Banded Ocean

A Story by UlyssesS

Not sure what genre this is, it felt nice to write though

"Its real easy to make mistakes when you are one"

My buddy likes to say that a lot as some kind of joke I guess. He never knew his dad that well, so I'm never quite sure if he's joking or not. I don't think it would matter, he doesn't like talking anyways. But I suppose if I think about it, he still he has his mom. I'm not sure if she likes him though, she always has that angry glare when we're around. She just might be tired though, I would be tired too if i worked two jobs. Hunched after and stocky, my fingers calloused from trying to stay alive. I don't think I could do that, I'm pretty weak. I'm that tall fragile type, like some threadbare towel. White too, not like a lot of my friends, they like to remind me of that. I don't mind though, it's a lot better than being alone.

My buddy and I said we aren't gonna take AP English together. Reading during the summer is pretty gay is what he said. I kind of want to tell him to stop calling stuff gay, we hang out with gay people. But they call stuff gay too, so I guess I don't really care. But he said we aren't gonna take AP English, so here we are, sitting on his couch, waiting for something to happen to us. We usually like to drink some kind of alcohol he managed to swipe from his mom. She just keeps them in the fridge so it's real easy to take it without her noticing. My doctor warned me about mixing my medication with stuff like this, but she didn't seem too worried about it. Told me I looked like a good kid. I wonder why, probably because I'm white.

But if something does happen, I don't think it'll matter. I think it'll be for the best if something does happen. Everyone I know doesn't smile, and I don't think I do either. I take medication that tugs on my face, trying to get me to do exactly that. But my buddy always tells me it's gay to smile for no reason, so I don't. I don't want to act gay so I do something real simple like that. It makes me a bit sad sometimes, but the medication always keeps me drifting so I don't notice. Keeps me happy I suppose. Maybe I could share my medication with the unhappy people in my life. We could all drift together, arms linked so we never lose each other. But I don't have enough pills so it wouldn't work very long, we would wash ashore, pruned and exhausted. It's hard work after all, doing nothing that is.

So that's why I just let myself drift in the water. Not really going anywhere, but at least I'm not stuck in the jaws of the dark ocean. Though I think it would be better if something happened to me. If I drifted in the ocean's jaws. Those fish with the lights on their head, they could help me see around. Explore something new, and taste the salt in my mouth, letting me know I'm finally alive. But I can't go exploring dangerous places like that. Who knows what might happen to me. So I'm just gonna sit here, wishing something would happen to me.

I think thats our problem. None of us talk to each other anymore. There's too many of us now, so we leave ourselves at home to make space. I want to go up to everyone I'm ever going to meet, and learn their name forever. Isaiah Buckley, from Virginia, he's a strange fellow I suppose. But I think that would be too hard. Nobody has the time to talk to someone like that, let's not waste our time right? I want to go home and sit on my couch, and watch something on TV, don't have time to talk someone like that.

It's getting late, and my mom hasn't called. She never calls. Her last call probably buried underneath a whole pile of good friends that always check in on me, see if I still got money left in my wallet. I like my friends, they're cool people. They say some real interesting things sometimes, mostly about our police or teachers. They don't like them because those adults try to get them to follow the rules. They don't complain about the rules, but they do complain about people a whole lot. Sometimes I like to be like them, try to say interesting things about our rules. My english teacher likes calling it poetry, I don't see how, none of it rhymes. I remember I tried showing my friends though, I wrote down so it would be easy to understand. At first they said I was too stupid to write anything like that, my words sound the same a lot so they said I wouldn't write well. So I showed them my writing one time, and they all kind of got quiet. Not quiet reading, it was like some kind of anxiety, like I did something wrong. Like I was a stranger who was pretending to be one of them. The conversation went somewhere else real fast, and I quick put it back in my bag, and acted like nothing happened.

For the best I suppose, the kids who write poetry are super weird. They're white like me, but not really like me, different kind of white. They have a lot of stuff to say about themselves, mostly about stuff like love or depression. They seem fine to me, good group of kids. But they use large words next to abstract concepts and emotions, so I guess they're pretty smart too. They talk a lot about feeling those emotions. Feeling a lot of things now that I think about it. It's strange, they seem to ignore the other senses, but they're smart people, so they're probably right. I even went to one of their poetry slams one time. When I showed up 15 minutes early, I acted like myself, they all seem pretty amused with my liberal use of words like hell or damn. I read my poem for them, something about my dad, something about how's he gotta beat me so I can become a better person. They looked pretty confused when I finished, real concerned looks on their face. I don't think they got it. Told me my poem was an 8 out of 10, it had a lot emotion, but i needed better diction. I'm not smart enough for better diction though. I didn't really care, a lot of my better diction comes from songs anyways. It was a fine event.

It was strange, when I got home, I cried a lot. Crying is one of those things that's pretty gay according to one my buddy. He's the straightest guy I know, and he never cries, so I think he's right about that. But I couldn't stop myself from a crying a whole lot anyways. I felt pretty gay and that made me cry more. A girl I like tells me I look ugly when I'm sad, so the whole time I knew I nervous that she would walk into my house or something. Catch me acting gay and being ugly. I didn't write for a whole week after that. It felt too embarrassing trying to write about some dumb tangent I felt. Seeing those kids in the hallway, always made me nervous. I think I told them about myself too much. More than my name, that's for sure. Did I tell them my name? I'm not sure if they ever asked for it.

I think it's because I hate myself. I hate myself too much to feel anything else. I resent people that don't have to hate themselves, so I hang out with other people who hate themselves. Every day I want to do that something. I want to dive straight into the ocean, and see what's down there. But I hate myself too much to even do that. I hate those kids who pretend like they know what is to hate themselves. When they throw around words like depression so easily, god I hate those kids. They don't know anything, and they say everything. Everything means nothing. I still hate myself though. I think at least.