Kenopsia 

From the Journal of J.P. McAnderson

10/2/99

I tried to keep doing things that made me feel as alive as humanly possible but it didn't remove the bleak reality of moving and the dead autumn leaves kept burying themselves in my hair and so I couldn't forget but I kept on trying.

"Goodby.." I whispered to the gentle grasses and the sublime swallows gracing breath itself with their haunting dances, but the beauty interrupted my speech. "Goodb..." I whispered as the walls wailed and hugged me tight against their chests, but then I began to sob too. "Good..." I whispered as old clocks spun wildly. Disoriented. Undone. "Go..." The letters fell out and landed with a thud on the hardwood floor with everything save my permission and enough time to add some more onto the end.

10/4/99

I'm so tired of screaming. Nobody listens. Probably because when someone says, "WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY EVER LISTEN ANYMORE?!" nobody's listening anyways so they don't hear and nothing changes but hasn't everything changed?

I still live here but I already miss this place because now instead of pictures there's emptiness on the walls and in my heart and I'm forgetting all the happy memories because I've sunk so deeply into this hole and I don't know how to get out but the precious seconds when I do I take a big gulp of air and I remember the feeling of breath and songs and freedom and orange popsicles I think that I might be able to move on.

But moving on involves moving which involves tearing all the pictures off the walls until the emptiness screams like a neon sign and you can't ignore the feeling of meaninglessness which I think is what we're all afraid of anyways. Time has spun her weighty hands upside down so now the ticks of the clock don't count the seconds but they whisper "Just me. Just me. Just me." It's the heartbeat of kenopsia. I'm really the only one haunting this old house after all.

10/6/99 (A.K.A. "The day I took up poetry because the lady at the grocery store said that I sound like a poet when I talk but I wanted to prove her wrong but in trying to prove her wrong I actually proved her right.")

I'm walking on a wire

The audience oblivious of the fire

They're breathing down below

This is more dire

The next step multivious

I could hire

Someone to help me down

‘Cuz the world swallows up the sound

Of silent prayers and sollem wells

Who's gonna help anybody down

10/8/99

Today I went to visit Uncle Harvey and he said that I don’t have my head on straight after I read him my poem and the rest of this journal but I said he’s wrong because feelings don’t make sense and even though I’m just moving to the old folks home down the street it feels like I’m leaving the life I knew behind forever and I’ll never get it back and I’ll always be lonely but he said if I did have my head on straight then I wouldn’t write in such long sentences but I said if I didn’t do that then I would feel less poetic and so the lady at the grocery store wouldn’t like me as much because I really care more about what she thinks of me than I should but don’t we all do that anyways? 

10/9/99

Groaning’s reverberating between the oak studs and I’m pretty sure this house won’t pass the inspection because the tears of the walls are making them all soggy and the wallpaper too and now they look like oatmeal that’s been sitting on the counter for three months. 

Tomorrow I have to move out and I swear I wouldn’t if I had the choice but sometimes when you’re old people understand you less especially if they didn’t really understand you before and so they think you’re dumb and make you do things you don’t have any say in but they don’t care about how you feel because they don’t think you have feelings but isn’t that what everyone thinks about everyone else anyways? 

10/11/99

I couldn't even write yesterday because I was just too upset and there’s a point where the only word you can say is crying and getting angry but those aren’t words at all. I had all my stuff packed up because Uncle Harvey helped me so then me and him loaded up my car and then I went back and sat in the corner of my empty house and I sobbed. 

I tried to tell the house goodbye and say how much I would miss it but all that came out was more and more tears until I couldn’t even see or think straight so the ride to the old folks home is still kinda blurry in my memory but I just know that I felt horrible and empty and I beat on the window of the passenger seat and I wondered why this all had to happen to me and I still don’t have an answer. I don’t think that answers are the most important part anymore because if you just have the answer it’s like a punchline without a joke and it really means nothing but that’s not a great analogy because it means that these past few days we’re a joke and isn’t that what we’re all afraid of anyways? 

4/11/21 (Compilor’s Note) 

Jeremiah “Jerry” P. McAnderson passed away on January 15th, 1999. He made a living selling popsicles out of a little wooden stand in Oak Pines, Massachusetts. After his wife’s passing, he devoted his life to the study of ancient literature, namely works written in Latin (which many scholars suspect he did not speak). No one knows how he was so financially stable during this time of unemployment, but some psychologists speculate that he was simply lying about having no source of income. However, this is still widely disputed. Nothing else is known about McAnderson.

 - ELR