The Song of Invisibility

I try to hold the melody

But my voice always imperceptibly cracks

I can sing, but.... I can't sing.

Do you understand?

I can't.

But I sing as honestly as possible.

Which is why I only sing sad songs.

I am sad. depressed.

That's the sad truth.

I sing with a smile on my face

I sing, all the while watching the faces of the audience

Those poker faces in the audience

My voice trips a little over the high note

But I sing on.

My voice shakes as it rises again.

Quietly at first, then growing in volume

But never full-throated...

My self-esteem isn't that high.

It shakes, as if it's cold.

As if I hadn't warmed up 5 minutes before I began.

I finish the song.

Silence.

No expressions on the faces in the crowd.

Almost as if I was never there in the first place....

Invisible.

No one sees me.

No one cares about the fact that there was a girl there who wanted, needed, their recognition.

Does it matter to them? No.

Nowadays when I sing, it's to myself

Where no one can hear

Where no one notices me anyway

I remain, for the rest of my life

Invisible...

@Jaye_Eccentriq

16 years

Broken Vows

No, it's not what you think it is. I'm not going to air any dirty laundry of mine on this blog because that's not its purpose.
Speaking of which, I have another blog I need a purpose for. Someone help??

Anyway....I made a vow to myself this morning, and that was to remain silent for the entire day. That was, what.... what time did I wake up? About 5 am. I was going really well, I thought, having gotten to school and not said a word to a soul until about 10 am. Then I got roped into talking.
Well, not exactly "roped". I volunteered for it. I jumped into the conversation like....well....I don't know. But I spoke. I laughed. I looked happy.

Now that school is over and I'm by myself (well, not anymore since a couple of my friends just walked in)....I'm just going to wallow in self-pissedness....no, I can't, because one of them is giving me an almighty good back rub and I have THE biggest grin on my face...

But I'm digressing.

Point is, I broke a vow I made to myself. And not just one. That was just the most recent. The last vow I made was to not skip classes anymore. Just today I skipped the first two: Physics and Chem. (Oh God, this back rub though!!!) It wasn't something I'd really planned but....once a cruff, always a cruff, they say.

That skipping classes thing has come back to bite me in the ass quite a few times. But have I learned? I thought I did, in the heat of the moment, what with my promise to myself (and my mother, and the rest of my family) that I was going to make a change.

That lasted for two weeks. Now? Now I take them like never before. I don't take as many classes, but the ones I DO take are well taken. It's shameful, really. Considering that I've morphed from a bit of a goody-goody during my first 5 years of high school to this utter bitch in the last 2....I deserve to be put over the knee and flogged. (Don't let me family see this; they might just take me up on that.)

But anyway...I'm going to try to change. AGAIN. This time I hope it'll stay permanent, because I have CAPE in a few months, modular exams in a few weeks, and the way I'm carrying on I'm going to fail so bad and bring embarrassment down on myself and my family, which is equivalent to suicide for me...

These are the reasons I don't make New Years' Resolutions. I CAN'T KEEP THEM.

In the meantime, as I check my watch and realize I should be at my mother's right now instead of blogging via such yute's laptop, I will make an honest attempt to keep these and other vows of mine.

Making an honest girl of myself (AGAIN),

@Jaye_Eccentriq

16 years

Writing Without Inspiration...and a response to another blog post

It is the worst feeling ever. Like you're constipated and you decide you're not leaving that toilet until you do what you went there to do in the first place.

My last post was hopelessly uninspired. Now I feel bad that I uploaded something like that because I believe, as a self-classified good writer, once it's not heartfelt it's utter garbage.

Therefore, so far I have one crappy post. I don't think I intend to have any more. But I won't delete it, 'cause... I need something to remind me of how shitty I can write sometimes and keep me grounded.

Now, the second reason I'm here again is to respond to a blog post I was referred to today.

It's the gentleman's birthday (which he doesn't celebrate) and, regardless of how I might behave, I understand totally. I don't like celebrating mine either.
Being the amateur numerologist I am, to be born on November 11 (11/11) is enough of an event. Clash of the ones and whatnot. That's all it means to me.
I woke up on my birthday last year and all I said to myself was, "Well...so you're 16 now. Good luck."
Others made the big deal. I let them. I don't mind others celebrating it but....don't force me to celebrate with you. When I don't, don't act like I'm some sort of weird freak (even though I kinda am...)
That's why I was in a bad mood. (You should know I am a moody, moody person.)

