Size

I've been thinking about this for a while. Size and all that.

I'm underweight. I always have been and to be honest, I hope I always will be. I've never denied this. So when girls who are overweight ask me how I feel about dating people their size, they are always shocked by my answer.

See, I prefer people who are heavier than me. In pictures. In real life, I couldn't give a damn what a woman's body looked like. Personality and facial expressions have always won over body type, easily. I prefer images of women with curves. Not completely thin. Voluptuous. Pneumatic. 1950s. Healthy, really. I don't know why, it's just what I've always been drawn to.

There was one girl in particular today who is overweight and prefers the term BBW (Big Beautiful Woman). She was asking the group of us how we would feel about dating a girl like her. She said that she always felt so alone. That she felt like no one could ever be attracted to her body and her body is the reason she is single. She isn't the first person to confide in me about such a thing.

So I told her a story. I told her the story of a girl I dated. Now, every single girl I've dated has been beautiful in their own right, but this girl was SO beautiful. She was overweight. Not just "hour glass" overweight, but overweight. And she... she had this habit of stealing my breath away without even knowing it.

Sometimes she'd turn her head and the sunlight or a stop light would hit her hair in such a way and my body would forget how to breathe. Sometimes her face would be lost in thought, her brow furrowed and her lips slightly pursed. I'd notice the perfection in her eyelashes, the small blotches and lines that made up her lips and in the realization that her beauty was composed of the smallest divine dots and brush strokes, I'd find myself about to cry. Her skin was so perfect. Beyond perfect, even. Beyond because of the blemishes, the small hairs. The little things that reminded me that I was awake and this was real. I never thought, never imagined that anyone could look so breath taking.

But she never let me near her stomach. I had to avoid that area all together. That place was hers, and I was never given the right to be let in. I'd tell her that I thought she was beautiful, but I don't think she ever believed me. You have to understand just HOW beautiful I thought this girl was. Her gorgeous freckles, how tiny and small her fingers were. They were cute on her tall body. I wanted to hold them to my chest and never let them go, to play with the spaces and the cracks between them and to just be close to her. To trace the pattern of her nose with my eyes. I think after her skin, her nose was my favourite part of her body.

She never got comfortable enough to let me touch her stomach. It made her feel too self conscious. But... in my absolute and complete honesty, of all the girls I've dated, no matter w thin, she was always the most beautiful. Even if I was to subtract her personality out entirely (though of course, I would much prefer her with it), no one even came fucking close.

I am NOT a "chubby chaser." I am just a lesbian. I think women are beautiful. And I just so happened to have found divinity in a body that was over weight.

Being overweight does NOT make someone ugly. It does NOT make someone undesirable. It just makes them overweight.

So if someone tells you you are beautiful and you just so happen to hate your body, you might find yourself repulsive for some reason or another. But that person who is telling you over and over again that you are beautiful could be like me. They could be noticing you in those most subtle of moments, those cracks between seconds. Where the sun passes through a tree and catches on you leaving, illuminating your hair and eyes and leaving them wondering how it is that a creature seemingly so ethereal would even give a damn about their coincidental existence.

Plans

So, there are things I need to do. Things I need to get off my chest.

1. I need to be myself. After being cookie cutter shaped for so long, it became hard to remember the feel of who I actually was. I need to be strong. More sturdy. I need to not be afraid of continuing on my path and growing. I do not like the person who I think I am, but I do not like the person I am pretending to be either. If I am going to dislike myself, at least let me be honest. And you never know, I may actually get along with her, the real me. Don't be afraid of taking chances. It's okay. Let life play out. And cut off all the loose ends that are still hanging behind you.

2. Don't give up. The next six months ahead of you may seem hopeless, but a call may come tomorrow that gives you something to fill in your meantimes with.

3. Unpack my room. It's about damn time. Hang up the faerie lights your friend so lovingly made for you. Bring out the alter. Reconnect with the world around you. Explore your gifts. Do not be afraid.

4. Don't compromise yourself for others. I know, baby I know it's hard. I know you would give anything to be loved, but wouldn't you give even more if you could love yourself instead?

5. Get those abs you've always dreamed of. Make a list of trades you want to learn. Organize them so you know what you want to learn most. We both know fire hooping and knife throwing are at the top. Why don't we start there?

So, I kind of unknowingly fell through.

It has been about 3 months since I last cut (YES!), however I've taken back up another form of SI without knowing it.

I don't know if what I have can technically classify as an Eating Disorder, since it is not as severe as what other people have. See, I'm underweight. I know this, I'm incredibly thin. But when I stop eating, it isn't because I want to lose weight (usually), it is because I can control the fact that I am not eating. Like "LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO! HA HA HA! LOOK, WE JUST WENT FOR *THREE* DAYS WITHOUT EATING! HOW AWESOME IS THAT!" And then when I realize I've become thinner and thinner, it's like "BONUS!" I'm still just nosing the surface of my ideal weight range, so it isn't drastic. but the last time this happened, I dropped 15 pounds.

I'm terrified of not eating, but I'm more terrified of what will happen if I [b]do[/b] eat - I ate a lot yesterday and I immediately wanted it out of me. Realizing what it was that I was even considering, I quickly distracted myself and went to bed. I don't know what to do. I know I'm thin, that isn't even the issue. The issue is that my life is spiraling out of control right now and I feel as though I have nothing to hold onto. But, if I refuse to do this, if I stay strong enough to resist doing what I want to give into, I at least have control of something in my life. And that's more than I would have if I stopped.

I can't breathe.

I really have no reason for feeling this way. I was doing fine, amazing even. I just felt the pull... that sudden drop. There was the resistance I know all too well, resistance to fight it. Not this time. Not again. I was finally stable. I went to the psych ward for a reason. I went there so that I could get better. I put myself on meds. I've been taking them every day like a good girl.

My floor is sinking.

For the past two days, I could barely move myself from my bed. I feel like there is something caught within my lungs, something heavy. I had not been thinking of anything depressing, nothing brought this on. I would like to make this clear. Nothing had brought this on.

I suppose that is the case with bipolar, though. It's painful when people judge you for it... blame you for your own instability because of your 'way of thinking.' Obviously, I just am not trying hard enough. I'm living my life incorrectly. I have to find that 'secret' that they are so convinced they have found.

The difference? They do not have bipolar.

Someone who was once very close to me now has this mindset. It's hurtful, even though I am not there and I was not the one who was targeted with these words. My friend tells me that I'm doing something called a downward spiral. She blames herself for bringing up my ex - perhaps if she didn't, I'd rise up in the water like a cork.

I've skipped too many classes in the last few days. I've been getting all As, been following through with all my commitments, and now this.

Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this. I have done nothing. I have done nothing.

I... have to come to terms with the fact that this will never stop. A friend of mine today told me that the meds were my water wings, but I still have to swim to the surface. But it's so hard.

Do I want to live a life where no matter what it is I do, I will always be stuck in an elliptical orbit like a galaxy around a black hole? Is it worth it to survive just to prove that I am strong, which I very well know that I am. Would it be weak to make a logical choice? Not out of pain, but logic. Not cowardice, but a conclussion come to from many calculations.

