My Girl

2011-02-08T04:20:00.000-08:00

My hair has fallen out a couple times,
like it isn't already thin enough already.

My teeth are bad, they're sensitive
and I've even chipped one.

Haven't fasted for weeks
nor thrown up for days.

I have a feeling, though
that I'm not done yet.

I want to be,
it's just that I'm not.

If I could stop eating at night..
not purging, maybe I could.

Or..
just be skinny.

I don't know,
I just want to be thinner.

98 pounds
isn't good enough.

It will never
be good enough.

2011-02-07T01:08:00.000-08:00

I've received a message from my father -

"Hi Sweetie,

I'm coming to town soon and I want to see you! I want you to come out and meet my girlfriend. She's lots of fun and you will like her. She really wants to meet you.

I'm bringing you a brand-new bed for the house (the one we lived in before him and my mother split, he still owns it). It's really comfy. I want you to come stay with us lots because I'll be away at work. It will be my girlfriend there alone, and I'm sure that she'll love the company seeing that she doesn't know anyone around here. She'd like to get to know you. Here is my number: __________ . You can call if you want. I really do miss you.

I plan on getting my Class 1 driver's license, so I can make two-thousand dollars a day driving a truck up north! When I start making good money, I'll buy you a car.

Bye, Honey."

The same old tricks that he's used on me for years... bribe, bribe, bribe! New bed, new car, new girlfriend. He always has a new girlfriend. I don't need to keep meeting new people and I sure as hell don't want to go back to the house where - yeah - he left me with no food, electricity or water. Too many bad memories of that time. I don't even think he knows that I'm in foster care.

As for the Class 1 driver's license, it isn't going to last. My father has never been able to hold a job. Don't be fooled - not as "nice" as he comes off to be.

2011-02-04T02:39:00.000-08:00

I was born in late summer to my 19-year-old parents and my the hometown that I still and have always come back to. I was the first-born on both sides of my family and the only girl as well. Everyone had always said that I was a beautiful baby when I had been born, a tiny thing with bright blue eyes and a full head of blonde hair. Maybe, though, they'd only been excited, for I was the first of many children.

I was named after my great-grandmother (Nona), who'd been the only relative of mine that had the same color as I. Being of Italian paternal descent, everyone in my family had been very dark with her as the only known exception. Even my maternal side, a family from Scotland and Ukrania, all had dark hair and eyes.

My little brother was born only a year-and-a-half following, in the same room with a near identical heartbeat as I. He also had a full head of hair, but he had dark hair and eyes and was larger than I was. He was expected to be another girl, and after much argumentation between my parents of what to call this child, he was named after our father days later.

The three of us lived in a three-bedroom, one bathroom house in what was primarily a senior neighbourhood. I have heard many stories of how life for us had been then and there, all different but both didn't seem well. I have somewhat managed to put some pieces together, but I know that because of my parents' inability to admit their mistakes, that I will never really know the full truth. I can only write about what I know.

My father had begun business owning a gym around the time I was born to support us all, but a few years later he was caught and arrested for substance abuse and dealing, therefore having to sell it. My paternal grandmother, who seems to try to never lose faith in her son (though it's clearly traumatizing for her), had always paid his bail to life the burden on him, my brother and I, and our mother. She still does so to this day, when he has been weaving in-and-out of prison for at least the sixteen years that I have been alive. Maybe even more so that I am not aware of, and he is now forty-years-old.

At this time, my mother was inevitably using as well, even before her children were born. I don't know the intensity of her addiction, though she did manage to withdraw herself when the custody battle over my brother and I took place. It was a year ago that I was told of this while I'd still believed my mother would never touch a drug, not even a cigarette. My father, in a fight between him and I, told me many stories of her neglection towards my brother and I (through his eyes, exaggerated, though it is true). My baby brother would often be left in his crib untouched while my father would work at his gym, and I, not fed all day.

