Update.

It's been a long time since I've written here, and I feel like it should be important to me to keep this updated. People who find my monologue are often redirected here, so it would be a shame if they don't actually find any information.

I'm a different person to who I was a year ago. I've grown.

Tom and I are living together in Northbridge, but soon we'll be moving in preparation for our first trip to Japan together. I'm counting down the days.

I have finished my Arts degree, and I am now in the process of writing my honours thesis in anthropology. I'm researching pop idols in Japan. Our holiday mid year is justifiable for me as I'm hoping it will help add flavour to my work.

A few days ago I received a letter from UWA saying that I've won an award for anthropology and $500 dollars. It came at a pretty good time; I'm stressed, and I was losing sight of where I wanted to be. Speaking of which, writing this is functioning as a kind of procrastination from my course work...

Better get back to it.

I'm thinking.

I'm thinking that I only need one new years resolution. From now on I will be in control. Of everything. My decisions are only my own. My emotions will be kept at bay. Tonight I'm making a drastic change, and it will give me the courage to face all that I need to.

Together.

Together they fell apart.

She lies back in bed with a smile on her face. Happy is not the first word to come to mind, but it is something akin to that. At least there is nowhere else in the world she'd rather be. She listens to his breath catch beside her; shivers as his sweat cools on her stomach. The night settles heavy around them. Silence pulses about the bed, creeping in as the sounds of their joining fades. She sighs to fill the space between them.

In the morning he leaves and she lies alone. Nowhere to be. No reason to greet the day. She lies on her side, her palms pressed to the warmth he left behind on the sheets, her face against his pillow inhaling the smell of his hair. If she closes her eyes she can pretend he hasn't left at all.

She becomes dizzy with the memory of him and the light that pushes against her eyelids. The room spins and suddenly she can not breathe. Darkness swallows her up, but only for a moment. Or so it seems.

She wakes. Nothing has changed. She is alone and once again breathes against his pillow. But it is soaked, and she smells nothing. Her tears have washed him away.

This year.

This year is coming to a close, as Elise and I realised this morning.

Elise: It's the 30th. That means New Years Eve is...
Me: Tomorrow. Shit. How did that happen?

It's time for me to check off my resolutions, before I start making new ones.

2011

1. Never ever ever everrr get as drunk as you did last night.

Success! Unless I somehow manage to do it all again tomorrow.

2. If you are awake and functioning, go to uni.

Nope. Didn't do that.

3. If you are at uni, go to your classes. Duhhh.

Think I mostly did do this! I was way better than I was in 2010 at least.

4. Lose weight, stupid.

Did, then put it back on again woohoooooo. Fuck.

5. Save enough money for Japan and then some.

Yes! I went to Japan, and to Indonesia, and I came back with $1000 in the bank. There are no maybe's and sort of's here. I actually fulfilled this resolution and I'm proud!

6. Make decisions, stick by them, and don't regret what you can not change.

I think it will be years before I actually figure out how to do this, if at all.

7. Make some valuable contribution to the community.

... I don't know what my intention was with this, but I didn't do it.

8. Stay in contact with people who matter, and cut out those who are deteramental to your wellbeing.

I'm getting better and better at this.

9. Make money from something other than soul-sucking part time jobs.

NOPE.

10. Grow your hair longer than it's ever been before. Yeow!

:'( I was so close then I had to get it cut to put up when I wore my kimono.

I'm fairly pleased with the results here. There aren't many of these that I can say I didn't even get close to doing, which was often the case in the past. Especially in the past couple of months I've been feeling ever hopeful. I'm riding, mostly, on a wave of optimism. 2012 will be the best year yet.

The one.

The one time that turned into more. He wants someone else, but he gets into bed with you. It doesn't matter - you both know how little time you have together, and that's okay.

The fake relationship. He pretends you're it. He introduces you to his friends by listing what he believes are your many talents. He fucks you, then he dumps you.

The perfect arsehole. You love him. You hate him. You will never be rid of him. You are ambivalence and he is ambiguity.

The not so nice guy. He is everything that is good up close. It's when you take a step back that the bad manifests. You can not breach that distance.

The clingy commitment-phobe. He loves everything about you and says so regularly. But he does not want you.

The drunken experiment. He was lost and you helped him find his way again. He will never acknowledge this or you.

The secret shame. He is sweetness behind closed doors, but in public you barely relate. He is damaged, but then, so are you.

The cheat. He could have been perfect, but he is not yours.

So, who's next?

Dear Sir.

(Image by DragonSpark)

Dear Sir,

Emily believes (and I agree with her) that Jane Austen suggests that if you've ever got anything worthwhile to say, you should say it in a letter. I figure that way you will never be misheard, and neither party can feign the opposite.

I wish I would write more often. I used to be able to sort things out in my head when I wrote them down, but somewhere along the line that stopped happening. I think that maybe it's because my life is so full of things I need to consider. I make sure that there's always something happening. I need for there to always be something to talk about. I can't stand the silence.

On nights like these everything seems to stop. There's nothing to do. No – there's nothing that I want to do. I feel like I could be anywhere in the world right now and I still wouldn't feel the desire to move. I am static.