I have problems with how I always bounce back and forth between private emotions and societal emotions. One really needs to look at both to choose the best of choices, but really, this is how it is.

One day, I will die. We all will die. And one day, very soon actually since we are quite over due, an object, probably an asteroid, will stray from the Kuiper belt and smack into the earth, wiping out all life. What will the point of any impact I make on the earth be? Any of us? Through time, everything will be forgotten. Who will remember anything after the humans are gone?

Maybe there are no 'why's in the world. Maybe we're looking too deep, as we do in poetry. Maybe the answer is right in front of our noses, but if so, I am hypocritical laying here and trying to type it out.

What more is there to say.

I really thought I had finally found stability. But maybe the only way I shall ever find it is to come to terms with the fact that this hell will never stop. And I will never be stable.

Exerpt of story I'm working on - Letter to Lily.

I think the major irony in this is that I feel like a whore, not you.

I saw a shooting star last night, the second one I had ever seen in my life. I was out of state, in Gettysburgh in a field in the middle of nowhere. Laying on top of my friend's car, we saw it shoot across the sky. It was falling down to earth, as though it was falling down to us. Its tail lit rainbow and we could see it burn. We were so happy. Everything was going to be okay. Everything.

I am a person of second guesses. I always make sure I mean what I say and think because I don't want to change my mind in the near future. But as I was speaking, I realized... this is what I want. Despite your cruel words and accusations, I have found that I am a strong person not because of our relationship, but because I am me. The relationship has been wearing me down. Knowing you so well, knowing what you are thinking (whilst you call me paranoid) before you even realize it yourself, I know what is to come.

You make me want to vomit. I already can't keep the food down, so I have no appetite. I don't eat unless forced. I can't sleep. I lay awake and stare at the ceiling. I count the seconds... the minutes... the hours. I watch the shadows on the walls change. It isn't what you want that hurts me, but rather your lack of compromise. It's not even realizing that you've put me on the back burner. It's the hypocrisy in claiming that I do not love you. At this point, you've threatened me with a break, but I fear that I want more than that. I'm not your bitch on hold, I am your fiance. But I am also my own person with my own feelings. I never wanted to be your wife, but rather your partner. Though, it's clear to me now that what you wanted was much the opposite. A year ago, you promised me this would never happen again, and yet 12 months later you seem to have taken it many steps further.

Threatening someone into doing something, manipulating them by fear of harm is the exact tactic rapists use, and I find it angled and comical that you've used the same methods of those that you hate. I will admit, when it first began I did not wish to go through with it. I found myself walking for hours when you refused to reply to my texts. Walking... searching... I thought about the lake but it's too polluted even for that purpose. No rope. But - aha! - how easy are knives to find on this campus? Quite easy. In my room even. I texted goodbyes in ways that were slightly subtle... so that they'd KNOW I loved them, but they wouldn't do anything because they could just be misinterpreting things.

Couldn't find the knife, but behold the razors! I found myself a shower stall far away from the rest. Never had I felt this way; without a doubt in my mind, I wanted to die. There was nothing holding me back saying "Maybe we don't want to do this", because we did want to do this, all parts of me. I bent the razor so that the blade bent out. It sliced open my finger, which startled me. I was... enthralled by how the blood wouldn't stop dribbling to the surface of my skin. It had been about a year since I last self injured.

Not wanting to waste anymore time, I held out my wrist. You're supposed to slice downward, aren't you? But where? The first mark to ever graze my wrist formed. But I was... too much a coward to slice the vein. "Just a little cut" I said, "Just a small slice and it's done." I held it to my skin. I pushed a bit more, I rocked the blade but it wouldn't cut my flesh. I was scared.

Enraged by my own cowardice, my leg became the victim. No longer caring about being subtle, hiding what I have the power to do to myself, I massacred it. I carved in letters, I made heaping gapes. It was no longer calculated as all my other sessions had been, but bloody and angry and so sick of it all.

I exited the shower and discarded my make-shift knife. I reentered my dorm. My friend had called me. I tried my best to seem calm. She told me she didn't know what was going on. She tried to distract my mind with stories I can relate to all so well. But then the conversation drifted back to me and finally, I spoke.

I let out close to everything. She was stunned. My close friend, this dear woman, was at a lack for words for the first time since I knew her. She told me she didn't know how I was handling this so well. She said if she were me, she'd be flipping shit. I was numbed by my excursions in the shower, I could think. My voice was calculated. A few times, I started crying during our conversation, but I quickly corrected myself.

It was about ten minutes after the phone conversation that I started bawling. My roommate, by my side with tissues, a water bottle for rehydration and a trash can for vomit, I was sobbing something terrible. For three hours, my panic attack shook the both of us. I don't remember what I said to her, just repeating over and over that I didn't want this to happen. That I didn't want her to do this. That I didn't want to lose her and that I had no choice. My sobs woke the rooms in our hall. Knocks on our door at three AM, people not sure if I was alright. Sending me support. People I hardly know, people who had no knowledge of what was going on, just that I sounded awful.

I was determined to keep you, no matter what it took. No matter what you wanted of me. That's why I gave you permission, because of all your threats. Just as it's still rape if a girl gives her consent under extreme pressure, can it still be cheating if the conditions for me are the same? "It's either this or a break", you said. "I do this because I respect you. I could very well have just gone and done it." At the time, I didn't realize you could laugh at such a line. How hilarious it was. How utterly and sickeningly hilarious that you believe that you respect me. That you believe to love me! It's heart-wrenchingly, unbearably too funny! "You know," you said, "while I do this, you should get therapy." Our friend gaped, cheese fry in hand as I told her. Me? I find more irony in this than she does. How you worship at the feet of this musician and yet use the same lines her lovers used on her. And so often.

My panic attacks shake me, they are relentless. This is hell and yet, I do not wish to die. I wish to live. And that leads me to my final point: the point of loss. I do love you. And I'm so glad you think what you're doing is going to make you happy. You never know, maybe it is. But life is give and take and I am empty. I have given you so much and suffered for it each time. Each day my body grows weaker and this, this is too much too fast too not now. Too uncompromising, too uncaring, too unfidelic and too abusive.

You have lost me. I have waited for you, like a ghost waiting for you to walk through the door, I have vanished with time, I am ready to move on. And while I love you, I will quote what you have quoted and say to you "You just want to get laid", and look, now I'm giving you all the space you'll ever need. There were no other options you'd consider. You didn't even want to hear options, you just wanted me to say yes or be ready for you on the back burner.

But I am not your wife. I do not hang in wait at your every action. I am a person. I am the same as you are, and yet so different. I would never have done to you what you have done to me.

I'll keep your ring as a cross. It will never leave my hand. It will serve as a reminder years later, of how far I've come. I will have the stone reset so I can not lose it. It will be... my favourite object that I own. It will be my tattoo.

I've learned a lot. I've learned about love. I've learned what it's like to give yourself to a person... selflessly. Unconditionally. I've learned to be kind to others; I will never expect anything back from them. But... the most important thing I've learned is that I do love myself. There is this person inside of me who is so beautiful and so strong. She fights, you know. She fights for the good of others and for her right to live. She is taller than she knew. More independent, more wise. More revolutionary.

