hello darkness my old friend

“Some say love is not for sinners...”

Scabs and scars frolic over my body in a playful mosaic of story.

(There’s an itch I’m dying to scratch)

Anything to make you happier.

There is a list a mile long of things I ought to be oughting about, but the Selfish Side of my Soul is spreading kerosene across my Better Judgement. Then she’ll flick the stub of her cigarette onto the fuel, because that’s how she gets off.

Vegan marshmallows.

“... you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”

“I can’t find myself”

The Protagonist.

I suppose not all is lost (that just means I have further down to go).

What can I do to polish the shoes? I scrub, and I scrub, but they lack the luster of a good pair of shoes. And no matter what I do to polish them perfect, it’s never enough.

-- and (laugh more softly).

“But I could have told you Vincent...”

How many women wear their worst nightmares underneath their shirts, below their chests - probably enough to make me sick.

“I was nine years old when I first thought I was fat”

"Everyone in the end is a sort of walking compromise"

(Antigone)

...dirty rotten pig stealing...

Fuck you Batman

The taste of chocolate is going.

I hate boobs. I hate them. I wish I was a scrawny little girl with the body of a twelve year old boy, and had no boobs.

That would be ideal.

I hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you.

(Grade 7; I need a tensor bandage)

Wrap, wrap, wrap, Alana style.

Cut, cut, cut, Julia style.

Snip, snip, snip, pretending I’m a seamstress; a hairdresser; making something from nothing)

July 16th. The end, I guess.

(good bye, good bye, good bye - Charlotte’s children fly away)

It’s funny how blood is warm and cool at the same time.

“and I told you to be patient,

and I told you to be fine.

and I told you to be balanced,

and I told you to be kind”

Shut the FUCK up.

I will fucking throw your laptop across the room, and slap you in the face (the world’s gone fuzzy and I’m seeing red) and now I can barely hold back the tears.

If I stop smiling, I’ll just cry.

Your response messages aren’t long enough, clearly you don’t care, clearly you side with him, clearly, clearly, you think I’m too whiny, clearly you’d just rather if I shut the fuck up.

(god damnit bitch, don’t cry. Not here, not now - why didn’t I come prepared)

I expect for our friendships to end any day now, I expect I’ll be thrown under the bus.

Fucking little bitch, why do you expect pity? What the fuck makes you think you deserve that?

Everyone is too busy, too exhausted to bother listening to you, to bother pitying you.

(you brought this on yourself you know)

You pathetic little attention seeking whore.

(Fuck you fucker for being weak.)

It makes unhappiness something to look forward to

I like your other idea.

Fruit Loops

I just need to be a little more scrappy.

A lot more scrappy.

Sex in the City: ' wouldn't it be great to be like that'.

Part of a witty sitcom 'group'. To have female friends. God, wouldn't that be nice.

Fistful of Dollars: 'wouldn't it be great to be like that'.

Loner, mysterious, and wearing leather. Wise, and cynical, and a little bit demented.

"You're aways wishing to be someone else"

No.

Most of my closest personas require a healthy dose of five o'clock shadow. Why was I born a woman.

Do you mock me?

I imagine that you do (but I hope you don't).

Fuck everyone. 

Just you watch.

"... because, no offense, I feel way more passionately about things than you."

“Men and mascara, they always run”

- that's only one side of the story, and it's not the side I've read.

I’ve never invested that much in a person. 

I suppose I entered into the relationship, knowing it wasn’t going to last. I remember trying not to get invested, trying not to take it seriously.

But there’s something exhilarating about him telling you he’ll love you forever, and knowing him well enough to know that isn’t true, - and still feeling so, so happy, because he loves you enough to think that he will.

He. She.

“... and the kitchen I was standing in when he said I’m through...”

You’ve extended a challenge, haven’t you?

Nothing has ever been so surface, but my still, my eyes always prickle when I talk about you.

I still don’t believe in soulmates.

“... like shoes” (Country music likes to compare men to frivolous pleasures)

But the truth is, of the people I know, men are the more loyal gender.

"I've been with a cheater before"

“That’s very interesting”

I think I actually intrigued her. (Do you think there will still be things I find intriguing after being twenty years in one business)

“... don’t try to hard to think, don’t think at all...”

If I stop, I’m reminded of that ache.

I wish....

‘almosts’ are my specialty. 

“I wish I was you. 

I wish you were me”

hey boy

(I’m waiting for that sign.)

---I guess if you tell yourself something enough times, it becomes true.

... and make sure you tell Daddy...

“$7.28”

X-ACTO blades and a kinder surprise. - Because remember that even so, I’m still a child.

