You See Me Through Kaleidoscope Eyes
But Do You Know What I'm Seeing?
I wonder what you see when you look at me. You think I’m this god, this thing of such beauty, and half the time I don’t even feel worthy enough to lick your boots.
You read words. Or you hear them from his mouth. Do they make sense to you? Do you understand them? Half the time they don’t make sense to me. Sometimes I look through my journals and wonder who wrote those lines. Was it me, really? It seems like a stranger’s hand. What was I thinking when I wrote that? Where was I? Who was I?
Sometimes I’ll sit with the headphones on and listen to his voice singing my words. I’ll try and remember the moments, the emotions. I thrive on emotions of the past. I’m a parasite to my own brain. Because a part of me feels like if I could just get back there, back to the moment when I wrote THAT, maybe everything could be okay.
I wasn’t okay, but I felt safe, in the chaos and turmoil of my own thoughts. Someone was always there to make sure I didn’t get too lost in my brain. There was always a lap to lay my head in.
When everyone thinks you’re okay—when you’re supposed to be “okay”—they’re so quick to overlook when you’re not. Even if I say it out loud, there’s just a few words. I don’t feel safe when I’m not fucked up.
I just want to wrap myself in a cocoon of yesterday, hide under the blankets and not let the light in. And I’ve tried. But I’m a writer, not a time machine.
Do you feel my desperation when you listen to those songs, the raw hunger, the begging? Or do you hear what you need to hear in order to be able to cope with your own life? I don’t mind. If it helps you, that’s great. I’m just jealous, I suppose. Nobody would think I’m begging for help. And it’s not exactly easy to decipher those lines.
You see me through kaleidoscope eyes, hold me up to such a high level, project this demigod aura against my skin. You see something amazing in me and I just wish I could see me the way you do. I wish I could see what he sees when he says I’m beautiful and he loves me.
I don’t even like to look in the mirror. The one in my bathroom is covered with a pillowcase.
I’m just trying not to fall apart. It’s not an easy thing to accomplish when everyone thinks you have it together. I want to cry and I can’t make tears come. I want to scream and my voice gets stuck in my throat. So I just smile and laugh and it’s forced and horrible and I look at the pictures of myself from parties and nights out and I can’t hardly recognize myself.
Like Marilyn when she couldn’t pick out the nude picture of herself in that calendar. Not being able to recognize yourself is so . . . something. Because who are you? Who am I? I don’t even know. I don’t fucking know.
I’m just some guy who writes words. And you love them, sometimes, and you want to spray paint them on your walls or write them on your skin with permanent marker since you aren’t old enough for tattoos. Or maybe you’re scared of needles. Or commitment. I can’t say I blame you.
Because I’m also the guy who writes words and gets his band taken off the radio and then I’m just the guy in the band copying some other band and nobody really cares anymore but do you know how fucking alive I felt when I was writing that? It was like every synapse in my brain was firing simultaneously. Can’t remember what I was thinking or who I was, but I remember the feeling.
And I don’t do it for you, I do it for me, but when people just stare at you blankly, those same people who used to have the permanent marker tattoos, it does feel a bit like you’re drowning in the middle of the ocean.
You just wonder, this is me. And you said you got it, sang like you got it, your eyes shined like you got it. So what happened? Was it me or you or some combination of both? And am I going to die alone in the middle of the ocean?
There’s a growing stack of songs and lines and poems sitting on my coffee table. And I’ll show them to him, but there’s not much of a response. A nod or a smile or a sentence. No excitement, no rush, no emotion.
And that’s worse.
So now I’m curled up in my bed, looking at picture from last night on my laptop and trying to recognize myself, trying to remember. There’s a half-finished poem in the notebook beside me and I want to use it to start the fire that would burn down my apartment and take me with it.
Maybe I could fake my death and run away to the middle of the desert. It’s a desperate thought, not a real one. And I’m not brave enough to run away.
I close the laptop, close the notebook. I pull the sheets over my head and will the tears that weigh heavy on my eyes to fall. But they don’t. And I’ll stay here like this until it’s necessary to get up and force and a smile.
