May 2013
2 posts
4 tags
Where The Moon Is Full
I hope you dream tonight,
find yourself in a tangle of twilight
illuminated by anything you’ve ever wanted.
Stand small beside a mountain;
steady by a lake;
the wraith next to you having a name I’ve spelled every day.
Edges of the universe,
lapping at your toes,
soft blonde strands puffing away
from your lips,
catching the wind for a midnight calvary
of extinct pirate...
4 tags
Inside The Eye.
As a bipolar person, I am prone to what popular science has coined, “episodes.” The term makes it sound crazier than it is, conjuring images of mental lapses where people end up in hospitals for days, sucking Lithium through a straw.
“Cindy just got out of that rehab facility after her… you know… [whispers] episode.”
In a literal sense, the word can refer to...
April 2013
1 post
6 tags
The Dark Carnival.
Writers… we don’t think like everyone else. My boyfriend softly jokes about how I can turn the most trivial into a metaphor, always. His musing is justified. Everything can be symbolic.
This may sound like a pretty way to view the world, and sometimes, it is. But it can also turn life to a dark carnival, where student debt becomes failure and cocktail waitressing is just a slow way...
March 2013
4 posts
6 tags
Prop 8 Pressure
Today, Prop 8 is to go to the Supreme Court, in a decision that will either allow humanity to feel good about itself, or set us back from foreword thinking. In a show of solidarity, millions of Facebook users are changing their profile and cover photos to pink and red equality signs, the official sigil of the movement.
Millions of users. Except me.
The more my newsfeed boasts,...
5 tags
Listening For Nothing
She was lying with her head off the side of the bed, kicking her feet up the wall and smoking a cigarette into the air. Her phone was silent beside her, though this was nothing new. He was always on his own time.
She watched dust dance down through the dim ceiling light, delicate and opaque. She imagined it settling on her lips, and was wondering how it would make her taste when her phone...
6 tags
Depressed and Fat: a cycle of shame.
I have a tendency to do pathetic things.
Sometimes, I find myself in grocery stores on melancholy nights, buying family-size boxes of macaroni and cheese for only myself, or ordering Chinese take-out at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday. I’ll be in a place where the only “proper” course of action is to buy comfort food and catatonically take in Netflix. Everyone does it.
Or, okay, maybe not everyone...
7 tags
Graphic Madness.
February 2013
2 posts
6 tags
Depression with a View.
One of the unfortunate side effects of experiencing depression is that you actually understand depression. When you hear of people locking themselves in their room for weeks at a time, or having nervous breakdowns at intersections, or finding an answer in the end of a rope, you think to yourself: yeah, I get it.
It’s a tad jaded, maybe, but it’s just the way it is. And I suppose...
6 tags
Our pens useless.
If I had a million words it still wouldn’t be enough.
It’s all feeling,
and sometimes that escapes words, although
our syllables get damned close.
Scribbling it on torn paper; committing it to patchy memory; swiping it aside in sand that will blow away regardless -
they’re vehicles for the same thing.
Simple mediums for you and I to writhe in
while we stretch our...
January 2013
4 posts
5 tags
Panic. Give up. Adapt.
There was something I was about to write. I had it on the tip of my brain and got so, so close to typing….. but then the iPad app I was using closed out, and in a wine-fizzled state I couldn’t remember the damn sentence. After that, I stared at the screen, wishing it could respond to my disappointment. “What are you doing?” I’d ask. “Aren’t we supposed to...
7 tags
Air Service.
I walked into the UPS store with package under arm, ready to get in and out. I was being forced there - the U.S. Post Office had rejected me. “Are there any liquids or perishables we should be aware of?” they had asked earlier.
“Liquids.”
“What kind?”
“Beer.” The postal clerk smiled in an apologetic way and gave me a look that said,...
5 tags
5:01 Fredrico.
It’s 5:01 a.m. and I can’t seem to fall asleep. I’m up, eating popcorn, and reflecting on the evening/morning I just had. There had been some South American guy who talked to me about his sexuality.
I can’t remember his name. So we’ll stereotypically call him Fredrico.
Fredrico kept telling me how unfulfilled he was. Apparently, when he came to America, all women...
5 tags
Untitled --
This is another draft of something I’ve been working on. Still can’t figure out a title. Or an alias for myself.
——
She was lying with her head off the side of her bed, kicking her feet up the wall and smoking a cigarette into the air. Her phone was silent beside her though this was nothing new. He was always on his own time. While she waited, she watched dust dance...
December 2012
2 posts
7 tags
4 tags
The Dysmorphic Debate: Normal or Extreme?
To this day, I have no idea what I look like.
“Just look in a mirror,” you may think. But for me, it’s not that simple. I probably look in a mirror more times a day than most people, and it’s not about vanity. It’s about me trying to figure out, “what the fuck am I?” because I see a different version every time.
This plot is tired and clichéd. Women...
November 2012
2 posts
5 tags
A Formulated Frenzy
It was a frenzy; a furious, non-stop, frenzy. There was everything to do and people all around and money being thrown in every direction. There were accents of all phonetic possibility and people of all descent.
