The Art of Being Un-Tortured

Are you surprised I even remembered my login to the blog? Well, don’t be because I didn’t.

I find it very hard to write creatively or write at all when I’m not experiencing a depressed or manic episode, and life has been pretty okay recently, so writing hasn’t been something I’ve been too capable of as of late. However, this Friday in the wee hours of the morning I listened to the damn Tortured Poet’s Department by our lord and savior T Swift and damn it if she didn’t transport me right back to where I was the last time I felt hopelessly tortured myself.

The reason I’m writing today isn’t to smile and wave or brag about the fact that I don’t want to curl up in a ball and cry right now (thanks, Prozac), but rather that I’ve seen so many people, fans and critics alike, slander The Tortured Poets Department as ‘boring’ or ‘dramatic’ or ‘too much’ and all that has been ringing in my head is ‘fuck I wish I thought that…must be nice having never experienced your own personal torture by a low-grade Matty Healy or a corporate-office Kim Kardashian.’

As someone with depression and anxiety and the need to overachieve (or at the very least, achieve at all) and the inability to process hurt without writing dramatic poetry about it, this album resonated with me in a way that other albums don’t always do. Sure, I’m writing from my quaint (read: sketchy as hell) apartment, having just got off the phone with my wonderful boyfriend and studying for law school exams, but if I peel that situationally healed persona back, I still am the girl who absolutely broke over a situation-ship at 22 and wrote and wrote and wrote for years on end trying to get over some shit-ass Matty Healy-type tortured poet and I truly believe I’m better for it. (Even if I haven’t written a poem since.)

Moving on from that sad fact and the dozens of unfinished notes in my phone, (maybe I’ll finish some on a procrastination spree one day, you never know) I want to provide my objective top ten on the best TTPD songs. Since some friends and family who once read my blog aren’t particularly TS fans, I think it serves right to provide not my favorite songs from the album, but the ones that I find most resonating, most brilliant, most devastating. I don’t think I can fairly ‘rank’ them, but here are my ten suggestions:

1. The Manuscript
   • This song doesn’t resonate with any personal life experience of mine, but the story is painted so poignantly that you’re forced to experience empathy for the young girl in the story, and the blunt phrasing in the verses just adds to the art of this song.
   • Themes: Grooming, longing, growing out of pain, sharing the story
   • Highlight Lyric: “And at last She knew what the agony had been for” (I don’t want to spoil the last lyric of this song so I’m not selecting that)
2. Fortnight
   • No one can convince me this song isn’t about true crime. The way I see it, this song is an affair between two people, and the female counterpart wants to kill her husband because he is cheating and her muse’s wife because she is in the way. (I swear I just listened to a podcast about this and I cannot place which case it was. If you have any ideas comment below for a girl’s sanity.)
   • Themes: Murder, white picket fence life, affairs
   • Highlight Lyric: “All my mornings are Mondays/Stuck in an endless February”
3. I Look In People’s Windows
   • This is (I believe) the shortest song on the album, but boy does it paint a picture. This song illustrates what it is like to look in from The Outside (if you are a Swift fan, think of it as a grown up, darker “The Outside”) and to haunted by the desire to see someone or experience one thing one more time.
   • Themes: Voyeurism of sorts, longing, what-if syndrome
   • Highlight Lyric: “I attend Christmas parties from outside”
4. The Prophecy
   • This song is a prayer, a desperate plea, that feeling of begging an unknown being to help you and make things feel just a little bit better. This is one of the many songs that touch on religious metaphors and hits a little different for someone who has begged the powers-that-be the change the prophecy.
   • Themes: Bargaining, begging, hoping, loneliness, destiny/fate
   • Highlight Lyric: “I’m just a paperweight in shades of greige/Spending my last coin so someone will tell me it’ll be okay”
5. But Daddy I Love HIm
   • This song may not resonate with everyone but the humor, the cleverness, the tonge-in-cheek remarks that resonate towards a sort of suburban-drama, guilty-pleasure type of nonsense is something that a true writer and trope-absorber can truly appreciate.
   • Themes: Scandal, tropes, humor, drama, gossip, breaking the fourth wall
   • Highlight Lyric: I’ll tell you something about my good name/It’s mine alone to disgrace/I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing
6. Clara Bow
   • This song is an inward look at what the music industry is like for young women. Comparing icons of various time periods who were all plucked in their prime and told that they looked like ‘Insert Pretty Woman Here’ but ‘better’ and how fleeting that experience is for the ladies of the industry.
   • Themes: Fame, girlhood, comparison, beauty, staying relevant
   • Highlight Lyric: “Only when your girlish glow/Flickers just so/Do they let you know/it’s hell on earth to be heavenly”
7. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
   • While a lot of these songs are autobiographical, this one is a deeper look at what Taylor’s experience has been over the years where she has been caged, trained, and presented like an animal, and expected to perform at the snap of one’s fingers. The vocals on this song are incredibly raw and highlight an emotion T doesn’t usually let come through quite as much in the studio versions of her songs.
   • Themes: Being controlled, being influenced, the effects of being ‘on’ 24/7
   • Highlight Lyric: “I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean/Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth”
8. Loml
   • This song was a big question-mark going into the album, and many speculated that the acronym meant ‘loss of my life’ and boy were they right. This is one of the most heart-breaking songs on the record and establishes how embarrassing, haunting, lingering, and conflicting the pain of a loss can be and it is so well articulated that it had to be on this objective list.
   • Themes: Loss, confusion, frustration, pain
   • Highlight Lyric: “Dancing phantoms on the terrace/Are they second-hand embarrassed/That I can’t get out of bed/Cause something counterfeit’s dead”
9. The Black Dog
   • This song is one of the most pleasantly melodic and heartbreaking and cinematic songs on the record. I’m not sure if my personal love for this song is what landed it on this objective list, but it is a damn good song and I cannot get over it. It is perfection.
   • Themes: Feeling foolish, internalized demons, raw pain
   • Highlight Lyric: “Were you making fun of me with some esoteric joke?/Now I want to sell my house and set fire to all my clothes/And hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons/Even if I die screaming
10. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
    • If you want to understand why some men hate Taylor Swift, just listen to this song and here how eloquently she destroys The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived using the most established vocabulary and word-smithing in modern music. This is the type of song that makes me want to write and makes me want to be creative.
    • Themes: Betrayal, anger, hurt, the last word
    • Highlight Lyric: “Were you writing a book? Were you a sleeper-cell spy? In fifty years will all this be declassified?”
11. HONORABLE MENTION/Karina’s Bonus Pick: Down Bad
    • Is this song the best lyrical song on the album? Probably not. Is it the first song that resonated with me because it was a perfect, petulant example of what it is like to date your off-brand Matty Healy and be taken into the cosmos for the shortest spurt of time? Absolutely. For those of you that aren’t Swifties, this song is a metaphor where the narrator is essentially abducted by aliens and experiences a cosmic love (think love-bombing by the Unique^TM guy and promptly ghosted and hurt after they give you the most beautiful experience.
    • Themes: Petulance, anger, frustration, galactic love
    • Highlight Lyric: “How dare you think it’s romantic/Leaving me safe and stranded/’Cause fuck it, I was in love/So fuck you if I can’t have us

