Category Archive

…it only hurts when i breathe.

sometimes i have things to write. things i’m passionate about. things that are on my mind. things that make me angry. things that rhyme… today there is so much on my mind. i’d love to write. i’d love to know what to say. but i’m at a loss. i have no effing clue. i guess we’ll go down the list.

apparently i’m out of work for another week. huge problem that i dont feel like discussing.

i have finals coming up. i was getting A’s in all my classes. now i am getting B’s. not too happy. this means my finals need to be great. like not C’s and D’s, the grades i most recently pulled on every one of my last tests. i even got two B+’s on papers in english. hello? that is not okay for me. i’m kind of being a spoiled kid right now. but i just really wanted to do well. exceptionally well. so well that maybe i could be proud of my mind again. i failed. because i let myself get sad.

i’m depressed. severely, utterly, devastantly depressed. i don’t know if that word was a word. but i like it, so it’s staying. i’m constantly in a state of sadness. my state of mind is more like the state of nevada. it doesn’t know if it wants to be desolate, dry and scorching, or if it wants to be awake, coniving, and resourceful, or if it wants to be trashy, insignificant, and a lesser being then it’s normal, better counterpart. my brain is arguing whether or not prostitution should be legal, since, come on, there are worse things in the world.

my hands are cold. so cold. they need to be held. really badly. held. come on. hold my hand. do it. whatever. it’s too late now. i found a fireplace. serves more purposes then you could ever. you’re like my knight in shining armour that leaves when things get rough. “oh damn, you’re weighing down my white horse, i’m gonna have to let you off- or you could workout.” you’re like never there when i’m sad. and that’s only like so completely annoying. i can’t accept that anymore. but i do. cause the whole problem is in my mind. i am completely psychotic. or that’s what you tell yourself.

if i were a man, my method of communication would be my sex drive. instead of this horrid emotional communication that i use. men think everything can be solved with sex, because frankly, if they were sad, they would love a blow job. if i’m sad i want starbucks. and then i want things bought for me. and then i want you to listen to every stupid and irrelevant thing i have to say. and then i want you to give me hug. and then, and only when i’m ready, you can tell me i’m pretty. i’d like that.

i had grape juice and apparently, my mom just informed me, i spilled it on the counter. i need to move out of this joint. i really really really really really need something to be proud of right now.

anything.

my mom just bought me starbucks and gave me a hug. the worst is over.

you can tell me i’m pretty now.

“I don’t know how to write on anything when you just tell me to write. You need to give me a topic. If you say write, I’ll do it, but you’ll end up getting some short poem about a broken heart.”
-Rosey

Twenty years ago. I was two. It was my golden birthday. I got chicken pox and and a pink and purple purse with my name embroided on it. “Alyssa.” My dad got it for me.

Fifteen years ago I was seven. I was in third grade. I told my mom to put me in public school because I wanted to feel normal. Needless to say, I haven’t felt normal since.

Ten years ago I was twelve. I was in eigth grade. My parents were surprisingly still together. I mean all my friends got to have divorced parents. Mine had to last through an affair. I wasn’t happy. I had already chosen the parent I was going to move out with and was excited for my dual bedroom situation. I spent the entirety of this part of my life relieved that I didn’t kill myself, but wondering if I still could.

Five years ago I had graduated highschool. I was supposed to go to Columbia College in Chicago. I had everything all set when I realized that my parents REALLY were NOT going to pay for anything. I decided I was not about to waste my money on art school. I went to community college because my friends made bets with each other. They doubted I’d go. So I went if only to prove them wrong. I dropped out. I proved them so wrong.

Two years ago I was raped, which we no longer like to call it. The current term is, “Sexual Assault,” had it been someone I didn’t know, and had I not been completely blacked out, we might have called it “Aggravated Sexual Assualt.” But apparently I was more than willing to sleep in this man’s bed after spending two hours of my life getting over alcohol poisoning. (You’re welcome for the lesson on rape.) I then proceeded to spiral downhill and neglect the only job I had thus far, with a boss that didn’t hate me. I had to leave on semi-awkward terms. I was unemployed for two months. (I had been unemployed for 6 months before so this was no big deal.) I then got the job that I just lost. When I say lost I mean quit. I mean got fired from. Its not lost. I know where to find it. 2575 Higgins, Hoffman Estates. Dial out? The code is BLUE.

That whole assualt thing is a funny story. Yes it brought me here in a way, but honestly it’s over. And those that are still trying to save me from it, need to back down. I’m fine. I’m really okay. I don’t need saving. In fact if one more person wishes to save me, I might have to hurt them. As my friend Jace told me the other day,

“It’s kind of something you never would think about when coming out of such an ordeal. Not that it’s worse then what happened, but this desire in everyone’s heart to save you, has got to feel pretty horrible.” It does my friends, it does.

Because if anyone could see me, they’d see what I am. That was two fucking years ago. Finished. I may talk about it, just like I talk about how I argued my way from a B- to an A, in highschool, on a research paper on Marilyn Monroe. It’s my life, let me talk. Don’t try to fix me. I’m not broken, well not in that way. I don’t need protection from the world. I don’t need you to be any different then anyone. I don’t need saving. If you really NEED to save me, mail me an anonymous check. That would help right now. I don’t need a hug, I need tangible goods and services. I need a job. I need a place to live.

I need you to be real. And that’s really where you failed.

This is called officially the sixth worst time period of my life.

I’m fat, unemployed, acne-faced, without savings and with a car that gets 15 miles to the gallon. Oh yeah, and I have to drive 45 minutes to school, everyday. Oh yeah, and the house i was supposed to rent has “severe setbacks,” especially with the, “I just lost my job” factor. Oh yeah, I’m not tan… Being shallow is what gets me through incredible pain.

I’m so fucking sick of being resiliant. But I’m even more sick of people trying to rescue me. Please save your saving for someone who is not as strong as I am. Like the girl with the little doggie. I need a long walk. I need free starbucks. I need someone to think I’m the most wonderful person in the world. Not because I’m pretty, smart, funny and/or creative. Even though I am ALL those things. But because they’d pay money to be in my presence and not talk. Because they want to sit in the middle of a dead street with me and wait for the cars to run us over.

Write that down.

i keep a rabbit’s foot hanging from the mirror in my car. it’s on the passenger side, so sometimes for no reason, i finger the dead foot with my right hand, and i feel better. i don’t feel better because i believe in the foot. i don’t believe in luck. it’s not real. it’s an illusion that some people seem to have more of. when i touch the foot i am reminded that i am in control of my own destiny. i am in control of the light switch that turns the epiphanys on and and off. i am in control. i hate to be out of control.

next to the mirror, above the window, there is a stain. the stain reminds me of a day. a day when i lost control, and then it reminds me of the time i took it right back. and i felt so unlucky for so long. why would a girl like me, who is kind and good and pure have something like that happen to her? if there is a god he had forgotten about me. if there is luck, it was not meant for me. and i was unlucky.

i was unjustly fired from two jobs before i reached age twenty. it sounds strange, because i mean, if it kept happening i obviously suck, not my managers. but the point is, i had to go back, share with the management my viewpoint, and they offered me my jobs right back. and one of my bosses even admitted to me that the whole time i was there i was treated unfairly. and she was sorry. that’s just me, being treated poorly, because i am young, naive, and vulnerable. unfair, unjust, unlucky.

i told myself that i was okay, and that it was for the best. when they offered me my jobs back, i turned them down, because i wanted to go somewhere where i was wanted. it’s nice to be wanted. it’s nice to know that there could be someone out there who looks at my good, and wants to develop me. instead of being around people that want to tell me that i dress too slutty for work, because i don’t wear nylons with heels. some people.

i am an emotional wreck. i know this. i cry a lot. i do a lot of really stupid things. things that make you feel like maybe i am not as smart as you once thought i was. when yelled at i do one of two dumbassfuckup things. either i completely freak out, or just shut off and ignore you til you go away. both unhealthy. both completely insane. but at least i know what i do. and i know how to fix it. i know how to undo a lot of what i’ve caused. i know how to apologize, maybe because i’ve had a lot of practice? maybe because i am really good inside, just surfacely crazy. my mom has told me that i am a genius. so i look at micheal jackson for reasoning.

with great genius comes great insanity.

i just got fired. actually i’m not really supposed to know that i did. but one of managers decided to tell everyone. so now with my second hand firing i have to go in on my own terms today and hear it again. there’s nothing i can do now, except hope for the best kind of grade A firing i can get. it’s because i was stupid. because i do that. because i am unlucky? no, because there was a choice, and i am more easily replaceable then someone else. i’m nervous. my hands are shaking cold. but even those will be okay.

i found a place to live. kind of transitional while i move on with life. so now i need money. and i am fired. came out of nowhere. kind of a shock. i could be unlucky. whenever i am happy finally, something happens to shove my face back to the curb. it’s like the life goal of the world is to not let me stay too content for too long. that would be too nice.

but i am not unlucky. i know this. two weeks ago i fell into dispair. so i spent the last week going over my life to get out of it. i quickly discovered that i was lucky.