I believe this is true, for until then I could not wrap my head around as to why my grandmother would call social services on my mother for, in her words, was "no reason". Nor could I understand, though I was a small child to begin with, why I had only been 17 pounds at nearly two-years-old with hair that fell out and never grew. Again, my mother pushed it aside, telling me that this was because "my eyes were bad", therefore having "no appetite because food didn't look appetizing". Of course, I, being oblivious as always, believed. When confronted about it, however, she admitted to it all. I don't have any memories of it.

While my brother was still only a baby, my parents split up. After living in my maternal grandparents' basement for some time, my mother found a new partner and we moved into his house shortly following. I was five-years-old at the time, my brother three-years-old.

We did not see our father much over the duration of the seven years my mother and her then-fiancee were together. We had a wonderful childhood there, a big house, big family (he had two kids, a girl and a boy, both older than my brother and I) and anything we could ever want. My father came around once every two years if we were to be lucky, doling out toys and games, and keeping us for one night at his mother's house. He was not allowed to be unsupervised with us, nor bringing us out of the house unsupervised; and he was not allowed leaving town with us under any circumstances.

The most vivid memories of him as a child are of him and my mother's then-fiancee fighting and swearing at the door, the same night he'd taken us, and his much younger girlfriend stabbed him in the arm while he was driving. The incident had been in the paper, and a child I was friendly with at school clipped it and brought it to me. I was in second grade.

From then on I had not seen him for years, yet my mother's then-fiancee loved to talk to his children (in front of my brother and I) of my father's latest arrests, one of which was smuggling drugs across the border, and saying that they "should be lucky that they don't have a father like that". I must've been used to his behaviour, for as a child I was never bothered by it in the slightest. A part of me had always been offended the moment I would hear, "Hey, guys, guess what their dad did..." in a light tone, but I never showed it for the sole reason that I never felt like he was my father. Like I said, I was not bothered by it at all.

When I was twelve-years-old, my mother and her then-fiancee split up. My mother, brother and I moved into an apartment of which she often had her new boyfriend over at. It has been said to me that she began the relationship before her last one was over, but that's besides the point. She married him five years into the relationship, six months prior to when I'd written this. It was five years of name-calling and physical fights between him and I that I believe haven't affected me much, but I don't know if that is accurate or not.

In December, two months ago, I was arrested by two officers under the Mental Health Act. I had suffered my worst mental breakdown (I suffered one when I was ten-years-old, had an overdose when I was thirteen-years-old, and another when I was fifteen-years-old) when my mother's husband used a baseball bat on my back; shortly after I held a knife to my throat. I don't remember the exact details of the night while my breakdown was still in place, for I couldn't process a thought. I remember crouching behind the television and screaming, even after my mother's husband stopped. Just screaming and screaming, possibly for hours, until the police arrested me and took me to the hospital. That was the night I was placed in a foster home by an officer.

I waited at the hospital with the male officer from 7:00pm until 1:00am for an after-hour worker to arrive, though she was to be there at 10:00pm. We took the time telling stories to each other, and he asked me what my father did. Though I merely said "I don't know", the first thing that had popped into my head was my father standing over my bed while I'd been sleeping (I lived with him at his mother's house while he was on parole for armed robbery, from Febuary 2010 - August 2010), splashing water on my face and praying out loud for my redemption. My mother had told me he suffered from drug-induced schizophrenia, and from his obsession with believing that I was possessed with demons (and that the government had placed a computer chip inside of me when I had been born), I believe it.

When I had lived with my father, it was traumatizing to know that my maturity level is now far surpassing his. From what I had observed of him, he is like a distressed child, throwing temper tantrums, hurting people and breaking things in the process. He popped pills and got drunk on the nights that he ran out, being an over-drunk or over-high, and a nightmare when he was sober.

At a point we had moved back into the house where I had lived with him when I was young, him, my step-mother and I, but shortly after they drove four hours away. They left for months, and I was alone in the house with no electricity, food, or water. The only time my father ever came back to the house was to stash his drugs, also eating the food that I had bought with the money my mother had given me (which was never much- $20 - $40 at a time, but I would be overwhelmed with guilt if I asked her for more) before leaving.

