they heard my gags and whimpers and brisk attempts to catch my breath. I take a few puffs from my inhaler, dry the tears, and suddenly I am fine- I look fine at least. I am anything but fine.
.
I return home after my student council meeting. I open the door and am immediately flooded with the earthquake that is my father’s rage. Apparently, I had forgotten to make my bed this morning. I hear his footsteps coming down the stairs, and instinctively I look around for places to run, even though I know my suffering is inescapable. He makes his way over to me, a mask of rage covering his face, one only a victim of years can identify; and I swear the green in his eyes dissolves into a madness of red and black. We both stand six feet tall exactly, yet he looms over me like a wolf would a rabbit. He strikes, and I squeal. It hurts too much to cry. Physically, I ache; I fall to my knees. Mentally, I feel nothing. Each morning and each night before bed, I thank the Lord that I have been blessed with the ability to numb my emotions, like some sort of invisible shield. As soon as he is done with me, I run out the door, past the lamp post, the rose bush that blooms so beautifully among an environment so broken, and underneath the maple tree that gave sixteen stitches to the left side of my forehead when I was eleven. I finally reach my destination- the small blue shed at the back of my yard, and open the door.
My dog, Hope, nearly knocks me over with every inch of her 120 pound pitbull mix armoured body. She’s beautiful, and although others say she smells of mud and an old man’s bathrobe, she will always smell of roses to me. I let her run around the yard for a little, until I hear my father scream my name. Immediately, the heat that is my panic fills my entire body, starting in the pit of my stomach, and growing out concentrically. I fall to my knees, as if my shins have been taken right out from under me. Hope knows- as dogs always do, and runs towards me, stopping just short so not to hurt me. She jumps on top of me. It’s beautifully repulsive; I can’t help but laugh as her long, slobbery tongue licks the bottom of my feet like I just stepped out of a bacon bath. It’s strange, how Hope’s the one who wipes my tears, when she’s the one locked up in a ten by ten shed all day long. My father won’t let her inside. He used to, back when I was little, until my mother gathered enough courage to call the police on him when he struck me years ago. He decided the greatest was to punish her was to punish me, and the greatest way to punish me was to punish Hope. She’s not allowed inside anymore- he says there’s a perfectly adequate shed outside.

“If I see it inside again,” he threatens, “you can say goodbye to Hope. She’s done.” I was twelve years old when he told he would give up my dog, or kill her. I wouldn’t let it happen, and I won’t. I was forced to grow up at an incredibly young age, and with that comes responsibility, taking care of what’s important to you. She’s everything to me. There’s a reason I named her Hope. When my father would holler, threaten, scream, and I would wish to be anywhere else in the world than the refuge that is my closet, she would run upstairs before I even knew there was something wrong with me. I would pray for some awful disease to rip me apart; cancer, tuberculosis, maybe a good old plague, anything to get me the hell out of there; and she would be there. Her dirt brown hair would brush across me, sitting on the ground while reaching with her two front paws, and resting her head on my lap. She would whimper, and sigh. I swear she’s just a human stuck in an animal’s body. Or maybe she’s my guardian angel.
.

I lay in bed, studying for my American History test. Someone needs to sit me down and explain why it’s important for me to know each senator and their political affiliations during Lincoln’s presidency. I want to focus on the future, what I’m going to do, who I’m going to be, how I’m going to get out of here. But I can’t do anything until I graduate, and I can’t graduate until I pass eleventh grade American History. And that sucks. I slam my textbook shut; I’ve had enough. There’s a limit on the amount of dead men a seventeen year old male can memorize in one night; and in case you were wondering, it’s twenty three. I plug my phone into the speaker, and shut my eyes. The music takes me away, picks me up from the lonely spot on my bed like a gentle mist, and carries me out into a brisk night. Each song is put onto the playlist for a reason. Yes, the music has a nice beat, but it’s the lyrics I listen for. A catchy beat is nothing without the seemingly infinite sway of poetry. Every night, I write or draw, create, in my worn out moleskine journal while listening to the same playlist as I grow more and more tired.

