I cried on Friday, I cried on Saturday, I cried on Sunday...what am I going to do without my Costa Rican family.

7 days and counting.

He has the power to call me sweetie and break my heart at the same time.

I have two presentations in my tico classes tommorow and then I can breath easy.

I have two weeks and 4 days to soak it all in.

Im already begining to feel the culture shock.

This Morning I heard the song The Way We Were from one of my favorite corny movies and I thought, How sad that we always look back and think, that was great, but while we were actually living it we were thinking, Im going to die. My determination for the next four weeks is to think right now, this is great and not begrudge all of the things I have to do. Because whether I like it or not, all of the struggles are what make my life rich, and trust me in Costa Rica Ive had lots of time where im just riding the waves, and frankly, I dont like it.

Costa Rica. I wrote a list of all of the things I would miss about Costa Rica on Monday and it came to three solid pages. And still I cant help but smile when I think that in a month and two weeks, I will be home.

You know that feeling where you want to scream just so that people will notice you are suffering. Its that whole misery loves company thing.

I need to get over the fact that I don´t know what the heck is going on.

I think this spring break Im gonna go to the family finca and the rest of the peolple in my program can just shove it right up there party every day playa every weekend butts.

I just have to say that Im so happy to be here in Costa Rica with Keiko. I love our struggles. And we are going to make it.

Ok so that depression only lasted half a day. I think I´m getting stronger.

I am so sick of myself right now I want to sit in this internet chair and scream bloody murder. Who decided that my heart should be pumping in this totally inadequate body, with this totally inadequate mind. My heart hurts right now and I want to cry and run terror through the streets.

I cant believe how much love I have inside. theres no one to recieve it and its like a cow that hasent been milked, its going to kill me.

I know the perfect word to describe me, which is akward. Im a stumbling, bumbling mess...I want to live in my dreams where he loves me. I want to sleep all the time instead of being in this reality. Im alone. Every night of my whole entire life I have gotten into a bed alone, I have dreamt alone, I have loved no one and nothing and everything all at the same time.

And its taking everything I have right now not to break down and say no more please, no more...

Im going to change my boy karma, and im going to do it before I turn 22. Ive been chanting an hour every Monday and Thursday... Im going to be happy, right now, at this very moment...Im going to help my friends in Costa Rica get through all this, cause they have been helping me. Im going to stop wishing I was somewhere else. and the next two months are going to be amazing because I make them that way.

Yesterday my grandma passed away. She was my stepdads mom. And I just remember how precious she was, while she tryied to stay strong for the familly at the reunion this winter. And I remember that she loved me and my sister. And I understand that she was tired and it was her time to go.

Random thoughts in Costa Rica

Time is passing by here so quickly because there is nothing to hold me down. After next week, which starts tommorow, as far as Im concerned, there will only be two more months in Costa Rica and thats including Spring break.

Could I be any more pumped? Could I be any less appreciative of the opportunity I have here?

But I want to learn Spanish and I want to get out and theres nothing more than that.

Yuck! Public displays of affection. They are gross and now I know why poeple dont like them. Ive been witness to far to many in this dirty country that will surely give me lung cancer.

How easily time makes me weep inside, how easily the minutes tick by. How often it seems they tick in months and days.

The chairs here are beyond uncomfortable. Three hours in a classroom with uncomfortable chairs means painful ass every thursday. I dread Thursdays. They bring out my fundamental darkness and every second is a struggle to overpower it
with light.

Please remind me what Im doing here with no sponge and a mild appreciation for language.

Please remind me what Im doing here, away from every single thing important to me...no love, no regrets, no feelings of anger...Just a fear, that seems unrelenting, of the next day and the next challenge.

Just the fear of constant failure and embaressment and not knowing what the hell to do.

Im going to go home and roll in the happiness of clean streets, green leafy salads, diversity, english, baggy pants and love.

Thats what I miss the most. Your love.

Its reallly hard trying to be freinds with peole through the internet. Especially when they are hurting, suffering, unhappy. I want to gather you all in a large room for a group hug. I want to tell you its all gonna be OK...I want to lie to you and make you feel better. I want to tell you the truth and remind you that all things pass and all things are important.

Human life is much like plant life, except for the working with the rest of nature thing. We are all interconnected and everything we do effects another human being.

Please be true to your heart. Please make difficulty decisions if they will help you and the people around you. Please dont ever let go. Because i need you and so many others do too.

Please eat good food and enjoy the sun, or the rain, or the snow...

Top Ten things I will remember about/Realized in Monte Verde Orientation

1. I fell in Love with another boy who will never love me back

2. I love sheets. I didn´t have them for two weeks and sleeping in a bed without sheets and dirty covers is less then comfortable

3. Costa Rica is not paradise

4. Every family is messed up and all men cheat

5. The bus almost drove of of a cliff and I thought -well, at least, when I die, I´ll be looking at a rainbow and the perfect picture of green

6. I am such a prude

7. In the US we don´t even understand the concept of bugs. Try little bugs on the floor and in the cracks. Big ones crawling in your shoes, gross ones waiting in your shower. Find thousands in your hotel bathroom drawn to the solatery light above your sink...

8. I´m a stickler for guys who are soft around the edges

9. The hot Tico guys ¨accidently¨ touching my ass

10. I know enough Spanish to get by...I know enough Spanish to want more...I know enough Spanish to feel it in my veins and crave it and hope that it will come.

Im in Cosat Rica. Its crazy.

i have so much to say, but only five minutes to say it.

Its been, scary, exciting, horrible, fun, boring, all of that all in one.

but most notably Costa Rica is beyond beautiful. i never realized places like costa rica exist, but im so happy they do.

Ok, so after reading everyone’s Blogs, I have come to the realization that I am a complete slacker. Haven’t written anything in like 3 weeks or something crazy like that...but seriously, it's been very hectic around here. Christmas, snow, trying to see all of my friends, been to the mall like fifty times trying to buy everything for study abroad, and packing, I haven't gone to bed until 2am every morning.

The scary day is tomorrow. The day I get on a plane and fly to Costa Rica and give up my very regular, no thrills, life here in the US. Am I ready? No of course not, and you know me, I’m totally doing the ellie freak out thing too. So this last two weeks has been stressful, but fun and I've come to appreciate my little sister even more, if that's possible. She really is my best friend in Portland.

Cassie, I got the scarf. Thank you so much, it was a wonderful surprise.

Andy, Weird dream...so did you write that letter to sensei?

Uyen, good job writing Spanish!

I miss everyone sooooooooooooo much. I keep thinking that I’m gonna get of the plane in Costa Rica, and all of the people from Soka are gonna be standing there waiting for me. But no. It will be strangers and I’m gonna have to make friends again, which I might add has been incredibly difficult for me to do in the past, so wish me luck.

I'll try and keep writing on this thing and I’ll try not to write in code, but I’m not promising much.

