Alberta 2015

A Story by scarlynn

in progress, not sure what I'm going to produce with this material yet

You think you've seen the most beautiful thing in the world and well, you have not.

But I can't follow you into this introspective spiral, because there's something about me I'm never going to tell you and I'd still expect you to love me anyway. I think I've gotten so stupid and so reckless with age like some inverted hourglass that nothing works the way it's supposed to anymore, and somehow it's entirely my fault-and I know that like I know the definite letters of my name. I don't want to talk to anyone about it because I believe it so much, and when it's taken away from me the world becomes upturned in the most violent and hostile way.

It's easy as s**t to write poetry. You don't need to have any sort of artistic brain or broken heart or possessed mind, you can just write something down and anyone will think it's art.

Today was supposed to be one of the best days of my life and I was so excited to share it with you that remembering what you said to me in the dark possibly ruined my trip and my entire life. I don't mean to put so much pressure on anyone else, obviously it isn't fair, but I no longer have the strength to even turn it into a selfish adventure. I have nothing in myself upon which I can rely. My instinct is to ignore you for the rest of my life but you didn't do anything wrong to me.

My fingers and my toes are cold, and I can't imagine feeling this way for all of eternity. To put things simply, I would never kill myself because of how sad I get, I'd kill myself because of how tired and bleak I am- as a person, as a life, as an idea.

I'm only still writing now because I'm crying. Yes I'm an adult and I need to this and I need to that but the truth is that I can't do any of it and I'll disappoint everyone some more, like some sort of game that breaks after so much use. I just wanted to hear back from you because you remind me of myself, and if I can't even acknowledge me, what is the point of any of this?

The thing about being fifteen is that I was fourteen instead. I believed everything. It's funny now that I'm nineteen and I still blush around older boys and I still dance around my room when the night ends and now it's only worse because it feels like some castle I built and collapsed in the same two days but I'm much more cynical.

It seems like Alberta has always got the golden hour hanging around outside, everything is glossy and at one in the afternoon you could swear it's really sunset. Maybe it's a good thing and maybe it's a bad thing, but the problem (my problem) is that I never know which it'll be until it hits me. I swore I was going to have the time of my life here but then I remembered Edmonton isn't really my hometown.

I put all of my daggers away this morning for a Prozac. I didn't plan on it, but if I'm wiping everything out of my mind, I might as well drag the rest of myself down as well. But, if anyone truly knows me, I've just taken a sugar pill and the placebo will make me better in two weeks.

I'm worth something close to a comma at the end of an apprehensive quote, and they could write an entire screenplay about you. But I think deep inside of me (or at least, what one side of my personality seems to believe) is that I'm truly the wildest of mustangs just like he was. I'll never be pleased with anything and I'm always roving about. They say it's a symptom, but my impulsiveness is deeply rooted in my chest. Maybe it's because I'm a Sagittarius, maybe it's because I'm an INFP, maybe a nasty combination of the two. I could muse about anyone the way I muse about you, and I know this because it's all I've ever done. I don't speak about myself on a gamble anymore. So for the record, you have a piece of my heart, but you must know that my heart regrows every missing limb that it suffers.

The colors here are gold and white. The golden bears, the university. It makes sense when you really see it, and I can't ever describe Alberta to anyone unless I pull them through a time loop with my own two arms and onto the concrete next to me. I'd have to shove them down into the snow, they'd have to sit on the porch and listen to the arctic air. It has a sound, I promise you it does. It has a taste, it has a culture. I know because it reverberates in my veins.

It's a little bit of a shock when the sun sets because I think the sun is going to set all day. I was prepared to see the moon at ten in the morning. You'd think there would be some kind of warning but the birds are all gone and the elk are all in the forests. I was hoping I could go there but I feel there are certain beauties restricted for when I meet my absolute freedom, and this year is not that time.

My whole stomach churned a million times over when I saw that photo because I was such a mess, and you looked way too good for me to leave that bar. I was a monster, and I know this now because at the time I had no idea what a monster I was. I still thank my lucky stars that I hadn't really done anything wrong, but something guilty and sordid and huge rises in me when I see your stupid hair and your stupid eyes, mostly because they don't belong to me, and also because you're older. You bought me a drink that you knew wouldn't burn my throat. If that isn't seduction, I don't know what is.

Some other door has opened for me but I left Texas with a black eye and I'm in Edmonton with a black eye. That's how I know there's never really a way to start over. I know the sky is gray but I still can't find camouflage, and everyone else obviously notices since they've all asked where the color in my cheeks has gone. I like to think it's in the sun rays that dance on the dead, cold snow. It reminds me so much of myself that I have to laugh when I think of all the times my mother told me, "never let anyone walk all over you, not even yourself."

Yeah I wanted a stupid hard lemonade. I wanted to hold it, I wanted to bring the bottle up to my lips and do that swig/dip-looking thing that made you look so cool. I wanted the stupid five percent just so I knew I had something in my heart. It was mostly a joke to me, especially since I didn't handle drinking well anymore. I wanted to act cool so I could laugh at you when you looked at me too long. You had no idea, no one has any idea the amount of inside jokes I have with myself. I'm an egocentric pig.