After and partly during living with my father, I had picked up the habit of self-induced vomiting. I often heard that I was very much like him, yet I have never been so disgusted by anyone's eating habits such as his in my entire life. This triggered my all-time low weight, reached by fasting an vomiting, of 93 lbs. Though I have managed to gain weight, I still struggle with breaking it, on an average of vomiting four or five times per week; others once or twice per day.

The night I had been arrested, I was put into an emergency foster for one week before moving to the placement I am currently in. I am getting A's in school and I am allowed to leave the house, of that I was not allowed socializing or having friends before (Febuary 2010 - August 2010). I have seen my mother once, and which my social worker is now expecting us to visit once a week, and I have not spoken to my father. I don't ever plan to. I don't know if I should say that I am doing better or worse than I was, but perhaps it's now too early to tell.

2011-02-03T22:29:00.000-08:00

When I was a child                                 , I remember
                             naive, wise but unwise
watching television                                 , all the while
                            love romance laughter
thinking that nothing will ever happen to me
like that                               , both good and bad.
            but life surprises you

Even now, I do the same
                   daydream daydream daydream
                   think think think think think think
                   daydream daydream daydream
because I don't know how NOT to
and not to doubt them.

I sit there                                         , moving
             unnerved tense and anxious!
at the table                                                    , escaping
                 window floor window and all over
she's doing great now - she's so happy here and
"I'm
      fucking
                 losing
                          it!" and I don't say it
I don't say things like that                                                                         , hardly.
                                      to teachers social workers parents foster parents

2011-02-03T03:11:00.000-08:00

I could play Stevie Wonder and David Ruffin as much as I could ever want, but I don't think I will be getting any sleep tonight. When I'm laying down I love to hear their voices, "Always" by Stevie and "A Rainy Night in Georgia" by David from the Temptations are favorites. Tonight, though, I don't think it is going to work. My thoughts are racing again.

I think of... drinking hot chocolate in a teacher's office and telling my life story to her, as I've told my life story many times to different types of people. Of voluntarily putting something in my mouth without counting the calories, despite the four pounds that I have put on. Of hearing sentences beginning with "When you move to Calgary..." over and over again. Of thinking, "What have I done to get here?"

2011-02-01T00:12:00.000-08:00

My heart only fluttered at first. Then, it progressed at a flustering speed to feeling as if it were about to pop straight from my chest, and then it ached. My mind said at me, "You're having a heart attack," and for a few seconds, I considered acting on that thought. But instead, I clutched the arm-rests of the plane and told myself that it was likely only a panic attack.

My mind, however, seemed to have two personalities: one based on logic and the other emotion, the dominant. It screamed, "You're going to have a heart attack, can't you feel it? It's happening! It's happening! It's happening! It's all because of purging! You wanted to be skinny, and now you're going to die! You're going to have a heart attack! You shouldn't have done it! You shouldn't have done it, especially after that overdose! Your heart was already in bad shape, you moron!"

I closed my eyes and counted my breaths as calmly as I possibly could in attempt to push these thoughts from my head. I wished off the plane for a cigarette, off the plane as a whole, for my persistent anxiety had heightened to the point where I was clutching the white arm-rests so tightly my fingers had begun to bleed. It stung brutally, but I couldn't stop. I needed to clutch something.

All the while, the logical part of my mind had decided to break through, and in it's tiny whisper, I heard: "No. You have to be strict with yourself, for it's only a matter of time before this becomes out of hand. Try to get a hold of yourself and take deep breaths before you lose the little control you have left. In the end, you aren't going to help yourself by freaking out; it is only going to make things worse than they already are." And though these words, of which I knew I should follow, were quickly terminated by the deafening screams of my emotional personality.

