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[66553211]

1.27.23 3:57pm

My right knee is wet and cold. My long johns there are carrying a circle of tears. Left behind from when I got down on the ground of the studio to cry. Every time I have to cry in the studio, I slide down from my chair and collapse under the big table. And I crouch, and me knees keep me held together. And the dark feels safe. It feels less like I’m crying at work in the studio, which is a very embarrassing thought for me. And feeling embarrassed is one of my worst feelings. Under there, it is a different place. I only ever go under there to cry, so there is no work- association. It’s just my special secret place I cry in Herald Square, totally normal. I’m wet and just done crying because Maggie called me. She was like “I have life news” over text. She always has life news. She pretends she doesn’t have a life like me when I vent about it, but if she really didn’t have a life she would never have any of these fucking life updates. So something there isn’t tracking, and I am again having a friend act like they fucking get it when they don’t! Do they do that shit to make me feel better? It doesn’t. But I think it’s actually to make them feel better. Because our generation has a complete cultural obsession with being the worst-off. And it’s fucking annoying. Fucking be different from me, its fine. I’m sure I’m privileged in ways you are not. I’ll give that to you. But give me loneliness. It is mine. And I own it. You have to when you actually do have nothing and no one else. You have to have something that can be yours. 

Anyway, Maggie calls. And I’m like “so what’s new?” And she’s like “I’m dating someone” in the most miserable tone of voice you’ve ever heard in your life. HAHAHAHAHAHA. 

“Wow I’m so sorry for you that sounds really fucking miserable”

“Haaha I don’t mean to sound that way- it’s just like- you know, I’m realizing I’m in that phase now where you’re just obsessed with someone and they become your whole world and you’re doing everything together. And then you realized you have to wake up and still have responsibilities and get shit done... And it’s just a lot, you know?”

No. I don’t know. 

“Sure.” I say instead. 

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1.24.23 8:53pm

Written on my new laptop that didn’t have the password to this account, in my room, on my bed. Copied here on 1.27.23 at 3:56pm from the studio.

Today, I was listening to a podcast about literature for teens/ kids. They were talking about "Looking for Alaska" which I've never read, but climaxes with the icon Alaska herself dying. I guess the two boys who were close to her start to question the circumstances of her death after finding something she wrote. Not like a suicide note, but like some small thing she wrote in the margins of a book she had. What she wrote makes them think that maybe the car crash she died in was not an accident, but her intention. They are obsessed with finding the "answer" to Alaska's death. One of the podcast hosts describing this posits that this not knowing has such control over them because they want to absolve themselves of their responsibility for her death. Ironically, they are hoping it is a suicide because that would mean it wasn't their fault that they let Alaska go and drive drunk that night. The other host wonders if the obsession is not over specifically what the actual answer is but the fact that there is the existence of a question at all. She says: "nuance in death is very hard...the not knowing." When she said that, it struck me on a scale larger than that of their podcast or the book or those specific characters. It struck me because is that nuance not the axis which the pain of death has always revolved around? Even in scenarios where the intention, or method, or moment of death is not mystery, doesn't that deep feeling of not knowing still exist? And is that not really the crux of our pain? That our loved one has experienced something completely foreign to us, that we will never know what they lived in that moment they died until it meets us? It is not the nuance of the specifics surrounding our death that will be hard when it comes to meet us, it will be the nuance of what death even is at all. How can we define death? How do you actualize that which is ether? All I can say confidently of what death is is what death is not. Everything else is just a nuanced guess.

 When we are living, we explore death through the ones that happen around us. That is really only the time we have to, I don't think the dead ponder the dead. But I also don't know for sure. I guess saying that only the living have the time to ponder may be true. I feel that time is something that only exists on this plane of existence. I don't think death, and whatever is happening before we are born, are linear. Life is linear, but death is forever. So once someone dies, we, the living, are left to contextualize them and their death and any meaning in it. And, as humans do, we usually fuck that up and make it all about us in ways it never was. We see their death through us. We see their death through the fear of our own, through how much it hurts us that they are gone, through all of the experiences we are sad we will not get to see them have. When Alaska dies in that book, the boys are objectively sad for her death because yes it means she is dead. But their real heartbreak is not knowing what her death says about them. What it says about them as people and friends, if it defines them as good or bad, how these questions will affect them for the rest of their lives. And I fucking hate that for Alaska. I hate that she dies at 16 or whatever and now for what would have been the rest of her natural life, all that will exist of her is other peoples' ideas about what she was and what she might have been. None of it actually being her. And this realization of mine, this realization that in death you surrender the meaning of your life. You entrust it to those who survive you, and then they will decide what it, and what you, meant. And I'm not ready for that. I'm not ready to relinquish creative control. I don't want other people to decide how to remember me. I haven't done enough good things yet. Good isn't the right word. I haven't done enough things outside of me. I want something to survive of me in this world. Something more. I will keep trying. I'm going to let this idea save me. I'm not going to be suicidal anymore. It's only been getting worse, but not anymore. I'm going to fucking fight for my life. I'm going to fucking win, too.