He's really sick. And I always knew. He has that sick man lateness and that sick man humor. But he's stronger than his illness and he will be with us for many years...i am so happy to know him. If I could, I would reach inside of his body and rip out the virus that has already killed him. When the word Terminal is attached to anything you know, it could be any day. It makes me shaky to think about how strong he is and how much he has given me, and how he was the one who finally made me feel again.

I think you might be jaded.

I wish everyone knew how much I suffered for him...Pined for him...gave my love for the first time to him. How much we went through, me crying on his floor. "Let it all out," he said. How come he is so good. Then they might stop asking where and how and when...then they would know how deep his love for someone else cuts me. You have no idea. And suddenly he's beautiful. And suddenly you are competition. And suddenly I remember how good it felt to know he was far away...unable to touch me.

I think you might be tainted.

Hmmm. I'm in a sort of in between stage right now, which is always good because it means I'm niether happy nor sad just tryin' to stay alive. Just tryin' to wait for the time when I get on the plane to meet mi familia y comemos mucha comida.

She was so empty. He was desperate to fill her, but he didn't know how...

If my mouth even opens right now, the words: Why am I so sad, why am I so sad, why am I so sad will come pouring out. Anyone...anything, anything, anything.

The girl looks at her hands, the sun pouring orange and painful. She whispers, "end it."

The empty is in a specific place in my body. right above where my food settles. and it radiates to my finger and toenails and it shows in my puffy creased eyes.

I'm trying to keep all of the parts together. Crazy is threatening me. Anything, anything, anything...anyone.

The monotony is torture. I hate it when I realize how sad I actually am. The emotions suddenly rising to the top because of a song or a book...a memory. And then I am faced with the reality of my seemingly endless dance with pain. We rock slowly back and forth together, while I reminisce about the things I thought about when I was ten. Pain sweeps around my body and holds me. and hides me. Pain comes and rescues me from my obscene hope that I could ever accomplish my dreams. "silly girl," pain whispers in my ear, "haven't we already been through this. You can run, but eventually you'll run out of breath."

Is it ok to have thoughts of beating one of your teachers down? I hope so...

I feel like I might just buy a plane ticket out of this crazy place. This place with all of its arrogant academics and people who think they are intellectually superior in comparison with..."the blue collars."

I'm so sick of defining myself by the papers I turn in. I'm tired of constantly trying to defend my intelligence. Trying to get up to par with the superiors who think that becoming like them is the right thing to do.

I'm so over it. I'm over APA and MLA and cover pages. Running heads haunt my dreams and the smug looks other students get when they are doing better than their friends. This is not a healthy environment. I am feeling just about as good as the dirt on my shoe and I'm tired.

Fuzzy, hazy, confusion. I want to understand everything...but nothing is true. Sleep deprived fog feels like ghostly howls. In and out of normal...hair spinning out of control. Feisty buzz of endless words. Lit review...Pointless...Point shoes.

I think it's time for a positive blog...I got the high score in psychology on the midterm...Happiness...I'm not as bad as I think. Seems like it's time to own my good qualities, and let them be important to me. More important than that silent scuffling in the back of my brain that wears me down.

I love my friends. I love my not friends. I love the possibilities.

I am invisible. If you need a definition, read invisible man by Ralph Ellison and you to will be invisible. Outside of time.

My friend Christina's father was murdered and then her brother and sister's dad raped her. She knows suffering.

She's hilarious.
She understands my mom.
She's much older then her years.

I love her light. I love her cheeks and the way they crease in the middle when she smiles. I miss her way down deep like dreams.

I dreamt about Wuyuki last night. And I missed him from my stomach.

His dad was also murdered and he is invisible like in my book. Or at least he's tried his hardest to be. But he's much to beautiful for that, and people are drawn to him like they're drawn to fatty foods or good books. He's complicated. There's this network of lies inside his head that he's been constantly telling himself to make him appear to others the way he feels. And I've tried and tried to wade through the lies and see the real inside, but It's been a losing battle. But I miss him way down deep, like thirst.

My dad's father beat his mother and my dad feels the pain deeper then thirst. He feels the pain throughout time and universal truth. And I miss him way down deep like love.

Missing the real.
Missing the truth.
Way down deep I'm missing messed up human beings.
Way down deep I'm missing how it was OK to be messed up
How it was worn on the sleeve like a badge and the people wearing the pain didn't even notice it waving there like death in the breeze...

She circles the tray with her finger and waits for the exact right moment to stand. If she stands now she's sure her knees will buckle beneath her and the hip that has been waiting to crack in three places finally will. When she does get up the air becomes dense and she inhales sharply wishing the light she sees would make it's way in. She picks up the tray, which seems to weigh 100 pounds. She steadies her hand and hopes the people in the Cafeteria can't see it shaking. 'I'm to old for this. Much to old.' But then the voice in her head cries out, 'don't be stupid! You're only as old as you feel.

She makes her way to the tray caddy and sighs with relief when she can finally slip the tray off her fingers, the unbearable weight of it all. Her friend makes her way over with her own tray. 'Are we really that wrinkly,' she thinks looking into her friends face. Shrugging in her head, she backs away from the caddy and hikes her purse higher on her shoulder. "Let's go." Her friend starts walking and she follows...and she follows and has no idea where she's going except down, way down.

Should write something, 'cause I feel like I'm going to implode. All of the outside sucked in to the dark middle that's waiting for the beak down.

Empty
Empty

Waiting for something to fill me up.

Empty
Empty

White

He smelled like pez, when he should have smelled like sweat and tears.

The driver has a red haired boy and knows all about fishing.

I really am a character in a play. And I'm playing my part too well. And I'm ready to jump off the page into a new script, the one I write for myself.

the wind

streams

through

the speakers

illuminated the sun

shines

i'm brighter

then most

of

my thoughts

you translate

and i'll lay

here

i'm confused

by

myself

all alone

with

your hand in

her pocket

speaking

words

of poetry

infused with

I love him

because

isn't it

always

about

my

closet

i'm in it

but not like

i

want a

woman

wants

a man

hidden behind the clothes

i'm in it

sobbing about

mis amigos

mi espanol

sucks

so

it

will never

end

this dream

translated

into

tongues

touching

across oceans

our fingertips

won't meet

but we

are so close

the electricity

sparks

hot yellow

blue

green

endless fields

trees

of eternity

and

I

remember

someone once

said

it'll be

OK.

I clicked the light on ten times...

Walked outside...

and I was lost.

Oh he swept down on me and he took me away... to places I had always dreamed.

And I cried just a little and laughed just a little...

And I'm OK.

Andy can speak French. Sorry I underestimated his ability. I think I'm just jealous.

It's days like these that leave me feeling a little empty, like what's it all about, and why do I keep on trying.

The howls are lonesome and isn't that the way it used to be. Out there, all alone, with just a few friends and the seemingly endless black dotted night falling on your skin.

I want to write beautiful prose the words coming together to explain the human condition...it's complexities. Why don't we just do what we feel? What is it that's stopping us?