I wonder if you'll ever read this, though a large part of me doubts it. That's okay though; just writing this I've gotten to know myself a bit more. I'll tell you today, but I doubt you'll listen to my story. In my mind you're either too thrilled to get rid of me or you'll paint yourself as a martyr (which I also find sarcastically amusing).

I hope you'll make a great therapist. You have a way of bringing out sides of arguments that most people can not see. But love, sometimes you're wrong. And if you want to grow, you're going to have to remember that. Become a person who isn't so against second guesses. Become a person who makes sure she isn't hurting others when she doesn't need to.

My heart is broken, I will admit this now and be unashamed of it. It is shattered into billions of pieces. But hearts mend. I am turned off by the aspect of sex now; I'm sure it won't stay this way forever. I'm not going to go looking for love, but when it finds me I will not hide.

Life goes on.

So now I am saying goodbye. And I wish you the best of happiness, and I wish for you to grow.

Regards,
.K

I had a dream I was dead.

They didn't let me keep the dreams, but I remember that they were good. I felt like I was finally in a space where I belonged with people I can't remember...

I had a dream all of this was over and I wasn't so angry and frustrated anymore.

I had a dream that there were no more expectations. I remember there was a girl with curly blonde hair, but I don't remember what she was saying to me.

It was a heavy sleep, like that out of a blessing. And in my dream, I could finally breathe.

Acceptance

I think I'm starting to come to the acceptance that without meds, I won't be able to function in society.

From my eyes, at this moment, it looks like this:

There's the outside world. And then there's mine. I'm safe here. For the time being, at least. But I can't live out there. I feel as though I'm going insane. Things are disappearing, physical things. Think I can't function without. My only sanctuaries are being torn down by my own hands, and I don't mean to do so. It's not my fault. It's out of my control, it's not in my hands.

Too many strikes. I know I will not be forgiven. I know I am losing all the things I had worked so hard for, things that came to me as gifts from the universe.

I wanted to cut myself today, but I knew that wouldn't stop anything. Wouldn't delay anything. So instead, I formulated a plan to kill myself. The pills are next to me, three different types. But upon further research, I had found that these pills, these OTC pills are designed SPECIFICALLY to prevent overdosing. My razor is too high quality to come apart in my hands. I am alone.

A large part of me wants to check into the hospital, but then I wouldn't finish this semester and I'd have to start all over again. Further behind. Much further behind as I see the rest of everyone I know and love moving forward...

I feel as though I'm watching the world from a glass wall. It's safe in here, for the time being. But the effects of being a flake, of not facing what's outside are going to build up and attack me.

They say suicide is not a crime, but self defense. I am defective. People form disabilities because of traumatic experiences and they can heal. But I was born with this. I was born broken, defective. I always fight people when they tell me I'm broken. I retaliate. I say I'll challenge anyone and prove them wrong. Fight until they all see how strong I am.

But I am broken. And now that I think of it, I've been broken my entire life.

I can't function anymore without meds. I can't do it. So either way, the outcome is a pill.

My friend is picking me up. I can't be alone right now. In the end, everything is going to be okay.

Cutting.

For the first time in over six months, I have intentionally injured myself to the point of bleeding.

As an after effect I feel very, very guilty. Like I should have been able to withstand it. I couldn't think straight... couldn't function. Had to go out but I couldn't put up with the thought of being somewhere cold. I tried to talk myself out of it. Tried texting people but either everyone was busy or I couldn't think of who there would be to text. I reasoned that if I just... did this. Did something that had been on my mind for half a year, I would have the energy to function. Go out and run the errands I needed to.

But there wasn't any energy. Instead, there was a mess of blood that got all over my jeans when I went out to ask my neighbor for bandaids. She didn't notice. It just looks like a small unnoticeable stain on denim.

After I patched myself up, I felt tired. I want to sleep now. Can't imagine going out and doing rehearsals. I didn't run the errands I was supposed to run for the rehearsal. I'm unprepared. Not just in that, but in just about everything. I don't have my homework done in a few classes. I missed Acting for the third time in a row today, but I had a doctor's note so I will be excused. I'm failing.

I have no reason to be this way. I refuse to submit to a chemical imbalance but god damn, it just gets hard sometimes. I ruined it. My perfect streak, my perfect six month streak of not cutting. I ruined it. My promises, broken. It's like... no matter how far you've come, you're never really as far as you thought. I'm low. Low low low. I want it to stop. I want to be able to make it stop.

I can't sleep.

Woke up around five this morning.

Nothing in particular kept me awake, but it was like my body was too tired to even sleep. So after an hour or so of trying, I got out of bed and listened to music, checked to see if anyone I knew was online so they could distract me. They never are, not anymore. We've reached that age where to be awake before 8 or 9 AM is early. I remember when 4 o'clock used to be the norm for me. I was thrilled by waking up when it was pitch dark and watching the colours change across the earth. I like them, colours. Just their aspect. I can not imagine living in a world where they did not exist, where I was completely colour blind. I find them to be most beautiful in nature where they're wild, untouched by man. I've sat beside streams for hours, just watching the sun dance off of them like rainbows in each drop against the stones that touched the grass.

It's come to the point where everyone has told me that I need meds. My aunt had been trying to get my dad to put me on meds since I was a child, but he fought her off. I never knew about it. But now, even my father, his entire side of the family, my old therapist. Even my girlfriend who used to hate the very idea wants me on medication. It's hard to tune out the noise when it surrounds you.

I always felt that meds were unnatural. A substance in your body that you're not supposed to have. Like Lithium. I mean, really? What the FUCK? Who decided "You see this? I'm going to stick it into a bipolar girl's body!" Oh wait, that's right. I forgot they were all crazy back then. But I'm wandering off topic.

I spoke to two girls yesterday. The depression is getting worse. I'm not just tired anymore, I'm in pain. My chest, my throat, the air inside of me if that's even POSSIBLE is aching. I feel as though my back is slipping away from the last vertebrae of my spine. I asked them about meds, as they are both bipolar. The first one is actually on Lithium and she swears by it. She also tells me that meds aren't for everyone, but this was the one thing that worked for her. She has bipolar 1. I asked her if she missed the mania and she told me that no, she didn't. That when she was manic, she'd act like an ass hole and say things she didn't mean to say and regret it instantly and I understood where she was coming from.

The second girl has Bipolar 2. She was put on medication and she hated it. She self medicates. Herbs and the like. She shares the same views on medication as I do and it was nice talking to someone who actually understands what I mean. She told me what really saved her was yoga and suggested I try it too. That the Yoga teacher is really nice and would love to have me in her class for free. I told her thank you, and I'd see.

I feel empty. I'm afraid of leaving my room and having people see me, so different from the everyday face they're used to. I don't want to deal with the world right now, with society. It's hard to remember feeling like this when you've been high for so long. I have no reason to feel this way. My life is so much better, so much more eventful than many other people's.