So non-swifties, if you appreciate good writing and can look past the Basic Bitch^TM trope that those who even click around near a Taylor Swift song receive, check out the songs above or the whole damn album. And swifties? Tell me what song would receive your objective award for Best Song (and also your personal fave.)

Adios for now! (See you soon or 3-4 years from now!)

KT

Final (4) Duke Letter: Nothing Matters

Haaaappy Monday, everyone!

Get ready for the longest work week of your life if you’re a Duke or Dirty Foot Fan. I have already purchased decorations for my boyfriend’s apartment and bought Duke Blue Jell-O for Jell-O shots. I’m taking suggestions on further celebration for Saturday too. Regardless, I will probably not be doing well on Saturday, and I even expect a gradual level of un-okayness from now until Friday. I mean, I’m writing a Duke Basketball Blog and the game is this weekend, so obviously this game is living rent-free in my head.

Oh, Blue Devils.

I cannot explain how much I’ve fallen in love with this team. I’ll be honest– most of the regular season, I found it hard to back my team sometimes because of the sloppy play, and overall, what I found to be a laissez-faire attitude. I wasn’t very shy about that in the past.

Especially after the UNC home game.

Which brings me to my main point. You have a chance to avenge that loss. The faces I saw on the bench while Coach K was honored was exactly what I hoped for. You have a chance to make history and continue this fairytale post-season and make up for what you lost in a big, big way.

But honestly, none of that is important right now.

What is important is that you are a good team. You are playing good basketball. You have beat this team before, but you have also lost to this team before. You know this team, this team knows you. Regardless of who is the better team, that is going to add a wrinkle to things– no one is going to be surprised or unprepared for the matchup. What is going to make the difference in this game is treating it like business. Coach K has been preaching to us all season to (PLEASE) stop talking about all of the lasts/records/blah blah and focus on the game. That is what will make the difference. It will be jittery at first. It will be emotional any way you slice it. However, the team that treats this as a business trip and does what they do will be the team that wins this game. Efficiency, focus, drowning out the outside factors.

Because that is what they are — none of those factors actually have any impact on the game itself. It is a game, and you will play to win. You shouldn’t care about this game any more or less than Arkansas, Michigan State, Texas Tech, CSFU, because you should care equally about all of those games. The games have different plans and different strengths and struggles, but the bottom line is you put your heart into it, you hustle, you communicate, and you play to win. If you can do that the shots will come, the defense will work. That is the easy stuff to control.

When playing Arkansas this weekend, you all yelling “short” on a shot rebound, or yelling “baseline,” “switch,” “shot” got you the extra turnovers and the extra points. I remember one drive where Arkansas shot the ball, and (I believe it was Paolo but I’m not sure) someone yelled “short” and Mark Williams was able to come into the middle and snatch that rebound and get points in transition. That’s two points you got from something that seems so miniscule, but it matters. And in games like these, two points matter.

I’ll wrap this up by saying, look, UNC will hit shots, Manek will piss me off (oh sorry did I include that in this? Whoops.), they’ll make their free-throws on some bullshit foul call (again, sorry not sorry), but that is out of your control. So gather things that you can control– smart shots, good defense, hustle, sacrificing your body, taking advantage of mismatches, focusing on the game at hand, playing loose, communicating. That is a pretty damn good set of tools if I do say so myself.