I'm going to have to dance for my heart and forget that the steps are all about memory. Big chunks, concepts, not small pieces of somebody else's soul.

He was beautiful in that hat, sweating down his back, feeling love through his body and wanting so badly to transmit it to us.

I'm wondering when I'm going to wake up from this crazy, loveless life. One, two, three I'm squinting through the sun. Is it almost time. Is it almost time to wake up. I can't live in fear of never being loved anymore. So maybe that means me making mistakes. A good lot of them. Maybe that means giving up my ideal and settling for ok if not only for the exprience. I have got to stop judging through my virginess. Yes that exsists, virginess. It's white and clean and smells a little like rotting lilacs. It knows nothing of how to let go. It knows nothing of loving the imperfect. It knows nothing of my body and the ache there. It is oblivious and cold and careful.

Knives slicing through chilly winter air. Water choking the air out of lungs because of its cold. Unfortunate happenstance.

I don't know why his smile has been getting under my skin...he keeps looking at me like he would if he didn't have the memoies to remind him of what used to be. I'm sure she haunts his dreams and the rim of his beer bottles. But I just want someone familiar and someone I love even if it's not in "that way." And he's it. He's all that's left. And he's right here on this side of the Pacific. So it's tempting to let go with him. I could just walk to his room and ask him if he wants to talk. and then things could happen and I could get what I so desprately need. Just to be held, just to be wanted if only for a short time. But I don't know if I want it to go down like that.

And then there's him, does he really look at me like he's interested to know what it would be like to slip me out of my clothes or am I just completely streching.

This campus is dark depite the daylight and there are monsters lurking behind every corner. Oh wait, that's just me being crazy (or is it)

Yeah I know that eaten up, shredded, hallow heart feeling you're talking about. I've felt like that only a few times. When my grandma died, the two times my best friends hated me for being different and not wanting to hurt others anymore, and everytime I could smell the drug smell wafting up from my dads bedroom door. It hurts and feels like it will never go away, but it does. I have every confidence that your life will bloom into the brightest flower and your parents will see you for who you are: the cutest boy in the world. But rummble the tummy changes take time.

Hurry up. That's what my brain keeps screaming in my ear and I'm falling apart at the seams like a well used stuffed toy. I can't break again, I don't want to do this. At the Ramen place I left and went to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and cried...she embarressed me so bad and I was light headed and it really got to me. I don't know how many more times I can do that.

I've really got to go wash my hair...

I'm sick of being part of the group. I want to know and love each person in the group, but I don't want to be bound to them anymore and I don't want to do things because they told me to.

I will get some work done. I will think for myself. I have to start thinking for myself. I have to forge "the Elizabeth Way." 'Cause I'm done being laughed at because I'm different. I want to be proud of that. And I want to be cheesy and sappy and that's OK. I had gotten so good at being myself the two years before I came to SUA. But that person is slowly being erased. And I'm dull and lifeless and I'm sick of sitting in a big circle and wallowing in the pain because that's easier. It seems all we do is build these impenatratable walls with our self doubt and our circles of inside jokes. I'm going to start doing things the hard way.

Ya know what I hate the most? I hate the fear of seperating from them and the fear of being alone and the judgements I know they would make on me and they would feel betrayed. And I hate that they would all sit in a big circle and talk about me and why I'm changing and anylize it to death, and I hate even more that I would do the same thing...That's the poison of a group.

They broke up. And he's waiting for her to mature. And it just made me pause for a second and think how it should have been me, instead of his ideal. I wouldn't have let go, and he's wrong, the distance didn't make them stronger and it never does..not unless there is love. More then your everyday average. no more cold sheets. I dream of different demensions and am happy.

I'm going to miss your selfless love...but have a good time: and don't just survive, have fun ;)

My goodness how did I get back to SOKA? On the plane silly. But it's weird to be back...it's weird to put an emphasis on the number three, and he looked the same but more like a little boy in the message. I'm kinda scared. I want to do Like 2000 hours of diamoku. I need it. Not very practical. Just getting started...how come it feels like the middle?

It's funny how things don't matter very much until they're almost gone. It's that tip of the finger feeling...that... it's almost over stress. I'm going to miss SUA. I'll only be gone for three months but alot of us will be seperated for the seemingly endless length of a year. I want to get everyone together for a group hug. For a group "I love you." I want to remeber the way these last days feel so I don't forget why I love SOKA so much. Boundless hope.

He has a relationship now. And it's tearing me apart. I don't know why I sat there and let him tell me that thier distance would only make thier bond stronger. Why do I keep talking to him about my life. It will never be entangled with his, engulfed in his eyes. He cares about someone else and I am screming ten thousand screams inside minute after second. And it seems like the screams will reach to the end of eternity, because that's how deep the oceans are. The past has known us before and I've known this pain before. It's called disapointment. It's called endless love unreturned. I always thought I would be a piece of his puzzle, but I'm not even a crack in the finished product. And I'm dying minute after second. And I'm sorry I Iost something that was never mine.

Goodbye my friends whom I've shared my changes with. I will miss you.

I've really got nothing to say. My life is on one of those smooth sections of the road. Can't really feel anything, I'm going through the motions. Can't really see anything 'cause it hurts to much. And what's more, don't really want to get out a bed 'cause I know the day will mean nothing. Endless thoughts of things I can't have and things I can't acomplish and this dull buzz in my ears. I'm a walking, laughing nightmare of a girl who can't see past the thunder and can't hear past the clouds, and isn't even trying...to get a love, or a number, or a drink...not even trying to get a let go or a let loose or a lose control. If I dressed my vagina it would wear kakai colered shorts. No silk or velvet. No lace or lilac, only dull tan shorts. Haven't owned up to anything, excepting my wrong actions at the wrong time. Haven't apologized enough for tearing the people around me apart...I sit and mope and they think maybe it's them...it's not. It's more about the long endless highways and the streches of green that touch to heaven. It's more about how ninty and twenty equal 110...who cares. Wow! And it's really about how I want to be a poet and a dancer but I don't have the guts, the talent, or the brains to do what I really want to do. And it's always about how I don't love myself and it rubs off on others. And it seems that it will never cease to be about lonliness and pent up sexuality and my anger at everyone else for having what I want.

I am going to evolve. I am going to change. This is going to end. And the world will sigh because it knew me.

There is only a thin thread that separates us from pain, from death, from love.

It's about time I fell into someone elses space. Into thier personal, into a claim of devotion.

I fall asleep with frantic images of love. With empty. Without knees and knobs that belong to someone else. I have never been held. I have never been kissed.

Concept unreal, try to hide it from myself really. Because she hit the nail on the head while we were on the boardwalk.

My spirit will die. Never knowing the tug and pull of someone elses for sheer want of my attention.

And I just keep waiting here for the universe to renig on this cruel joke it's playing on me.

I'm sure without a doubt the gods are watching from thier hiding spaces.

Laughing at and loving the girl they've denied life.

Fingers brushing away the lonely that has seeped into my bones, I'm about to give it all up.

