Little Drummer Boy

It seems like this is the lesson I'm learning this season. I don't have anything really special to give anyone, even my Jesus this Christmas. And it's his birth I'm celebrating.
All I have is my voice, and my talents as a songwriter and composer.
I'd give anything to give them to Him.
But I don't have the means.
I find solace in the fact that every time I raise my voice it is to him.
It's all to Him.
I'm glad he can hear it in my head.
Merry Christmas.

Cast off.

I'm embarking on the first fast of my entire life. When I was little I didn't think I could handle it. But... I think I can do this. I feel strongly enough, you know?
My first fast. Wow.
There's got to be some preparation for it? I mean, I should have been storing up fats so that my body would have something to feed off of for the next week.
Christmas, I hope we eat after sundown, if not, I won't eat anything else that day except the meal.
I'm scared. But I'm excited too.
I'm fasting for my friend Tim.
Day one starts in twelve minutes.
I should be quaking in my shoes for my life.
I barely get enough to eat as it is.
But... God's got it in his hands.

For you, Tim. For you.
Fasting. Praying all that time I would be thinking about food or I would be preparing.
I am so excited to see what God gives me this week.
:) In a way I think it's good I've gone through this too.
Actually. I know it is.
Wish me luck, and should you choose to, join me for a day.
Pray for him, and for me.

Love always
Nikole

"You should never work at a suicide hotline."

Well I hate to be so vengeful, but I proved you wrong. Twice. Twice. Someone has called me with a blade in their hands, and I've made them stop. I've made them rethink living. I'm starting to believe I threw you life preservers and I gave you organ transplants but you just let them rot or float out to sea.

But on a note that is in tune...

It feels so good to be using the past tense. It feels so good to be able to talk to you and give you hope about tomorrow. Just. Tomorrow. You can make it. Helping you heals me. You can do it. I have every confidence in you, my friend. I value your existence. I love your eyes, your freckles, your gait. I love you. Just, as a holistic little blip in the universe, it's a treasure. And I'm so glad I can say this without Chris getting mad, he knows what I really mean. I love that boy more than anything, and you are a terrific friend. I'm so glad he lets me be the me I'm meant to be.
You give me hope that tomorrow I won't slip on this precarious slope on to safety and into the recovery room and out the door of the hospital. Did you ever believe that? Your pain gives me hope. There is purpose. Purpose for the Pain by Renee Yohe. I won't buy it for you, because that might be weird but I promise to let you borrow it and if you like it, you can keep it. I'd give the shirt off my back for you. I'm glad to have friends like you around. So. Glad. That I am alive for this.

It seems like something I shouldn't look forward to, saving a life everyday. It seems like it would get tiring. And truth be told, it is, when they don't try to get better. If you have an addict that pulls out the cocaine in front of you, it's hard to feel as if you are making a difference. It's hard to feel as if the guts you are drowning yourself in will ever become the air you breathe.
But you make it worth it. You are meaningful. You are worth it.

I will always be here for you. I will never forget you.
You are part of me.
My little drummer boy.



Sorry that it doesn't quite fit.

But, oh my God, why?

This hurts so badly. It's crushing my bones. It's sitting on my veins. It's making sure that I stop beating, that I stop keeping tempo.

No matter how much I've changed, no matter how many times I reinvent myself, I never seem to get the hang of it.
I can change from an amoeba to a person, but I can't for the life of me change one thing.
I can have as much inspiration as I want.
I can know in my gut that this is what I'm going to do with my life.
But...
I have no outlet.
And I do not have the right motivation.
Maybe that's why I'm not allowed to have the outlet now.
But my God... Does it burn. These tears pour themselves onto the swollen, itching skin around my eyes, and that only makes it worse. It's like involuntary self mutilation. I feel so hollow.

I have a purpose. I have everything lying. Right. Outside. The. Window. I can see it, I can feel it's temperature through the glass, I am an inch away and I can't do a darn thing about it. I can't write. I can't compose. I am nothing. Nothing is about what it's supposed to be about. I can't right things full of hope and joy and love like I promised I would. I know, deep down that's why I don't have the stuff I need. I know it. But... I can't help but beat myself up for not having the joy I so lavishly spread upon my fellow man in life. Why can't I commit it to paper? Why I can't I reach through augmented fourths the feelings I am holding onto?