luckiness recap:
i am a horrible driver, and i’ve never been in an accident. i’ve been pulled over twenty times and have only gotten three tickets. (because even the luckiest lose sometimes.) i’ve gotten every job i’ve applied for. i completely blew off a class for two weeks, took the test, guessed on every question and got a passing grade. the mechanics at the ntb told me that i am the only person they know who owns a car that actually fixes itself. and then they decided not to charge me for the oil change. and why don’t we just fix your tires for free? this could also happen because i’m cute, but even that is lucky, eh?

i am fired. i am. but for some reason it seems okay. i am sad. but i should have been fired five other times. this is just it. the end. and time to move on. i’m lucky in this way. sometimes when i need to make a decision, the decision is always made for me. not saying i’m out of control. i am, but when things feel the most clouded, is when a burst of light shines through and i carry on and i go right back to the beginning. a little bit stronger, a little smarter, a little more impervious? and it’s all good again. i am lucky that i can see, i am lucky that i know there is more, i am lucky.

it doesn’t ever suck to be me. i’m not a victim. i know what i’m doing, and i know what i’ve done to deserve it. and i am my own hero. hopefully thats okay.

and the foot belongs to a rabbit. that rabbit wasn’t so lucky. and it reminds me that i am.

lucky.

like most people in the world, i have a myspace. myspaces get hacked. it’s not a huge deal. but last year, sometime, i logged on my space and was horrified by something i read in my “about me” section. it could have been anyone, but i know it was not just anyone. it was the same person who instant messaged my friend matt, under my screen name, and told him i was wasted at 2:00pm and was in love with him. it was the same person who logged in on one of these old blogging sites of mine, and changed my profile picture to look like a horror film. basically a computer-hand-written message stating that, “i am a bitch.”

there is more that was done. reading messages and deleting them. being sent random messages from people stating that they heard a rumor about me. when in reality, these people did not even exist, just another attempt at controlling me.

i kinda wondered what i did that was so horrible. what i was that could make someone hate me that much. maybe i really am a bitch. maybe this person knows something that he/she feels the need to tell me about, without actually telling me who he/she is. what am i saying, already know who he is.

i’m afraid to let someone else get something from my car in fear that they’ll forget to lock my doors. i’m afraid of nighttime. i am afraid of blacking out. i am afraid all the time. and i don’t think that’s fair. i’ve never made anyone fear this much. except once. i’m pretty sure he cried he was so scared.

this is what my about me said:

“you have to understand my life story if you want to understand me. my need for smoking and drugs and wanting attention from boyz is all caused by one thing. see, i was raped last year. i need people to feel sorry for me even if they don’t know why to feel sorry for me.

i like to call myself a christian, but if you really knew me, you wouldn’t believe it. i’ve always been a bitch. i like to bring others down, especially those who are prettier than me, because it really does make me feel better about myself. to see someone cry because of me is a rush.

don’t hate me because i’m beautiful on the oustide. i’m certainly not beautiful on the inside.”

and that’s it. i didn’t write it. and i don’t think anything has made me feel that horrible in my entire life. and when someone gets all weird that someone hacked into their space and started spamming everyone. i laugh. because it’s really not that big a deal.

i am a bitch. what’s your name?

currently i am sitting in this little cube, in the library, trying to think up a topic to research. i decided on the supreme court, but my teacher told me that was a retarded idea, and forced me to reconsider. so now i’m all like, i want to research how many times keira knightly has been on the cover of vogue.

i’m pretty sure i own every one of those. everytime she is on the cover of vogue i buy it. same with drew barrymore, if she is on the cover of vogue, i will purchase the magazine.

i think keira knightley is beautiful. like her face is perfection in the strangest form. i also like how she is boobless and too skinny. i love that.

now drew barrymore is a different subject. she might possibly be the worst actress on earth, besides anyone from 7th heaven, but i am intrigued by her. you know, i don’t even find her pretty in the least, she’s actually even kind of annoying. but, my whole life people have said i look like her, and act like her, and so when i see her on vogue i like to pretend that that is me. in my head we are the same person.

maybe i hate myself or something. i mean keira knightley is not me at all. she has brown hair, sometimes, like i do, sometimes, and she is flat, and so am i. but not like me.

drew barrymore is funny looking and lisps. i hate that. but i lisp and sometimes i think that i am the funniest looking chick in the world.

coversation held 15 years earlier:
hey honey, what’s your name?
aletha
aletha? that’s an interesting name.
no, a-l-y-th-a.
uhuh. anyway, you look just like that barrymore in ET, but with dark hair of course.

drew barrymore can be pretty. i know that. but normally she is a dog, and i look like her. luckily for me i look like everyone.

some i get all the time:

drew barrymore:

katie holmes:

selma blair:

princess caroline of monaco:

liv tyler:

jennifer connelly:

ashlee simpson:

jay leno:

my family:

and your best friend’s girlfriend…

not saying i look like all these people, i mean, some of those girls are super hot, but i’ve gotten each comparison a thousand times over. once, someone actaully thought i was katie holmes. i was like, yeah. okay. tom cruise is weird.

conversation held 3 days ago, and 2 days before that and soon before that:
wow, you remind me so much of this girl i know.
really? cool.
yeah, she’s just like you, so original, and pretty too.
oh yeah? awesome.
hey matt, doesn’t she look and act just like sam’s girlfriend?
yeah.
thanks.
you wanna go out sometime?
how bout you just steal your friend’s girlfriend, instead.

i want to know, if i look, act, and smell just like some girl that everyone knows, how is it that i am always compared to the chick, because she is so original? she is obviously not original, if we are exactly alike.

this was so pointless, and i got nothing accomplished.

sometimes i like to make lists. lists of facts, lists of ideas, lists of things to do, lists of my top five favorite songs of all time, lists of lists that i have made.

i like to read lists too. i just read “the fifty things a guy needs to know about girls.” i got a lot out of it, obviously, considering i agreed with it all- and i thought, “hey every guy should read this.” then, i almost reposted it on facebook. but soon after reading it, i figured that the only people to read it would be girls, and they would say things to me like, “every guy needs to know this!” and i’d have to respond to them or something. and i just don’t have the time. plus i don’t think guys read lists. because i really don’t think they care. it be another one of those things girls do to preach to the choir.

i would imagine that if a guy out there had a crush on me, he might want to read something about me. like a list. maybe a list of my favorite places, favorite movies, a list of random facts… but then i stop and think. no one really cares, let alone guys.

men don’t give a shit about what you like, and you’re lucky when they remember your birthday.

i so badly want to make a list right now. i might later. write it on a scrap piece of paper and throw it away after i read it and realize, that yes, this is an honest, factual list. i’d start with the things i’ve done, like how i’ve watched every episode of sex and the city, how i went to california and new york last year, how i dance in my car when i’m by myself and i do think i’m the shit when i do it.

later, i might go on and make a list of what i like in a guy. i made one of these in highschool, and no joke, it got up to 200 things. i was picky then, didn’t want to waste my time on a ‘non-perfect man,’ now i’m just alone. with no practice. no feelings that i am able to comprehend. i guess i should have practiced my hand on the dumbasses. but it’s too late now. i never went to prom, never practiced kissing underneath the bleachers, never cared for someone.  and now i don’t know real love from lust, don’t know friend from fuck. don’t know.

tonight, i might make a list of things i should do before spring break ends- like my taxes. and how maybe i should study for a test. and how maybe i should work out a little more. or maybe i should stop crying all the time. that would be a good list. but just thinking about making that list makes me want to vomit. and i’ve puked too much already this week.

a little side note: my dad’s sister died yesterday. so he and my mom are in florida for the week. i feel bad for my dad, though i didn’t know what to say to him. i said i’m sorry. i guess that’s what you say. and now i’m home, by myself, and i feel alone. i’m not sad about my aunt dying. though i should be. i’m not hungry, i’m not tired, i’m not anxious. i’m just alone right now. i hate this feeling. i feel worthless. common. disabled. good for nothing. numb. loveless. annoying. fat. ugly. short haired lesbian looking stupid cunt.

i just spent an hour looking at pictures of this guy i used to love and his current girlfriend. what good does that do me? all i did was think about how unattractive she is, and how she probably isn’t as witty, intelligent, and original as i am. i don’t even like this guy anymore. so why waste my time you ask?

i think that after awhile you just start to wonder why in 22 years, you weren’t good enough for any one person you decided to let your heart love.

it’s not healthy to turn the reasons you suck into a list, but i might try tonight.

this thirty-two year old bartender i worked with at fridays last year, told me that she didn’t understand why anyone bothered smoking in the winter, “really it’s lame, i should just quit when it starts to get cold. you don’t smoke? you think you’re better then us? if you wanna talk to people and know them you should take it up for the summer, thats where we talk.” i told her i’d rather run on my days off. she rolled her eyes to my face.

she then told me that she “owned the bar” and that if i did anything wrong, i might as well give up and go home. i stared deeply into her brown eyes and deep wrinkles, wondering how long i had to maintain eye contact, before i was allowed to walk away and roll my eyes. she had yellow teeth and frizzy hair. she told me her regulars were what kept her there. thats when i woke up.

i drove home that night at two in the morning, wondering why anyone would ever work at a resturant as long as she did. why they would be okay calling it their life. why they would get pleasure out of yelling at a new bartender because she cleaned a scooner the wrong way.