It's so nice when I slip into that cacoon of pain. It becomes my lover..."no one but me could ever want you", it says. "No one but me." And it is black and destructive, just like an abusive relationship. I cradle it in my arms because it's all I have. The only flaw: pain doesn't wipe away the tears. I have to do that myself.

And eventually it becomes to hot and to explosive and I have to abandon it for a bit. But pain always comes back, tugging lonely behind, and because my bed has never known the heat of another I let it in, my first love.

I made another realization today. Some of my friends are really abusive to me. I'm sensing a pattern in my life. I'm sensing falling apart in my life. I'm sensing that I've been ripped.

I came to a realization the other day, while the perspective students danced on the green and I sat from a distance wishing...I came to the conclusion that I am deathly afriad of myself. Of everything I could become, of my sexuality, of my personality, I'm even afriad of my life and the desicions I would make if only I let go. This has always been my issue. What if...I danced and I couldn't control the outcome. What if... I loved and not everything went according to plan.

So my head is swelling up and I know what that means. It means it's about to burst. My desire is about to turn to this cold hard ache and it could get ugly folks.

I laid close to the earth yesterday, and looked at the sky and willed the bugs to bite just so I could feel a twinge of life. It's not really there where it should be fluttering around in my stomach. I even wish for pain sometimes so that I know I am still here on this earth, still functioning not just mechanical.

I understand who I attract and why they are attracted. Because I'm safe, and so are they. Where is the danger, so protected, overprotected, wishing someone would just come abuse me because then I would have a story to tell. I'm always telling other peoples stories, this wisdom put here by someone other then myself. I'm always looking in the mirror wishing I was free and I wasn't afraind to shake my hips and strangers didn't make my cry.

I'm wishing for swirls and unconcious desicions and stop asking twenty questions because it's just procrastination to get at what you already know. I already know that if I just make the desicion to change it will be instant. I already know that the game is on me. I know, I know, I've seen so many times what I have to do that it's begining to get fuzzy and blur around the edges and look kind of like the leaves lit up by the sun.

It's just taking that step...it's just taking over that moment and saying..."you know what? It's on."

Should put up what I wrote in Scotland...not yet.

Put on a pedestal you fell so far. I like your faults, they make me seem human.

Smile at me, sleep with someone else and I'll just keep remembering what I should have had.

Dragon on his hand

Back pressed to mine

a small boy

waved good bye with a smile on his face

When I was younger I took my mom for granted. She cooked, she cleaned, she loved, she slaved and all I could think was how she wasn't doing enough. Who was I? How could I? Where did this appreciation come from?...when did this mind shift happen? My mom is a god.

I sat around this table and looked out at love and I realized I am rich.

And now, even the air I breathe reminds me of deliverance.

And now, even the bad things seem like wishes come true.

I'm twenty years old, and my life can feel it.

How does a man lose his way.

Find the little boy in the obese body.

That's who he remembers

That's what never ends

Childhood.

Life makes me afresh daily.

Sweet middle C's ring out.

Endless.

It's Valentines Day, which tends to fill me with hate and anger but this one is different. I woke up this morning and I was like, I'm gonna make this a good day, and so far I have. If you love and give, people will love and give back...lesson number one. Lesson number two, acceptance can go a long way.

How come I feel like something really bad is about to happen or has happened? I've got that down in my gut feeling, and it's scary.

Love is like film, it needs darkness to develop. How great is that line.

Today was one of those wham bam thank you mamm kinda' days, and my brain hurts. Running around, chicken cut lose...how does your world change in a single moment?

Good Vs. Evil...I have so many people to talk to this about. Oh no...here it goes.

Happiness comes to those who welcome it with open arms and a bright smile.

Wiggle your nose rabbit. I know, I take it back.

My desperate attempts at consecous are lost, and so I zone out, and fly to the land of, oh how this is painful.

Brain twisting, far out, universe kind of changes are happening to me.

Occupy time with weird dreams and endless thoughts of how it could be if only I could make up my mind. I have two new hobbies.

Boundless are your rivers of ideas, how dare you ignore mine.

I have fought to be nothing, why does that have to change.

looking back on old photos I'm more then I can handle.

Moments, frozen, of ice pops and snowangles, but they don't portray how right then, I was wishing I had a boyfriend.

You keep wishing your life away, soon you will be wishing for those days you used have back.

Aren't you hungry for a change or is that my own twisted duck.

I guess Americans get to start over twice...happy new year.

Roots, sucking,
Life sustaining...
I have risen, it's hard to see
Sponge like,
more then pores,
roots sucking,
Anything more?
Throw...shove...Push,
everything at me.
Laughing, mouth wide,
eyes have always sparkled,
roots sucking.
I've been ready.
years stacking,
time passing.
I've been ready.
Amiration...anticipation,
forgetting to take care of many...
I am a work in progress,
roots sucking, life sustaing...

Rough around the edges.
Not quite together.
Breathless.
Speaking of the unknown as if it will be easy.
I fall a little more each time I fail.
I look foward to the nothing moments, because darkness shields pain.
Don't look at what I haven't become.
I can tell I have a lot of growing up to do.
I've already come to far not to be moved.
Keep mistakes and never learn.
Wipe the salt water.
Ready to lay down under the sun, hand held up, see through fingers.
Squint and laugh...It may always be the same.

There are these moments I have that remind me of how alone I am. They are kind of like an epiphany only they hurt, and that’s when it starts. Slam you down in the mud, rough and unforgiving sadness.

It could have been any other night…bird.

Remembering that I have a hole somewhere in my middle, insides dropping out, that’s the hardest thing about dandelions and never knowing center.

The light can dim to a glow…hard to see, hard to even notice those people to my right.

Sleeping alone is like forgetting the sun sets as other things slow down. It’s like a wish…a constant, steady reminder of empty cups and empty hands. I have slept alone since the day I squinted at the bright lights in the hospital.

My spirit has never known unshaven legs and face stubble…it is half there. My spirit longs to touch “man heart” and hair that has never been longer then mine.

Oh woes to the never calm ocean that mimics my heart and teases me because it is content.

Sand between my toes has always felt better then sitting and waiting…

His voice falls to high and scratches the wrong side of my brain, and they all laugh as he raises his arms talking about a new world order.

She is so sentimental and I want to see through her skin, it's almost translucent, like fat free milk in a clear glass.

I can't take anymore of your agreement, never nod your head in the affirmative again, not unless you've really thought it through.

I like how we are exactly the same, and he wants love and I would give it...this world is truley mysterious.

Thank you for appreciating me...you have never done that before.

I think he's holding on because he knows my book is the last thing connecting him to me...he had his chance...I'm taking it far away.

There is this endless, relentless river. The answers are bobbing there, but the river runs too fast to truely grasp the truth.

Never talk to me of uh oh again...my dad is struggling to relate.

Andy just got spice girls stuck in my head. I'll tell you what I want...for it to go away.

Oh....

