. // THE INSOMNIAC'S CALENDAR. )

[sinensys]

the creature recoils, its skin a cavern seeking to collapse on itself to take up as little space as possible. it fears the thing outside, waving something that casts yellow and orange hues and smells of smoke. it retreats to a depth where it can no longer see or year the outside world, and it wails, lost in the dark tunnels and recesses of its own mind. it recedes softly, unnoticed.

i recoil with it.

[sinensys]

that thing in my head is loud today. i am used to its idle chatter, its meaningless explanations and thoughts and analyses, but today it seems disproportionately loud. today in general has been loud: act testing was this week for some of the others, teachers were out, and people decided to act out and be loud. for some reason, my brain spoke up with them. did it raise its voice to be heard? or was it to drown out the sound? why does it want to speak now, of all times.

i think the junior in my es class is like me: wanting to speak, to reach out, but unable to do so. or was it? or does he just behave that way to bring the attention of someone else? i did little in his direction, sneaking headphones on to drown out them my brain the chatter. maybe i should have done something to acknowledge something, whether that be the general white lie that could be played off if it wasn't to me he was reaching out subtly or whether it be moving a little closer and mumbling about the freshman being loud and obnoxious to the sub teacher. on a good day our regular teacher couldn't control her class, too busy stomping her foot repeatedly to actually manage the room's contents, and so today they had been a deranged and chaotic entity, a chaotic neutral being. maybe i should have played it off using that. am i misinterpreting signs? has my understanding of nonverbal and subtle dialogue finally been matched by someone? i could have been braver today. i'm too used to being on the outskirts of friend groups, a teammate preferred to a stranger but still a lesser noble to one of those in the inner circle. i was a coward today, as usual. maybe i will try again on monday, or whatever day of the week the teacher will be out. then i can move and try again.

have i ruined my chance to reach out? am i blockaded again? will i have to twist my words and the situation again and pin the blame on a migraine again? i'm disappointing.

[sinensys]

i held my tongue.
i held my breath.
and still you'll haunt me
for my death.

i held no dreams.
i held no thoughts.
and so i sit here -
i'm not distraught.

i held my tongue.
i held my breath.

i held my tongue.
i held my breath.

now i hold my head.
i hold my tears.
i worry that one day,
i won't hold in my fears.

[sinensys]

it has been days in this cave and our stores are starting to run low. i have been okay, carefully rationing what little stores i brought with me, what few droplets of self-love, as labelled on the tin, i managed to even acquire. it's a poisonous miracle, the doomsday device i could only invent in my dreams. the little vial is always lessening, lessening to reveal something too anarchic for words, something too bizarre to be a tangible or expressible image.

the beast, however, no longer has food for thought to feed on, its wares running as thin as the beast's dwindling frame. it seems to shrink, its once glossy pelt diminishing and convulsing with some wild and uncontrollable power. i worry for its life; i would hate for it to wither away and leave me here, alone. that beast whose physical form weakens was a warm weight on my shoulder when i was weightless and nearly floated off this planet. that beast whose pale teeth have grown luminous from improper use as it clenches and unclenches its jaws, snapping its teeth, while never being truly saited, never truly fed. instead, i gave it just enough to survive, hoping that, by rationing its food, it will survive longer.

i should have known - if not known, then learned - that it wouldn't work that way. it wouldn't. and it didn't. nothing ever does.

i think the beast is planning to round on me once the whispering in its brain and stomach have reached their full combined height, towering over any reasoning or logic in the beast's skull and oh god how to i convince a monster to wait and pause its torment and which way is the cave entrance.

[sinensys]

darkly, darkly the moon gleams, that luminous piece of flesh which hangs in the sky and, in turn, we the beasts hang from it. we pay no mind to that glorious disk in the sky, that self-assured god, unless we seek comfort from it. our animalistic cries go unheard, bouncing deeper into the forest for all the silent beasts, but never for those who can speak in the manner that we speak. or the manner that this is written. we weep before it, hoping, praying, begging that our pitiful pleas are heard.

when will we listen? when will we stop ignoring each other's rushing tears and stuttered words? when will we stop idolising that cold and careless god in the sky, the god who witnesses the unraveling of minds and remains immobile, uncaring? when will we see that we ourselves are the true gods - those with power to change something, anyone?

but instead we beg with the moon, whose sole existence is based on its reflection of the sun, a gentler but still cruel god whose demands are silence and secrecy. the moon will never ask you to hide yourself. the only way to avoid its secret-starved interference is by hiding, bht it takes a long, long time for anyone to learn that.

and, if they do, chances are that they are too late and the moon knows too much already. and so, it appears before them that the only possible solution is to fake their death before the moon in hopes that it will give up its ceaseless chase.

(it won't.)

[sinensys]

what awfully crooked teeth those are!

they gleam in the light with a shining stripe of white which somehow still contrasts with the white of the bone. perhaps they are not truly white, but rather a light cream, a softened tan. perhaps they are too young to be bleached by that cruel god that mocks us all, dizzying us with the delightful notion of time. they are too fresh.




what awfully crooked teeth i carry in my pockets.

the pockets of my jeans have holes in them, revealing the paler inside of the pocket as i fish out the teeth privately, so no one sees and envies or judges. between the peeking little stripes of pastel blue are the deep blue of my jeans. the teeth are sharp, slicing slits into the denim unintentionally as i cram them i to my pockets. they are starting to cut my new jacket as well, the black one with the tan faux fur inside. almost all seven pockets of my jacket have a cut in them from the teeth i've amassed, the teeth i've hoarded.

where did all my teeth go? my jaw feels light without their weight but heavy with blood and pain from the forceful prying.