So, I’ll prepare the Jell-O shots, Duke will prepare for the game, and I think that is a fair trade.

GTHC forever, baby!

-KT

PS: Please give me extra points for this edition’s embarrassing Duke-themed photo because not only is it horrible, but my hat also says “i am unwell” which i think is extra apropos.

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Never unbeatable: Is this a Duke Basketball BLog Now?

Hey everyone!

It has been a week. Time is nothing but a construct. With the time change and the 12 hour basketball days over the last week and some change, combined with Duke being in my city, combined with an uncharacteristic week where my boyfriend actually got days off, combined with the fact that this time last week I was touring University of Florida’s law school…it has been weird.

I mean in the last 7 days, I toured the second law school in my top 2 (decision TBD…if anyone at Levin Law school is reading this PLZ for the love of god get on with the admissions process), the bf made his post grad arrangements (and more importantly he got to be in the presence of the goat for the first time at Duke’s open practice while visiting me. employment is only second to greatness), I got scammed trying to buy a duke playoff ticket, I had to cancel my debit card, I finally got a potential therapist to call me back (we’ll talk about that another time) and Duke won two gutsy games!

I’ll be honest, I was really pessimistic going into the tournament this year. I was even more pessimistic when Kentucky lost to a 15 seed with a peacock for a mascot. I wrote an open letter to the Duke Basketball Team/Program/Gods/Powers-That-Be begging for them to realize their potential, and damn it if they didn’t do everything that I tirelessly begged them to do in the wee hours of the night after that ACC championship loss. They hustled, they sacrificed their body, they played together, they played like the god damn Blue Devils, baby!

That being said, this week’s post is the yin to that yang. The constant coach (i.e. pessimist) in me knows that a dub is a dub and that you have to survive to advance, but there is so much potential and talent on this team, that seeing them put the hustle in makes me crave their continued success even more. The better I see them play, the more I am just aching and yearning to see this team break the glass ceiling here.

The thing about this team is that they are so young, and although my last spiel was about them really needing to focus on these lasts and essentially, c’est la vie, they need to slow it down and take all of that hustle, guts and energy they’ve been throwing out the last two rounds, and come in with the poise of someone who knows what they are capable of. Do not let all of that heart go to waste by losing your composure. The best teams are a combination of heart & calculation. Confidence & humbleness. You need to know that you can lose any given day. Also, you need to know that you can win any given day.

I’m not here to get into the nuts and bolts of the past two games– I think there is an individual or two on the coaching staff that might be a little above my pay grade there, but when the team would work it into the middle, or throw in that extra pass and do the little things like getting on the floor, not cheating on defense, etc. that is when the team was thriving. I’ve always been a believer in momentum and emotion getting you pretty damn far as a team, but you can’t just scream “THIS IS SPARTA!!” and run into a chainsaw and win. If this team can draw fouls down low, take advantage of mismatches and care while doing all of those things too? We’ll be dancing all the way to April.

So, since I’m convinced the Duke basketball program read my last blog (or Coach K and I are the same type of Coach…which means I’m surely not making enough money here) I want to thank this team for stepping it up and making the fans proud of the product on the court so far. I think I speak for the whole Blue Devil Nation when saying that the product we have seen over the past two games is nothing to shake your head at. That Duke team has the power to win. Keep it rolling boys.

LGD,

@KarinaT24, the (less) sad duke fan

An Open Letter to Duke MBB Going Into March Madness 2022

If you note the time of this publishing, you’ll probably recognize that i just sat through two agonizing hours of watching the team stay just close enough to give me hope for a comeback to win the ACC Championship. Clearly that didn’t happen.

I’m not writing a letter as an overly-sensitive fan who is mad about a loss with a pretty banner on it. In the grand scheme of things that doesn’t matter. Our seed is solidified and it is truly just a formality. (A very nice formality to hang in the rafters, but a formality nonetheless.)

I’m writing a letter because the pairing of something Coach K stated prior to the game and something I saw throughout the game struck me. Coach told the team that he was trying to take the focus off of all of the “lasts” and help you all realize that after a 42 year long career, the lasts are endings of a chapter, but they don’t taint those 42 years. For you, this is your here-and-now. For some it is the first time getting a chance to represent the best college basketball program of all time. For some of you it might be your last. For some of you it may be both. Regardless— it has always and also never been about Coach K. He wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for years of athletes who put blood, sweat, tears and effort out on the court game after game, season after season. He is the greatest of all time, don’t get me wrong, but you can’t be the greatest if you don’t have some pretty damn awesome folks around to help you get there.

This March belongs to you.

The team that showed up to the Barclay Center tonight is not a team that realizes the honor of putting on that uniform. That team didn’t dive for balls, didn’t take charge of the game, didn’t lead a team physically or mentally. This was a team of individual players out on that court. This was a team of number ones working on their own game. Do you see where that got you?

Look at your coach. It has never been about him. He gives his life to you all from October to April (and all the other months too) to make you all better. If this was about him, he could’ve hung it up years ago. He’s broken all the records and shattered the glass ceilings. But it isn’t about him.

