text: The Onslaught of colorful spotlights skating across the dance, painting the gleaming crowd with red, pink, and orange. The smell of perfume and cologne all around, barely overcoming the smell of sweat underneath, permeated throughout the entire room. A pleasant yet corrosive smell; something that stabbed at my nose. I do not know if it is in a good way or bad. I didn’t have a man to share this with of course, but the group I cultivated over my short and super awesome stay at York High. This was enough for me, plus I’m a truly gifted extrovert with an introverted cuteness and smart vibe! All my friends are the same, a lovely bunch of gals that can only admire and improve themselves. So bad in all the right ways too, like Jennifer who hates short guys went on a total dwarf spree this year. Perhaps she wanted to feel like our childhood favorite princess, Snow White, and of course she always SLAYS! We’re all gorgeous princesses that fully embody all womanhood in a group of four. Life is such a blessing and I’m always happy to go on these random, well written, spurs to just prove to myself that “ I’m worth it that I’m worth it that I’m worth it that I’m worthless that I’m worth it that I’m worth it that I’m worth it that I’m worth it that I’m worth it that I’m worth it.” But why, why is there that voice that knows everything I say or do is bad, in a none sexy way. That the word sexy isn’t something I enjoy using but loathe. I loathe I loathe I loathe. She thought to herself all while sitting down on a dirty little couch, legs squeezed together, feet clenched up shaking. It didn't smell of anything, this stale place. It was odd. For every other area to smell so distinctly different but this one a place absent of any such distinctive features, what made this place different? At night, this belligerent loathing paints my dreams with such crude things, monsters and demons. All orchestrated by the hairy frizzled man, riding a red bicycle with a disgusting green raincoat. Mocking me MOCKING ME MOCKING ME. “His eyes are brown, mine are blue; he is filthy, I am clean. At every party, in a moment this duality of nastiness and cleaness collides. There is this conversation, this prying thing, oddly familiar and foreign, that demands I do and think of such heinous things; incestuous quarrels, gay crimes, and or actions so cruel by nature that I clench my soul when even thinking of them,” she said to herself, the shaking more violent, but scratching too. It was almost as if she sat perfectly still, but she didn't. Before this night, the night of prom, she had already committed quite some time consumed by these thoughts. In the bathroom, at night, in class, or in broad daylight. They were terrified and this fear grew more and more everyday. I am pretty but if somebody could peer through my neat face, they’d see a jungle filled with horror. They continue to stare at me and I’ve begun to hate them for it. I’ve begun to despise the normal man and his virtuous ways. I'm terrible and my mind is polluted. “A terrible person locked in the perfect, sweetest life, among the most gorgeous fruit. I am the snake stuck in Eden, the sinner prayed for,” she said to herself as she finally eased off, her body loosening and her feet back on the ground, firm and she stared half consciously at the ceiling. Barely lit by the old light bulb, swinging and swaying about. Tonight was a sort of breaking point but for her felt like a revelation, a moment from a book that could be talked about. “I’ve grown bored of my smiles and straight posture, I’ve grown bored of hating myself.” These conversations and the weight of her own failed attempt at morality had arisen sometime, she doesn’t know when. The thoughts were almost ancient, something locked at the heart of every man, prying but always neatly kept under our principle. This conversation had already occurred 23 times in the last month, an obligation to prove to herself that she isn’t bad, to rid herself of these thoughts by controlling a reality, in some way, somehow. “I’ve grown bored of the things around me, I’ve grown bored of being nice.” Severe questions and belittling can shape the strongest of souls into the most terrifying things. “To do so for what?! Others!? Is this not bad? Is it not bad for me to listen to someone instead of myself. Jung says that a man must find his own way and no matter what, a man who lives by his own code is a man.” At this point she was trotting across the room, half conscious of her movement. Conversing with herself as if locked in a conversation with a real person, of course there was nobody but herself. However, she felt at this moment the whole world was watching, that something was listening and she sought its approval of course. “If I pretend to be good, is this not bad? Yes, yes I must define life myself not be defined by others!” But they’ll judge you! “ I’ll kill them, yes I’ll kill them. Just one, perhaps a boy no taller than me. Maybe the Jamaican in 223, YES! The Jamaican in 223” Her thoughts went silent and now she could only hear the gorgeous ringing of Tchaikovsky’s famed waltz, Sleeping Beauty as she excitedly began to peel her mangled finger tips. Her eyes were as wide as an excited cat stalking its prey. Her face was flush red and fully relaxed, her lower jaw slightly dangled, and she continued to walk in circles stuck in thought, theorizing. “I’d have to do it or else what could happen to me. I’d fail and be forgotten. Be normal. The only rational thing to do is this and it is the only thing left for me to do.”