“Don’t forget to remember me”

I feel awfully broken, and lost, and lonely. 
The loneliness is all my own doing. But just like the five-year-old me, and the accidental double knot in my shoelaces, I’m not sure how to undo it.

I’m just writing to finish the song.

I lost it, and even though I tried, I couldn’t find it again.

blades & chocolate - how poetic - (perhaps in a cheap sort of way) - but what am I to say.

“and even when it’s not, 

I tell her everything’s all right”

(I’m afraid I’ve become just like them - the colors I see are all a little more muted)

And everyone understands my experiences exactly because they’ve all had them too, and yet I can’t quite articulate the particulars that make up my emotions, and so the isolation begins.

I am a terrible person for you to have in your life.

I just want to make you happy.

It’s funny how it envelops your life. (how delicious).

(It’s just a paintbrush, right?)

I’ve started writing in my moleskin again 

“go out there are don’t know any better”

Everything is better when it’s sappy (Carrie Underwood, won’t you play my anthem)

Remember when Nonni was alive? She talked about God with such conviction, that after every time we visited, I would start to believe. And for a week or so after we left, I would pray. And then I would remember that there’s no such thing as god, and that prayers were simply fruitless goals, the outcomes of which I was putting in the hands of a fantasy.

We’re just involved with A Constant State of Melancholy. Perpetual Sunday evenings, the thought of that much depressed gloom is Glum’s version of horrifying.

“... and I may hate myself in the morning...”

Absurdity is the only thing that makes sense right now

Like a vase, dropped on the tiled floor, cracked.

                                Writing is the only thing that makes sense anymore.

I can still french braid my hair.

I know what's going on. You have everyone fooled, but you don't fool me.

(laughter as a last defense)

Why are you fighting?

Who are we fighting and what are we fighting for - I am unfortunately a Grangerford.

I would like to have the time to learn about the coloured pencils. I would like to have time to read the thousand-page anthology. I would like to be a lot of things (I can’t even master the beginning of one).

“Just call me angel of the morning, just touch my cheek before you leave me”

As selfish as she is. (that was way out of line) 

You shouldn’t always say what you’re thinking I suppose.

Your stupidity is rather impressive.

I should have known we weren’t right for each other, because of the wrong types of music (I tried to say that similar taste doesn’t determine closeness of the souls, but I think I must have been kidding myself)

I should like to be a 12 year old boy, in at least some way.

Burning plastic army men.

All I ever notice now is how skinny everyone is. How defined their chins are.

This might be home.

Angela. The twenty-two year old women who is a grown-up, but is trying (trying her hardest) to be a kid, so that she’ll be good enough for Peter Pan when he comes back (he will come back).

           - Innocence shouldn’t take so much effort.

I’m writing in Times New Roman because that’s what grown-ups do. 

Sometimes I like to reread the things you’ve said, although it makes me cry.

“... very practical!”

Would five-year old me be impressed? I’m not sure.

To-do lists

Antarctica. 

witness

There’s a bizarre twist in my version. Bad things are good, and good things are bad.

(There’s an expiration date)

Insist, and there’s nothing to be said, but it’s known that that’s that.

Things change.

“I don’t know”

Call me Christopher

Call me Emily

“I Ross, take thee Rachel”

I bit my lip...

Thinking is toxic

It’s like admitting you need help. Ugh.

(it isn’t safe)

melancholy

(remember how we used to pronounce it funny)

--I’m like Piglet’s scarf on the blustery wednesday; unraveling.

“...this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you”

You have no idea how badly I miss you.

My mother might visit me this weekend. I don’t miss her, and mostly she irritates me more than most people can ever hope to, but I hope that she can make it. I want to show her where I go to drink coffee (little birds in the restaurant that sit on my table and eat off my plate). I want to visit the thrift store maybe. I want her to be in a good mood (do you think she will be?).

Maybe we’ll go to the beach.

Maybe we’ll talk about boys, or maybe about her. Maybe secrets.

Maybe I’ll take her for a slice of cheesecake.

We’ll go to the gluten-free bakery (we won’t talk about certain things)

I’ll tell her about how I sat in the coffee shop bawling my eyes out over The Little Prince (who hasn’t done that)

Maybe we’ll talk about childhood.

She might cry a bit (but I hope, I hope she doesn’t)

Maybe I’ll show her some of my writing. Maybe she’ll like it.

We’ll talk about books, and brothers, maybe we’ll buy a shelf.

She’ll tell me I look good, and wince at my hair. I’ll tell her I get compliments on it, and she’ll make a joke.

--I want to be perfectly clear: I don’t need her, but it would be kind of nice to spend a couple days with her.

Where did my strength go?

(there's lots of blue tack left on the wall)

Certain types of bravery

I just don't fit right.

Remember me.