It's a lot harder to be yourself when you have nobody to be yourself around. Judgement is a bitch.
Not just that; superficial judgement is a bitch. Pure lack of acceptance of the unfamiliar makes me want to scream my guts out. Unfamiliarity is needed to grow, learn, expand.

Get out of your cages, this is the real world you're living in.

ANGEL by AKON

I was bored one day last week, so I got dressed, walked down the widely paved avenue, climbed onto the ledge the looked out over the ocean, waited four minutes thirty two seconds for the train to come, casually took a bow, and jumped right in front of it, to the horror of the most unfortunate strangers. I thought I would be instantly smashed to pieces, mashed to a bloody pulp, but somehow the train went right over me. Except for the noise, it didn’t hurt a bit. I was just really embarrassed. Everybody was freaking out and screaming and crying and I didn’t know what to do, so to avoid the awkward situation, I decided I’d just pretend to be dead.

I lay on the table in the hospital when a couple of my friends came in to identify the body. They lifted the sheet up and I opened my eyes and said hello, which scared them at first, but then they said, “Hey, what’s up?”

I made them pinky swear not to tell anyone though, because I knew my insurance policy covered me for a flight home if I was dead, and I really missed my family. It could be good for me, I thought, to indulge in some home comforts. Also, I’d get to see all my old friends at the funeral, which would be nice. So I was put into a box and taken on to a plane, where I was placed clumsily in the hold with the luggage and the cats in boxes. It wasn’t comfortable but I supposed I was in no position to complain (it was free, after all).

 I arrived back home without jet lag and was taken to my home town. My family was surprised to see me looking so well and wanted to cancel the funeral arrangements. I said it seemed like such a waste of all that food, and of course I secretly wanted to see who would show up and who would cry the loudest.

I chose an open casket because I wanted a good view of the mourners and I knew that some people would come just to see what I was wearing. I wanted a good view of them too.

However, when the big day came, it turned out to be a sad affair, but it was all for the wrong reasons. Inexplicably, the thing took place in some church that I’d never seen before. The people who were there had either grown up and were annoying now, or hadn’t changed and were still annoying. All of the people who made speeches were the wrong people to make speeches. Someone read a passage from some unheard of proverb which only implied I’d been a ‘mad one’ and a few shaky, grainy home videos were projected onto a screen behind my casket. Oh God, I thought. This really is going to be embarrassing. The whole thing was such a disappointing cliché.

But everyone was actually so sad by the end of it that I felt like an absolute douchebag. I decided maybe it would be better if I did just die.

Then it got really awkward because someone I never expected stood up and said a speech he had obviously spent hours on. The speech wasn’t brilliant, far from brilliant. However he was the right person to make a speech at my funeral, and his emotion was obviously very real, and very raw, and suddenly I wanted to cry too. That was pretty much the only sincere part of the event. I didn’t cry though. I just fell asleep because it had been such a busy week and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten so much attention. I was exhausted.

Next thing I knew, I was being carried back down the aisle towards the cemetery and my friend from the hospital was whispering in my ear, “Hey! When are you going to wake up?”

I was just about to tell her to forget all about it and bury me, when a song started playing over the speakers. Of all things, “Angel” by Akon.

“What is happening?!” I whispered back.

She was dancing. “You loved this song!”

“I’m still alive!”

“Are you?”

I was about to tell her what a ridiculous question that was, but I thought better of it.

“Why are they playing this song? This is my funeral!”

“Well, what song did you want? You don’t generally get to choose these things.”

“I don’t know! Couldn’t it be something a bit less upbeat? Maybe some Bright Eyes, or Death Cab?”

“Did anyone even know you liked those bands?”

“Stop talking about me in the past tense!”

“Sorry, this is your funeral. It’s confusing. What song did you want?”

“I always sort of thought I’d get “Hey Jude” by The Beatles.”

“We talked about that. We decided it was inappropriate.”

“What! Why?”

“Well, for one, your name isn’t Jude. Also, you weren’t afraid, you were just bored.”

“Nobody knows that though! Do they?”

“No, but still, it seemed disrespectful. Somebody suggested Coldplay, but I said that you’d grown out of that a long time ago.”

“That’s bullshit, I love Coldplay! What song was it? “Sparks”? That could have been okay!”

“I think it was actually ‘Fix You’?”

“And how is that appropriate!?”

“Well, you know… you used to cry whenever someone played it because-”

“Exactly, very inappropriate! God, I can’t trust any of you. And why didn’t anyone read anything I have written?”

“Well, you never published anything, so I guess nobody really knows about any of it.”

“Except for you, you knew…”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy. I’ve got this advanced diploma to work towards and stuff… You don’t get to curate your own funeral, alright? It’s just not how it works. You can do whatever you want when you’re alive, but this stuff is left up to everyone else. You don’t get to choose how you’re remembered.”

This was terrible news. I realized that if I was going to be buried there and then, I wasn’t going to be remembered at all. Sure, a few close friends would say things like,

“Remember that story she wrote about doing things? Remember that time she did that heartwarming stuff?” And for a while they would, but it would eventually my Facebook and my blog would get taken off the internet and their minds would be filled with other interesting people and things they said and nobody would really think about me at all. Except people I went to school with who, when they were drunk, would say, “Remember that weirdo who jumped in front of a train?” and another one would reply, “Yeah, she was always a weirdo.”

We were almost outside the church at this stage. I peeked out and saw the hole in the ground where I was supposed to be buried. “Psst! I can’t do this. I can’t do this now! Can you do me a favor?”

My friend loved me but she was getting tired of all the drama.

“You jumped in front of a train. You wanted to die. Are you sure you don’t want to be buried now and be done with it?”

I started to panic.

