# just peachy



## peachy (Feb 9, 2008)

so. i wrote this for a class last year.

Metaphors intervened into my life and I wasn't even asking for them to. They'd show up unnervingly in my rain boots, emerge from my skin after a bath, and stood boldly until I would acknowledge their existence onto a concrete substance. They came in unexpectedly like my Aunt Ruby would when she came to visit, throwing my mother into a disorganized mess. I?d felt that the metaphors had already gave me the lines to my stanzas from the bowl of my cheerios, the O?s floating about into the most intricate soggy mess of patterns. So don't get the idea that metaphors are pretty. They are messy and confused. 
There is no escaping a metaphor. They are persistent creatures who continue to press and shimmy their way in until they can attack the thoughts wrapped and intertwined tightest inside. I wanted to hold power over them except that the opposite seemed to be happening. You understand where I?m coming from, don?t you? I was the writer and therefore, rightful owner of the words. I should demand such. I remember my English teacher, Mrs. Matekunas, telling us, ?To have power over our words is what every great writer has accomplished?. I was certain that these metaphors had a mind of their own. There was no way that I could ever be a writer. 
I wrote poetry as if I was a writer.

It shifts 
It wavers
It's everything between.
It's not the same without the window screen.

I jotted this down four years before I was given your true name. 
Maybe I named you long ago in frustrated stanzas, desperately trying to make it metaphorically sound. 
I remember that day clearly, waking up from a nap on a day neither spring nor summer could fully own. The day was a mixture of a delicate spring breeze and a perpetual warm glow of summer sun. There in my window sat the screen that I joined in a sublime gaze of both defeat and triumph. Most days, I hated it there. It obstructed my view of the world outside. I remember removing it several times. My parents asked the therapist why I did it. She had not latched nearly as well as the metaphors and therefore, knew nothing of my problems. I couldn't stop removing that damn screen. To remove its scratchy film gave me freedom. It made me feel alive. 
The screen had finally broken that spring-summer afternoon and I watched the flap wavering in and out in the wind. Victory. My instinct grabbed a pen and paper. This was the beginning of magic. This was the beginning of insanity. This is where I lost my thoughts. They must have been caught somewhere between a window screen and life outside of it, like a half-squashed fly struggling for freedom from a screen. I stepped a moment out of reality and a window screen metaphor had latched inside me before I was given time to decipher my own thoughts. What am I ignoring? What AM I ignoring? I'd ask myself the same question fifteen different ways as if it would help me find the means to an answer. 
Many say writing is a gift but I'm not sure if finding a billion different ways to say something (because you'd rather ignore it) is. In fact, I could call my writing crafty ignorance. I knew what it would take to reach freedom and it would be far more than removing a screen from my window. I had to learn to decode myself. 
This is how I ended up surrounded in a ridiculous number of pages on my bed. It was an overwhelming mess of codes that I couldn?t wait to enter. It?s fun to decode. It?s much like the codes written on the back of cereal boxes, except that the answers I found were never funny. They were devastating. After sifting through lines and lines and lines of my own poetry, it became very clear to me. You are the screen of the outside world in one poem. While in another, you are the "dreams of whirlwind" and fog. The next: "single dropped poison". Another, you are shells, romantic darkness, fair complexion, stained glass kaleidoscope, forced epiphany. Breathe already! Was I ready to acknowledge your name? It didn't matter. Like the stage-lit ballerina the audience watched in awe, you demanded the attention of every cell in my body. You were blurted. Depersonalization.

Everything stood still. Every metaphor packed up and left me alone to fend for myself.
I learned about Depersonalization Disorder one day in March years later. I learned every technical way to say it. The DSM called it ?a dissociative disorder in which sufferers are affected by persistent or reoccurring feelings of automation, a disconnection from one?s body, and difficulty relating oneself as part of reality?. I didn?t understand the jargon and like many high school kids do when they come across words they don?t know, I ignored it. I ignored it so well that I had no idea why my poetry has ceased to be. 
But you finally had a real name. I knew the truth of it all and I was finally ready to acknowledge that a window screen was one in the same as Depersonalization. As mysteriously as the metaphors had gone, they returned. My mouth spewed more. Buddhist striving hindrance, plastic wrap dreams, confused enlightenment, little dot of mass proportions, detached limbs, the image in the mirror that doesn't understand, 
the letter of imaginary numbers, i. Finally, I knew what the hell I was writing about! It was liberating and it was my voice. 
I was still striving for tangible grasps, warm milk on a barely mother wrist, a pulse, peanut butter actions, fluxing reality, definable jaw line, blood, scarlet lips, and everything that goes along with wishing to be part of reality again. 
Yet, I had found my voice. The metaphors inside me were mine. I created the intricacies and they were messy and confusing because I was messy and confused. It's ironic that I?d been streaming words into metaphors for years on what I want to ignore and block from my memory, while I am simultaneously speaking of the thing that makes me ignore and block things from my memory to begin with. And I persist on calling it "you" instead of giving it the sensible name. You are a long word with lots of syllables. You are Depersonalization and you are me. The poem was right. It was nowhere near the same without a window screen but a part of me had grown to love the window screen with its broken edge. I may feel myself wavering in and out of reality for the rest of my life but if it gives me something to write about, I might as well enjoy it. The codes within myself may never cease but that is both the beauty and hindrance of the disorder I have grown to accept. 
Recently, I came across a quote by Will Durant. ?Poetry reveals to us the beauty our untaught eyes have missed?. I want to be that voice of revelation to the rest of the world.


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## Guest (Oct 16, 2008)

Wow wow wow.Peachy,thats one of the most beautiful things I have ever read,I swear to god.So beautiful,not just for the words  but the experience it echoes at.It sounds like you love it and hate it-I can definatly understand that place ,its beautiful but it warps things at the same time.And I cant say what the "it" is as I know you know also from what you have written.And by "it" im not pointing to depersonalisation.But the ability you have to see through the eye of your subconsciouss.Its a gift.

edit;Thats what i was trying to say-I love the way you capture it without killing it.i love the way you do that without directly hitting it because that way you dont take away from the experience.

Lyns x.


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## Robsy (Dec 3, 2007)

peachy i love it, and thanks so much for sharing, it moved me in a lot of ways, i love metaphors, i love using them when writing and most of all I LOVE YOU xxx

BIFF ( best internet friends forever) hhaha im gay x


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## peachy (Feb 9, 2008)

danke pretty pretty ladies.


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## SistA HazeL (Aug 10, 2008)

That was great Peachy! Wish i could write like that


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2008)

SPAM!! ^^^


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## Robsy (Dec 3, 2007)

Come on Moderators chop chop!!! How dare there be spam in Jinelles post!! x


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## peachy (Feb 9, 2008)

wtf you bitch :x

jk!


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## Robsy (Dec 3, 2007)

lol me? im confused! haha x


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2008)

Robsy said:


> Come on Moderators chop chop!!! How dare there be spam in Jinelles post!! x


There is only one Moderator,Sebastian.Maybe PM him?


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## peachy (Feb 9, 2008)

oh i was referring to zee spammer. nice anime pic though huh???
how did they know i was seeking to become the greatest pirate in the world?!


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2008)

I reported the post.It,ll probaly be dealt with by next week....or something.


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## Robsy (Dec 3, 2007)

peachyderanged said:


> oh i was referring to zee spammer. nice anime pic though huh???
> how did they know i was seeking to become the greatest pirate in the world?!


hahaha, stupid spamheads.

Sorry Lyns, I thought there was a girl too but i dont thik she comes on much? :shock: :?


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