Optical Allusionist

I'm sorry it's been a week since I last posted. I've been thinking hard, and debating about what I'd like to post about. This past week has certainly been an eventful one. I could talk about all the time I spent with a close friend, Kelly. I could talk about the book I began writing about 'the tales of Annie and Ruth', based on events with my cousin Gracie. I could also talk about how my favorite teacher isn't going to be rehired because he accidentally stumbled upon a Playboy site. Or I could talk about how I lost a friend over the weekend and gained her back over the weekend. Should I talk about the boy I think's been avoiding me, or the dream I had last night where I tortured my friend? Ooh, maybe I should talk about the other night, when I woke up three times in cold sweats from nightmares. I could talk about introducing my friend to "Matilda", the book & the movie. I suppose I could talk about how I finally found a job-- at the place I used to work a few months ago. :) I introduced a close friend and a close teacher-friend (whom my close friend had despised) and reconciled that incident.

I've been wanting to write a post that describes my feelings concerning the song "Russians" by Sting, or give a brief explanation of my views on each of the presidential candidates. But tonight, what really struck me was a song from the play "The Civil War."

This song is called "How Many Devils?" and it fairly describes how I feel tonight. The lyrics are posted at the bottom of this post. Also, a link for the song on Youtube, is: "http://youtube.com/watch?v=RVdFQWaeSko".

When I have a string of nights linked by nightmares, I tend to be in a quiet, contemplative mood about this time of night guessing at what I'm about to face. Who will I see killed tonight? Who will rape me tonight? How will it affect me tomorrow morning? How am I ever going to get over this? When will I get over it? Would I not have had nightmares had Aubrey not attempted suicide, or Devin not threatened me, or a million other options? And after last night, "Who will I torture tonight?" or "What will I do wrong tonight?"

But most of all,

"How will I escape?" From me. From the others. From the truth. How will I escape? How many devils?

However, I have the luxury: I can wake up and say, "Shelly, that never happened. Breathe in, breathe out. That never happened. You're okay. He/She're okay. They're fine. Just a dream, just a dream." But it's still like seeing someone shot or beheaded or tortured before your eyes. And I've just gotten used to seeing things like that. Hahaha, I've desensitized myself.

"When did life become so damn cheap?"

My therapist says that I have the nightmares so I can feel prepared to fight or deal with anything that comes along in real life.

And I've conquered something recently! I SWAM!! I have been... deathly aquaphobic for the past handful of years, and so a friend and I (in November) decided to set a date to swim, and to work up to that day. That day was last Saturday, and for the first time since I was around 15, I swam in something other than a bathtub.

This morning I felt like asking the questions the Confederate soldiers ask themselves in this song. "How many miles? How many fears? How many days? How many years? How many rivers of blood, sweat and tears? How many times into the fray? How many [times won’t I] walk away?... How many miles dead on our feet, drenched to the bone, baked in the heat?" I see the bodies around me who have dropped from exhaustion and murder. And even as I'm asking how it can't be allowed-- my dropping-- I know I'm determined to find a place where there aren't bodies lying around me.

I'm debating about whether or not to elaborate. I don't want to be the kind of blogger who only posts when they're sad or mad. I want to post intelligently and soberly, so I should probably wait another couple days before I elaborate on the past several months-- the ups, the downs, how hard it was to stay alive in the battlefield of my mind, and why I'm here now, fighting the good fight. Enjoy the ride, right? Things get better.

Things do get better.




How Many Devils?