1. Born to Die- Lana Del Rey
2. Sweater Weather- The Neighbourhood
3. When You Were Young- The Killers
4. The Dead Sea- The Lumineers
5. The Scientist- Coldplay
6. Shake it Out- Florence and the Machine
7. Skinny Love- Bon Iver
8. Litost- X Ambassadors
9. Tell Mama- The Civil Wars
10. It Ain’t Love- Green River Ordinance
11. Electric Feel- MGMT
12. Holocene- Bon Iver


I call it “0000AAAA” so it’s the first on the list. I also have a list of rules I live by. There are a lot of them, here are a few of my favorites.

4. If somebody introduces you to a song, and they say it means a lot to them, you better listen.
9. Never point out something obvious. It will almost always offend someone or make you look stupid.
29. Memorize birthdays and middle names.
55. Always thank the host or driver.
79. Always cheer, never boo. There’s no point.
93. Deodorant takes only a few seconds but can determine the difference between a spouse and a disgusted stranger.

I love lists. I read this one to myself in bed each day, as the night turns to morning, and I grow exhausted enough that the troubling thoughts in my mind slow to a mere underbreath. And I have sailed away.
.
October 27th
Humans fascinate me. I want to know each of the thousands of quirks that stitch together to form their souls. A lot can be said about what someone does when they are all by their lonesome, a person is at its honest form at two a.m. when they lie awake, too hot to put on the covers, yet a bit too cold to go without. I want to know what Netflix series are binged on, the last sight before eyes are finally shut just before a long awaited half night’s sleep. What is craved, who is thought about, what’s being googled, asked, learned, and each worry that slithers its way through the ears and into the mind like a serpent. A smile is a lot more meaningful when alone, its sincerity rate is one hundred percent; a never fail formula. I want to know what makes one laugh out loud, what would be instagrammed if there was nobody to impress, the Halloween costume archives, what the appeal of math is- hell, I want to know the raunchiest, dirtiest freaking joke you know. Or the story of the last time you cried. It could have been a single tear, that was wiped before it even left an impression, but I want the dramatics, the riveting, hour long tale of a simple papercut. Tell me a story. Yeah, I like that. 







-CE
November 02
Missing home,
and the feeling that everything will be okay again,
although I haven’t felt that in quite some time now.
Which is worse,
to worry your mind in and out
each passing moment,
to fear the screams
and moans,
and the loss of air- not in the lungs,
but in the soul,

or to feel nothing at all?




-CE
.


My favorite teacher, Ms. Eden, calls me into her room before school. Her English class, along with Hope, is the only thing I have to look forward to nowadays. However, I’m a little surprised to be summoned from outside in the hallway. Usually that’s only for the kids in trouble, and I don’t consider myself one of those types. Actually, I don’t consider myself any type. I like to remain unnoticed- people tend not to like me. Maybe that’s a “type.”

“Have you been doing okay, Colton?” she questions with a warm, crooked toothed smile, after asking if I had any plans for the weekend, which i didn’t.

“Yeah, why do you ask?” I defend myself, at first shooting my piercing green eyes at her, to send her a message, but soon realizing that this is not the place, and it is not the time, and she is absolutely not the person to be doing this to.

“Oh, I don’t know, you just seem upset, like something’s bothering you. Got anything on your mind?” I want to scream that yes, I do have something on my mind. I have a lot of somethings on my mind- from being hit and emotionally destroyed by both my father and my own head. And from being left, even though she said she was only going to be gone for a short while; that she’s going into the city to find us an apartment. I haven’t seen her for three years. What about how the only thing I care about is locked inside a shed somewhere in the cold?

I answer her question with a sudden rush of welled up tears, hand her my journal, and hurry off to class.
I walk into math class and sit at the same desk I do each day. I like routine, if you haven't noticed. I watch a pencil thin girl squeal upon the realization that her books are slightly off-center, as if her family and all of the starving children in Africa would topple over into their graves if she didn't do something about it immediately. She then proceeds to confess that she suffers from the self-diagnosed travesty that is O.C.D. And I lose it.


Does she know? Do they know? Doesn't she understand that she shouldn't throw out diagnostics and that some people have real problems and can't listen to a lecture for five minutes without feeling that they're going to pass out and that I have to knock on wood and wash my hands every 57 minutes and that if I forget to wash my dishes my mom will die and I'll be arrested tomorrow night and DON'T TOUCH ME DON'T TOUCH ME DON'T TOUCH ME DON'T TOUCH ME CAN'T YOU SEE I HAVE TO PRAY GET AWAY FROM ME!