I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to, or that anyone who wants to talk to me I am uninterested in sharing with. Selective, and the like. I feel like a horrible person for feeling this way, a horrible girlfriend. I can only write music now, I don't have the ability to concentrate on homework and relationships. I'm lagging behind in my Theory class which is one of my favourite classes and I skipped Theatre all week. I skipped Bio and I can't make it next week because of the Vagina Monologues - it's a once a week class. It's also my hardest one.

I just want to sleep.

But sleeping never solves anything, does it?

I'm too lazy to eat. I don't feel fat, but I don't feel thin either. Whenever I see people lose weight, it's like something inside of me is triggered and I begin eating less and less. I need to eat. I can argue and say I ate dinner last night, but I need to eat breakfast this morning too or else I'll stop all together.

I feel like an arrogant, clingy, fraud person for some reason. I don't know where I'm going. I mean, I do. Sort of. I've nose dived straight into the classical world of music. I love what it has to offer, the experiences. Not what I want. I just wish someone would fully understand that.

I want to skip all my classes today. I want to go to the piano labs and just write music for hours and hours... But I know that can only be damaging.

But first, I need to eat. So that's what I'll do.

Martyr

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that you can't save everyone. There's nothing heroic about yourself when you don't give up on an individual, rather it just means you have great endurance and patience. It's really the strength of the individual that's heroic when they finally pull themselves out of the shit they've buried themselves in.

I think the most heroic thing I've done is try to pull myself out of the crap I was born into. As I look back over my shoulder, I see where I have come from, and what I'm leaving behind.

I can't take anyone from there with me.

When I was a child, I thought the strongest woman in the entire world was my stepmom. She was all about independence, never accepting help from anyone and just getting by on your wit and cunning. She was more a mother to me than my own mother was. I loved her with all my heart.

After she left, she broke all ties with me and I'd only speak to her maybe a few times a year. She asked me to call her a few days ago, so I did.

Her position now is farther from anything I would have imagined as a child. She lives in the south with an older man she is only with because she's sick of being alone. He is madly in love with her. She doesn't care for him, save for the companionship and the dogs they had rescued together. I can't imagine what it must be like to lay back for a person who doesn't even arouse you.

She's miserable, really. A drunk. I tell her how I'm doing, my philosophies. This time, she is the one in awe and I feel as though I am the adult trying to lead her by the hand. But... to where? There is no place she wants to be. No adventure she had ever been on where she didn't try to simply end it. See, the child in me wants back whatever disappeared inside of her, but the adult knows that nothing has disappeared, I'm just old enough to see the whole picture.

She's more paranoid than I am. She lives her life under the umbrella of being safe and surviving. That is not how I want to live.

Sometimes, I wish I could just snag her bottles away and tell her to get a haircut because she looks like a mess. But she's more stubborn than I am. The only woman I've ever met who is self destructively more stubborn than I am. She will win battles just to win them, even if it means she loses the war.

But you can't save everyone.

My father has an eating disorder. His goal weight will put him 2 lbs under what would be classified as anorexia. He's only a few pounds away.

My mother relies too much on people and tries to manipulate them for her own purposes because she is sickeningly selfish.

None of my parents fight for themselves.

And then, there's me.

You can't save everyone. I tell that to all my friends who've cried over people they felt obligated to help, but I'm a bit hypocritical sometimes. I used to fold myself into a step-stool if only it would elevate others. I know I could probably do it all over again.

But I know this time, I need to save my energy for myself.

My stepmother told me over the phone as she was drunk that every season comes to an end, and that people stay for only a season. She told me she relieved her childhood through me and that she loved me. She asked if she could tell people about me.

There is a light snow on the ground. But even that will melt and soon, the spring will arrive.

When I hung up the phone, I hadn't even cried. Wasn't even shocked by the fact that I had no mother.

Crazy Motherfucker.

I woke up this morning around 7 like always. It's like when my body just decides to wake up, no matter how late I go to bed. My 7 o'clock used to be 4 o'clock (no joke or pun intended) so I suppose this is an improvement.

As usual, I laid in bed and day dreamed. My girlfriend is usually on my mind, so I can just relax and think of her and how close to Canada I am. And then I dozed and that's when shit went down.

I was half awake, half asleep. I saw her next to me and at first I didn't complain because this is a dream and there's nothing wrong with being sexed in your dreams. But my mattress started moving. And I felt warmth and her actual weight against my leg and all of a sudden I was coming. I always wake up when I orgasm, always.

But I couldn't wake up this time, though the orgasm was so intense that I thought I would wake up my entire dorm with screams, and soon it was round two and my mind gets fuzzy around then but my entire experience was as though I was a part of a surrealist's painting. And then, it stopped.

I laid on my back. The sun was streaming through the windows and the dust falling from the ceiling was sparkling like rainbows. She asked me what I was looking at, I replied with the question "Did you ever notice how dust glows every which colour when in the sunlight?" And all of a sudden, bubbles began to fall. I would like to point out that at this time, I was completely awake. Lazy, laying in bed, but completely awake. I could feel everything, there was no waking up.

The bubbles fell and I felt as though someone was... asking me if I was happy with the bubbles. There were no words, only.... an intuition of my own. I whispered that they were beautiful and I blew at them, watching a few pop at the force of my breath and smiled happily when more fell.

I wondered if there were faeries nearby and looking up to the ceiling to see a large blue and white swirl lollipop stuck to it without a stick. I thought "I must be dreaming" and realizing this, I pieced together that in this dream, my girlfriend was not my girlfriend but someone from my dreamworld-mind disguised as her. Dreams, could never be reality and I knew that, so I decided to wake up.

I focused on the ceiling and slowly, it started to fade into my dim room, hardly lit because of the curtains drawn against the cloudy sky outside, but then it faded back.

My room was dark. There were no bubbles. No dust. Hardly any light.

I focused on the lollipop stuck above my roomie's bed and tried to figure how I would wake up. It took more effort than it should have, but I rolled over, onto my stomach trying to wiggle my fingers and toes. When all of a sudden, I saw, felt and heard the covers below me move, as though someone was pushing me from the bed. I couldn't move to hold onto anything. I begged whatever was doing this to stop, and it did. I heard a scurrying, like a scamper of a medium sized creature, and soon it started doing that to my roomie's bed.

I watched in horror, moving my fingers and toes as fast as I could, trying to get away from whatever creature was at the foot of our beds, pulling off the bed sheets. I wanted to wake up. I NEEDED to wake up.

There were drawings on my roomie's bed. They spoke to one another. They were loud, so loud, it hurt. The inside of my head hurt. They were all I could hear and soon they were arguing and they were screaming at one another and I was inwardly screaming back at them to shut up, but they only got louder and I swear, if I had eardrums inside my mind, they would have popped right then.

I never woke up.

As soon as I could somehow lift my heavy figure from the bed, I did, and threw myself at the curtains and lifted them so that some light poured in. Then, I grabbed my computer so I wouldn't lay down again and looked at my roomie's bed.

Stripes.

Just plain sheets. Plain striped sheets. I'm... afraid to leave my bed. To find something.