It had told me that I was going to die. And sitting in a plane so homely, so small, beaten-down, dirty, and cramped while facing the front window of it's blunt nose, it was hardly questionable to ignore. It was standing vertically to where I could see the cloudless sky and only seconds from taking off, and I reasoned that if the "heart attack" didn't kill me than this ride would. It could take off any second now, for I wouldn't be given warning. I lost all control at this point, and though I couldn't take my eyes from the window, I could sense my blood running down the arm-rests and pooling on the floor. My fingers hurt so badly.

"Don't worry," said a foreign voice, "It takes time to get used to this."
I turned to the face of an old man, and a familiar face at that. It triggered a sunshine memory of my paternal great-grandfather (My Nonno, who had passed away in October), for his eyes and smile were so strikingly identical to his. Though I'll never know who he was, sometimes I think that he must've truly been my great-grandfather, only much older.

"A-Are you kidding me? Used to what?" I asked, and he only looked at me, and perhaps through me, without answering. He only had a frozen expression on his face, no emotion, a look of which I had taken as a bad omen. I wished he would've left me alone, and more importantly, I wished that I could excuse myself from the plane in some way. Finally, after a long pause, he said: "So, what are you here for?"

I laid back with closed eyes, and the first image to appear to me was a baby chick. She was so small that her feet fit perfectly on the face of a dime. I loved her so much, and missed her so that it seemed I could literally see her in my thoughts. She hadn't a name, but she was beautiful, and I loved her.

"I'm flying for the chick," I told my great-grandfather, as I fetched the dime of which she'd stood on from my coat pocket.

So, I had seen my great-grandfather in a dream. What could he be telling me?

Voice of Wisdom

2011-01-31T23:35:00.000-08:00

Brilliantly red, orange and yellow they were
the trees I saw stood unusually vibrant
casting shadows on the leaves between them
upon the healthy grass sprawlingly
            in the breezy warmth
            only October could bring.

I imagined it was like a day
a perfect day of which pictures were taken
            for a calender
            or a landscape you'd see
            in a painting.

Tremendous it was, yet simple
            magnificent and lovely
            and beautiful.

Left to my thoughts as silence prevailed
they were not lonely
but only in an angel's grace
            they whispered
            and whispered wistfully
            in truth but mostly
            in wisdom.

They whispered when passed the rows of stone
of flowers in every color
         they whispered to me
         their stories
         in that angelic voice
         the truest voice
         of wisdom.

"Once again, life has taken on it's true form
         earth to earth
         ashes to ashes
         dust to dust
in sure and certain hope of Ressurection into eternal life."

Those words of prayer resounded the marble walls
         as if it were an age-old song
         never created
         simply only
         existed.

Innocent, lively and pure the child, my cousin I held
why he had faith in me, I'll never know
         he had those eyes
         bright blue, clear
         sunny and wonderful
like my own at his age.

I was once a child, not long ago
        but it does
        it seems a distant time
        long ago
when one never expects, and whether what is wanted
that one is always surprised.

I came to this place and saw his name, still partly a child
a million times throughout sixteen years I'd seen it
      on birthday cards
      christmas cards
      gifts of any kind
      written big in black
      in bold
      in marble
and as forever on I'd see it now.

Before the gates closed on the cars that left
      of the people the exited
      crying, sobbing
      remembering
      mourning
he had given me a final gift, a good-bye
the greatest that's ever been given.

I came to this place a child within
      scared and lonely
      and confused, yet all-knowing
but I had left with his forever-remaining

voice of wisdom.

2011-01-29T22:11:00.000-08:00

I look back sometimes and though it's excruciating to remember, let alone write, I am thankful for something finally happening to me that has set me straight even if it was through fear. I don't think that I would've gotten the message in any other way; social workers, counscellors, family members and parents had never got through to me in the least nor did they understand. I guess, I just needed to find myself on my own.

When I awoke the next morning, relieved to be alive, much of the diphenhydramine had worn off and I was no longer high or "loopy" from it. I was able to think straight, function and make a clear judgement which at the time I had taken as if it were a gift straight from the freaking heavens. Glory Hallelujah, I was going to be okay!

