I’m not trying to pretend

Stick it through

See the end

Of this line, finish out this life

Kill the struggles and the strife

Messages of eternal life

Stray from that hate of mine

Threatening to enclose my heart

Keep those apart

Know where to end and where to start

I don’t flaunt a crazy style I don’t have

Don’t talk in rhymes, faking attitude – “I’m so bad”

I can only be myself

Be influenced but not helped

Along this path of discovery

Recovery, In front of me

I see a journey to a destination

of answers and revelations

obtained only through dedication, education

I know where I am, know where I stand

And sense enough to know to change

But strong enough to stay my hand

I have no idea what I am about to write

Is this a story or a poem?

Or is this the story of a poem?

I could write about an emotion

Rant and rave until I’m blue in the face

Experiences and memories and philosophies

But what point am I trying to get across in the end?

In one moment I am completely content

And in the back of my mind I feel that sense of unease

The natural ebbs and flows of life

I feel the ebb is coming

The most I can do is live

Breathe in and out

Oxygen to Carbon dioxide and out

Feel my own brain deteriorate naturally

Feel myself grasping at straws as I race the clock

Yet where is the race?

The clock moves methodically

Equal increments of time between each little line

It wins and it loses

So where is the race?

And one day the gears will stop

And I feel myself getting inspiration

I think I’ll go start another story now.

What is this feeling? The world around me spins as the whiteboard marker I was holding falls to the ground. Cotton muffles my ears and I don’t hear the gasps from my classmates and the carpet rushes up to meet me. The definite integral on the board lays unsolved and we’ll never know the total distance the martian spaceship traveled towards the sun.

Sleep. It’s eluded me for days. I feel each of the muscles in my body relax as I sink into the inner parts of my mind. Grayscale images of my hopes and fears flash as the wrong audio tracks do a horrible job of dubbing the video that plays over and over again…

***

I’m thrown back in time. In the basement of a building I’ve never been in before, it’s the basement of a shady diner in the 1920’s. Revealed by dim lights, the simple and well-kept furniture is draped with the bodies of people dressed lavishly enough to be regulars at the Ritz. And here I am, in my brother’s pants and vest and shirtsleeves. My hair is slicked back, the only thing giving away my true gender being the rather large bun on the back of my head. But otherwise, no one would ever know.

“Caroliena, do you want to sit in the front seat?”

What?

Someone sidles up to me, dressed to the nines. “He’s a manwhore!” the person says as they look me straight in the eye.

I’m sorry?

Someone sits at a piano, the wrong lyrics matching up with the wrong melody.

A girl with a feather in her hair and beads on her dress passes in a pair of impossibly high heels. I suddenly feel under dressed in my brother’s best church clothes. I start to perspire, though I’m not quite sure as to why. As the piano fades, sourceless music plays and fills the room.

“When I’m lookin’ in the mirror, honey you are all I see…”

I find a mirror in the back part of the room. The person reflected there is a stranger. She has my eyes, my lips, my eyebrows temporarily thickened by mascara. But the expression and the posture are all wrong. She stands, her shoulders, hips, and ankles in line, neck tall, and mouth split in a wide and real smile. Her eyes hold the secrets of the world, of happiness, of truth. Her hand moves as I move and we undo the knots on the back of our heads, smear the mascara off our eyebrows, and all of a sudden everything makes sense. But that feeling fades faster than it came on.

We tug at the waistband of our pants, the skinny jeans raising an infinitesimally small amount up our hips. We tug our sweaters into a less awkward position, adjust our scarves, and we step into a pair of worn, black sneakers. We hastily run a brush through sleep-mussed hair, wincing at the slight pain when the brush would hit a knot in our hair.

The hair seems longer now. It didn’t take this much effort before to make it decent. It seems like I laid down to take a nap with boyishly short hair, the donated hair being freshly cropped off, and I woke up to go see a movie with shoulder length hair. Where is my time?

I flip my hair over, brushing the under layers. My hair nearly touches the floor when I’m bent at ninety degrees with my neck relaxed so that I’m looking at my knees. My arms get tired – It never took this long to get to looking decent.