i quit soon thereafter. if i was going to have a job, it was going to be easy, mindless, and not FRIDAYS. i took my old job back, and registered for classes at some community college in the northwest suburbs of chicago.

i started smoking again for the winter. i also broke five scooners when that thirty-two year old bartender wasn’t looking. she would’ve been so disapointed on both counts.

the moral of the story, because there isn’t one, is that sometimes it takes seeing someone who resembles your future, to make you run the other way. this ugly, old, wrinkly, fake tanned, yellow-toothed bartender might have been me in ten years. well not completely, she was married with two kids.

i am currently listening to kylie minogue. i don’t really know why. i thought i was smarter than that.

in front of me is a couch. it’s tan. it has tan pillows. it has a brown blanket. the table in front of me is wood. oak, or something. the blanket beneath my feet is earth tones to match the green walls that were there before my grandmother arrived.

she didn’t always live in wisconsin. in fact for a lot of my young life she lived down the street. i would go over with my brother and two sisters (pre-adoption days), every saturday, so my parents could learn to love each other again. there i ate macaroni and cheese and watched speed racer until two in the morning.  there i was allowed one can of sprite.  sometimes i’d get two.  sometimes i’d watch my grandma’s movies instead of cartoon network. 

sometimes, i would go over after school to babysit my cousins for 10 whole dollars.

My cousins moved there after the trailer they were living in burned down, because of some chemical reaction to the pepper spray used by the police when arresting my uncle for beating his wife. This was some time ago. since then, i doubt my cousin would ever think to call the cops on his dad again. not since he’s been molested by his mom, and learned that sometimes the best option is to remain silent.

this did happen in illinois, not wisconsin. but it seems the majority of my family has fled here. things are more accepted. things like driving slow in the left lane, and coming to complete pauses at yield signs.

i have stories i could tell you. but when you ask, i’m not always going to offer up my information. the only stories i have are the bad ones.

i miss my cousins. there are four i used to babysit. i hated babysitting them, because they were well, messed up. but there were times that they were just kids. they were sweet. they were normal.  some had more adhd then others, but they weren’t lost souls yet… i haven’t seen them in seven years.

so now i sit in wisconsin. in my grandma’s house. smells like marlboro menthol ultra lights, just like it did before. looks like tan and brown, just as it always has. the walls are covered with skeletons that we all pretend to see as innocent photographs- as they’ve always been. my senior picture is nowhere to be found amongst the grown cousins. i’m a little excited for that. it almost makes me not exist here.

but i do.

you can’t escape the family you were born from. no matter how hard you try. they’re behind you. and somehow when they’re not there you miss them. and then i do wish my senior picture was on the wall, so that when my cousin’s come over, and i’m far away again, they will remember that i exist. and that when i think about them, i cry. because i know my love for them won’t save their life. they are a victim of the family just like i am.

i feel bad for only telling you a small fraction of the stories i could.  but then again, you’d probably not believe me anyway.

my family is more fucked up than yours.

i’ve had a lot of unfinished business. i’d like to think that if i died today on the way to work, i would become a ghost and haunt people. there would be some lucky people out there, getting to be haunted by me.

yesterday my english teacher told me that i should be published. that i have a lot of knowledge and experience in writing well. he’s a little off, because where i write a lot, and have experience, i do not write well. maybe he knows something that i’m not particularly inclined to know. i wish i knew what others know to be true about me. he told me i’d get an A in the class, which is awesome, because i’m always late and i miss class all together, about half the time.

people tell me i’m pretty, but if i don’t hear it everyday, i start to doubt it. i’m such an insecure, little twenty-two year old fuck.

all i want is to be left alone, but i hate when people actually do. don’t call me, because i don’t want to have to call you back. but if you don’t call me, you must not love me, and therefore i suck. i have two contradicting personalities, actually i might have seven. i’m not bi-polar, i have dissociative identity disorder.

i ran the majority of the chicago marathon, and when i say majority i mean they cancelled it in the middle, so i had to walk six miles, or i’d be arrested, or looked down upon, or something. now i’m going to run the majority of the san francisco marathon. and when i say majority, i mean when we run over the golden gate bridge i’m going to throw myself in the water.

…then become a ghost and haunt people.

i used to have this severe power of being able to make anyone hate me just by talking to me. it was strange, nowadays, i assume thats not the case, but it could be. you never know. i often times talk to people like they are dumber than i, mostly because they are. i know a lot about everything, and if i don’t know something, i’ll google it, or pretend i know and make up shit. my friend dana hated this about me, and always used to ask, “how do you know this? is this a fact?” and she hated my answers of, “it should be a fact,” or “i just know it, because it makes sense,” or “i may not really know, but it’s probably right.”

i’d haunt dana by whispering sweet random nothing facts in her ear at night. she’d probably think it was witchcraft, cause she lives in honduras. oh, wait that’s haiti. whatever, i don’t know much about honduras. she’s got me on that one. when i see her, i ask her how it feels to sleep under grass and dirt huts and swat flies from her face. she looks at me like i’m mental. i guess she has a maid, even. i don’t understand why, if you lived in a mud hut, you’d actually need a maid.

i have a membership to lifetime fitness. it’s fun. i watch a lot of fox news, law and order, and the biggest loser all through closed captions. i’ve never watched so much tv in my entire life. it gives new meaning to being a couch potato. i don’t watch tv when i’m doing nothing. when i do nothing, i really do nothing.

one day, after i do all this school stuff, and live my life being poor, i’m going to make a lot of money. it’s just obvious. i will one day be able to support myself and a bunch of other people. it’s nice to think about, but for my twenties it will not be the case… i’m going have to serve/bartend at some lame old bottom of the barrel resturant chain in hoffman estates. i might get a job as a starbucks barista soon. i’d save about 10,000 a year on coffee. no joke. i’m sick.

when i die, you will know me by the starbucks cup in my right hand, and the witty ghostly dialogue coming from my see-through mouth. hopefully i get to keep my pretty, dark-brown, flowing tresses. i love you all.

love, me.

when my mom is home, there is always coffee brewing. she like me and my sister jane, brother and dad, have serious problems with coffee.

a year ago, in another one of her health attempts, my mom went through a phase where she didn’t intake caffeine. it made my life difficult, mainly because i didn’t know how to work a coffee maker.

me, who loves coffee, espresso, and everything in between, was twenty-one and unable to use a coffee machine. by looking into this situation a little deeper, i think you would find that most people are like this, if you have no reason to learn something, you just don’t learn it. my mom made coffee for me, why would i need to make it?

 i don’t know why i would.

well, i learned how, during that troubling time, and in fact, i’m really good at it. i make great coffee. obviously. i mean, it’s not a talent.

(i am currently enjoying home brewed, french roast, starbucks coffee, and listening to the orginal motion picture soundtrack, based on the orignal broadway musical soundtrack, RENT, based on the hiv. it’s so exciting. measure your life in love.)

i hate my mom’s health freak weirdness. i never am able to find food in the house, because you have to make everything from scratch. no easy mac, no diet coke, no fuckin’ white bread and skippy. my life is pain. i ate a roast beef sandwich on wheat with grey poupon an hour ago. i always forget how much dijon honey mustard sucks. it burns my nose. i always throw away half the sandwich, because i can’t take it anymore. i don’t know why i keep forgetting how much i hate it.

my brain fails me in this area.

my mom has never allowed junk food in the house. she actually blends black beans with our brownie mix, because it makes them more filling. sadly, my mom is right, and they still taste good. i’m really surprised that my family is not like really perfectly thin. furreal.

my sister jane wants to be a beautician. she could do that. she’s going to cut and color my hair today, she’s been cutting my hair since she was thirteen. jane could do well in most endeavors. she’s an uncommonly gifted individual.

do you think genius is inherited? both my parents are geniuses. it’s a weird thing, i mean what measures genius? my brother might fail an iq test, but who’s to say that he is not a musical genius? he is incredible and well above the rest. my sister, clara, is going to med school in another year. ever since she was little, biology and chemistry have come so easy for her. both clara and adam were also insanely talented at sports. my brother opted out of college football, when he realized that music to him, was more important. clara stopped running cross country, and took her bi-lingual self to germany for a year- and now they are on to something else.

i have two russian sisters. one of them is bi-lingual, and supermodel looking, and is the 400m 800m queen for track and field. and she’s adopted. my parents are so genius, they even know how to buy them.

the best thing about olivia is that i showed her the last paragraph i just wrote, and she burst out laughing. sense of humor can be the same in any launguage. 

i love talking about my family. we are all psychotic, crazy, bi-polar, ocd, adhd, undetermined lazy-asses. but, we are all so freaking cool, funny and beautiful, it’s fun to talk about.

my mom and dad are probably the most fucked up of us all. but they are also the most intelligent, gifted individuals i have ever met. they have everything they’re kids have and then some. i think thats why the one unforgiveable sin in our household is premarital sex. they don’t want us all ruining our lives by getting pregnant and the feeling obligated t0 marrying the wrong person. why would they want us to squander our brains the way they did?

me and jane blast Dido and Jewel, and dance around our rooms. only crazies dance to easy listening music.