I don't even have the excuse of "I was heavily medicated" to explain why I experienced these things. I just keep surprising myself.

I don't know what's happening to me.

Food.

I'm beginning to feel helpless these days. I've stopped cutting, but in turn another form of self injury has taken hold of me and in some ways, I feel as though this is worse. Cutting can't kill you. Not if you know what you're doing.

My goal has been... to gain weight back. Secretly, I was prideful, felt victorious over my ribs showing through my skin, each meal skipped and each time my stomach grumbled, it was proof that we were being victorious. But I don't want to have to look like those girls, sickeningly thin who's stomach's concave rather that stay flat. Flat, that's all I want. Flat.

The girls I'm attracted to generally have a bit of extra on them. Not obese, but very Renaissance and Roman. I was so happy with my body weight before I realized I had an eating disorder. I was so thin. When I sat, there were no folds in my stomach, I was model perfection. If I wanted to get a part time job as a retro pin-up model down the street, I could have.

But I know it's wrong.

My father always told me that it wouldn't hurt to lose some weight. That I wasn't thin. That I had pudge. Everyone else tells me I'm so skinny and praises me, as if being underweight is something I should feel proud of. Then the mind kicks in and calculates all the information to equal "Stay Thin at All Costs."

My weight has been returning. I'm not 105 pounds anymore, rather, I think I may be more than 110. Whenever I look in the mirror, what should feel like victory only looks to me like failure. My roomie is thinner than me again and whenever I see her walk across the room, the envy that pulses through my mouth only generates shame.

I want this to stop. Just like how the hunger takes away my urge to start cutting again I fear what will take away my urge to starve and how much worse it is going to be. Tara Hardy once said "Do you know how many compliments I've gotten on my collarbones since I started dying?" And it's true.

When you stop cutting, the urge is still there like a thirst that will not be quenched, but at least you can look at your arms and see Victory. But when I look in the mirror and I see that my "Victory" means becoming what I now interpret as "Fat" my only urge is to lock myself in my room and come out maybe once a day for apple sauce and salad. I don't even like fries anymore.

But I force myself. Mind over matter, if I give up I will lose the things that are most important to me. I'm afraid of eating too much and weighing more than I ever have.

My father is 5'9" and he weighs 130 pounds. He tells me he wants to lose just another 5 or 10 and then he'll be content. Last year, he was supposed to be content with 140. His diet? No breakfast. A slice of bread for lunch and vegis for dinner.

I don't want to be just a product of a man's self criticism. I wish I could gain just five more pounds and still feel beautiful.

---------------------------------------

I think the worst part is how people react when you tell them. I've told maybe five close people and only one has been supportive. The rest act as though what I do is strange or that it's my fault. That all this rests on me and like a switch I can turn it off. I've been made to feel more ashamed of myself by the words of OTHER PEOPLE than by my own thoughts.

I feel like I was more understood back when my poison of choice was cutting.

"I'm not going to help you through this" she said.

Thinking Back

I've been thinking a lot lately. About events that happened to me around five years ago and how fucked up they were. I wonder why I only just started realizing it now.

When I was 15, I was going out with a woman who was 21. And I know that isn't really horrible. I know a ton of people who dated men in their 30s when they were only fifteen. But it wasn't so much the age as it was the WOMAN...

I had just turned 15. I met her online in an IRC chatroom and even though she knew I was a minor, she flirted with me hardcore. I will admit right now that I didn't really like her, rather I was flattered by the fact that another woman was interested in me. She had told me many times that she liked me and stated she wanted to date me. But I was mostly curious about what this whole "love" thing was and how it worked. So I convinced myself I was in love with her and told her so.

My first sexual experiences were cybering with her. I was no longer shy around her, but it was the shyness that she adored so I pretended to be innocent... pretended to be this good little girl who didn't know how anything worked. I was passive, submissive, sweet. Everything she wanted in another person she could control. She stopped being sweet after a few months, if she was sweet at all to begin with. She always had a temper but I let it pass, keeping up my kind demeanor. But when she started insulting my friends, I couldn't pretend anymore, and that's when the name calling started.

I was a horrible person. This horrible person who was prude, raised by fundies, a whore, a little bitch, a slut. And I was still naive, only now I was naive and a whore. She told me I needed to grow up. And when I told her she was verbally abusive, she told me I was emotionally abusive and that shut me up real good.

She'd go for months not really talking to me sometimes. She'd play Sims for hours throughout the day and when I told her I was being treated like a toy to be taken out and played with when she was bored, she told me she needed space. And yet, she wouldn't just break up with me.

Note: She went for two months not saying anything more than "hey" to me per day.

And then came Greg. Now Greg is the turning point that REALLY makes me see how much fucked up shit I just let slide back then. I don't remember if Greg fully raped me. I can't remember anything passed a certain point in the incident.

When I told my girlfriend this, her words of comfort to me were "So, I guess I won't get your first kiss anymore, will I." And my reply, not even seeing how horrible her reaction was: "No, I saved that for you. He could take from me anything he wanted, but my first kiss was for you."

She didn't tell me until a year later that what happened with Greg wasn't my fault. To this very day, I STILL blame myself, somehow. For some reason. Like I COULD have stopped it from even beginning if I wanted to. "If I wasn't such a whore."

My best friend at the time was friends with Greg. I told her about it because I worried for her. Her response was "Oh my god, that's horrible!" and then "But like... I'm still friends with him." I mean, it's bad what he did to you but I don't let stupid things like that intervene between my friendships! Really.

When she stopped talking to me because I finally got upset with her over a small thing, I again blamed myself. I had pined over our lost friendship for years until today.

I wonder why I always tried to sacrifice myself for people who only ever tried to hurt me. I wonder why those are the people I trusted more than anyone else.

Today, I'm still trying my hardest to not be immature or naive. I'm a bitch because I don't want to be taken advantage of. But for some reason, I still fight the urge to blame myself for every little thing. There are days when I try to wash myself clean, but it's as though my entire skin is made of dirt.

I once heard that people who were abused as children are more likely to be raped. Rape. Statutory Rape. I feel like I'm just another statistic.

"It doesn't seem fair." She said.
As if through one sentence all my thoughts from the time I was just a child could be spoken,
and she said them so freely
while signing a yellow sheet that would end my time
in a place I deserve to be.

I sat quiet
in the silence we created,
in a mute shared hope of return.

"She whispers words of World Domination in his ear each time they meet. But they are words of love none-the-less."

Paradox

Last year, my Lit professor called me a paradox. That was the last time I ever had communication with her before the attempt. Because well, she was right. I am a paradox. My life is spent in a wheel and all I do is spin and spin and spin...

I always have psych outs. It's how I live. I think "Finally, finally it's over. Finally I can be happy and productive and do what I've always wanted with my life." But I'm wrong. Always, always long. Such thoughts used to last for only a few hours. One time, it lasted for 3 days. This time, it lasted for months. Months, I tell you, months.

The wheel always spins back around.

Ah yes, the classic case of bipolar disorder. Fucking beautiful, isn't it? Each pole is as deadly as the other - mania which convinces you that you're on top of the world and nothing can stop you and the depression which is your reality check that reminds you that you. Are. Just. Human.

