A Prisoner in All Senses

A starving emotion

the burning need for a safer feeling

an ache

a malnourished idea

of what truth is

and where faith can be found

a barren hope

of gaining hope

and evacuating the terrifying loneliness

a shot in the dark

plays tricks on my nerves

and no one to hold on to

a life sentence in my prison cell

gives me time to reflect 

how love had stripped me bare

though I never even thought I had

let it in

memories

of distant friends

never understood

never breaking through emotional barriers

but wanting

vague memories

of a happy childhood

before wanting

but the wanting overcame all other feelings

the aching hindered me

led me to make risky mistakes

it locked me up

it sent me here

now, I've lost all contact with my senses

I have memories of feelings

vague associations with real emotions

now and then, I touch upon them

but I can't commit myself to any of these

sensations

they are only history

I still want

but the wanting is different, now

I feel so caged

false motives

brought me to this cell

this isn't me, and I know it

letting the lifelessness seep into my mind,

I am a prisoner in all senses of the word

like they always tell me,

I can't escape

I have to earn my way out of here

maybe someday, I'll find out what freedom is

yet another day, and I fall victim to the wanting.

- March 29, 1984, A.D.

Tears for Fears, The Hurting (lyrics)

Is it an horrific dream
Am I sinking fast
Could a person be so mean
As to laugh and laugh
On my own
Could you ease my load
Could you see my Pain
Could you please explain
The Hurting

Could you understand a child
When he cries in Pain
Could you give him all he needs
Or do you feel the same
All along
You've been told you're wrong
When you felt it right
And you're left to fight
The Hurting

Get in line with the things you know
Feel the Pain
Feel the sorrow
Touch the hurt and don't let go
Get in line with the things you know
Learn to cry
Like a baby
Then the hurting won't come back

(1983)

The Mercy Drug

This is no ordinary pain-killer

this'll last me the rest of my life

I feel so brilliant!

I'm doing the best thing I could ever do for 

myself

here,

today,

I've got everything going for me

I am the master of my existence

no more social pulls in all directions

no more faked love affairs

no more anything

it's all in my hands, now

and a glass of water to wash it down

it's like a dream come true

in the last few, hazy moments of my consciousness,

I smile when I think of those who once hurt me

this is no ordinary pain-killer

this is the mercy drug

and it's come to take all of my hurting away

forever...

- March 29, 1984, A.D.

The Projectile

my interjection

was a question

of exclamatory rage

as I escaped the projectile

your words were the projectile

moving between my conscious and subconscious minds

they hung in the air of the psyche's realm

and drifted to the floor of my emotion

but never touched ground

until, gaining speed, they became the projectile

the case in point

because you knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt,

what would happen

do I detect a subtle amusement in your eyes?

am I just another fated victim?

you have taken it upon yourself to exterminate

those who still put faith in love

"What the fuck are you trying to do to me?!"

my interjection

I escaped the projectile

but I couldn't escape you

- March 27, 1984, A.D.

The Monster Inside, Part II

There is a monster in my mind

that churns out odd and peculiar thoughts

if I try to chain that monster down,

it changes form

and slips through the handcuffs

yet I speak its name

and it comes bounding to its master

I suppose we both know that I am the

true servant

I fall victim to a thousand misplaced dreams

but they are my life

they keep me moving

I am the monster

I stretch out my hands

to grasp at threads

becoming strings

which lead to ropes and vines

and nets

someday, they'll hold me

and help me climb to the top

today, I fall through

tomorrow, I fall through

but someday, I'll reach the top

the highest peak of my existence

I am a writer -

a "poet", so to speak-

an actress

an entrepreneur

a friend and enemy of the people

a lover of music and conversation

a radical

a rebel

and a saint

and who would bring this person down from 

her endless climb?

and who would blame her?

the strength to climb

is the strength to dream

and the monster in my mind is power unleashed

- March 21, 1984, A.D.

Safe

The people in this school are so boring!

I suppose the people in any school are

but why does it have to be so boxed and packaged?

little multicolored plastic insects

well-placed hair

a touch of color to cover raw features

a touch of similarity to cover the individual

I look like you

you look like me

all is safe

this is, after all, the "ideal" studying climate

scientists have proven

that straight-backed chairs, indirect florescent lights,

and windowless rooms create the best effects

non-offensive white walls that hold us into a 

cold room

if only something interesting would happen!

- March 20, 1984, A.D.

Note to Readers, 1984

Dear reader,

My primary intention in this notebook is to write exactly what comes to mind.  It is also a study on you.  You're free to read it all, but as I've said before, I am not responsible if you are shocked.  If you're a complete stranger, I have a lot of sympathy for you.  After a handshake and a congenial conversation, surely you wouldn't expect this.

Well, don't freak out.  Contrary to many personalities, what you see and talk to in person is the real me.  When I write, I usually write fiction.  I experiment.  I want to reach all people and don't want to be known for just one style.

And then there are the diary-like entries, where I actually have serious topics of discussion.  But there's always a little sarcasm involved.  You just have to know where to look for it.