normally when i write titles to these entries i pull them out of my ass before i even write anything… and then, while writing, i have no idea what to say, i just write and hope whatever i wrote made sense… sometimes i’ll read something later and be like, “wow, alyssa you are awesome.” othertimes i’m like, “i can’t believe you are that stupid. you wrote the wrong form of ‘to’ again, and nothing you wrote makes sense to anyone not even yourself. fuckhead.” i don’t really delete it if it’s bad, i figure that i was borderline retarded for some reason, and maybe it would be okay if the internet knew it.

speaking of the internet. i’ve wrote on the internet for sometime. and you know, i am a fan of “blogs” or “blogging” (even though i hate the word with an insane passion, and i feel stupid for even saying i’m a fan of it.) but whatev. i enjoy writing to a void. i know there are people i know who read it, unless your rosey or john, i don’t know that you read it, and therefore you are stalking me. but thats cool. mostly if you’re reading this, i don’t know you. and thats also cool.

maybe i can give you insight into my life. i know a lot about things like being a “psychopath” “insane” “borderline retarded” “grammatically challenged” all those horrible things… by reading what i write maybe you’ll become depressed, maybe encouraged, maybe you’ll just know me a little better. maybe, just maybe, it’s the best way to stalk me. but i keep writing here, because the internet saves what i write, and my mom stalks my word documents. and sometimes it’s nice to vent to people i don’t know.

at this point in my entry, i will either change the subject completely, write song lyrics to the song that inspired to me to write today, or end on some tragic note about how my life sucks.

maybe today i’ll do something else. maybe i’ll tell you exactly whats going on instead of writing a poem that you can interpret anyway you want to.

i have to leave for work in 15 minutes and i don’t have make up on. i have a friend that i like, that i mess around with, that is dating someone else. i don’t know where to go with that. except that every other day it sucks and i hate him, and every other day i want to mess around with him again. it be better if i just didnt like him. but it’s hard when he makes me laugh. i love when he makes me laugh.

i have an eight year old boyfriend that went to build a bear and built me a cream colored bear. he named it after himself, i call it snuggles. he loves me the way an eight year old knows how. one day he’ll grow up and figure out what everyone my age already knows: all love is a lie, and i, alyssa, am a psychopath.

i had a thirty-four year old boyfriend. well, he was never my boyfriend, but i liked him enough that he could have been. he was good to me. and he wanted me to be his girlfriend. it ended up that i didn’t take him, because it seemed so for sure and real, and it scared me. so i fell back on a douchebag with a nice back, because i knew that THAT would never be real. that it would continue to make love a mystery, and that’s what i wanted.

a boy i dated two years ago just called me this morning. we’ve been friends since then, but i haven’t talked to him in months. he was always smart, good and beautiful. but he never made me laugh so hard i cried.

there’s only a few people that can make me do that. and thats all i really want. that, and to say that i’m 22 and actually called someone my boyfriend, instead of calling him just another guy that liked me, or that i liked, or that i messed around with.

there’s alot going on, i don’t need anyone, i never have. and now, i work over fourty hours a week, i go to school full time, and one day, i’m going to be too good to hang around with myself.

ring the alarm. there’s a fire on the roof.

grey skies hurt my feelings. i’m being serious. i get depressed. angered. irritable. like two years ago to the day, i told God that if i were to wake up the next morning, and it was grey, i might actually slit my wrists in the bathtub. the next day the sky was bright blue. i thanked God for understanding the seriousness of my prayer.

i don’t know how much i believe in God anymore. i feel as though it was just a nice coincidence that kept me alive.

a coincidence. like the time i almost fell from my attic window when i was six. i was on my way down when something pushed me back in and i landed on my back on the floor. my mom was outside, she saw me falling she saw me fly back in. she told me that it was an angel. i didn’t see any angel. i saw nothing actually. i didn’t even see danger.

or how bout the time when i was basically thought to be dead in my mother’s womb because the cord was wrapped around my neck three times. i’m probably supposed to be mentally retarded. i might be. but i’m not dead.

someone wants me alive. but it’s probably all coincidence.

i know most alive people have these little moments where they understand that they aren’t just matter thrown about the earth. that there might be a reason for their existence. so i’m not alone in that. but i think im alone in the fact that i don’t care anymore. i’m alive, so what? what does that even mean?

if my parents are right and if you believe in god and jesus and heaven and hell, then you will end up in paradise with the other believing people. and you’ll be happy walking on the streets of gold, and living in the castles full of medium rare filets and garlic mashed potatoes. and the blind will see, the lame will walk, the deaf will hear, the dumb will find their brains, and the fat will be thin. there will be no sex, because God is better than sex. uhuh.

but what if we are nothing, and this life is all we have? then i am screwed. this life sucks. and as my friend told me yesterday, he is holding out a hope that reincarnation is real, because he is ready to try again.

why don’t we get two chances?

if i could, i would go back to high school. cause i would be the most popular chick there. now i just have empty memories about how much life sucked for me, and how my life continues to suck, because no one asked me to my senior prom. shallow, i know, but my life sucks too bad to actually dwell on the real shit that happens.

we all get burned. we all get hurt. we all fall short of what is perfection. so why can’t we try again? i’ve always thought that those who believed in reincarnation were just hoping for that chance. now i think that those who believe in god are hoping for the same thing. but this time in new bodies, and happier spirits. and it’s a pretty little fairy tale.

i’m not saying that i don’t believe in god. because i too, need to hold on to something just like everyone. and i do think that life is too coincidental to suggest that we are matter and that we don’t matter. but please, a god that loves us and wants to bring us to a better place? where is this better place? my parents basement is the fucking hancock signature room to some people. and you know what? my parents basement sucks balls and is freezing cold. how can there be a better place when everyone, including bill gates, the dali lama, and bono still haven’t found the best?

when i was little my mom bought me a set of finger paints. i thought that they were the stupidest things in the world. i drew a blue sky and left some clouds white. i painted a red river. i showed my mom and she didn’t even bother to put it on the fridge. to some kid’s parents, that would have been art, but because i was born with a brush, painting like leonardo, my finger painting abilities were seen as garbage.

the moral of this story is that i can’t even live up to my own potential. and i am reminded everyday.

i wish i wasn’t such a genius. i’d close the case on my life now. hands on the bible, i might kill myself even. but i understand that i am still alive, and that only a couple hundred people would care that i was gone. to some thats a lot, to me, it’s a desperate attempt for attention that i wouldn’t even be alive to see.

but whatev. no answers tonight. i’m just gonna breathe and sleep and brush my teeth and not necessarily in that order.

the end.

i find myself searching for this mysterious answer to a question twenty-two years deep. granted, twenty-two years is nothing to the majority of people on this earth, but for me, it’s my life, and it’s been a long time. but i wonder, as i grow older, and continue to breathe this oxygen and not the dirt six feet beneath the ground, why i have not found the ending to my story.

you know, the point in my life where everything makes sense. where i wind up with the questions answered, the point of my life understood, the love of my life discovered. i want that. i want to be content. to find contentment. but like most people, i get caught in the struggle of not settling for contentment until my life brings me something that i can be glad about, that i know will stay with me forever.

why can’t i find that thing? that one thing. the climax in my story. the point in the book of alyssa. because i am so fucking pointless. and in my mind, contentment never shows up. i remember the two best days of my life.

the first day, i was seven years old, my mom told me that if i cleaned my room i could hang out with my best friend, erica. so i cleaned that room spotless and was allowed to go out. erica, my brother, some neighbor kids and i rode around the filthy town of springfield, il on our bikes until the sun went down. we discovered alleyways, untouched by the rubber tires of our huffys, schwinns, and murrays until this day. we found parks miles from home filled with exotic flowers, and old married couples, walking their golden retrievers and black labs, holding hands, smiling. i never knew old people could be in love. i never knew there was such thing as love- my parents never loved each other. we ran into bums and rode away from them as quickly as we had frightened them. we got yelled at for trespassing, and laughed it off. when we landed back home, my mom had pizza hut waiting for us on the dining room table. to this day, my mom has never had food waiting for me when i got home. this was the best day i knew. this was when i saw what it meant to be happy for the first time. and i was content.

the second best day, i was nineteen. i was at church. i looked pretty. the love of my life was on speaking terms with me, and i basically had the job i wanted, promised to me and delivered. i can’t tell you in detail what it was about this day, but i knew i was content. i was content because i finally got off my ass and worked for the things that i wanted. and i was about to be rewarded.

i never asked for the world-these simple things meant so much to me. i didn’t win the lottery, or find love, or even have anything about my future set in stone, but i was happy. because i had hope that the rest of my days could be good like the one i just lived. but it’s never that way.

soon after the pizza was eaten, my parents fought about money, and my dad slept on the couch. my mom punched a hole in a glass window and lied to me about how her hand was cut. as if i couldn’t see the glass shattered on the ground outside. a week later someone found a way into our house through the cardboard ducktaped to the window frame and stole the little cash that we had left. there was no more pizza for a while.