I hear two guys behind me whispering and snickering. I shrink down into my seat, hoping to somehow become invisible. I just know it's about me. It's okay, I think, I didn't like you guys anyways. This means nothing to me, even though it does. It means a lot, actually. It means a lot. I brush it off as if I hate everyone anyway regardless of my mood and that quite frankly, I don't give a s*** about what any of these people say about me, even though I do.

After class, I return to Ms. Eden’s room to reclaim my journal. I was stupid for letting her read it, anyways.

Before I exit the room, I hear, “Wait, Colton, some of this is really amazing.” I keep walking, even faster now.

.


Immediately upon returning home, I drop my bag and proceed to the rusty old shed in the backyard. I open the door and step inside. I throw myself onto the ground, and shout some curse words as loud as they can possibly be shouted. After a few sniffs, Hope lays down beside me. Right on cue, the tears begin like a waterfall of unwanted and everlasting emotion. You can only be numb for so long. Sometimes you just have to break. I reach my hand out for Hope and begin stroking her. My hand traces the contours of her body, starting underneath the chin, behind the ears, on top of the head, and along her back until she finally rolls over for a good old stomach rub. I've been starting to feel bad for her, even worse than I did before. It's November, and I'm afraid the slight crisp chill of autumn has begun to feel more and more like the bitter breeze of winter, and although she’s endured the cold of a harsh winter and my father’s heart for years, I can’t help but feel guilty. I take off my jacket, because if she's not allowed the gentle comfort of warmth, then I won't be either. I begin to sing to her, hoping the sweet lull of a melody would replace our desperation for warmth. The last conscious thought that burdens my mind just before the relief of sleep is the discovery of the graying hair just around her large, sad eyes, and the rather terrifying thought that nothing lasts forever.
.

I awake in the dead of night. Both my homework and my chores remain incomplete. The sound of my father’s voice echoes through the doors of my house and into the empty yard of night. Before I even realize, I am on my feet and running away from the shed, through the yard, and into the house, hoping my father is too drunk to have noticed my absence. I slip into bed, and begin to drift off into a sleep, but am interrupted by the rage of my father.
“Get up. Get up now!” He screams as he rips the covers off of my just now warming body. "Where the hell have you been?" he mutters, the terrifying smell of alcohol wrapping itself around my head as if it needs to be noticed and fed attention. He slaps me across the face, and I begin to cry for what seems like the hundredth time today. I can't breathe, and I fear I'll pass out if I don't take my medication soon. I lean over to reach for my lorazepam, and he strikes me harder than ever before. "Don't be a little crazy b****, be a man!" he hisses. "All these kids in the world, and I get stuck with you."
That one really gets to me. That's it. Something's gotta give. A sudden rush of courage from within, one I never knew existed until now, overwhelms me, which allows me to weakly whisper, “Go to Hell.” I spit on him, and manage to squirm out from under his now seemingly weak grip, run down the stairs, out the door, past the lamppost, and the tree that gave me stitches when I was eleven. It took me almost an entire minute to realize the torrential downpour that has overcome this broken environment. I open the door to the shed, expecting Hope to do what she always does- comfort me.
But I feel nothing. I hear nothing. I turn on the light, and see Hope lying still on the splintered floor, icicles forming on the tips of her fur. I stare at her for what seems like minutes, hours, days. The entire world closes in around me, as if nothing in my life has mattered but this moment. What I would give to have the life I had five minutes ago back- my father on top of me, calling me a b****, punching me, for if there's one thing I've learned, it's that physical pain is nothing compared to emotional torture. And this is torture. The bruises have already started to form, and I don't mean physically.
"You did this! You!" I scream at the house through my tears. "The one thing I cared about, and you took it away from me like everything else! You will rot in hell you nasty, disgusting man, I'll make sure of it!" My vocal chords strain as I try to get the words out, the ones that need to be said.
I'll leave her out, so he'll see what he did to us. I wish it was him I wish it was him I wish it was him I wish it was him. But it wasn't. It was her.
I drag her cold, once lively and loving body out of the shed and into the center of the yard; a spectacle so maybe this man will finally realize the pain he's inflicted. Lightning strikes, illuminating my baby like the angel she is, or was. And I realize I can't do this to her. She's been there my entire life to help me through it all. I could've given her up for adoption if I wanted, but I was selfish and kept her in a shed for all of these years. An awful thought crosses my mind.
This is all my fault.
I run back to the shed to retrieve my favorite blanket, the fuzzy blue one with the crimson river stain from the time I got a bloody nose for no reason in the dead of the night. I wrap Hope up, as if it could bring her any kind of comfort, the warmth she's always desperately needed but never received. I transform the hole she started years ago underneath the weeping willow tree into a grave. Before putting my baby to rest, I consider reciting my favorite poem, one I whisper into her ear on only the coldest of nights, but I realize the most respectful way to say goodbye is to not say goodbye at all. Everything I have to say has been said, everything to do has been done. I rip the cross off of my neck, and place it onto hers. I give her one last pat, and think it was a good run.
Hope is gone, but not lost. I sneak inside to grab my favorite pullover, my journal, and a photo of Hope and me when she was just a puppy, before he killed her. I grab the keys, hop into my car, and I drive. I'm not quite sure where I'm going, but one thing's for sure: I will not be coming back. Do we ever know where we're going?
Although I wish I could run away, find my mother, and begin a completely new and satisfying life where everything is happy and grand, I realize this is not realistic. I turn the car around, and drive back to the house. While I consider sleeping in the locked car, the only place that can offer protection, it seems, I decide to go inside. As much as it is his home, it is mine. I pour myself a glass of water, and begin to cry yet again, the tears and the ice water indistinguishable from one another. My father lays passed out on his floor. I flip through my journal to an old poem I wrote years ago.