Being worthless is almost better.
I am almost a person.
I'm halfway there.
Knowing what I'm meant to be and having no way of doing it.


I feel like a caterpillar stuck in it's cocoon.
I know I'm going to fly.
I can see the sunlight and I can see the moon.
Through the thread that is now my sky....
I can see it. I can hear it.
Why can't I touch it?
I can taste how sweet tomorrow is,
And somehow I can tell that it's in better hands.
But I can't hand it a glowing kiss.
Even though I'm doing all I can.
I can't.
Take.
This.
I wish I had no hope.
I wish I had no purpose.
But he makes it so hard to forget the goodness in the world.
Someday I'll fly out and it will be the day.
But until then....
I'll stare at this thread that is my temporary sky.
And I'll search for the answer betwixt the cracks.
I'm going to be something no matter how it feels right now.
Because this life really isn't mine to live.
And all I really want is to be his.

Give it to me straight.

I am so sick of people thinking that because I am a Christian and because I am Republican, I am heartless. Not everyone thinks this, obviously; there are exceptions to every rule.

Since when am I supposed to be held to a higher set of rules than you? If you're atheist and thus more educated than I am, or less brainwashed, or whatever you want to think, why do you make it seem like I have to behave better than you do, or that I have to hate certain things?

Let's get one thing perfectly clear, right now.

I am a Christian. I love my God. This does not mean that I:

- Hate gays.
- Hate minorities.
- Care more about Christians than anyone else.
- Am not a humanitarian.
- Am grossly conservative.
- Do not believe in evolution.
- Hate all science teachers.
- Believe that women are less valuable than men.
- or I believe in any other radical, extreme, or otherwise bogus idea about Christians.
Just so we can get on the same page, and so that you people can stop assuming about me. It's true that in argument we make leaps and play the stereotype card, that we think that all Republicans are unfeeling and all liberals have their hearts on their sleeves. Did you ever stop to think why someone believes what they believe? Or what parts of their general belief system they disagree with?
Here's a bit of an overview on just me. I'm not speaking for anyone else. This is Nikole, talking about what she believes. No one else.

I love all people. Black, white, gay, straight, transexual, I don't really care. I just love people as a whole. You're a prep, you're a jock, you're a goth, you amaze me. I want all people to have the same love, the same opportunities that I do. I believe in the Constitution and I believe in democracy. However, I'm conservative. How does this work with being humanitarian? Well, I'll tell you. I don't want money coming out of my pocket to pay for whatever hot-button issue people are pushing these days. I want my money to go help causes, go help people that I believe in. I don't want to be paying for healthcare reform, but if someone asks me to help out with their bill for their back surgery, you can bet your sweet bippy that I will.

I'm not a radical. I believe in things that agree with the Bible, I don't believe strictly the Bible. If it came with a necessary and proper cause, yeah, that would be me. Heck, there may be teachings in the Koran that I agree with. But, I'm not a Muslim. I am a Christian.

The miracle of creation is no less amazing if it happened over millions of years or in seven days. I really don't care who is right about all of that. Honestly, I don't. I am much more concerned about my world now than I am about my world at it's beginning. Besides, in the Bible it says that God is outside of time. The two theories can in fact coexist.

I treat people like people. I've done things, been ways that are contradictory to my faith. Did you know I've kissed more girls than boys? Did you know that I believed myself bisexual for a good portion of my life? That I used to be an alcoholic? That I used to do drugs? No, you didn't? Well, then don't say I don't know what it's like. Don't say I don't understand, I have been everywhere you walk. Therefore, how can I hate you if I was you? That makes no sense.

I have been blessed with a life on both sides of the fence. I understand you. I don't hate you.
So before you ask why I am pro-gay marriage, and yet a Christian... My morals say "No." My Constitution says "Yes." "All men are created equal." Get around that, kids. How can all men be equal but some can get married and some can't?

So before you see me in the hallways, look at a cross hanging from my neck, or hear me talking about my faith with another student, please think. Don't make sweeping generalizations about me. I don't try do it to you. Of course I make mistakes. Ask me "Why?" You'll be surprised at the answer. That's the real road to tolerance, not wearing t-shirts and buying stuff. Just asking "Why?" is so much more effective.