This sleepy, creepy love comes from nothing; this icky sticky mess, my heart. I'm thinking my hands are going to do the talking from now on...clay is my medium...I will communicate.

Old nag, stop pulling on the legs of my pajama pants; I know I am not to be so content.

But never the less, I am, and I feel as if I have broken into the cookie jar. Chocolate sticking to my fingers, a smile on my face. Sugar is so tasty when it's forbidden.

Create, becuase creativity is continuity. I am in love with the bottom to the top, smoothing clay, tasting it on the tip of my tongue, legs spread, knowing the shape of my hands...icky sticky love comes from nowhere.

What am I going to do? When will I stop questioning everything and take action? Is my questioning nessacary for my understanding of the action I want to take? If not me then who... Me feeling overwhelmed is not going to change anything. I just listened to a story about how women planted billions of trees in Africa...When am I going to start planting?

I walked through a maze once and it was so surreal I can, now, only remember it as a dream.

I think I may have brought a puppy home once, that puked on my lap and was immediatly taken back to the farm we had rescued it from.

I may have been stuck in an elevator with my dad and his brother, but they say they don't remember...

Did my dad really snore so loudly it shook the house or was it something else?

When I was still in elementry school I would swear to people, up and down, that I once closed my eyes at night only to wake to the sun a second later.

Was there actually a big dinosour that I went to on a school trip...it looked like the largest slide in the world.

When I smelled weed for the first time, I recognized it immediatly as the smell that permeated my dads room on the bad days.

Katie and I made a trip across a dark feild to a two level shed, I think, and the dolls that were perched on the stairs looked like monsters waiting for a meal.

We finally had our talk...

And it reminded me of rainy days in the summer. A relief from the heat.

So what will I breathe in next...

And who's body will I finally posess.

I'm ready for red sunstreaks...

And the quite sound the ocean makes when muffled by a window...

Who are you?

There once was this fish named burt. His name wasn't really burt, it was ernie, but he prefered to be called burt because it sounded more manly. One day burt decided to go out to eat. There was this really great joint around his rock called the pond de yummy. So he went out with five scales, which was a lot of money in his time, to get the yummy special. When he got to the food joint he gave the guy at the water plant gate his five dollars and entered a world of yummy grubs. One particularly fat grub caught his attention and he decided to catch it instead of the yummy special. He swam towards it slowly avoiding the other fish dodging about. It glimmered in the sun and looked delicious, he had never seen such a good looking yummy before. In time, he was close enough to it that he could dart out and grab it with reasonable ease, so he did, and just as he was clamping down he noticed a peice of silver sticking out of the side of the yummy grub. But he notice to late and before he kew it he was being pulled out if the water by the hook that had been hidden inside his precious food. Before he got pulled all the way up he yelled down to the other fish, "the fishers have found our site! The fishers have found us," and then he was in the air dying.

"Looks like we found us a good one." "Yeah he's big alright!" The fish in Jim's hands was flapping around and struggling like there was no tommorow, well, actually there wasn't for the fish, but..."Boy he sure can move!" Good eaten tonight, thought Jim's fishing buddy Ralph...good eatin' tonight.

Burt splashed about wishing he had never gone out to eat. His mother had warned him of going into other parts of the water and he had ignored her like all good, young fish should. But now, as struggling became more and more difficult, he could see her kind face and began to cry, his mouth opening up and shutting. The men in the boat were making loud noises that scared burt and he treid to stop moving about. He stopped struggling, he stoped fighting, he stoped crying, he stopped living and then darkness.

"Wait 'till Rita sees this baby!" Yelled Jim, "You just wait!"

I'm gonna write just wait...

Being on campus is intense. When I compare it with home, SUA kind of feels like a weight tied around my ankle, slowly dragging me to the bottom of the ocean...water rushing into my ears, pressure making my heart beat faster, then slower...and slower...and slower...

Embracing the relationships and things that happen to me is my true challenge, because sometimes I jut want to run the other way screaming.."I can't do this!"

You know when there is something that you have to do and you are putting it off and it follows you where ever you go...he's that something. I thought, 'I can just ignore the talk we should be having.'

I had this epiphany the other day that I don't like him any more, but if that's true why do I still get nervous when I know I'm going to see him...why? And where oh where has all my courage gone? Oh, where, oh where could it be?

Independence and structure and the pursuit of happiness are quite lonley endevors. they are...it's true

It has beguneth. And my cup runeth over with anticipation of the pain that will surley ensue. Can you belive, I did homework tonight. La..La..La.

Something I wrote while I was at home:

It’s true; I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe I don’t want to know. Who am I? Am I really who I am? I want to write. The thoughts in my head want to escape. Me is screaming, articulate!!! For God sake articulate! But it’s not working, and the same thing constantly goes round. I’m lonely.


My grandma was married four times, 20, 26, 40, and 45. Sometimes I think she’s looking down on me steering me in the right direction…but then, I realize she’s probably moved on, maybe she’s one of those kids at the Wal-Mart in Aliso Viejo, a really whiney one.


My adventures in love are at a whopping zero. I’m losing the game, which is interesting because the game is all I think about. I’m spiraling and the end has touched me, looked me straight in the eyes…and what will meet me there. Will I have to wear diapers, and think, that’s only fifty years from now? Will I live in a home for the old, the food made by moms who just want to go home, my neighbors so close to death they dream it every night? What stories will I have to tell then…over and over, will I have to say I never had anybody? Will tears run down my cheeks splashing my newly wrinkled hands as I groan to the young visitor in the room about my wasted, lonely life?
And, really, I need the answer. Is romantic love, all I’ve built it up to be? Is this yanking on my heart because love is a necessity? How come it makes people cry? And write songs and live their lives in constant desire. I’m missing out on something and, recently, I’ve even contemplated online dating. Ok, loser! Something has to change. I’ve been saying that for eight years now, but it’s true, something really needs to give. I have so much love bottled up inside the first will be blown away, right out of the water they will be so loved. I heard not so long ago that each person has thee great loves. The first you will never forget. The first is all cuddles and kisses, dreams and promises that will surely be broken. Separation occurs when the two grow apart, begin to think differently, begin to want different things…
The second is the one you go through all of the shit with. Fights, Broken glasses, bills that aren’t being paid, debt, with the second you learn…you learn about what you want in life, you learn about what you want in love and then you get the hell away from each other before a murder occurs.
The third, and your final, is your soul mate. You marry, and if you’re lucky, you rock in comfortable chairs together when you’re old, death the separator, death the end.
Where is my first? Where are my promises and mutual dreams? I don’t want to be alone anymore. I don’t want to wonder. I don’t want to hear about everyone else’s problems with love and have no experiences of my own to share. My wisdom will someday be useless. I don’t want wisdom to rule my life. I want action to be in the drivers seat. I don’t know how to do this…I just don’t …I…

Being back at school is kind of like floating through a dream. No one seems real. In my mind I haven't left portland yet and I don't want to.

Andy, my uncle and I rolled up to SUA and all I could think was this has to be a dream...it has to. I couldn't wake up this morning, because I knew if I did I would be back at SUA, in my SUA bed, all alone.