the day i was nineteen, was also my mom’s fourty-first birthday. it was also the day a friend of mine went missing. she was found three days later, in lake michigan with her hands and feet ducktaped. she drowned herself. a week later i was told that the job that was promised to me, was taken away, because the employer decided that she couldn’t trust me, for reasons that were not valid. and then the love of my life, basically had to tell me he didn’t want anything to do with me.

and i wondered why i was allowed to feel content, when it would be taken from me so quickly. how things that were so good, could actually be what leads into those things that are so bad. and my humor couldn’t save me from this, it just got me in trouble.

the twelve years between my two best days, little went well in my life. my mom had an affair, and my dad consumed himself with self-doubt, and his work. i lived alone in a basement and thought up all the ways someone could come and kill me, so that i didn’t have to do it myself. i ran away from home three times, and got nowhere. i wanted to be normal, and found myself unable to fill that role, because i am just not that way. i wanted to be pretty and loved, but i was never asked out on a date, i was never asked for my number, i was never talked about as pretty by anyone other than my mother.

and then the day came, march 2nd, when i found that God was right and good people are rewarded. i saw that i was pretty. i saw that i was needed. i saw that i deserved to be alive. then all that was taken away from me. between my mom’s birthday and today, i’ve been raped, hated, jobless, homeless and alone. and i ask myself why? why am i not content? if i’m not happy now, i will never be happy, ever, i know this, so why? why can’t i learn to just deal with the shit thrown my way, and not freak out? why can’t i be strong?

i work in a resturant. why do i find myself taking the things that customer’s say so personally, when there is no reason to? it’s not even my way to care about such trivial bullshit. why do i care that some fat bitch with an annoying voice hates me, when i’m so nice to her? who cares? honestly. i shouldn’t care. i should be happy that my parents want me to live with them, that it’s been two years to this day that i’ve been raped, and i am fine. more then fine. i should be happy that i have more friends that i can count on my fingers, and that they love me. i should be content in the fact that after four years off from school, i now know what i want to do with my life.

i own two black coats, a pink coat, a green coat, a brown coat and a grey coat. i bought them myself. i have money to burn on things that keep me warm. i should be content in that. but here i am, having ten panic attacks a day, going through the worst identity crisis of my life, and taking advil pm to sleep. why am i not bloody happy? why not?

and i stop. and i know why. i know why i am not happy. because i am searching for a fucking ending. i am wondering how much longer i have to wait for my life to make sense. how much longer until everything i’ve lived through comes back to life and i say “yes, this is why i am on earth. my whole life was meant for this.” i want to know when it is my turn to be allowed to give someone my heart, and get one back in return. i want to be able to wake up and see a woman in the mirror, instead of a little girl that so desperately wants to be told that she’s pretty.

and you ask, why does this chick keeping talking about being pretty? who cares about that? i do. honestly i do. it’s insane, but that might be the one thing i can control in this life. and maybe in the back of my mind i think that if i can be pretty enough, someone will love me. and to be loved would make me happy. and if i was happy for an instant, maybe i could have another best day of my life, and maybe this time i could make it last.

is never fine.
but we’ll be okay.

i am too tired to write. so i shouldn’t. i’ve been up this late before. countless times. but my eyes have never stung so badly. they are bloodshot, and i have to be up tomorrow. you know, i got to be alyssa, at the top of my game.

game? there is no game. i’ve got me no game. i can’t play those games.

so what? what’s on my mind, you ask? you don’t ask. but i tell:

i’ve always wanted to be normal. white picket fence normal. but i am not.

when i was four my mom threw a fork at my dad’s face. when i was four i fell in love with brandon weiss. he was going to take me away.

when i was six, i fell from a tree swing and messed up my back. i get migraines like you wouldn’t believe. pounding pain in my head for no reason. coffee makes it feel better.

when i was ten my mom hit me for the first time. i guess that i refused to clean my room. i hate cleaning my room. when i do get that urge it’s like this sick obsessive compulsive thing that takes me into the night. i can’t stop til i can see my reflection in my pillows. it doesn’t make sense. not to you. or to me.

when i was eighteen my mom hit me for the last time. i hit her first. i love my mom. i think i just have some pent up rage.

when i was twenty-two i realized that my dad actually loved me. i still question it. but i’ve learned to understand what might be impossible to ever be said.

it’s not your pity that i want. cause the more i look at people, at pasts, i am not alone. everyone gets hurt. most more than me. i just talk about it a lot more. i like to bring it out.

i would be afraid to like anyone that knew me completely and still liked me. i’d feel a little worried for them. i might consider them insane. you’d have to be insane to really like me.

it’s the truth. i was forty when i became normal. white picket fence normal. and i despised every minute of it.

i never wanted to be pink.  but i might be.
a little girly on the inside. insecure. in love with sunshine and roses and horses.
romantic. smiles are my favorite. give me a hug goodbye. i might never see you again.
that kind of girl.
that kind of sweet desperation. the kind of candy you want to suck on forever. if it didn’t give you rotten teeth.
the girl with the boyfriend that holds her bags. –i hold my own bags thank you.
i don’t go shopping with straight men.
you see, i’d make out with your boyfriend, if i thought it give him some form of freedom from his cage of you. making him hold your bags. you bitch.
and i’m the cure for the itch.
but i’m not. i’m sweet. but i’m never called that. because i don’t look sweet. i like black. i look good in black.
k?
this time of year is a little sad. i watch all my boyfriend potentials date other girls. they start long lasting meaningful- probably want to have your babies relationships. and i laugh.
i talk bad about them behind their back. because their lame and need love to survive.
it’s not real.
i’m half right.
that confidence you feel inside. the kind that you get because you know someone loves you. that might be real. i call it fake. but what do i know? the only compliments i receive from the opposite sex are fished.
i think i’m a little girly. a little bit. probably am. i love marilyn monroe. i quote her during deep conversations.
all of my blankets are purple. an autographed picture of ryan theriot is hanging up in my room. mainly because he’s hot. secondly, because i like baseball. but i’m no tomboy. i know this.
i can’t watch a movie without randomly shouting out how hot the main character is. i know that this is girly because i get yelled at by my friends.
none of my good friends are girly. they are all like me. different. deep, maybe?
i love christmas music. because it makes my soul dance. yes. i said dance.
i dance all the time. i sing too. britney spears. i love britney. i know all the words to all her songs.
but i look at girls with their flashy pink myspaces. they have those quotes, “i hate bitches and all their stupid drama.” it takes a bitch to know one. and then i am sad to be called a girl.
if a girl says “drama” in a sentence while talking to me, i walk away before she has a chance to finish.
but i am girly. so i tell people. but to play one in real life? everyday, be girly? my nails are too short. my shoes are too flat. i’m an imposter.
but girls get the boys.
me. whatever i am. i just get to be that pretty, cool chick that makes witty comments on occasion, that is fun to party with, but never does. she’d rather drink her coffee.
i tell myself i’m too smart.
but i’m girly. i am.
i’m not stupid. not shallow. not caught up in my stupider, shallower boyfriend.
i may say dumb things. i may want to be told i’m pretty. i may want love.
i’m girly.

if i was simpler i’d get the boy with the nice back.
but i’m not. so i’ll sit here getting mad at myself for being too good for him.
how’s that for girly?

i have a high IQ. it’s no big deal.

my mother’s IQ is around 165. mine is close. don’t worry about it. IQ’s don’t mean anything. not really.  so by telling you the actual number, you might get jealous, and it be for no reason.

most people find me mysterious. so simple and shallow, yet confusing and unreadable. i get yelled at a lot for the things i do, just because they seem out of character. but i do these things, because they are not out of my character. go figure.

i tell people lies about me all the time. it’s like a test. i don’t want to be friends with anyone who actually believe’s everything that i have to say about myself.

but it is not a lie that i like to be told that i am pretty all the time. I AM SHALLOW. that is truth. i make fun of fat people, ugly people and stupid people. if i didn’t say it out loud, i said it in my head.

i can run 20 miles without stopping.

i missed the first half of my first period class every other day in highschool, cause i couldn’t wake myself up. i slept in study hall. i would come home and take a nap. then i would eat. then watch a movie. then go back to sleep. repeat. i never did homework. ever. i don’t even know how to study. if i was told to read a book in english, i’d read the first page and last only. i had an average gpa of 3.5. not perfect, but i didn’t have to do anything.

i like to write, because it allows me to feel confident. sometimes, i forget how great i am. i like when my mom sits me down to talk about me.

i’ve never had a boyfriend. in fact, i’ve never had sex. i don’t keep boys around just for the sake of not being alone. and i don’t have sex, because i’m not that cheap.

sometimes, i wish i could be in love, mainly to have someone there telling me how pretty i am all the time.

 i do want love.  endless, beautiful, knock my face in love.  but i push guys away, cause i’m waiting on the one who doesn’t care.  i’m just insecure, i guess.

i’m going to college in january, because after four years of not wanting to go, i now want to. i’m glad i didn’t go before. i’m glad i waited until i felt like it. i don’t think i’ve made a mistake. and yes, i want to, and that is the only reason i am going. because i want to.

i don’t do things unless i want to.

i didn’t start walking until i realized that my mother was going to stop carrying me.  why walk, when i can be carried? no need. i was around 2 when i took my first step.

my first word was not “dada” or “mama” it was, “can i have that?” i didn’t want to speak until i knew that i could say what i wanted to say.

i’m going to law school. because if i wanted college for the parties i’d be majoring in special education. if i wanted college to get laid, i’d be a nurse. and if i wanted college because i’m generic and meaningless, i’d double major in psychology and business.

i’m 22. not 50.  but of course not 17.  if i was graduating college in a year i wouldn’t be ready.  i like this plan of action.  a lot.

i love ann coulter.  i love that when she writes something, people don’t critize what she wrote, they call her a slut.  you can’t argue what she says, she always makes sense.  and if she doesn’t make sense to you, it’s because you aren’t smart.   get over it.

i’m conservative. when someone starts talking politics i normally walk away, because everyone i know, sounds so stupid. contrary to popular belief, quoting popstars like pink and green day don’t make you sound educated. fuck global warming. fuck the trees. fuck racism.

hollywood is full of high school drop outs and wackos. yet somehow, people my age, look to them for their political and social views.

my hair smells really good right now.

i’m nobody. i’ve done nothing good. if you read this, thats cool, but it was just a long speech about myself. and really… i’m not all that great. but i like myself enough.