Look at the successful teams that came before you. The teams that have rings, and even the teams that came close are remembered as units. They talk about the great plays they made together and the way they communicated and acted like a family. Some of those guys were/are some of the best to ever do it, but they played to put a banner in Duke’s rafters not their own. It wasn’t about them either.

Look at your fans. They spend millions of dollars to show up and show out, not only at Cameron, but all around the country. They dress up, they drive hours and hours, they take time off of work, pay for babysitters, and probably get into a lot of online arguments on your behalf. (Clearly I’m not speaking from experience here…) For us, it isn’t about each of our individual identities, it is about bonding as Duke Nation and giving our voices, our time and our commitment to this program the best way we can since we aren’t down on that floor. It has never been about us.

This March is about you. In the end, you are going to have to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you laid it all out on the court, if you took the opponents seriously, and if you are proud of your performance. Regardless of if you get knocked out in round one or don’t take another L on the season— did you do everything you could? And did you do it for the name on the front of your jersey?

Selection Sunday is tomorrow. The team that came out today can’t show up next week. I want to be proud of the boys in blue and I will be if I see a team that gives a damn about each other, cares enough to communicate, and leads as an example to future Blue Devils. While I would love to hang that illusive sixth banner in the rafters (and for the love of god, stop saying Sights on Six) I would be proud if a saw a team come out and give everything they had. And you know what? I haven’t seen that out of this team yet, and we’ve had a pretty darn good season in spite of that.

What do you think you could do if you played to your full potential?

I really hope we find out.

LGD,

KarinaT24

The Golden Rule Might Be Shitty Advice

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Well it has probably been about a year, maybe more, since I’ve blogged, and as you can already see, I am coming in hot with the optimism on this one, boys. These days, for something to stir me up enough to dust off the old keyboard/notebook/any other writing utensil, it must be pretty damn important.

I’ll tell you a secret.

I haven’t written a poem in well over a year. I haven’t written a short story in close to a year. I haven’t written a blog since I wrote the short story. I just haven’t felt motivated to write. Not because it has been really great or really bad, but just because it has been meh. I don’t know how to feel about it, but lately I have increasingly felt the craving to write something, anything, and I still haven’t. Until today.

Yesterday, I was supposed to have been celebrating finishing my LSAT and doing something fun, and it all came crashing down when the LSAC website, well, came crashing down. If the last several months have been an uphill battle, I hope to god that was the peak. Essentially, I was in the middle of section 3 out of 4 when the site crashed and I lost my whole exam that I had been stressing about to the point of physical pain. I got to experience every gen-z content creator’s average weekday activity and cry on a live stream with strangers on the internet. (God bless exam proctors.) Now in typical sitcom/Macgyver fashion, let me rewind and tell you how I got to this point.

Well, I don’t know when the shittiness started, but it has been a few months of endless bad luck. I don’t know what kind of unlucky penny I picked up, or what kind of crack in the sidewalk and stomped on, but it has been brutal. To focus on a few highlights, UPS lost an item that I was very attached to but sold for $1300 in order to get money to buy a plane ticket and pay off a medical bill. (They did not reimburse the full amount, they could only reimburse up to $100 and I still haven’t gotten that check yet.) I didn’t get to spend my one year anniversary with my boyfriend for a whole slew of shitty reasons. I have been in my cycle of my anxiety making my stomach hurt which makes me anxious which makes my stomach hurt, and so on. And the rest can be filled in with cruel retail associates, being ditched in pretty much every plan I’ve tried to make unless I put forth some sort of extreme effort on my end, being ignored when I try to reach out to friends, and being lied to and treated like shit by people I care about.

Enter the golden rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. I’ve always felt as though that is a good thing to live by. I mean, you never know what people are going through, and everyone deserves to have people who are willing to lift them up and help them out. On the other hand, I have always viewed myself as someone who doesn’t take shit from people. I’ve always thought I had a pretty fair balance between giving second chances, and knowing when to leave, or simply put, I’ve known when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. Lately however, I’ve found myself extending my rope a lot more… and not ever getting that notion returned…and I’m very tired.

I think the golden rule is a great notion for strangers. Perhaps even acquaintances. (Not that either have typically employed it in their lives, but I digress.) When it comes to the people you surround yourself with– I think it is shitty advice. Do you know how exhausting it is to bend over backwards to see people, and have them not be willing to drive 15 minutes up the road to hang out? Or how depressing it is to try everything you can to make someone’s birthday special, just for them to forget to do anything for yours? Perhaps, you stay on the phone with someone for hours, just to help them through a tough time, and can’t even get someone to answer the phone when you need them most. Maybe you spent weeks handcrafting a present for someone, that you know they will love, and you don’t get anything, not even a card, in return. Maybe you live far away from your friends and will go visit them as much as possible, but not a damn one have come to visit you in your first apartment. Bottom line is, I don’t think it is fair when you have been treating other’s as you want to be treated, and have had that abused over and over.