I flip my hair right side up again. The sun sets outside my window and there isn’t a dry eye in the room. When did I get to caring this much? What does that even mean? Is that what this is?

I slip into the house, the door left unlocked. It’s eleven-thirty and I feel electricity coursing through me. But I made an idiot of myself. I over think everything. But where does my trail of thought leave me?

I blush as I open the tupperware full of homemade cookies. They’re slightly misshapen, the chocolate chips hidden in the baked dough so that they look rather plain on the outside. The smell of sugar rises from the canister and I reach to take one. Chewy and soft, made from tough love. It isn’t my fault that the oven can’t handle it.

The front of my skinny jeans, sweater, and the scarf wrapped around my neck are splattered with flour, the dusty white easily revealed on the background of dark denim and different shades of gray. I blush as my friends around me make innuendos and I laugh with them. They share my sense of humor, though the jokes that may have been perfect for the moment die in my throat before they even get the chance to be formed. By the time my tongue gets the courage to speak, it’s too late. And the words get lost in the void that is my mind…

***

I’m vaguely aware of the soft plastic that is pressed to my face, encircling my mouth and nose in a seal of oxygen. My chest rises and falls in a steady motion, the deep breaths making the gesture seem too slow. I feel tears on my cheeks and I wonder why I care so much all of a sudden. But I release the breath that I was holding and the worries that I made a fool of myself or those over-thought thoughts start to release from my system little by little. My hair tickles my collar bone, little strands falling off of my shoulder as I inhale.

I concentrate on nothing but these small feelings. The hairs on my shoulder are velvet fingertips that raise goosebumps onto the skin there. My feet relax into a first position naturally, the toes pointing out into a thirty and a one-fifty angle, gravity acting as the most gentle hands pulling them down as far as they will with no other force. The sleepy feeling in my muscles feels like Saturday afternoon before it got complicated, the afternoon sun streaming through my window and warming my pillow. A single song plays over and over again, an unknown artist, gaining prominence as that record makes its rounds in my head; “Sign says five miles, and I feel it’s my fault this time…”

I realize that all I’m really waiting for is one thing.

I’m waiting to exhale.

—-

Title: Waiting to Exhale by Caroliena a.k.a. arol

Rating: PG to PG13

Genre: Original Fiction

Summary: Loosely based on a twisted dream mixed with bits and pieces of reality. Exaggerations and disconnection. What’s the point exactly again?

Notes: This, along with a majority of the things on my site, are written while sleep deprived, so I fully understand if things don’t make sense. Looking back, I guess that’s the point. I wanted to correctly pin down this feeling of…I guess you can say it’s anguish? There is no specific word to describe what I was thinking about while writing this, though kudos to you if you can find one that may work. But yeah, there are two references to songs that I made. Here’s the artist, the song title, and a link to a video.

Ryan Leslie – Addicted - video

Chris Cendana – Without You – video

Part One: Too Much Free Time

“The library? Again?”

I nodded, triple checking my bag and staring at my three other class binders, contemplating whether or not I should take them.

“Girl, you are such a stereotypical Asian, always studying. You already have straight A’s, what’s the rush?”

I shrugged.

“Is it because of your parents? In my Sociology class, we got into this discussion about how Asian families are heavily honor based – “

I rolled my eyes. “Diane, you know my parents aren’t like that. They named me River for goodness sakes.”

“I know, but still, it’s unnatural. It’s your freshmen year! It’s easy now, so why are you stressin’?”

I shrugged again.

“Maybe you have too much free time. You know, Tyler has been coming by here a lot. To copy my notes, apparently, but whenver he’s here – “

“Diane, you know that’s because he’s hoping you’d dump your boyfriend for him, right? Or that he just wants to get in your pants, whatever happens first.”

“Well, you didn’t have to say it out loud.”

I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder. “I have my cell phone on me, if you need anything.”

And I was out.