“I admire you.”

There, three words that couldn’t have taken the breath from me anymore if they had been “I love you.” 

This, coming from a man that didn’t even know I existed two years earlier.  This man.  The crush to end all crushes. This was Tom Castle. My imaginary boyfriend.  My time waster.  My day dream. My night fantasy.  My love.  The love.  The love of my life.

He admires me. 

I wanted to cry. I wanted to hug him.  I wanted to thank him.  I wanted him. 

I smiled.  I looked down at my lap.  I played with my hair.  I sucked on my lips.  I wish he could have told me this before I was raped.  Before my church took away my friends.  Before I decided to drop charges on a sex offender.  Before I was told to sit down in this room to talk about how brave, honorable and good I was.

But he told me now.  Because he most likely didn’t admire me before.  And I accepted that.

He told me, because that’s what he was supposed to tell me.  Because I was young, and I just had everything I had known, taken from me in an instant.  Because he knew I loved him.  Because he was and has always been Tom Castle.

A couple years earlier, I had started a fan club.  It was creatively titled, “Tom Castle Fan Club.”  I was the president.  I recruited other teenage girls to be the treasurer, vice pres., groupie, etc. The fan club lasted a day, but the idea went on by word of mouth.  And soon thereafter, everyone and their mother knew that I, Alyssa, had the leading crush on the pastor’s son.  This lasted through to the first time he talked to me, one year later. 

I was playing a pick-up game of basketball with him.  And he said, “I like that you fall on your face like that.  It reminds me of me.”

I smiled.  I giggled.  I wanted to shoot myself. I always fell on my face.  Hard. Like a Rock to asphalt.  But he noticed.  And he noticed that I was the one who loved him.  So he must have also known that his words were going to stick to me like honey to the floor of a brand new Honda Civic. 

His eyes gleamed at me.  This girl likes me.  I’m going to make her day.

He did.

He made many more days.

So many so, that my mom began to call them “TS’s”, which stood for Tom stories.  If Tom looked at me, maybe looked at me, talked to me, waved to someone next to me, laughed at a joke in church, laughed at a dirty joke, told a joke (which was rare), said something ridiculously corny (which was all the time), told me to do something, walked next to me, or probably most likely you know mom I’m pretty sure he checked me out, it was another TS.

My mom loved these.  She’d sit and concentrate on me and my stories for hours sometimes.  I’d email her about them, and she’d reply in detail. 

I asked her why she listened to the stories, and she responded, “Because through these stories, I learn about you.  I watch you grow up.  I begin to know what you want.”

I had no idea what she was saying.  Because what I wanted was to marry Tom Castle.  Everyone already knew that without my pointless, un-climatic stories.

But slowly, to none of my knowledge, I was learning too.

And to everyone’s surprise, Tom became more.  Through church, and the High school ministry, and a group that me and Tom tentatively named “Renovators,” we became friends.  Acquaintances more so, but it was all the same to me.  

We would email stupid things back and forth.  Sometimes I would wonder if I was just being annoying and then he would randomly send me something twice as dumb.  I knew that Tom and I had a bond.  But even beyond the emails, I could tell I understood him. 

I knew that he cried when he thought no one was looking.  I knew that he was a shy kid, trapped in a family of achieving, well-liked, strong personalities.  I knew that he was not everything that he was expected to be all the time. I knew that he was different then the average grown up frat boy.   I knew that his thoughts were rude and dry and witty.  And I knew that was what made him beautiful. 

It wasn’t just his blue eyes, funny teeth, and bright smile.  It wasn’t his dark-brown, curly hair and nice back.  It was who he was.  You could see it in his face.  He was deep inside himself.  Tom went on forever.  And I wanted to get to know him so badly.  And then I wanted to show him that I was the same. 

I wrote him a birthday card for his 26^th.  It was lame.  I wrote down the things that I admired in him: His adventurous spirit, excitable personality, strong sense of self. These were such shallow things.  I knew that they were not even true of me and what I liked in him. But I was not allowed to tell him what I really thought.  

If I had told him that I saw him for what he didn’t let anyone see.  That the things he kept inside were more beautiful and valuable to me than smoldering flames and ripping water.  That I would lie awake thinking about his voice, and the way his lip would curl above his teeth when he smiled.  That I would be able to love him the way he deserved to be loved, with tender, and openhanded love. It would have been too much.

I was already too much, I had thought. No more. 

He thanked me in an email.

Now, I wish I had told him everything.  It would have been a risk, but at this point in my life, it would have been a risk worth taking. 

I will never see him again, because his adventurous spirit took him away.  He went sailing the earth a year ago, and it seems the ocean will taken him further and further away from me and everything I had believed true about him.

But even though he is gone, and I doubt he would think of me anymore, I know that exactly in the darkest and deepest points of my life, Tom knew me the way I knew him.  And when there was a split second in time to give me something, this was what he could give, “I admire you.”   

A little girl, beaten and broken, confused and harmed.  A girl struggling to keep a smile, when staring numb felt better. A girl in a place he stood all his life.  He admired me in that moment, because he admired himself.  He would have done everything I did.

And whenever I hit some point in my life, where I don’t know if I did the right thing, I remember what he said, and somehow I am able to admire myself.

Because I did learn, the way my mom learned. 

I am deeper and more beautiful than most.  I am an ocean full of ideas, thoughts, and creative energy.  I am more than pretty.  I am strong, adventurous and bright eyed on the outside, but dark, rude and dry on the inside.  I am funny, but strange. Confusing, yet intriguing. 

Tom was a mirror. And I was in love with him, because he was everything I was.  Not the man I was supposed to marry, but the person I was too become.

The three years I loved Tom, were the years I learned to love myself. 

“Sail on quick.  Fly past the world.  Find me love.”

sitting here. lump in my throat. crick in my neck. and a thought that won’t leave. let alone, won’t quite quit me. let alone, i don’t know what it is. but it keeps me awake. every night. i don’t sleep. you kidding?

and there is pond in the back where we catch our salmon. in fact, it’s about time they were fed.

and there is this pressure from everyone. it tells me to succeed. it says, please alyssa, go to school. do your best. i’ll love you, once you complete this important task. what are you when everything is taken, and you are degreeless? what are you now? 22. no life here for you. it’s been years. your friends are already done, and you aren’t. worthless.

i can tell by your eyes that you weren’t meant for a resturant. i can tell by your mind that you want to go somewhere. that you could. but you gotta go to school first. you know, for the experience. so young, but so old. don’t throw this life away. you only got one.

and how much longer must i listen, before it goes away? should i start lying? i could tell you i have my bachelors, and i’m hoping to get into stanford for law. or i could tell the truth. but the truth doesn’t cut it. it doesn’t cut it with family. doesn’t cut it with friends. and let me tell you even strangers think it sucks. but it’s my answer, and it will remain that way til i change my mind.