[66553211]

1.18.23 8:56pm

I just had a thought... maybe I’m not experiencing this regression to teenagedom because Vegas triggered the fuck out of me and it’s still lingering/ having long-term consequences. Maybe these thought patterns, behaviors and general relapse back into the destructive forces of youth are actually just symptoms of a second adolescence. I feel so alone, so, so alone. That was the only other time I felt this alone. I feel so that nobody does understand me and never could even though I want them to and stop them from. I feel so I wanna die just for the fuck of it. I feel so if I am not in love tomorrow, I will die. I feel so freshly peeled. I am literally raw to fresh air, my eyes water at it and other peoples’ stares. I am so writing on tumblr about my feelings for fucks sake, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME I AM 16 AGAIN. But I’m not. And this time, adolescence is so much harder. This time, I have bills and cardiologist appointments and work and a commute I’m in charge of and consequences. Consequences. And now I don’t have drugs to help. Either drugs to help cope with the amount of work. Or drugs to help make the life outside of work fun enough to the point of being worth living. Like, what is even the point of my life? To just like cry about how I’m unwillingly asexual and suicidal and like embarrassed and ashamed I exist? I’m so scared of the next five years. The long stretch to thirty. I’ve never thought like this vegore in my life. Thought of life in periods of time measured by age. I am now. I think because 30 was a joke to me before. 30 was so far away and unimaginable and it just didn’t cross my mind and death seemed more close to reality than 30. II need help. I’m having horrible thoughts right now. It hurts to move my arms. I’m so tired and lonely and needy it hurts my arms. Oh and I hate myself.

[66553211]

12.20.22 9:29pm

I started thinking I was so lonely, So I kissed my wall. Not my wall,  but the window frame because the molding protrudes from the wall, so there’s space for the nose and it’s more comfortable and like another face. I’ve done this since I was, I don’t know, probably 10. I like kissing the wall to the left of my door in my room in Vegas. Because it is the wall to the closet, so if you open the sliding door, you can actually wrap your arm around it and hug it too. And then I was thinking about how like fucking embarrassing it was that I just did that and I am as lonely as I was when I was 10 and that is so sad. And it had the hurt in my chest, like. And I wanted to cry. I got really close but I didn’t, and then I looked at my christmas string lights and thought it would be weird to cut myself with my christmas lights up, and I can’t really explain why, I just felt it in that moment. I don’t know why I think about cutting myself all the time and I never have even once in my entire life. I also never thought about it once though until this last year or so. Until I watched gore on the internet. Actually, no. I think before then I had the idea. After Camille had her attempt. I think it crept in then. It’s just so perplexing because I don’t really fuck with gore in movies but I just like watch it on the internet like a zombie, slack-jawed. I think it has to do with like the quality, and the closeness honestly. Like movies you’re right there and the shit is like practically splattering on you. Most of the gore I’ve seen is like wide-angle and grainy if video. I guess images are clearer usually. I don’t know, whatever, now I’m thinking about gore and I was actually talking about something else. Anyway. So I thought about cutting myself and how weird the christmas lights were. And then I thought about... now I can’t remember. My brain went too deep down the gore hole. It’s not that bad though lately, really. I’m pretty plugged in to real life these days, and it may not be good but it’s grounding. And really so much better than late summer - Norway - Florida. But I’m still so lonely and that hurts. I can’t stop how much I’ve tapped into it now that I re-opened the flood gates. I think I just like totally shut them up when I quit drinking just to keep anything away from crisis mode, but I guess it’s time now. I can’t hold it any longer, anyway. Even if it’s not time, it is my time. To fucking feel it. I think that stretch of months it really was the like mass murder/ online gore preoccupation (I’m gonna just call it that) that really took my mental over the edge. And I just felt so ashamed and couldn’t tell anyone anything that I was thinking about literally all day long. Except Will. But even then, not fully. But I was able to spurt a little here and there, and like he’s a sick fuck so he didn’t even really blink at it. But that was at the very beginning. And I think it only got harder after that.

