JACKIE'S STORY

1. "what does it feel like?" (Jackie's Prologue)

Was I dreaming?
I felt like writing a poem,

I put pen to paper but nothing would flow.

Still, I wrote:

"i wonder what it feels like 

to know with certainty

that this is real

and you exist.

i wonder why you willingly live like this,

a life force fed to you as reality,

did you buy the lie they sold for family?

or because it made life easier?

i wonder why none of the people around me

wonder these things,

as they simply go about their days,

how do they smile?

i wonder why you would pray

to a god who hates you,

and ask for his blessing

while he kills your children.

why haven't you killed him?"

2. "another place in time" (Jackie's Story)

I exist in another place in time

where a transparent clock

covers the bloodstain

on my wall.

There is more than one personality here.

You cannot see them all,

hiding in my body;

I am just a particular arrangement of atoms

gone wrong.

Do you ever think about the futility of your life?

You should, because you do not matter.

If all the people knew that they did not matter,

the world would be a better place.


3. "only in nightmares"

I started slipping into dreams and out of them.

Unable to differentiate fact from fiction,

I slowly melted away, like sewage through a metal grate

Flowing to the ocean to pollute a place beyond my reach.

I can’t tell why I’m here, nor if I am,

For now I feel like a ghost at last,

Aghast, I gasped, as the time floated past,

Out of dreaming I had awoken screaming.

Only in nightmares can I find peace;

Only in nightmares can I find reflections of reality.


"no magic" (Jackie's Story: Fragment.1)

I see the sequence but

Interpret it all differently.

Everything is a fragment,

A puzzle for you to arrange,

And now pieces are missing

That cannot be replaced,

I pace this empty place

And wait for things to change,

But I realize they already have

For the worse,

And you cannot be brought back.

No magic, no mystical bullshit,

No god can do that.

4. "hello?"

I could hardly see

When I woke up

Again

It gets harder to see every time.

Hazy, foggy, faded, fucking pills !

Everything feels so numb and gone…

I feel so gone…

So dissociated,

So depersonalized,

Experiencing derealization.

Thought they were supposed to help with that,

Not cause it.

Fuck it.

Right?

what about therapy?

Well,

What about it?

we know that you are dying.

So?

Where does that get you?

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

Hello

Hello

Hello

Hello

Hello

Hello

Hellohello

Hello

Hello

…?

"sadness and sentiment" (Jackie's Story: Fragment.2)
I heard people talking

One day.

And the next day

There were people shouting!

And the next day

They whispered…

And the next day

They cried.

And floating, I was wondering what it meant.

I wish you could understand

That sadness and sentiment

Was not deserved for me.

I thank you for it but

This is not for me,

So stop praying for me.

Do not ask for mercy on my soul

From your god

When I’m gone.

5. "broken things:branches"

There are twigs snapping in between my ribs,

Branches breaking in my intestines,

As they tangle up like snakes,

My body is halfway to that of a corpse,

Bloated, ruined insides,

Leaking out onto your perfect carpet;

Sorry to ruin the occasion,

My broken mass of a body, my branches scorched,

From wildfire that left me untouched,

But burned all those around me.

This wildfire I started,

And left to burn,

And by the time I came back,

Extinguisher in hand,

Everything was smoke,

And everyone was gone.

6. "metal scraping skin"

I had been programmed improperly;

I grasped at straws to try to make sense of it.

It started with a straw. But that became boring.

There were sounds of metal, scraping skin.

I could not locate the source of the sound,

So I replicated it, in the corner of the parking lot,

With a needle and a big blue vein.

7. "cobwebs in september (Jackie's Note)"

It sounded like a secret,

But she knew it had never existed.

Like always with the sanity,

It was a light switch.

The sound was so hollow and so deep

Since the first note.

“out of the blue and into the black

i can’t remember all those memories

aren’t even worth remembering right

or shouldn’t be until they aren’t

i remember those

wait

can you see that too

stop

can you see it too

soundwaves

radio transmission dead

…

i can’t hear them???”

-jackie

8. "files" (Jackie's Epilogue Part 1)

All the files in my mind

Are finally beginning to unlock.

I wish some of them would stay shut,

But I can’t find the keys to close them again.

And I hear the voices.

In the old files,

Start to slowly laugh.

The laughter builds,

Until I cannot bear it.

9. "what it feels like" (Jackie's Epilogue Part 2)

i wonder why the clock hands are moving,

when everything seems to have frozen,

and my hands are shaking like the earth

as it splits apart beneath my feet.

so it feels like i am not walking,

but standing on thin air;

trapped in a fragmented world,

my vision obscured,

but one thing is clear,

i am not really here,

a holographic apparition

soon to disappear.