Frivolity's profile picture

Published by

published

Category: Blogging

Journal #4

Class yesterday was like the cherry on top of the terrible school week sundae (it's rat poison flavored). We were supposed to workshop other people's stories, but one of the them was just absolutely awful. It read like a shitty booktok book. Everything in this piece was just a classic textbook case of how NOT to write. Boring plot. Terrible execution. Janky dialogue. Half of it was just fucking exposition that made no fucking sense. You could tell the writer was too scared to confront and touch on the truth of things, opting to say "adult things" instead of "sex." It was a fucking joke. But the real punchline was watching everyone say it was good and that they liked it. I just kept my mouth shut. I'm not going to be the one to break it to this bitch that she'd be better off working at McDonald's instead of waiting for publishing companies to reject her. 

Maybe it's just the format of group workshops. If we'd been one on one, I'd have given her a few tips to fix her stuff, not that I'm confident she'd understand them well enough to apply them. But being in a group sort of brings out the herd mentality in people. That's why I stayed silent the whole time. 

Then we read an excerpt from The Things They Carried, which is an absolute must read might I add. The point was to make observations about someone's character based on the stuff they were holding onto. Everyone laughed at Rat Kiley bringing along his comics, but I didn't see what was so funny about it. Every time I think of leaving the country with my friend, I try to decide what manga I should bring we me. It's a comfort, an escapism, and nice to read stories with characters I'm able to relate to on some level so I get it. Maybe I'm taking things to personally but I don't care. I didn't appreciate it. I had to do a characterization of Cross so I talked about his love for Martha. How he has to carry all that weight on himself and in his heart because all he can think about is her and how it must feel to hold her and walk with her and kiss her in a way she'd like and how she must be getting along with other men in his absence. My professor said "Stupid cross, carrying things from a girl who isn't even his girlfriend." 

I almost hit him. 

I almost got up from that seat and hit him so hard, I wouldn't be sure if the blood on my knuckles was mine or his.

Almost.

But I stayed seated, pretending it was funny like everyone else. It's so fucking funny. Does it not matter that he's not mine when I wear his guitar pick on my wrist and hold it like a hand? Does it not matter when he comes to me when he's sad or mad or upset and I help him find his laugh again? Does it not matter when we're in his bed on a warm summer afternoon, high as the cloudless sky and planning how our futures would intertwine? Does it not matter when he calls me everyday when he's out of the country and he wishes for someone to talk to? Does all that not matter when we're not each other's? Are all my tears and love and heart and poetry and stories and insecurity and anger nothing?

I swear I'm going to drop out of that stupid fucking university the second I get a chance.


0 Kudos

Comments

Comments disabled.