I think Adam might be thinking there’s something up with my eating. When we were in Norway we were like joking about EDs and not eating together and shit and being toxic. But now, when I say certain things, Adam like corrects me. Or will kind of look at me suspiciously if I decline food or do certain things. But my eating has gotten better with the being more offline too. It has. But the last few weeks I just haven’t wanted to. Since I got sick. And I’m better now, but I’m just like in a “food is gross and it also wouldn’t hurt if my body dissolved into nothing” type mindset lowkey so. Oops. 

I’m working out again, which I realize after the last tirade, sounds super disordered, but it actually started before I got sick and slipped back, so I think it is coming from a healthy place. Trying to decipher what ideas are coming from the bad part of me and what ideas are coming from the good place can be really exhausting. It seems like it would be simple, but it is not when you are crazy. But yeah, I’m working out and it feels good. I was having so much physical pain before and that shit is basically gone. And I think it’s building my confidence, and I’m starting to realize that I need to make that a priority or I am going to end up killing myself. Not like now, I’m not Suicidal. I just mean eventually. Like I have to fucking fight for my life. And if I don’t want to, I won’t win. 

[66553211]

11.13.22 2:14pm

Kamil came over last night. I think its been years since we hung out, just the two of us. I drowned my missing of him a long time ago. I buried it, and since I had to move back to Vegas during the pandemic the nagging want dulled itself. Probably out of a subconscious need for emotional survival. The first year after we graduated, I would cry myself to sleep over how much I missed him and Dan. I cried every time I knew they hung out without me. And I cry every time I suspected they could be hanging out without me, even if I didn’t know it was true. I missed them every day of my life back then, and it hurt so bad. And when I asked them to let me in, and they didn’t, it hurt even worse. I totally acknowledge that I have this complex where I assume everyone has the same needs as me, so if they aren’t meeting my needs, that is an intentional thing they are doing to push me away and tell me that they do not love me and I should get out of town and not be around. I let it get really bad in my own head, in my own world, until I just have to say what I need, I have to ask for what I want or I will fucking burst from the inside out. Right before I left for Vegas, I swelled up and I did that. I couldn’t take it anymore. I sent them this loooonnggg text. I know. Embarrassing, but so me. I just went back into the notes on my phone and found it to read it. It hurts to read. It hurts to see that I feel just as broken 2.5 years later. I wish I could read their responses. I might have them in an old phone. But I’m not feeling quite toxic enough to pull all those out, get them charged, and then fucking scroll thru them for hours. Actually, I am feeling that toxic, but the depression laziness is stronger right now. I didn’t talk to them for months when I got to Vegas. And then Dan called and I know he apologized but I can’t really remember how or what he said at all. And I was so lonely, and everything in my life and changed, and the world was filled with death, so I was going to forgive him no matter what he said. I was back in love the second I heard his voice on the phone and I knew I needed it. Kamil called me soon after. He didn’t apologize. We never really talked about it at all. We just... moved on, I guess. But now I’m back, I see I never really moved on at all. I never really move on from anything in life, ever, I always carry it with me, so heavy. It’s just a question of how much it’s currently risen, and if I feel it coming back up thru my throat. And if its not choking me, or shooting out like a volcano of vomit, I just let it settle in my gut, and forget about it for a bit. Pretend I’m over it. But its always with me. 

I hate being needy. People are disgusted by neediness, and I am one of them. I am disgusted with myself. I’m annoyed by myself. I’m annoyed when I’m all by myself. I want someone to take over and fully and completely, so that when I look at myself all I see is them. 

I feel horrible after seeing Kamil last night. It reminded me of how much I love him and how little of him I get to have. Lately, I miss school so much and that’s a really horrible feeling, because I thought my life was such shit back then. And in a lot of ways it was. But I had love. And I would give up everything I have now that I didn’t have then to get that love back. I’d give up my sobriety, my work, Adam, the cats. I’d give up everything just to chain smoke with Kamil on the loading dock. To fall asleep in Dan’s arms while watching a movie. I would do anything to escape the loneliness. It is eating me. I am disappearing into it. I’m forgetting who I am without anyone to remind me. I wanted a hug so bad last night when I was walking Kamil out. I felt like my body was screaming out for it. My body was leaning into the thin air, looking for a wall of flesh to stop it from falling into the ether. By my mouth was shut tight and I kept the neediness inside where it belongs. 