I was in really bad shape though, and well, at least I had felt like it. I was dressed in a hospital gown with my clothes in a messy bundle at the foot of the emergency room cot while hooked up to an IV and heart monitor. My first thought was to reach over and begin folding them, maybe ask for something that I could put them in but I was too drowsy to carry it out. I remembered then an old friend from years back telling me that I "didn't suffer" from depression. That pissed me off. Yeah, I would've liked her to see me at that point and then tell me that I didn't suffer from it. Bitch.

Towards the end of my visit I had a few friends come to visit me, though no-one in my family or my father (who I was living with at the time) had the time to make it or bothered to; I don't know which. Though I could imagine them gossiping much more easily rather than coming to my room, holding my hand and telling me: "It's okay. You're okay, and we're all glad you're okay."

I had even learned that after my stay that my father's vacancy and not allowing my step-mother to visit was his way of "teaching me a lesson"- whatever that could mean. He is like a big child himself, irratic, always in some sort of mood swing and often throwing temper tantrums; at least, that is what I've gathered from his behaviour. He falls short in many areas, more than I could describe, and is only able to be kind when he wants something from someone. I have made a solid promise to myself that I will never be like him.

Home was no more peaceful than the hospital had been with him around, and honestly, the day I'd been discharged I have almost wanted to return. I was the same panicky, distressed girl that I had been when I was in the ambulance; I kicked myself many times for masking my way into deceiving my psychiatrists. "How was jail? Food good?" he'd ask, and I wanted nothing more than to ask him the same thing.

2011-01-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

I am NOT a child I am fifteen I am psychotic crazy loopy and I am dying but I am okay and maybe it's better to say I was dying but I am not now.

My feet are not running no they are in a cot they are strapped down they are immobile because there is no wind here and no sunshine or grass or pretty flowers or movies and music.

Right leg back left leg back maybe sometimes left leg back and right leg back but there's no use it to it anymore because I am only a speck of dust I am lost and cast away and it makes me realize how many of them there actually are.

I see bubbles and they are blue and beautiful and rainbow but only rainbows of the color blue and they remind me of the ocean and how I've always loved the ocean and The Little Mermaid and fish and coral and seashells and swimming and sand and beautiful sunsets over the water where the sun turns the entire sky red orange and violet and it's so beautiful and breathtaking and how I would give anything to live there and see that again.

WHO am I and who's girl am I keeps running through my head simultaneously because I am lost.

There is green and turquiose but it is not beautiful like the ocean gray green blue like my eye color like my grandma's eyes too but the special color they must make for hospitals that always makes me sick.

I close my eyes and I race myself I race myself with my right leg back left leg back because I am only a child and a speck of dust.

My name my name my name what have you gotten yourself into you can't keep doing this to yourself you need help I am very dissapointed in you you are in big trouble when you get home do you hear me BIG trouble you are on your own with this one I am not going to help you anymore.

Right leg back left leg back I wish I could run and listen to My Girl and sit on the sand at the beach and watch the sun go down into the ocean with the sun streaking with red and orange and pink and violet and I wish I could race one more time.

Nurse nurse am I hallucinating I call and the bubbles get bigger and I am not thinking about living or dying because my mind is too busy thinking about running and racing and MY GIRL and the ocean and the beautiful sunset on the ocean and sand and fish and right leg back left leg back and sometimes left leg back right leg back and she answers back yes you may as well be.

I am not thinking about living or dying because I do not care and instead I am only thinking about not having enough time and being messed up on 200 pills because I overdosed and My Girl by The Temptations and racing running with the wind and not against it.

I am a speck of dust only a speck of dust and it doesn't matter because there are so many of them.

I want to go home to run and sit on the beach and swim and watch the sunset on the ocean and see my mother because I needed her like a child needs their mother but she doesn't love me anymore and I don't love her even though I tried and tried and I just can't help the fact that there's nothing there I guess so I think right leg back left leg back that is how you run!