It was Saturday night of Formula 1 and I was smack in the middle of Fan Fest dealing with chaos; pure, tightly controlled, chaos.
In general, the lack of inconvenience the event had...
3 tags
A Neuron and A Dream.
I just want to create something beautiful,
but the hour grows late
and in the depth of minute hand clicks
skill starts to fade.
All that’s left is an image of the idea
with no place to call home
besides a neuron
and a dream.
October 2012
11 posts
5 tags
Where Have All The Boardwalks Gone?
Hurricane Sandy washed away my childhood.
She crept up the coast, churning the saltwater into destructive froth, and landed on the New Jersey coastline in a fit. There was nothing to be done; sandbags and boards can only go so far. They don’t stop the ocean from swallowing streets and decimating piers.
Now, all the footsteps I made on those boardwalks and every quarter I spent on...
5 tags
The Ants Were Marching.
I wiped out an entire civilization today.
I stood over the city with my hose and watched its residents carry along their business. Thumb on nozzle, I hesitated out of reluctance to destroy something evolution had been perfecting.
How long did it take them to build it?
When I picked up the mat at the end of my porch, they took me by surprise. There seemed to be thousands of them scuttling...
5 tags
A Writing Affliction.
Sometimes I curse my ability.
Or, scratch that. The word “ability” makes me sound like I actually have faith in all this. Let’s start over -
Why did writing have to be the one thing in this world I want to do? It transcends ability and turns into mad compulsion. If I don’t write something, anything, in a day, at some point during it I’ll think to myself,...
5 tags
The Single Safari.
How the hell am I going to get out of this situation?
This is all I’m thinking as the date I’m on turns from awkward to unbearable. I knew it was breaching horrendous when he began brushing my hair back and asking, “is this making you uncomfortable?”
What kind of question is this? How can I answer this honestly?
Dating somehow became relevant in the mid-twenties. At twenty-one it’s about going to...
6 tags
The Coder.
Hubert opened his eyes slowly, wincing through the acute pain in his forehead. Everything around him was dark. He blinked to make sure his eyes were really open even though it didn’t matter. Reality was black.
“Wha? What’s going on?”
“Hello, Hubert Van Winkle,” a voice responded from the abyss.
Hubert had no idea who The Voice was or why it would know his...
5 tags
4 tags
Stop the Sinatra. (redux)
Reworked a bit.
———————————-
I didn’t know I was depressed until I noticed I had been playing Sinatra for 20 minutes straight. “It Was a Very Good Year” came on and for some reason - one I cannot articulate (though if I could I’d say it was because ole blue eyes is the master of nostalgia) - I was shoved...
5 tags
Stop the Sinatra.
The thing about being on a perpetual loop is you don’t always realize when you hit a new curve.
I didn’t know I was depressed until I noticed I had been playing Sinatra for 20 minutes straight. “It Was a Very Good Year” came on and for some reason, one that I cannot articulate, I was shoved back three years. The piano chimed and I was standing back in a pale yellow room,...
5 tags
Roughly Hubert.
I have a thing for posting rough drafts right now, apparently. It’s like it makes me feel better to have one step complete so I’m like - “HERE WORLD. TAKE IT. LOOK AT IT. JUDGE IT.”
Betterment coming soon.
———————
hubert opened his eyes slowly, blinking and wincing into the bright light overhead.
“wha?...
4 tags
7 tags
Mindy's Friday Night.
She went home on a Friday night because she wanted to trade in her skin. Mindy had looked over the crowd earlier and thought -
“You’re all so much better than me. Who wants to talk to this?”
It wouldn’t leave her head no matter how hard she combated it; verbal poison whispered in her ear and diluted her sight. It made curious smiles of strangers pitiful ones which said...
September 2012
7 posts
3 tags
Reconstructing II.
Writing about my ex boyfriend has caused me to drink almost an entire bottle of wine by myself.
I hate it.
5 tags
Coming along...
Second round of rough draft.
———-
She was lying with her head off the side of the bed, kicking her feet up the wall and smoking a cigarette into the air. Her phone was silent beside her though this was nothing new. He was always on his own time.
As she waited she watched dust drift through the dim ceiling lights as it danced down, delicate and opaque. She imagined it...
2 tags
Reconstructing.
I’m writing a short story about my ex boyfriend, reconstructing him within my head.
I hate it.
5 tags
How To Avoid a Horrible Relationship.
This is something I wrote for fifth graders.
———————————————
How to Avoid A Horrible Relationship.
INT. Brightly lit kitchen during nighttime.
A man sits forlornly at his kitchen table, looking at a cell phone in front of him and checking it from time to time. He sighs and looks to the...
7 tags
This is a Rough Draft.
This isn’t finished. It’s a first rough draft and still being written. But why not, right?
—————————-
she was lying with her head hanging off the side of the bed, kicking her feet up the wall and smoking a cigarette into the air. her phone sat ominously silent beside her though this wasn’t a surprise. he was always on...