And this morning when I woke up, I couldn’t escape the thought that Kamil didn’t have a good time with me last night. Which makes sense. It’s not fun to be around a depressed person. I don’t have fun with me. We laid in my bed for hours and he monologued, and I tried to hide my face from him while I silently let the tears stream. I don’t even know why I was crying, but I just can’t stop these days. I think I am trying to run out of tears. I wish the day would come. When I would be finally empty. I am wet and squishy, so sensitive to anything that can poke and prod me. It presses gently against me, and immediately a hole forms and I just start leaking. Spilling it all out everywhere. I want to be sucked fucking dry. Just calcified skin and bone. So that when you stab, your knife bounces right back and I am still dry and whole on the other side. 

[66553211]

10.14.22 9:45pm

Today I keep looking for my resentment. My resentment is my rock. I fought for a long time to leave them, to let people treat me how they want and to accept it. To know that no one will ever be enough, will ever give me what I want, will ever make me feel full. To know that I am the only one that can ever always be there for me, even if I can’t. But to then accept that if I can’t how can they? So best to just stop bitching about it, fighting it, pushing away, pulling back. Best to just be. And so, that’s how I’ve been. For a solid couple years. They say a pillar of sobriety or recovery is to let the resentments go. They help keep you trapped in the cycle of self-victimization. So I worked on that, and semi-succeeded. I wouldn’t say fully, because the way it’s really supposed to work is you are supposed to take all those things you are looking for from others and give them to your self. Like “self love” I mean. And that I didn’t really manage to figure out. But I managed to at least understand that I need to drop an expectation for others that I cannot work out myself. Only fair. But lately, I’m looking for the resentment again. Today, walking to the train, I just suddenly was overcome with much of it. Where are all my friends? Who do they talk to? Not me. I had heart surgery this month, and like no one cares. The month before, I wanted to kill myself. No one cares. The month before that, I was out of town. No one cares. The month before that, I was out of town. No one cares. Month before that, out of town. No one missed me. Dan and Kamil visited me a couple days after my surgery. I asked them to see me the week I was back in town before it. You know, in case I died. But they ghosted. When I did see them for like 2 hours after, Kamil said he wanted to take me to dinner that week. But no one’s returned my texts and that was like almost 20 days or something ago now. Maggie forgot about it altogether. But sometimes being her friend is like she forgets about you altogether, so that just kind of is what that is. But even after I told her, she just like... acted sorry for forgetting for like 2 texts and then has done nothing but talk about herself. So. When I was in Norway, I told Camille how bad the self harm urges and intrusive thoughts have been and she was very “I care I understand I’ll make sure you get help when you come back home I’ll help you be accountable.” She hasn’t. But she was drunk when she said all that. And she probably thinks she’s slick and I don’t know, but I know all drunks and also I know her. And she only ever says she loves me or cares about me when she’s drunk. Maybe I’m as cold though, I don’t know how it feels to be my friend. Probably shit judging by how everyone distances themselves slowly. Like sometimes I really feel like Adam is the only person who like really cares about me, who like actually makes me feel like...loved? And that’s like so incredibly embarrassing and also probably problematic and like kind of twisted and unhealthy. But it’s all I have. And yet that is also really painful because now we are back in studio season and studio season fills me with dread and anxiety and so much self-hate. Because I love Adam so much and want to do so good and the best for Adam, and yet I’m just like not great in the studio. And it feels like Adam finally learned that this week. And I can feel it. I can see it. Because I know Adam so well, I know when Adam is not happy. When I have not impressed. And the second I feel that, it compounds. Because I feel the rejection deeply, because Adam is not just boss, Adam is now closest person to me in this world. And then once I’m in my head, there’s no getting out, and since Adam knows the fuck out of me back, it is obvious. It is obvious how nervous I get when I’m being watched. Because the whole time I’m just thinking “am I sucking? I’m probably sucking. And that really sucks because I want nothing more than to be the best for this person.” Fuck. Maggie is calling me right now. Fuck. Okay it stopped. I didn’t pick up. See. I am the problem. 