One of the benefits of going to a rather prestigious university is that they always have an extensive library. Any book I could possibly want to read or need for research they have. All coupled with the hushed atmosphere that’s ideal for studying.

I made a beeline for the window seats, one in particular. The one in the corner with windows on two sides and the big oak tree in front, my favorite and my normal seat.

And damn. It was taken.

I settled for the other corner window seat. The one facing the main road. It still had a good view; the road was lined with Mom-and-Pop cafes filled with univeristy students. But still, not as good as the oak tree. Especially in late fall.

The library was unusually quiet for a Saturday afternoon. The window seats were normally filled with students, the main foyer filled with the quiet rustling of study groups and tutors. But today was different. It was nice.

As I passed my usual seat to go to the seat on the far end, I glanced at my seat’s occupant. I didn’t get much from the hunched figure, except that it was a guy who had dark hair and wore glasses. And he was studying organic chemistry, judging by the diagrams in his book.

Which reminds me. I have a quiz in that course Monday on Chapter 4.

I came across a term I didn’t know about halfway through reading the chapter again. I skimmed my notes, finding a bullet point of information on the subject.

Time to peruse the shelves.

I glanced at the guy in my seat. He didn’t seem like the type to steal, plus he was so engrossed in his reading that he probably didn’t even notice that I came in. But still, I took my notebook with me anyway. I had already forgotten what I needed to look up.

I ran my fingers across the spines of the books, pausing on a title that looked promising. I was startled as another hand made to take the same book as I started to take it out.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you.”

I looked up at the other person.

It was the guy who was in my seat. He had the same color hair and glasses.

He looked at me with a curious expression, his eyes full of confusion.

We spoke at the same time.

“You took my window seat.”

“Aren’t you in my organic chem class?”

I blinked. He blinked. We spoke at the same time again.

“Downing’s 10:15?”

“The oak tree one?”

Again, synchronization.

“Yeah.”

He stared at me, his expression still curious.

I picked the book off the shelf, breaking his gaze. “Did you need this?”

He looked at it.

“Oh. Yeah. Unless you need it?”

“No, I can find another book.”

He took the book from me, and I went back to perusing the shelves.

His footsteps were muffled, I heard them now since I wasn’t as engrossed in picking out a book. The slow cadence suddenly stopped as he turned back to face me.

“My name’s Aiden, by the way.”

I picked two promising looking books off the shelf and didn’t answer.

One more step

Down this broken road I travel

Away from life

Coming to a stand still

I can’t see

Completely

Lost in you

I’m gone

So long

And though I know that it’s so wrong

Though I need you here

I know that I have to let go

I want to tell you something

Something that I’m scared to say

I want to show you something

Before this dream fades away

We’ve been friends for so long

And yet I never had the courage to say

That when we were friends for so long

I wanted you to always stay

I wanted you to stay by my side

Even when it hurt to be there

I wanted also to stay by your side

Even when I felt like I couldn’t get air

I know that I hurt you bad

And I’m sorry because I didn’t want you to hurt

I know that I only made you sad

And I’m sorry because I know you ended up for the worst

I always wanted to give you a choice

To stay with me or to go

But I was never strong enough to voice

My true feelings, and now I’ve hurt you so

You say that you don’t regret

Taking that chance to move on

But even though your heart is set

I can’t help but feel like something’s wrong

So everyday I try to speak

And show you how much you’re vital

But I always end up too weak

And it’s ends up becoming a struggle

So I hope you know through me weird ways

Through the imperfections you say you’ve come to love

That I vow to keep you happy always

And vow to be there even when I’m below and you’re above

Title: The Breakfast Exchange Club
Author: cxcaroliena
Rating: PG to PG13 (though PG 13 is probably a really big stretch ^_^)
Genre: I don’t know… possibly fluff/crack, maybe?  Maybe not really crack…  How about general?
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
God, I don’t own them TT__TT
Summary: In which Shige is late, the Sexy Osaka Man gets his way, and breakfasts are given out like candy to trick or treaters.
Just read it.  I suck at summaries ^_^

It started like this.