I love you all. Does that mean I don't hate the things you do? No. I do not agree with it. I can disagree passionately. I can hate the act. Look past the act, the clothes, the make-up, the music, and love the person. That goes for all of you. Don't expect just me to follow that because I'm a Christian. I should not be held to higher standards than the rest of you. Just because I believe in my Messiah does not mean I am not human.

Thank you.

Geisha

The Japanese had it right. Geisha. Not an elite prostitute. A living work of art. They were meant to entertain, and to be judged. But, there's this whole other dimension to art. Art is meant to provoke emotion, to make conversation, to spark something. It's the ultimate catalyst, and it is meant to create opinions, to be judged and to make people feel alive and determine something's fate.

I aim to become a geisha in the oddest form possible. I want to be a living art piece. I want every movement of mine, every sparkle from my eye, everything I do to evoke something. To make someone feel, to make someone think. Every breath you take should be a work of art. It not only should be beautiful or ugly, but it should shake people. No one should be able to walk past you on the street without thinking for a minute. If that means behaving opposite the norm, if that means speaking out for what you believe in, saying "Hello" to strangers you meet, so be it. An artistic and creative existence, one with meaning and purpose is the only one worth living.
If people can understand you without even batting an eyelash, without stretching the tiniest bit, they do not need you.

Maybe not an entire existence like this is for you, but it is for me. I want to evoke change. I have the power to change the world, but I have no avenue in which to channel it. It's the worst feeling on Earth. I ask you, that even if you don't want a life of art, if you don't want that exhausting burden, at least make it one moment a day in which you step out of reality, into the realm of the creative, and do something to provoke someone.

Of course, this provocation should be for good. What is art that doesn't make change? How much better is it if that change is positive? Infinitely.

Jazz.

Something about jazz flows into your life. You could have played one jazz song once, you could listen to it all the time, you could take one picture of a musician or you could be an aficionado. No matter your experience, the minute you touch jazz it engulfs you, and changes you from the inside out.

Something about the improvisation, the divine falling together of music. Communal living off of sound waves. It changes you. You begin to take life less seriously. When you go to get something to eat and find out that the restaurant is closed, when you run out of gas or blow a tire on the highway... Even, yes, even when you get lost in a strange city jazz quietly whispers out your name. It gives you your game plan. It casually tells you in it's silky, cool voice made from years in clubs to;

"Improvise."
All of the sudden you discover a new restaurant, you walk to a new place and meet new friends, and you discover the heart of the city. America, the land of opportunity, and discovery.


Jazz, the real American music. The one style that is wholly American. Born from the spirit of what makes us, well, us. New Englanders made new ways of surviving, they created something out of nothing. We've found ways to survive over the years. America does a good job of evolving with the times, redefining ourselves to fit with new times. Our Constitution was written in such a way to apply to things unforeseeable.
Whispering it to us. "Improvise." In this spirit America does everything.

But, wait, what happened to the spirit of jazz? The silken, cool, go-with-the-flow nature in which notes fit together? The adventure, the real adventure that jazz music is. I am not saying to go out there and buy every jazz album you can, to become an expert on such an evolving, changing, living thing. But let it reach out and touch you. Although, if you let it swallow you, no doubt you will be a lot happier than you were before.

If your tire blows, if you don't know what to have for dinner, don't get hung up on convenience and how America has changed into everything I need, right now, my way or the high way, rush rush rush and never ever slow down to create something.

Make something out of nothing. Improvise. MacGyver. Create. You'll be so much happier when you forget your to-do lists and make an adventure out of the mundane.

Improvise. It'll fall into a cadence eventually. It's more the journey than the end.

Some would say that I just don't know when to give up...
I say that I don't want to.
Ever.

Morendo.

And I'm dying everyday.
I'm beginning to like it.
The love dripping off of your lips like raindrops off of telephone wire.
It hurts so bad, just like I knew that it would.
Like pouring antiseptic onto a wound.
Like walking inside from a blistering cold to warmth, the burning that comes with life.

I'm dying to you. You're healing me.
Why are you wasting time on a zombie like me?
I really don't want to know the answer, I just know I don't want you to stop.

After so much... after slitting open my soul every single day for so long...
It's so nice to find someone willing to pour theirs into me.
50% 50%...
Who knew?

You don't take away the sadness for what was. You don't make me stop thinking about what could have been, what should have been. But oh darling do you make me believe that it was worth something... That I'm worth something.