[66553211]

10.12.22 11:00pm

I changed my mind. This is the saddest photo. 11 months before his suicide. It makes me think about the temporary of everything. Of hope, of dreams, desire. Of pain. How they swing and inspire on another. Even blood is temporary. But suicide is forever. You can never take it back. And I want to take things back all the time. I am so full of regrets that sometimes even breathing is one. If there were an afterlife, I would most definitely regret my suicide because I can’t really live with any of my decisions. So how could I justify the biggest? The decision of death. The weird thing is, it really can’t be justified. I know it is not logical. It just is... pain? You cannot really describe pain, you cannot really remember it once it passes. But when it is with you, you know it. I do not understand my intrusive thoughts about suicide. I know that it is not right, I know it cannot fix things, I know I would regret it if I could, I know it would cause others deep pain. But suicide is not about knowing. It is about feeling, about dying. I fear dying. Sometimes the suicide urge actually comes from that place that is scared of death. Maybe the explanation is control? That it seems less scary if I can control it and just go ahead and get it over with already so my soul can move on for fuck’s sake. But, suicide is illogical so maybe it isn’t about control at all, and also I don’t know if I believe in souls anyway. It’s not that clear, or that heady. It’s more just like a base, animalistic response to some deep-seeded fear that creates this completely imbalanced emotional, volatile, self-destructive instinct. Like how many mass shooters obsess about mass shootings, and even seem to have a bit of a phobia about them, and then go on to do one. Or maybe that’s not related at all. I did read something once that was about how suicide is contagious. I understand why people believe in demons and the devil and god and all that. Because sick thoughts are possessions. And they seem they can almost latch on to bodies, jump from one to the other. But it happens all the time, that death follows death. I felt it myself in Vegas during the pandemic. After Camille’s attempt, something overcame me. I was so sad for her and in pain and also relieved it didn’t work. But almost immediately after, I started having a lot of intrusive thoughts. I went like the whole pandemic miraculously un-suicidal. And then my best friend tries to kill herself, and that is painful for me, but also simultaneously makes me want to do the same? Mental illness probably HA! No. It’s just pain. Like I said before. Wanting to kill yourself because a loved one killed themself is completely illogical. But pain is present, and all-consuming. And sometimes pain wins. But it won’t with me. Not tonight, or tomorrow at least. I’ll read this kid’s bucket list and I’ll remember. I’ll remember that 11 months before he killed himself, he wanted to Live in the South + live in Alaska. To live. 

[66553211]

10.12.22 9:53pm

So much has happened since 9/23, but I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. Well, at least for the next few sentences. I really hate myself tonight so I thought I should write about it. Usually WNYC is playing music with no lyrics this time of night. But when I turned on my radio, instead it’s an interview. This woman is talking about how she “sees Finn in everything and everywhere.” I hear her say Finn is her son and he killed himself. He did it spontaneously and with a gun. I wonder if I would still be here if I had access to a gun. It is my top suicide fantasy. I’m still listening to her. She just said: “Death is universal. Suicide is different.” That is impactful. That reaches me. Everyone has to be subjected to death. If you love in your life, you will grieve. But no one needs be subjected to suicide. To grieve a suicide, that is different. I feel sad hearing this woman, thinking about her son. Thinking about me. So I google her, and I find an album she’s uploaded. It has lots of photos of him young and innocent, of him at almost the oldest he ever will have gotten to be. But this is the saddest one to me. I don’t know why. Maybe because all the time we see lots of photos of strangers’ faces before some tragedy has befallen them. On social media, on the news, all the time. I see hundreds of strangers’ faces every single day. But not their childhood Christmas lists. The interview has been over now, and I only caught like the last 5 minutes of it, and now I’m a different type of sad then when I first sat here to write. But it’s good for me. Sometimes it’s good to hear from the mothers of kids lost to suicide. That’s probably one of her reasons for talking about it anyway, or maybe not. I don’t know her, but now my brain is a little fixated on her son. I think I’ll go and listen to the whole thing from the start since I’ve found it uploaded online. I also still kind of want to talk about what I came here to get off my chest, but like I also kind of don’t now. I’m just thinking about this kid, and I’m sad about this kid. More than I’m sad about myself I guess. So I think I need to listen to this thing to let my brain process and move past it and I can focus on myself then. 

