Edgy Teen Writer Explores Online Writing Community

A Story by buzzkill kazoo

I dare you to make it through this. Looking for general feedback and whatever comments you feel like leaving. Chips and soda will be served at the end.

Hey, humor me for a second. Open up whatever it is you use to listen to music. Spotify, Youtube, doesn’t matter which. Now search up ‘Death with Dignity’ by Sufjan Stevens. Click on it. Put it on repeat. This is not obligatory, but heavily recommended. Okay, done?

Thank you. I really appreciate you listening to my orders. It shows respect to the author. (If you didn’t, ignore this. I still appreciate you for continuing to read this, though. Much respect.)

I like that song. I like music. Your apparition passes through me. That’s probably my favorite line of that song. I think the song is about the singer’s dead mother. I imagine it like this- an empty, but very much so alive forest. Mist in the air, the sky is brightly lit and the atmosphere is quiet and calm. The singer, Stevens, is taking a walk.

Spirit of my silence, I can hear you.

But I’m afraid to be near you, and I don’t know, where to begin.

Somewhere in the desert, there’s a forest.

And an acre before us.

The ground of the forest is embedded with crystals, amethyst and amber. The grass is lavender purple. There’s a green light, faint, coming down from the tree tops. It’s barely noticeable, but it’s there. Out in the depths of the birch trees, there’s a tiny little melody playing in high piano-like tunes. Sounds sort of like… an old music box. Melodic but quiet. Then he sees his mother. Standing there, pale as as a goddamn apparition.

What is that song, you sing for the dead?

He wouldn’t know. His mother died when he was too young to remember the funeral.

I forgive you, Mother. I can hear you,

And I’d love to be near you.

But every road, leads to an end.

If you ask me, I think it was suicide. I forgive you, Mother.

Your apparition passes through me.

You’ll never see us again.

That’s how the song ends. With the cold, brutal truth. You’ll never see your family again.

I think Death with Dignity might just be my favorite song ever. It’s not my kind of genre at all, or, I guess it’s not what people would assume my genre is. I don’t look like someone that’d enjoy that kind of song. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely enjoy Ramones and Dead Kennedys, but no human is that flat, personality-wise. You really think Billy Corgan’s never listened to an Avril Lavigne song?

Sure, bud. Just keep your Stereotype Juice outta my cereal milk, alright?

Anyways. This wasn’t supposed to start with a song analysis. This was actually never supposed to start in the first place. I was studying seven minutes ago. I have an exam in a few days. But my brain didn’t understand the words on the page. And my fingers were twitchy. My mind kept chanting the same thing; Write. Write. Write.

I was listening to music while studying. It doesn’t actually help me, if anything it distracts me further, but it feels better. It calms my nerves to sing along. But then Death with Dignity came on. I made it through the first forty seconds, but then I just had to put the goddamn book down. And write my thoughts.

Write, write, write.

Create, create, create.

It’s such a morbidly ironic time for me. I’m in the middle of exam season. I’m supposed to be reading and practicing non-stop, I’m supposed to be completely school focused right now.

And for some reason, I’ve never been more creatively hyper-charged. Yesterday, I drew for hours. Created three digital drawings, and for the last three days I’ve been learning how to play the ukulele, after impulse-buying one. Three days ago, I created five new characters with unique-but-low-key designs, I’ve developed their parents, and their universe, I know that one has a crush on another, I know that one is in a long-distance relationship with an Indian boy from Chicago named Thomas, and I know that one is extremely insecure about her looks and is trying out different fashion styles to try to impress her boyfriend, because she’s afraid of losing him.

The past month, I’ve seen so much improvement in my art style that I actually feel proud of some of the things I’ve created. Real, raw pride. I can look at a two-week-old drawing and still feel pride.

I’ve never felt better about myself creatively.

And its f*****g exam season.

This is the worst possible time to feel this. It’s shameful how much I want to just throw this chemistry book away and continue creating. I want to write. I want to show people what I’m writing. I want feedback and I want really harsh criticism.

I don’t want to cry over exams. There’s three oral exams for me this year. I’ve already done one. I don’t want to go into detail about it, but it went as a solid ‘Eh...’. I got a 4. Which in American terms, is a C-. Not so bad. I could tell my mom was disappointed. I’ll get back to this, when I’m more emotionally sustainable.

So, that’s one of them down. Two to go. The next is a science exam. I use the word ‘science’, because it’s a mixed-up-mashed-up exam, featuring the likes of: Chemistry, geology, physics and biology.

And it f*****g blows.

God, even writing about it makes me want to cry. I can feel literal and physical anxiety in my bones, my stomach and my skin. Taking deep breaths doesn’t help. I know I’m going to bomb this. God, I hope I get a 02 or something. That’s all I need to pass. I think that’s called a ‘D’, in the American system. I am more than f*****g happy with a just-barely-passing grade. God, please, I f*****g welcome it. Step right the f**k in, D.