I think about how I don't need no money fortune or fame and how I have everything I need and how this is my cloudy day and that's okay because I have sunshine and that I have sunshine on a cloudy day.

WHO AM I.

The beach on the ocean is so beautiful at spring time and the sunset with the sky turning red orange pink and violet was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and I keep thinking about how I want to see it again and I want to listen to My Girl and race with my right leg back left leg back and sometimes left leg back right leg back and I want my parents but my mother and I don't love each other and my father says he needs to teach me a lesson.

My legs are immobile and I think it is because there is no wind here or movies or music or pretty flowers or grass and all I want to do is move and run and to be sure of whether I am going to live or die because I would be happy with either.

I am not a child I am fifteen and psychotic and crazy and loopy and stupid and one among millions who are psychotic and crazy and loopy too who want to hear music and see sunshine and grass and pretty flowers and movies and the red orange and violet sunset on the ocean because it's so beautiful and there is nothing in the world like it.

I am not a child running with the wind right leg back left leg back I am a crazy psychotic loopy fifteen-year-old girl in the emergency room because she almost killed herself and she is crazy crazy crazy.

I am getting yelled at but I don't know who by YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED she screams and she is a counscellor and she is very angry with me although I don't know why and I think that she must be almost as crazy as I am but then I think twice because I was talking to her but I can't remember what I said.

I feel like a child trapped in my body the same way a woman is trapped in a man's body and a man is trapped in a women's body and I know how they feel because I feel like a child trapped in a teenager's body all the time.

I closed my eyes and this time I didn't have to try to race myself race myself because my mind was already racing thinking about running and floating and dancing and My Girl and The Little Mermaid and sand on the beach and the sunsets on the ocean and how it makes the sky red orange and violet and how I run with my right leg back left leg back and sometimes left leg back right leg back.

I go to sleep and I wonder if I will ever wake up not that it mattered because I would be happy with either and I went to sleep with right leg back left leg back and My Girl and running racing floating and the sunsets at the ocean on my mind.

2011-01-28T07:58:00.000-08:00

Not the wind but with it a force I can't control but it isn't against me no it lets me float with it jump with it race with it run with it with it not against it.

I am a child a speck of dust I can be cast away but not today.

I am running not like the wind but with the wind and it feels wonderful because it is a force that I cannot control and it is not against me it lets me float jump race run with it it makes me feel alive.

A child I am a child a child is needless it makes a child a child we are not born greedy greed takes away the ability to enjoy live enjoy live ENJOY LIFE enjoy our life enjoy our lives like a child enjoys life enjoys to live enjoys their life.

I am running I am racing past everyone past everything right leg back left leg back because that's how it's done that's how you do it that is the only way I know how to do it so I will do it that way.

I am running I am racing past everyone past everything right leg back left left back and I am WINNING but I don't care because I am not thinking about winning I am only thinking about right leg back left leg back and running and being a speck of dust with the wind not against it and how I am not the wind it is a force and it is letting me run with it and it is letting me fly.

A child I am only a child but I am a lucky child I am a blonde haired blue eyed loved wanted needed child a fatherless child a child who doesn't have a care in the world because children are needless and I am not being blown away no not today.

I am the smallest the weakest the shyest AT TIMES because I am afraid to talk to speak my mind it is always running and racing right leg back left leg back and sometimes left leg back right leg back and I'm happy it is this way because for the first time my body is racing with my mind and my mind never stops.

I am a child who daydreams who thinks alot and admires all the beautiful flowers and the sights and I think about them.

I am running and I am running with the wind and I feel so special because the wind is a force that I cannot control and it wants me to run with it and I've never felt special before.

Like a speck of dust I am cast away always somewhere else and I am never where you last saw me and maybe it's because I'm so small and unnoticeable and I can never be found sometimes no matter how hard you look and a speck of dust cannot be kept forever because it is worthless but sometimes that can mean alot more than worthless and I am a child.