I would have never guessed... That I was worth as much as you say I am.
Thank you.

Noche de los Muertos.

In my world, there wasn't "snack" or "dessert", just eating enough to survive or less.
There wasn't "cold" and "hot" only the same median temperature that allows you to live.
No excess.
Nothing.

The living dead.
Break out of the mold and try something new.
You'd be surprised what sparkles hide in the shadow.

¿Qué sobre mí?

A bumper sticker can be amazing.
"My scars tell a story."

Espejo

I feel as if I'm being torn apart, like the seams of my blood vessels are popping. Some mischievous little worm is splitting them. I live in a doorway. Purgatory. I'm right on that piece of wood that separates your home and the outside. In the crevices between pages in a book is where I lie. The ravines betwixt two houses. World War II's No Man's land. The place between my blanket and my bed isn't warm anymore.

How do you behave after surgery? Do you move on as if you have never had a problem? Do you act like you still have it? The immense monster that once bounced around synapses is gone. The cavern in my skull isn't filling up with rainclouds and octopus ink. The venom so greedily milked from rattlesnakes isn't the fluid surrounding my brain. What do I do with the stains they left on the bone? With the discoloring that the gray matter still bears? Do I bleach it out, do I ignore it? Do I behave as if it's still there and fear for every move I make?

Our job, as the outpatients and those in surgery is to be vulnerable. We are, in essence, a freak show. I mean that in the tenderest of ways. We are supposed to show our disfigurement, not to induce tears from children and screams from the bravest of men, but so that we can see a future past our pain. The scars on my wrist will always be there. They will always show when I get cold, or when I tap the skin. I cannot deny their existence. There will always be those instances of terror when my doctor goes "Where did you get that?" or when people admire a bracelet and ask what happened. The shameful adornment of my body... We can't forget it. To forget it would be to give it permission to try again. I can't live as if it never happened. As the song says "These scars remind me that the past is real". We have to live like those moments engulfed in tentacles happened, but not like we are still there. No matter how futile it feels, how we think we're still in the same trench we've been in for the past year, we've moved. If an inch, if a mile. We have moved. Share the scar of that place, the callous on your feet from the nails in the ground. You don't know who is there now.

That is a fact that I have forgotten... Forgotten that I have moved and gotten discouraged at the fact that I am not there yet. I will never be "there". I just have to make the best of here.

Hope is knowing that there is something beyond the next horizon.
Hope is believing that the ground will catch me as every step forward falls heavier and heavier under my weight.
Hope is the song we are all trying to sing.
Hope is always there.
Hope is all we have.
My hope is you.

Wintertime.

Wintertime, for a lot of people, is when the earth dies. Trees lose their leaves, flowers die. Nobody wants to leave home. The universe is grey and desolate, it seems like it will never end but it won't begin either. Winter was always the time I got the most depressed. This will be my first winter since The Happening. The time when my life completely turned around. The time I came alive. June 21st.

I want my winters to be different. I want to see the color waiting just under the frozen surface of everyone and everything. I want to see the Christmas in every dawn, for what is winter without Christmas?

I want to see the red that flushes cheeks after playing in the snow. The way tomato soup stains your tongue. The flannel sheets in your warm bed, the refuge from the cool. The hot chocolate brown that feels like home. Curling up with a good book like a pigs in a blanket. The way the air tastes minty and all greens are spearmint leaves. These are the things that spring hope for the world. Things that remind us that no matter how desolate and grey the world seems, it's waiting to jump out at us at just the right time. Waiting. Watching. Tulips lay dormant in their bulbs.

This winter I will be full of hope for spring. As the leaves are falling like soldiers on the bloodiest battlefield, I will remind myself that they will bubble forth again. They are waiting, just like me, until the time when we all, every leaf that has ever fallen, meet our brethren in one spring dance. The colors will remind me that I can warm up this barren land.
We can shine brighter than sun reflecting off of the snow.
We can warm this planet with our love.
We are the sunshine.

Transparent

What do you do when one person loves you for the ugly thing you are and one person loves you for the beauty in it?

Your guess is as good as mine.

We are closest to Christ when sharing the world's misery. Think you Jesus came to remove our pains? Wherever did you get that notion? The Lord came, not to remove our suffering, but to show us the way through it to the glory beyond. We can overcome our travails. That is the promise of the cross.