I'm in a terrible down.

It's almost the third week of college and I've already begun contemplating suicide. I thought I was stronger than that. Thought that all you needed to do was just dream and go but the truth is that I'm just flesh and blood and chemical imbalances. When I was a child, I thought I was a faerie. With all my heart, I thought I was a faerie that became mortal just so I could sing. I never fit in my own skin. This body is too small, it doesn't change fast enough. It's stringed up incorrectly and move funny. It doesn't listen to my nerves and impulses.

When I was five... I thought that if I just died, I'd be free and I'd finally fit. I'm claustrophobic in my own flesh. I STILL feel that if I die, I'll finally fit. That not even gravity will hold me back, the universe has no boundaries. If there is a universe. If I'm not just... that word.

I thought I was until I turned 18.

All throughout today, I've been crying. Not a few tears, but actual bawling. I try and hide it from my roommate (who just left to meet her boyfriend) and swallow back giant lumps that I don't remember feeling since I moved out of my mom's house.

My stepmom blames herself for my bipolar disorder. If she really cared, she wouldn't have abandoned me, would she have. Or she'd actually be there for me instead of swimming in her bottles of Merlot. Insects. That's the name of the poem I've been working on since I turned 15 and it STILL isn't finished. I never can write about her.

See, the thing is that you can succeed at whatever you want... if you've got the skills. For me, it's too late. My voice is already fucked up because of the different style of vocal training they have below the Mason Dixon line that they've been trying to beat into me. They're trying to make me into a mezzo. I can't go high anymore. As a child, I once swore that if I ever lost my voice, I'd kill myself.

I guess I thought about death a lot as a child.

See, there's something inside of me. And its been inside of me for all my life. The Scientologists would call it a thetus, the psychologists call it bipolar psychotics but I always called it Emily and she and I have been friends and scheming since the first time I caught my dad and mom fighting. She convinced me that we were more than normal, that magick was real, that we had powers and that we could do anything. I was always alone. But Emily, Emily was always there talking to me at night, egging me on whenever something was troubling me. Today, I can no longer hear her, but I feel her and she has brought with her other voices that remind me just how useless I can be.

Sometimes, I don't know what is Emily and what is myself. We've merged part way. I feel that if I died and both our spirits were freed of this body, we'd wind up traveling together, stuck at the side like conjoined sisters for all of eternity. Out of all the voices in my head, they can be sorted into two categories. The voice that tells me why bother when we are just going to fail anyway and the other one that yells "GET UP SOLDIER. STRAIGHTEN YOUR BACK, ONE FOOT BEFORE THE OTHER. THIS IS NO TIME TO BE LAYING AROUND WHEN THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE. DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE TIME WILL WAIT FOR YOUR SORRY ASS AND PATHETIC TEARS? GET UP. YOU WILL NEVER EARN THE RESPECT OF ANYONE BY BEING THIS WAY. CRYING IS WEAK - ARE YOU WEAK? DO WE JUST WASTE OUR TIME EXISTING? GET UP, SOLDIER! HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH, NO ONE HAS TO KNOW THAT YOU AREN'T PROUD OF LIVING BUT THEY BETTER AS ALL FUCK BELIEVE IT. GET UP, SOLDIER. GET UP."

I can't differentiate which is worse.

I honestly thought this would be over. I thought I had finally saved myself.

I thought wrong. I am not meant for happy endings.

Hir

I hate the phrase Gender Queer. Hate hate hate hate HATE it. Honestly, who would want to identify with "Gender Queer" unless they were proud? To me, that's like me identifying as a "Homosexual" or a "Queer". I don't identify as any of those things. Just as "me".

I like my breasts. I will admit, they are one of my favourite features on my body. They aren't large, but they aren't small either and when wearing the right bras, I have the (in my opinion) perfect amount of cleavage to go with my figure.

It was hard enough admitting that I was a lesbian. I'm still having trouble accepting it. More so now than ever.

I was that kid who looked in the mirror at age four and thought there was something wrong with me. I'd strip myself of a shirt and go off and play with the boys - I didn't start wearing shirts at all when I was home until my father told me that 12 was much to old to be going around topless when there are men in the house.

To clear this up before hand, no, I am not a transgender. I am not a man. And I have no desire to be one.

I've never fit in my own skin. All my life, I wondered that if I just died, would I be free? I felt like a spirit trapped in a flesh body, punished to be mortal - If I just died, would I finally be happy?

I stopped this thinking a few months ago. It only led me into depression.

When I was younger... I remember believing with all my soul that we were all just spirits and these were the bodies we were given. People weren't genders... they were just people. There was no such thing as gender, only sex.

I started dressing more femininely when I was 15, my clothing was from the girl's isle and I decided to make use of my body and to learn how to be pretty. After joining the VKA, I learned makeup tricks, started researching glamour. When I want to be, I can be the hottest shit around. Isn't that what learning about your body is all about when you're female?

Female.

Yes, I am female. I love my body. It's beautiful and it can preform tricks I don't know if I'll ever be able to comprehend. I am not ashamed of my body.

But being a girl.

I learned a new term last night. I'm on the LLC (Living Learning Community) floor of my campus called the Gender and Sexuality floor. Every monday night, we sit and talk for an hour or so about a topic someone brings up that has to deal with Gender and Sexuality. Last night, it was gender identity.

People would always tell me "It's alright to be comfortable with who you are, Kiska. I don't think of myself and immediately think "girl" either. But don't go thinking too hard." Don't go thinking too hard.

A girl in our discussion group named M brought up the fact that she was Gender Fluid. As soon as she said it, I knew what she meant. To be gender fluid is to feel like identifying with one gender, or any gender at all, is stupid. You're fluid. You flow through things like that.

I feel like the bisexual of genders. You know. You're bisexual, gays hate you, straight people think you'll get over it soon enough and that you're over thinking things.

Over thinking things.

I feel like that's what I must be doing. As if being a lesbian wasn't drastic enough, now I think I'm something that falls under the category of "Gender Queer" as well?

I'm "me", can't I just be content with that?

Why must I always think so hard?

How would people react if they found out?

The one person I told was my best friend, back in HS. I told him that I always felt trapped. Told him that I used to look in the mirror and know something was wrong with me, but never know what it was. This boy was in love with me and I suppose didn't know how to react. He said he would always love me. I know he was slightly put off.

I thought I was the only one who felt this way and chances are, most people don't know that people like me even exist. I am afraid of being judged. I am afraid of even accepting this; I feel so gross and disgusting and strange and queer.

I never wanted to be this way.

K once told me that gender doesn't exist. She told me that gender and sexuality were all myths. I'm not sure I quite believe that.

M is bisexual. She is Gender Fluid. By all means, since I don't believe I am a gender, shouldn't I be Pansexual? But I'm only attracted to women. Always have been, probably always will be. I wonder if I'm a hypocrite.

I wonder if gender is real at all, or if there is even a gender known as Gender Fluid.

I feel like I'm thinking too much. Just letting all the dreams where people ask me if I'm really a man get to me.