Now, it is truly like an addiction that is hard to break. You want to see your friends, so eventually you just make the drive. You want to see someone’s face light up when you give them a gift, so even though they didn’t think of you, you still go the extra mile. You care about someone’s well-being, so you check in even though you begged them to answer their phone the week before and they just didn’t. All of these things feel great, and it makes you happy to see your people happy. But are they really your people if you leave and cry in your car on the way home? Are they your people when they can’t tell you your birthday even though you went all out for theirs? Are they your people if you always have to make the effort? If you have to know that without making the plans, or without making the call or sending the text, that you wouldn’t hear from them until you did? I don’t know, and that is what is really hard to process.

Off the top of my head, I can think of one human who has been selfless, and deserves the world, and has always checked up on me and made the effort. One. If I won the lottery, how many people would talk about how much they knew me and loved me and how much I meant to them? How many would cry at my funeral? How many would be offended if I didn’t invite them to my wedding? A hell of a lot more than that one human.

Sure, not everything in this post is something that has happened to me, but I know everyone has experienced at least one of these things, and I think it is important to reevaluate how it made you feel. And to ask yourself if you are in a balanced friendship/relationship/acquaintanceship with that person, or if you are the one putting forth all of the effort. Maybe take a week or two where you don’t text or call first. Stand back and see if someone else will plan their birthday party, and if you’re even invited. The results might be sad, but it can save you a lot of time/money/further heartbreak if you learn that now.

I don’t think the world is ready for the golden rule. They’re all for the ‘being treated’, but not for the ‘treating.’ Unfortunately I find myself starting to doubt a lot of things, and thus, am starting to follow suit. So, if y’all are really down to start this golden rule stuff, I’m all for it, but for now, consider me de-committed.

Not Poetry Installations: Not the end, but also The End

Hello!

Happy Christmas!

I hope you all said your Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit before your feet hit the floor this morning. (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, look it up. Learned about it when I was a young teenager and I have strived to do it ever since. Superstition, man.)

24 days until Christmas! Holy moly. On the plus side, I’ve gotten 99.9% of the gifts for my people, but just today I thought of 2 things I forgot to buy/make. I am excited for Christmas. I pride myself in being the best gift giver because I have a secret strategy. (I won’t tell you because it is important that I retain my title.)

Thanksgiving was wonderful, and now I’m back at work in the full swing of our busy season and I’m basically drowning, but it is FINE. I put up my office Christmas tree so at the very least we are feeling the holiday cheer while crying at the desk.

Anyways, I have officially reached the end of the story I spent a good while writing and sharing, but fear not, I have a poetry installation and another story that I am working on. I see the 3-5 of you reading my work in my stats (or just one of you reading it 3-5 times) and I appreciate you. Let me know how you feel about the ending!

XO

KT

PS: If you haven’t read the rest of the story, what kind of human starts at the end of a book???? Read the first 6 you fiend. Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, and Chapter 6.

Chapter 7

Looking down, I saw a typed report stapled to a newspaper clipping. The report read:

“Hello, and welcome to Spooktacular Spaces. I’m your host, Grant Jackson. With me I have local urban explorers Dana and Jason. While on the hunt for interesting places to scope out, Dana and Jason came upon this house in the woods. Upon further research, we discovered it was the home of a troubled young writer, Grace Woodley. After being disowned by her parents, she recoiled with a life of solitude, writing disturbing stories that served as a script to the demons that lived inside of her. She was found by a neighboring farmer who called the police. When the police arrived, she was pronounced dead on-scene, and it was eventually discovered that she had died from a heroin overdose. It was unapparent whether this overdose was accidental or as an intended suicide. The house was left behind, and is still tied up in legal cases, as Woodley didn’t leave a will. The house remained out in the elements, left to rot, or be demolished by the state. But before it is gone to the world, Dana and Jason, who found out about the history behind the house, and decided to camp outside of the residence, trying to communicate with the spirit of Grace Woodley herself. They claim to have heard something rustling in the house immediately after firing up their Ouiji Board. They also found a cat, emaciated and scared, on the back porch of the residence. They have since called animal control, who picked up the cat and took it to the county shelter. Upon Animal Control’s arrival, the state was also notified and condemned the building, urging anyone to stay out. Since then, Dana and Jason have contacted our crew, and upon several days of observation, we have decided to spend a night in this Spooktacular Space. Get your sage out, ladies and gentlemen, because these demons and spirits are far from pure.”

I was shaking as I finished reading what appeared to be a script. What were they doing? Why did they make this up all for this tv show? I cautiously flipped to the newspaper article. There I was, a headshot I had taken a couple years ago, that I often sent in with my submissions. The headline read: “Popular Online Author Grace Woodley, Found Dead In Her Rural North Carolina Home, By Apparent Suicide.”

I was paralyzed at this point. Playing through the last several days in my mind. I recalled the kids with the Ouiji Board and the cameras. The condemnation of my house, and disappearance of Penelope. It made for a great story, but it just didn’t make sense. And then I tried to remember the night before the rustling awoke me. I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of what happened before I shot awake in the middle of the night. I grabbed for everything I could find in this van. Something had to explain this. I found a manila folder labeled “Confidential” and tore it open. I dropped to my knees.

The folder contained photographs of me– first in my home, in my bed, a needle sticking out of my arm. My eyes were closed, I looked as though I had fallen asleep, but my body was a bluish tint. The next couple were my body, a shiny silver backdrop behind me. I had no clothes on, and looked like I had been bruised all over. I couldn’t remember why I would’ve been in any of these photos. There was no way this was me.