I miss my Suitee and my friends. Non of them are here quite yet and I don't know what to do. I have no work and no one to hang out with so, now what? do do do....

I guess I'll just hold my breath until tommorow when the work will begin.

I feel better just knowing I'm about to give you my heart...real this time, like homemade ice cream.

29 things are smacking me over the head. Only one, home, will be smacking as I fly this Friday.

Should I do it before I go?

I'm scared to do what I have to do. Sending you that email made my hand shake. But it's done, I can't take it back...now we will really talk.

He sat across from me and nothing was communicated. I think, to him, I am like the furniture. Movable, meaningless, fabric.

And at that moment I hated him, more then anyone on campus and it made me want to cry.

I will later.

I'll wait.

We don't talk, we avoid.

It's true, It's almost over.

I am...

Mutable like water.

There are pennies in the fountain by founders hall. They don't really bother me, just make me wonder why.

Why do we make these unrealistic wishes.

The wishes on first stars, on rusty pennies that I could have used, on comets...Love, respect, a new life, all my efforts were fruitless.

...so tired.

Beaten

Appretiative

What's going on and how come I'm out if the loop.

My life is passing me by and I'm watchimg with a half smile on my face...wishing I could stop it, and remake it.

A life make over.

But first...there are all of these things I have to resolve.

I have to get better, I have to run away, I have to figure out what I want in this life.

The excuses are abundant. They're bigger then my desires to change and they always win.

If I could just will them to lose. If I could just will them away.

If I could change, god damn, if only I could change.

I want to yell at you and tell you how insinsitive you are. I want to put up a good fight and at least be able to say that I tried. But instead I let you tell me that this...disapointment...would lead to my finding the person of my dreams. Bullshit and you knew it. Well, now it's getting harder and harder for me to look you in th eyes. I don't want to be kind to you and tell you what you want to hear. No... I want to slap you across the face and remined you that I still exsist and I feel the exact same way I did on that day I gave you my soul and you gave it right back. I want to cry to you about how much you are loved, and how easy it is to love you every second, how painful. Why do you insit on pursuing this dream, why am I doing the same thing...target, you. You are the source, of what? My discomfort, my happiness, my sickness. Please, if you care about my saftey, tell me how much you hate me. Talk about how we can't be friends anymore because I don't have perfect hair. If you care for me give me a reason to hate you other then the one I already harbor, my unceasing love.

I can feel myself slowly losing it. I don't think I can walk past him one more time without going off about his ignorance of my love.

I don't think I can type one more word for a class, without shouting to the gods that my heart has more to say.

Keep ignoring me and you'll see the breakdown of a human being.

It will be slow, first I will cry, then I will scream, and then I will go mad blubbering about my sensitivity to the light.

If I could explode my feelings into the atmosphere, people would be knocked clear to the end of the universe.

If I let what is inside of me make it's appearance I'm sure it would resemble the moaning and suffering of the world.

I type, to let it out slowly. Drip. But it could gush, oh, could it, and flood this whole campus. My rage, my sadness swirling around my body. I would stealthaly walk to your door, open it and "away we go." The words I've always wanted to say bursting through m lips, blinding you, they're so intense. Get your sunglasses it's time to ride.

My life flashed today and it was good. Sometimes being sick feels better then being well because the inside is making it's appearence.

This boy walked in front of me for two seconds and I could see that he was a stunning beauty.

I've never been good at hiding how I feel, I must cultivate that skill, so that you won't be able to see the love shining on my face every time we pass.

Walmart is definately a downer.

I'm going to Costa Rica When?:O

I feel yellow. Hazy. Fog on glass after a hot shower. Gauze, lace, a veil.

Friday the thirteenth. This day has been an interesting phenomenon in my life. Every Friday the thirteenth I have wished and wished that something exciting would happen. Fall in love, Make out, Make love. But never have I had an interesting one. Tommorow, maybe, will be different.

I have to tell me about the dream I had. I walked away from you angry and hurt because you choose to go. But for a minute while I held you, for a minute when I told you to tell the truth, you paused and contemplated it. There was nothing for me to think about, personally, and because it was up to you I ended up crying. Some people can't see what's right in front of thier face.

How can you be so cruel? And what's more, how come you can't see how much you hurt my heart? She is beautiful isn't she? She is the epidemy of what it means to be feminan, it's interesting how I can't even spell that word. Well I'll just keep on, and you can just keep on, but I won't stop caring. You were so awkward when you asked me. Why were you akward? I would go anywhere with you, and it's evident that I scare the life out of you. And it's evident that I just can't shrink anymore. I won't. I am not going to shrink from anyone anymore. No one is better, no one is happier, no one is smarter. We are all doing the best we can. I just want to love myself and you...no more comaprisons, no more compromises, no more pain...at least for now.

I'm driving in my car made of clouds down a path that is so foggy. The windshield wipers are doing thier best to move the air so I can see. Big trees that look like bodies remind my of my smallness of my insecurities of all of the mistakes. Trees don't make mistakes. Sometimes it's hard to care that I just ran over a rabbit in the road. It's increadibly tempting, the cliff that hangs to my right. Down, Down I could fall. There are people on the side of the road, they have tears in thier eyes. Some of them are smiling and some sobing and they all look at me as if I have an answer for them. I yell out the window, "Respect!" and keep driving, this makes thier tears come faster. My tears are mixed with sweet rain and thunder, lightning is a possibility and I will it to come zipping through my heart in order that I can finally live. But this road seems endless and the chance of lightning dim. And for the life of me I can't see more then 10 feet on either side.

This is about my life and how it feels dead.

This is about how I can't just, "work it out," because there's no one out there to say "I love you to."

This is about how there dosen't seem to be a sollution and this is about how I can't resolve things with an imaginary dream.

This is about how I lay down at night unsatisfied and untouched and barren as the desert.

This is about the Zoo lights and my dad pretending to be cool, and my embaressment but mostly my admiration.

This is about how my admiration turns into black jealousy and I can't see a damn thing.

This is about my hair and my feet, my hands and my sweat.

This is about all of those boys who called me ugly and hairy...they broke my spirit.

This is about the cracks that are still making it hard for my heart to pump.

This is about how Katie and I used to do the spider on the swing, and sit on the same toilet...I wasn't cool enough for her eventually.

This is about how we are all just trying to make it in the world...and this is about what the television says we should be.

This is about my first relaxer and the denial of my heritage. You can never understand how I don't even know who I am.

This is about how I am not being patient and how I'm trying in vain.

This is about his symapthy pains for his mother my sympathy pains for my sister...my sympathy pains for myself.

This is about how I wouldn't go into popeyes in Northeast Portland, because I was scared of the stigma attached to your skin color, mine just happens to be the same.

This is about self fulfilling prophacies, I must learn to make positive ones.

This is about how I don't know what to do and I keep talking about death...and it's OK with me.