First, Shige’s alarm clock failed to go off so he could wake up on time.  When he finally woke up, it was twenty minutes until his first class of the day, the last train to the university long gone.

Shige bolted awake and raced around his apartment, his cell phone in one hand while his other struggled to put on his uniform, a foamy toothbrush held firmly between his teeth.  He had called Koyama to see if he could possibly pick him up and give him a ride to school.

“Hai hai!” Koyama’s cheerful voice greeted Shige after a few rings.

‘Koyama!” Shige mumbled gratefully around his toothbrush, his one hand now trying to button up his shirt.  “I overslept.  Can you give me a ride?”

The phone crackled as Koyama let out a sigh.  “Gomen ne, Shige.  I can’t.  I’m already at the Jimusho and my car’s in the shop; I took the train here.”

Shige whimpered, exhaling exasperatingly and rushed to the bathroom to spit his toothpaste out.  “Ah, is there anyone there who might be willing to give me a ride?”

“Is something wrong, Koyama?” Shige heard another voice on Koyama’s side of the line say.

“Ah, Nishikido-kun, it’s nothing – “

“HOW can you say it’s NOTHING?!  I missed the last train to the uni!!” Shige screamed into the phone.

“Hai, hai, gomen ne, Shige.  Nishikido-kun, Shige missed the train to school and his class starts in twenty mintues, I think – “

“Well, it’s fifteen minutes now!”

“Hai, hai, gomen ne, Shige!  Fifteen minutes until his first class and he needs a ride.  It’s nothing, really.”

“KOYAMA!”

“Hai, hai, gomen ne, Shige!  I mean, it’s a very troublesome matter, Nishikido-kun.”

Shige, fully, if a little sloppily, dressed sat on his bed with his head in his hands, willing his large headache to go away.

“Well, I can probably go pick him up really quickly,” Shige heard Ryo say on the other line.

“Shige bolted up, gesturing his silent refusal to Ryo’s offer, even though neither Koyama nor Ryo could see him.

“Ah, Nishikido-kun, are you serious?  That would be great, arigatou!”

“Koya – ” Shige began.

“Shige, Nishikido-kun will be there soon!  He just left!  He’s so nice, eh?”

“Koyama, does Nishikido-kun even know where I live?!”

“Hai, He visited once for New Years, remember?”

“Koyama, that was last year at my parent’s house.  I got a new apartment since then, remember?”

“…Oh…”

“KOYAMA!!”

***

It continued like this.

Shige ended up being half an hour late to his class, even though Ryo showed up at his door five minutes after Shige ended his conversation with Koyama.

When Ryo arrived, he insisted on having breakfast at Shige’s first, since he took the time out of his busy schedule to pick Shige up.

“Nishikido-kun, I’ll be late!  Can we please leave now?!” Shige pleaded when Ryo forced his way into Shige’s apartment.  “If we leave now, I might be able to make it!”

“No, because I didn’t have to give you a ride,” Ryo said, kicking his shoes off carelessly as he made his way to the kitchen.  “I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart.  So the least you can do is give me breakfast.”

“Nishikido-kun, I promise on my life that I will buy you breakfast tomorrow if we just leave now.”

“Nope.  It’s now or never; you either give me my breakfast now or you’re never going to get a ride.”

Shige groaned, setting his bag down and taking his shoes off at the door.  He made his way over to where Nishikido-kun was in the kitchen.  He dug some frozen waffles out of the freezer and popped them in the toaster.  After a few moments, Shige turned around.

“You know, my professor is a very impatient woman.  She won’t be very happy with you when I tell her that you are partially the reason why I was really late,” Shige stated, smirking slightly.

Ryo smirked back.  “That’s impossible.  No one can be mad at the Sexy Osaka Man.”

When Shige arrived at the University forty minutes later, Shige skulked to his seat, throwing his bag down.

Shige’s female professor scolded Shige harshly for being late.  When Shige told her that it was partially Ryo’s fault, she swallowed her diatribe at Ryo when Ryo flashed his ever-so-innocently wide smile.  She smiled radiantly back, then literally kicked Shige into the classroom.