To me, whether you were born on January 1 or December 31, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you were born. Which can be good or bad, depending on how your self-esteem is.

Being  awed at the difference between this post and my last,

@Jaye_Eccentriq

16 years

YOLO-- The Philosophy

"I'm standing in the flames, and it's a beautiful kind of pain
Setting fire to yesterday, find a light, find a light, find a light..."

"Beautiful Pain", Eminem ft. Sia

I try not to look back on past mistakes. Although it is. SO. DAMN. HARD. NOT. TO DO. When I do, the "Shit, I shouldn't have done that" wave just washes over me and....I can't swim.

You know that saying, "Hindsight is better than 20/20"? yeah, um.... I don't think so.

You keep looking back at the missteps you made, the number of times you stumbled on the sands of time. You can't see the way forward, the unblemished stretch before you. You wallow in guilt. There's no basis for hope.

Especially if, like me, you're severely and hopelessly nearsighted. Literally and sometimes figuratively.

With my bad vision, even when I do look forward, I can't see more than a foot in front of my nose (if so much) so imagine me in the situation described earlier.

Therein lies the crux of my depression.

This is why I adhere to YOLO. You only live once.

Now I am not talking about the "so what we get drunk, I know you smoke weed, we're just hvaing fun" YOLO. That is utter stupidity. I'm talking about YOLOSDALAD: YOLO... so don't act like a dumbass.

I want to leave my mark. I can't do that if I constantly keep looking back.

I get me some glasses, keep my head screwed on right, and stare straight ahead. Live that one foot before my nose I can see. Mistakes? Fuck 'em. Moving on. 

And this, my friends, is why I believe in, and adhere to, YOLO.

@Jaye_Eccentriq

16 years

On Friends and Closeness (particularly with a certain yute)

Just this morning, my Biology teacher asked me a question: "What is the relationship between you and [insert name of a certain yute]?"My response: "We're just friends." Her response: "How close of friends are you?" We're just really close. The thing is,I don't think she was fully convinced. And it reminded me of certain other encounters with friends:
"Yow you and [such yute] deh?"
"You and [such yute] together or sumn? Why y'all so close?"
And that one teacher who told my mother that he and I are "inseparable". I think around 12 people have asked me that one question in a multitude of ways.

For the record folks, he and I are friends. Damn good friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

What irks me isn't necessarily the asking. It's more the fact that people assume they have to ask. Why can't a male and female be just friends? I mean, come on. Yes, they see us together for at least one hour out of every school day. But they see me around other guys more often. What's the big deal?

What I am here to do, however, is wax poetic on friends and closeness, hence the title of this post. And that is what I shall do, God damn it!

Friends. Amigos. Amis. Amicitia. Filoi. Hard to find, difficult to keep, impossible to forget.
 [insert other cliches] 
Can I get an "Amen" because I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir here. 

Some of them aren't what they say they are. They raise your expectations, and then they crush them.
Others are better than any you could ever dream up.

There are those who openly have your back. Someone fucks with you, they lose their shit. They get into this "berserker rage" (yes, I saw this term in a novel I was reading last night...) on your behalf. It's strangely heartwarming to see someone in a rage because of you.
And then there are the silent ones who not only have your back. (I was going to say they have your front but, being Jamaican and knowing the connotations of the word "front", I won't.) I don't have to say anything more on those friends, do I?

Closeness. That feeling of literal and figurative warmth you get when you're around those special people. That mutual understanding that passes between you in silence.

Silence. I judge my friendship based on how silent we are. Bringing me back to the said yute. One night we had the following conversation:

He: Come on, you're a quiet person. You don't hide it very well. :)
Me: Lol why you say that now?
He: Think about it. Sometimes when we're together we don't talk. You're content to lean your head on my shoulder in silence.
Me: Lol talking gets old after a while...
He: Lol true. But you don't mind the silence. To some people the silence is hell.

There is nothing more to be said. That's the reason I hang out with him every single day.
There's nothing more to ask for.