[sinensys]

that beast of many names is migrating again, forging ahead along some unseen and bizarrely twisted path. it fights for its life, and it lives for the fight, both adoring and hating that kindly vicious cycle that herds it from one pole of the planet to the other, never idle and rarely remaining at one pole for too long before it turns right back around, retracing or inventing new paths to get to its next destination. it runs, it flies, it swims, it hitches hikes along the backs of other larger and indifferent creatures, each one busy with its own unique but often intersecting migration patterns. we run wildly and in separate ways, but we still meet often enough to recognise things like footprints, and calls, and smells. some are more adept at recognising and translating calls, others can decipher a sandy bank to retell the tale of peaceful cohabitation or a tale of gruesome violence. i can recognise most of these things as well, but i tend to notice behaviours more than anything, which doesn't seem to be common.

we travel farther and father away from our last stop to our new stop, and we tend to disregard the fact that, ultimately, our displacement is zero. we live the lives of a rock being tossed up and caught by a bored child: the rock is tossed up, and the excited trepidation of the child (will it catch the rock?) transfers over to the rock, which happens to be home to thousands as an entire landmass. then, after the rock's acceleration becomes zero while losing a bloody battle to gravity, it begins its harsh descend downwards, downwards, downwards - and into the hands of that excited child. the rock is shaken, the rock is disturbed, but there is a certain high in surviving something that so much as appears damaging or dangerous, regardless of its true damage potential and the probability of it even causing the damage it is very much capable or incapable of. no, we are still experiencing that feeling of free fall, the glorious and truly fantastic feeling of being lighter than usual, when it seems that the rock's normal weight outweighs the weight of it falling downward, downward into the uncertainty of safe landing.

but we are so caught up in the feeling of falling that we don't notice the child's intent on throwing the rock upwards again. we forget that the child also experiences euphoria in the simple and mind-numbing task; whereas we value the negative acceleration, the child is caught up in the feeling of self-accomplishment, of self-worth, as the child manages to catch that downwards drifting stone which it had hurled upwards in the first place. the child, like the rock, cannot stop until one of them fails, whether that be the stone disobeying gravity or the child missing, tripping, falling down as well. however, the child, unlike the stone, does not achieve the same high we do when it falls. instead, it cuts itself, and scrapes its knees, and begins to weep upon the sight of blood or the feeling of fire. instead, it feels disappointment and frustration when it falls. the child fears falling itself more than it even considers the consequences of dropping the stone.

[sinensys]

easterly, easterly the swaying winds glide - the have things to do, places to be. just beyond that - most easterly, if you will - is the rising sun itself, that god before which we bow and still cheerfully greet on most days. not everyday, but most days.

i myself greet the sun too, but more so i greet its absence; i bid it a soft and benevolent goodnight. and once the sun nods in return. disappearing without a word, my smile drops and i turn to the chest in the corner of the room, distant but not cluttered as it is used often, daily even. in that chest i keep my weapons, my wooden spears and plastic pitchforks and my elastic throwing knives.

i am ready for the moon to reveal its ghostly but gorgeous face. i am ready for that traitorous and sadistic god to return. i am ready to reach up and claw at it blindly, blinded by the moons malicious beauty.

i sit the furthest from the sun. if the sun is the easternmost thing on the planet, then i am the beast which lies most westerly of the sun. one day, i will also sit most westerly from the moon. we will meet again in hell and start anew, but i have no other way to pass the time.

[sinensys]

that fractured beast is pacing again,
its pieces at war with one another.
its den is in no man's land among
those halfheartedly littered mines
left behind by those warring identities.

i let it be.

i watch over it, supposedly caring
for that kindly vicious creature.
i watch over it, knowing things about it:
i know of its fear of war;
i know of its dream to be revered;
i know of its love for things like linguistics,
and cinematography, and cultural comparisons;
i know of its wild and frantic thoughts.
that creature is a thoroughbred,
well-trained and self-imposed -
it built its own racetrack and,
under the assumption that
the race was set by others,
it races around and around and around again.

someone please tell it to stop
before it breaks its leg
i beg of you

that studious child is silent again,
its hands idly fidgeting as usual.
she remains in a constant state of indifference,
only interacting when asked to, and even then
it is always accompanied by an awkward smile
or an awkward laugh, if not both.

we let it be.

we watch it distantly, being careful not to bother
that oddly silent creature. we watch it,
and we know some things about it:
we know of its love to correct things,
of its need to be the one people go to for answers;
we know of is desire to be liked, to be known;
we know of its silent mockery;
we know of its self-righteousness.
we know of its inability to hold idle chatter.
that creature is a circus tiger,
trained to entertain in a way that
people can enjoy but few like to be
the one out there in the ring,
caring for that wicked and unpredictable beast.

someone please tell it to stop
before it does something to hurt someone
we beg of you

[sinensys]

westerly, westerly the eastern winds rise. the earth may be round, but the universe is flat; the universe is a cube. and so the east, laden with kindness, lies to the bottom - and beneath that is the sun, the easternmost thing - while above it loftily floats the west, that disconnected and disinterested god, watching on with distaste as the rest of the universe sinks lower and lower with kindness. the west remains neutral, but because so little of pure evil truly exists (there are few individuals who are neither kind to themselves nor kind to others, maliciously striking down both), the west remains at the top, an isle of weightlessness.

i reside in the west, but i hate this feeling of loftiness, of weightlessness, or uselessness. i try to be kind to myself, but i find that results are more stable as i return the gifts of kindness with politeness and words. so i have focused my efforts on sharing that kindness, and as a result, i molted poorly: now i am stuck with uneven layers of skin and flesh, each one a different personality for a different audience.

i brought my own sorrows and i carry them in my bones which, while they aren't directly exposed to the open air, are visible enough in some places to be inspected as the print against that thin but not transparent flesh. i need a doctor but how can i speak when my mouth has stuck in between different and warring skins?