I stumbled out of the van towards my house. I looked around and noticed the garden, more overgrown than it had been a couple days ago. My cat’s food bowl was gone, which made my back porch look even more desolate than it had been. I remembered the fruit stand, once donning vibrant colors, looking gray and neglected when I visited it. Things had aged around me. Spring had tumbled into Fall, seemingly passing right by Summer, with no intention of stopping.

I thought about who I knew myself to be; I was a promising writer. I reformed myself and was clean now. I had a cat, and the cat had been taken from me. None of these things could provide a defining line, as to if I was living the life I believed I was, or if I– 

No. I wrote about lovers haunting one another. I wasn’t a ghoul. I don’t haunt houses. I can’t. And yet, the realization had fallen upon me– they weren’t invading my home, they were trying to communicate with some mediocre writer who had OD-ed on heroin, and I had stabbed one of them. It never occurred to me why I hadn’t remembered the night before. I couldn’t believe I never put the pieces together. I was grateful to forget the life that killed me, but it was bittersweet to know that I couldn’t be who I was now while I was alive. 

I stepped towards the house, walking with a purpose this time. I walked through the door I left open, and the machine started screeching again. I had watched enough bad television to know now that this was an EMF reader. The thing that was setting it off was me. The whole crew turned towards the machine. I kept walking. All of my belongings were left behind, as it seemed no one had wanted them. I opened a cabinet in my bathroom that housed first aid supplies, and thought about my next move. I knew there was only one thing I really wanted to tell anyone. I wanted to tell the few readers I had, my parents, the crew of this show, Penelope, the farmer up the road. I looked around the room, seemingly left to the elements, I realized how much of my stuff had been ruined by various vermin and inclement weather. 

I grabbed a pen, or tried to. I suppose electromagnetic entities worked better with electronics than with physical writing utensils. I walked back to the living room, the screeching EMF reader only serving as background noise at this point. I looked on the table and saw someone’s phone sitting there. They must have been sending a text when I so rudely interrupted. I strolled, or I suppose now, floated, over to the phone, and typed out my message quickly. 

Saying what I needed to, I pushed past the halfway open door, and left towards the woods, knowing that I had nothing left to come home to and nothing left to say. It was time to find something new, and leave that little haunted house in the woods to someone else to stumble upon.

Not Poetry Installations: The Penultimate Chapter

Hello guys!

Happy almost Thanksgiving!

I am slowly crawling towards the finish line that is 5pm on Wednesday. Work today was in shambles– fitting for a Monday before a long holiday weekend. I felt like I was trying to stop floodwaters with a child’s toy shovel.

On top of chaos at work, I think Ollie (my rabbit son) has something wrong with one of his teeth. I mean, he could just be being a picky little brat, but he has several of the symptoms pointing at dental issues, so he will be headed to the vet (much to his dismay, I’m sure) on Wednesday morning by my wonderful (Ollie-obsessed) dad. So keep little Oliver Boops in your thoughts if you do that sort of thing.

I honestly just can’t wait for my second favorite holiday, Black Friday. Don’t get it twisted, I’m infuriated that shops aren’t opening Thursday night, but I’ll make do with Friday I suppose. (I mean truly, once dinner is over, who wants to deal with family? …that being said, my Thanksgiving is just my parents and I every year. Ha.) Regardless, I finished my Christmas shopping (save for my BF’s gifts and one friend’s gift) so that I can celebrate my runner-up favorite in the most Karina-centric way possible. I’m very excited.

Now that I’ve given the summary of my life, I will leave you with the second to last chapter in the saga. If you’ll remember back to the first chapter of the series, I asked you all to let me know if/when you saw the ending coming. I believe that this chapter may be the one for many (like 2 of the 3…) readers. But if you care to let me know, I’d appreciate it. I take a lot of pride in my curveballs at the end of stories.

If you have just joined us, I have linked the prior chapters below for you to catch up. Hope ya like it.

KT

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

Chapter 6

The steps came back in, staggered and strained; it seemed as though the equipment must have been heavy. Grant bossed around the other five, telling them where to put things, and how to turn them on. Before long, there was a screeching sound coming from the middle of the living room. It was periodic, but it was like a dog whistle going off and on in a rapid succession. Everyone in the room exhaled in awe. Whatever this was, it was what they were looking for.

I wanted to look, but I kept still, not even shifting when I heard equipment moving and screeching and hurting my ears. Grant instructed the man called Billy to take whatever this tool was and move it around the room. Was this some sort of torture device? Were they doing something to my house? I had never heard anything like it before. 

With the clanking of the metal device, I heard it dislodge from whatever holding device kept it stationary. Billy’s footsteps echoed around the room, before turning towards me. The device got louder as it got closer. He stepped within 5 feet of where I was crouched, instructing the others to come to him. He got so close I could hear his breath along with the high pitched whirring.

Through the blanket, I saw his hand reach out towards me. I swallowed and gripped the knife as tight as I could, planning to raise it only at my very last opportunity, not wanting to give away my hiding spot if I didn’t have to. I said one quick prayer as the hand got closer to where my head was obscured by the blanket. He grabbed the blanket and ripped it away.