Right leg back left leg back and sprinting is all that I am doing but it feels like I am doing so much more because I am ME I am a child but I am me only me only me only ME.

I watched a movie and heard a song and I've seen it and heard it a million times when I was a child it is my child my childhood and it never gets old because it's always there and it cannot be changed because it's the past and it's like running with the wind too.

I am a speck of dust floating dancing racing and running.

This is my sunshine on a cloudy day and when it's cold outside this is my month of may because I will always remember it but I don't know I am going to remember it.

I am a child running and racing with the wind and I am winning but I don't care about winning because all I can think about is right leg back left leg back and My Girl who's my girl I am a girl but who's girl am I?

I am in an ambulance and they asked me if I was awake if I was concious but I didn't know and I didn't really hear it it only sounded like they were yelling down a tunnel echoing and I was back there running and thinking about My Girl and right leg back left leg back and sometimes left leg back right leg back and I was a child again I was a speck of dust but not the same speck of dust and I was thinking about My Girl and left leg back right leg back right leg back left leg back.

My name my name my name they said but that's okay because I was running with right leg back left leg back and thinking about My Girl and just being happy.

I was back there being a child and being with the wind and winning but not caring that I was winning and running with my right leg back left leg back and they were trying to pull me away and bring me back but I didn't want to come back NO I am a child and I am happy.

I am not fifteen I am not suicidial crazy psychotic I am not dying because I am a child running and running and racing with the wind and I am not going to listen to them or anyone because children are needless they don't need anything they are happy being a child and being happy and running and thinking about their favorite song.

Right leg back left leg back I am a speck of dust floating running racing dancing and I am winning but I don't care because I am not thinking about winning I am just thinking about right leg back left leg back and sometimes left leg back and right leg back and who's girl am I even though I am happy.

My name my name my name and I am back but I don't want to be back I want to be a child I am not a child I am ME I am dying I am okay and I am thinking about sunshine on cloudy days.

I am thinking about right leg back left leg back and sometimes left leg back and right leg back and My Girl and running and specks of dusts and the wind and running with the wind and winning even though I am not thinking about winning and who's girl am I and WHO am I because I am not a child I am not happy I am fifteen I am dying but I am okay I am crazy I am psychotic I am in an ambulance because I am going to the hospital and I am NOT a child I am not happy I am not running because I can't run no more.

2011-01-27T20:08:00.000-08:00

I read works such of that as Sapphire ('Push', currently reading... again! We both combine poetry and writing, I really like that.) and can't help that feel my work is hardly worth reading. After all, she's a phemonenal author; I am hardly comparable to that, in fact, not comparable at all. I do not expect my work to be the voice of a generation either, so perhaps it is a little bit of a bad comparison. I am not here to whine about my life as well, for it too is something that one cannot whine about. Like billions of people in the world, the one I lead is certainly not the best and it is definately not the worst, but normal as far as that title goes.

Although then again, no matter how far the title of "normal" goes, what is normal? A social standard maybe, a difference between each class; we are taught that it "doesn't matter what other people think", yet we string ourselves together with a mask for each act of the play to give the illusion of normalcy? That's what confuses me the most. It's something crossed my mind for years at a time and I haven't come up with an answer for myself that's been the least bit satisfactory. We, as humans, have the same emotional crisis' through each stage of life, don't we? Thick or thin, rich or poor, we must understand each other at some sort of level, be it low or high. We're just too afraid, rooted, conceited (in both senses of either that our lives are "too good" or "too bad") or stubborn to admit that. But as you might've guessed, I'm not smart or merely close to being, so I won't go on. About this, I'm only blindly repeating what every other person has thought at least once, even if they've reconsidered that thought.

I've heard once, though, that the most dysfunctional types of people and families (I can't help but adding this!) are the ones that try to appear normal most of all and really do the best at it. When I am watching television dramas, which is rare for I don't find them entertaining in the least (I like comedies, cartoons, and sitcoms), it's come to my mind that financially stable and "perfect" people only have those few problems to focus on, whether they are truly big or small, and drive themselves stark mad over not being socially acceptable should anyone find out. Television dramas are an enormous annoyance.