I think I’ll be seeing you a lot more in my future, so do make yourself comfortable.

We had a mock-exam of this, but not really. I got an 00. An F. I wanted to cry for about twenty minutes, but now I don’t give a f**k. And to be brutally honest, I don’t actually care what I get on this exam. That’s not the scary part.

The scary part is speaking. Speaking on subjects I’m supposed to know everything about. It’s going to be me in front of three judge adults. One annoying woman, one annoying old man, and one complete stranger I’ve never met or seen or heard of before.

I’d rather die. The exam lasts two hours. But, I won’t be completely alone in there. There will be about five other students, if I remember correctly. My classmates. I think that might make me feel better. Or it’ll make me feel worse, because then they’ll hear me if I f**k up completely. But actually, I sort of hate all of my classmates, so they can come suck my dick.

It’s also the fact that I’ve never tried it before, that makes me want to die. Nothing has ever been like this for me. I’ve never felt more pressure than this.

A few days before the exam, teachers will usually hold a small assembly, so that students can meet up and ask questions, or practice the exam in front of the teacher. I’m being forced to go to this stupid thing. I’m sure it helps people who actually give a f**k. But not me, I guess.

The practice lesson is tomorrow. I think I’ll just go and maybe ask a question and leave to go breathe really anxiously in the bathrooms, and try to calm the panic attack I won’t actually have.

I don’t get panic attacks, I just feel the pressure in my chest, a tight knot, right between my lungs. Like someone’s got a fist wrapped around my heart. Breaking through my ribcage and looking me in the eyes and saying;

You’re not going to make it.

I really hate that guy.

(Yes, my anxiety has a sex.)

Speaking of Mr. Anxiety. I’m not diagnosed with anything. I haven’t been to a doctor about it. So, I can’t actually say ‘I have anxiety.’

God, I wish I could. I want a diagnosis. I want to scream it in my mom’s face the next time she calls me lazy. It’s depression, you putrid b***h!

But I’m scared shitless to go to a doctor about it. I’m scared of explaining it. I’m scared of saying the words, admitting what I’ve thought in the past and admitting what I’ve done before.

It was just once. And I didn’t even go that deep.

But I wanted to do it again.

I want pills. I want the goddamn placebo effect. I want to feel them going down my throat. Is that weird? Should I not have written that last part?

Well, this is my goddamn electronic-journal. F**k you.

(I didn’t really mean that; in case you’re reading this because I showed it to you and wanted your feedback.)

(Actually, if I’ve shown you this, it probably means I trust you a lot. Or, I’ve finally become so comfortable with my own self that I can publish this for the world to see. Although, if I ever put this online, I doubt more than twelve-thirteen people would ever see it.)

That’s just how the internet works. The great writers get washed away by the stream of twelve year olds hormonally induced One Direction fanfiction. I’m not referring to myself as the ‘great writers’, but I’d like to believe I can beat a piece of fiction written by xXMelissa-MindstormXx.

One of my biggest dreams is to one day be a published writer. Or a successful artist. Either or, really. Both are just as impossible. I must be one of those suffering artists or something. If I don’t make it into a job I enjoy, that involves being creative in any aspect, I’ll kill myself.

No, seriously. Don’t call a f*****g hotline for me. If I’m forty years old, and I’m not working at a job that allows me to explore the goddamn liberal arts, I’ll throw myself off a bridge, or drown myself in the goddamn local river.

And then maybe people will find the s**t I wrote, and the stuff I drew, a hundred years into the future, and I’ll be goddamn appreciated, along with all the other suicidal teens that just wanted to create something. They’ll say s**t like, ‘they were ahead of their time, no one appreciated them’, like they do with goddamn Van Gogh.

One day you might see this goddamn ancient scripture I’m writing right here, in the hundred-years-in-the-future Louvre.

Sorry, this took a dark turn. I’m still supposed to be studying.

It feels good, getting my thoughts out. I’m going to save this document, I’m going pick up this chemistry book, and I’m going to try to understand how magnets work. I’ll be back.

I wrote that last sentence 19 minutes ago. In that time, I did about 8 minutes of studying. Here’s a medium sized list of thoughts I had in the last 19 minutes:

I really f*****g don’t want to do this exam.

I hate magnets.

Maybe black coffee is the key to being a good writer.

I want to brush my teeth. They feel weird.

I’m going to put on some deodorant.

Oh, my calendar is still showing the May page.

I have to switch it to June.

Ah f**k, my mom’s coming home.

Ah f**k, my mom’s home.

It’s been thirteen minutes; I want to write again.

I want chocolate and more coffee.

I feel like opening that Word document is either going to be the best decision of my life, or the worst.