And then there are those times (the ones that seem to occur more and more often lately) when I feel the urge to just do anything. I want something to happen, and I often get half way through making a change before realising how ridiculous I'm being. I can't count how many times in the past few months I've thrown my phone at the pavement, hoping to smash it into pieces, before sheepishly running to retrieve it. I find myself constantly walking out of rooms; picking a direction and continuing to move until it dawns on me that I have nowhere to go. I can't go back, so I will sit in a park, in a primary school, on a street corner, at a bus stop until my fingers are numb and my nose is running and I know I have no choice but to go home. Today I went into a pet shop with every intention of buying a particular animal. They had just sold the last of them, and I walked out asking myself what I was thinking. I can barely take care of myself, let along another living creature.

I don't know if I'm ever going to be okay. Sometimes that's fine. I can live with that. But other times it's not. I feel useless and the weight of my worries seeps out to touch the people around me. I don't know how to stop that from happening – and it really shouldn't. Because you don't have to think about the things that I do. What sense is there in both of us being unhappy, when it's only one of us who really needs to be?

I'm a pusher. I poke and prod at you constantly with no particular intention. I don't know why I do it. Maybe I want proof. Proof that you really do like me and that you're not going to leave. I can tell myself over and over again that you are my friend, that you have no ulterior motives, that I can trust you, but I still feel the need to test. I don't understand. It doesn't make sense. Most of the time you treat me better than I treat myself.

Yes, I'm a pusher, but I've been told that what I need is for someone to push back. Someone who says, “No, I want answers. You will explain this to me,” and who doesn't back down when I'm mad or when I try to shut myself away. Sometimes I need so much just to speak and to cry and to trust that you won't think that this is all that I am. I can't stop the darkness from spilling out, but it is my hope that one day I will exhaust myself. There will be nothing left of that time and I will be able to move on. It's not fair of me to expect so much from someone who owes me so little, but I won't be able to do this alone. I can't wait to be empty.

I know that I'm running out of time. I can feel my grip slipping. If this doesn't happen soon I will leave you behind and it will never be fixed. I can't say that I know what I will do to myself if that happens. Removal has always been the answer, but I still haven't decided what to cut.

Yours always, Elisa.

The blood.

The blood staining your fingertips is the only thing that reminds you you're alive. You have spent hours consuming pixels, and each one of those hours brought you closer to your death. So which of these is more lethal? The blood, or the television?

Insomnia makes people do strange things. Or rather, people do strange things when they suffer from insomnia. Sometimes minutes pass and you don't know what you've been doing. You find yourself outside in the street. You're wearing pyjamas and you have no shoes on.

It's starting to get light and that's not what you want. The morning brings desperation; the seeking, the straining, the endless words. How can you go through all of that again? How long can you pretend? All you want is to sleep forever. You hate the light and you will fight it with all your failing strength. But when you close your eyes it isn't darkness that you see.

The wall is cracking. Your defences will not hold for much longer.

So many decisions.

So many decisions need to be made - or at least, that's how I keep feeling. But why should I? Why can't I go with the flow; let life pick me up, take me along, and put me down somewhere new?

Things can stay the same, if I want them to, or they can change. I can adapt where necessary. I just need to remember who I am.

I am alone. I am happy. I am secure. I am capable. I am not searching in vain. I am everything I want to be and one day I'll probably even be more.

Fast.

Fast, fast, faster.

You are better than them. So prove it.

I had moved Pen.

I had moved Pen into a ward. Her plush armchair was replaced by a metal bed frame, hard mattress and prescription sheets. The walls were white and cushioned, and her fireplace no longer cast shadows upon them. She had become dangerous, so I tried to contain her. She was resentful.

She clawed and beat with clamped fists more often than she used to, but the sound was somewhat muffled. She cried and cried – the kind of wracking sobs that used to reach my ears and produce a similar, if somewhat subdued response – but I felt increasingly numbed to her pleas. She paced back and forth, muttering and cursing and stamping her feet. I heard only parts of what she said. She was so very angry at me.

Her skin was paler than ever before; almost translucent. She would not eat and every day she became more skeletal. Her emancipated bones jutted. Her eyes darkened to wells of wrath and when she turned to face me I had to look away. I couldn’t bare it.

Last night she had visitors. I did not invite them. I was not warned of their impending invasion. A door appeared and they entered; one small, one dark. Pen would not hear them, and neither will I. She began to scream, and this time the noise broke through my veil. She ran, flailing, at the walls. She pointed and gestured. All I could do was cower out of their sight.

Pen had never been as powerless as she was then. She was always the strong one, but even she couldn’t make them leave. They stood, stoic where they’d entered until she exhausted herself. She lay down and placed a pillow on her face, gesturing me over and holding my hands in place as I pressed down. We began to choke. She would have my strength, then, but I failed at that too.

We are still here though the visitors have gone. Pen waits for them to return, as we know they inevitably will. In the meantime she sits in a corner, her knees hugged to her chest and her eyes wide and unblinking. She prays for the next time and she whispers to me that I can do it. I am the strong one now.