There's a silence to it, and it begins when you get on the second flight. I suppose it's like stepping away from a fireplace - you're cooled and residued, but it's fine.

My eyes are huge. They aren't really, but I feel like they are. So many things hit me so quickly and I can't stop myself from staring at them like it's the last time I'll ever have vision. That's why I'm in love with Alberta. Eyes are connected directly to the heart, I think. I mean eyes are windows- everyone knows that- to the soul. Snow is a visual trip, it's another hallucination. But as with all trips, there are steps you need to take to really enjoy it.

You can't live in a snowy place and you'd better be depressed as s**t.

No one ever likes the things I do and that's why you're important to me. Maybe I'll be nothing and maybe I'll be something, who knows- but I can't help thinking about you when I see the dumb snow and the dumb sunset and the dumb city at night. I sit up in my bed and wonder why you even had to come along because if I didn't know you I might be better off and I wouldn't feel pain this way. I don't like you because you handle me exactly the way I want to be handled. It sucks and I'm trying to ignore you, so don't worry about it.

I didn't realize how much like a hospital room this is, and maybe that's why I feel so much comfort. She is a nurse after all, she always has been. And I've always been a patient, somehow. I'm just a kid. I'll always be a kid.

I went snowshoeing. Have you ever done it before? It's not what I thought it would be like, but then again I never expected it to be anything more than me fumbling around in the snow. I was disappointed upon discovering the snowshoes fit like roller blades for little kids. You had to clip things together and get the latch to go through the plastic hole just enough for it to fit around your shoe. I imagined walking around with wicker-basket looking inventions on my feet and feeling a little more in touch with the earth. These had a brand name on the side of them.

They had these awful looking metal teeth on the underside that I was sure I'd abuse somehow if they were my own and sitting in my house on a drunk night in my feelings. Those teeth somehow made their way into my dreams that night, and I was in some grassland in Africa and the teeth were hidden in the ground, upside down. The grass was on fire and a lot of my friends were dying. I would go snowshoeing again for the exercise, but from the whole experience, I realized I hate them.

The sun was nice when it was behind clouds. It gave everything a glassy, echo-y effect that I'd seen in Texas before, but only in the winter. It was hiding behind those thin, wafery clouds that reach really far up in the sky- the ones you sometimes see hiding above you on the plane when you're already a mile up. It made me feel like I was hidden from something judgemental.

She was talking too much and I wanted to take more pictures than it seemed I had time for. Everyone here talks to me too much. I just want to breathe in the snow, I can write out a life story later.

The other nice thing about Canada was everyone breathing. You could see your own breath in the air like you were inhaling and exhaling a cigarette for the entire winter, and everyone did it. It was a thick smoke. Everyone seemed more human that way - sort of like when you see someone else cry. They become less of a celebrity to you. It was kind of the nature, I thought. Winter is blunt and humbling and surprisingly easy on you. Everyone I looked at I thought I could become friends with. Except that b***h at customs.

I realized I shouldn't wear black so much and neither should my mother. And actually, I wore a tan foxfur parka this morning and I realized I looked exactly the way she did in that picture of her wearing a similar parka in the arctic circle. The jacket and the snow made my hair look more flaxen than mousy and for once I didn't hate the color of my eyes. They seemed natural in that environment. I felt uncomfortable, I'm self-centered but I am also self-loathing and this was a new and unwelcome feeling for me. I suppose I was channeling someone else.

Isn't that funny? I look my best in a f*****g parka where you can barely see my face. But it's true.

Something about the dog park makes you less of a cat person. Dog people at the dog park, it only makes sense. Especially here, since everyone's so friendly. You pass through the trees and every two minutes another pair of faces float by with the same knowing smile. I talk to people like they're some aunt or cousin I haven't met before. But that's what all of Canada is like- no one's reserved, they're just cozy. All the time.

I'm hoping to go to Jasper because Jasper was my muse in fifth grade. I would daydream about it, I drew and painted it, I dreamt about it. Something about being that deep in the woods sparked a kind of love in me that I look for in other people. I swear I was something stupid and pointless like a pine tree in my past life, and it would make sense because I barely move. All I do is think and listen and live in my head. Pine trees can grow pretty tall and their needles are either soft or awful, and that's how I am towards people. But of course all of that is a contradiction, so I guess that diagnosis was totally right and then some. In conclusion, I'd love to see Jasper in the snow.

I guess I just can't drink anymore, I guess I've shot my kidneys. I feel like I just drank a liter of syrup, I'm sick to my stomach and I'm only tipsy. It's New Year's Eve. It's New Year's Eve and I'm not an underage vixen in a sparkly sequin black dress and my makeup isn't delicately smoky and no one is staring at me and no one is in love with me, and I'm not going to fall asleep in anyone's arms and it's been an entire year and still nothing has changed. I must be the worst kind of girl, I must be the kind people avoid. I'm probably the kind of girl that sends you a text and you look at your phone and say "oh God what am I supposed to reply I don't really like her", I'm probably the kind of girl you laugh about with your friends because of how ridiculous she is. I'm probably the kind of girl you look for when you're 23 and bored and need someone to manipulate for three weeks and then ignore forever. Either that or I put too much importance on holidays.

