from the people who brought you sexual intercourse and the qur'an... [entries|friends|calendar] alina rae [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

there is more to life. [04/14/2007] no mo'. mendaciloquence.

indeed. [04/11/2007] my mom's having my brother forge my dad's signature on their tax forms. i'm going to college!

all these damn penguins and their gay agenda. [03/26/2007] i made tasty vegan cupcakes!: on another topic, i am so happy. you make me so happy.

answer the question. [03/22/2007] my intentions are not pure. my body is not pure. my thoughts are not pure. try harder. i am so fucking mad at you.

i'm so clever. [03/16/2007] what happened to the cat after it got pet by the sun? it got heat stroke! what was the name of the dinosaur from iran? tehran-osaurus rex. what kind of coffee did the buddhist order? a moksha latte. what did the mediterranean tree say to the other mediterranean tree? olive you! what do you call a pretzel from space? an astro-knot!

happy birthday. [03/12/2007] i am tired of being the one to suck it up and apologize even though i do not think i'm wrong. it makes me feel weak and disappointed, not because i think that it's a weak and disappointing thing to do, but because i don't think you really care. i am scared about how unchanging you are, and how certain you are about your beliefs and your actions. i am so undecided about so many things, and i don't think that's bad for me. i'm afraid that there's not much in you i can really affect. i feel like i can't help you grow as a person while you have done so much to me. i hate suppressing or hiding feelings due to the fact that if i didn't they would piss you off. getting indecisive or depressed can be a part of me, even a part that i don't necessarily want to block out. with me comes some things that you might not easily be able to deal with, but i think a big part of a relationship is getting through stuff together and accepting the things that are hard but shouldn't be cast aside. i get that you don't understand some of the things that i do, but i think that you should out more effort toward understanding them rather than just making me feel like i'm constantly fucking up. i don't know what to do. i don't know when we should talk about this. two hundred eighty-four miles is long and lonely and terrifying as hell. but that all pales to the fact that more than anything else, i love you.

screw mob mentality. [01/23/2007] almost worse than the dumb and utterly boring socially-"normal" are those who devote their entire energies and every fiber of existence to becoming one of them. how can you look into that tiny, tiny glass bowl and wish you were the three-second memory goldfish inside? are you so afraid that you don't even try to press for the whole fucking sea? i think i have semi-frostbite of the face. i want the whole fucking sea.

positively essential. [01/20/2007] in this city it almost never rained but when it did it rained hard like a cap off a shook-up soda pop bottle like the first rain for adam and eve after they were thrown from the garden of eden and it came from the edges of her a certain blackness so slow that she couldn't see it and she couldn't hear it or taste it but she could almost feel it from the sides of her eyes and the corners of her mouth the outlines of her fingernails and all they could do was pause and let their arms drop and lift their cracked lips to the sky

metaphorically speaking. [01/11/2007] i said "do whatever you want" and you walked away. what does that mean? you're my first choice. you're the only person i really want to be around. everyone else i just put up with. you are so static. i feel like i have no impact on you. i feel like i have not made a difference to who you are in the slightest. you are so definite. i cannot stand how sure you are of yourself, how whatever you say you mean. you do not make mistakes. you know who you are, what you are doing, and what you believe in. you are decided. you are fully established. you suck at articulation. you are so boring. you make me feel boring. you are an asshole. you are such a jerk. how did you get so mean? how did you get so fucking wonderful?