Stephen R. Lawhead

Peanuts

George Washington Carver said that no human being has the right to leave this world without leaving behind distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it. Do you have any? If you are struggling, if you are hurt, I highly doubt you feel as if you have a reason. But here's the cool thing, once you live through it, you can finally talk about it in that beautiful past tense you've been waiting to use in your darkest moments, you have one. Talking about it in past tense gives hope.

There is a reason for your suffering. Make it through, for the best. See the silver lining.
Someone may need your voice to get hope. You can impact someone with this pain.
Choose to make it for good.

As they bubble and coagulate.

Today I was getting a ride home from a football game, I was cantankerous, tired, and achy. It wasn't such a great day. Then, a catalyst, like so many other times in my life, it sparked something. Something big, and beautiful, and provoking. I would like to say to you that I am deep and philosophical, but I'm really just like the rest of you. I'm a sponge, sopping up the mess in the universe and just trying to make sense out of it. We all do. I'd like to say that what I think sets me apart, but it doesn't.

A group of friends met another of their number walking home after the football game. One member says "Hey, what are you doing alone at night?" "Walking to... (I didn't hear this part)" "Oh, well, be safe!" "I'm always safe." This made me think about two things. How we didn't hear anyone wish another safety anymore. We sort of assume that with our cell phones and police cars we are protected. Isolated from incident. In ways it's amazing are possible, sometimes making the world smaller isolates us not from incident, but from each other. I was shocked, really, to hear someone wanted a friend to be safe. Sure we all think it deep down, but like so many things it remains locked, in the cellar. Like a Christmas decoration from ten years ago, or like a rotary dial telephone. I crave this type of community. To wish people well, to sincerely mean it. I want to live in a house where I don't ever lock my door, because someone will stop in to see how I am, to see how they are. To debate, love, and commune with each other. I want my food and my bed to be theirs. I don't ever want friends to have to call before they feel as if they are welcome.

Community is one of those things that has died in the past century. How many of you actually know the names of their neighbors? How old they are? What they do for a living? Where they live? This would have been common place once upon a time. How many people actually wonder how the person they live next to is doing? It's a travesty this kind of living is gone, it is desperately needed. Especially today, where face-to-face communication is dead. The art of conversation is practically mummified. We need this.

I know I would like someone I live near to actually talk to me every once in a while. Don't you? Don't you crave it like a pregnant woman craves pickles and chocolate?

Then another. The latter part of the conversation. "I'm always safe." Are you really? I'm not saying to go out and be paranoid of taking one step outside your door, but are you really always safe? No. You're not. You're never "safe". But, who would want to be? Do we sincerely need to pretend that we are that powerful? It's like, we cannot show weakness, we cannot be vulnerable, even when we really are. We can't show our flaws, the cracks in our skin, the scars on our feet and callouses on our eyes. Haven't you ever gotten sick of answering "Good" to "How are you"? Ever wanted to wipe off the greasepaint before the curtain went down? I have.

Our weaknesses make us. Those things that make us cry, that break our hearts, are so important to us. For a heart that cannot break is hardly a heart at all. In the book Beloved Paul D says he has a tobacco tin, rusted shut, where his red beating heart used to be from all of his hardships. Never, ever, let your heart become a tobacco tin. I'm not saying to be a doormat, I'm saying that hurting and feeling is so much better than being numb. I always hurt when I hear people say they will never trust again. They are missing out on so much. Love will hurt you, any degree of it can kill you. Water makes it so you can live. It can also kill you. Love is this essential to life.

I urge you, do not be afraid of what breaks your heart, it is what defines you. Don't stop feeling. Fight to feel. Battle to be human. When you are numb, when your heart is so broken it cannot break for anything, not even the right reasons anymore, fight to feel. Pick a piece of carpet that feels right, work the grooves in between the threads, and pull yourself out of the space between the carpet and the floor. You are worth so much more than numbness. You are worth the pain. Fight for it. We're all behind you.