“i don’t wanna.”
“no one WANTS to.”
“i really don’t wanna.”
“alot of people really don’t want to.”
“yeah, but i’m not them.”
“i’ll give you some free advice.”
“sure.”
“go to school, work through it. you won’t regret it.”
“i will.”
“i promise you that you won’t.”
“you don’t even know me.”
“i know your type.”
“i’m not a type.”
“do you want to work in a resturant forever?”
“no.”
“see.”
“i’m not going to be working in a resturant forever.”
“well you’re gonna have to, if you don’t go to school.”
“no i won’t”
“how do you know?”
“because i don’t wanna.”
“what do you WANT to do.”
“whatever i want to do at the time that i want to do it in.”
“which is?”
“right now? write.”
“do you write?”
“everyday.”
“why don’t you go to school to write? gain some experience.”
“because i don’t wanna.”
“i’m just telling you.”
“you’re not the first.”
“it’s my advice, you don’t have to take it.”
“thank you, i won’t.”

and so it goes. ask me how many times this exact conversation has taken place. i will tell you at least 3 times a week since i graduated highschool and then dropped out of community college. because let me tell you, my non-want for school has not left since before i decided to enroll the first time.

that last sentence made sense i am sure.

no sir, we don’t have french dressing, it’s an italian resturant. i know i think it’s stupid too.

my life would be easier if i knew how to catch a man and marry him. that way people would stop questioning my descisions in life. they’d say, “oh, well she’s married.” wouldn’t that be grand? except i can’t get a man to save my life, and i don’t believe in love. and i don’t ever want to get married, because thats forever.

so i am alone. i work in a resturant. i’m 22, but pretty soon i will 45 and nowhere. or at least thats what is said. maybe it’s true. maybe it’s not. maybe just maybe, i am the girl that will change your ideas. on life. on love. on my own. without your free advice.

maybe you will learn to love me. because i’m different. because i have a story. because i don’t want to do anything that i don’t want to do. and you can trust that everything i am doing, is something i honestly want to be doing.

do we have cold drinks? if i put ice in it, it will be cold.

i don’t mind waiting tables. i like it. it takes my mind of things. i don’t mind bartending. i like it. it’s creative. i don’t mind sleeping in my parents basement. i don’t mind, because its not my definition, it’s my circumstance.

and this lump in my throat is because i am sad that i couldn’t love him. and the crick in my neck is because of nothing i could control. and the thought in my head, is just that, a thought. that one day, i will be where i am supposed to be.

and i will get there however the hell i want to.

a boy sang a little hallelujah on his guitar. fingered the strings, he spoke the words so softly. was he bad or good? i can’t tell you now, i couldn’t tell you then. but he played, and he sang. and he was passionate for something. and i saw it in his eyes. eyes like black holes. like the night. his name was sky. and he kissed me. i was eighteen then. it should have been sooner. it would have been better later. an accident. but it was.

and i’m so sorry now that i acted like it didn’t matter to me. but i thought about it for so long. i cried myself to sleep.

i dreamt of a field and a sunset and kiss that lasted forever but seconds. like fireworks and butterflies. like what i thought i deserved. a thought that ruined my mind for so long. because through his lips, perfection could no longer be reached for me. because this was not on purpose.

i was never this way. easy? never. i was a princess. a little girl in waiting. a precious rose longing to be picked first. chosen by the right guy, at the right time, with the right face, and the right background and he would probably be my prince charming. my hero. but now i pretend like all that doesn’t matter. because it’s easier than admitting that i fucked up. that i lost it all. because i didn’t want to wait. because i wanted something right now.

so i got my right now. i got a million kisses that didn’t mean anything to me, and a dozen that didn’t mean anything to them. i got a rose from a boy who already had a girl. the only rose i’ve ever gotten. i got date with a married man. i have boys in different places, wondering if i get off thinking about how i used them.

he walked out.  and they sang… there goes my hero.

i’ve never received a phone call the morning after. and this is an accident? no. i can’t blame this, i let this happen now.

i don’t mean to use. i feel used. but why would i EVER admit that? ever. i’m too cool. too unaffected. too easy. too loveless. i will die a lonely girl because i can’t admit to him that i actually like him. and when i kiss him, i feel something. and when he touches me i feel lightning up my spine. and when i see his face, i can’t talk at all.

this too shall pass. and i will let it. because to let him know that i am girl who loves. who still has a little passion left in her voice to sing a little hallelujah while she watches him play it on the guitar. even if he can’t play. she won’t know, won’t care. like he can do nothing wrong. like she would be willing to start this again. like maybe before he kissed her for nothing. like maybe we could all rewind. and then maybe we’d end up on purpose.

i built my dreams on some solid rock. and here i am falling through like i never knew i could. and that rain, that falls and washes clean, i’ve never seen. have you seen it?

and i was promised a present. and told to ask. and i did and we did, and we are alone now. but it’s for the best. ask. it’s all a test.

and i will win, because i know how. but running i always fall. i always veer right. i always get hurt. i only run at night.

i dreamt a thousand dreams, that proved a waste of time. i thought i knew you, but i’ve lost my mind.

i’m going to make it there one day. where ever there is. when i get there, i’ll know.

these are my thoughts.

sail on quick. fly past the world. find me a love.

this is why i’m in love to hate.
i can’t believe you stand there. while i’m running circles in my head trying to figure you out. and i am not a girl that believes she should wait.
i want to be in love, but i’ll leave it, if it won’t take.
and there are those girls who spell the kissing noises out on their myspace. the girls who claim to hate “yo drama” and how “all those stupid bitches are so fake.”
and i wanna tell them all to get lives and give up on other people. and maybe they should put all that negative energy into something more productive like killing people, or drowning cats.
i once went to puma and bought a thirty dollar hat.
a boy stole that hat and promised to give it back.
as long as i’d make out with him. maybe it set me on all the wrong track.
it’s been a long time coming, but it’s just too easy. and all boys are pricks.
but it’s just so easy, because it ain’t so hard to manipulate someone who thinks with a dick.
it’s not so hard to turn tricks.
but you know, it be nice to be asked out to a nice resturant where i wouldn’t have to pay, or be expected to give him head.
it be nice to be asked out at all. drunken house parties and bars surrounded by sluts with condoms already between their thighs. nice bed. nice bed.
are those sheets 1000 count, egyptian cotton?
whats my name? and he’s already forgotten.
but is this my fault? ending up here… i could always say no.
my mother told me that it is important to love yourself. and that confidence will show.
i’m not insecure, i think i just gave up. and thats where i’m wrong.
someone i thought was a friend gave me my first sexual experience when i was blackout drunk, puking all over myself, and somehow i was told i was wrong. that i don’t belong.
so now you know. and now i can’t remember the last time someone wanted to talk to me, without asking me when we were gonna make out.
like my life is set in stone. i can’t see the path, but everyone else can. can you make this out?
and there are those who still love me, because they thought they could help me. and when i say fuck you, they mock me. i never claimed to be helpless.
i listen to music and think inside myself. and sometimes i have a soul, other times, i’m alone and lifeless… just loveless.
your pressure on my neck- i’m sure you know what that’s like.
who knows how to put pressure on my lips, and take this darkness and make it light?

“can you please leave all your clothes on,
and let me sweat this out.
i can only see you naked…
cause thats all your good for.”

standing in line, looking lame.
wondering why everyone else looks the same.
these boys in tight pants are freaking me out.
and honey, jenkos were gone a long time ago.
could there be something i don’t know about?
when did i get so old?

i can’t believe him holding her hand.
she has a belly the size of an acre of land.
maybe she’s pregnant.
i’ll never know.
to ask is rude.
so she’s a fatty for sho.

i’m sure she’s got a great personality.

and i wonder why the world is unfolding around me.
people stepping up to the front to see.
and i’m back here waiting.
and then he comes.
and i’m still left waiting.
i don’t know what its coming from.

i must have a mark of lame on my face.
something i thought had gotten erased.
don’t touch her, she’s got aids.
don’t look in to her eyes.
i’m telling you she’s not afraid.
to tell your mother lies.

there could be something i don’t know.
but admitting that fault will never go.
if you won’t tell me.
i’m good right here.
standing in this line.
looking queer.

Like money for squirrels.
I might be pointless in this world.

I am not alone.
But might as well be.
I am lonely.
And have nothing left of me.

A wish goes unwished.
When you don’t believe in stars.
I blame my mother for the pessimistic thoughts.
I blame my dad for this obsession of chasing after cars.

Instead of dreams.
Relying on someone else.
For everything.

I wanted someone here.
To hold me while I was down.
I found nothing but another closed door.
That kept me from leaving town.

And you thought this might be special.
When we were together in your room.
I used you for love.
It was gone another moment too soon.

I hold out my hands.
As I run underneath the rain.
“Freedom!” I shout.
Save me from this…

well you know.

No one hears me.
And it’s okay.
I really couldn’t have it.
Any other way.

I save my soul for depression.
And my smile for your happy day.
Don’t let me bring you down.
But I’m not really able to stay.

Deep inside your wounds.
I will listen but never care.
I will run way.
When you hold me there.

I’m a liar.
But never lie.
I will do you a favor.
But don’t rely.

manipulation.
more important than communication.
you couldn’t stop the young from fornication.
so don’t blame me for your frustration.

maybe you should have tried talking it out with them.

if you love me let me go.
i won’t come home.
but at least you’ll know.
i never intended on murdering your soul.

Like money for squirrels…
yeah…
I’m pretty sure that I am pointless in this world.

In third grade every student was given a pine tree to plant on earth day. I was not. I often wonder what the world would be like now, had I gotten to plant that tree.

I don’t really care about environment issues, or war issues, or Africa issues - Though I read a book about AIDS that inspired me to donate 300 dollars to the cause, I also watched the Academy Awards this year, so I feel caught up on the green campaign.

I think that adults should not hurt children, men should not harm females, and that people should be more like me. These are three important issues that are not given enough attention.

I imagine the only difference between and a man and a boy is a spinal cord.

I’m not really goal oriented or driven. I know that life is too complex to rely on the petty goals that I set. I like to go with “the flow,” you know, “let life happen.” If something good comes along I take it, but this way if it doesn’t happen, I am not let down. i’m waiting for a break, i’m just afraid to break it myself.