One, Two, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again and watch the lines go on by
Three, Four, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again until you stop work and then you die
One, Two, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again until Massah Robert tells us to cease
Three, Four, when the hell did shoes get so damn dear and life get so damn cheap?
One, Two, those damn Yankees ain’t give up as easy as we thought they’d be
Three, Four, those damn Yankees ain’t near as scared or half as hungry as we
One, Two, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again is all a body can do
Three, Four, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again until this bloody war is through!
How many miles? How many fears? How many days? How many years?
How many rivers of blood, sweat and tears?
How many times into the fray? How many men won’t walk away?
How many hells filled with how many devils to pay?
One, Two, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again and watch the miles roll on
Three, Four, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again until your strength is nearly gone
One, Two, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again and dream of home, safe and sound
Three, Four, pick ‘em up and put ‘em down again ’til we’re six feet underground
How many miles dead on our feet, drenched to the bone, baked in the heat?
Fading from ground with another retreat?
How many times into the fray? How many men won’t walk away?
How many hells filled with how many devils to pay?
Bodies all lay in the tall summer grass, swollen and butchered and still
Measuring miles by the dead that you pass, measuring life by the men you kill
How many days? How many more? How many men lost to this war?
I can’t remember what we’re fighting for!
How many times into the fray? How many men won’t walk away?
How many hells filled with how many devils to pay?

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Nightmares are a horrible thing. Dreams are a horrible thing. Dreams make you believe there's something out there-- things that happened, will happen, or have the possibility of happening, that will never happen. They create a false sense of hope. Nightmares must be the balancer of dreams. They destroy hope, destroy soul. They are the Sarcophagus of the mind. What a horrible thing to dream a Dream and then have a Nightmare follow.

People who don't remember their nightmares, don't understand. People who have chronic nightmares... horrible, gory, soul-shaking nightmares. They wake up with the overwhelming emotion that it did happen. What they saw, what they heard, what they experienced, happened. It takes me a few days, sometimes a week, on occasion, to overcome a single nightmare. To get over a few moments in time. And I remember every single one. They don't know what it is to experience watching someone you love dying, over and over and over. To experience gory violence, limbs cut off, heads bitten off. To experience extreme fear felt rarely in life, but often under the carpet of the night. I wake up with horror, despair, and repulsion under my belt.

And what's odd, though, is I think I would rather feel the skin-peeling horror than to feel the dull, hollow hope created by Dreams. So often Dreams are the ideal. The exception-- the impossible wonder. And to wake up and rejoice that I attained the ideal feels beautiful! But the joy falls with my heart, hollowing me out on the way down. With a realization that the ideal doesn't exist in this world, in my life, in my experience. I lay back down and struggle to remember the dream or the nightmares, so I can think about them, remember the emotions felt, the people involved, the plotline of the subconscious.



Shadow dreams make shadows seem a bit more real.

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I had a dream once- oh, a year or so ago, and this is how it goes. These men came to work on our lawn. It was late at night, and everyone (including Brother Maddox, me, my family, friends, these two guys, etc) was outside. We saw these tracks that formed a path through my back yard. They actually resembled the handcart tracks I'd been staring at just weeks before (for trek :D) These men had put them there. It made me so mad to see thesetracks. I loved my back yard, and they had ruined it. So I started saying "You ruined our lawn! You ruined our lawn! You ruined our lawn!" I ran to mymom and nearly in tears said "He ruined my lawn!" She just raised her eyebrows, nodded and shrugged her shoulders. I couldn't believe how apathetic she was being. It was our lawn!! Eyes brimming with tears and anger, I picked up a shovel, and ran hard at him screaming all the way "You ruined my lawn! You ruined my lawn!" I maneuvered the shovel back behind my shoulders, ready to swing and cut cleanly into his head. I could almost feel it slice through his skull and brains already. I loved it. I swung. My arms weakened along with my anger, melting into a sickening jolt of self-disgust. Though the swing had started out hard, it never did reach the man. I dropped the shovel, fell to my knees, head in my palms, bawling. So much confusion. There was so little of me that was disgusted with my near-attempted murder, so much that was disgusted that I couldn't kill this man. But I couldn't. Soon after, I saw the man hand his co-worker a knife, ready to use it on my family. Even then, I knew I'd discovered that I couldn't kill him, no matter how much I wanted it because of the sliver of me that didn't want to hurt that man. I felt nauseous with guilt. I hated myself for not being able to murder him. My eyes red and swollen, and my body shaking as I continued to cry hard into my hands, I felt encompassed with a sickening essence of failure. I was a failure. A failure. That's about all I remember of the dream.

