if you were to ask me how long i've been running for, i don't even think that i could answer. i just don't know anymore.

as messed up as i am right now, in some ways i'm doing a lot better than i was when i was younger. or at least, up until recently i was. i think i'm regressing. that bothers me a little, but it's also comforting.

i remember being in gym class in high school and wearing long sleeves under my gym shirt because i didn't want anyone to see the cuts on my arm. now i'm wearing hoodies and sweaters in the summer-- which would be normal for me if i wasn't also doing it indoors. the good news is that even though i started again, and have been going a little deeper than i used to, i haven't in about a week. so yay... maybe i can stop again.  but at this rate, probably not. at least it's cutting and not overdosing on nyquil like i used to. it went from, "bad day? drink some nyquil!" to "bad day? wipe off the ol' razor!" objectively, they're both bad.

one of the positives would be the music, i guess. within tempation, rob zombie, boys night out, placebo, evanescence-- all the bands i listened to when i was younger, i'm getting into again. weird al too, but he doesn't really fit in that group. i remember riding my bike around for hours, listening to songs like 'fat' and 'eat it' and 'girls just wanna have lunch' and not eating anything but a pack of gum or something. living off of comic books, math/science textbooks and brain teasers. no bike right now, but the music, gum, textbooks and puzzles are all lined up.

a negative is probably the need for seclusion. even when i spend time with other people, i keep wishing they would go away and leave me in peace. i miss my best friend from then, leo. he was like my big brother. he used to self harm too, but worse than me, and he suffered from depression. he used to stop eating for days sometimes because something happened to him. but it's not like he had an eating disorder, he was just depressed. he's dead now, which sucks major ass, and there's no one that could replace him. our friendship was really nice, because we understood each other and could talk about anything. and it was really balanced. i feel like all of my friendships now are uneven, like my friends don't really care about me. whenever i try to talk to my friends about something, they just go "hm" and start talking about something else. or they pretend to understand, and i can just tell by everything they're saying they didn't hear a word i said. half of them just use me so they won't fail school, and the other half just use me to fill up an empty space that someone else vacated. and then they get rid of me once they've got a better replacement. which is probably why i'd rather just be alone. it's basically the same.

a positive is probably the organization. my room is officially the most organized it's been since i was twelve, and it's nice to be able to find anything i need, even in the dark. keeping everything just so is nice. i don't have to think about too much. even my closet is organized, with all my jackets together, all my hoodies together and stuff.

i don't know why i'm writing all this. i think i'm trying to take my mind off the fact that this fucking wonderful guy, this asshole who wormed his way past every lock i put up around my heart is fucking ruining me. he ran into his ex-girlfriend, and because i'm his best friend, i get to hear all about it. again. like i have for the past two fucking years. i think every guy will always obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, and no matter how they say they're over her, they aren't. i also have the beginnings of a headache, because my other friend hazel-ra came back from a trip. i know he liked or likes me, but while he was away, he found a girl who looked just like me-- which is creepy and disgusting and flattering and infuriating and pathetic-- and he ended up spending a ton of time with her. as soon as he comes back, he says when he got to the airport to return home, he saw a girl, went up to her and told her she was the most beautiful girl he had seen in europe. part of me is like, okay, that's cute. part of me is like, so what about that girl who looked like me? was she not pretty enough? of course, whoever she is, i hate her guts already, but i feel sorry for her, because i feel sorry for myself and she looks a lot like me.

i have the music and seclusion. my room is organized, so i know exactly where to go for what i want right now. but i think three out of four is more than enough and i want don't want  have to can't cut right now. i'm more irritated than sad. i feel like a weak piece of shit for letting people get to me. for letting this dickwad chisel through the concrete i buried my heart in and releasing the whole fucking box of emotions i was so close to killing. for being trapped inside myself. i kind of want to throw up, but i don't think i will with my mother and sister here. (because then i'd have to go get food from downstairs and they'd know i was eating, which would be the straw on this feeble, incompetent, and wimpy camel's back right now.)

my heart is full of memory and desire, and in its last nervousness, there is pity for those i have touched, but only hatred and contempt for myself.

delmore schwartz

i wish i didn't feel like the world was caving in around me. i don't even know how i got stuck in this. every time i feel like i should be mad at other people, i just end up mad at myself. i don't know how long i can last like this.

honestly.

the lonely room where the self must be honest.

i finally slept, thanks to pancreatic-shock-inducing levels of sugar in my coffee. (what goes up must come down. i'm still waiting for the moon to fall.) it was a kind of sleep i haven't had in a while, the one where you're awake--marvelously and dangerously awake-- and then suddenly you're waking up, looking around confused, wondering how long you've been in that spot, with some silly dream trying to pull you back into unconsciousness. i hated it, but i needed it. much like many other things in my life right now.