In a blur of commotion, I raised the knife and stabbed blindly. I also felt my left hand throw the phone in the general direction of the others. I screamed, a sob stifling it slightly, while they screamed in terror that mirrored my own. They all ran backwards towards the door. Even the man called Grant looked shocked. 

“What do you want from me?” I screamed. “Please,” I sobbed, “get out!” 

Somewhere in the shuffle I had lost the knife. I noticed Billy’s shoulder was bleeding through his now torn shirt. I had made a mark, but there was no way I could take them all down. They were staring at me like they were just as frightened as I was.

“Holy shit what was that?” asked the original boy from the SUV.

“I don’t know, dude, but this place has the strongest presence I’ve ever felt before,” responded Grant, who was smirking again. 

What the hell? 

“What do you want??” I screamed, defeated and confused, just wanting this to be over somehow.

“We want to communicate with you, can you please tell us where you are?” Grant responded.

I choked on another stifled sob. The group looked at each other. Grant and Billy started towards the equipment, walking past me, ignoring me, still crouched in the fetal position. They all just went back to their business. I took this opportunity to run towards the door. I didn’t have anywhere to go that they couldn’t catch me, so I flung it open and ran towards where they had parked their cars, and I saw the camera. I went for the camera and rewound the tape, hoping something on it would give me a clue as to what they were doing.

When I did, I saw it pointed at my bedroom. It was around dusk, and the light turned on. This was from last night when I was getting ready to go to bed. All I saw was the light flicker on then off, from when I went to bed. I stopped the tape and rewound it further.  This time I saw my front door. I never saw a camera pointed towards my front door before. I saw a man in a uniform come and put the condemned sign on my front door. Was this for a movie? Did they pay this man to come out? 

Then I saw another man in a different uniform grab Penelope and cart her off screen. I started to sob again. 

In the next frame, the sign flew off of the door, and the front door opened and shut. 

That’s impossible. I took that sign and put it on my counter. What are these people doing?

I looked around, wondering what I could possibly do, and looked towards the cars. I saw motion, and remembered that the one kid, Danny, was still out here. I knocked softly on the window, and whispered, “Can you please help me?”

His head shot up, looking at me. “Please, I don’t know what is happ–” and before I could finish he crawled across the backseat, flung open the door, and ran towards the house. He was yelling incoherently, but I assumed the crew would come back. I quickly jumped into the back of the van, hoping they would look for me in the woods instead. As I did, a set of papers fell off of the shelving in the back of the van. 

Chapter 7

Not Poetry Installations: I Hope Someone Is Reading These

Good morning, everyone!

Long time no talk. A whole week. The birthday-pocalypse has ended, with one straggler coming early December. Thank god I don’t have to buy any more gifts for a– oh right, Christmas.

Luckily I began my Christmas hoarding in September, so my apartment already rivals Santa’s. I am getting to go home for Thanksgiving, and I’ve already pondered the unthinkable: running a Thanksgiving 5K.

How much does one have to hate oneself to become a Turkey Day 5K sort of person? Why am I doing this? Will I actually do this? Which is more pressing, my ego and stubbornness, or the level at which I value sleep? TBD.

Anyways, not much has happened in the way of excitement– catching up with old friends, lots of driving, lots of overstock store shopping (my new addiction), and lots of cleaning. HOWEVER, today I put aside all fears and anxiety and am trying my new crockpot. For all we know, I could be burning down my apartment complex as we speak. But also I suppose I could be making stellar pot roast.

While purchasing the crock pot, my dad told me to buy the biggest one I could find, and FYI Walmart has a deal on a 7.5 quart crock pot for just shy of $20. He then rescinded his “the bigger the better” statement when I told him the picture on the box implied you could fit an entire turkey in the crockpot. Nonetheless I’m over here conquering fears.

Anyways, I will provide you with the next installation, if anyone is actually reading these.

(If this is your first time embarking on this journey, click the following words to review prior chapters.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The same two kids got out of one of the cars, but along with them came a couple more kids of the same age. When the van pulled up beside them, I saw a couple of men dressed in dark clothes. They looked casual, but the dark tones looked out of place against the bright sky and fall colors surrounding them. They all seemed to congregate around the camera, pointed at my bedroom, with nothing but a wall separating me and their point of focus. They appeared to be rewinding and viewing some tape, whispering among one another. 

“Oh my god,” said the original girl, backing away from the camera.

“Shut up, Dana. You’re messing with us,” one of the new guys in the SUV said.

“I swear to God, I’m not. You saw us both pull up here. How could I have done anything?” said the original girl, I now presumed was Dana.

“Okay, but still, there has to be some explanation,” retorted the new girl from the SUV.

This was when the two men in the dark apparel came up, splitting the foursome in half to get a good view of the camera. They took it off of the tripod. These two seemed to be in control of the situation. I picked up the phone to dial, but wavered, as they hadn’t exactly committed a crime. Sure, they were really fucking creepy, but they hadn’t hurt anyone, or even vandalized anything. 

“You kids really might have found something here,” said the dark-clothed man with glasses. “I think we need to get the whole crew out here. This has the potential to be groundbreaking stuff.”

