Lists of Truths and Lies

Sometimes you need to list out thoughts in order to move past them.

It happened again. I made some more bad choices and did some more bad stuff.

That, some would say, was some good solid logic.

But it’s not.

I say those things on repeat, maybe if I say;

I will die soon anyways;

One too many times, it will make the statement untrue.

I’m fourteen now.

Oh, so young, they say.

Too young for that.

Too young for what!?

How can you say that?

How can you know that?

When you get your degree in medicinal science, come back and tell that to me.

You have no idea.

Drama queen, they say.

She just wants attention, they say.

So many sayings, they run together until you forget which ones are true, and which ones are not.

Am I a drama queen?

I don’t want to be.

I don’t much have an affinity for attention either.

But they aren’t my words.

They’re yours.

But do I know that for sure? The words run around in my head until I forget who’s are who’s- an unending tidal wave of unsureness.

It rips at your mind adding upon itself over and over until it’s a hopeless mess that no one would want to untangle.

But I do.

Strand by strand the knot comes apart until I’m left with myself.

My knowledge.

My ways.

I don’t have to like them.

That’s why I like writing. Why I’d choose it over speech in a heartbeat.

In writing, you can be creative in more ways than tone and wordplay. For instance,

I am sixteen. Not fourteen.

Not much difference, one would say.

But the change of two years, is huge.

Two years. From fourteen, two years would have me at twelve.

Now twelve, that’s when it all went wrong.

Wrong? Drama queen.

Yes wrong. Not in the way I have you thinking though.

I haven’t yet named what even went wrong. But I’ll bet you have your guesses.

Drugs, maybe?

Alcohol I’ll bet.

Depression possibly?

No! none of those. Well maybe one of those. But that’s not the point here.

Twelve was the first time I realized I couldn’t ride a bike anymore.

Oh, so anticlimactic.

What if I told you why?

Twelve was the first time, as far as I can remember, that my legs gave out on me. That my feet started going flat. That pops and cracks marred my knee caps and hips every time I went to stand up, or even take a step forward.

Twelve was when my knee locked up, and I fell off my bike. Twelve was when carpal tunnel set in, and I couldn’t write or draw with proficiency anymore. When I realized, I couldn’t play a flute because of that. Or a guitar, or a drum set.

Twelve, I got my first pair of glasses to help me see better.

And they didn’t help at all.

These just added to the list.

Aspie. ADHD.

No don’t get her diagnosed.

I don’t want her labeled.

But without that, label, I was labeled something else entirely. 

No attention span. Doesn’t do things according to directions. Makes shapes instead of counting.

Oh, dear teacher, I had already counted them.

I needed six pennies. I had them in seconds. While the other five year olds were counting slow as molasses, I found I could make them into a pyramid. Like the pharos of Egypt built. And the chiefs of the Aztecs. And those ones under Bermuda.

 Instead of a ‘congratulations’ for connecting these together, I got a detention for going off topic.

You can’t suddenly tell people about these things after you’ve known them for years.

Until you can.

Once they know you, and you tell them, they connect it together.

Oh, that’s why you look to the right instead of at the person you’re communicating with.

Oh, so that explains why you repeat the first part of a sentence three times.

It does? How?

I dunno, it just does.

You of little knowledge, I know exactly how.

Don’t connect them together unless you know the connecting point!

Aspie. ADHD. Leg, hip, feet, wrists, fingers, hands.

I was fourteen.

I am sixteen.

Two years can do a lot.

I always wondered why eating bread would upset my stomach. I didn’t put two and two together for so long. I knew I was lactose intolerant. I learned the hard way that I was allergic to shrimp. But bread?

I never even realized you could be allergic to that.

Until I had to get my blood tested for something completely unrelated.

Anemic.

I always was.

That’s why I needed the blood test.

How was I supposed to know I had some stupid autoimmune disorder?

Just add gluten intolerant to the list.

What’s that?

I don’t have a list?

Well then, I’ll make one. Here it goes.

But I don’t want to.

Listing things out can help, or hinder.

It can help you get things done.

For instance:

Read Authenticity, write that stupid paper, do a science test, look up what Authenticity is.

Very helpful. Now I know what I’m procrastinating on.

However:

Aspie, ADHD, Dis-something-ia (I dunno, but I can’t see things right. It’s probably the ‘lex’ one, who am I kidding, it IS the ‘lex’ one.), weak meniscus, weakness in the hips and ankles, carpal tunnel, tendinitis, lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance, anemia, and the topper on the cake:

I’m allergic to freaking shellfish!

See? Lists. They can help, or hinder.

What am I even getting at anymore?

Do even have a purpose for writing this?

Is there a purpose.

I never do anything with a purpose.

I’ve always been told that.

You just do things on the fly, how about thinking them through, then doing it?

Yeah, I thought getting that blood test through, look where that got me.

I tried thinking a paper through. But it didn’t work. So, I just started writing.

Now I’m four pages in.

So, that means I either have a purpose I don’t even know,

Or there’s no purpose at all.

And if there was no purpose at all, then you wouldn’t be reading this.

See? Lists.

Help or hinder.

And sometimes you don’t even realize what you’re reading, is, in fact, a list.

 

Author's Note

I had a paper due, and a lot on my mind. Mainly words of less nice people. This is really me just getting the last four years off my chest, so to speak.
If there's a huge mistake or a part is a bit hard to read, go ahead and tell me about it, writing is my niche, and I love to learn from others.

Reviews

[slfisher89]

Your poem a great example of stream of consciousness; I like the speaker breaks the fourth wall. This could be a good spoken word piece.