i put a list of goals and objectives on my bedroom door at the beginning of the month. if anyone besides my cat had the balls to come in my room, i'd be-- for lack of a better phrase-- in deep shit. i'm thinking about taking them down, putting them somewhere else, and filling that space with a quote from franz kafka. you know, the guy who wrote that story with the bug-man and the weird family. metamorphosis. but here's the quote. i dig it.

from a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.

that is the point that must be reached.

it feels like something i should chant to myself, or put a melody to and sing in the shower. i love finding quotes that make me hiss, yes, exactly! that's it! so suddenly that my cat jumps and glares at me. i have a small journal exclusively for these quotes. it's not quite full, but it certainly is far from empty. much like many other things in my life right now.

i like it, because i reached the boundary line to that point with my family a while ago. my mother would call it my 'don't-care attitude'. i suppose that's fairly accurate. once i stopped caring about my sister was saying, or what my mother was saying, i placed myself out of their grasp. mostly. my sister doesn't make jokes about being a size zero while i'm the size of a baby elephant anymore. (or at least feel like one.) and my mother doesn't say much to me anymore. she's tried placating me by buying more vegan foodstuff for the fridge.  it doesn't work. i think they realize that i'm five comments away from shutting myself off from them.

i have to figure out where that point is for me. lately it occurs to me, what a strange, long trip it's been. i have a feeling it ends in relatively involuntary solitude, but i don't think i'll mind that as much as i should. it's not like it'll be any worse than where i am right now. wherever that point it, i think i'm getting close to it. i want to cross that line. i don't like the grass on this side of the fence. i don't know if that's good or bad, but i guess we'll see when i get there.

honestly.

the danger must be growing/ for the rowers keep on rowing/ and they're certainly not showing/ any signs that they are slowing

i have issues that i need to deal with. i don't think i even have them prioritized. it's time to get organized.

issue # 1: i can't sleep.

i've had a total of maybe... seven hours of sleep in the past four days. (not including last night, because i haven't even napped yet.) the good news is that i've been getting more done recently than i have for the entire summer. the bad news is that my muscles are starting to ache. i guess that's what happens when you push your body and it doesn't get a chance to recover. i know the solution to this seems simple enough: i need to sleep. it's staying asleep that's the problem. my brain is overactive. too many things are for supremacy inside my skull.

issue # 2: i miss waterbear. i miss odette.  i miss banana.

with the exception of banana, who finally spoke to me last week, i haven't heard from my other two companions. i don't have many female friends i actually enjoy spending time with. (as opposed to simply being able to spend time with them.) these three are definitely at the top of the list. i'll definitely hang out with banana, but since odette has moved and i don't know how to get to waterbear's home, i'll just have to wait this one out. or hunt them down. but i don't like missing people, because what if they don't miss you? i'm not sure i want to find out the answer to that.

issue # 3: i can't stop cleaning.

doesn't sound like a problem, maybe, but it is. the rest of the household (with the exception of the cat) is becoming lazy, leaving things laying around and piling garbage up, because they know i'll clean it. i don't want to clean up after them, but i don't want to become too irritated. i was babbling on sunday to my mother, words pouring out of my mouth rapidly. too fast for her to understand, i could see that on her face. i took a deep breath then, growled from behind clenched teeth. spoke as slowly as i could. why is it so hard for you guys to clean up after yourselves?! i keep cleaning and the house just gets messier faster! keep it clean! even if they did clean after themselves, i'd still find something to clean. i'm sure of it.

issue # 4: i think i love someone who loves me.

that's supposed to be good, but this someone is absolutely perfect. if i look into his eyes too long, my eye starts twitching. he listens to me complain about stupid things. like when the lack of adhesive on sticky notes causes them to peel off and fall without you noticing. he's such a sweetheart. he makes me a dangerous level of happy. if he was even the slightest bit unattractive, or an asshole from time to time, i'd feel a lot better. but he's neither of those, not even close. he invades my soul. i don't understand why someone like him would like me, which i've told him. many times. even though he doesn't believe in 'leagues', i know under normal circumstances he'd be way out of mine, but we've been friends long enough for it to be semi-irrelevant. it still messes with my mind, though. it makes me want to either get as close to perfect as i can-- which, let's face it, won't end well-- or protect myself by shutting down emotionally.

except for issue # 2 (hahaha, # 2), they're connected. the happier this guy makes me, the more energy i seem to have. the more energy i have, the less i sleep. the less i sleep, the more i clean. the more i clean, the less i want to clean, so i talk to this guy instead. but the more i talk to him, the happier i become. and i've tried other distractions, like crocheting flowers and hats, or reading books, but those have time limits. you start crocheting or reading a book, eventually you finish. our conversations only end when he falls asleep. i'll give him a nickname eventually, so i can stop calling him 'this guy', and you can become emotionally attached to him too.

i don't know what to do about any of these. i'm stumped. i'm sure if my brain could focus long enough, i could figure something out, but it isn't.