a constant sustenance, clarity, and means of explanation. [01/09/2007] he hadn't been given a choice, but if he had he thought he would have done it anyway. they posted his birthday on television, and they promised them money and girls and the future. all he wanted was glory. but glory wasn't found in their training, in their drills, their straight-backed stance and their orders and their marching. it wasn’t found in their new weapons, their new knowledge, their marksmanship. glory wasn't found on the trip to this foreign country, in the racist jokes and speeches about america. and glory wasn't found in the cigarettes they shipped in, the cartons and cartons of cigarettes. that's when a lot of them had their first, checking their rifles over and over and playing poker for money then entertainment then sanity. glory wasn't found marching through the jungle their uniforms disintegrated to in their rotting leather boots, drinking the water their bodies took ill from, under metal birds that sliced the sky. glory wasn't found in the rain that made the dirt into mud, or holding their guns over their heads as they half-swam through water the colour of caramel and coffee with cream. he was never dry or clean and he bathed the dirt off only to find inch-long leeches stuck to his limbs, sucking the blood through his skin. glory was not existent in the soldiers and officers he had once admired, who shot civilians and animals for fun, who dragged the native girls away and raped them. there was no glory in finding the clearing of a town, to find the bamboo of houses down to ember and char. to find the bodies. there was no glory on the day he somehow picked out as his birthday, when they were ambushed, when they threw themselves to the ground. and there was no glory as they fired back, as they bled, as he aimed for a man's head and closed his eyes as he pulsed the trigger. there was no glory in the lies and the crimes he came to realize, the inhumanity and the murder of the innocent. she was quiet when he found her, but when she talked she spoke of fire and the deceased, landmines exploding outside the village to leave her brother dead, her mother shot, her sisters lost. she had never seen her father again. gunfire carried through the forest, from far away and then close by, as she pulled her knees to her chin and her hands to her ears. she had been a kid, he said. she had never deserved that pain. she looked at him, half-hidden behind her black hair, and she said, "we all were." he had felt proud at nineteen, proud of his family and his country and his freedom. he came out twenty and the medals pinned to his chest were just bronze and paint and ribbon. he learned pride as he walked with her, limping a little from the bullet wound in his leg. he learned pride as he kissed her, pride for her strength and her intelligence and her beauty. he learned pride as he spoke, as they spoke, as the world spoke of brutality and devastation and death. he learned pride as they spoke of the possibility of life, of how that was never something to take away. and he found glory in peace.

suck my unexpected clinical depression. [12/28/2006] today i got fingered by someone i'd known for approximately three minutes.

to live with thee there. [12/25/2006] the severity of your disappointment. the feeling of your heart exploding. the rush, the need, the possibility. i wish for happiness, peace, and love.

etcetera, etcetera. [12/07/2006] you bought me a guitar because you thought i wanted to play guitar i don't really have the willpower or desire to play guitar i don't really want to play guitar sorry

what am i staying here for? [12/05/2006] today a black kid called me gangsta.

nose goes. [11/29/2006] the result of alina mcdonald's sat reasoning test: critical reading- six hundred ninety, ninety-fourth percentile math- five hundred forty, fifty-sixth percentile writing- six hundred sixty, ninety-second percentile overall- one thousand eight hundred ninety now that they have told me who i am and what i'm capable of, i know my place in the world! i feel so wonderfully certified and affirmed!

altruism, desperation, apathy, adoration. [11/13/2006] makes you wanna stick a gun in your mouth and blow your fucking brains out. makes you wanna do something and everything and anything and nothing at all.

if you didn't want to you could have just said no. [11/12/2006] in the past two days i've eaten an accumulation of thirteen waffles. ( yeah but i wasn't listening. )

if somebody's in my house, i'm gonna fucking stab them. [11/10/2006] i couldn't find the right words at the moment. i value what you do for me far above what you don't.

not fucking interested. [11/05/2006] what are you trying to prove? what are you trying to do? the answer was yes, but if i had said it right then, in that situation, it would have seemed fake and insincere. the answer is yes, with everything, in my heart of hearts.