I guess we know what the path is, and what I'm really referring to when I say "lawn", but that scares me. He made a path in my life. Talking to him put me in a position of power. It meant I could make or break him. I chose to make him, and I hope I was successful.

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Elizabeth jerked awake, grasping with shaking fingers for her wiry glasses. Her vision clear, she pressed her pale knuckles to her head.

"Stop." Gasping for composure, she repeated, "Stop, stop, stop!" With a deep inhale, she folded her quivering hands over her stomach. Struggling to keep her eyes open, she focused on the glow-in-the-dark star formations. The room, softly spinning, disappeared behind fitful eyelids.

A soft scarlet fabric ran up and down her finger-tips. Or perhaps it was her fingers running up and down the fabric. Thump. Thump. Was it a heartbeat? No; too distant. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The heavy footfall broke behind her as Elizabeth's eyes adjusted to the sudden light. She crouched against the thin sheet of metal-- an excuse for a van door. Dumpy, magenta, leather seats sat to her right. She crushed herself into the back of the driver's seat, a corner out of the man's view.

She knew the man stalking her. She had already seen his over-sized crossbow, and his bulging, steroid-hyped figure. Childlike hands attempted to grab the plastic pocket, as tides of elbow-length, strawberry-blond hair fell in front of her eyes.

The footsteps began again, moving to the other side of the Plymouth Voyager. Her frightened young frame found the agility to spring to the opposite door- his destination. Breathing heavily, keeping her head low and out of view from the window, her eyes darted around the broken-down car. Under the seat? Maybe she should be hiding th---

"Liz? Liz, it's time to get up!" Her mother rapped at the door. "Li-iZ!"

Her temples faintly aching from being pressed against the metal frame of her glasses, she rasped "Yeah." She paused from lack of sufficient sleep.

"I'm up. I'm up." The floorboards creaked as Elizabeth's mother walked away.

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I've been thinking a lot about my nightmares. I talked with my therapist, Melissa, about them, and she told me some very interesting things. Did you know that EVERYONE'S dreams consist of about 60% nightmare? 3/5 of our dreams are nightmares!! I just happen to remember them... vividly. And they're possibly connected with what happened, but that's another story. She talked about a research that included taking the dream cycle away from rats, and how they weren't able to react in a flight/fight/freeze mode. They couldn't use their survival skills. It was as if they'd completely forgotten them!! The theory says that we practice our survival skills during our sleep, which makes sense for cavemen/cavema'am who needed to protect themselves from saber toothed tigers or the like, but for us, who have different fears-- generally not life-threatening, it's not as sensible for us to have them. But our brain still puts out the information, in the event of something happening. Still, that helps and it doesn't. My nightmares are horrifying for me. Disturbing! Disgusting! Vomitous! And, though it makes sense as to why they happen, that doesn't make them stop. Melissa says that when I come, though, to trust in my ability to fight off whatever monster I'm afraid of, the nightmares will disappate. ...What a blessing that would be. To give you a taste of why that'd be a blessing, check this out. It's a poem I wrote around a year ago. Check this out: WArning, though. It does contain quite a bit of violence/gore.


Nightmares

His face reminds me of ground hamburger. I don't know if he suffocated because of the exhaust, or if he got torn up when Dallin drove the car over him.

The river of clotting blood sloshes around my calves, staining my jeans with a shining crimson.

A momentary glint of sunlight reflects off the gaping fangs. The clap of the thunder shatters the glass walls protecting me as his snout violates the room, nostrils flaring.

His toe hung by a hinge of skin, blood mixing with the green of the grass. Tears silently flowing down his face, he shakily stared up at me, as he turned the lawn mower off.

I stepped first on the ice-cold concrete, a grid covering the shark-infested body of water. Weaving through the water without a sound, a fin cuts the surface, leaving a wake of terror as it torpedoes towards me.