Disease

In many ways, I still find it easier to describe the sickness than to prescribe a cure. And, I must confess, I am hopeless as I dictate hope. The hypocritical. The doctors get sick themselves, at least. I do not think myself some omnipotent God, pretending to know everything. I simply want my voice to count. To hit you. I don't know how else I will live. I don't know what I want for my life, just that it helps someone else. I do not really care about a job, I want to influence change. I'm sorry if that sounds irresponsible but it is painfully true. I do not want money, I can live without love, but I will not go without leaving a fingerprint. I don't know how to keep hoping for something so malleable.

The way your skies fade to the most medium shade of gray. Smiles lose their potency. Your teeth feel sticky sweet, you can't chew on life anymore. The cavities invade your body. It feels as if the world is filled with bright lights, but you have blind eyes. You're missing something.

But you're not alone. There are others, perhaps thousands of us with the same condition. Draw upon my mistakes. The moments where I drowned myself with a blanket, slicing my wrists to nothingness. My shoulder is always present, my ear ever pressed to the ground for some sign, some rumble, an echo that someone out there is hurting, and is coming. Walking, running, crawling to come and share their pain with me. To laugh and cry, to be heavy, burdened human beings crying out of our pores the sadness of our souls. To let every surface be coated in the thick, molasses love we feel for those who have suffered like us. Imagine, if you will, a golden, honey substance saturating everything in the room. It coats your lips, seeps from your shirt. The cracks between ceiling and wall are oozing it. It permeates every surface, fills the room like a flood. It's crashing down everything, pushing aside all of your garbage, pushing invisible walls out of the way. Stones fall from air, their cloaks knocked off. This is the love I feel for you. It fills everything. It consumes me. Still, this love, is nothing to the one who made you. He feels ten thousand of these rooms, floods the streets with the molten, sticky sweet sunshine. My love coats your lips and fills your lungs, His is so huge it runs out of your pores.

Someone out there will not believe me, but do you always feel the love your mother feels for you? No. Can you always see the way your father cries when you are hurt? No. It is in the secret, purple moments that no one likes to see that these are readily noticeable. For myself, I know that my family loves me, but there are those orange glowing moments in fields of wheat where I feel it. It soaks into me. Where I walk downstairs disheveled in the morning, and someone says "Hey cutie." When I walk down the street and the same man walks past me, a year apart, and says I am beautiful. First time, shyly, I wring a smile from my face "You have a beautiful smile." The next, when the smile readily beams "You are beautiful." Is it for me he says this? Is it for himself? When we help others through our pain, our insecurity, when we take the focus off of ourselves and our own pain, even if we can only do it for a minute or two, we are truly helped. Something about the look in someone's eye from one simple phrase, makes us forget our ugliness. It cracks the mask of monstrosity, and reveals the wholly perfect being underneath with the new, blue skin without lines on it from age and erosion.

When you teach a man, you are the one learning. I'm not saying to do it all the time, to give that much is exhausting, but for the few lucid moments you have to yourself, give them away. The sunshine that radiates from a being because of your words will come in handy in those woolen, itchy moments when you only see your flaws. When you remember what you have done for someone, you can fight back those lies that say you are worthless.

Edward Scissorhands

Have you ever felt like everything you touched withered? You were Rogue from the X-Men, draining life from anything and everything you loved. Like you were a burden. I know for me, in the days where the sun could be shining and I was still alone in a cavernous world of black and blue, I felt the same way. I was not allowed to want, not allowed any luxury of life. You were Edward Scissorhands, shredding your last hope by your frantic attempt to save it, and those you love. It sounds silly, but really, your friends are there for you. They love you, enough to wait for you to ask. Enough to wade through your stutters and the silences where you bash yourself for ever opening this wound. You cannot walk this alone. We all need help. Accept the sunshine, we love you. It is a painful and beautiful thing, and the choice of doing it everyday hurts and is more happy than anything I have ever experienced. It is truly bittersweet, swallowing a piece of spinach with a strawberry. Do not be afraid of opening, it is the only road to healing. You need to make an incision to perform surgery. Something has to give. Don't kill your hope by stuttering to save it. Rely on them. They are here for it. Keep trying. If some people leave because of you healing, it is okay. There will be people that leave, and people that stay, the great thing is that those of us who stay will always, always, love your ugliest parts. Help you through them. I pray for you, I implore that you rely on them, no matter what you try and tell yourself. That is what friends are for. Don't make "friendship" a hollow word, like so many others.