As said yute rests his chin on my head,

@Jaye_Eccentriq

Full Circle

"Now I ain't much of a poet but I know somebody once told me to seize the moment, and don't squander it, 'cause you never know when it all could be over tomorrow so I keep conjuring. Sometimes I wonder where these thoughts spawn from. Yeah, wondering will do you wonders, no wonder you're losing your mind, the way it wanders. I think my mind wandered on and ended up down yonder and ran into Jeff Van Vonderen. 'Cause I need an interventionist to intervene between me and this monster, and save me from myself and all this conflict, 'cause the very thing that I love's killing me and I can't conquer it. My OCD's conking me in the head, keep knocking, nobody's home... I'm sleepwalking. I'm just relaying what the voice in my head's saying. Don't shoot the messenger..." 

"The Monster", Eminem ft. Rihanna

I try not to fall. I resort to the controlled stagger of a drunkard, planting my feet before I place any weight on them. I try to stay upright on my own, because I have no support. They all see me as that strong girl, the one who laughs in the face of weakness and weaklings. They don't know my true struggle. They don't know that I laugh in the face of weakness because I'm terrified to face my own.

But you have an inkling. I let you understand part of me because I thought, of everyone in my world, you were the most trustworthy. I thought I could let you in, lean on you, gain strength from you. But I seem to have been wrong.

Oh, good God damn it all, I was wrong.

That one half-second of vulnerability I let you see, that one time I let you see me cry, was enough for you. You used it against me. You forced me down and held me there in an iron grip. With your foot on my spine, I felt myself slowly becoming part of the void. I felt the darkness closing in slowly, enveloping me in its cold, fierce embrace. I thought you had won. I felt you reveling in your inevitable victory.

But then, in the midst of my darkness, there shone a pinprick of light.

Enough to send you back to the darkest depths of hell whence you came. Enough to get me back on my feet, dry my tears, heal my wounds...physical and otherwise.

Now I'm back on my million-mile trod.

I try not to fall. I resort to the controlled stagger of a drunkard, planting my feet before I place any weight on them. I try to stay upright on my own, because I have no support. They all see me as that strong girl, the one who laughs in the face of weakness and weaklings. They don't know my true struggle. They don't know that I laugh in the face of weakness because I'm terrified to face my own...

I come full circle.

"It's payback...falling way back in the draft; turn nothing into something, still can make that straw into gold. Chump I will spin Rumpelstilitskin in a haystack. Maybe I need a straitjacket, face facts, I am nuts for real but I'm ok with that. It's nothing..."

"The Monster", Eminem ft. Rihanna

@Jaye_Eccentriq

16 years

Dear Caribbean Studies Journal...

So this Carib thing though... Apparently I'm supposed to write about what we learned (or in some cases, didn't) in class.

We're currently doing geographical phenomena. You know, stuff like tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes...stuff I did in 3rd form Geo. (Bear in mind I failed it, and it almost kept me off the honor roll that year. Almost. DAMN you Geography!

Anyway, it's come back to bite me in the behind in 6th form. So I'll actually have to haul ass and get a good grade because, you know, SWAG. (That's one of quite a few inside jokes.)

But what have I not learned in Carib class?
I remember reading in the Caribbean Studies Syllabus Rationale that the subject is supposed to make me an "ideal Caribbean person". Ideal my bloodcl foot. The Ideal Caribbean Person actually wants to remain on his own little "island paradise". Again, island paradise my bombo foot. How mi waah fly out guh mek life! An a nuh me one feel suh.

In a way I think I am sort of learning that though... Learning to finally accept the fact that I am, and shall forever be, the youngest person in the whole 6th form. I'm a 16-yr-old in a world of 18- and 19-year-olds (and in Sebastian's case, 20). But with that acceptance comes the fact that I'll have to accept the monikers "Post-Jailbait", "Ex-JB" and "The Girl Formerly Known as 'Jailbait'". One more genius inside joke.

I'm also learning that learning isn't just what happens in class, because, were that the case, I could argue the fact that I don't learn in Carib class..
The discussions that take place in class-- permitted or not, most times not-- give me the opportunity to analyze people and their thoughts based on what they say. Excuse the psychiatrist behavior, that's my ambition talking. 

But I do, in fact, learn a lot.
Too much, in fact, which is why I'm going to shut my inner voice(s) up and stop writing...
See you next time Ms Lewis asks for another journal entry.

Learning to accept what I can't change,
@Jaye_Eccentriq

This was done as a Caribbean Studies assignment but I didn't hand it in, for obvious reasons. 

But it was written genuinely.