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.

hidden cracks that don't show/ but that constantly just grow

i've never felt like i was really a part of this family, without my dad around. if there was an award for greatest dad in the world, he'd definitely lose. he kept me on a pretty short leash. but he was a good guy. even if i hated him for my lack of freedom, once i realized there was such a thing out there, he did really care about me. which is more than i can say about the other people in this family.

when i was three, i started feeling like i didn't quite fit into our family. half-brothers, half-sisters, and me. my mother's family, my father's family, and me. see, they're not my family. they're separate groups that were formed before i was born, and didn't have room for me. it was probably because i didn't feel like my mother and i got along. in spite of that, i tried to play the role of the good daughter. after all, i was the only child they both had together. but i still didn't completely feel like i fit in.

when i was six, i got a diary for my birthday. i wrote so many warped things in there. but the first really long entry in it was a complaint about how my mother had told me to carry a grocery bag full of oranges, while my older sister was told to just run up the stairs with bread. the elevator in our apartment building was off that day too. my arms were sore; oranges are really fucking heavy, you know. i told my diary my mother was playing favorites, that she didn't care what happened to me, and that it didn't matter if i complained or not because nothing would change. or so i thought. i told my dad what happened that night, and he listened quietly before telling me that my mother didn't care about me. he said her other children were her first priority (which was and still is true), and that i needed to be very careful about what i said and did to her.

not really the kind of thing you tell your child about your partner. i'm sure the only reason they never got divorced was me. i remember argument after argument as a child. the topics are irrelevant. but each time they began to get a little too serious, a little too loud, a little too angry, i would begin crying uncontrollably. once i even screamed. only once. we lived in an apartment, after all. i stopped doing that after i got the diary, but i started sleeping less and threw myself into my schoolwork. but i digress.

a few weeks ago, while cleaning the house, i began taking down my pictures and hiding them away. i didn't realize what i was doing until i was finished cleaning. it just didn't feel right, deep inside me. pictures of my mother, my half-sister and i side by side. well, technically, it was one picture of me, and my high school diploma. still, i found the other pictures of me and put them away. no one noticed. that just reinforces the thought in my mind, that i'm not really a part of this family. (one of these things is not like the other things.) what started off as a hairline fracture has turned into something worse. something irreparable. it's definitely not the kind of damage that can be fixed. as far as i'm concerned, i've been pushed away and i'll never come back.

so my only half-brother (from my mother) had his first child. and my mother's all like, "i'm a granny, hooray". and i'm all like, "couldn't give a shit." and she's like, "we're going to drive to a whole other state to bring them here and stay with us for a few days." and i'm like, "couldn't give a shit." and she's like, "don't you care about your nephew?" and i'm like, "i have five other half-siblings from my dad, four of which have been having kids since i was child. a new nephew means nothing to me. couldn't give a shit."

so they're leaving today. setting out to pick up my brother, his woman, and his spawn. i had a nightmare about the five of them (my brother, his woman, the baby, my mother, and my sister) sitting around laughing. it's one of few dreams i've ever had that i wasn't in. if i was in it, obviously no one cared that i was there, so it amounts to the same thing. i don't want to sound fucked up, but i don't care about this stupid ankle biter. this baby can go fuck itself for all i care. so can my half-brother, half-sister, and my mother. the woman, i don't know well enough to hate. but they can all take an express hand-basket to hell.

i don't want to share my space with a bunch of people i don't know, who don't know me. you should already know what i plan to do. after i finish this, i'll probably go brush my teeth, wash my face, drink a liter of water, and then put on a happy face. i'll pretend to be happy the entire time they're here. i'll hover on the edges of their consciousness, little more than a ghost. but still there enough to not be accused of insensitivity. i'll watch them interact. i'll watch them move the way people do when they care about each other, so the synthetic sympathy i receive on a regular basis is easier to recognize. and every time someone smiles, i'll feel more out of place.

the chances of this child and i ever spending time together after this are slim to none. just like all the other children my other siblings have had. so forgive me for not being overjoyed that it exists. that won't change anything for me. except my level of self-loathing, maybe. any conversations with me will be obligatory on their part. after all, i do still live here. but it's not like anybody cares, so... i'll play along. being mean is just a waste of time.

i can't wait for this to be over. i hope i can last.

honestly.

this is bullshit.

dear mom,


i'm not going to apologize for being the worthless piece of shit you have to tolerate until one of us dies or moves far away from the other. i will, however, apologize for not being able enough to build a time machine, go to the hospital i was born in, wait for myself to be born and slit my own throat.


also, if someone says to you, "get me a razor and a bottle of pills and i SWEAR your problems will be over" it's probably not a good idea to talk with your other children about how fucked up that person is, hm? especially if you're at the bottom of a staircase and they're at the top. because maybe, just maybe there is something wrong with her.


you guys are a fucked up bunch of people and i'm sorry i have to live in this shithole you call a house. oh wait, i don't have to. i'll be out of your hair soon enough.


i wish i could say all that, but in the time it takes i'd probably break down and start laughing. that's my defensive mechanism. one of them, anyway. there's silence, laughter and anger. sometimes there's a strange mixture of all three. my family pisses me off and i'm so stressed and frustrated and i don't even fucking know what else that i've actually made myself physically ill. if i shake my head it starts pounding. moving too quickly makes me nauseous. who's been stuck in bed all spring break? this kid, right here. oh and i totally lied to myself about making up homework. that's so much crap. i can barely get myself in and out of the shower.

i just hope that i'm absorbing all this bad energy so someone else can have a good few days for a while. if this shit storm doesn't blow over soon, i'm doing something drastic. like i should have a long time ago.

i really fucking hate my life.

honestly.