The one without the glasses continued, not taking his eyes off of the camera, “I mean, all of this should be impossible. The power has been turned off, the place has been completely closed off and condemned, there’s no way. This stuff is next level.”

I felt like I had been hit over the head. Did they just say they cut my power? That they tried to have my home condemned? I picked up the phone and decided that would warrant a response from some sort of authority, no matter how odd, or miniscule those notions may be. I turned on the phone and there was no dial tone. Dead silence rang out on the line. I slowly backed away from the window and before I knew it, I was falling backwards, slipping on the rug I used to cover the beaten down wood floors. In the midst of my fall, I knocked over a glass candle holder that sat on my coffee table. I don’t know how I missed hitting my head on the table, but the crash was enough to make me freeze where I was. I knew there was no way those people hadn’t heard the commotion. I flipped onto my belly and crawled as quietly as possible back to the window.

Terrified, I lifted my head just enough to see out through the sliver of an opening I allotted, and all six of them were staring directly at this window. They looked as horrified as I did, as if they didn’t expect someone to be here. I noted that this time of morning I would usually be out on my run. Were they keeping tabs on my schedule? I stayed silent and didn’t move. If I didn’t move, they might not notice that I had crawled up to the opening in the makeshift curtain. 

“Oh fuck no.” said the same new fellow as before, making a turn towards the SUV. 

“Danny get back here dude, you’re the one who wanted to come out here with us,” said the original guy.

“Okay, but that was before all of this shit. Absolutely fucking not,” responded Danny, slamming the door to the SUV behind him.

The man dressed in the dark clothes who didn’t wear glasses was the only one who didn’t look uneasy. He wore an expression that implied that he was impressed by something. He turned to the group and nodded in approval. 

“Who wants to go in?” he asked.

I felt like I was going to throw up. This couldn’t be happening. What kind of people were they? I felt like I was being studied like an animal in a cage. My mind was reeling through every alien movie, The Blair Witch Project, stalker podcasts, I just felt cold and confused. I slowly backed into the corner of my living room, perched my back against the wall clutching my kitchen knife in one hand and the phone in the other. I figured if anything I could use it as a projectile if one of them got in, and then use the knife as a second attack. 

The doorknob turned, and the two men in dark clothes entered my living room first. They didn’t seem to notice me in the corner of my living room, given that the couch partially blocked their view. 

“Make sure you’ve got the camera, Billy,” said the one without the glasses. 

“Okay, but Grant, it’s freezing in here. Can we run out to the car and get jackets?” said the one with the glasses.

When they turned towards my kitchen, I slid down the wall, covering my mouth to stifle the terrified sobs, in hopes that if I crouched low enough they wouldn’t see me. 

They froze, and the one called Grant said, “Hello? Is there anyone here? We just wanna talk.”

Great, I thought. That’s what every killer or home invader or mobster says to their victims.

Although I couldn’t see anymore from this position, I heard a set of footsteps getting closer and closer to me. I didn’t dare to move. I was small and unless they got right up in front of the corner between the couch and the wall, they wouldn’t be able to see me. The footsteps casually paced from side to side in my living room, and to my relief they continued on into my bedroom. I weighed the options. I could make a run for it, but there were likely 4 other psychos waiting outside, I could stay where I was and pray, or I could lunge at them. 

Frozen by my indecision, I stayed where I was by default. I listened, hearing occasional whispers coming from my bedroom. I was hoping to God that they would just take what they wanted and leave. I didn’t even have much in there other than some clothes, blankets, and my laptop, but my laptop lived under my bed when I wasn’t working, so I hoped they wouldn’t take that. 

“Do you think a squatter has been staying here?” asked Billy. 

“No, I think this was all her’s,” said Grant, sounding deep in thought.

“Maybe we should leave it alone…”

“For now, we will, but we might have to use some of it to get a reaction.”

Now my confusion was eclipsing my fear. What kind of reaction did they want from me? Why were they going to come back later? While they were still in the bedroom, I adjusted my hiding spot, leaning into the couch, where a blanket was hanging off the arm. I used the blanked to shield myself further from view.

“Did you hear that?” asked Billy, a hint of fear in his voice.

“Yeah.” said Grant, matter of factly.

They didn’t say anything else, but shortly began walking back towards the living room. As they reached the center of my living space, I heard them call out to the kids outside. 

“You kids can come in unless you’re too chicken shit,” stated Grant, indifferent about the whole situation. 

I heard three sets of footsteps come through my front door. I remembered the satanic things I found in my yard. Are they going to have some sort of satanic ritual here? Did they come here looking for me? I stayed silent and gripped the knife tighter.

“The house is safe…well… as safe as it can be. There were a few creaks and groans, but nothing major. We’d like to explore it in a little more detail with our equipment. If you kids want to grab some of it and get it out of the van, that would be fine. Be careful, that shit is expensive,” explained Grant.

All of the footsteps left the house, except for one person I could hear shifting their weight on the creaky floors. I assumed it was this Grant fellow. At this moment, I realized just how fucked up it was to listen to six psychos invade your apartment, when you can’t see anything, and you have no choice but to sit and listen and pray. 

Chapter 6

Chapter 7