[66553211]

9.23.22 1:02am

Adam gave me a talk last night that could change my life if I let it. It could save my life if I wanted. And after, that’s what I wanted. I thought I should come here and write about, so I wouldn’t forget it. But I never want to talk about the good things. So I didn’t. But I still could feel some after-effects this morning. I got out of bed all by myself, and I went and bought some cologne I wanted, and that’s fucking big for how bad I’ve been. I did it because when I tried it on yesterday, I felt better about myself anytime I caught a whiff of it still on me. And today, I thought if something has a chance of making me feel better about myself, I should get out of bed for it. So I did. Adam said they love me. That I have potential. That I could have an amazing life if only five years if I let myself. That I’m smart. When I’m in the room with famous people, I impress them and they ask about me. That they see themselves in me, and they want to give me what they have. That they will not let me go. That I just have to accept it. I have to want it. I can’t kill myself. I can’t have what I don’t keep going for. I’m starting to remember what I want now. I don’t want to die. I want to feel whole. And when I can’t imagine how that could ever possibly happen, then I want to die. But last night, I thought I wanted to fight for myself. For my potential. I told Adam, if I didn’t have them, I don’t know what I’d have. Adam could break my heart, and I said that out loud too. But I have to trust. I’m already all in. Love is dangerous, but last night I knew I shouldn’t be so scared. 

I’ve felt pretty good today, like I said. But the past hour, I’m crying and I wrote the two previous entries blurry eyed, and standing up in my bathroom. Writing with a fever. I looked at gore tonight. Right before my mood started to shift. I’d been good and not looked since my first week here. I didn’t seek it out at least, but it was NSFW blurred and I had to make the choice to unblur. So, yes it fell into my feed, but I could’ve kept scrolling. I’d already seen these exact pictures too. Of an 11 year old boy who shot himself right in the face. Just how I think I’d like to do it sometimes. The fold of his legs is weirdly the worst part of it. And how he looks like a baby, obviously. Anyway, I think there might be a correlation between seeing that and suddenly swinging dark again. I’m glad I came here and wrote about my conversation last night. And didn’t just leave it at my last two entries. 

Raja messaged the group chat today and said 9:04 was the cross of the sun over the celestial equator, meaning we are now in the fall. That “it’s a powerful moment to call the corners.” I don’t really know what that means. I’m not very witchy, but he gave us a journaling prompt. And even though I’m not really into the stars and shit, journaling is always good.

The power of the North: What do you need to complete? What needs healing in the body? For once, I don’t want to sit here and talk about what I need to complete. I’m always feeling like something is hanging over my shoulder, and it’s basically never good for me, so I think it’s actually most powerful to evade that one, suck on that. My relationship with food needs healing. I’m eating more now, but feeling really bad about it. My wolf parkinson white syndrome is about to be healed in just a week. Hopefully. If my procedure goes well. Sometimes, I think I’ll miss the skipping of my heart. But it’s for the best, I guess. If it all goes okay. I’m trying to not even think of it at all, so I don’t think about the not okay maybes. 

The power of the West: How can you deepen your intuitive knowing? Are you taking time to reflect and quiet your mind? I feel like I don’t even really know what intuitive knowing is. Actually, I do. I was just saying last night, that everything I’ve ever done is from my gut. It knows the way, and I don’t hesitate to listen. But sometimes it is just quiet. And I guess I don’t know how to make it louder when it doesn’t just scream for itself. I take plenty of time to reflect, obviously. Lol. Counselors have even told me too much time. That sometimes the best way to survive is to just not think at all. If all the thinking is of the over variety. The reflection is loud. It screams to be let free, released into the wind, so that it may circle the globe and then find its’ way right back to me. Even if it be years. 

The power of the East: How are you bringing joy and play into your life? Are you willing to be open to the new? I do not bring joy. I let it happen upon me if it pleases. I am a creator of things, but joy is not inherently one of them. But today, I bought that cologne, so there’s that. I feel that I do play though. The only good thing about living alone here is the extremity of my own expression. I sing loud and I dance hard whenever I feel like it, and I feel like it a lot. Usually when I’m not good, but sometimes I’m just playing with myself. Not like that, yuck. I am not just open to the new, I pray for it. For change. For anything different than what it was and what it is. As long as it’s not too unpredictable because then my anxiety will spike, okay!

The power of the South: Are your relationships making you happy? What is your relationship to self-love? I mean. Nothing in itself makes me fully happy. But there are some people, where when I’m around them, I laugh, and that makes life bearable for that time. And I am grateful for those people. They cannot be anymore. And that’s not their fault. It’s mine. I’m not making myself happy. But I think I’m going to start trying. If I can get out of my own damn way. 