Anyway, you've come this far.  You must continue.  I hope you find something of use in here.  Well, good luck one and all!

Love, Sharon

- March 19, 1984, A.D.

"And the meek shall inherit the earth"

I'm not going to grow up and get a job

I'm going to become a sewer rat

and eat scum

I'll grow hair all over my body

become short

and fat

a long, thin tail and tiny legs

I'll be covered with slime

and crawl along the passageways 

and sneak into your house

to eat your food

and your pet hamsters, fish, cats and dogs

I'll bite off your feet in the middle of the night

you'll have nightmares of me as you bleed to death

I'll chew holes in your ceiling on rainy nights

and in your walls to let the rodents

and cockroaches through

You'll never keep up with me

I'm too quick

your house and household will decay

until I'm better off than you

until you become one of us,

chewing away at the "civilized" world

until you, too, are sewer rats

and the echo of a growing race will

sound throughout the underground

a tunnel for you

is all that you need

and all scum are created equal

- March 19, 1984, A.D.

Open letter to the friends who let me crash here on St. Patrick's Day

In a study of the people here, I find that they are congenial (and quite wasted) punks, one of which I find myself to be, and I am quite happy with it, although happiness is not a very good word if you wish to use it to describe the people here.  There are probably a lot of suppressed dreams and a great need for some form of escape.  We are not lost people.  Day by day, we live.  What tomorrow will bring is an unasked question.  We are the people who can change the world.  Or we can get fucked up and talk about it the next day.  I have dreams.  But I like this life for now.  But no one should let themselves forget.  Everyone here is the owner of twisted principals, but it somehow seems to work.

We can sing about how fucked up the world is.  Or we can change it.  We can ignore the system.  Or we can make waves.  Hypocrisy and corruption will always exist.  The government is fucked without a doubt.  But you can't wait for the next guy to prevent annihilation.  If you can't do it, then fuck it, waste your life.  Everything lives on without you.

There's a great power in youth.  If you're aware of that, then you can do something more than sit on your ass and say the world is fucked.

Call me a fucking idealist, but sometime I'll get out of this fucking life.  I'm always one of the survivors.  I am youth, and I will not stand still, thank you.

What is rebellion?  Does anyone know?

They are very nice fuck-ups here...

The world is full of people who've been through a lot of shit, so don't put me down if I'm leading a generally happy life, because a lot of people don't get it that good.  I don't ever want to grow cold.  I care about these fucking strangers in my life.  And yet none of them are strangers.  If you think you know me, then you do.

[I wonder - do grade school witches become punks when adolescent dreams fall through?]

Break into a cold sweat and think of dreams long forgotten...  Try not to be sick.  Don't move.  The feeling will go away.  Everything will be clear in the morning, if I make it to the next day.  I stand still on a spinning world.  The darkness modifies the light.  And all I see has been seen and said before.  A living metaphor of a dying lifestyle...

Sorry reader.  You probably don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.  It is too late to worry if I am a burden in this so-called household.  I am here now, and I will stay.  It is too late.  St. Patty's day is over.  No more green beer.  The drugs are wearing off.  In light of the fact that this is a public report, I shall not go in depth into my impression of each of the people here.  Besides that, I probably have no right.  They deserve my respect.  I don't know how they are with respect.  If they take it well and such.  But they've got it.

- March 17, 1984

Confined

is there no hope

for a weather worn soul

when the storm returns after midnight?

is there nowhere to go when emotions unfold

and you find that there's no one in sight?

I am the jester

and you are the fool

I am the hero 

of tragedy's rule

and I am confined to my weather-worn box

it is here that I'll wait for the call

is there no light

in the thick of the night

that will carry me out of this darkness?

is there no one to call

or to hold when I fall

who'd help make my suffering less?

I am the jester

and you are the fool

I am the hero

of tragedy's rule

and I am confined to my weather-worn box

it is here that I'll wait for it all

I am the warrior,

rusted, unfed

my enemy dragon's

undying, undead

and I am confined to my weather-worn box

the feeling is nothing at all

- March 13, 1984, A.D.

Pencil to Paper

Pencil to Paper

what a fantastic love affair

to give life to an object

to give meaning -

I lay my soul down for all to see

on this paper

each revealing line sends me skyward

Reader -

if for some reason I cannot love you

by day

if society prevents it

if my self-consciousness withholds me

take to heart these words

you have not been forgotten;

Pencil to paper

a polychromatic dream

to give hope to a wounded soul

to lay at rest your fears for a while;

You know me -

I'm the adventurer

basking in the sun of life

but I'm shipwrecked half the time

it's fascinating, but it scares me

come,

be my rescue team;

Pencil to paper

unfolds me like an origami swan

delicately, I am revealed

crease by crease,

I make myself known

to touch the light

instead of it touching me

to light the light

or, better yet, out-light it

that is my dream

Pencil to paper

is my reality

in mother's arms,

yet total rebellion;

a forgotten dream,

a lover's cry in the dark,

a sleepless night;

all the truth in the world lives

in my pencil to paper existence

- March 1, 1984, A.D.