Technicalities

I find, often times, that English is a desensitized language. It usually loses some nuances, some things that show a lot about human beings. That is why, when I find a thing that makes an impact with words, it is, ninety percent of the time, in another language. They are so much more full and bold than English often times is. This means that we have to work a lot harder to make our points.

In Spanish, there are two words I'm going to talk about. What do you think of when you say "hope" in English? Do you think of something painful, or a happy go-lucky girl that plays hard to get? Spanish, I find, breaks this connotation that hope is always happy, and never for us. There is one verb, esperar, that means "to hope for", almost. But, the funny thing is it also means "to wait". Have you ever waited for something? For a brand new bicycle on your birthday? For a lover to come back to you? It hurts. You get anxious, it's an uncomfortable feeling. When people say "Have hope" they don't mean it's passive and unfeeling, just a lazy emotion. It takes work. But, we have to remember that it is worth it. My God, it is so worth it. Waiting for that bicycle makes playing with it so much more fun. Waiting for your lover makes the kiss hello, or welcome back so much more breathtaking. It hurts, it is uncomfortable, but you have to work for it. Push through. Imagine, if you will, your cells. There is a membrane protecting them, and it's only semipermeable. Only some things will let through. You are the same as your building blocks, as your cells. Only there is one thing amazing about your semipermeable membrane. Although some things will get through, you can fight them off. The best thing ever is that you choose what you can let through. You can choose hope. It will take work to mutate your membrane, but if you choose it and you actively choose it everyday... It will be so much better than anything you can imagine. It will be tiring at first, but training always is. Take it slow. One push up a day, then two, then three hundred eventually. You can do it. You can take this. Choose life. Wait. Hope for.

I love you. Tienen esperanza. Esperar. Esperar.
You've got this.
I have faith in you.

My Story.

The best counselors are recovered addicts. How can I expect you to listen to me if you don't know where I have been? You wouldn't trust a remedy offered by someone who hadn't tried it? Or a drug that hadn't been tested yet, would you?

I was born to a college drop out and her boyfriend. Life there was... tempestuous at best. My father was a less than savory character, emotional abuse reigned in my house. My mother was severely depressed, and recovering for the sake of her baby. I admire her most for that one thing, saving herself for me. How much more can you love someone? She and I left my father when I was around four, I don't remember much of those days except sitting in my room, dreaming, listening to screams from the outside and my cat, Roar. My mother says I was so afraid, I didn't come out from behind the couch until she came home. Why am I starting here? Because the beginning of my story impacts the rest. I didn't have a huge meltdown, it didn't start with one single event. It started in utero.

I grew up, with, as pretty evident, huge anxiety problems. Monumental. I could not stand in front of someone else in line without practically having a panic attack. I am not exaggerating. After we left my dad, I pestered my mom about not waiting until marriage to have a child, and how I wanted my daddy back. I loved this man that so brutally hurt my mother and I. It was then that I learned that words have power. I started lying habitually when I was six, to hide myself. I was a master. I worked in deception like Michelangelo was famous for his sculptures and the Sistine Chapel. It was beautiful. No one, and I mean, no one knew who I was. I liked it that way.

This is where it gets ugly. Just warning you. I started self-mutilation at eight years old. Nothing major, not yet. Just hitting myself until I couldn't handle it anymore, bashing my head on walls, doing things I knew would make me freak out later. I used my anxiety issues as a medium of pain. I would, intentionally, do things I knew would make me an outcast, or feel like one, just to hurt myself. I told you I was a master, even at eight years old. This is when my mother found the love of her life. He was the first dad I ever had. It tore me apart. Finding what I never had hurt. He couldn't deal with how sensitive I was. It took us years to finally get to the point where we could talk to each other without making me cry.

I remember distinctly the first time I ever took a tool to my own skin. I was eleven years old, and it was a really pathetic attempt, made only with a pin, but my oh my did it burn. I, at eleven, had learned how good it felt to turn all of those ugly feelings on yourself. To find an avenue to get them out. As the years wore on, I did it countless times. A pin, a shard of glass, a serrated knife, a razor blade, a nail. I burned myself. I still have scars on my wrist, and the countless ones that never scarred. This is how desperate I got, I carved, like a sculpture "Someone help me" into my wrist. I couldn't say it, but I wanted it. The last time I ever cut, the June before my sophomore year, it was a heart. I wanted love. These sound so empty, like a child's drawing of a sunrise. Innocent, shallow. But every time I took something to my own skin, it felt so good. The way it hurt at first, then you went numb until you drew blood. Afterward, I was ashamed, and it burned like crazy, which I felt like I deserved. I went almost blind every time I did it. Sobbing, etching into my own flesh, begging myself to stop.