Do you see me through kaleidoscope eyes now?
You read words. Or you hear them from his mouth. Do they make sense to you? Do you understand them? Half the time they don’t make sense to me. Sometimes I look through my journals and wonder who wrote those lines. Was it me, really? It seems like a stranger’s hand. What was I thinking when I wrote that? Where was I? Who was I?
Sometimes I’ll sit with the headphones on and listen to his voice singing my words. I’ll try and remember the moments, the emotions. I thrive on emotions of the past. I’m a parasite to my own brain. Because a part of me feels like if I could just get back there, back to the moment when I wrote THAT, maybe everything could be okay.
I wasn’t okay, but I felt safe, in the chaos and turmoil of my own thoughts. Someone was always there to make sure I didn’t get too lost in my brain. There was always a lap to lay my head in.
When everyone thinks you’re okay—when you’re supposed to be “okay”—they’re so quick to overlook when you’re not. Even if I say it out loud, there’s just a few words. I don’t feel safe when I’m not fucked up.
I just want to wrap myself in a cocoon of yesterday, hide under the blankets and not let the light in. And I’ve tried. But I’m a writer, not a time machine.
Do you feel my desperation when you listen to those songs, the raw hunger, the begging? Or do you hear what you need to hear in order to be able to cope with your own life? I don’t mind. If it helps you, that’s great. I’m just jealous, I suppose. Nobody would think I’m begging for help. And it’s not exactly easy to decipher those lines.
You see me through kaleidoscope eyes, hold me up to such a high level, project this demigod aura against my skin. You see something amazing in me and I just wish I could see me the way you do. I wish I could see what he sees when he says I’m beautiful and he loves me.
I don’t even like to look in the mirror. The one in my bathroom is covered with a pillowcase.
I’m just trying not to fall apart. It’s not an easy thing to accomplish when everyone thinks you have it together. I want to cry and I can’t make tears come. I want to scream and my voice gets stuck in my throat. So I just smile and laugh and it’s forced and horrible and I look at the pictures of myself from parties and nights out and I can’t hardly recognize myself.
Like Marilyn when she couldn’t pick out the nude picture of herself in that calendar. Not being able to recognize yourself is so . . . something. Because who are you? Who am I? I don’t even know. I don’t fucking know.
I’m just some guy who writes words. And you love them, sometimes, and you want to spray paint them on your walls or write them on your skin with permanent marker since you aren’t old enough for tattoos. Or maybe you’re scared of needles. Or commitment. I can’t say I blame you.
Because I’m also the guy who writes words and gets his band taken off the radio and then I’m just the guy in the band copying some other band and nobody really cares anymore but do you know how fucking alive I felt when I was writing that? It was like every synapse in my brain was firing simultaneously. Can’t remember what I was thinking or who I was, but I remember the feeling.
And I don’t do it for you, I do it for me, but when people just stare at you blankly, those same people who used to have the permanent marker tattoos, it does feel a bit like you’re drowning in the middle of the ocean.
You just wonder, this is me. And you said you got it, sang like you got it, your eyes shined like you got it. So what happened? Was it me or you or some combination of both? And am I going to die alone in the middle of the ocean?
There’s a growing stack of songs and lines and poems sitting on my coffee table. And I’ll show them to him, but there’s not much of a response. A nod or a smile or a sentence. No excitement, no rush, no emotion.
And that’s worse.
So now I’m curled up in my bed, looking at picture from last night on my laptop and trying to recognize myself, trying to remember. There’s a half-finished poem in the notebook beside me and I want to use it to start the fire that would burn down my apartment and take me with it.
Maybe I could fake my death and run away to the middle of the desert. It’s a desperate thought, not a real one. And I’m not brave enough to run away.
I close the laptop, close the notebook. I pull the sheets over my head and will the tears that weigh heavy on my eyes to fall. But they don’t. And I’ll stay here like this until it’s necessary to get up and force and a smile.
Do you see me through kaleidoscope eyes now?