I wanted to shove my head in the snow until my face froze and I couldn't see anything anymore so I wouldn't have to worry about crying. That must be what snow is for, it's so alluring and sparkly that all you think about is putting yourself in it. It swallows you and freezes you until you're so silent and so dead that the universe itself would cease to exist.

Why do I whine so much? Wine, whine. Same f*****g thing, one leads to another. They chase each other in circles. Yin and Yang, whatever. This must be awfully boring to read about by now, but I'm curious to see just how often and how severely I feel this way. And the answer is every single night, that is why I'll never publish anything. Up and down, yin and yang, hot and cold, bipolar by the single minute, but I'm not bipolar. I'm something else, but I'm also wrong about it since I haven't got a master's degree in the art of thinking you're better than everyone else yet. I don't have the qualifications to decide whether I'm a screaming basket case and I need the most immediate attention I'll never receive because I can't communicate my problems. I just sit there with my mouth open, just like I did when you broke my heart the other day.

The air is compact. It is small and you have your own bubble. This is a lovely sensation when you're walking down a snowy path but the snow is trodden on and smooth, like carpet, unmoving. You can walk and relax your eyes so they're half-closed and pretend you're sunk in your own bathtub. If you stand still the right way, it is quiet and clean enough for you to hear your own heartbeat. It's a fetal emotion, you could even fall asleep and not worry about anything harming you. You almost want to curl up that way, especially in the sun. That sun that just won't reach the top of the sky. The early orange evening of the entire day.

I thought about frozen lakes profusely whenever I saw one. I thought about the science behind them and what the animals must be doing underneath their glass lids. I imagined little golden fish swimming around between green playful weeds thoughtfully, pausing to look up at the sky every so often. The sun must look so different. I wondered if they felt chilly or if they felt fine and cozy as I did in a quilt here. Silenced and serene, swimming numbly but knowingly, not feeling regretful. I wondered if they could sense the fear of a human who'd fallen through the ice, but I didn't worry about it. It musn't mean much to a little golden fish.

They swim around you.

They continue.

Just like I need to.

I think the woods are spiritual because trees are either alive or skeletons or dying or resurrecting. They are like human souls. Maybe there are so many trees because human souls need somewhere to rest in-between lives. If you believe in that kind of thing.

They whisper a little bit, and I don't mean literally. The trees are a collective atmosphere of peace and earthiness. I think I am jealous of them - they have no curfew.

A cold forest is my ideal home. I would need a cabin and all of that, but I would love to live in a snowy coniferous forest with birch and pine trees and a river, and little pinecones and needles littering the ground and red berries blushing the fronds and branches. I'd sit and write everything I could think of, I would sing into the open air. But the saddest and most exhausting truth I have come to understand is that I don't want to be alone anymore. In fact, I am very lonely, even in a crowded room, even in a bed next to someone. I am so tired, I am so tired. Being sad doesn't make me happy now.

I tapped the mirror. I grabbed my face. I pinched my arms. I bit my lip at the reflection. I opened my eyes, I jammed them closed, I opened them. I pulled my hair, I let it fall in my eyes. I tied my locks back with a hair tie. The reflection did the same. I couldn't feel any of it.

I thought about all the times I'd tried on clothes in dressing rooms, and how I'd stood away from the two mirrors on either side of me and looked into them, into the silvery, gray, green, terrifying world they seemed to be. Mirrors reflecting each other. "Hi, you're here" they seemed to say back and forth to each other, over and over, forever. It was all they did. Why was it that I felt the stuck between mirrors but no one would tell me where I was? I certainly wasn't here, but I wasn't there either. I didn't know. I couldn't even tell if I was breathing, and I didn't really care either. The entire day felt like this.

I thought about every scar I had, specifically the ones I'd given myself. I missed the feeling because it was an exit ramp. But I was old now, and I needed to be mature. I guess being able to feel wasn't mature.

Everyone thought it was silly but I knew why I did it.

It would still make sense to me in forty years.

It wasn't an ice castle I would create, but it felt surreal nonetheless. I liked it because it was cold outside and I was warm inside and this was something I hadn't felt until that evening. I knew it was an illusion, but it was something for me to hold on to.

I thought it was a little stupid to have red colored lights behind the ice because that wasn't something you saw in winter. I was pretending they were really the northern lights I had been waiting to see on New Year's that never appeared. I felt a little ethereal and alone that way, but I wasn't lonely. Of course that feeling only lasted until I was alone and in my bed again.

I was dragging along so slowly I thought I had lost my body. Everyone seemed to have figured themselves out and I didn't have even a clue as to how I could get out of bed. It was different every morning. If God was real I needed him today.