This is a bullshit poem The words have bled here
it is void of meaning
it is void of feeling
it is void of gods
it is void of the people I call hogs
nothing but bullshit
spills on this page
you think I was going to be some kind of a
sage
the words I say
only disintegrate
never analyzed
never stay
The local Village Idiot
that you can't understand
in the end I don't give a shit
just let me make my band
playing all the words in my head
nothing of value is what they sing
God forbid I'm not Kurt Cobain
they might as well be covered in shit
they will fade and burn
because there's no wit
i guess I should fucking learn
before these words are churned
all this is nothing but vomit
learn that I'm nothing but a regular grommet
It was all bullshit. What everyone said to me was bullshit, all the people were bullshit, this day was bullshit, the whole idea of God is bullshit, the truth is bullshit, the lies are bullshit, and most of all, life is nothing but bullshit being sprayed in your face constantly. Don't listen to those stupid fucking flowery Hallmark cards that spread lies to your head about life being all about love and the times you spent with people and all that warm feel-good bullshit. Life is a joke. The joke that guy in the party would keep telling, but no one is laughing. Life is nothing but a crippling disease that you had, dealing with people who piss you off and dealing with all the errors they would make and you had to clean it up, like you were the parent of these shit-making machines.
Mr. Grifth criticized my essay, simply because it said in big red pen that teachers always used to tell you that you were a fuck-up: "0, SEE ME AFTER CLASS". He gave me a zero and he wanted to tell me how much of a big fuck-up I was. Whatever, I didn't care. The school year was over and I had a D in this class, but I'm sure just as long as I didn't had to explain why anything happened or why someone did this on the final I would probably pass with a C. I didn't give a shit; just as long as I didn't had to deal with anyone in here or this teacher again I would be fine.
I didn't even listen to him. He explained what things he was looking for in the essay and showed examples but I didn't give a shit about that either. The only time I listened was our homework assignment: read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, at least three chapters for the night. That book was bullshit too. Nothing but drama. I thought Jane and the entire book was whiny, the book preaching about feminism when Jane always picked a man who didn't give a shit about her. Women still act like her to this day. Date and marry someone who doesn't give a shit about them, but in the end, I guess they were only doing it for the sex and the money. Fuck them anyways.
The class bell rang, signifying that it was the end of the English class. All the classmates left in a hurry, except for me, who had to talk to this big sloth.
I walked up to him, him staring at me with a cautious look.
"Shadow, you got a 0 on your essay. I'll let you guess why that is."
I said nothing. I didn't want to play his stupid game.
He waited for a moment, then began again. "Since you don't want to guess, I'll tell you why you're here. I'm going to read your essay out loud."
He reached for his reading glasses and put them on, clearing his throat and began to read my essay.
"'This book does not have any evidence that this was meant to liberate women of the restrictions men gave them. This book is almost like that book that stupid teenage girls read called Twilight who think the main character is a good role model but in reality she's a stupid bitch who whines about her life and tries to solve it with an abusive man. This book actually makes me think that women like her should just go back to the kitchen and make me dinner and do laundry, because that's all their brain can comprehend other than sucking my…' And I don't think we need to go any further than that. Shadow, what you wrote was wildly inappropriate. I know everyone has opinions, some people really don't like this book, maybe because of the same reason you said, but you were vulgar, insulting, and even sexist. Shadow, you're better than this. If you didn't write such insulting essays like this, you would actually have an A in this class, so I know you're capable."
The only thing I said was, "Yes sir". I didn't give a shit.
"Shadow, I know you're very smart. You have a good vocabulary and you do the homework I assign and mostly get all the answers correct. You understand the reading material. But you have an extremely poor attitude. Do I need to remind your father of this?"
"No sir," I said like it was programmed into my brain.
"Because you need an attitude adjustment. A huge one. I give you the same spiel every time you write an essay like this and I'm tired of it, Shadow. If this goes on any further, I may have to send you to a counselor. Try to get your life situated. I'm going to give you a pass in case you're late to class because I have to tell you the same speech like I always do, but if I see this again I'll have to contact your father and send you to the school counselor. Is that clear?"
Yet another answer of "Yes sir".
He quickly scribbled on a piece of yellow paper, the hall pass, and gave it to me as soon as his students from his next class were swarming in the room. "Go."