I once had a dream that I woke up male. I started to cry. The doctors said "What's wrong? Isn't this what you wanted?" No, this isn't what I want. This isn't what I want at all.

Am I just a person who puts too much thought in anything, anything at all?

We read an article last night about a lesbian who came out to her lover as being Gender Fluid. Her girlfriend paused and asked "Are you going to become a man?" The woman replied "No, I'm not." Her girlfriend paused for another minute and said "Uh, no. I am a lesbian, I sleep with women, therefore you are a woman." And ended the conversation.

I put too much thought into anything.

I shouldn't be this way.

Magick

So, I've been thinking a lot recently about random things that I pushed off out of my mind a while ago, deciding that topics I will puzzle over and will never find the answers to are pointless.

However, one of those topics is magick and when you're unofficially dating a Gypsy, it's kinda hard NOT to think about it. And so:

Magick. I used to believe in it with all my heart as a child. I was that one girl who believed she was a witch, that one special child born with abilities many others didn't posses or didn't know how to hone. I'd take out books from the library on palm reading (yes, my elementary school library had an entire section on witch craft. Wow.) and I actually performed love spells that would bind me and the boy I liked together. Forever. I'm very happy those failed. I'm guessing it was because I put more thought into peeling the apple I was using for the spell than concentrating on the ACTUAL spell itself. Did I know the rules of wicca back then? Hell no! Our school just had spell books for kids (yes, I'm serious) with pretty pictures and instructions. Yeahhhh.

There was a lot more to it too. I remember going to the beach and singing. Seagulls would flock around me as if listening. They formed a perfect circle with me in the middle. My sister wondered what it was I was doing, but really couldn't care less because for once, I wasn't hanging off of her. Sometimes, I'd dip my feet in the ocean and sing there. I felt as if the ocean could hear me...was answering me. The last time I sang in the ocean, it was the fourth of July, this year. I was still buzzed from VKAM and Ameara told me to sing Mama Ocean for her, since she's landlocked. I did. And I blinked for a second and all of a sudden, there was a beautiful shell at my feet. Blue/gray with gorgeous brown snakelike patterns that look amber when wet. Something passed through my mind telling me that the ocean heard me, that it was responding to my voice, that it was thanking me for the few pieces of garbage I picked out of her a few days prior.

I didn't tell my dad or my friend about the shell. I just took it, thanked the ocean quietly, and left.

When I was four, I met my stepmom. I thought she was beautiful... she was tall, her cheekbones were predominant and high and while she could be childlike and fun, she was also wise and strong. Ambitious. She WAS the embodiment of Sagittarius.

My stepmom was the first person to tell me that magick was real. She told me stories of how her mom was a witch who used to do horrible spells in order to get her way, but stopped when she tried to hex another witch who sent it reeling back and caused her tongue to swell up in the back of her throat. She, apparently, learned her lesson.

My stepmother, B her name was, told me that she could feel things. When she was younger, she used an Ouija board with her sister and it amplified their senses. She told me she would wake up sometimes and see her sister, seemingly possessed, sit up in bed and begin talking to things that weren't there. She told me she had seen demons wait at the foot of her bed for her, holding her down with glares.

She gave me my first deck of tarot cards - a vintage deck from the 1930s (she had forgotten later on that she gave them to me. She still has them) and I fingered them as if they were the most beautiful things in the entire world. I did her reading. It was accurate. I felt as though I had found a new extension of myself. That all feelings I had prior finally had something I could channel them with to make sense out of all the mush. Then came the dreams.

I wasn't me in my dreams. I was someone else. And as someone else I didn't know WHO I was, but I had a different personality and it was just another day in life. Until I fell off a banister, or until a car hit me or until I got so drunk that I died of alcohol poisoning. I wondered why I always died in my dreams until I saw flowers by the sides of roads where I died in dreams from the previous nights. I must have been about 12... needless to say, I was freeked out.

I told this to my stepmother. She had told me that sometimes, before puberty, this happens to girls. I didn't understand what menstruating had to do with having visions of future deaths in your sleep, but no matter. A bit after I got my period, it stopped. The last thing I remember is that one night, I was an older version of a girl I knew and I had died from falling off the side of a fire escape in a city area. I am hoping that this, all of this... was just a child's imagination run rampant.

I'd feel things in my bedroom when I slept. I'd hear the pitter patter of feet running up and down the stairs. Once I woke up and saw a great black cat standing on my ceiling and looking down at me. He seemed started that I could see him (we made eye contact. His eyes were a beautiful gold - almost foxlike) and he quickly vanished. But again, I can cancel this out saying that it's because I am bipolar and again, my mind runs rampant.

Cats. I always see them. When I moved to New Jersey, my stepmother had already left. I hated it here. I still hate it here.

My first night in the house, I woke up and couldn't move. I felt as though there was something heavy on my chest, pushing the air out of my lungs. I thought I was going to die. I began panicking. It seemed like an eternity until I could finally sit up and breathe. This happened often and then one night, I looked forward and saw a cat curled up on my chest, watching me. I tried to scoot away but it was too heavy and I couldn't move. Finally, somehow, I managed and fell backwards off the bed. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was that cat peering at me from over the mattress. Staring at me.

I woke up in bed with the sun up as if nothing had happened. I had never seen that cat before. I doubt I will ever see it again. But sometimes... when I dance around my house and I am neither here nor there, I see many of them, cats I mean. All around the house, diving behind closet doors, sitting on sofas. I double take and then they are gone.

I have had more instances of sleep paralysis here. One time, I couldn't feel my body at all. I looked and there were.... creatures dancing in my living room. I got up and joined them, they welcomed me but I felt more like a stranger and a tricked victim than a guest. I rationalized that I was asleep and tried to wake up, but I couldn't feel anything. When I did wake up, I switched my location for napping and took the floor. Again, I couldn't feel my body. All of a sudden, I had a sensation of flight like I was getting higher and higher and higher and it felt so good, so right! But then I thought "I'm dying. I'm leaving my body - I'm not ready." and I woke myself up. I wonder what would have happened if I just let it be.

I don't feel things anymore.

I don't know when it started, but perhaps it was when my brother started asking me if magick was real. Our mother would always give me looks when he asked, and I will look him square in the eyes and say "Anything is real if you believe in it." He believed in faeries. It drove my mom mad.

I think I lost faith because I didn't have any answers for him. Yes, I felt things. Yes, I believed in faeries, I believed in mermaids, I STILL believe in mermaids... but where's the proof? How didn't I know that these feelings weren't just a fantasy to escape to in my head to get away from all of the bullshit? I began to put my faith into science.

I ignored everything I felt around me. Told it to go away, told it to shut up. Locked myself indoors, only came out to go for a drive with friends and stay at their houses. At one point, I forgot how to call upon that tingly sensation I'd sometimes get that would surround my body. I'm not sure but, I think that's magick.

But at the same time, it could just be a self awareness.

See, I can't tell my brother that something is real, because I feel like I'm lying. Where is the proof? I try my hardest to be an honest person. I dislike lying. I feel like the scum of the earth whenever I do because I do it so WELL.