Her feet hang above the floor, swinging. I can't save her. I could never save her. I never see her eyes, her face, or the rope she dangles from.

There were only holes, shot through three times in the torso. I gaped in horror at my father's blank eyes. He had died to distract them from me.

Her screams rack me. How couldn't I tell someone, and now, here she stands before me, her wrist slit, blood seeping from them. The screaming. Oh, the screaming.

Mindlessly, I shot gasoline-filled bullets: penetrate, then poison. The gun racketed off my shoulder. My terrible aim found no target, but instead succeeded in lodging in the metal grid of a propane grill.

Flying high, holding me by my wrists, the dragon had his fun, using me to succeed his jollies.

The dark clamminess of the dew-covered grass flooded my nostrils. My eyes followed my pursuers, as my knuckles toned white, grasping at the grave stone.

The dark shadows moved through the tents someone had set up in the living room. Outside, a dark man with red, glowing eyes glowers at me. My brother gives him his wedding ring so he won't rape me.

Cuts grew, and we laughed as we bled, throwing shards of glass as though they were snowballs.

Knowing her sister would die if she fell, the black woman grasped for her wrist, hoping to save her murderous sibling from certain death. The savior stared in horror as the saved pulled a bone saw from her belt, and proceeded in sawing off her sister's arm until, the bone and bright flesh showing, only a thin hinge of flesh held on to her.

His fists and anger penetrate my side, kicking and punching and shoving until I'm only a crumpled heap laying beaten on the floor.

His grip, nearly breaking my ankles, forced my legs wide, until he could penetrate the purist part of me. His face rolled with sweat and a twisted grin, he glorified in my silenced scream.

Red eyes of a jaguar growl. My feet move, though I struggle to stop them, step by step, stair by stair, closer and closer.

I huddle, shivering in the cold of the night, under the deck. I know they're coming to hurt me, but there is nothing to do but wait.

His grip is strong on the bricks, scaling the wall in the dead of night. I reach out the window, and flail, hoping to knock him off his journey.

His shadow reflects the ruby eyes, until he knocks me on the floor, mounting me with one hand, holding me down with the other.

Flailing and cursing, the woman tears at me and my clothing. Limping into the adjacent room, I find an aunt who threatens to further attack me.

The savage circle of men surround my friend, leaving a crumpled ball in the center. They perform a barbaric dance of popping arms and stomping feet, soon to rape the beaten figure.

Cold, angry concrete tickles my neck. I stare blankly into a long tunnel, waiting for the bullet to propel through me. A concentration camp of twice-made victims.

I can see the fin weaving, slicing the water. A public pool, filled with innocent bystanders, that refuse to listen to my cry of warning. Am I the only one who can see it?

Lost in a second dimension, I can not speak to anyone. No one to understand me. Lost my brother. Lost my life. Lost everything.

Her eyes are necessarily dead. At almost half my size, she has no life in her. Her life is a dream. Necessarily.

Evil blood-cats mew at my window. Freakishly gaunt bodies and
eyes that stare to the evilest part of you. Feeling sorry for the creatures, I let them in. They tear my cat up, into pieces.

I can't breathe in the squeeze. To find my cousin, the tubes will transport me, but I'm too big, and too claustrophobic.

My scream echoes in my ears. Hero, no more. The man I love, my brother, Kevin, has other things on his mind. Macy watches in the corner of my dream.

Its bloodshot eyes rage, and the bear's jaws gape wide. Frozen only seconds before, the taxidermied animal is now more true than reality.

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Fear... What are you afraid of? What is it about fear and pain that makes us fear them? Why do we convert fear or grief into anger? Has anger become so prevelant in our life, that we find ourselves feeling "immune" to the effects of it? Is it "easier" to deal with because we experience it so often in the world today? Why are we afraid? Is fear easier than faith? Sure. But not in the long run- the effects are dramatically separate. Are we so distracted that we can't sit down and realize that if we took a breath and looked around and actually thought about what we were about to do, then we could face it WHILE we're "down to earth"?

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