FLAMES TO MY NOTEBOOK

[Everette Jason Evans]

Flames to my Notebook

It seemed that my notebook is the only one I can talk too some days. My pen hitting the paper is like the comforting hug, the playful nudge that I have been lacking for the past few years. When I write, I know that the inanimate page will not respond. It won’t give me answers. But it also won’t hurt me, it won’t tell me my faults and force them to be plagued through my mind. My notebook, my friend. My friends don’t understand because they don’t know what it is like, or what being able to feel safe with them and accepted means to me. They might never know. Every day I lock myself in the room, and sometimes play out different scenarios of him. Coming home to a happy smile, intrigue into how my day has been and what has been happening in my life. Those little things that seem impossible, even to be looked at or acknowledged for my existence. It’s those simple things that show me that I can feel safe and accepted within the walls of this house. But when I walk out of my room, to be with the family, I can’t help but feel alone. I love mum so much, but she is always exhausted after work or bustling to get dinner ready for the family that at time I can barely get two words in with her. The kids are playing and running amuck. The dog is barking outside. It is just him and I, and when he walks passed me I try my hardest to keep out of the way. Sometimes if I ask him something he will look at me just for a millisecond, the faintest moment, before turning away and leaving me feeling completely dismissed. Maybe it is because he isn’t my real dad but he doesn’t even realize that he does it. Is it me? Is there something I should be doing? The fire inside burns just that much brighter and it sits just below my lonely heart. How long can I do this for?

I walk on ice every day. This ice is unpredictable, and you have no idea which wrong step will make him crack. Eventually the ice will break; there is nothing I can do about that. Break into the shards of our broken home. My family is falling apart, and I am not even sure if they realise it. Because in a family portrait we might look happy, but we play pretend because we know that it doesn’t come naturally. The house is a void that we all stay at because we have no where else to go, because we haven’t known anything different. His screams and yells echo down the street and hyphens fly through the chimney, the negative energy flying off of the house. The external viewer wouldn’t see this, over my life they never do. They tell me what a ‘top bloke’ he is, how ‘rad’ and ‘awesome’ he is. I tell them the same thing I tell everyone: “Try living with him”. Others with the faintest understanding tell me to ‘soldier on’ ‘keep your head up high’. There is a limit on how high I can hold my head before it gets ripped down to the ground. My friend, my notebook. I see my notebook every night, the resentment of the day fuelling my muse as I sit down, and I write. I write, and I write, and I write, and hope that no one ever finds them. I belong to my own thoughts, and that is all.

The flames in me are roaring at people. In a second, my temper can go from 0 to 100 so easily now. I liked to think of myself as chilled and kind, but I feel like it is influencing me. I feel like it is starting consume who I was, who I was going to be. Pure anger and purely him, and I never want to be that unhappy with my life that I do become him. But I covered this anger with ambition. It was inevitable that with my family, this factor was rendering me unable to belong. I feel like the black sheep of the family, but I don’t know what I have done way. So I am moving away from home to live with my best friend. It’s just a small place with the familiar things to comfort me. The pictures of my friends, of my mother, of my dog that I took care of and everything that I could enjoy that used to drive him crazy. I’m already starting to feel better about myself, as if this was some fresh start to look forward too. I don’t think I need my notebook anymore; I have that someone to truly call my friend. When I tell her things, she doesn’t hurt me and won’t tell me my faults and force them to be plagued through my mind. And she does give me answers. Nothing is negative in the domain, but warmth and care because me and her, we are so compatible. So now I look down at my notepad, just one more stanza to go. This notepad had been with me every step of the way, so before bed I sat down and finished it.