Normal for me, however, is one that I find exhausting time from time- emotionally, psychologically. I cannot sleep at night and never have because of my excessive over-thinking, feel guilty at making even the slightest movement in the wrong direction (which triggers me into saying "sorry" about a million times a day. If there is anything at all to know about me, it's that I apologize for everything), and in other words, overwhelmed by guilt at the fact that I am alive well and breathing.

I have been to the "looney bin", the psychiatric ward, four times, three of which before I was sixteen and once in this year where I am currently sixteen-years-old. Each time it has become less and less frightening for I am fully aware of what to expect- which, in turn, only makes it more horrific when I am to return. I've talked to at least twenty psychiatrists, all trying to "help", since I was only a child. I tell myself all the time, perhaps even every day, that "I will never go there again. No, I have changed!" which has never persued it's purpose of calming me and wondering how many changes it would truly take... probably many.

I was living with my father when I had taken my worst overdose, last Febuary. My father is not a man one should aspire to grow into; I pity anyone who should think that. No, he's a horrible man who's content with his life filled with drugs, countless relationships, and the loss of respect from his friends and family including myself. He is not home for the holidays, no, he is only home when he has gotten himself arrested and needs money for bail, is running from the police for armed robbery, trafficking, or some other terrible thing he's done. I hate him, and it is not "teenage angst" or anything along the lines of. I do hate him, and my terrible temper and tendancy to hold grudges has kept that true.

The abusive behaviour he engaged in has affected me deeply at that time- my anxiety, which I never knew I had, was surfaced to the point of three or four panic attacks daily; I was so out-of-tune that I would be shaking, playing with my hands and feet, or hyperventalating all the time. Unkind people had began starting rumours that I hid behind the school and did meth in-between my classes and at lunch, though not a touch of it was true! Of course it wasn't, for I wouldn't even think about touching meth although some actually did believe it.

The day of the overdose, however, was not one filled with anxiety as one (myself included) would have expected of that time. It already felt as if I were dying even without action, and not in the peaceful way it is so often described- I was not peaceful. I woke up with the feeling that my life was only an extension of the nightmares that I've been suffering from for years, for there was no beginning or end to them. They just dragged on and on...

I was brought to the emergency room, for the third time because of suicidal idealation, through an ambulance after a frantic call by myself to 9-1-1. I had swallowed two-hundred diphenhydramine sleeping pills, and from the moment where I lost my vision on had been nothing but a blur- both literally and metaphorically. I had it in my mind that I would never see again, and since then I have had an intense fear of becoming blind or coming across complications with eye-sight. I was prodded by paramedics, heart meters, and had pure, cold oxygen in my nose.

I remember clearly though, one memory of mine while I was being talked to, more or less I was having my name said over and over again from somewhere distant. Was I concious? Don't ask me, I don't know. I was somewhere else.

I was six-years-old again, a young child with bright blue eyes and blonde hair. It was a sunny day, though whether it was spring or summer I can't determine; it didn't matter. The grass was green and there was a field of it, dark and perfect with yellow dots all over. Dandelions. I thought they were exceptionally pretty but didn't pick them, and it's because I wasn't dawdling- but racing.

Move your right leg and back, left and back, that is how you run
It's really easy; You just gotta push yourself a little bit
and run
run run
run
run fast.

I am not the smallest and the slowest
not not
not-
"My Girl" like a broken record.

Right leg back, left leg back,
run run
run-
"I've got sunshiiine on a cloudy day"

Right leg back, left leg back
run run
run-
"When it's cold outsi-ide, I got the month of may"

Right leg, left leg
run run
run-
"I guess you'd say, 'What can make me feel this way?'"

Right, left
run run
run-
"My girl..."

My girl, talking 'bout...
My girl.