I left the room and as soon as I entered the halls I decided to take my time. The next class was gym and I hated it. I had a pass, so I might as well use it wisely.
Gym always had pathetic excuses for teachers. Our gym teacher would always make us run laps around the gym and then he would suddenly disappear. Other students would comment that when he came back his eyes looked red and puffy so I assumed he would just tell us to go run around like morons while he smoked pot or probably masturbated to the women or men students he had. You could probably already guess that because he usually didn't watch us some students would just walk around the gym, usually the fatties who didn't want to run to burn off those Twinkies. I ran anyways, usually because English class had me pissed off and I might as well use up the extra energy I had. I was always second in the laps running. There was a student who ran a mile every day in the morning before school, ran 5 laps in the gym, and then ran a mile after school. He called himself Sonic, and I hated him. He was one of those people who were positive about fucking everything, filling their heads full of shit and saying bullshit phrases straight from those stupid motivational posters you would see in some asshat's office when he's giving you yet another speech on how you need to work harder or whatever. All-around star athlete and student, though I heard his grades were usually rounded to a C. He was always in my gym class, running faster than everyone and he would play sports so well because he was the fastest guy in the class. I was usually second because I'm actually quite fast as well, probably because the anger would give me that extra boost. However, that was where all the praise for gym class ended. I hated sports. There's no point in them except for idiots to feel good about themselves because they can remember a bunch of statistics for some football game that didn't matter either way in life. Every time I heard someone yak about a football team I always wanted to tell them to shut the fuck up and they had shit for brains to care about something like that in their magnitude, but unless someone gets in my face about it I'm non-confrontational. They can douse themselves in pointless shit for all I care, whatever made them actually not go kill themselves because they were a failure in everything else.
As usual, we ran 5 laps around the gym, gym teacher suddenly leaves, Sonic runs faster than me and I'm second. It was all the same at the beginning of gym. As soon as Mr. Tracey got back, his eyes once again red and swollen, he talked to us about what we were going to do today in this Godforsaken room. His speech was slow and slurred, which was even worse, because I hated the sound of his voice.
"We're going to play…um…baseball…today." Baseball was the most boring sport that man has ever made up, and I didn't listen to him yak about the rules of baseball and famous baseball players, as if anyone in our class gave a shit. Probably only two people, Sonic and another classmate I knew but didn't bother to talk to, Knuckles. Another star athlete, he was the quarterback of the football team. You know those football jocks. Very good at sports but were dumb as shit in their classes simply because all they care and know about is football. What a waste; I heard when that knucklehead actually knew something like a math lesson he did it well. People like him are even more pathetic because they actually have potential, but they waste it on stupid shit like that.
I don't need to tell you what was going on in great detail or anything or else I'd bore you to death, since I told you Sonic was probably going to make whatever team he was in win. I'm only going to cut to where I was up to bat, because something strange happened, which I guess is a mix in my boring, bullshit life.
Before me was Sonic, who after the second strike hit the ball a fairly good distance and, of course, got to first base. I didn't really wanted to participate in the sport anyways but I knew I had to show some effort once in a while or else I would have to take this class again, which you already know is the last thing I want. And these were one of those moments I was going to show effort in.
The pitcher was a female raccoon named Marine, someone I only saw in this class and don't care enough to describe her personality, and shortly after I was in position she threw the ball with all the effort she could muster, the ball not really traveling very fast. However, I decided to not swing, at least not until the second strike.
"Strike one, Shadow!"
Usually the baseball players who would reiterate their tales of glory to you would talk about how they're cussing themselves out because they didn't get the ball in their first run. I didn't; I didn't even care if I missed the ball on the third run. What the hell of a difference did it make?
"Strike two!"
They would also talk about how they're sweating themselves to death because if they didn't make that homerun, their team would lose. My team was losing more than just a homerun, so again, it barely made a difference, and even if I did hit the ball, it didn't matter in the end.
But when she threw the ball a third time, I gripped my bat tighter, gripped my focus tighter too. I began to think of how much I hated this life of mine. How I hated everybody in this damn classroom, the students, the lazy teacher, Sonic, and most of all…
How much I hated my father.
