1996

as i walked through the parking lot, my airwalks were covered in a layer of filth. it was unexplainable filth. my jeans were torn around the ankles. i always seemed to wear checkered socks. i walked by the LDS church, jocks singing to guns and roses at full volume. girls wearing mini skirts, football jackets, and unreleastic shades of wet and wild lipstick. i couldn't look at any of them in the face. i didn't want them to know i existed.
if any of them stopped to chat with me, i explained that i was sick and couldn't really talk.
if they asked what was wrong, i just said cancer. i didn't say i had cancer or that someone i knew had cancer, it just always had to be cancer. everyone always knows someone with cancer. it's the favorite trend word of the season. i walked into the church. i didn't know why i was still going to seminary, but i felt compelled to continually write about the various deaths and moral decays of humanity within the journals that we had to keep. i knew the bishop read mine. it helped me sleep better at night knowing such lines as, "jesus was the homeboy for female corporate white oppression" were being read by a man that had stated that "women were brought to this earth so that they could populate for jesus' army."

at certain points within this spectrum, i often found myself having a liking to codeine. perhaps it was because it was easy to come by at the time, since my doctor was losing his memory and forgetting how many times i had refilled my prescription, or the fact that religion within itself had become its own bizarre illusion of hilarity in my youthful demeanors. either way, this was the prime time within my daily school activities to take swigs of cough syrup, write things like, "GOD MAKES IT EASIER TO SWALLOW THE PAIN OF YOUR EXISTANCE" on notes and leaving it in the church bathroom, or skipping altogether and playing guitar over in the janitor's closet at the middle school. i never seemed to do anything with any real emotion. it was as if i had found so much to think about, and yet so little to think about at the same time. everything was overwhelming. the idea of what i had to see everyday and where i was seemed like an inevitable process of redneck sports and teenage banter. the only thing that made it worthwhile was listening to lots of shoegaze, writing screenplays that would never be submitted, and drawing pictures of birds.

i was, and maybe still am deep down (although i try to hide it behind all the bright colors of the rainbow), the ultimate goth.
i watched lots of david lynch and silent movies.
i found myself getting into what i thought was "innovative artwork", which consisted of mixed media of windex, makeup, wax, and sometimes fruit.
i played my guitar seven hours a day. if i forgot to play that day, i would punish myself by not eating the next day. that way, i'd have to suffer for my art.
i had a terrible obsession with drinking tons of mountain dew.
all i ate was peanut butter sandwiches. there was never jelly. ever. it still is this way.
i was failing almost all of my classes. i had a 2.0 gpa. my parents didn't know why i was doing so bad. i did my homework, but i just didn't care. i put no effort into anything, except for the most bizarre pointless extracurricular activities.
yet i joined academic decathlon in the hopes to win over the heart of this man i desired strongly. in the process i realized that he was most likely gay, but i didn't want to quit decathlon. i stuck with it for some time, falling in love with the art sections. i became overwhelmed with mark rothko, francis bacon, and swooning into mass chant music. i was doing terrible in school, and not all that well in decathlon. i wasted my time trying to find something to care about.
at any chance i could find to leave the house, i did.
at any chance i could find to do something outside of my regular spectrum of thinking, i did.

then again, i suppose this is what everyone did when they were 14.