#escapril 22 - "Pizza and Puppies"

I love Shermy-worm

i did my homework and it didn't hurt

i know it's not april

brick

You know that Arianna song that goes "I'm a motherfuckin trainwreck"? Yeah I feel that.

Beards, Soup, Trucks, Music and Lack Of Eye Contact

hi. ok bye.

#escapril 13 - "According To the Stars"

been on a zodiac kick. try cafe astrology if you're curious

#escapril 12 - "Dorm Room"

a short one bc i hate the idea of cleaning

#escapril 11 - "See You Next Year"

They held auditions the other day. and yes, this is late

#escapril 10 - "Androgyny"

screw posting on time and staying on topic

#escapril 9 - "Floor"

Have i mentioned yet that i cleaned my floor? Listen, it's a big deal for me.

#escapril 8 - "Fall in Love"

another day late poem. i love me anyway

#escapril 7 - "Hibernate"

#escapril 6 - "Streetlights and Cursors"

please tell me i'm not the only one who experiences this

#escapril 5 - "My Nature"

i know this is a day late

like i know finals are coming up but i'm honestly so glad classes are over. and my jury went better than i thought it would.

by the way, juries are like glorified playing tests.

#escapril4 - "Juries Be Like"

this absolutely does not count as following the prompt. but i have basically a big playing test tomorrow and thats all thats on my mind so. this happened. wish me luck

#escapril3 - "Welcome To My Home"

#escapril 2 - "california"

lot shorter today. it snowed in the prairies.

#escapril 1 - "Reset"

just found out about this today, no idea if this counts as following the prompt, but this is the first poem I've written in a while, and it felt wonderful. It helps to have a starting off point.

tsp 12

She stopped. Somehow, by some miracle, she stopped. A few months in and hitting rock bottom seems to have done her some good. She’s started actually talking to her classmates and forming tentative friendships.

She would almost say she’s forgotten him.

And it’s so nice, to be back to herself. No one else is on her mind, and she wouldn’t say she’s thriving but so far she has survived. 

She goes online and sees that he liked a birthday post of a girl from their high school band. Clearly he has internet access, and a brief ‘fuck you’ floats through her mind. And then she realizes. 

She really doesn’t care. 

She looks at her writing and it looks strange to her, hers but not hers. 

She might finally be free.

:::

thx to whoever is reading this. it's terrifying putting yourself out there into the world, especially when it's something like your writing that you can be critiqued on and criticized for. <3

-T

tsp 11

She keeps notes on her phone of appointments and things to pass on to others. Every so often the need to write a song overcomes her and lyrics pour over into her notes. Somewhere along the line she wrote another entire song about him. It’s beautiful. She hates it. She hates that she loves it and that this is the best art she’s created in a year. 

She writes a poem. It’s angry and ugly and her mother thinks it’s beautiful and powerful. It makes her feel weak. 

She’s been writing her feelings and posting to an old blog from tenth grade that no one looks at. She likes the feeling of putting herself out there for no one to see. 

:::

meta

tsp 10

It was never what she would have expected to find herself talking about. Seeing yet another therapist, she was sure she would end up talking about suicide or Rivier. Not romance. 

Surely other topics were more important. Why waste the doctor’s time with her and her imaginary stories? 

But the doctor kept asking. She’d have to pick up where she left off two weeks later.

Why did she let Trumpet Soccer Player have this much of her time in the first place? And why did the doctor have to get excited? Why did he look intrigued and invested? This should be the most boring thing in the world to him. Why didn’t she just stop talking, just let the dead horse be?

:::

tsp 9

She’d be the first to tell you she’s a shit texter. But not for him. Screw reading emails from professors, or even opening that green app. Instead, let her skeleton jump in her still body when she sees that white and blue icon with a message that has an ‘A’ in it somewhere. It could be him.

Or it could be her pastor, telling her about the youth gatherings across the road by the parkade, something they’d talked entirely too long about on his and his wife’s way to the football game. 

Sometimes, however, he would respond. He would never initiate the conversation, but if he ever responded she’d blink at the screen in disbelief. Too good to be true. 

How desperate.

She wanted to believe that maybe he was a shit texter too. Maybe he’d been reluctant to ever talk to her because of her resting bitch face. Maybe, in some alternate dimension where she had the balls to go up and talk to him, she’d have a chance.

But she’d always said she knew better. Now if only she could be better.

:::

tsp 8

Her campus list of people grows. Razina from band. Austin from band. Mohammed from band. She learns people in her classes and even manages to send a quick wave to a few. She’s found her classes and got into orchestra. She hears the trumpets and wishes he would have auditioned. She doesn’t know if he did, but she’s positive that if he did he would be here right now.

And he’s not.

And it’s odd. R is nice and there’s nothing more than the fleeting idea of romance that always seems to enter her brain unannounced. And she knows nothing will come of this, or any other pop of attention she has found herself paying these other boys. It’s hard to tell if it’s true, if it’s reflexes she’s developed, or if it’s him.

She hopes it’s not him.

How terrible would that be, to be hung up on a boy you barely know? She hasn’t reached pining just yet, but the idea of this attention she pays him being more than temporary terrifies her. 

:::

tsp 7

She finds another person to add to her mental list titled People I Know on Campus. They talk, far more than they ever have before, and it’s weird. But nice enough. 

Here, right before her lies an opportunity to make a friend, something she does not find often. Here is someone that reached out to her first, made a first move. 

And yet. He’s still there, lodged in her brain like a shim no one trimmed before building around and now it’s encased in the building of her mind. At this point she doubts she could get him out even if she tried. Trying would mean tearing down all previous progress. And she’s not entirely sure she wants to.

She’s talking to a potential friend but she wishes it was him and berates herself for not giving her full self to one of the few people that have actually shown interest. 

And again, there he is. If he would only show clear interest. 

Focus.

:::

i think i've finished it. i'm still going to post in in parts. 

TSP 6

She thought about it. Far more than she would ever want to consider reasoning, she thought about it. Him. The empty bullet of a question. 

Walking up a steep slope it intrudes in her mind again. She reaches the top and looks down at the road as she walks. She wonders what it would be like to jump, to fall, would she feel peace? Not that she would, not that she could, but nonetheless in a completely fenced bridge over six lanes of traffic, the possibility of a jump is a welcome relief from the discomfort of attraction. Stick to the reality of the mental illness and try to burn the fictional hope of romance. 

She doesn’t stop walking.

:::

 

it's ok i'm fine, don't worry. i'm not suicidal.

love myself for leaving this essay to the last minute. i'm bored and two hundred words short. as long as i pass i'll be happy