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.

Her words.

Her words fill the space of her therapist's cushy office. Sanitized air mingles with empty breaths.

The nights are still the worst. Porn and masturbation so I can pretend I'm not alone. Metallic kisses to subdue tears. Fingers scooping the emptiness and body lurching in response. Ash burning linen. Trying to hibernate in a nest of blankets that are never quite warm enough. Waking several times with a start from dreams of being pushed down stairs. Wonder if next time I fall from a building I'll make contact with the pavement. If I died they wouldn't find me till tomorrow night. Slipping further and further into dysfunction. "You're pretty," they say. "You're nice and smart and funny and everyone likes you." But there is no proof and it's not enough, anyway. I don't want everyone to like me. I only want you.

She's just blood, bile, smoke and bones.

"I don't love you anymore."

"I don't love you anymore." He had turned his head away and she watched as his words fogged up the window of the last train home. She couldn't speak, but she felt the way he was slipping out of her grasp, just as his hand did. She leaned towards him but he turned his head away. He wouldn't even give her a chance, so she forced herself to find the words.
"I had a dream." He didn't respond but she knew he was listening.
"We were arguing. I was crying. You were unkind." Still no answer. She swallowed and continued, "I had a bottle and I smashed it against the curb. I slit my wrists with the shards and then ran. I disappeared into the night."
He looked at her now, but she saw nothing in his gaze.
"It was so liberating. I felt more alive than I ever have."
The train slowed to a stop and she arose, wrapping her cruedly hand-made scarf around her neck and buttoning her coat. This was her stop. She stepped out into the cold and shivered as the train rolled away behind her turned back. He hadn't followed her, but she hadn't expected him to. She disappeared into the night.

This will be the last time.

This will be the last time I write for you. Or at least, this is my hope for myself. Because if I have to re-play those days one more time in my head, I might die. I cannot sleep anymore. I cannot eat. I spend hours avoiding thinking about you; distracting myself in a futile attempt to forget.

I have stopped crying so much. But I have also stopped feeling the same way. I replace one vice with another. I can stave off tears with something else but it is more painful, in a way, and you would not like it. But who gives a fuck what you like.

I have replaced sadness with anger – love with hate. I do it to survive. I wonder sometimes if you will push through the screen and find me on the other side, as you said you would.

I think of the other times often. I think how little they matter now, and I think it should make me feel better. But it’s the same as then, now. I wonder if this time is the time that it won’t get better. Maybe this is how it will be forever. Maybe there is nothing to salvage – nothing to hope for.

I’m searching for new life, but all I can see is the ruins.

Previous post.

Previous post is a work in progress. Say what you will about it, because it needs some serious improvement. Thoughts??

The Doll.

The doll sits on a high shelf. So high, in fact, that most shoppers pass her by without so much as a glance. Every day she watches the tops of heads flit past, and she sighs. She often feels like calling out. “Hey!” she would cry, “I’m here! Look at me!” But the looped end of her string remains at the small of her back, and so the words will not come out.

She was pretty once, though she can’t recall the time. Her hair is still thick and dark and frames her perfect complexion. She wears a red dress of the softest fabric. Her hands are perfectly manicured, and her lashes as long and lush as they ever were. But there is a stain on the doll. It runs from her chin, under her dress, over her heart and across to the joint between her leg and her hip. It is the product of someone’s mistreatment from so long ago, but time has not faded it one bit.

Some days her only friend takes her down and dusts her off. He looks into her glassed eyes and smiles. She thinks maybe he sees something that the others do not. The warmth of his hand cupping her face reaches deep within her, and her rosy lips ache for his own. It’s these moments she lives for now, but they are fleeting and ultimately leave her feeling empty. His eyes will stray to the other dolls. Perhaps sometimes he will reach for one in plain view, as if he intends to swap them – but he never does. The doll finds herself on the high shelf again.

Early on a Monday morning, the doll hears the tinkling of the shop bell and sees a boy walk in. The clicks of his boots bounce off the walls as he walks through the room. He yawns, his eyes skimming lazily over the shelves. Finally, he comes towards her, and her heart skips a beat as she notices how very tall this boy is – how his eye line is almost level with her own. He sees her, and she knows the moment that he does. His face lights up and his hand reaches delicately for her own. His touch is unlike any she has felt before. His thumb brushes gently across her stain, but she does not flinch away. His fingers find her string and he pulls. “I don’t know how to love,” she tells him, “But I wish someone would teach me”. He is enchanted, and she watches him as he watches her. There is no one else.

