The Tomorrow We Were Promised

                                                                                   KARMEN

I used to think people were like stars in the sky, that no matter how far away they were, that they'd brighten your darkest days, they'd always be there. But maybe they're more like candles, they're there to celebrate and you blow them out, eventually, they burn out. I'd like to think people are stars, but really they're candles. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but the thing about candles is that they slowly burn away, and when they burn out there's nothing left. I think I'd like to be a sparkler, short-lived beauty, bringing something dangerous yet exciting into someone's life, maybe you don't get it yet. I think you will soon.

"I am the song everyone hums but nobody sings.

Like a kite in the wind, you hold onto me so loosely that you don't feel me slip from your hands; gone with the wind. I can hear you whispering my name hoping it would catch my ears, you're wrong. I will not catch anything you throw, for you bound me with your words and plastered me with your hope. I want more than just the sky, they know my chorus but have no understanding of my rhythm or purpose.

I am immutable. I am relentless. Please remove these stones from my pocket, the weight of my actions drag me much deeper. I hang to your every word despite my face looking firmly away. why did you have to leave me?" I say with the pain and confidence I wrote it in.

My class withholding their laughter pierced me with their eyes. The thing about candles is you can choose to burn your whole fucking house down when you don't pay attention to them.

They laugh at me but they have no idea that these few sentences were found on the body of someone I know; someone who is finally free. But they do not know this.

Mr Oaks looks towards me intensely and I stare back vacantly, my fingers tightening around the scribblings of someone I truly loved.

I look towards the paper once more to see small blood droplets on the crinkled corners - I think to a time when the blood was inside them -

and I was truly alive.

I'm going to tell you how I met someone, and how this person came to change my life. When you see those black thundery clouds rolling in, he was the lightning. The thing I liked about him so much, this lightning; beautiful and unpredictable. The issue lies where I didn't look long enough to see the flash, the chaos and his short end. I only heard the rain afterwards because he left behind an echo of what he'd done, forgive me for talking like it's all completely gone to shit, believe me it's not over. Far from it.

BEFORE

Telling someone you love that you don't want to live anymore isn't the easiest thing in the world, I cannot phrase this as wanting to kill myself because this isn't true. I decided after the loss of someone I couldn't live without, that I couldn't live anymore. I feel as if I can't breathe, i don't feel sadness anymore - not even this void that so many talk about. I feel like I am sinking into my own body all the time, you won't see this.

Watch me flick my long blonde hair and laugh, I am unstoppable. I am like music to a blind man, I heighten senses and I never apologise for a damn thing. I feel third degree fucked up like a burn you can't treat, I scar ugly and I'm a wicked story. Maybe I'm more like a tattoo that you regret getting, I'm sewn onto your skin like a million tiny droplets of forever. But I'll taint you and remind all of your family how much of a mistake I am, painful too let's not forget this. Maybe I'm that piece of artwork you hang up and stare at wondering, "What Do I see?", the answer: "Who the fuck knows." I could go into the whole speech about how art is objective but I can say with absolute certainty that this is the biggest bullshit I've ever heard in my life. I suppose I'm more of a... "It is what it is" type of girl but I suppose direct is the more appropriate word. I wouldn't say I've had the most traumatising childhood to make my pessimism shine like a Girl Guide pin but I suppose I could win a medal along the way for having a pretty unstable mother. She is like an ornament in this house, I think she's like a doll in a glass cabinet, slowly staring and collecting dust. I feel as if I live in a dollhouse some days, like someone with little control over their own life. Often, I sit and contemplate these uncertainties in my life, I read about John Keats and negative capability. He said it is when a man is 'capable of being in uncertainties', now this isn't exactly crystal clear but I think the man was getting at the idea of living unsure of possibilities and death in particular. Then boom, the man dies. He met his uncertainties and I cannot say I have done this. I don't know what my uncertainties are in particular, I keep my thoughts in a diary like a pathetic eleven-year-old. Tracing my hands across the front as if some spells are going to whack it open and fix my life. But the thing is, my life isn't broken. The pages are printed like this tattoo I've been talking about, long and artistic with all the things I have experienced, but it does not end here. This book holds the answers to these problems, real-life experience which has shaped me. The quote on the first page is 'Maybe you're not scared to die, you're scared to live', but to be honest that's another lie. I am terrified to die, maybe it's because my life has not been that exciting - or maybe it's because I'm waiting for something to happen to me. I reach under my bed for the diary and my hands are left vacant. Motherfucker. It's gone. My diary, they've taken it. My life has always been very linear, something good happens, then something bad happens. This never-ending cycle of hope and pain brought me to write. In fact, it brought me much further, it was the answer I was always looking for. Without this book, I feel a sense of loss, something out of reach. All I can do is wait for something to happen to me.