*cough* ........... *cough*

.... could use a bit of help here, guys. (please.) feels like my mind and body are going to disconnect soon. last time that happened, i almost ended up in a psych ward. i don't want that to happen. i don't think i could take all of my books with me.

honestly.

here comes the phone ringing the wrong tone.

i hung out with an old friend of mine the other day. he gave me 'the talk'. i followed him as he walked in endless loops. then he stopped suddenly. "look at the sky. what do you see?" birds. "birds, yes. now look at the flowers. what do you see?" a fly? "pretend it's a bee." a bee. "birds are natural. bees are natural." then he turned to face me, wildly. "and so is sex."

i won't go into the rest of it, it got pretty weird. he thinks of me as his daughter, despite the fact that he's only five years older than me. i don't mind; i've gotten used to it in the last eight years. but right near the end of his long winded monologue, he pointed at a morbidly obese woman waddling down the street. "always remember-- you are who you screw. so be careful, or you could end up like that." my eyes got wide, i freaked out a bit. is that true? "yeah, you know, a picture of dorian gray and all..." i stopped talking. he changed the subject entirely. suggested we go bike riding. so we did. for hours.

he said he was hungry, so we went to get lunch at a place i had never seen before. he went, opened the door then paused inside the frame. another morbidly obese woman was inside, literally taking up an entire table, hands grabbing fistfuls of food. shoving it into her mouth. garbage into a disposal. "it's fine," he assured me, as if i was the one frozen in place and not him. "come on." he offered me gazpacho. i declined. "i've never seen you eat," he stated abruptly. i guess that would be odd, since we've been friends for almost a decade now. yes you have. remember that time.... "that doesn't count. but it's alright." i was going to get a salad, but there were too many options. different types of lettuce, and then different toppings-- too much for my indecision to handle. i just got a pre-packaged fruit bowl and water. he looked, didn't say anything, until i arranged the fork, napkin, fruit and water in front of me to eat. "you're so neat. look, you've even got the plastic wrap placed nicely." i rolled my eyes and ate my fruit as he tore into a piece of bread and guzzled his soup. "the soup's good, but the vegetables suck." i changed the topic. more oscar wilde. we finished and then went off exploring other parts of the city.

we were walking down one of those alley-type streets (the ones people tend to stay away from) when i saw a woman in front of us pulling a suitcase behind her. bmi: 17, tops. clearly defined shoulders, thin legs, hipbones sharp enough to slice steak--  i was impressed. he looked away. "ugh." i already knew what he meant. what? i think she's pretty. "that's because your mind is warped by iggy pop and heroin addicts." pfft. iggy's gorgeous, no matter what you say. besides, i thought you were into that. remember miss violin? he just gave me a blank look. "yes. i do. and no. i'm not." miss violin was a girl that i was friends with in high school. he liked her. back then, i wanted so desperately for him to think i was the best person in the world. his confession made me angry. i made a list, me vs the girl. the only difference between us was that she was incredibly, amazingly thin. i thought he was into that. i worked hard to be thinner than her. i would stand beside her and try to compare our bodies. then i started avoiding her. high school had enough problems without that on top. so he didn't like her because she was thin. hm.

later, we went to a small restaurant, since it was dinner time (for him) and he was yet again, hungry. i can't eat any of this. "i know. none of it is vegan." he tried to order for just himself, but they wouldn't let him.so he ordered something for me, as if i was the one who would eat it. bought a beer for me as an apology. it was crowded in there. i'm fairly certain the legal limit had been passed. there was barely standing room, much less sitting room. you could see everyone eating. the table next to us was so close that i had to keep my arms tight against my sides so i wouldn't elbow the woman devouring her meal. chewing, chewing, chewing. everyone was chewing so loudly. i downed half of the bottle in a few seconds. i thought that would make me less tense. not a chance. he noticed my growing irritation, swallowed his food and the one he ordered for me (whole, it seemed), drank half of the remaining half of the beer, and paid so we could leave.

he didn't want me staying out too late. we had been wandering for hours and hours. told me i should hop on the train. i smiled. gave him a hug. said i had tons of fun. i did. it wasn't until i got home that i realized i didn't like much of what came out of his mouth the entire day.

maybe some people are better seen and not heard.

honestly.