4 tags
6 tags
Comically Challenged.
This is a rewrite of my last post. Feedback welcome.
—————————————-
Comically Challenged.
I’m unsure of why I’m here - perhaps an insatiable curiosity, maybe a touch of destiny. Whichever it is, I don’t feel like I belong and it’s apparent in my movements. Ducking between racks and...
August 2012
6 posts
4 tags
The Comic Style.
I finished getting ready and looked in the mirror –
“Not too shabby, Carly. Not too shabby.”
I had taken an entire hour to perfect my appearance so I was the best 7.5 version of myself I could be. I needed to look fantastic because that day, I was going to neutralize a stereotype.
The cliché I wanted to destroy was one that had begun to haunt me. Caped in bad 80’s shirts and masked by pimples,...
4 tags
5 tags
6 tags
Mere Mortals.
I found out my parents are mortal today.
My father doesn’t own a cape,
my mother is not made of steel.
Before me they never lived amongst clouds
or jousted with the Gods.
They simply were.
This state does not last.
It decays and bends and clots and stops and finds its way to inevitable disrepair. The capes get hung and the steel rusts. Pedestals topple and we, mere mortals...
5 tags
Kung Fu Carly.
I bound into the room in a fit of glee, waving my hands and smiling as if Joseph Gordon-Levitt knocked on my door and proposed marriage.
“Guys! Guys! Guess what?!”
My roommates look perturbed and eye me cautiously.
“What, Carly?”
“I DID IT!”
“Did what?”
“I became a fucking ninja.”
Their glances flat-line and I see them exchange looks wondering, “Are you gonna call the nuthouse or am I?” I...
7 tags
July 2012
5 posts
5 tags
The Chemical Chronicles: Mania Wanted.
“I am so screwed,” I thought as I sat on the edge of my bed crying. It was almost 2 a.m. and Sam had just broken up with me.
“I don’t want to break up with you. I feel like I’m not going to,” he said. Fast forward ten minutes and he was taking it back, telling me he needed to let me go. Despite all other things I could think, bipolar disorder was number one on the brain.
“I’m either waking up in...
5 tags
The Chemical Chronicles: Kill Pills.
After two panic attacks, a night in an ER and reaction of “sucks for you” from my first shrink, a new pill and doctor were in order. I had no idea where to begin. There is no shrink directory to turn to, no compilation of personalities or styles, only a Google bar blinking at me with a dumbfounded look.
“Austin psychiatrists,” I type.
Names upon names meaning nothing appear. I scroll...
5 tags
The Chemical Chronicles: Mania Written.
We interrupt your normal scheduling to bring you a manic episode.
——-
“Sammy. Sammy. Sammy!” I’m shaking my boyfriend awake. “I’m gonna go home. I’ll be back.”
“Okay,” he grumbles, half asleep. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Love is why I leave. I’ve woken up in a state of mania and if he so much as turns over the wrong way I am going to unscrew his head, mount it on a spike...
4 tags
Self Talk.
I write to be honest. With myself, with the world.
So where the fuck has that gone lately?
It’s lost in this cluster fuck of a year I’d like to call “moving to Austin and clawing tooth and nail every fucking second to get it right.” It’s buried into a hole of insecurity that’s been dug around each misstep I’ve made. It’s hidden itself in the...
4 tags
In That Space.
Between racing lines
and jumbled letters
are images of you.
They don’t belong and never did,
but failure to understand this truth
leaves them as
frozen images
in a winter past.
A consonant here,
a verb there,
all dressed in visions of you
in manipulative best.
They blur together
as I lay between dark ceilings and dreaming -
a place anything is possible.
There my...
June 2012
1 post
6 tags
Hm.
This legitimately happened to me today and I need to write it down somewhere so I forget it not.
——-
“There is no part of you that feels like this is rash. No part of you that regrets your decision?”
I ask my ex-boyfriend this, still unable to believe the sudden way he ended our relationship and not buying the simplicity of reason.
“I regret having to make the...
May 2012
8 posts
4 tags
Separated.
I feel separated from this Earth,
one with only myself
and the molecules
who make me.
My world is different.
It’s a delicate fold,
a pop of color.
Beautiful details layered
in every frame.
I hang above -
inhaling,
soaking,
absorbing them all.
They are my world
though I am separted
from this Earth.
5 tags
A Public Service Announcement, by moi.
In lieu of my recent experiences, I’d like to make a public announcement on the only forum I’ve got.
If you are given a prescription, please do your research. I was recently given a medication which two other doctors have since told me I had no business being put on. This being the case, I can only assume pharmaceutical sales and drug company kick backs were the reason I was...
: The Chemical Chronicles →
dangatorium:
By Carly Yansak
I had tucked my head as far into my knees as I possibly could, but the feeling wouldn’t stop.
I’m gonna be sick.
It was all I could think, with my vision darkening and tremors riddling my limbs. Only one other thought would allow itself in during those minutes…