I think about cigarettes a lot. I like them, but i am not allowed to smoke them. Smoking kills, i’ve heard… and I would at least like to live to be 30 so that my life can start making sense. I think that’s when life starts to make sense… when you’ve actually seen the world.

i’ve been told that i am an alcoholic… which is a funny fact when you actually know me. i don’t really drink… it’s strange how different you can look to different kinds of people, just by being who you are.

I believe in magic. Probably more than I believe in myself. i’d rather read a book alone, then actually go out and talk to people.

i’m weird. i tried to be normal, it didn’t work out for me.

I like fairies and sparkles and fire and water and food and running and coffee and purple things.

i can’t jump high, i am not tall or especially pretty, i don’t own my own home, and i am not that special. you can read me like a book, but when you are finished, you probably won’t understand what you just read, and why you so badly wanted to waste your time in the first place…

i’ll drop you like a cup of hot water.

i made fool-proof brownies and fucked them up last night.

i said i stopped smoking, but had a cigarette tonight.

my hair still smells like smoke.

i listen to music so that i don’t have to listen to myself.

i write in rhyme and mystery so that even i don’t have to know what i am really saying.

i pretend like i am living in an alternate universe so that i don’t have to face the reality of what is really going on.

i didn’t do my taxes last year, and have yet to do them this year.

i let guys do what they want with me on the first date so i don’t have to worry about them really liking me later. they will move on because i am easy.

i don’t want anyone to know me, because i don’t know what that would do to me.

or to them.

i get sad when i think about my childhood.

my childhood was not that bad.

incest “runs” in my family.

but it never happened to me.

i remember everything that i learned in elementary school through highschool. everything.

i remember everyone that i have ever met, but pretend to forget so that i don’t creep them out.

i remember everything i read in us weekly yesterday when i got my hair done.

and i will remember it forever.

i use people, so that they don’t use me.

i love five people that are not related to me.

the rest of you i just pretend to love.

i rely on others to do things for me.

i love to watch my life spiral downwards, because it’s too hard having to break those bad patterns in order to move up.

i don’t drink unless someone wants me too.

i trust everybody to be honest.

over and over again.

i don’t know who i am.

sometimes i wish i didn’t exist.

sometimes i believe that i don’t.

i’m supposed to change the world.

but that might be a lie that i’ve held onto for too long.

when i was little, i would climb trees in a skirt. my mom told me that it wasn’t lady-like.

i guess i never wanted to be a lady.
but i’ve always loved being a girl.

when i would get up to the top of the tree, i’d get scared and ask to be brought down. my dad told me that if i got up, i had to learn to get myself back down.

i don’t ask for much anymore.

i once won a game of mafia against 47 people.
i once kissed a stranger. no. many more than that.
i once threw up for two hours straight.
i once confused a thousand people with my actions.
i never once lied.

i wear sunglasses at night.
because the sun never sets on a badass.

i’m the girl all the bad guys want to marry.
i just don’t know what i want.

but i know that it’s not that.

sometimes i have NOTHING to say.
sometimes my eyes water and you think i’m crying.
sometimes i cry and you think my eyes are just watering.

sometimes.

i sing in my car.
i get lost for hours.
and find new ways to get places.
i’d drive anywhere to get to you.
if you asked.
or if i really wanted to.
i love to drive by myself.
i love to blast my music and dance.
i get embarassed at stop lights.
sometimes.

i like north, south, east and west.
i don’t like right and left.
i wish i had a compass.
i would go for walks, just to look at the compass and see it change.
i like change.

‘dear God. make me a bird. so i can fly far.
far, far away from here.’

i hate righteous.
i hate stupid.
i hate the devil’s advocate.
i only hate one person at a time.
life is too short to hate many.
i love music.
‘music makes the people come together. yeahya.’

i have a dream.
and it’s big.
and it’s too much for you to handle.
so i keep it in my head. and i work towards it.
and one day.
i won’t have to tell you what it is.
you’ll see it.

i don’t really have boyfriends.
cause i hate wasting time.
but.
‘i will fly you to the moon and back,
if you’ll be my baby.’

i know what you thought. it was wrong. get over it.

i run at night.
it clears my head so that i can sleep.
i can’t do anything in the morning.
i don’t even know what my name is.

i’m not paranoid. i’m not one to think people are talking about me behind my back. i don’t even think people hate me. i guess it’s my mind just having more imortant things to deal with.

so you love me. i know you all do.

let me sing you a song.
let me hold your hand.
let me look pretty for you.
let me smile. and you. you can smile back.

‘The brave are simply those with the clearest vision of what is before them - glory and danger alike and notwithstanding, go out to meet it.’

i love life.
because i love to dance.

dance with me.

Don’t you dare speak for someone you don’t know.

i remember her face as she sat watching her reflection in the tv. she sat, her legs to short to reach the edge of the couch. she sat there while her cousins were watching peter pan. she sat waiting. her eyes focused so that no one would know that she was not interested in cartoons. she sat waiting for a hug. waiting for her daddy to notice her. for her mom to drop the worries of life and pick her up and hold her for a second. waiting to be told that she was beauty in its purest form.

and i remember how she cried inside. i remember how she felt as if she was nothing. that life would go one without her. her sister begged. her sister was noticed. and because her brother was nice. her brother was rewarded. and she would be told that she was vain. because it did not go on unnoticed that her reflection was more interesting than disney movies to her. that she liked to see her face in the tv. that she wondered if she was pretty.

i remember when she was told that she was liked for the first time. and she didn’t understand how someone could like her that did not know her. so she turned him down. then someone liked her but not enough. he dated someone else. and she felt worthless. someone wanted her to wait. and she did. and wasted her life. cause she thought that was what she deserved. to wait, instead of being waited for.

i remember this little girl. this girl who wanted life to be something special. that knew she was someone. and wondered if anyone else could tell. and she screamed inside. and stayed quiet on the outside. and cried at all the wrong moments. and is now the same little girl that she was 15 years ago. just a little bigger. just a little sadder. slouches just a little bit more. and wonders when it will end. what? she doesn’t know.

…but we sure killed all the pain.

Let’s get fucked up and die.
 

I’m funny. I laugh a lot. I have a good expensive smile. And I talk to anyone who talks to me. I’m pretty good at the fake thing. I love creating drama and watching everyone freak out. I kiss ass. I never clean my room. Romance is stupid. I think feet are sexy. And I absolutely love taking my picture with other people’s digital cameras.

I’ve never had a boyfriend. some people who care ask why… There is no reason for it really. It just never happened. I’m only twenty-one, so I know I’m pretty dramatic about the whole thing. But I have become too codependent on myself. and now i am bitter. Most likely if I show interest in you, it means that I would rather just kiss you than put in any effort into something more. Chances are, I doubt your intentions.

I smoke cigarettes. Partly because I think they are disgusting. And the more disgusting you think I am, the less I will let you down… And partly because I am addicted to nicotine.

I hate people. But I love them too. This sucks when it comes to having friends. I get confused on whether or not I want them. I love Starbucks more than anything. The feelings I get when I walk into one are indescribable. It’s like the home I never had. I’d work there, but I’m sure it would ruin the only safe place I have left.

I dye my hair a lot. I do it because I get bored easily with myself. A guy told me that I did it for attention. I agreed with him for the sake of making him feel like he figured me out and that he was smart. I’m such a nice pushover like that. I don’t really care what people believe about anything. So don’t try to debate me. You’ll win. Because I will stop caring. And stop debating. And then I’ll probably think judgmental thoughts about you.

I’m pretty complex. Thats not something to get excited about. I scare the shit out of myself. I never agree with anything I have to say. I like music. Most kinds. Not the sucky kinds. I hate silence. It freaks me out. I must have serious issues with being alone.

I stay up late even when there is no reason to. I drink an embarrassing amount of water at resturants. I like watching the Bears play football. I like it better when they are winning. I take special care of my hobbit feet. I get scared easily. And have an annoying scream. You can count on me to never call you back. And I look like shit in the morning. 

 The moral? I am bitter, numb and angry.

 Two points for honesty.
 

“Lua” Bright Eyes 

I know that it is freezing, but I think we have to walk
I keep waving at the taxis, they keep turning their lights off
But Julie knows a party at some actor’s West side loft
Supplies are endless in the evening by the morning they’ll be gone

When everything is lonely I can be my own best friend
I’ll get a coffee and the paper, have my own conversations
with the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection
The mask I polish in the evening by the morning looks like shit

And I know you have a heavy heart, I can feel it when we kiss
So many men stronger than me have thrown their backs out trying to lift it
But me I’m not a gamble, you can count on me to split
The love I sell you in the evening by the morning won’t exist

You’re looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black
Just keep going to the bathroom, always say you’ll be right back
Well, it takes one to know one, kid, I think you’ve got it bad
But what’s so easy in the evening by the morning’s such a drag

I got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train
And if you promise to stay conscious I will try and do the same
We might die from medication, but we sure killed all the pain
But what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane

And I’m not sure what the trouble was that started all of this
The reasons all have run away, but the feeling never did
It’s not something I would recommend, but it is one way to live
Cause what is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is

It was so simple in the moonlight now it’s so complicated
It was so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the moonlight
So simple in the moonlight…

I can stay safe in pretend.