Seems we're back to the begining. I sure know how to pick 'em. I treid to dance today and was returned with blank stares, my plight is unique...so don't hold me back with yours, and struggle when I bring you down, and never let me succeed.

Home is calling, it is doing that, way down in the gut thing, animal, rabid, screaming so that the whole world vibrates.

He said to kill him in a humane way, maybe give him some drugs that would just make him go to sleep forever. I will make a potion out of my tears and sweat, the death inside, and he won't wake.

Sometimes you just have to say no.

Order, my life needs. Breath, my life needs, come breath here in this place between my lips and it will be a kiss...revisit my soul.

He told me he was always here for me today, "just come visit my office, but his eyes kept wandering to the door where people came in and out denying thier lives are also a mess.

Tedious, always tedious, and the point stuck somewhere between the sun and real meaning. It's so dim, my pupils dialate letting in more then light.

Don't worry about it because I love you, and never stop calling me Liz, it lets me know you feel the same.

Bitter, so bitter I can taste it. It doesn't go down well and how come it makes me want to rebell.

The bile in your throat makes me remember the times I was very sick, clinging to my throw up bucket, clinging to my sanity, telling my mom not to leave so I would have someone to call the police when my guts finally fell to the floor. Those were not good days, lets not revisit them.

He did look pretty tonight. Maybe he had a hot date with the girl of his dreams...lust can do that to a boy.

I am a hypocrit and that's all right with me. I do what I feel and I never feel the same way twice. My life is always changing...nuance by nuance, watch it go.

I find myself craving middle school and the calm insanity of it all. There were so many years ahead of me then, and I'll tell you it was a certainty that I would live forever.

I can feel my mortality, my sensitivity to the cold. I can feel how fragile these fingers are, one snap and thier gone. If I touch my stomach, it's as if I have trooped on to uncharted territory just waiting to be colonized. Don't talk to me about how superior human beings are, about how each new advance in the medical field is a garantee of longer life. I want to feel this vulnrability, it keeps me good. I am not above the spider that scares me...could kill me. How arogant, how truly ignorant we all are, and why

I woke up this morning wishing the dream didn't have to end. But Uyen always says to smile, so let me work. It's some how alright with me already. Home changed me because I relized how I have changed. Oh, the new and improved Elizabeth, haven't you met? She is nicer, she cares about the women in music videos, she thinks tubas are great and Elsa is just as selfish as ever. She combs her hair to no avial and she says she doesn't care, so the screams won't come ripping out of her body, tearing around corners, trying to find your heart. She is so sad she can't even put it in words. It's just, heavy as hell...But as I said before home changed the heart that was turing blue in a turnicit of frustration. OK I'll give me that. The air was so smooth and my toes so cold, but that was the siccor. I felt like I had died and gone back to my original state. I slept without my teddy bear and my mom knew to give me Stephanie's. Go get Tucker, she said. And the cramps went away. I chanted my ass off, I'm gonna win, and it took on a new meaning. Where is the fear? It comes back, let me think of the times I forget it...Dinner, Tamisha and baby, I love you. Seth, he bumped his nose, his mother looked at my aunts picture and MY mother told me, they adore you. It's because I look like the mother they all lost and I know to treasure my vibrations. My dad told me once, "there's this look that you get on your face, and all I can see is my mamma." Oh dad, if you only knew how much she loved you.

The world must be spinning too fast, that would explain it. This clock in my head is ticking, I can hear it. It reminds me that I am behind, that I have too much work, that I have been so unproductive and now I'll pay. After this week who will I be. Frantic, remembering home, wishing I were there. It's nose to the grind stone, it's sorry there is no mercy, it's how come there are so many damn overachivers at this school...Do you sleep? A circle of I don't know, and I don't care, and what the hell is a world citizen anyway, and how come they love me...and what is there to love. I keep thinking I'll change, and then I don't...is it so slow i can't see it, my metamorphasis. My mom wrote a poem about a butterfly... it should have been my life...but it was hard to see through the redundancy and I told her so and I forgot the rest. He kept saying "you never know," and that wasen't even my point.

My aunts hair blew in the wind, brillow pad flexible and my eyes lit up because she is just as bossy as ever, "yes suh!" She has unbelievably soft skin. I'm looking foward to being old just so I can touch myself. I know Ken, your project calls.

When I rolled up to SUA my stomach churned because I didn't want to be back. This is a first. All of the other times my face has smiled and my heart has been glad. My heart was happy at home. I love you so much Christina. My brain was happy at home, Stephanie, Elsa, you too. I felt like I could finally breath. Today I walked into my dorm room and the feeling I was in a gas chamber slowly came back. Why am I dying here? Why has my heart blackened around the edges and begun to flame? How can this be?

Will he be standing on a podium urging us to cheer?
Will we shine because we finally have a goal.
The structure of our city is slowly leading to decay.
We must revitilize.
We must fight against the erosion.
Dull
When I rub hard enough the crome starts to shine
imitating my eyes when lit with passion.
There is so much in me saying...no!
But I do see you and I care that you are a political being.

I am crap. Can I just sing that really loud so as everyone can hear it. Because by the worlds standards I suck. But for some reason this seems kind of humorous. There are all of these people out there who seem to have been put on the earth simply to judge. They say bad grades = death, starvation, pain. Imagine, you might have to work at a gas station for the rest of your life. Those people are less then us...I don't think so. They probably would have done better on this last test then I did. And at the end of the day what does it mean that I blank out...panick...suffer when taking a test. Does it mean the girl next to me who got an A is better? Does it mean pumping gas is in the stars for Elizabeth Dawson. Maybe that would be better then hanging out with the people who feel supirior to the Mc Donalds workers, the sweatshop kids. Maybe, you can have a whole life full of education and lack the understanding to find your way around town. Maybe Elsa's smarter then us all. Maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better for being a complete idiot, it's true I can't spell. It's true math problems boggle my mind. It's true I should probably be in community college. I don't know why I'm here, that's for sure. I'm a waiting list queen, almost didn't get in. I'm begining to realize why. It's easy, when you got in early admission. It's easy when you didn't get contacted the month before school started. I had to think about whether I wanted to come, because my heart broke the day they rejected me. But then, low and behold, comes another letter telling me I wasn't good enough the first time, but since they had no one else I was excepted. No apologies. No sorry we took your heart out and squeezed it until it stopped beating. I've got a, you've never been good at forced academics, complex. It's real easy to say I'm being to hard on myself, heck I even say it sometimes...but the question is, who's willing to go and erase my past full of failure, full of, Ellie your state test scores say your below averge in math, and once again on the SAT's. Yeah, well the school system has failed many people. Don't talk to me about your AP classes and how you were in all of them. AP, what's that? Let's talk about the angel I made in Kindergarden, it's been on my Christmas tree for the past 15 years. Let's talk about how I have talked to bumbs at the bus station and understood their adventures. Let's talk about the trolly in Portland, and how I'm a true blue friend, and I love you. You can leave your 1300 SAT's right at the door mat, and and take off your shoes, and make yourself comfortable. Because honestly I could give a crap that you take tests well and you can do it with your eyes closed. I want to know how you feel when the sun remembers your face, and why is swimming so thereputic. I'm gonna beat myself up till the end of time for not being as good as you, beacuse I've been force fed it ever since I walked into may first grade class room. The hall is lonely when you've been sent there for talking too much. Detention isn't that much fun, and crying after every test you take starts to have it's toll. I know the red pen and it's bloody ink all to well...maybe, someday, I will introduce you.