anybody can wonder. [10/30/2006] her basic ideology was smashed when she first experienced somebody die. sitting on her front steps with a cigarette addiction, some kid went past slow, really slow, on a bike. she didn't register anything specific. she kept her vision eyelevel, over the figure's girl or boy black or white head. it was just some dumb kid whose parents weren't watching it to make sure it didn't cause an inconvenience to anyone else when it fell and scraped up its legs. then there was a heavy sound like a crack down the street, followed by another. her brain traced through big thick books dropping flat and fireworks and hit a gun going off. she had heard gunshots before since moving here, and concealed somewhere she cradled the secret pride that she lived in a rough area, that she could come out with her feet still on the concrete, even neighboured by coke dealers and people who drank forty ounce beers on their stoops at seven in the morning. she had heard gunshots before, but only at a distance, never just a few houses down. her save-your-goddamn-ass instincts kicked in. she dropped her cigarette and ducked into the porch, heart pumping a little faster than five seconds before. there was a rubber screech and a thud right in front of her, through the railing and the massive untrimmed hedge. her lungs and muscles blanked a moment before she shoved both hands up to the splintering porch siding to pull herself to her feet. her eyes landed straight on the little girl sprawled out on the sidewalk. a moment was spent studying her: dark skin, short braids ending in hair bands with double pink plastic shapes attached, the glittery purple streamers of her bike handles fanned out over her neck, almost, but not quite, touching the blood seeping through the front of her white tee shirt. her immediate drive was to scream, but someone had shoved a fist down her throat. her next impulse was to run inside, but someone had made her unable to back up or turn around, so she stood up and walked off the porch and down the steps, still half crouching, to the little girl who had a bullet in her chest. the kid wasn't moving and her eyes were closed. her knees and elbows were bent at weird angles, exactly like some idiot kid who had fallen while riding a bicycle and gotten all tangled in the frame and childish pain. only she didn't cry and she didn't get up. it was a second frozen, for display: the downfalls of learning to balance, the tragedies of childhood. sinking to her knees, she couldn't think of anything but swearwords. she watched how the blood spread up, down, and across the kid's shirt. she sunk into a semi-conscious daze, as people started shouting and she turned toward the house and threw up. twenty-two hours later she hadn't slept. she hadn't eaten or drank or taken medication for the pressure in her head and she was grasping at blankets and shawls thrown over her shoulders, propped up on a stool in front of the window. outside black ladies in bulky skirts and blouses with handbags sniffed into bits of tissue, possessively holding the arms of boys in white shirts and navy blue ties and girls in print dresses and tight braids. the men in dark jackets and roughed dress shoes stood, solemn. and they all looked at the collection of fake flower wreaths and plastic markers and aluminum picture frames. the ambulance had come within half an hour and brought out a stretcher. she had sat back on her steps, watching as a grim black man got into the back and the medics closed the double doors. people grouped. they stood and mourned, heads on each other's shoulders, palms rubbing each other's back, wailing and crying. she pictured the ambulance, lights and siren less definite in the afternoon, less striking than they would be in the darkness past eight, when people got mugged and raped and killed. less of a fact that there was a little girl in the back with an oxygen mask held uselessly to her face and the hole in her chest pressed at in an attempt to stop the bleeding. but cars pulled to the margin of the road. the people inside peered through smudged windshields, calming their vague annoyance by tapping their fingers on the steering wheel and listening to an advertisement on the radio. now, outdoors, a womon with thick purple heels and lipstick smeared to the sides of her mouth was throwing herself down. she was holding a stuffed animal to her chest, eyes closed tight as she rocked her body back and forth, sobbing. it wasn't a minute before she was joined, held, comforted. the womon was surrounded. behind the dirty glass of her windows, she had never felt so alone in her life. four hours later, she took an eighth bottle of aspirin, one after another, swallowing them down with city water that tasted like lead. it was methodical and she didn't stop till her nicotine cravings clicked in. she sat against her living room wall. the wallpaper was faded and stained. the corners were dusty. half the locks on the door didn't work. the upper windows of the house across the street were broken. five miles away, someone's car was getting hotwired. fifty miles away, a man was telling his family that he has cancer. hundreds of miles away, someone was getting trained to murder legally. thousands of miles away, someone was driving a car full of explosives into a marketplace. she thought of the little girl on the stretcher, strapped down. what was a world where a little girl got shot?

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