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9.23.22 12:26am

One night, Adam and I saw a jumper. On the edge of the Opera House, she swung there. Some of us looked up in horror, some did not even notice her. 

The next day, a bird was perched there. The very same corner. It looked down on us, the same sereneness. And I thought: maybe that is her. And this time, when she jumped, the wind would catch her. 

[66553211]

I say that nobody loves me

Someone who loves me looks at me

And says, “how dare you deny my existence? I put up with this shit” 

Well, that’s what I interpret,

When really they said, “I do. I love you.”

I am quiet out loud, but on the inside I am booming:

“That will never be enough for me. I don’t know why.”

I’m so empty inside

I cry and I cry

That’s the only thing that makes me feel alive

The loneliness loves me. 

The loneliness knows me. 

Everyone else is lying. 

[66553211]

9.17.22 2:36am

I will tell you why my emptiness is more vast than yours. I was going to tell you, but now my fingers are still and I do not know how to say it in any way that isn’t bursting with color, and rage, and shame, and hurt. A lot of hurt. I am 25 and I had to buy a stuffed animal to be able to sleep at night in this strange to me country because I thought I was big enough to leave all mine at home. But I brought my blanket. I always bring my blanket. And the first thing I do after I get home from being busy feeling small in the big world, is sniff the worn corner. It feels like a vape hit. Years ago, on the first work trip Adam ever brought me, I brought my blanket to Italy. I didn’t think much about it until I moved from the main ship into the ferry. The turned down your bed every day, unless you asked for them not to, and I didn’t know. My first day after moving there, I got home and everything was tucked and folded sharp and cotton-crisp. I had left my blanket all tangled up in it, but it wasn’t there when I pilled back the fresh sheets. It was on the pillow, folded a perfect square, the worn corner hidden in the center of the folds. It felt so weird to know someone else had touched it. Held the only thing that I’ve ever depended on to hold me. I’d rather have them go through my bag and sniff all my underwear. Seeing my genitals would feel less intimate. I didn’t let them clean my room anymore. Actually, I did once, but I hid my blanket in my suitcase, between two shirts, secret and stinky, always waiting for me and me only. 

[66553211]

9.16.22 2:50am

Social media is fucking stupid. Instagram is fucking stupid. I just posted on their for the first time in months, and before that last post it was like a year. I posted some stupid bullshit I thought was funny, and still think is funny, but probably is lost on anyone else. I was just fucking feeling myself, and dancing, and singing, and cleaning up my mess from dinner and started playing with the leftover food. I took pictures of it and for some reason felt compelled to post it because for once I didn’t really care what anyone thought of me. I posted and almost immediately I did really care what any one thought of me. Within 30 seconds, I deleted the app, but not the post. You can never delete the post. That is more embarrassing than anything else. Maybe you can delete it after like 6 months, if you’ve posted enough in the mean time. So I posted and ran. After 13 minutes, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I logged onto the app in my browser. 0 likes so far. Instant shame. I closed the browser. I gave it probably another 5 and one more round of washed dishes before checking again, doing the walk of shame right back to my phone. 2 likes. The world really does hate me, I think. Then, I finally decide I’m not going to check anymore. Because why? I posted a nasty picture of sausage links and burnt-black broccoli after being silent for almost years online. Like who fucking cares how many people like that post? It’s ridiculous. It does not matter. The facts that made me want to post it in the first place. I thought it was funny, and if you think something is funny, there is a chance someone else will too. I have to believe that shit. If I don’t, what’s the point of anything I do? I know my laughter, my joy, my pain can never be truly singular. Can any artist believe that? Not that my nasty food pictures are art. But my learning to not give a fuck again is. I’m working on it. 