I heard a loud thwack as I hit the ball with all my rage that was transferred into the bat, the ball going at such a speed that people barely caught it, especially Marine, who in a matter of seconds the ball smashed her face as it flew.
She didn't fall to the ground, but she was holding onto her mouth. She began to cry when she suddenly saw a drop of blood hit the floor as it started to bleed profusely.
The teacher still didn't sound like he gave a shit. "Are you okay Marine?"
Does it look like she's okay? Her mouth was bleeding and she was crying, idiot.
Everyone gawked at me as someone tried to get her to calm down, her sobbing wildly as she was escorted to the nurse's office, as if the whole incident was my fault. They muttered under their breath as I went back to the hallway. I decided to cut class when the teacher wasn't looking because I knew everyone was going to just give me that look if I stayed any longer, even hearing people accusing me of trying to hit her on purpose.
That…wasn't exactly the strange thing I was going to tell you about. As I tried to hide from all those stares, going near a row of lockers and a corner that I could safely stay in until gym was officially over, I heard two voices talking to each other, one of the voices that I could tell belonged to Knuckles.
"You know he planned on hitting her, Sonic! Have you ever seen how Shadow acts to us? He's a damn sociopath and wanted to hit her because he just can! He's an asshole!"
I heard some brief stillness, then Sonic spoke. "I don't know why, but…I think deep down inside, Shadow isn't an asshole. He's probably…misunderstood and angry."
I would think that Sonic would say the same thing as Mr. Grifth, saying that I needed an "attitude adjustment" or some other bullshit phrase that they used whenever they were angry at you because they had a low arsenal of bullshit phrases, but this was different. The bastard was trying to make everybody pity me. Pity was something that men resorted to when they were truly pathetic enough. Pity was simply trash to me. You show sympathy to me I would only take it, crush it, and throw it in the bin, forgotten forever. Sonic's was no different.
As the bell rang, it designated the end of school. I only had two assignments which was to read Jane Eyre and solve a few math problems.
The end of school was only bittersweet. It ended the insufferable pain my head had to deal with on a Monday to Friday basis, but unless I was home alone, I had to deal with someone who caused me an even bigger migraine.
I don't want to bore you with the details of my life, but in order for you to get a deeper understanding of what I was dealing with, I will give you a brief summation of my family.
My family isn't very golden. Not at all. In fact, it was as rusty as a car's metal in a junkyard; dull, rough, shit brown, and ugly. I had a family full of thieves, convicted felons, lunatics, and drug addicts. Very few of them actually graduated high school, one of them being my mother, who I remember was a beautiful and smart lady. I felt like one of the greatest mysteries in my life, however, was how she got attracted to my father, someone who also managed to graduate high school and was planning on going to college to further his engineering skills. My mother was planning on going to college as well, trying to get a degree in psychology.
Ironic, isn't it, that someone who had a good understanding of how the mind works, couldn't understand how her mind worked? It works that way for many people with her condition. It was rare, dramatized to hell, and her doctors, although they committed her to an insane asylum, said that she was manipulative, destructive, and was only faking all her symptoms to get attention. I understand though, and I believe her. It seemed all too real to me to be fake.
She had four personalities in her head. One of them was Marie, a shy, but nice mother doing everything she could to support her family and loved her child and husband, no matter how much of a fucking scumbag he was. Then there was Abigail, the one with rapid mood swings, saying one minute she loved life and loved all of us with all her heart, then the next she has a knife and thick blood is running down her wrist, saying she wants to die. Then there's Fran, whose laughter I can hear still in my head, my spine shaking from the volume of her screams and cackles and howls, crying about the man who raped her. Then…Maria, who had a childlike voice. I remembered playing with her when I was a child. It may seem strange, playing and reading and conversing about childlike things to my mother, but I really believed she was someone else. She was Maria. She was aware of all the things going on in my mother's head and wished that things would be quiet and Marie could continue with her life, but yet she didn't want to die. She said she knew they would all be "mushed" together and be crushed by her mind. But I loved my mother, and I loved her personality, Maria.
When I was 8, however, she was committed. She tried to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge and someone alerted the authorities. The doctors knew something wasn't right and thought the hospital would be the best choice, even if they didn't believe in these people living in her head. Doctors are full of shit, aren't they? They think they know what's wrong with you because they read all these textbooks and only try to treat you so they can collect their heaps of cash and go home. If I ever saw any of the doctors who assumed she was faking all of this for attention, I would slaughter them. Just take my gun and shoot them right in the fucking head and let my mother go.