The last time I felt magick, I had just finished saving up for a second hand keyboard at a thrift shop. I put all my soul into saving up for it, you have no idea. I was numb to magick at that point and just moved on. But when I got to the counter, they told me it was already sold.

The pain I felt... I had gotten my hopes up that I could FINALLY record, FINALLY write on a keyboard that WASN'T broken, that I could FINALLY reach my dreams, that all the struggling had paid off. But it wasn't true. It was another lie. And I should feel stupid because I fell for it again.

I felt a power inside of me, a burning. An anger, a hatred. And so, I went home and locked myself in my room. My mind was a tirade of chaos, calling upon all the magicks I ever did and did not believe in and told them that if they were real, they would not have let this happen to me.

I told them that they could not exist.

I haven't felt anything since then. Nothing. I feel... human now. Different, less magical then I did as a child. Mundane. A lesser being. Worthless.

But...

Whenever I am in a forest, I feel somehow connected with the earth. I cry whenever I see a tree cut down. I dive at bugs and save them whenever they are going to be stepped upon. I protect sprouts as if it's my life's mission. I never was this passionate when I still believed.

I feel as though I have a bigger connection with plants than I do with humans. Plants and animals. As if that didn't make me sound like a hippie.

I cry when trees die, I cry when I see roadkill. But I never cry when something horrible happens to the people I love. I didn't even cry when my friend Gabbi died.

Yesterday, I tried to astral project, but I got lost. It was pitch black and all I could hear was music. I think instead of going up, I accidentally went down into the deepest part of my mind. Neat, but not what I intended to do. I later scolded myself saying that astral projection hasn't even been proven and I was stupid for trying.

I miss the feel of being connected.

I'm stuck in the middle right now. I don't know what to believe. I do know though that I am scared and I fear the existence of magick. I got lost in it last time I believed in it. It took over my life. I was careless with my day to day living and started failing classes because I was too busy day dreaming about open fields and partially cloudy skies. Spells I would do when I got home. Soils I would ground myself on. No, I was never trained. I know next to nothing about wicca. But I could feel it. Or rather, I could feel SOMETHING.

Perhaps magick doesn't exist. But I do believe that there is something... alive about the earth. That we are all somehow connected with her. With the earth, with the stars (even scientists can not deny that we are all made of star dust).

The two things I still believe in are Mermaids and Astrology. I wonder why I can't be black and white on this subject. Why I can't rationalize anything here.

And this is what I've been musing about. I've been tossing and turning about it for the past nights. You see, I've been speaking to and hanging out with people who live magical lives as of late and they seem so happy...

I can summon that tingly feeling to my hands and it's stronger than ever. I just don't know what to do with it.

I've been having a lot of dreams lately in which I am raped or molested by older men.

At first, I didn't see the connection. I just had my third one in a row this morning and to be honest, I'm a bit hesitant to fall back asleep. But I realized as I was brushing my teeth that these dreams started when I picked back up writing my song about the time my 'friend' tried to rape me. Funny, when I think back on it I don't feel anything (probably because I try not to think back on it), but in my sleep, am I really that terrified?

It sickens me that something that happened four years ago can render me as weak as having problems just sleeping.

The only other connection between my dreams is that when I try and reach out for help, I can never receive it. One time, there WAS no help, another time the cops didn't believe me and this time, I was either too ashamed to call for help or 911 and 0 were down.

I wonder what my dreams are trying to tell me. They aren't vague dreams either - while they happen, I feel as though I am truly awake, which is strange because I am generally a lucid dreamer. But are they telling me I am ashamed? That I could have done more if I wanted to?

What happens in the attic... stays in the attic.

20's Fashion!

Upon request, I have been asked what 20's fashion looks like.

As I start writing this, I understand that this is easier thought of than explained, so please bear with me if my explanations are "WTF" or inaccurate.

ONE.

The flapper.

The flapper is, I believe, the most popular 'fashion' to ever rise out of the 1920s for women. I'm dressed as one in the picture above. Ideally, I believe they were thinner... not saying I am fat. Simply saying that they were those girls that were boxy, short, and had very few curves. Flappers were the girls who were tired of all the Victorian era rules. "Your dress has to be THIS long, you hair has to be THIS long... blah blah blah..." Like having short hair? Thank the flappers. They were the first ones to chop off their hair into a bob and then finger waved it. As for dresses; flappers would wear dresses that went up above or teasingly on their knees. The bottom part of their dresses was very loose and would flap around when they danced. Hence, they were called flappers. http://www.wikihow.com/images/2/24/A_flapper_625.jpg Wear heels, dangly earrings, red lipstick (Shiny, not matte.) Let the lipstick drift more on the dark red side, rather than VeVa red. Remember, she dresses up like a time period a little later.

Another good thing to go by is the musical Chicago. Yes, that's 1930's, but the prohibition was from the 20's - the 30's and I believe that is the theme for the Shanghi Mermaid.

Makeup! Black eyeliner black eyeliner black eyeliner! BRING OUT THOSE EYES. I do not believe they drew on the waterline just yet, however the top lid was a MUST with black eyeliner. Make it dark, make it deep. I suggest liquid eyeliner. Also, black mascara is a must as well, even if you are blonde. Flappers liked to keep their eyebrows very thin - some even shaved the damn things off and drew them on! Don't mutilate your face if you don't know how, though :] Their faces were VERY powdered and were often described as looking whiter than death. Or like vampires, even. Also! Cheek rouge is a MUST. If you want to REALLY look like a flapper, apply your makeup at the shanghi mermaid by looking in a compact to do little touch ups. Flappers were known for whipping their makeup out in public, which at the time was very scandalous.

I suggest looking at pictures of Greta Garbo from the silent age of films, before her work in the 1940's or late 30's. Also look up the black and whites of Jean Harlow.

Hats! One of the popular types of hats is the one I am wearing above. Shown here. Women would stick all sorts of pins in their hats. Jazz it up. Make it you. This was another popular hat cut. Sometimes instead of hats, women would wear head bands. I couldn't find any good pictures of women wearing them, but they looked like this.

Jewelery! Dangle, dangle dangle! LONG necklaces that you can wrap around your neck twice, if possible. Remember, we want things to flap! Long dangly earrings, bangles to go on your wrists.

If you want to cover up on the train, you can wear an old fashion coat. If you need more of an idea on 1920's female fashion, remember that it was brought on by the enthrallment of the orient. Oriental print was IN at the time, sometimes women would even wear oboes on their dresses. Here's another example I found. If you need help, google 1920's dress. I've done just about all I can do. Any questions, ask away!

AND ONE MORE THING.

Heels. Fuck. Just.... this will give you a good example of shoes.

MALE FASHION!

Easy. Wear a black suit with a white button up shirt underneath and a tie. I'd suggest a pipe, but I don't know if smoking is allowed in there, and if it is, I will hit you for joining in. I'd suggest looking up the black and whites of Ricardo Cortez

John Gilbert

Or Robert Montgomery.

All look the same to you? See? THE MEN HAD IT SIMPLE.