[66553211]

9.10.22 3:28pm

Written in my notes app sitting in a public square in downtown Oslo. Later copied here on 9.16.22 at 2:42am:

I left the house. I walked and walked. I decided to have a purpose and look for a toy store. I’ve been craving a big plush since last weekend. I really want something to sob into and cradle at night. A place where my tears can be soaked and preserved forever. And Adam’s birthday is tomorrow and they’re finally going to be back from the states so I think I should think of someone else for once and get them a gift. So that was my goal. I walked in circles and couldn’t find the place. I decided I guess I deserve food finally and got an apple triangle filo pastry. I walked it to the church where the 22 July memorial is. I’ve been wanting to see something of that day since I’ve been here. I walked a circle around it and finally took off my headphones. I found a bench in the grass right by and sat down. When a loud group of people erupted from the church and one sat by me, the rest deciding to circle my bench. I came there to sit and think about tragedy and they were so loud and close. I got up and I kid you not 15 seconds later they did the same. Fucking hell. So I circled the memorial again and backtracked a bit. Just outside of the church property, against the main road, was a rainbow bench. I realized then this was probably a quiet memorial for the terrorist attack that happened at pride here this summer. I sat. I ate my pastry really fast. And then everything dropped out of me. I became canonic and was just staring ahead. Who knows how long. I can’t remember what I was thinking about. Maybe I wasn’t thinking for once and was just feeling. Feeling like shit. I could feel all the people passing but I wasn’t really watching them. Then this guy. Like my age probably stops and I can tell he’s looking at me. And he hesitates but then very softly says “are you okay?” I look up at him and I say “yeah. Yeah.” Soft and squeaky. Saying it twice because the first time sounded so wrong and obviously fake. But the second one made it even more obvious I was trying to put back on my mask as quickly as possible but it no longer fit on my face. I tried to smile but it was a grimace. He looked at me and his face said he didn’t believe me. But what else could he say? He paused again, but then nodded and kept walking the same way. The second he left me I wanted to cry. The want turned into real life and I started to feel the hot in my eyes. I quickly grabbed my things and practically ran away. My first thought was that maybe he’ll come back. I was crying because this stranger cared and that hurts for some reason? I cried because maybe he thought I knew someone who was hurt in the attack and he only asked because he knew someone himself and that is a horrible thought. I cried out of vanity. That I am so visibly suicidal that it makes random people on the street uneasy. I cried because I wasn’t even aware I looked that sad at all and is my face always like that and is that what makes me unapproachable? Not a hardness but rather an extremely unstable softness? I hope he goes on about his day and forgets about me. I hope he can believe my lie and sleep at night and not wonder more about who I am and why I was there and what was hurting me so bad.

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9.10.22 2:01pm

I am annoyed at myself. I know I am annoying to everyone because I am annoying to me. I hate the weekends. The past few years I said many times sometimes I never want to work again, just sleep. I take it all back. I hate the weekends. I have no one then. I am left alone. Everybody already has somebody, and I am no one’s one somebody. I was going to go outside and walk around Oslo, but then I got hyper-fixated on my airpods not working because I feel like I need that security blanket out in the real world. And now here I am, almost an hour after I put on my shoes, sitting by the door, wondering what is wrong with me. And now I feel bad about myself, and that little something that was making me feel like I’m worth being a part of society is gone as quick as it came. No. I need to leave the house. I’ll feel better, even if I just walk aimlessly. But if I can’t have a cigarette while doing that, then I definitely need music, which is why I need my headphones to work! No. I need to leave. I need to breath something other than my own recycled air. I can taste my own hate in it, and every breath reminds me I do not deserve the next. This morning, the feeling of starving is the only thing keeping me safe and sane. 

[66553211]

9.9.22 1:25am

I was doing amazing, for one whole day. At least in my mind I was. Tuesday, a 15 hour work day. My longest since right before leaving for Long Beach back in probably April. Those are the only days I feel worth anything at all. I feel like I matter. I’ll feel so good that I’ll work 15, 16, 17 hours straight and come home and dance around my room intensely because I can’t sleep from all the happy adrenaline. And then, the next day, I am completely drained. I am empty. I have nothing left to offer, how could I? I gave it all up at once. That’s how I am. Either completely full, or all empty. Once I reach the brim, I spill it all out. I don’t pour, I flood. I am Colorado River as she was. It flows, and flows, my control is only a witness to it. And then, suddenly, I am Salton Sea. Dry and empty. It means I have nothing to give but also nothing is at risk of being taken from me. This is where I live most of the time, in the desert. I like the wet so much more, if only it wouldn’t end. This is why I was a speed freak. The crash still came, up has always come down. But the flood was more sustained. It could last days and days, no sleep. Now that I can’t bottle it like that anymore, I salivate when it does come. It is something to live for, to feel that way. 

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9.4.22 9:13pm

The girl in the window across the street is so skinny and very pretty. I wonder if her life has meaning?