“There is a difference between wanting to die and wanting to be dead!” I said, a little too loudly. The song was still playing though and Akon was in full cry. Nobody noticed.

“I know that,” she said. “That’s why people get drunk.”

She had a point. Sometimes people do just need a break from the mundane notions of every day life. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stop living.

“Listen!” I told her. “I need you to do me a favor. If you can distract everyone, I’ll get out of this coffin, go hide in the bathroom and you can bury the box without me in it. Then I’ll just move away, start a new life, delete my Facebook and everything… Nobody will have to know.”

“It doesn’t work like that, sweetie!”

She wasn’t exactly thrilled by my escape plan but I didn’t know if I could face revealing myself anymore. I felt like a prize idiot.

“Do you think Gwen Stefani will make another solo record?” I asked.

“What?”

“Do you think she’ll make another solo album? I mean, the first one was alright, but nothing will really top ‘The Sweet Escape’, will it??

“What are you talking about?”

“I guess ‘What You Waiting For” is one of the best pop songs on the 21^st century… but, it won’t really go down in history… Not like Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston. What do you think?”

She was very stressed and probably tired from carrying my coffin around too.

“I have no idea. Shouldn’t you be thinking about whether or not you want to die?”

“I’m thinking about whether or not I want to live.”

“It’s too late for that… why were you talking about Gwen Stefani then?”

“I don’t know. I was just thinking about the possibilities. I mean, if Gwen makes another solo record and I’m dead, I won’t get to hear it.”

“Is that it? Is that all you care about? You’re not even that much of a Gwen Stefani fan.”

She was right, I wasn’t making any sense. I tried to think about why I’d tried to kill myself in the first place. Boredom didn’t seem like much of a reason. I could have just gotten a hobby or something. And besides, since all this had happened, I hadn’t been bored once. It had actually been quite exciting.

I realized that more than any, I was just tired. I was tired of getting up every day and brushing my teeth and putting on clothes and feeling sorry for myself, filling up the hours of the day with regret and reason until it got dark, when I’d mull around doing nothing and then get into bed and lie there feeling dissatisfied for a while until I fell asleep, woke up and did it all again. It was pretty tiring stuff.

A crowd had gathered around the burial plot. I could see that we were at the top of a hill and the views of the countryside surrounding the church were pretty fantastic. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad place to spend eternity, I thought. Maybe this is the right decision for me. Maybe I’m just causing these people more harm than good. Maybe they’ll be better off without me. Maybe it doesn’t matter if Gwen Stefani makes another record.

I really wasn’t really sure.

They started to lower me into the ground and I caught a moment of eye contact with my friend. She gave a ‘last look’ and I realized I felt okay with it. It was time to go.

I’d heard that there is a great sense of peace just before a person dies and it seemed like it was true. I felt nothing except weightlessness, acceptance and forgiveness. I took a deep, last breath and prepared for my fate. I was drifting off into the realms of semi-consciousness when I heard the boy with the speech speak again.

“I’d like to read something else, if that’s okay…” He cleared his throat. “Something of hers. Something that she wrote. I think she would have liked me to do that for her.”

      His smile said ‘acquaintance’

      His smile filled the pause when he wasn’t smiling,

      My breath as shallow as soot

      Overcome by the chore to be unforgettable -

“Oh my God,” I screamed, bolting upright. “What are you doing? That’s not finished! What the hell are you doing?!” That was my unfinished poem! It wasn’t ready, he knew it wasn’t ready.

I felt wild. I stood up in the grave and roared at him. I don’t even know what I said or where he was. I was just so angry, I just howled and threw my arms in the air and kicked the side of my own coffin.

Collectively, like a court room drama, the crowd gasped. Then they stared at me in a stunned silence. All of them standing up around the grave, and me in the wooden box, six feet below them. I felt minuscule. It was outrageous. I was back from the dead. I was ridiculous. I searched him out in fury and rage. I couldn’t believe he had done this to me. Of course he had to have the last say of how I was remembered, just like he had had the last say of how I was when I was living.

Our eyes met. I could have killed him.

None of this made sense to me anymore. We held the gaze for almost a minute. My blood boiled and boiled. My fists were clenched. I wondered if maybe I had been killed by the train after all. Surely this wasn’t real. Surely none of this could have been reality.

Then for a while, nothing happened except the passing of time. My anger peaked and slowly I started to make some order out of the chaos. I felt the blood flow out of my face, and around my body and I started breathing again. Suddenly I understood that he had saved me. He had pulled me back.

I looked around at everything and I started laughing.

We were both laughing.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t understand why anybody was there. What were they thinking? What was I doing? I tried to control my laughter. I smiled politely and hoisted myself out of the ground. The moment dragged on forever. It was so stupid. Nobody else moved. I was cackling like a witch. He had buckled over from his own laughter. The whole thing was ludicrous. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so alive.

Finally, I stood up at ground level and still nobody spoke, they just stared at me as though they’d seen a ghost. I think that was my favourite part. I nodded to them and smiled again. I realized it was all sort of perfect. “Thank you for coming.” I told them before I turned away, and ran off into the fields.

He came running with me, down the hill. It wasn’t finished. I wasn’t finished. I definitely wasn’t finished. The last chords of Akon followed me down the hill. I ignored it.

“SWEET ESCAPE!” I yelled out, running faster than I’d ever run before in my whole life.

A good kisser is one who can write a story on your lips and leave you craving for a sequel.



(Many of us haven’t truly experienced a first kiss.)

I don’t feel like I’m anyone but a season, a colour, a thing or place.  I can tell you that I am human, but I feel like winter.  I can tell you that I am an ordinary woman, but I feel like a single car in an empty parking lot.  I can tell you that I have a soul, but I feel like the colour grey.
I am but a simple theory in your head.