I was left with my father, a motherfucker who criticized me every time I went inside the home and if I did anything. He always had a cigar in his mouth and a beer in his hand, wearing the same clothes he wore the day before. My father had a job, but he got off at the same time I got off school, and he would bitch about how hard it was to work in that factory and that I better stop bitching about me being in school because it'll never be that hard and I was a pussy. Usually after he said those kinds of statements he would flick his cigar in an ashtray and take a sip of his beer. Then when he would inhale the cigar and blew the smoke from his nose he would take another sip.
As you can tell, yes, my dad is an alcoholic. Is he the kind you would see in movies where he would beat you and shit? No, he was just a lazy asshat who kept saying he could do a better job than I can, I'm a dumbass who doesn't push himself in school, I was a faggot, whatever slur he would use to try to demoralize me. My father was actually very hard-working before my mother was committed, but I guess he didn't give a shit anymore after that.
"Shadow, how was school? Working hard or hardly working?" He flicked his cigar, drank his beer.
I tried to ignore him and go to my room. But it didn't work. He started to ramble.
"You know son, before I fucked Marie, I was actually going somewhere. I was going to college, to a good university. Fuck, it was quite a prestigious university in this town. Maybe things would be different if you weren't born. Maybe if I didn't marry Marie, I would be in college, making the big bucks." Flick. Drink.
"But then I had to wipe your shit for four fucking years and what do I get? I could barely afford college to take care of you and I don't even get a fucking thank you? You should be wiping my shit and doing all the working. What are you even studying anyways? Are you even going to college when you graduate?"
"Why would I suffer four more years of what I go through at…"
"Oh, boo hoo! High school must be so fucking hard for you, isn't it crybaby?" Another flick. Another drink. "I dealt with shit there too but you don't see me fucking crying about it! Why don't you stop being a goddamn pussy and do something with your life? What do you do when you're done with your work? You just lay there and blast the Mozart or the Beethoven or whatever the fuck you listen to. You don't do anything else, you didn't even party with friends like I did. That would take a load off!"
"Why the fuck would I care what you did in high school? You don't do anything either, by the way. The house smells like shit and smoke and when you come home from work you just watch TV, smoke your cigars and drink your beer! That's fucking productive, isn't it?"
He stared at me with his bloodshot eyes, glossy and cloudy, before he grinned like a fat rat bastard. "At least I'm having a good time and I'm not bitching about my life, you whine ass."
Yeah, that made sense. Having a good time while he sat his obese ass on the purple chair that had many holes torn into it and cigar burns, while the floor had many magazines (Mostly pornographic. He probably masturbates on that same chair), newspapers, fast food bags, wrappers, and other shit that was strewn on it, including cigar ashes and beer cans. I tried to clean it many times on my days off, but it was all in vain as it would slowly gather to a mess again. The only clean area was my room, the only place I was safe from that piece of shit. I didn't want to listen to his filthy cock-ridden mouth anymore as I opened the door and slammed it shut.
My room was nearly spotless, just a blaring creamy white as I entered it. I didn't want to bother working on my assignments just yet, I was pissed. I turned on my CD player, playing Harold Budd's "White Arcades".
I quickly jumped on the bed as the sound surrounded the room. Music was the only thing I had any respect for, especially for the classical composers and Harold Budd and Steve Roach. The music took all the rage, the hatred that I kept feeling for my fellow creatures, and numbed everything. The pain would solidify into a stone, then the beautiful symphonies would soften and turn it into sand, blowing away to the further reaches of my mind. Music was the only thing that made me whole, made me calm, happy, and not want to tear into my dad's throat and rip out his vocal cords.
As I laid there on the bed, my eyes gazed at the ceiling as the music began to cage me, tranquilizing the beast that was in me. My mind became void of all those memories, of how much I hated that school, and how much of a fucker my dad was. It all faded into a black void, lulling me into a world I was all too familiar with and loved.
This is my diary, and this was all written by someone who was called "an outsider", "a sociopath", "an asshole", and what teachers famously call me, a cynic.
Welcome.