I started seeing a school psychiatrist in eighth grade, after my history teacher found the scratches on my wrist, this time saying "Remember". That was when I started to heal. So. Slowly. Middle school I started drinking heavily. I added on drugs. The vicious circle of drinking, going into cemeteries in the middle of the night, passing out, waking up, and doing it again. Then of doing pot, crashing, cutting, doing pot, crashing, cutting, cigarettes, alcohol. Over and over again like a scratched CD.

Ever since I was eight years old, I started attempting suicide. First feebly, then seriously. Over seventy times, I tried. Now, as I look back, I'm convinced the only reason I lived was so that I could tell you how I felt, and to help you.

That, for now, is my story. It is in a nutshell, the details will come with time as I describe different things. I can't tell you everything now, you'd probably get bogged down in how I was, just like I would. The message is not how I was. It's how I am now, and how I got there. How you can have it too. Are you ready for surgery? I'm sorry to inform you that there are no pain killers. You have to agree to work with me before I can do this. Before we can mend you. There is no easy way out. You just have to trust me.

Why "The Scalpel"?

The name The Scalpel came from a post I made during some of my darkest days, one of the few posts I made in an attempt to save my own life. I said that we, the suffering, were not meant to be the scalpels, we were not meant to self medicate, but we were called to hold the hands of the others on the operating table, to give them something to squeeze when the going gets tough.

I was thinking about the name again today, and scalpels are used where? In medicine. Medicine is what? To help. But, what exactly is a scalpel? It's not a teddy bear you hold, or a lollipop, it's a knife. It hurts, but in the long run, after the initial incision and after healing, it helped us. The scalpel is like many medical instruments, they hurt before they help. Cough syrup tastes repulsive. Vaccinations, for instance, actually inject part of a sickness into our bodies. If that isn't the perfect image for what I'm trying to tell you, I don't know what is.

I am trying to help you heal, but we have to unpack everything first. If done correctly, it will hurt. But after surgery, everyone hurts. It's the healing process. I implore you to not give up when it starts to hurt the worst. The night is darkest before the dawn. Empty words? They seem it, but please, trust me. I would not do anything to hurt you, unless of course, the hurting that comes with life, that comes with being able to move out of the emergency room.

That is what I am for you. What I hope this little speck of internet is for you, an emergency room. A place to go when you are really hurt, when there is no where else to go. I am always here. 24/7. A doctor is always on call.

An Introduction.

So many times in life, we are all pelted with ideas. You know, radiation is given off by everything, and we're hit by ideas much in the same way as radiation. Constantly. Incessantly. Naturally. Inherently. We can't live without them. Writing, especially on this subject, is an idea that is very close to my heart. One of those things that keeps me going. A quirk. However, I kept telling myself that there were enough voices. That the chorus singing right now was big enough. Almost in the same breath, I thought of how stupid that thought was. There will never be too many voices shouting out hope. You never know which voice one person will find beauty in. Will see past the vibratos and the words into the passion of the thing, see past the music into what the soul is. What hope is. I want that. I want my words, the ones issued so feverishly from my pen, to give you hope. I've seen, so many ugly times, the dark corners and the monsters that dwell there. I know, my darling, I know. I want you, whether we are best friends or have never met before. Whether we live across the street or half a world a way; I want you to benefit from those times. To draw what you can from them.

That's my purpose. Why I started The Scalpel. In a living room in Connecticut, surrounded by my fellow beings in various stages of being split up and sewn back, I had this idea. I wanted to share with you. To show you, that no matter how far away we are, we are close. This one thread that binds us. To tell you, if no one else will, that you are not alone and there are people that love you. People willing to spill their guts on the living room carpet for you. That you are worth it. That you are an original and a carbon copy is worthless.

Never before have words flowed from my fingertips. Have I cared so much about what I am writing. This is only the beginning, for both of us. We have such a huge step to take. I promise, I pinky swear, that I will hold your hand. I am here for you. We can do this together.