Damn you, Sexy Osaka Man, Shige though as he sat to take notes.

***

It went on like this.

Shige found out that his alarm clock was broken when he woke up late again the next morning.  Since he didn’t have any time (or money) to buy a new one, he got to school via rides from Ryo.  After a few more mornings of being late, Shige finally got into the habit of having breakfast ready for Ryo so they could leave on time.

The first day, Shige picked up a dozen assorted donuts from the bakery across the street.  Unfortunately, a vast majority of them had chocolate on them.

“Chocolate donuts?  Kato-kun, do you realize what donuts do to your body?!  Are you trying to make the Sexy Osaka Man unsexy?!” Ryo exclaimed when Shige showed him the box.  “And chocolate?!  First donuts, but then they’re chocolate?!  Seriously, Kato-kun, CHOCOLATE?!”

And so, Shige had to endure the entire car ride with a grumpy, hungry, and complaining Ryo.

The second day, Shige cooked Ryo eggs and ham, the only thing in his refrigerator that was quick and easy to make.

“Eggs and ham?” Ryo demanded when Shige placed the plate in front of him.  “You call this breakfast?  Egss and ham?!”

And so, Shige had to endure the entire car ride with a grumpy, hungry, and complaining Ryo.  Again.

The third day, Shige spent the entire night before preparing a breakfast feast, taking time to research Ryo’s favorite foods on the several fansites dedicated to the Sexy Osaka Man.  Pardon me, I mean the Sexy Osaka Man.

When Ryo arrived that morning, letting himself in by taking the spare key from under the cat figurine near the welcome mat, it was to find a fully-dressed Shige at the kitchen table, head in his arms, sound asleep with a spread of food laid out on the table before him.  The foremost dish held a note.

Sexy Osaka Man-I will most likely have fallen asleep if you’re
reading this.  Here’s your breakfast for today.
Sorry if it’s a little cold; you always arrive a
little late anyways.

Ryo smiled and set the note down.  He went to Shige’s cupboards and pulled out a few small plastic tupperware containers.  He put some of the food in each container, then slipped the ones he knew that Shige liked as well into his school bag.  The rest he kept for himself.

When he was done eating, Ryo wiped his mouth with a napkin and tossed it on top of the dirty dishes.  He’ll do those after he dropped Shige off at school.  He kicked Shige in the shin.

“Wake up, Kato-kun, it’s time to leave.”

That day was the first time had gotten to class early since his alarm clock broke.

***

It ended like this.

For about a month or so, Shige and Ryo had gotten into the routine of rides to school in exchange for breakfasts.  Secretly, Ryo hoped that Shige never got a new alarm clock so that he could spend more time with the young rock star.  And get a good breakfast every morning.  But it was mostly to spend time with Shige.

Though he, the Sexy Osaka Man, would never admit to that.

One morning, Ryo let himself into Shige’s apartment and found no peacefully sleeping Shige and no slightly lukewarm breakfast waiting for him.

Ryo slipped out of his shoes and closed the door behind him.

“Shige?” Ryo called out into the seemingly empty apartment.  “Shige?” he tried again.

Ryo tread the familiar path to Shige’s bedroom (he had often snooped around while Shige slept at the table) and let himself into the room.  “Shige?” Ryo said softly, surveying the slightly cluttered, but completely empty of human life, room.

Ryo frowned, wondering where Shige, no, his Shige, could possibly be.

After a while of just standing in the doorway, Ryo’s eyes finally rested on a shiny, silver, brand-new alarm clock.  Ryo felt his heart break a little when he saw the minute change on its digital face.

He crossed to the alarm clock next to the unmade bed in a few strides, picked it up in his hands and got the strongest urge to chuck it against the nearest wall.

Instead, Ryo set the alarm down gently, fiddling with the buttons until the alarm was set to 5:30 am, a full two hours before Shige really needed to get up.