I think I might have a chemical imbalance. That would explain so much. I feel, right now, like I did Sophmore year, sitting by the heater vent in my pajamas, crying, because the bordem was eating my insides and shredding my heart. I told my mom that night that I thought I was going to die, and ended up insulting her. She left the room angry and and I was sure my life was over. It hurt so bad, it was physical this pull. There is this string that sometimes latches to my chest and then the evil little man, that must be behind putting it there, begins to pull. He's pulling right now with all of his might trying to make me forget all of the good things.

How come when he sees me, he looks at me like it's the first time. Suprised? That I'm still here in your life. Maybe he'd like to despence of me because I'm to difficult. I'd like to do the same. The tears are right here, if you look between the spaces in my words, you'll be able to see them like diamonds floating in air. My body remembers what happy feels like, and so does my mind. What exactly can my heart do with this string? Snip. The invention of siccors, who could know?

I don't want to stop and think about how this is not working. Maybe I should forget he ever existed. Damn, but he's still here. Elsa used to get really obsessed with boys...I think I picked up a few tips unconciously.

How come I know how this picture should look, but the actual image is a blurry mess? That movie made me cry three times for innocence...lost.

I'm just a little confused. I have something to say and I've been trying to figure out all day what it is, but I don't know. I think it has something to do with my grades and how they won't matter in 5 years and why I'm going through the things I'm going through, and I never feel justified in doing anything. Live for me...because I don't know how.

I'm just gonna love you the best I can. You loving me is no longer my focus. And you should have my love because I can't help it.

If I feel hostile towards myself, how will anyone ever love me?
She said she hasn't been this depressed in a long time, and there was this huge part of me that wanted to scream, me too!
So I guess the question is, am I just supressing once again? Maybe that's my one talent...I can pretend well.
My heart broke at least three times today because I knew you wouldn't tell me how you loved me when the day was done. Because I remembered that there really is no us, and as much as I will it to be...it might always be in vain. What do you think of my desperation, because I know you can feel it, and I know it turns you off. But my eyes will never lie, and unfortunatley you can read them.
Well, I'm trying to wipe my pain from the brown, and I'm trying to go deeper so you can't see how I suffer. I'm trying to make your dis-interest easier for you. How I want to find...why I can't let this go. And her, and the dreams, and our vow to one another. You should have never let me hug you, and you should have never let me kiss the place between your ear and your neck, you should have kept your hand firmly in place until I shook it. But I stepped the boundry and you let me and it's hard to forget how I went back to my room and felt like the sunset I saw today. And it's hard to forget how I was the little girl who just had snow shoved in her face by the person she thought she loved, the next day felt just like that. Can't I forget that phone call...and how come you never call anymore. It changed I know. I know...I'm sorry. I tried to tell you before we hung up how I hoped she would make you happy, but the words wouldn't come and all I could mutter was how I had to go. I should have said it because the truth is I want you to be happy...it's this endless struggle with myself...she'd be good for him...I'd be better...But that's really not the point. Because this is not the end as much as I feel like the earth is trying it's damndist to swallow me up, and I'd go too, except I feel like there's something else I have to do. Has it really only been Three months and if this feels like 10,000 years of suffering what am I going to do when it's been a million. And that's where that pesky moment comes. Maybe I'll win...

My life and the way it really isn't:

I don't walk around at parties with my shirt somewhere anywhere but on my body.
My sister doesn't repell my friends.
My teachers do not invite me to thier houses to talk about Jimmy's being gay and the crazy orgies they've had.
Yuko does not pick up my white underwear that I droped in the middle of the class running to meet me in the rain.
Sammi and I do not fight over boys and if we did Rumiko wouldn't win.
He dosen't smoke anymore and even if he did why would he do it in the middle of a storm sopping wet with a look of displeasure on his face.
Jess and I don't go to dance classes together that have been cancelled on account of her father running for office, and oh he was a weirdo.
We don't have this amazing computor program that allows us to go to Soka while we are at home.
And if he had a preformance, why did he come running back into the room to tell me for the second time he would miss me. He left wet hand marks on my teeshirt and I could barely tell the difference between my tears and his drip
Dream!!

There's this pact I made with myself. It wasn't exactly be happy, but it was win in the moment.
Can I work you out in my head? Can I figure out why I feel hopeless when I think there will be a day you are no longer a part of my life.
Are there really other men on this planet or is it only an illusion, and why do you love her so much? Does she give you what you want. I think it's that smile, and the droopyness, and the sincerity. OK, I will retreat to friend, even though friend is no comparison. I will go home sit on my couch, happy to have escaped the image that only follows me around on campus. I will drown in MTV, and bus rides, and shopping, and then I will drown in food and my aunts blackberry cobbler. My family will create a dream that shelters me from myself and mabey for one minute I will forget to breath. Head dropping to the pillow chest still. Empty.
The plane ride home will be interesting to say the least. Me, reading about a girl I will never know, and stopping in the middle to wonder if you and I will have the same fate.
Me I think you lied.

I can see you with that bottle raised above your head, happy to be alive. What would I do if we had never met?

She said that our meeting was a serendipodus moment, a happy accident, and I knew.

But maybe he will never look at me and wonder why not.

It's not a fight I'm going to lose. There are so many paths you can follow and which ever one I stick to I will tread it joyfully, my tears a testament to my growth.

I love those that challenge me. Can I skip now?

I woke up today and was unsure of my sanity, my head felt so heavy.
It was different then usual, I can smile and mean it.
Sometimes everything falls into place and you know your heart has been altered for the better.
Are they bitter or jealous?
You have know idea how much I love you, how it hurts me when I see you across the room down trodden missing what you have never known.
I'll except my current situation and love it, and remember that redish-orange glow that keeps me hopeful.
Talk to me and I will take my heart and remodle what's there.
I'd better, remember today and how it feels to be happy.

What does it mean to fight with the voices in my head, to let the positive win over the negative? What does it mean to be good to me? This journey has already got me overwhealmed.

This weekened I sailed through my life and he told me it was beautiful. Why couldn't I believe him? She said it was like a 25 year old man looking at the little girl playing jump rope and it is. She made me role over laughing. I had three days in a row in which every event pointed towards my happiness, now I just have to follow the map that it made. Victory, winning, living, joy. I cannot deny myslef these things any longer. "Your negativity will destroy you," he said, "don't let it." And I won't.

How come it's right when you least expect it, the universe throws a bomb smash in your face and Ellie really can dance?