He takes her home and places her on his desk. He glances at her now and again, a smile crossing his face. She knows that he loves her, so she doesn’t mind when he leaves her there alone for days. He always comes back. She watches him sleep, and though she longs to lie with him – to hear his breath up close and feel the warmth of his slumbering form – she is content.

Time passes and things change. The doll feels the difference in the boy, but she can’t explain it. One day she wakes to find him packing his things into boxes. He is hurrying, and in his haste he knocks a glass full of drink over. He does not notice as the pool of liquid spreads across the surface of the desk, finally reaching the doll and seeping into the hem of her dress. He does not see the corners of her lips turn down, and the tears escaping from her eyes. She wants to tell him, but it’s been months since he’s pulled her string.

The boy barely looks at the doll as he returns her to the shop. He hands her over and pockets the cash, and he is gone before she can stop him. She knows she will never see him again. Her old friend returns her to her shelf and she sighs. She feels the stain across her chest, looks sadly at the fresh one on her clothing and contemplates the time that she may spend in this very spot. Her life seems to stretch endlessly before her and she feels so very alone.

Who knows how long it will take for another boy to wander in off the street and find her? Perhaps it won’t happen at all. She is patient but not hopeful, because she knows it takes a very special kind to really want a damaged doll. But she will wait.

How detached.

How detached can one person become from all that surrounds them?

I suppose that we shall see.

People push from all directions. Why can't we co-exist in peace?

I wish.

I wish our stupid scanner would work. Dad is trying to fix it... In the mean time I guess I'll have to settle for taking shit photos.

I painted this last night, consumed with fatigue, but wanting to produce something pretty. It was supposed to be me, but she looks sooo very Caucasian. Dammit.

I am stoned.

I am stoned as fuck and all alone in a dark room. All I can feel is the wall behind and the floor underneath. I can't see anything. Maybe there is an infinity of space around me. Maybe I am in outer space. Right on the edge. Right in the corner facing it all. I would never even know.

Alone.

I am not what you want. Not anymore, or maybe I never was. Just in my head. Consolation prize number one. The only time I come first.

I see them. They are legs and skin and lips. I am tears. But like them I am only on your mind as long as I am in site. Your head follows your eyes, just as your dick does. That's why I like to do it in the dark. I am the centre of your world when you are left alone - when no other tits fill the space. Can't you see the fucking irony you imbecile?

Second best, second best, second best. Nobody's first choice. Nobody's favorite. Nobody's one. It burns. And fire is the one hurt I can never seem to grow accustomed to. A blade pulled repeatedly over skin is preferable. But there's only so much blood you can watch as it beads and runs on the surface. There are only so many times you can stop yourself from pushing harder - digging deeper. Excavate a vein and pull till it bursts.

I want to die. I want to die. I want to write it over and over until I have the courage and it leaves me. Breathing is so hard but it only gets harder.

That night I wanted to see you marked five years since. I couldn't be alone. I was frightened. You wouldn't come and I will never forgive you. I will never forgive myself.

All I need.

All I need to do is calm down. I somehow manage to get myself so worked up about things these days. I wear my heart on my sleeve much more often than I am comfortable with. I used to be way better at all this.

Anyway, it's 2011, so I have resolutions. I wrote these down at Southbound while I was roasting in my tent. I was probably pretty delirious, but it doesn't come out that way :D I think.


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

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

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

4. Lose weight, stupid.

5. Save enough money for Japan and then some.

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

7. Make some valuable contribution to the community.

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

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

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


YEAH.

I just made mousse and now there's chocolate all over my dress. I am high class personified.

The New Year

The New Year for me had a terrible start, and it doesn't really look to be getting any better.

New Years eve was horrible, and if you know me then you probably know what I'm talking about. Perhaps you're even questioning how it could get worse. True - that night was physically taxing, but there's nothing worse than mental and emotional hurt. There is too much weighing on my mind.

There is nothing to be gained here. I made a mistake months ago and I'm being punished for it today - everyday. I don't know how much longer I will last.

I don't want to be here anymore. I want to leave.