The next morning, Shige jerked awake at 5:30, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

Shige looked up after a few moments into Ryo’s unreadable expression, confusion evident on his own face.  Ryo had snuck into Shige’s house at five that morning and sat next to Shige’s bed, watching Shige slumber peacfully for half an hour.  Shige cleared his sleep-clogged throat.

“Nishikido-kun?” Shige rasped sleepily, looking from the clock to Ryo, then back.  “What are you doing here so early?”

Ryo merely smiled and held up a pile of plastic containers wrapped up in a large square of blue cloth.  There were band-aids covering the shallow scrapes from the knife slipping and cutting his fingertips, as well as small burn marks on his palms.

You see, Ryo had spent all of the previous night researching Shige’s favorite foods on the fansites dedicated to NewS’s rockstar, as well as prepared them to the best of his ability.  Despite the many curse words that flowed from his mouth during the process, Ryo merely smiled at Shige.

“It may be a little cold, but then again I’ve been waiting for a while.”

Shige still stared at Ryo in disbelief.  Ryo smiled even wider.

“Eat up and get dressed, Shige-kun.  I wanna take you for a drive before your first class.”

————————————————————————————————————————

Let’s try this again, love.

This time, let’s not have this so hard to do.

Let’s not have this so we’re confused.

Let’s set these borders

Organize these orders

And have them not understand one word.

Let’s try this again, love.

This time, let’s not be sad anymore

And let’s just lay here on the floor

Let’s just not be so shady

And list reasons, A to Z

And have them not understand one word.

Loosely based on the song Ai Nante by Tegoshi Yuya, Kato Shigeaki, and Nishikido Ryo of NewS

Selfish Love

We were so close, we shared the most
Of this pitiful existence, and it hurts so much
You said to let go, you couldn’t do it no more
And it became too much to bear…

I’ve walked a hundred thousand miles
To be where you were tonight
What did I see but thousand watt smiles
Meant for someon else tonight

Selfish love; it ran through our hearts
Forever changing us
Selfish love; it hurt us from the start
And we grew apart forever

Wouldn’t it be nice to see
Forever with a few more days to spare
Wouldn’t it be nice to stay
In this single moment for eternity?

Selfish love; you and me forever
Whenever we fought we cried
Selfish love; you and me together
A combination meant to fall apart

Truly, you must be as torn apart as me
As ripped at the seams as me
But I must know the truth
How are you holding up?

I’ve walked a hundred thousand miles
To be where you were tonight
What did I see but thousand watt smiles
Meant for someon else tonight

It’s cruel hell for me
All I remember is seeing your smiling face in the sun
It’s harsh jail for me
All I remember is this feeling that you were the one…

Selfish love; a dedicated song
But it really wasn’t for me
Selfish love; together for so long
But you were counting down the days until you were free

Wouldn’t it be nice
If that single moment of happy
Stood completely still
And turned into Eternity?

But a love like this
Is doomed from the start
And it hurts to reminisce
All I remember now is a broken heart…

Chorus:

Last night

I couldn’t sleep ’cause you weren’t in my dreams

And when we fight

It’s only ’cause I cannot see how much

You mean to me

And so from now until forever

I promise you I’ll say these words always

I love you

Verse 1:

Seven days, ten hours, twenty minutes, fifteen seconds

Since the last time we met

It seems so short a time, but to me it was forever

And I’ll never forget

Skipping heartbeats, racing pulses, losing my last breath

When you finally said

“Baby no one compares to you, I love you

So honey don’t you forget.”

Yet lately, I feel like you’re fading a bit

This tension baby, let’s release it

And I just need to say this, listen please

CHORUS

Verse 2:

It’s strange

I get this feeling that we’ll always be together, stay forever

Deep down in my heart

Yet lately it seems that you’re growing further from me

Close as we were from the start

But now those clouds are gone, the rain has stopped and I see

My love you’ll always be a part

Of me

CHORUS

See these hands

They’ll hold yours tight

See these eyes

They’re shining bright

See these lips

They’ll kiss you all night

See this heart

It’ll love you right…

CHORUS