February 17th
Inescapable
I watch
as the turquoise fish- the largest and most majestic one of all,
suddenly turns over and drifts to the top of the pool.
Here the next minute,
gone the next.
And ironically, here I sit in the emergency room,
where the fish are supposed to distract the relatives,
the friends,
the loved ones,
the worriers.
And through the glass I watch a fourteen year old girl,
who took thirty three too many ibuprofens
get wheeled in on a stretcher,
and pronounced dead on the spot,
and in the room next to that I hear a long beeping noise,
the one with the infant whose parents can’t speak English,
but sadness sounds the same in every language.
And I finally realize that we are surrounded by
death,
and pain,
and sadness.

I add, through tears:

And the only way out is to feed into one of them.









-CE
.

I hear the footsteps of my father creeping up the stairs. Immediately, every muscle in my body tenses, to the point where I feel my entire body may just combust and end me, which I wouldn’t mind. He throws a letter onto my bed and walks out. It isn’t uncommon for me to receive letters, with college fast approaching and desperate schools sending out generic love notes about why they love me and I should love them. But inside is something different.
December 07
Colton Else,

We, the staff of Amherst University, welcome you to our summer long program for liberal arts. Congratulations! This is an extremely selective program and out of 25,000 applicants across the country, you are one of 50 to be selected. This is an honor and you should be proud of your achievements. We were incredibly impressed by both your writing, and the recommendation from your teacher regarding how you conduct yourself in class. Please see the attached papers for further details regarding payment options and dates.
Sincerely,
Lori Gates
Office of Admissions

For the first time in my life, the tears that generously obstruct my view come from a regained sense of joy- not from my infinite amount of sorrow that fills my being more and more with each step I take. Ms. Eden must have submitted part of my journal, and I can’t help but marvel at the astonishing fact that a human, an alive one, just did something nice for me. Just think of it; an entire summer away from the hell that is my home and my school, a place where I can finally do what I love and what makes me happy, and oh my goodness I can’t believe I just used the word “happy.” Happy happy happy happy happy. That’s the first time I’ve used that word, said that word, felt that word, in so very long. I don’t even need some fancy word to substitute in for “happy,” because sometimes, the simpler the better, and quite frankly, I’m too excited to think of another. Sure, I’ll be forced to return home to my father after the summer, and I have to find a way to pay for the program, but I’m just really excited. Things are finally looking brighter for me, sometimes a little hope is all you need.